UK Politics & Brexit Discussion

[Waylander]

Still time for others to enter the fray I would guess though it would need to happen today. 

[Bluewolf]

23 minutes ago, Aladdin said:

Liz Truss will be the next PM, pin this tweet

No thanks... 

[Waylander]

If the Tories win the next election I see Labour turning to Blair and the renaissance of the Blairites.

[Stan]

2 hours ago, Bluewolf said:

There are now 11 candidates that could be running for the leadership of the Tory party... Personally I wouldn't trust a single one.. They are like Medusa's Snakes, cutting the head off means nothing if all the other snakes can still paralyze you.. Patel can fuck off as well, she is downright dangerous.. They have already proven they are all unworthy and can't be trusted after the Johnson debacle.. 

 

This is the main thing for me - none of them are trustworthy. I bet they have so much dirt on each other and there'll be lots of smears against all of them. To be honest it's already started with Cummings' smears on Sunak.

But they all just scream being snakey and dodgy as fuck. None of them inspire in any aspect. 

[Waylander]

Sunak has the most Mps backing by some margin.

Mordaunt is second.

Mordaunt is the most popular among Tory members.

Gove is not running but has backed Femi Badenhoch and she is behind Mordaunt on nomination though not too far behind. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

If I'm honest, I thought the last leadership contest for the tories felt like the party scraping the bottom of the barrel... so I really don't have any sort of optimism that the next PM will be any better. Sunak's the favourite... and it feels a bit weird because he's got the recent track record of fumbling with the economy and his wife's tax dodging.

Imagine if Cameron wasn't a coward and didn't resign after the Brexit referendum result. But of course, it was easier for him to give up all pretense of being a leader and go chase after cash. Honestly, I'd have done the same thing... but I'm also not trying to be Prime Minister.

[Stan]

A positive out of all of this is that Patel has chosen not to put her name forward for PM. Thank fuck. 

[Bluewolf]

Eight contenders will be on the ballot paper when Tory MPs begin voting on Wednesday to elect a successor to Boris Johnson, the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, has announced.

Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat, Kemi Badenoch, Penny Mordaunt, Jeremy Hunt, Nadhim Zahawi and Suella Braverman all secured the 20 nominations from fellow MPs needed to enter the contest.

[Devil-Dick Willie]

Rishi sunak who can't even use an eftpos machine will be next PM

But that's okay, the party who ran on "getting brexit done" and nothing else will have a slew of excellent forward thinking ideas for the next election right? 

[RandoEFC+]

They're all absolutely awful, as expected. Based purely off the fact that Sunak is trying to tell the truth about not being able to reduce taxes at the moment because the money is needed for the spending we currently need (we actually need more) while every other realistic candidate is trying to woo the Brexity free market ideologue Tory right by promising sweeping tax cuts funded by a REDUCTION(!?) in public spending (NHS, policing, education, etc) without really being honest about the impact of that, he currently looks like the least of many evils.

I've not been following too intently but from what I have seen, the leadership discourse is about as detached from real people's lives as you'd expect. I could go into the individual frontrunners and talk about how the billionaires and millionaires among them can't begin to understand the cost of living crisis, or how many "staunch Brexiteers" campaigned for Remain and then jumped onto the other ship the second they realised it would benefit their career, or how many of them are happy to talk about their ethnicity and how they grew up as immigrants in the UK in their campaign videos mere months after voting for the horrible Rwanda project, but I just can't be arsed. They'll fight like rats in a sack for a few weeks, decide who's going to be the new King Tory and then I hope they get absolutely laid out at the next election.

[LFCMike]

Which of these, if any, will be most appealing to those who voted Tory in red wall seats in 2019?

[RandoEFC+]

51 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

Which of these, if any, will be most appealing to those who voted Tory in red wall seats in 2019?

[RandoEFC+]

All the clever people suggesting Sunak will win with MPs and go up against Mordaunt or Truss in the final two, losing to whichever one it is when it goes to the full party membership, comfortably if it's Mordaunt. Don't know how much swing is likely before the final vote.

[Bluewolf]

First round of voting is over and the following remain... 

Six of the candidates have made it through to the next stage after securing 30 votes or more, with Rishi Sunak leading the way on 88:

• Kemi Badenoch
• Suella Braverman
• Penny Mordaunt
• Rishi Sunak
• Liz Truss
• Tom Tugendhat

[Reluctant Striker]

5 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

All the clever people suggesting Sunak will win with MPs and go up against Mordaunt or Truss in the final two, losing to whichever one it is when it goes to the full party membership, comfortably if it's Mordaunt. Don't know how much swing is likely before the final vote.

Yes, the ITV Robert Peston show had a chart suggesting that sort of possibility, on estimated popularity.

Only surprise to me is Mordaunt, but then I'm not really in tune with what Conservative members are seeing & thinking right now.. just with Peston & Starmer.

The odds do seem likely it's a race between Truss & Mordaunt, barring anything dramatic in however many rounds of reducing down to the final 2. Seems very unlikely both could be overtaken by anyone below. And could there be any underestimated popularity of Sunak with the deciding party members? Might they not like the idea of the 1st not white PM being a Tory?

[Waylander]

Mordant was in 2nd place up to last night, now being attacked over her trans views, her brother is an activist for LGBT. If she handles this she could win if she does not it will likley be a run-off between Truss and Sunak. 

[Stan]

Mordaunt isn't doing herself any favours in this PM debate. 

Liz Truss is robotic. Theresa May MK II. 

Badenoch just seems useless. 

Sunak and Tugendhat coming across well. 

[Waylander]

I agree Badenoch was the weakest last night.

Sunak is a great communicator almost too polished for me and argues well, especially against Liz Truss.

Truss was in danger of losing her cool with Sunak over the economy yet did also speak well.

Mordaunt was ok, answered the trans question well yet also had a defensive tone at times, see she is getting the most attacks in the press. 

I missed most of the Tugenhadt speaking due to cooking dinner though noticed him playing to the crowd while someone else was speaking and getting pulled up for it. 

There is a real split developing economically.

Sunak against tax cutting further think the N.I change under Boris will help the poorest though not better earners.

Truss is for changing the N.I and corporation taxes. For N.I she argues we don't need to raise this as we can take out a loan to be repaid at a much later date and at lower interest.  She thinks by reversing corporation tax back to 19% we will get more corporate investment.

Sunak says debt is debt, though we have mortgage debt and short term persona loan debt so am unsure on this, ultimately it is decided by the lenders. There is a precedent repayment of long term debt from the World Wars though could we get those type of loans today?

I thought raising corp tax to 25% may have been due to Brexit and foreign corp HQs wanting to move away so only the Brit ones stayed. If so it does not pay to reduce corporation tax.

Mordant had a different idea and this was to refund half of VAT costs on fuel arguing that unless we did something soon to combat inflation the party would lose the next election. I like this idea as it would get inflation down somewhat. She would not reverse Boris N.I and Corp tax. 

I think Mordant reads this correctly, about struggling families needing a hand and she though the VAT would say £10 on a weekly average car at the pump. Then add in the N.I changes for the lower income types.

Too early to judge who is the winner yet Truss and Sunak both being Oxbridge graduates  certainly have an ideological split economically they will go toe to toe on. 

Truss also likes nuclear energy ........  not me, heard on the grape-vine something happened in France. No details on mainstream sources  yet allegedly a reactor had to be turned off. Reminds me of the Dutch farmer protests, no coverage in the UK.

 

 

 

 

[Bluewolf]

After going at each other in a sad attempt to grab some power for themselves they release this statement..  

The Conservative Party will come together again in the "spirit of harmony and love" after the leadership race, a Cabinet minister has said. 

Do me a fucking favour... 

[RandoEFC+]

They just had the latest round of voting and Tugendhat was eliminated.

Sunak now looks the most credible and stable leadership figure, despite having also been fined for one of the Downing St parties, having served as BJ's right-hand man for three years, the non-dom stuff, the green card stuff, and that's before you even get close to his awful austere politics. He's polished (I'd say plastic) as a communicator and you'd expect him to do reasonably well on television during an election campaign. These are the things the Tory Party will be voting for seeing as they've long abandoned any plan or ideology in favour of clinging to power for another election so they can spend another 4 years going through the foreplay and execution of a back-stabby leadership psychodrama before presenting themselves as a "new look Conservative party" again at the subsequent election. Fucking dickheads.

Anyway, Tugendhat was easily the most honest candidate grounded in some reality of those remaining so it's no surprise he's now got the chop.

Truss is just fucking terrible. I saw she dressed up in the same outfit Thatcher once wore in a television debate the other day. On purpose. What an absolute melt.

Badenoch said a couple of things I almost even agreed with at some point but I've already forgotten what they are because she ultimately boils down to one of those culture war morons who cares more about which toilets trans people should be allowed to use and whether it's "woke" to change street names than tackling the climate crisis or trying to reduce the number of people who need to use food banks to feed their families.

Mordaunt seemed like she might be half decent (again, from an embarrassment perspective, not politically, because in that respect they are all just so awful) at first but she seems to be almost as much of a liar as Boris Johnson and the 5 minutes I caught of the ITV debate last night she made this pathetic "he got Brexit done" shout in the background off camera to stick up with him presumably in an attempt to appeal to his remaining base.

Christ alive.

My conclusion is still that Sunak is the one I'd be least embarrassed by as the leader of the country between now and the next election where they hopefully get bombed out entirely, and this is the only metric I can use to express a preference because from a policy and political perspective, they'd all wreak absolute havoc on the lives of normal people across the country, picking up exactly where BoZo is leaving off.

[Stan]

 

[RandoEFC+]

 

Enough of that you bastard. I'm voting Tory now.

[Reluctant Striker]

The worst bit of how Liz Truss seems likely to move ahead of Mordaunt, and beat Sunak in the members vote.. is that she sees it as a sales pitch of her credentials that she came up with that Ireland bill, which the Irish Nationalists hate, by association the Americans have no time for & the EU intend to take the UK government to Euro Court over.

Our list of allies will grow thin..

I was hoping whoever gets in would bring more reasoned outcome to that. But seems Truss just might actually ramp it up even further.

[MUFC]

 

[RandoEFC+]

26 minutes ago, Reluctant Striker said:

The worst bit of how Liz Truss seems likely to move ahead of Mordaunt, and beat Sunak in the members vote.. is that she sees it as a sales pitch of her credentials that she came up with that Ireland bill, which the Irish Nationalists hate, by association the Americans have no time for & the EU intend to take the UK government to Euro Court over.

Our list of allies will grow thin..

I was hoping whoever gets in would bring more reasoned outcome to that. But seems Truss just might actually ramp it up even further.

Truss is easily the worst candidate in the final three, four, six, however far back you want to go. Both from a governance perspective and an electoral one. It's absolutely incredible that there's a serious chance of her winning.

If I was Keir Starmer, I'd be absolute delighted if Liz Truss became the Tory leader.

Of course, the damage done by ramping up the rhetoric on N.I. that you've mentioned is no small problem. The Tory party really is eating itself alive and just depend on constant distractions and a media that will assist them in kicking the can down the road but it's finally dawning on a sizeable proportion of the population just what a fucking mess they've made of just about everything. 12 years in government. Half spent chasing the failed dream of austerity balancing the books and the other half spent on Brexit which has brought no discernable benefit to anyone's lives even six years after the referendum which has proven to be six years that could have been spent on issues that are coming to the fore now.