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Rishi Sunak’s Hall pass – politicalbetting.com
Rishi Sunak’s Hall pass – politicalbetting.com
— within a few hours Sunak’s operation forced to kill summer election talk— threat briefed last night by senior ally— that caused fury among MPs who said they’d remove Sunak if he tried it— now sources saying he won’t call earlier-than-expected votehttps://t.co/UemwJNmLWJ
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Meanwhile, I have to report on a conversation yesterday evening with my tory-voting Surrey friend.
“I like David Cameron,” she said on questioning. “He’s done well as Foreign Secretary, particularly over the Middle East.”
“Would you vote for them again if he were leading?” I asked. “Yes, probably."
However, to temper this @TSE-approved vote of confidence, she did mar things by adding that she also liked Theresa May and also Penny Mordaunt. And, obvs, she still adores Boris. His misdemeanours are either tittle tattle or amusing to her.
She loathes just about every other Conservative in office. She reeled off a batch of names that she thinks are disgusting and she intensely dislikes Sunak. To be fair she always though he was rubbish. As she herself worked in banking it’s okay for her to point out how utterly unsuited Sunak is to speak to ordinary people.
It’s all anecdotal fluff of course but probably not too far from your typical blue wall tory.
Which is of course a problem for the government and Conservative Party. There is no policy that can be reversed like the poll tax or Iraq. No bogeyman like Boris or Liz Truss whose resignation can lance the boil.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/us/politics/trump-israel-jewish-voters.html
Sunak allies aware that May 2 locals are a huge flashpoint, but they hope Susan Hall can get the PM out of jail by defeating Sadiq Khan against the odds in London
That can't be the reason he ruled out a May election... can it ?
Lots of people I know think he’s godawful and useless. My LibDem leaning, but sometime tory voting, brother can’t stand Sunak especially his parroting nonsense and bizarre fixation with sending people off to Rwanda. He think Sunak’s gone potty.
The polls back me up on this. Sunak is immensely unpopular.
The Daily Mail may profess to hate the idea but thank goodness for civil servants.
It only really comes to a head if you have a conviction politician who is both bright and hard-working, like Margaret Thatcher.
Khan: 95.5%
Hall: 3.5%
Just saying 🤷
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/jobs/help-mp-90k-salary-might-not-have-job-for-long/
After the kicking at the locals there will undoubtedly now be a putsch. If it succeeds then the new PM will want time, a change of direction, a new budget etc - they go long.
If it fails? Sunak will want the autumn statement and more time for his mad bribe to resonate. That rules out October. The “triumphantly announce an election at conference” scenario touted by some is as mad as Hall beating Khan. Go before that you say - bring parliament back at the start of September for an “autumn statement” then go immediately for an election this not allowing the bribe time to work and costing the party £lots from a lost conference? Bonkers.
If Sunak survives, or if they oust him, they must go long. At least November. But the most likely scenario surely now is complete collapse. Likely a massive row which prompts someone to push a confidence motion which the government narrowly wins which only acts to deepen the crisis.
Final point. What if Rishi goes to the palace to be told he can’t have the election now because of the palace crisis? The king is gravely ill / the Wills & Kate divorce row etc means they need to provide stability. Lascelles principles apply. If not you Rishi then someone else…
(*) As Hague and IDS did not, but Howard and Cameron did.
1) He is rigging the election on a scale that would make Vladimir Putin blink.
2) He is smoking weed.
Given that even rigging the election by stuffing every ballot box with 50,000 votes for Hall would not be enough, I’m thinking (1) is unlikely.
From the linked Telegraph piece, re MPs' defined benefit pension: With benefits potentially accruing at a rate of 1/40th or 1/50th of their final salary per year
Does ‘1/50th of their final salary per year’ mean 1/50th of 1/50th every week, or is it a fixed annual increment after each full year? Such considerations might sway MPs' views on election timing.
I don’t think it’s weed. He is simply too rich and successful to be wrong. So everyone else must be wrong. Of course Hall will defeat Khan - he’s awful…
https://metro.co.uk/2023/06/28/daniel-korski-withdraws-from-mayoral-contest-after-groping-allegations-19032577/
Has Kemi ever failed before? She shows a similar brittleness when questioned.
But that's not the underlying problem. The real issue is the song, not the lead singer.
My assessment is much like yours. The pills aren’t moving because voters aren’t listening any more. They’ve made up their mind. I suspect it will be a mass abstention event rather than anything more dramatic, but it’s not going to be a pretty night for the Tories.
What is 'Starmerism'?
They have 2 choices:
- go early: we realise we were heading in the wrong direction, new sheriff in town, clear vision for the future - give me time to implement it.
- Go long: six month to get their feet under the table, become stale, lose the honeymoon effect and prove that they don’t have any ideas
Plus if you go early there is a chance that you can stay on after the defeat. (I did better that we would otherwise have done but Rishi was such a disaster there was no chance really)
Andy Street he isn't.
I am fairly well read on the NHS schemes including the old final salary one as taking the pension this year, and extrapolating from that. Our accrual rate was 1/80 in the old scheme.
As someone who lives outside London, and rarely drives into it, and if he does uses a three-year-old car, what is the problem with ULEZ?
Surely reducing emissions is a good thing?
People who had done something with their lives and wanted to give back to their community, as opposed to those who have spent their whole lives immersed in party politics.
It’s not a dynamic or appealing contest though. Hopefully both parties are giving proper thought to their next candidate.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/18/treasury-growth-tax-spending-rachel-reeves-labour-election
..The annual Mais lecture has become a set-piece event for economic policymakers to set out their worldview. In 2022, Rishi Sunak, then the chancellor, said he wanted to cut taxes “sustainably” and downgrade the role played by the state as an engine of growth...
But now, with that ruled out, most plotters (also loons) have concluded that October is the next likely date, and that gives them time to oust Sunak, replace him with Mordaunt and then storm to a 649 seat majority at the October election.
Sunak should've just gone with a May election.
- Not believe the stats on the impact on air quality, or not care
- Drive, and enjoy cars and driving
- Not enjoy cars and driving enough to have a petrol car less than 20 years old or a diesel less than 8 years old
- if you were affected, still not changed car since ULEZ extension came in
That’s a pretty small voter demographic
If it's Jenrick, won't he go full on nasty party MEGA (Make England Great Again)? Hanging Lucy Letby, flogging Palestinian protestors and strafing the small boats. Shooting Tice's fox in the process and retaining the Red Wall.
Rishi Sunak = Hitler
Susan Hall = Felix Steiner
Sir Keir Starmer = Josef Stalin
analogy?
I thought it was subtle and nuanced.
But there's one thing I'd say: if she's really aiming for a decade of renewal, then it's a positive thing, as few politicians ever look beyond the next electoral cycle. Although I'd prefer two decades.
'We got these thick as pigshit people to Oxford, successful and profitable careers and the top of politics. Imagine what we could do for YOUR child!'
Study suggests that intermittent fasting doubles the long term risk of stroke and cardiovascular events.
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2024/03/18/time-restricted-eating-may-raise-cardiovascular-death-risk-in-the-long-term
(Needs confirmation, though.)
“Enough of briefings to destabilise things or undermine the agenda/PM,” he said in a 500-word missive to Tory MPs on their WhatsApp group. “I’m f***ing bored of it, I’m working my arse off … without having to go back and forth on doorsteps about the psychodrama.
“I’m really tired, I’m working hard to drag myself out of bed at the moment to enter the fight as it’s demoralising when we argue amongst ourselves. I’m going to finish the final round of this contest on my feet, and I’ll let the judges (voters) decide, but Christ are we making it harder than it needs to be.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-leader-tory-party-prime-minister-uk-general-election-rlnwgm98r
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/18/treasury-growth-tax-spending-rachel-reeves-labour-election
So yes, there was enough of a "it's a sledgehammer to crack a nut" case to be plausible, especially in the hands of people who like arguments and don't like Mayor Khan.
But it's largely a dead issue now. There are people campaigning against ULEZ out here in "Essex, actually", doing demos and blocking cameras. But not many, and increasingly cranky.
That London Conservatives have invested so much in the issue shows how poor their political instincts are.
If there ever was an album I bought for just one song that is it.
A general election or an offer to revisit of the 2016 EU Referendum
Some actual red meat or just continued waffle ?
Besides, who knows who they would choose. It would have to be another MP stitch up.
Timeline:
Tomorrow - inflation falls from 4.0 to 3.9%
Thursday - Rishi declares an inflation 'triumph' and calls the election
?? 😈
We’re entering the “I’m going to go for the run anyway” stage of the chaotic runout scenario, with Rishi still rooted to the crease.
Things Blair lacked.
Whether it is that the only contractor offering to fly inmates to Rwanda is Hester Airlines, or Rwanda turning the second plane load away, or an acceleration of small boats because even they can see Rwanda is a dead end - whatever, this will come to a head.
A STOP THE BOATS election. That is how Rishi not only stops the red army, but pushes them back. This was his plan all along.
(And has noted how much less dirty the windows facing our local rat run have been since ULEZ).
I don’t they ever topped The Bends.
For this week's task you will be running a press office. Nexus, you will be working for Kensington Palace. Supream, you will be working for the Conservative party.
Former environment minister Zac Goldsmith has been banned from driving for a year after he was caught speeding seven times in 2023.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68599661
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-65778065
Doubtless its all because of Brexit.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/18/german-living-standards-plummeted-after-russia-invaded-ukraine-say-economists#:~:text=They calculated that real wages,below the pre-crisis trend.