like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

"Halifax reports that house prices rose by 1.8% in June, the 12th consecutive monthly rise"

Let's see where we're at by the time this thread has died been locked.

Oh too slow, I was hoping to do a scromit reference

Wallace and Scromit

xyzzzz__
Posted: 7 July 2022 at 11:00:41
"A state led by Sunak, Gove or Truss with reforming zeal would be an unpleasant place to live. But it’s also damaging to be governed by intellectually deficient, personally ambitious, corrupt or simply uninterested ministers. Fewer ministers than ever care about their departments, as the internecine vortex of Westminster and dreams of a slot on Question Time suck in most of their attention. This has been especially true since 2016, though the problem is of longer gestation. It doesn’t entirely explain why Britain, after twelve years of Conservative government, is run-down, stagnant, expensive, underpaid, unequal, corrupt, socially fractured, backward-looking, hungry and fearful. But it doesn’t help. It will take far more than dislodging Johnson to change that."

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2022/july/johnson-his-fall

Statement at 1

No 10 source: Boris Johnson will shortly make new appointments to his ministerial team 🤨

— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) July 7, 2022

Clowns getting back in the car

The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP @GregClarkMP has been appointed Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities @luhc. pic.twitter.com/UdfDgIlToo

— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) July 7, 2022

Cleverly gets Education - disastrous

(If you were playing chess, would you think that the UK or US had more freedom in next moves and why? I don't know how to play chess but am using it as an analogy anyway. This question might not be sufficiently focused or worth the effort to answer. Understood.)

Depends on what you mean by freedom in context youn

very sad that boris caved so quickly, couldn't even wait until they did all the procedural garbage to vote him out as tory leader next week

These are cabinet appointments for, what, 6 weeks? There will have to be some kind of interim where there is pretend work. Really weird episode in ukpol.

(what could happen for the constituencies you care about as part of the nation as a whole, where a part could be understood to be equal to the whole, in terms of demographics; economics; stability, flexibilty, and maturity of institutions of government; secondarily political and economic security in a global context)

Sometimes it's difficult to keep up appearances. How influential and powerful were the two ministers who resigned and what did their resignation signify?

from an outsider's perspective:
things are likely to get dramatically worse in the US but it will likely be so blatantly illegitimate that there might be some chance of rupture for the better. though if that doesn't happen then it seems like things just devolve into a fascist hell, but it's going to be very unpredictable chaotic times.

doesn't appear much hope at all for the UK at all. johnson will likely be replaced by someone more effectively committed to evil and it will be presented as a clean break from the past decade of tory governance despite nothing fundamentally changing. labour are worthless and entirely focused on crushing their left and even if they win the next election it's unlikely much changes or gets better. a slow decline but will probably end up in a similar place to where the US is heading, just less dramatically and at a slower pace

This just started

https://twitter.com/10downingstreet/status/1545006494273490945?s=21&t=o776M9Ak4axJuIorjps5TQ

You forget that the UK as currently constituted literally might cease to exist after October 2023. That's not going to happen in the US - unless a state or two decides to secede from the Union.

(xp)

Man the next Tory contest will be so grim.

Doubt these questions will be asked, but they will have to face them.

A price cap of £3000 is so much more devastating than any of us realise. £3000 is mass defaults, arrears, restricted spending and wider economic spiralling. It’s homelessness, addiction, health, social isolation. For millions, it’s life or death. https://t.co/pSJvs6FhG0

— 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐭 🌻 (@fraserjfstewart) July 6, 2022

boris merely recycling thru the feckless twerps left to him among tory mps to form the Farewell Cabinet when he could instead be appointing random members of the general public #smh what a tired loser

How influential and powerful were the two ministers who resigned and what did their resignation signify?

Two?!

“Darwinian”

INCREDIBLE SCENES

“THE BENNY HILL THEME TUNE” IS BEING BLASTED OUT ON SKY NEWS. pic.twitter.com/N06wBwcoZl

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) July 7, 2022

Youn is talking about Sunak and Javid. That did trigger a cascade of resignations of mostly junior ministers. Not sure how all of this was exactly coordinated xps to sic

_How influential and powerful were the two ministers who resigned and what did their resignation signify?_

Two?!

Dying at Boris going “thems the breaks”, too bad he didn’t chuck a “y’all” on at the end. Absolutely no regret, what a piece of work.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, is cutting short a trip to Indonesia and returning to the UK, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports. Truss is one of the frontrunners in the contest to succeed Boris Johnson.

This feels like the option with the most potential for grim hilarity, from a distance.

(Fingers crossed as usual for Tom D.’s reference.)

(Sorry, I don't read UK news sources and only glanced through US coverage. Two does not entail not more than two if that was the reason for incredulous punctuation but would appreciate any clarification if you meant something else.)

Sometimes it's difficult to keep up appearances. How influential and powerful were the two ministers who resigned and what did their resignation signify?

(Sorry, I don't read UK news sources and only glanced through US coverage. Two does not entail not more than two if that was the reason for incredulous punctuation but would appreciate any clarification if you meant something else.)

That’s why Gove’s sssssacking is ssso funny. It means that possible leadership challengers who stay on and so lend legitimacy to an outgoing unpopular leader have that against them.

I'm not sure I understand this. Gove told Johnson to resign (he has some Party authority to do this?); Johnson fired Gove from his cabinet post; then the effect on those for and against Johnson in the Party is what?

Sorry for asking an uncouth question that might not go down well among the British, but is it at all significant that the two ministers who started the revolt have Indian names and are presumably of Indian heritage? Do they represent a new position within the elite or a change in the elite?

_That’s why Gove’s sssssacking is ssso funny. It means that possible leadership challengers who stay on and so lend legitimacy to an outgoing unpopular leader have that against them._


I'm not sure I understand this. Gove told Johnson to resign (he has some Party authority to do this?); Johnson fired Gove from his cabinet post; then the effect on those for and against Johnson in the Party is what?

Sorry for asking an uncouth question that might not go down well among the British, but is it at all significant that the two ministers who started the revolt have Indian names and are presumably of Indian heritage? Do they represent a new position within the elite or a change in the elite?

_That’s why Gove’s sssssacking is ssso funny. It means that possible leadership challengers who stay on and so lend legitimacy to an outgoing unpopular leader have that against them._


I'm not sure I understand this. Gove told Johnson to resign (he has some Party authority to do this?); Johnson fired Gove from his cabinet post; then the effect on those for and against Johnson in the Party is what?

Sorry for asking an uncouth question that might not go down well among the British, but is it at all significant that the two ministers who started the revolt have Indian names and are presumably of Indian heritage? Do they represent a new position within the elite or a change in the elite?

gove's authority isn't so much *within the party* (tho he does have some seniority there) as that (as gyac says) he has rupert murdoch's ear and approval and (until recently) was being fitted for highest office as murdoch's catspaw

johnson's authority for sacking gove is that (a) as PM he can and (b) literally everyone in the party detests gove and his star has lately somewhat fallen with murdoch

(probably xps: One of the most gleefully wondrous thing about this imbroglio is that over 50 ministers have now resigned, and that the resignations have been so backed up that some continued to roll out in the hour after it became apparent that Boris was going to go — three weeks after he passed a vote of no confidence from the same ministers. {I’ve seen it reported that the previous record for resignations in 24 hours was in the 1930s, and the number was six.} I was expressing delight at the fact that this accelerating snowball of ejectees made it impossible to know which two you were referring to: comrade alph’s annotation makes sense now, but I initially read it as meaning “the latest two,” which was essentially a moving target.)

Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, he's about as establishment as its possible to get, no matter his ethnicity. Javid is slightly different but city boy wankers often have more diverse backgrounds.

xp I literally don’t care; I saw it as continuation of behaviour you were picked up on in another thread. You’re not even a regular here, feel free to pipe down and we’ll answer any questions people have, ok?

in any case it's not 50 ministers that have resigned, a PPS is not a minister.

Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, he's about as establishment as its possible to get, no matter his ethnicity. Javid is slightly different but city boy wankers often have more diverse backgrounds.

Sorry for asking an uncouth question that might not go down well among the British, but is it at all significant that the two ministers who started the revolt have Indian names and are presumably of Indian heritage? Do they represent a new position within the elite or a change in the elite?

Sunak's British-Indian, Javid's British Pakistani. The former is probably less of a bar to being Prime Minister than the latter. I don't think it's particularly significant that it was them that started the revolt but arguably might be if they both saw it as an opportunity for a shot at the top job.

What's absolutely true is that the Tories have a much more diverse pool of plausible and semi-plausible leaders than Labour does, including several British Indian MPs (Sunak, Patel, Braverman), British-Iranian, British Iraqi, descendants of Czech Jewish refugees, etc, than Labour's likely to offer any time soon.

There are lots of reasons for that - one that's been true since Thatcher has been the rise of the commercial, 'merchant class' as a dominant force in the Tory party. You can probably think of Cameron and Johnson as partial reversions to landed gentry types, but it's the party of business more than anything else and business is more diverse now than the more traditional Establishment. It's partly because they recognise the need for a broader coalition of voters unless they're going to give up on cities altogether - there has been aggressive targeting of the British Indian vote over the last 15 years, etc. It's also partly because the press will go a lot lighter on a Tory from a Muslim background (say, Javid or Zahawi) than they will on a Labour figure (Sadiq Khan, etc).

you've seen this more with priti patel as home secretary but party and govt have definitely exploited ethnicity to defuse charges of racism ("how can she possibly be racist? in my opinion it's actually racist to suggest that she's racist"): which is nonsense but does now and then wrongfoot the more mealymouthed within liberal commentariat

sunak and javid being presentable as self-made wealth (as opposed to being from the red-faced doughy ranks of third-tier failsons that continue to make up so much of the party) i think supplies a kind of symbolic business-class capable authenticity which certainly impresses some

i think i'm slightly eliding javid's self-madeness with zahawi's self-madeness there: javid made his name more with within banking than business -- but the aura of "business-heads know" isn't very different (given that it's pure culture-war nonsense anyway)

In the cesspools of twitter I have seen various Boris ultras livid at the notion that Sunak, Javid, Patel, Braverman (or even Tugendhat!) might succeed their boy.

Depressingly, Labour is further than ever from ever having a non-white bloke as leader.

(Thanks! The dynamics of party revolts outside the US are interesting. We don't have that. The media influence/insider status/personal relationships and change in party demographics are fascinating.)

Forgetting that Sunak is another city boy wanker, albeit also an Old Wykehamist.

Xpost

With this in mind slightly surprised that Crosby, who seems to pride himself on being in touch with the average angry gammon, seems to have anointed Zahawi...

I have wondered whether any non-white Tory leader would depress their vote in an election.

You could certainly imagine an attempted dog whistle labour campaign against one.

I think it almost certainly would.

Of course, they have to persuade the various nonagenarian racists in the Tory membership to select them as leader first.

the US party structures and career prospects -- especially the dems perhaps? -- are primarily organised round the ability to marshal rich donors: obviously that also exists in UK but i don't think it's quite so pitilessly determinative and exclusionary yet?

an "open secret" within the party for years now, yeah but the Tories would have promoted him for being a rapist. People are actually posting this shit.

the Labour MP, Geraint Davies, who was accused of sexually assaulting another MP last month has been suspended. Some people are saying the party have dealt with the matter in a more correct manner than the Tories would have.

yeah, sure: " She is reluctant to make a formal complaint through Labour’s own independent complaints system, although she was encouraged to, as she felt his popularity within the party would not help her case."

― calzino, Thursday, 1 June 2023 10:12 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think the accusations from last month were about a different Labour MP? the MP accused of sexually assaulting a colleague was a frontbencher, which I don't think Davies is/was.

oh right, I thought it was the same one. That's another one that might be suspended at a later date then

"Important! Include the names of each guest in the reference to secure your tickets."

It's a tough one

Do I fork out £50 quid for an evening with Lee Anderson, Ben Bradley and Jim Davidson

Or save the money and put it towards Reading festival pic.twitter.com/UHGjXf0Nm5

— Louis 🇬🇧 🇪🇺 〓〓 💙 Defend the right to vote (@LouisHenwood) June 1, 2023

i would pay £50 to watch lee anderson, ben bradley and jim davidson be slowly submerged into an iron smelter tbf

YOUR MUM!?!?

“If it was 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 mum who couldn’t get to an urgent hospital appointment because of protestors blocking the road, how would you feel?”

“I personally would understand.”

Coming to @GlobalPlayer@jonsopel | @lewis_goodall | @IndigoRumbelow pic.twitter.com/bdvysOKiDq

— The News Agents (@TheNewsAgents) June 1, 2023

Never mind allowing MPs got get away with sexual abuse for years, the Labour Party has more important things to do.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ken-loach-labour-jewish-labour-movement-jewish-north-east-b2350879.html

This is police state shit and every football fan demanding it is a turkey voting for Christmas https://t.co/bjW5kyCpOq

— jan (@janhopi) June 3, 2023

even Tory-scum MPs are saying Kieth is taking his factional purge a little bit too far here. Seems like a popular guy in the region, which is not the kind of person the party wants. Probably safe to say he was going to be barred from running even if he hadn't shared a platform with the evil neo-nazi Loach, they'd have dug something up on him.

Stats for melts does it again

They won't. There's no future for the left in Labour, as has been made clear many times. It's time to move to the Greens and help build them into a strong party of the left

— Stats for Lefties 🏳️‍⚧️ (@LeftieStats) June 2, 2023

Threatening consequences that will never come.

These actions by @UKLabour are a major mistake and have serious consequences. 🧵3/3 #LabourParty @nickeardleybbc #sunday

— Sharon Graham (@UniteSharon) June 4, 2023

there are limits to how much good regional mayors can achieve imo and most of them are just awful career pols in the pockets of their big business pals, if not all of them. Burbham is a complete cock and he seems to be considered the gold standard of regional mayors. A so called Corbyn aligned one might have some good ideas that are less focused on corporate partnerships and all that shite, but would still be massively hamstrung in attempting anything attenuative, whether it is under a Labour or Con austerity govt.

Didn't read Sharon's thread but presume she is posting something about Starmer damaging public trust in democracy. that's his fucking mission - to win with as little democratic participation as is possible.

i get the feeling that Kieth and crew wouldn't care if unions withdrew funding but it'd be nice to find out at least once

They'd care when the bailiffs started coming round.

I get that this is a big, historical link. But these non-threats are sorta pathetic like "putting the government on notice". Either do or don't.

the decent unions must just love burning money, because when the party leader says nurses deserve a medal rather than a living wage or warns MPs to stay away from picket lines. They really ought to be cutting their losses and thinking about a future that doesn't involve funding a party that isn't going to do shit for them.

If they actually went through with this I would opt back in to paying the political levy along with my union dues. Not before though, I can’t countenance funding kieth labour in any way

The Labour Party has never done very much for the unions tbf.

I hear they weren't so bad in the 1920s. be fair, Tom!

at least they offered beer and sandwiches back in the day

I think Perry Anderson wrote in one of his longreads that I read that they were actually pretty shite and fatally compromised by parliamentary interests and gradualist inclinations even in the 20's as well and who am I to argue with anyone on this! But it's fair to say they had some use to them, whereas now...

the toxic smoke blanketing vast swathes of north america is a wakeup call that climate change is real, it's here, and it's a clear and present danger to life as we know it

however doing the bare minimum to tackle it here in the uk might stop us from imposing further crushing austerity measures so fuck it tbrr

Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan is Britain’s ticket to better jobs, lower bills and a brighter future.

But I’ve always said that Labour will always be responsible with the public finances.

That means dealing with the ruinous Tory handling of the economy. https://t.co/dsTbtAJ4GD

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) June 9, 2023

coming right out and saying that you cannot expect better jobs, lower bills and a brighter future from a labour government is a bold move

when you had one policy but that felt a bit excessive

At least one council, Cherwell in Oxfordshire, where labour preferred to allow tories to continue with a minority administration rather than coalition with the green party, there may be other examples

if they win the next GE the LAB government will continually be using the Truss bomb/economically ruinous Tories excuse for not having any significant policies and the hopelessly inert shitshow that will unfold. I'm scaling back on any effort required on GE days, most likely for the rest of my life.

Nine minutes. brilliant.

*whomp whomp* pic.twitter.com/ioZnzIr3be

— Elaine Scattermoon (@scattermoon) June 9, 2023

In a few years the government -- whoever that is -- will pass tens of billions to mitigate climate change.

Ed Miliband only still in shadow cabinet so they can have fun clowning him like this

https://news.sky.com/story/bambos-charalambous-labour-suspends-shadow-minister-following-complaint-12899453

time for a new No Sex Offenders party to take the nation by storm

at this rate the next Labour conference will have to be hosted in an open prison

🚨🚨🚨 | BREAKING: Boris Johnson has quit as an MP

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) June 9, 2023

Love the pissy little red line on his pissy little statement

💥💥💥Boris resignation statement in full pic.twitter.com/9mSDR4Bran

— Calgie (@christiancalgie) June 9, 2023

Oh has he knighted himself?

I am not even getting any satisfactory schadenfreude from the Dorries snub, just execute the lot of them - including the Labour ones.

New thread time

Dorries stood down because she knew Boris was going to.

xp title suggestions?

So Boris takes over Dorries' seat? Or the MP for Henley-on-Thames takes a Russian oligarch style dive out of a window?

He’s Uxbridge & South Ruislip since 2015

Well remembered bit of Boris lore though

Yes but he very much would prefer to be the MP for Henley again.

my thread title would involve Sakuranomics but hey

"I take my responsibilities seriously. I did not lie," would be lovely to see in Site New Answers every day

I don't understand the Dorries arrangement. She is not included on the honours list to avoid a byelection and then stands down anyway.
Obviously some deal has been made, but it just seems like she gaining absolutely nothing from it.

xp I’m into it

New thread: “I take my responsibilities seriously. I did not lie” - UK politics June 23 on