Scrutable

bjn wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:02 am

monkey wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 10:33 pm

bjn wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:04 pm Route forward for the Tories. 1922 Committee rewrites the leadership rules, Truss gets it in the neck, Saint Rishi gets appointed instead. Bounce in the polls because we’ve gone from absolutely f.cking crazy and evil to plain competent evil. Rishi still f.cks the average Brit but stabilises gilts and sterling. They win in 2024 having “learnt their lesson”.

They don't need to change the rules. They didn't to give Johnson the boot, there was talk of that so they could do a 2nd confidence vote in him*, but they didn't and he is still no longer PM.

They just need to make Truss' ministry unworkable, such as lots of backbenchers rebelling or mass resignations of ministers. They just can't make it too unworkable, otherwise they might accidently end up having an election, which would be Bad For Them.

Agree with the rest. Might not be Sunak, but I bet they do their best to have only one candidate left before it goes to the membership.


*I wasn't sure what the right grammar was here, but I like it this way. Implies something messy happens.

AFAIUI They'll need to change the rules to boot her before 12 months and to have the MPs appoint the leader, not the membership. If it goes back to the members it'll be another crazy.

I thought the MPs chose 2 candidates that the membership get to vote on via elimination. MPs don't get sole say anymore and there wasn't another way of choosing.

But if there's only 1 candidate, or all but one drop out, there won't be a membership election. That sort of thing *should* be able to be arranged in the back rooms of Westminster. Theresa May won that way after Leadsom withdrew.

bjn wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:02 am

monkey wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 10:33 pm

bjn wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:04 pm Route forward for the Tories. 1922 Committee rewrites the leadership rules, Truss gets it in the neck, Saint Rishi gets appointed instead. Bounce in the polls because we’ve gone from absolutely f.cking crazy and evil to plain competent evil. Rishi still f.cks the average Brit but stabilises gilts and sterling. They win in 2024 having “learnt their lesson”.

They don't need to change the rules. They didn't to give Johnson the boot, there was talk of that so they could do a 2nd confidence vote in him*, but they didn't and he is still no longer PM.

They just need to make Truss' ministry unworkable, such as lots of backbenchers rebelling or mass resignations of ministers. They just can't make it too unworkable, otherwise they might accidently end up having an election, which would be Bad For Them.

Agree with the rest. Might not be Sunak, but I bet they do their best to have only one candidate left before it goes to the membership.


*I wasn't sure what the right grammar was here, but I like it this way. Implies something messy happens.

AFAIUI They'll need to change the rules to boot her before 12 months and to have the MPs appoint the leader, not the membership. If it goes back to the members it'll be another crazy.

..... backed by the Tory press. That's why Duncan Smith beat Ken Clarke, but fortunately the job wasn't PM at the time

A modest proposal.

monkey wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:40 am

bjn wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:02 am

monkey wrote: Tue Oct 04, 2022 10:33 pm

They don't need to change the rules. They didn't to give Johnson the boot, there was talk of that so they could do a 2nd confidence vote in him*, but they didn't and he is still no longer PM.

They just need to make Truss' ministry unworkable, such as lots of backbenchers rebelling or mass resignations of ministers. They just can't make it too unworkable, otherwise they might accidently end up having an election, which would be Bad For Them.

Agree with the rest. Might not be Sunak, but I bet they do their best to have only one candidate left before it goes to the membership.


*I wasn't sure what the right grammar was here, but I like it this way. Implies something messy happens.

AFAIUI They'll need to change the rules to boot her before 12 months and to have the MPs appoint the leader, not the membership. If it goes back to the members it'll be another crazy.

I thought the MPs chose 2 candidates that the membership get to vote on via elimination. MPs don't get sole say anymore and there wasn't another way of choosing.

But if there's only 1 candidate, or all but one drop out, there won't be a membership election. That sort of thing *should* be able to be arranged in the back rooms of Westminster. Theresa May won that way after Leadsom withdrew.

That's the current rules as defined by the 1922 Committee. Changing them would be the best way to avoid another batshit PM, Badenoch/Braverman/whoever might not stand down. Also the 12 months thing.

bjn wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:14 pm Also the 12 months thing.

The 12 months rule, so far as can be told from what people have admitted to, is apparently a rule that a party leader who has won a party vote of confidence from the party MPs (not to be confused with a parliamentary confidence vote) cannot face another confidence vote for 12 months. The trouble is that these rules are not in the public domain. So we have no evidence as to whether a new party leader gets a similar period of grace or not, it simply isn't in the public domain, and no one seems to have admitted to the lie of the land on the point.

My guess is that the rules are silent on the point, and so it is up for argument how they should interpret that. Since apparently letters of no confidence have already gone in, some people are willing to give it a try.

Still strikes me as absolutely mad that the rules for determining the PM are secret.

bjn wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:14 pm

monkey wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:40 am

bjn wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:02 am
AFAIUI They'll need to change the rules to boot her before 12 months and to have the MPs appoint the leader, not the membership. If it goes back to the members it'll be another crazy.

I thought the MPs chose 2 candidates that the membership get to vote on via elimination. MPs don't get sole say anymore and there wasn't another way of choosing.

But if there's only 1 candidate, or all but one drop out, there won't be a membership election. That sort of thing *should* be able to be arranged in the back rooms of Westminster. Theresa May won that way after Leadsom withdrew.

That's the current rules as defined by the 1922 Committee. Changing them would be the best way to avoid another batshit PM, Badenoch/Braverman/whoever might not stand down. Also the 12 months thing.

There's a reason why I put the should in asterisks I don't think I'd be surprised if a leadership election (should it happen, which isn't a given) went to the members because batshit people are batshit.

I don't think they'll change the rules, while it wasn't long ago that the Tory membership didn't get a vote, I can't see them getting away with rolling that back without significant upheaval. It would delegitimise whoever gets the job. Maybe they could fiddle the MP's process to favour the not-quite -as-batshit?

I have conflicting views about all this too. I am enjoying the Tories tear themselves apart through their own failings, and it's about time too, but while they are doing that things don't get better for those on the Clapham Omnibus.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:51 pm Still strikes me as absolutely mad that the rules for determining the PM are secret.

In August, Tortoise, a political news/comment site, attempted a legal case to get the Tory leadership election rules and procedures, revealed, on the grounds that choosing the PM was a public function, and so should be subject to rules of public procedure. Has a lot of moral sense to it, but I think legally it is a bit of a stretch. DAG has a post about it. I can't find any more recent news on the case, so either it is still sitting in a legal queue somewhere, or has been quietly dismissed or abandoned.

Well it was just a letter before action, no court proceedings were actually raised, and at a glance it looks like they are challenging a position that was taken on 26 August. Deadline for judicial review proceedings is 3 months so you'll probably be expecting something in court by 25 November, although as you say it seems a bit unlikely and the letter was maybe done more for moral and journalistic reasons than legal ones.

monkey wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:08 pm I have conflicting views about all this too. I am enjoying the Tories tear themselves apart through their own failings, and it's about time too, but while they are doing that things don't get better for those on the Clapham Omnibus.

We were all saying during the leadership election that Truss was a candidate with a good chance of losing the next election, and hence a gift to the opposition parties. Clearly it is a point that you can have conflicted views on, as you don't want to have a bad prime minister doing bad to the country. There was a general sense of, who can possibly be worse than Johnson? Though I am always wary of such arguments. Things can nearly always get a lot worse.

But I am astonished, I expect as we all are, she managed to inflict so much damage in such a short period of time. The U-turn has only relieved a relatively small part of the total tax cuts. So we still have a large unfunded tax cuts benefiting the well-off to the cost of everyone else. And seemingly an on-going desire to cut benefits quite sharply in real terms.

Going back to Thatcher being pushed out, I thought Major was a poor prime minister. But there were still some competent ministers in his government. One of Major's early acts was to undo the Poll Tax, the main reason the party abandoned Thatcher. Well, not quite undo, the replacement was still a lot more regressive than the rates. But there was a bit of feel-good from that. The economy was in a mess, but there were no early, obvious, large errors. After winning a general election against the hapless Kinnock, somewhat to his own surprise, he then made his really large error in trying to stay in the ERM. That cost the tax payer a lot of money. Of course the money went somewhere - to a small number of very rich people, many of them abroad. But I think we can agree that was a cock-up, not deliberately enriching his mates. Maybe there was some forgiveness for that, and that was why somehow he held on to the end of his electoral term in 1997. It probably helped him there was no obvious alternative - Mrs Thatcher had destroyed all the obvious alternatives. The 3 leaders that followed him - Hague, Duncan Smith, Howard - were all weak.

IvanV wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:58 pm

monkey wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:08 pm I have conflicting views about all this too. I am enjoying the Tories tear themselves apart through their own failings, and it's about time too, but while they are doing that things don't get better for those on the Clapham Omnibus.

We were all saying during the leadership election that Truss was a candidate with a good chance of losing the next election, and hence a gift to the opposition parties. Clearly it is a point that you can have conflicted views on, as you don't want to have a bad prime minister doing bad to the country.

Maybe conflicted is the wrong word. Something closer to "guilt for being happy while others have to suffer because of the thing I am happy about". There's probably a German word for it.

IvanV wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 3:58 pm There was a general sense of, who can possibly be worse than Johnson? Though I am always wary of such arguments. Things can nearly always get a lot worse.

I agree with this.

Pressed quote instead of edit like an idiot.

Twice.

monkey wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:40 pm There’s probably a German word for it

I think it’s Werdedichniemalsaufgeben.

HTH

Little waster wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:13 pm

monkey wrote: Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:40 pm There’s probably a German word for it

I think it’s Werdedichniemalsaufgeben.

HTH

Oh... thats good... haven't experienced that in ages.

That thing where you think everything is a political metaphor

You've got to admire Braverman's work effort.

Against a very congested field, through sheer graft and dedication she's still managed to emerge as the front runner in the race to be the Very Worst Human Being in Government.


Those last two words may be superfluous. Hats off to her.

Little waster wrote: Thu Oct 06, 2022 9:31 am You've got to admire Braverman's work effort.

Against a very congested field, through sheer graft and dedication she's still managed to emerge as the front runner in the race to be the Very Worst Human Being in Government.


Those last two words may be superfluous. Hats off to her.

I saw her described as what happens when you feed Priti Patel after midnight.

Well, my bingo card didn't have Nadine Dorries saying that Truss's government was lurching to the right.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63158495

Nor did it have Jacob Rees-Mogg rebelling against benefit cuts.

jimbob wrote: Thu Oct 06, 2022 3:05 pm Well, my bingo card didn't have Nadine Dorries saying that Truss's government was lurching to the right.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63158495

Nor did it have Jacob Rees-Mogg rebelling against benefit cuts.

Don't worry she remains batshit

She accused the government of shelving several of his policies, including privatising Channel 4, reviewing the BBC's licence fee, ...

She said abandoning Mr Johnson's policies was "a mistake", adding: "That was our mandate, our deal with the voters. Removing a prime minister and the policies people voted for less than three years ago is a troubling precedent to set in a democracy."

The abandonment of those policies being apparent evidence of the rightward lurch by the Albatross.

It also goes without saying that neither of those policies were ever anywhere near the 2019 manifesto rather than being solely plucked from her own feverish, demented mind and the far-right ghouls who surrounded her.

insignificant wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 9:16 am

Al Capone Junior wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 5:53 pmnever heard of a gollywog

There is a good article on them at the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia - link

My grandmother made my mother one and she loved it very much and it was always "just a doll" that didn't represent anything real for her, but that's what happens when something gets disconnected from its origins because of ignorance

But Truss, yeah, f.cking hell

Thanks, that was a great explanation and I went down two more rabbit holes from there too

They had been popularised by a well-known brand of jams called Robertson's, who spent most the 20th Century slapping "Gollies" on all their products and any other bit of merchandising they could. Wikipedia records them churning out over 200 million distinct items over 70 years.

In 2002, Robertson's bowed to the inevitable and withdrew the Golly from their branding because ... seriously, have you f.cking seen them?

This caused a backlash by the far-right c.nts in UKIP and the BNP and ultimately the Conservative Party itself; because how a private company chooses to market its jam was obviously the Number 1 issue facing humanity in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Well obviously.

Some interesting ranting going on in my local community facebook page, including from people with the flag as their profile pic, when the local MP (Kwazi Kwarteng, and I apologise on behalf of my neighbours) came to visit the local coffee shop today. Apparently it was quite a scene. And no-one in the group was defending him either. Like most neighbourhood facebook pages, it's usually more conservative than the community itself.

And my little town is probably even more tory than the average of the constituency; if he is in trouble here, I think he might not survive an election if it was called now.

Two years time though is enough for my neighbours to forget this again though, wouldn't put that past them tbh

warumich wrote: Fri Oct 07, 2022 4:41 pm Some interesting ranting going on in my local community facebook page, including from people with the flag as their profile pic, when the local MP (Kwazi Kwarteng, and I apologise on behalf of my neighbours) came to visit the local coffee shop today. Apparently it was quite a scene. And no-one in the group was defending him either. Like most neighbourhood facebook pages, it's usually more conservative than the community itself.

And my little town is probably even more tory than the average of the constituency; if he is in trouble here, I think he might not survive an election if it was called now.

Two years time though is enough for my neighbours to forget this again though, wouldn't put that past them tbh

How many will have significant savings? How many will have seen Kwarteng tank them?

Meanwhile in the "we're trying performance art unpopulism"

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... SApp_Other

Plans to give serving military personnel free train travel to attend remembrance services this year have been scrapped, after the government decided the cost would be “too great”.

The offer was made last year and in 2019, but has been revoked for this November – sparking an outcry and calls for a U-turn from former veterans minister Johnny Mercer.

[/quote
That will contrast nicely with the U-turn on the 45% tax rate

Meanwhile she’s now managing to make JRM look like the sensible voice of moderation.

Now that isn’t a sentence anybody should EVER have to type.

The particular hill she’s chosen to die on here ... the idea that suggesting people might want to consider dusting their fridges to save energy and money and possibly stave off rolling blackouts is basically Communism, isn’t it.