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UK politics general discussion

shakey said:
it just seems bizarre to me that you don't get an election when the prime minister resigns. Perhaps a forced election within 12 months of changing the PM would be a good idea.
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The problem if that were the case is no party would ever want to oust their leader as it would likely be riskier to their own position. Liklihood of worse performing PMs staying in place.
 
I think we’ll probably get Rishi Sunak as PM, declared officially after the nominations close tomorrow.

To be honest, I think that would be a relatively good outcome. Sunak seems like someone you can trust, and a steadying hand who will stop all the turbulence.
 
Matt N said:
Sunak seems like someone you can trust, and a steadying hand who will stop all the turbulence.
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Laugh Lol GIF
 
But any candidate other than Johnson would have done that.
He did not have the actual support, but his big fat ego could not face the truth.
So he continued lying...anyone got their eyes on that hundred list??? Thought not.
Boris said he was standing...the markets started to tremble, all MP's ran to hide...simple as that, the markets would not tolerate a lying bigot running the country again.
Could I add that I was also going to stand, as I had a proposer, seconder and a ninety eight other mp's supporting me, but I have a very sore foot at the moment so I cannot give my full effort in guiding the nation back to stability.
So I decided to give way to the other candidate.
 
pluk said:
To be fair, I think the second half of the statement at least is true. I imagine the markets would react well and calm down.
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The markets will settle with Sunak but the economy won’t. Sunak is locked into the same economic strategy the Tories have had for 12yrs. That strategy has already stunted growth and with the world economy being sluggish this is only going to make it worse.
 
Matt N said:
To be honest, I think that would be a relatively good outcome. Sunak seems like someone you can trust, and a steadying hand who will stop all the turbulence.
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I wouldn't go that far in my assessment. For me, the best outcome would be none of the above and a general election to get this imploding party out of office. But as the lesser of the evils, I'd agree.

The good news about all this clinging on to power stuff is, that if they're using the parliamentary collective responsibility argument for not holding a general election then this argument can be thrown back in their faces in 2 years time when they claim to have made the necessary changes at the top. I think it should be quite easy to remind them that we'd be electing individual members or Parliament and a specific party to form a government and not one particular Prime Minister. Not that Rishi can do much, he faces 2 years of slashing spending and raising taxes.

I think we can all agree though that Boris didn't pull out the race due to having suddenly found his conscience. He didn't have the numbers. Over the weekend, many of his supporters were asked what number he had, who these MP's where, why they were so sure and who told them they were over the 100. None of them could answer. Yet another Boris lie.
 
So Mordaunt has backed out, suggests she didn't get the support.

But what I found more interesting is a back-bench group said they are against a general election because 'The UK Public don't want one'
 
Tibble said:
So Mordaunt has backed out, suggests she didn't get the support.

But what I found more interesting is a back-bench group said they are against a general election because 'The UK Public don't want one'
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I haven't known the appetite for a GE to be this strong among the public for quite some time (though I'll admit I'm only 29). Are they really that detached from reality? Oh, wait, I don't think I needed to ask that, did I?
 
So that's it. Sunak will be crowned either tonight or tomorrow.

7 weeks ago we had a cartoonish serial liar, adulterer and criminal as PM. Then for 6 weeks a breathtakingly incompetent and ignorant pound shop Thatcher who drove the economy to near the brink of collapse in a matter of days. Now we have a tax dodging multi millionaire who is also a criminal helming the SS UK as it smashes around a sea of Icebergs.

Roll on December 2024.
 
Sorry to derail this thread slightly, but I have a question.

I've heard a lot of people talk lately about austerity. It was most famously implemented by George Osbourne under the Conservative/LibDem coalition government, and there's talk of it returning in order to pay off government debt.

There has been a lot of public backlash to austerity, and a lot of people criticising austerity as one of the worst elements of the recent run of Conservative governments, both in its 2010 form and its rumoured return. But I'll admit, I'm struggling to see what alternative path could be taken. So my question is; if it's so hated, what would have been the feasible alternative to austerity?

Both in 2010 and now, it is/was being implemented as a way of managing the nation's debt following extraordinary world fiscal events, and if implemented in 2022 as rumoured, it will also be accompanied by tax rises, so simply raising taxes alone would not fill the hole adequately, it would seem. Therefore, I'll admit I struggle to see any alternative other than tax rises to a degree that I feel like the public would hate.

I don't mean to be dismissive of anyone affected by austerity, as I know that it has had a hard-hitting impact on many people and industries. I'm simply intrigued to know what people feel the alternative is, as I'll admit that I'm struggling to come up with one. Or at least, I'm struggling to come up with an equivalent alternative that wouldn't either bankrupt the country or be received even less favourably by the public.
 
Matt N said:
if it's so hated, what would have been the feasible alternative to austerity?
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  • Raising taxes on the people/businesses that fund you; and/or,
  • Burying your head in the sand and continuing to spend money you don't have because it's more likely not to cost you an election.
 
Spending your way out of a crisis has often been the policy of a desperate government.
Especially with a poor showing in the polls and an election looming.
 
Matt N said:
So my question is; if it's so hated, what would have been the feasible alternative to austerity?

Both in 2010 and now, it is/was being implemented as a way of managing the nation's debt following extraordinary world fiscal events
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The mini budget which added billions of unnecessary spending to the country's debt interest was not an extraordinary world fiscal event. Neither was choosing to use the credit card to fund a non-targetted energy relief program rather than looking for alternatives.

So to answer your question, not getting into this situation in the first place is the alternative. But it's all OK now, Rishi Rich is here to save the day. He may not have any working class friends, he may be partial to not paying his own taxes. He may have paid tribute to Liz Truss' "dignity", be so far removed from the real world that he had to borrow someone else's car for a photo op of him filling it up, lied about breaking lockdown laws and represent a party that's vandalising this country's economy. But he's definitely the right guy for the job because the Tory party have decided he is and they know what's best for us and not the electorate. They've been proven to be right so many times recently.
 
Interesting... the Conservatives are the only party I ever remember being in government, so I don't really know any different to austerity. Even though Tony Blair was the PM when I was born, the first PM I remember is David Cameron. And to be honest, I don't remember a huge amount about Cameron much before the Brexit referendum... the first election I took a vague interest in was 2015, when he won a majority and the Liberal Democrats lost quite a few seats to make that happen. The first one I was properly interested in was 2017... oddly, the Brexit referendum ignited my interest in politics, and I must (controversially) say that Corbyn really inspired me in that election.

For those who were following politics back then; if you don't mind me asking, what were things like before the Conservatives and austerity? The current 12-year run of Conservatives is all I've ever known, but people imply that the country was much happier to live in under Blair and Brown. How did things differ, out of interest?
 
Matt N said:
Interesting... the Conservatives are the only party I ever remember being in government, so I don't really know any different to austerity. Even though Tony Blair was the PM when I was born, the first PM I remember is David Cameron. And to be honest, I don't remember a huge amount about Cameron much before the Brexit referendum... the first election I took a vague interest in was 2015, when he won a majority and the Liberal Democrats lost quite a few seats to make that happen. The first one I was properly interested in was 2017... oddly, the Brexit referendum ignited my interest in politics, and I must (controversially) say that Corbyn really inspired me in that election.

For those who were following politics back then; if you don't mind me asking, what were things like before the Conservatives and austerity? The current 12-year run of Conservatives is all I've ever known, but people imply that the country was much happier to live in under Blair and Brown. How did things differ, out of interest?
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Exactly the same Matt

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk
 
Matt N said:
Interesting... the Conservatives are the only party I ever remember being in government, so I don't really know any different to austerity. Even though Tony Blair was the PM when I was born, the first PM I remember is David Cameron. And to be honest, I don't remember a huge amount about Cameron much before the Brexit referendum... the first election I took a vague interest in was 2015, when he won a majority and the Liberal Democrats lost quite a few seats to make that happen. The first one I was properly interested in was 2017... oddly, the Brexit referendum ignited my interest in politics, and I must (controversially) say that Corbyn really inspired me in that election.

For those who were following politics back then; if you don't mind me asking, what were things like before the Conservatives and austerity? The current 12-year run of Conservatives is all I've ever known, but people imply that the country was much happier to live in under Blair and Brown. How did things differ, out of interest?
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I followed politics very closely back then as an adult and was born in 1982 to very politically engaged parents.

But to answer your question, I would be mixing up facts with my own personal political views. It's also a very broad question.

I would recommend podcast's, a number of books and political documentaries. There's also a lot of stuff on YouTube that gives both biased and unbiased commentary on modern politics, theories and ideology. I was listening to this for example
From: https://youtu.be/tp4FGAv2gks
on the way up to Towers in the car on the day the Queen ended up dying shortly after Liz Truss became Prime Minister.

But as a starting place for an excellent run down and summary of the political landscape of the UK between the second world war and the millennium I would thoroughly recommend Andrew Marr's The History of Modern Britain. Being only a 7 part series (and a book which you can read for free online I'm led to believe) it doesn't go into too much detail but definitely gives a great insight into how we got to where we are today. Fascinating and enjoyable to watch as well. As is his prequal series The Making of Modern Britain which deals with the 1800's up to the outbreak of the second world war.

Rather than just taking the word of my parents and Dave down the pub as gospel, I've always thought it important to know this stuff.
 
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