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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Let us salute Theresa May – the “dead woman walking” who could
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Let us salute Theresa May – the “dead woman walking” who could still be there at the next general election
We all remember the events June 9th the day after the general election as it became apparent that Theresa May’s huge gamble in going to the country earlier to get a big bigger majority was going to end in failure.
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For a while yet, certainly.
Fighting the next GE, certainly not. Even Tories aren't that stupid.
Put me down for 2020.
She's not as crap as she was but she's still crap,
The enormous difference between her and Brown is that the Labour rules and culture are designed to keep a leader in place; the Tory ones are designed to make a change swiftly and easily.
It'll be summer 2019 or summer 2021.
I think I'm going to lose this bet.
New threads aplenty today. Conservatives need fresh blood.
But, and it's a big but, whoever is new has to be an improvement. Clearing away dead wood so young guns have a chance is vital. Otherwise they'll end up with something like Hammond versus Boris.
Interesting what you find in the archives — this is SeanT's old blog from 2004:
http://toffeewomble.blogspot.co.uk/2004/11/
Veteran Tory party chairman Patrick McLoughlin is one of several ‘old guard’ Cabinet ministers who face the sack in the long-planned reshuffle to free up space for younger blood.
Education Secretary Justine Greening, Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire and Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom are also said to be vulnerable after disappointing No10.
Mid-ranking ministers tipped for a Cabinet promotion include universities boss Jo Johnson, justice minister Dominic Raab and security chief Ben Wallace.
Among the younger rising stars tipped for promotion into the government are backbench MPs Tom Tugendhat, Seema Kennedy, Johnny Mercer, Nigel Huddleston and Kemi Badenoch.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5159749/theresa-mays-allies-urge-her-to-delay-holding-cabinet-reshuffle-to-may-after-ending-year-on-unexpected-high/
For those reasons, and also because even a leadership election that produced a positive change would take two months out of the process, I don't expect a change before 2019 and quite possibly before the second round is complete in 2021. But as MPs look towards the impending election, I expect change to come, one way or another.
After all, while May might be best-suited to Brexit, nothing she can do on it is going to cover her in glory: it isn't a glorious fight and even the best outcome will still be a bit crap: it won't be a launchpad for an election campaign.
Easier than explaining how the old guard are obstructing the green shoots I guess.
Shouldn't they have held this meeting the day after May took office?
May seems to have no great ability in that regard, Hammond has been undermined by May to such an extent that the Treasury is no longer the overarching power that it was under both Brown and Osborne and Green, although notionally the DPM, seems to have no form of grip as well as being on a shoogly peg himself.
The person in that role is inevitably the first in line for succession (with the possible exception of Willie Whitelaw). Without it Mrs May's position is probably more secure but her government seems aimless and incoherent. If she is to do more than survive and deal with Brexit she really needs an enforcer that cracks the whip and keeps people in line.
It's May's fault that there's a vacuum. She could and should have thrashed out at least a vision by now that the Foreign Secretary could either agree with or not but once agreed collective responsibility should take hold.
https://twitter.com/willblackwriter/status/942729294845014016
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/11245011/Nick-Robinson-apologises-for-Britain-First-selfie.html
I don’t think saying that Nick Robinson posing in a selfie with what we know to be the deputy leader of Britain First is ‘awkward’ is a particularly controversial statement, in fact I’d have thought it was fairly obvious that such a picture is a bit awkward. I doubt that he knew who she was. Given that he was political editor for the BBC for god knows how long though, I’m surprised that he wasn’t aware about far right groups such as Britain First.
The fact that the lady was wearing a great big badge emblazoned with the word candidate, you would think that the hack from the local rag would be able to work out who she was. I think it says more about slipshop working practice by Robinson than anything else.
If it was done around the time of the onset of his illness, I forgive him. Otherwise he should have known who she was or had the ability to work it out - the information was laid out in front of him.
Unite bosses believe the only way to avoid large-scale job losses for their members is for the UK to remain in both the single market and customs union permanently after Brexit. Labour are not there at the moment, but Corbyn and his team will soon be lobbied hard to make it official party policy. One senior Union source said: "We're going to come to a crunch point next year. The TUC are also going to put a lot of pressure on." The tensions throw up the tantalising possibility of the first major split between Unite general secretary Len McCluskey and his long-term comrade, Corbyn.
But those hoping for a change of heart in Labour's high command may have their work cut out. As well as having to overcome the party leader's well-known euroscepticism, they also must convince him that such a seismic shift in policy will not cost votes in its Leave-voting northern heartlands. Either way, the relatively easy ride which Labour has enjoyed while the Conservative civil war has been in full swing will shortly come to an end.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/analysis/91540/analysis-tories-are-split-brexit-labours
Tell you what - try transitioning to opposition and give Jezza a chance.
EEA-style as a transition is something that could be quickly agreed - it has pre-existing and pre-defined rules, rights and responsibilities. That wouldn't make it an end-state.
EEA-as-transition has other advantages in smoothing out us detangling ourselves from the EU and as a simplified way of addressing the fact we'll have EEA-rules without EU-voting rights.
Of course given current polling has no alternative leader polling better than May and some polling worse it is not impossible she could even lead the party into that election, although unlikely.
PS Thanks for the birthday messages on the last thread
http://www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk/news/crime-court/man-admits-voting-twice-against-chingford-and-woodford-green-s-iain-duncan-smith-during-general-election-1-5325108
Train crash in the US, with a carriage on road:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42401707
Edit:
Looks bad:
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/667886/train-derail-washington-us-casualties
Since you reference it, it was also at the onset of his illness I believe. This was late 2014 and it was early 2015 he underwent chemo as his cancer had gotten worse so he would have already been fighting his cancer by this stage.
I guess she could only be one of two or three people in the room.
I will give benefit of the doubt based on the caveat of the onset of ill health.
And did he know the result and votes per candidate before he attended?
Also, I’m guessing (though I may be wrong) that there are a long list of things where EEA non-EU states diverge from one another in terms of their relationship with the EU, so there isn’t a template EU relationship for EEA members covering all of the “separation” issues that we have to resolve, meaning that this would be hard to do quickly.
Subverting our democracy is surely equal to or worse than eg lying about speeding points, yet Chris Huhne went to jail and this guy receives a joke sentence of a £380 fine.
The fact is he wouldn't have been caught had he not bragged about it on social media, begging the question of how widespread this practice might be under the radar.
No prime minister, since we became a democracy in 1918 who already had a working majority that has called an un-necessary election before 4 of the 5 years of a parliament was complete in order to increase that majority has ever won that election with a majority. Baldwin (1923), Attlee (1951), Heath (1974) and May 2017 all failed. (Wilson in 1966 and October did not of course have working majorities to start with).
Theresa May however is the only prime minister since we became a democracy in 1918 to retain power having called an election to increase her working majority. She is the only PM to have won enough seats to do so.
And the reason for that is Jeremy Corbyn. if Labour had had a better leader in 2017, May would not be PM now. We might have had prime minister Burnham, or Cooper. The reason why May is the only prime minister since we became a democracy to have retained power in the above circumstances is the pathetic excuse for a Leader of the Opposition we have right now.
Robinson haa apologised for agreeing to the selfie without knowing who she was (something he likely gets asked for all the time) but she would be loving this free publicity. I'd rather not give it to her.
APOCALYPSE FIRST WITH THE NEWS
Only ten fewer than Mrs May.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Rail/Projects.htm
No idea if this was a new train, though I'm guessing from the pictures it was.
(*) 79 MPH, apparently. Not exactly high-speed.
And why are we calling it a selfie? It patently isn't.
If Brexit is something she manages to get through, with a grudging acceptance by the media --> grudging acceptance by both Leave and Remain voters, then yes, the prize of an election win in 2022 is enticing. But by then, the carnival will have passed on by a number of the current big names. And Mrs May....well, the public like someone who is down and out, with two cut eyes, but gets back up off the canvas and starts swinging again. I personally can't see May fighting another election under any circumstances, but she might be much better regarded by both the voters and her party - and be in a much stronger position to "suggest" her successor.
Not really. A referendum was held; a result was provided. You cannot keep asking for another because you didn't like the result.
I didn’t say that this story was ‘new’ btw.
And close to interminable herself.
Not all of us share your political leanings, Mr.D...
It's a contagious psychosis that runs amok in Brussels, it seems.
The Conservatives have secured for themselves a predominately pro-Brexit socially conservative electorate whose wish for greater “control” puts them at odds with the views of the party’s traditional allies in big business, who hitherto have been attracted by the more laissez-faire, pro-free market, centre right stance of the Conservative party.
https://twitter.com/xtophercook/status/942803185021923329
Corbyn might think he has had a good year, and in a sense he has, since the illusion of success following the election has allowed him to stay Labour leader, and to inflict his hard left interpretation of Labour on his party.
But he is in the very tricky position of depending entirely on all those older Tories who abstained in the 2017 election continuing to stay at home in the years right up to and including 2022. He depends entirely on older Tories who stayed at home because they were angry at May's dementia tax, and who didnt see Corbyn as likely to succeed, continuing to be angry at the Tories, and underestimating his electoral chances right up to 2022.
If the older voters decide that Corbyn has a chance of winning, and if they become benevolent to May or her successor in 2022, and they come out on polling day he is sunk.
In some parallel universe Andy Burnham was elected Labour leader in 2015, successfully campaigned for Remain in the EU referendum which won, and is now Prime minister.
The UK likes the trade. It doesn't like the political integration. The EU doesn't want to divorce them and doesn't offer an associate option, which would benefit both sides.
The UK's problem is in sharp focus because we've leaving. But over the coming years, the competing centrifugal forces of rising nationalism (and concerns about social cohesion), and centripetal forces of a continuing drive to integrate and centralise power away from nation states will be increasingly difficult for the EU.
The interesting times in which we live won't stop being interesting for decades.
And we will end up rejoining. That's if we ever leave, which I still very much doubt.
By the time one has read his account of the last general election campaign, in which Theresa May’s limitations as a candidate were so cruelly exposed, one cannot help wondering why she has survived as Prime Minister.
The personal feuding behind the scenes in Theresa May’s Downing Street would not have been out of place in a Christmas episode of EastEnders or the Godfather movies.”
https://www.conservativehome.com/book-reviews/2017/12/shipman-reports-the-full-horror-of-mays-downing-street.html
A Downing Street official said, “Fiona and Nick thought the officials were their slaves.” Civil servants were “shitting themselves all the time” and “were in mourning for the Cameron years. There was a decency about his team.”