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

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?

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.

xp it’s considerably cheaper to buy a politician here afaict for that reason

It begins, or at least continues

Who do Conservative party members want to be the next PM? If you looked at single choices for next Tory leader, you’d think it was a wide open field, BUT… (1/3)https://t.co/s76Vy5j93R pic.twitter.com/6ZYYkyTmkK

— YouGov (@YouGov) July 7, 2022

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?

When my dad rants about politics in Korea, things seem to happen on a different scale/pace not muted in the same way by money/time/distance, though I am sure money is there. We have mass media, but the local campaigns don't seem as important.

my guess is that boris re-standing would beat out everyone up to truss lol

also i want to dig into the hell of "none of the above"

what percentage is fabricant on at last

a think i admire abt ROK politics is it's not shy abt jailing its heads of state!

Koreans like to be dramatic.

From what I understand, the vengeance tends to be personal but not necessarily institutionally destabilizing if that is possible.

Zahawi is Kurdish but from an extremely well to do family.

Dorries was trying to portray him as someone who fought tooth and claw to get where he is today, lol he's a featherweight. Another amusing thing I read on him was some teacher saying he walked out of a Q+A at his school after he was getting owned by the kids.

Possibly also worth mentioning Sunak is married to a billionaire's daughter. Plus both his parents and Patel's came to the UK via East Africa. I don't really know of course, but I imagine these aren't the average stories of South Asian immigrants & their descendants in the UK.

Most East African Asians I know are very solid middle-class people, whether as small business owners or as professionals, or whether Sikh, Muslim or Hindu.

possibly Patel's parents were amongst those Asians expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in the 70's. I'm sure I read her dad once ran as UKIP candidate or was going to and perhaps Priti persuaded him not to

No, they came just before the mass expulsions.

And I have to say they’re not all weird Tories - my best friend from that background is totally socialist with a widowed mother who became a magistrate, and one of his siblings runs Tell Mama; the other runs an anti-terror charity set up after she was injured on 7/7.

Off to put a rose on Liz D’s bench in Queen Square. 17 unbelievable years ago!

oh no I didn't mean to imply they're all weird Tories! I apologize for that

Zahawi's previous life as a Teletubbies-tat salesman is the only, even slightly amusing thing art him

Lol

EXCL: Boris Johnson and wife Carrie are planning big wedding bash at Chequers within weeks - with sources saying it's part of reason he wants to stay as caretaker. https://t.co/oUSLeGs4Ed

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) July 7, 2022

there is something sublime about how much he loves parties, dionysian maybe

Yes, as long as he's not paying for them. Pretty sure there's a lot of stuff going to come out about his tenure as PM that's going to scupper his ambition of being world king Winston Churchill in the job longer than Theresa May

i mean winston churchill was perennially wildly broke* right through until the moment he became PM (and really only safely cleared his debt after the war by persuading a vast and flattered US readership to purchase "a history of the english-speaking peoples" in four volumes)

*he was four million in the hole in the early 30s, when he was much the same age bojo is now

Churchill invented some useless piece of shit weapon called the panjandrum which was never used. Boris makes buses out of cereal boxes.

"The prototype was secretly constructed at Leytonstone and transported by night to the testing grounds at Westward Ho!"

it was so haphazard and dangerous it probably would have killed dozens of Allied soldiers if it had somehow got past the testing stage. Although the wiki mentions it may have been a hoax leaked to German military-intelligence. But he did invent lots of other crap military stuff as well.

oh goddddd

Rory Stewart meditates in the lotus position in a Nepalese monastery, eyes closed. His hair ruffles in the breeze. Goat bells clank in the distance.

Four members of the 1922 committee approach nervously.

Stewart (eyes still closed): I’ve been expecting you.

— Tom Easton (@TomEaston) July 7, 2022

tanned rested and ready lads

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/4RwAAOxyF0pThwEy/s-l300.jpg

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