Rishi Sunak To Be UK's Next Prime Minister (nytimes.com) 173
Rishi Sunak will become Britain's next prime minister, prevailing in a chaotic Conservative Party leadership race on Monday after his remaining rival for the position, Penny Mordaunt, withdrew. He will be Britain's third leader in seven weeks and the first prime minister of color in its history. From a report: The 42-year-old former chancellor of the Exchequer who is the son of Indian immigrants, Mr. Sunak won the contest to replace the ousted Liz Truss, who resigned under pressure last Thursday after her economic agenda caused turmoil. Boris Johnson, the prime minister before Ms. Truss, pulled out of the race on Sunday night, clearing a path for Mr. Sunak, who challenged Ms. Truss last summer but lost in a vote of the party's members. As the only surviving candidate this time, Mr. Sunak was not subjected to another vote of the membership. It was a head-spinning reversal of fortune for Mr. Sunak, whose resignation from Mr. Johnson's cabinet in July set in motion the events that brought down his boss over a series of scandals and pitched Britain into weeks of political upheaval.
Slashdot poll... (Score:5, Funny)
Can we have a poll on how long people think he will last?
Re:Slashdot poll... (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect longer than Truss, who had very little support in the Parliamentary party and was essentially foisted on MPs by the membership. Sunak not only won, but was the only to get over 100 MPs, and actually got the support of 192 of 357 MPs, so over half.
It all depends on whether he can bring some order to the chaos that Truss's premiership created, surely the most disastrous seven weeks in British parliamentary history. A lot of how intends to deal with inflation, the drop in the value of the pound, and with the vast black hole sitting at the core of the government's fiscal situation will depend on who he picks as Chancellor. Jeremy Hunt, whatever you think of him, has given everyone a pretty honest appraisal of where the government's finances sit, and the necessity for cuts and tax hikes.
Basically, between Brexit, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, Thatcherism is dead, and Sunak is going to be the first post-Thatcherite PM. So the real challenge will be doing that without having half his cabinet rebel and the 1922 Committee plotting his demise, but I suspect the absolute shit show of the last couple of years has probably scared most Tories straight, and now with a leader not at all beholden to the vagaries of the membership, and purely a creature of the Parliamentary party, maybe, just maybe they can start to turn the ship of state around. I doubt they can win the next GE, but maybe they kind Starmer and Labour something other than the total shit sandwich that Johnson and Truss made.
Re: Slashdot poll... (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, Sunak predicted the outcome of every single one of Trussâ(TM)s policies perfectly. His policies are much more sensible (even if rather right wing for my taste). Heâ(TM)s unlikely to spook the markets like Truss did.
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Plus, Sunak predicted the outcome of every single one of Trussâ(TM)s policies perfectly. His policies are much more sensible (even if rather right wing for my taste). Heâ(TM)s unlikely to spook the markets like Truss did.
He also failed to foresee that inflation was going to become an issue, while he was spraying printed money around the economy to subsidise folks going to the pub and buying houses. It's weird how he's apparently now an economic sage who we can trust to look after the economy.
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Right-wingers can never be trusted to look after the economy, so you can look forward to this going only slightly less bad than Truss' plan.
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You get that totally the wrong way round. He specifically and repeatedly stated that this would happen and that we would need to pay for the furlough money printing later.
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The level of misinformation about him is really interesting. I also saw people saying that he was to blame for the lockdowns when in fact he was very much pushing for opening up [theguardian.com] far too early.
I guess the UK right is so bathed in misinformation that almost any belief is possible?
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The ERG and other Eurosceptics are terrified that their own reckoning is coming not that Boris has been utterly rejected
Definitely some important truth in that though I think there's some variation and we should remember that Truss was a remainer whilst Sunak was a proper Brexiter. The fact that the ERG could not agree a candidate to support was very telling. I think they are now dividing between the honest nutcases (Davis certainly, Frost and Baker perhaps?) and the criminals who were setting out to destroy the UK for profit (Rees-Mogg).
What's really astounding is that I think the Truss project was much crazier than even th
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We can see. The conservatives tended to be a mixed bag of nuts and centrists. But brexit really put the nutty side up front where it felt like they paid more attention to pure ideology than pragmatism. Everyone knew without a doubt that Northern Ireland border was going to be a sticky wicket post-brexit but the leaders seemed to ignore it and barrel ahead. Truss's plan to cut taxes at just the wrong time to do so was based on ideology alone, with pragmatism left behind. The plan to rush ahead with brex
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The dream of Brexit was to keep all the good parts of being in the EU, while getting rid of the parts the UK didn't like. That was never going to happen.
The solutions to the Ireland border issue are:
1) Maintain EU trade policies at the border
2) Both parts of Ireland join the UK
3) Both parts of Ireland join the EU
4) Admit Brexit is a bad idea and rejoin the EU
Theresa May basically tried #1 and got shot down. I don't see any hint that #2 might happen. From over here in the US, I have no idea if #3 or #4 is mo
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2 will never happen, Ireland has a much better deal within the EU than by going back to being a vassal state after gaining independence. 3 is likely to not happen this century but is probably best in the long run, these sorts of problems are best solved early before several generations have passed. 4 is highly unlikely, too many bridges were burned, even if UK wanted to go back the EU will be dubious about the practicality and the sincerity.
1 really is the most practical. It will probably require giving i
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Does his history with Goldman-Sachs (aka the vampire squid) concern you?
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The current Conservative Party is almost entirely devoid of talent. Johnson purged anyone good back in 2019, in order to get his disastrous brexit Withdrawal Agreement through.
That means Sunak has a limited selection to draw cabinet members from. I expect we will see lots of "advisor" roles where he appoints people to basically tell the idiots he is forced to assign cabinet positions what to do.
He has already said that the UK is in for a lot of pain. While honesty is appreciated, he will probably try to pil
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The current Conservative Party is almost entirely devoid of talent. Johnson purged anyone good back in 2019, in order to get his disastrous brexit Withdrawal Agreement through.
That means Sunak has a limited selection to draw cabinet members from. I expect we will see lots of "advisor" roles where he appoints people to basically tell the idiots he is forced to assign cabinet positions what to do.
You are probably right, it took a bunch of utter fools to go for Brexit.
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He could tap some talent in the Lords, where there may be a few sensible human beings.
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The difference in the UK is that we don't elect the leader/Prime Minister, we elect the party. The party won its 4 years in power in 2019.
Now, there are genuine questions on the party's mandate, as it was elected on the manifesto of two leaders ago, however for as long as they're able to cobble together a leader & cabinet, there's no mechanism to force the party to call a general election early.
And of course, they will do whatever's possible to avoid a general election because it's an almost forgone con
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Coalitions are more common in other, representative, democracies. Those break apart far more easily, and when they do, it causes the Government to lose its majority. If the Government is then unable to negotiate another majority coalition, it forces a General Election.
The UK uses First-Past-the-Post (like the US), which is designed to try to ensure the winning party gets an outright majority and avoid parliamentary gridlock.
For a general election to be forced in the UK, it'd require members of the ruling pa
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This is the UK and once a party has a majority hell would need to freeze over before they call a in their view unnecessary election.
Now they have a big majority, an election would route the conservatives.
Long live the party, damn the country!
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I prefer the Westminster system to the semi-tyranny of the Presidential and Semi-Presidential systems.
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You need a majority of MPs to back a general election. Conservatives have a majority of around 71 I think. Conservatives probably rightly feel that they would lose a general election if held now, because the Labour leader is now a lot saner than during the last general elections. So you'd need 72 conservatives willing to vote for a general election, knowing that their party would be the biggest loser. It's just not going to happen unles Sunak does something incredibly stupid. So wait until 2025...
Same
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Unfunded tax cuts and energy payments that require massive borrowing are good ideas? There's a reason the markets basically smashed the pound into the ground, and it was because they were absolutely fucking awful ideas.
Re:Slashdot poll... (Score:5, Interesting)
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A lot is going to depend upon the various factions in the Conservative Party calling a truce. The Tories have been at war with themselves since the Brexit referendum, and that ever mounting in-fighting, not merely between MPs, but between Parliamentary and membership factions, has heavily damaged the party. If they not only want to work at fixing the country's finances, but at actually preventing the Tories from not just electoral defeat, but potential oblivion, the time has come to rally, end the interneci
Re: Slashdot poll... (Score:3)
The Tories have been at war either themselves since the Maastricht Treaty. That took some fancy footwork to get that through Parliament, and then they just tore themselves apart under John Major as a result. They continued at the next opportunity under David Cameron, only this time theyâ(TM)ve torn the country apart in the process. Itâ(TM)s time for electoral reform (something PR based), and then the two large parties can naturally spilt apart and their extreme wings can go to the electorate di
Re:Slashdot poll... (Score:4)
How long until they're forced to hold another general election, because this is clearly no longer working between the population and the incompetents clinging to power (as is happening in many other countries too).
Re:Slashdot poll... (Score:5, Informative)
Unless some significant group of Tory MPs rebel and vote with the opposition to defeat the government, they have two years. Those can be two tough years with little hope of winning the next GE, but at least maintaining the foundation, or it can be two years of backbiting, infighting and Caesaresque political assassinations. If the latter, then I think the long-term survival of the Tories is in question.
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Let's see if they can manage to not tank the Pound any more than they already have... or do something silly like declare war on a country to draw attention away from their mismanagement.
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What's wrong with a weak currency?
It makes exports cheaper which means they're internationally more competitive, this employment, taxes, etc.
It also brings in tourists.
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The UK hasn't been able to grow enough food to sustain its domestic population since the 18th century. It has had to import food from centuries, which was one of the reasons for the plantation system found in its Caribbean and North American colonies.
Re:Slashdot poll... (Score:4, Informative)
What's wrong with a weak currency?
Oil (and much else) is priced in dollars. There's a point where cheap exports don't compensate enough.
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What's wrong with a weak currency?
A weak currency accelerates inflation.
A weak currency boosts exports and employment, but that isn't so good right now because the UK has a labor shortage and an overheated economy.
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And also because the UK cut itself off from its biggest market, the EU, and the full effects of that haven't even come in yet as the government keeps delaying the introduction of import checks.
Re:Slashdot poll... (Score:5, Interesting)
Except the UK is a net importer on a pretty massive scale, has created trade barriers with one of its most significant trade partners, and thus the run on the pound is having little net benefit, and simply exacerbating inflation.
The UK attempted to commit economic suicide with Brexit, and its still bleeding out. Now that Johnson and the Eurosceptics have been thoroughly (though quietly) discredited, it's going to be up to Sunak, and probably Starmer in his turn, to figure out how to reconstruct the economy of a weaker, less relevant nation. The UK has done it before after its empire started being dismembered, but there were reasons that Truss's Mini-budget was seen as a 21st century version of the Suez Crisis; a fading power still weighed down by illusions and delusions that reality slap down without mercy. I think the UK needed the buffoonery of Johnson and the sheer idiocy of Truss to finally excise the poison of Brexiteer delusions of grandeur. The UK is a small, fragile economy that has alienated itself from its single most important trade partner under the bizarre belief that it could gain more independence, only to find out that it had sold itself to another, much harsher and utterly devoid of care or concern; the bond markets. They have shown the UK just how insignificant it has become.
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One problem: Sunak always was a Brexiter. The one reason he looks good is because even a modicum of technical competence is rare in the tory party and the lack of talent is so massively crushing. He is by far the best choice in the Tories right now but that says as much about them as it does about him.
And Starmer
er two problems
And Starmer is so desparate to not lose more "red wall" votes that he keeps pandering to the reality denial of middle England. Brexit's done dontyaknow, so we'll "make it work" which
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Except the UK is a net importer on a pretty massive scale, has created trade barriers with one of its most significant trade partners, and thus the run on the pound is having little net benefit, and simply exacerbating inflation.
The UK attempted to commit economic suicide with Brexit, and its still bleeding out. Now that Johnson and the Eurosceptics have been thoroughly (though quietly) discredited, it's going to be up to Sunak, and probably Starmer in his turn, to figure out how to reconstruct the economy of a weaker, less relevant nation. The UK has done it before after its empire started being dismembered, but there were reasons that Truss's Mini-budget was seen as a 21st century version of the Suez Crisis; a fading power still weighed down by illusions and delusions that reality slap down without mercy. I think the UK needed the buffoonery of Johnson and the sheer idiocy of Truss to finally excise the poison of Brexiteer delusions of grandeur. The UK is a small, fragile economy that has alienated itself from its single most important trade partner under the bizarre belief that it could gain more independence, only to find out that it had sold itself to another, much harsher and utterly devoid of care or concern; the bond markets. They have shown the UK just how insignificant it has become.
The problem is a small but very vocal number of Brexiteers will not allow Brexit to be fixed (erm... it can only be fixed by stopping it).
They'll happily see the entire country burned to ashes as a victory if it gives the middle finger to the EU, in fact the Brexiteers are holding the flame thrower.
The Brexiteer rational is that without us, the EU would fall apart. That clearly hasn't happened so they're now saying "it has to be at least 10 years" as if it'll magically fall over despite all evidence t
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Also tons of inflation, more than in the US. That makes everything hurt.
UK is essentially an island nation, and is not self sufficient currently, too much is tied up in trade. It's a global economy now and they're stuck having to import as much as they export. So they're going to export cheaply and import dearly. You can't just rejigger the existing trade directions quickly. "Ok, we have more asparagus now than we need nationally, so please start growing something else!"
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What's wrong with a weak currency?
It makes exports cheaper which means they're internationally more competitive, this employment, taxes, etc.
It also brings in tourists.
Precisely one point of your post is important: tourism. Everything else comes with huge frigging asterisk attached. Yeah you can undercut others on a cost basis in trade, but if you do that you inflate your currency because its typically depressed because you're not internationally competitive in the first place.
Also this is important if you are a wholly self sufficient export based economy. The UK is not that. The UK is a net importer of food (to the tune of double the size of its entire domestic industry)
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Can we have a poll on how long people think he will last?
Before that we need a poll asking what the desired frequency of polls is.
IMHO 4 weeks is definitely too long. 1 day would be too short. I vote for 1 week. Surely there is enough stupid stuff to vote on every week?
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He's not utterly insane and/or clueless like the previous two, so I'm fairly confident he'll manage to last until the next election.
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The Worm's Armageddon Political Simulation Machine predicts, not very long, and it predicted that Boris would take himself out of the election and Rishi Sunak would win: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
I want to say this video is more silly than the situation, but my belief in any political system just isn't there any more.
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I did like the video when it showed up this weekend. I was sad that the lettuce was kicked into the sea so early. But apparently those worms do a good job of predicting politics.
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Longer than Truss... not sure how long though.
Re: Slashdot poll... (Score:2)
The Best Part (Score:4, Informative)
The very best part is that Boris Johnson couldn't even get close to the required 100 MPs needed to be added to the ballot. Even relatively unknown Penny Mordaunt nearly made it. It goes to show you just how misaligned a political party's membership can be not only from the electorate, but even from the elected members. It took an ad hoc rule change, but hopefully this is the end of whatever spell Johnson has on the party, although he did try to cut some sort of power-sharing agreement with Sunak. Sunak is promising a "foreign role" for Johnson which some people think will be Foreign Secretary, but Johnson's last stint there was less than memorable, so I suspect it will be some far less important role, perhaps ambassador to some place that the UK doesn't care its ambassador insults.
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They both got over 100 nominations. Boris was "over 100". Mordant, "105"
That was only a claim all linking back to a single source who was a Boris fan. Verified numbers stand at under 60. And the truth will never be known because he pulled out (which would be a strange move if he had enough to be on the ballot).
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I don't know if its a strange move, the leadership seems to me to be a poison chalice, they are going to lose the next election, probably not going to get anything done until the next election, the leader will get a lot of blame for the loss, even if its not their fault. Unless you want to end your political career in 2 years for the sake of being called prime minister it seems like a dumb move to take the role. Then again I think Boris's career is probably over anyway so has the least to loose, but apparen
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Send him to the Maldives?
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Governor of British Antarctic Territory. A dubious land claim to be governed by a dubious man.
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The very best part is that Boris Johnson couldn't even get close to the required 100 MPs needed to be added to the ballot.
The real WTF is that a PM who resigned in disgrace would be eligible for re-election within the election cycle at all. The fact that he didn't get elected is a vote for common sense, but the reality that 58 MPs backed Johnson's re-election just shows how fucked up the world really is.
That and Truss get's a PM's pension now despite having been in the job a total of only 44 days and being an utter failure every single one of those days.
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Or a cut of his insider-dealing proceeds...
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Borish Johnson got 102 MPs. 1922 committee confirmed it.
He's still a dodgy cunt.
Citation needed. Everything I found shows he only had 58 MPs on his side, and the I can find nothing about the 1922 committee confirming anything (and why would they, he pulled out of the race before they needed to do anything).
News for nerds... (Score:4, Funny)
Before you start complaining, bear in mind that Rishi Sunak is a longtime smartphone user, and has proficiency using Outlook and chrome in his laptop. Possibly also PowerPoint and Word.
News for nerds.
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News for nerds.
It really is considering the numpties we elect as world leaders. Although the last prolific smartphone using world leader will forever leave scholars questioning the true meaning of #covfefe.
Some rewriting of history coming up (Score:5, Interesting)
There are several newspapers wholly on the side of the Conservatives:
- the Telegraph - They were entirely behind Boris, and then Truss. Boris to the extent of employing him as a journalist quite recently, Truss when Boris resigned. They put up an article on their website praising Boris as the coming leader at almost the exact time he withdrew from the race.
- the Mail - Boris and then Truss. Even now they are saying Boris will be back.
- the Express - Boris and then Truss.
- the Sun - Boris, not sure about Truss.
All four of them were - and in most cases are - rabidly pro-Brexit.
Now the first three named have to deal with the candidate they opposed 7 weeks ago, that could be interesting.
I can see 2 1/2 reasons they (those newspapers and the party members) detest Sunak:
- his resignation started the chain of events which led to Boris' resignation, as it was designed to.
- he is of a darker hue
- he is seriously rich, I think we are talking hundreds of millions (that's the 1/2, I'm not sure how important that is).
As for his fellow Members of Parliament, most of them backed him in the previous election of a leader because he's the sane and rational one. Unfortunately the party members had the last word and a majority of the 80 000 of them voted for a candidate who had never given any indication of being capable of running the country.
Re:Some rewriting of history coming up (Score:4, Funny)
I can see 2 1/2 reasons they (those newspapers and the party members) detest Sunak:
- his resignation started the chain of events which led to Boris' resignation, as it was designed to.
- he is of a darker hue
I do wonder how that's going to play. I think the UK as a whole will be fine with it but one of the big drivers of Brexit was EU open border policies and anxieties about a bunch of darker skinned (though Syrian instead of Indian) immigrants.
Come to think of it, there's a certain entertainment value in the chaos of Brexit giving the racist segment of Brexiters their greatest fear in a non-white PM!
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That's funny. I thought the immigration concerns centered around Russian immigrants as well.
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I thought the immigration concerns centered around Russian immigrants as well.
It started with the Poles, then the Romanians and other eastern Europeans, talking funny in the supermarket and opening their own shops selling food in foreign language wrappers and... Lots of xenophobes here in the UK, on the left and on the right too who ignore the fact that the history of this nation is made up of immigrants, from the Beaker People through to the Romans, Angles and Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Dutch etc.
Sunak i
Another 'being anti-immigration is racist' liar (Score:3)
England is a small country - rather smaller than a lot of the states of the USA - but has a large population largely crowded into the southern half. The result is severe pressure on housing, government infrastructure and transport links. All new immigrants place additional stress on these; they bid up the price of housing, use hospitals and schools, which need to be added to because they're there, and crowd overcrowded buses and trains.
OK - gross oversimplification but adding some 250,000 extra people every
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Oddly though, the areas most against immigration tend to be the ones with the fewest immigrants. London, with the highest population density and the highest proportion of immigrants, was heavily against brexit and ending freedom of movement.
As for the burden on local services, immigrants tend to ease it. Especially in the NHS.
In other words it's not really the effects of immigration that people objected to, it was rhetoric/lies of people like Nigel Farage. In areas where reality dispelled the myths, and peo
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Media in the UK carried out a few reports of the Cletus Safari sort after the Brexit vote, asking folks who had voted Leave why they had done so. Generally they wanted the Polish plumbers, Bulgarian NHS cleaners, Romanian care home kitchen workers and the like to go back where they came from. Economics, sovereignty, sunlit uplands, they didn't care about those, they just wanted the smelly foreigners they encountered on British streets to go away.
Occasionally they'd have an epiphany, like the Welsh guy who o
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The fishermen were the worst for that. It was going to be taking back control, Britannia ruling the waves again. Now they are struggling more than ever to survive.
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OK - gross oversimplification but adding some 250,000 extra people every years is EXPENSIVE
Rather coincidentally, every year for the next 10 years, the UK will add 200,000 more retirement age oldies to its population. That is an old person who needs their state and private pensions funded, and who will have rapidly increasing health and social care needs. Now THAT is expensive.
Unfortunately for the UK gen X didn't have enough babies 20 years ago, so without immigration the working age population would also be in decline. So you'd have a shrinking working age population at the same time the ranks
Nah - look at Japan (Score:2)
They're well ahead of the UK in terms of seeing working population decline, and only now are they resorting to significant immigration. To the extent that the migrants to Britain are, in practice, merely providing the resources to support their own presence - the additional costs that they do add - their net contribution is not significant. That's my argument - and I would argue that's what the statistics show.
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Come to think of it, there's a certain entertainment value in the chaos of Brexit giving the racist segment of Brexiters their greatest fear in a non-white PM!
Try using some critical thinking before posting b.s. political propaganda. You get that people who push that narrative are the problem, right?
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Class is of far more influence than racism.
Most of the 'foreigners' that Brexiters were agitating about were white people, but from poor(er) countries like Poland.
Sunak's rich, which makes his class somewhat less of a problem, but him being Indian has never been an issue in UK politics.
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Re:Some rewriting of history coming up (Score:5, Interesting)
If you just look at recent Conservative cabinets, you can see for yourself that color of skin is of no significance to the party. They are a mix of white, black, brown, male and female, and there are Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, Christians and people of no religion. Remember that all these people were selected and appointed as MPs by their local constituency, the party members. The idea that the Conservative Party as a whole or the membership in particular is in some way full of racists is complete nonsense.
The thing that matters to the Conservative Party is competence and electability. They do not care one way or the other about ethnicity or sex.
Now, you may object that Johnson was incompetent. Maybe in recent times, but in his initial period he did what he was supposed to do for the party, he got them elected with a huge majority. When he had done that, and completed Brexit, he had passed his sell by date and they ejected him.
They are a very goal oriented lot, the Conservative Party. Unlike Labour, they have a tried method of ejecting a non performing PM, and they are very prepared to use it as it seems necessary. You can see also how this works by observing the way that they changed the rules for conducting the last leadership election. The method in use when Truss was selected had evidently had serious defects, so they changed it with a minimum of fuss and got it over with in a very short space of time.
The way to look at Sunak's appointment is that he is the CEO of an enterprise that is in turnaround mode. And he is in post with the support, but also under the scrutiny, of a powerful Board. He has, like all such appointments, a honeymoon period. But if he puts a foot wrong, they will be on him in a flash. A Board of a company has only one decision to make, and they make it monthly or quarterly, and that is whether to dismiss the CEO. Same with the Conservative Party.
Unlike the Labour Party, which has no procedure for dismissing their leader. The last leader, Corbyn, lost a vote of confidence by his own MPs by about 70% to 30%, smiled, and carried on as if nothing had happened, which it had not. The Conservatives are a different lot, and this is why they have been in office for over 60% of the the time since WWII.
UK people who should know better and US observers who aren't familiar with the UK Constitution sometimes say that in these circumstances the appointed PM has no mandate, and there for some reason ought to be an election. This is not how it works, its not a Presidential system. The British never elect their Prime Minister. They only elect their local MP. What happens is that the head of state, the Monarch, invites some MP who can command a majority in the House of Commons to form a government. They have to be able to command a majority and have the confidence of the House since otherwise they will be unable to get legislation passed and govern. This can be mid term, or it can be after an election. The procedure is the same in either case.
The system goes back to about 1688, and its worked more or less the same way ever since then. What happened in 1688? The Glorious Revolution happened, which put an end to all vestiges of Royal absolutism and transferred the prerogative powers of the monarchy to the government of the day, which is to say, Parliament.
The person invited to form a government, which means become Prime Minister, is almost always the leader of the largest party in the Commons. So if you look back over the 20c you'll see lots and lots of cases, from both parties, where there has been a change of PM with no general election. Labour and Conservative both.
Vernon Bogdanor, an authoritative source on these matters, points out a lot of them. Harold Macmillan in 1957, Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1963, James Callaghan in 1976, John Major in 1990, Gordon Brown in 2007, Theresa May in 2017, Boris Johnson when he replaced May.
He points out there were two changes of prime minister within a single parliamentary term in 1
Re:Some rewriting of history coming up (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a lot in that comment, some I agree with and some I see differently. There is one point though where you - possibly accidentally - totally missed my point.
I did not say that the Conservative MPs are racist - although for all I know a few may be - the MPs voted for Sunak over Truss a couple of months ago and that sends a clear message. I was listing the 2 1/2 reasons the party members went for Truss in spite of all the available evidence.
How out of touch can you get? NY Times (Score:5, Interesting)
How out of touch can you get? The NY Times gives an answer.
"Rishi Sunak Will Be First Person of Color to Lead Nation"
These people are so obsessed with the color of individuals' skins that its all they can see. What color you are is the most important thing to them.
And its not even are you brown black or white. Its whether you are white or non-white! Whether you are "of color".
There are many interesting and important things about Sunak. The important things for the country are his business background and his policy approaches. These are what will determine what happens in the UK in the next two years, and they will be what determines the fate of the Conservative Party, which is undeniably in crisis. Just look at the polls, which have plumbed depths probably never before seen. An election today would see the Conservative Party vanishing as an electoral force. What people need to know is how his professional background has informed his future policy choices, and what they will be. Because this is going to determine whether the Conservatives survive as a political force.
The interesting things are his cultural background - he is a practising Hindu, publicly celebrated Diwali a couple of years back, in Downing Street. His education in a privileged English secondary school, Oxford and then Stanford is also interesting. He is very bright, a quick learner, and shows signs of having true grit. His links to the family he has married into are also interesting. He is a classic 'anywhere person' in Matthew Goodhart's phrase.
The question is whether this kind of international background is going to go down well in the constituencies in the North of England which turned to Boris Johnson from Labour at the last election. Can he make them feel he is someone they can relate to? Johnson could. It may have been largely an illusion, but he could, and its an open question how far Sunak can step into those particular shoes. This will have a huge role in the next election in 2024 or 2025.
Just about the least important thing about him, however, either to the Conservative Party or the British, is the color of his skin! Its like the NY Times is reinventing, under different names, and with a different woke rationale, attitudes last seen in Alabama in 1850. This thing they call race, whatever the hell that is, the vague feeling that the world divides into the whites and others and so we should notice and pay attention most to which of those two groups someone is in, whenever they assume any position, write something, have some achievement which places them in the public eye! As far as the NY Times is concerned, you are, if not white, a 'person of color'.
You could be a Zulu, a Tamil, an American Black, Chinese, Polynesian. Whatever, you are a 'person of color'. Then you could be German, French, Italian, Spanish, Bulgarian, Greek. Whatever, you are 'white'. And these are all supposed to be something called races? Or some of them are, the idea seems to be that all the whites are the white race, and all the others are distinct races, people of color.
Does this remind you of anything? It ought to. Its not just Alabama in 1850, its regimes a lot more recent than that. And the NYT thinks this idiotic way of categorizing and stereotyping people is somehow justified, because its attitude to the 'people of color' is not to denigrate them. That would be racist. Nothing racist, it thinks, in regarding all non-whites as having only one quality of interest, their skin color!
Idiots. They are so obsessed with this nonsense that they simply cannot understand there are countries and political parties which do not share their obsession, where people actually get evaluated and chosen by political parties because of their individual qualities. They can't understand they are indulging racism in a slightly modified way, by accepting its basic tenets and then applying them a little differently.
Seriously people (Score:2)
We have to stop letting George Lucas name our politicians.
Re:UK techies, be afraid (Score:4, Insightful)
The Indians' plans to take over their colonizers and exact their revenge is coming along nicely it seems.
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At what point was India the greatest anything on earth?
Until the British conquered it, India was a zillion little fiefdoms fighting with each other.
Alexander might have unified India if he hadn't died young. Maybe.
This isn't a secret conspiratorial version of history. Please pick up a book or something.
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I wish instead of marking the above post as a troll, that the person would have actually responded to the post. I am also unaware of any significant ancient Indian civilizations which could compare to the likes of Persia, Rome, Egypt, China, or yes even the British Empire. There were some empires like the Maurya Empire which did unify most of India for a time, but they were very short lived. The Pratihara Empire is the only long lasting dynasty I am aware of, but it was small in scope and I don't think it w
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Rather, it's the Indian's plans to restore their civilization back to being one of the greatest on Earth.
Are the scam call centers part of that plan? /s
Wasn't really a united civilization in the past anyways. You could claim they're building the next great civilization, but we might need some proof that they're doing something different that puts them above other civilizations...
Re: UK techies, be afraid (Score:2)
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There are four main Ministerial appointments, I think they are: Home, Treasury, Foreign, and one other - maybe Defence.
Truss made a point of only appointing her friends as ministers, but all of her big four were non-white. Of course she then proceeded to sack two of them but it was thought which counts.
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It's worth pointing out that her non-white Home Secretary said she dreamed of putting asylum seekers on a plane to Rwanda.
Not failed asylum seekers whose claims has been rejected, just people who arrived here looking for sanctuary. Many of the the victims of horrific abuse and suffering.
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Fool, it was one of the comments I read in a newspaper when the appointments were made. They named them and I recognised the names, which counts as a check.
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The entitled will howl when they get given fewer goodies for free.
Yes, those spoiled rich fucks [theguardian.com] always whine when they can't run off with all of your money.
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It's admirable when rich people do it.
Re:Cut spending, not taxes (Score:4, Insightful)
The entitled will howl when they get given fewer goodies for free.
Yes, those spoiled rich fucks [theguardian.com] always whine when they can't run off with all of your money.
LOL, what? No, they don't cry, at least not sincerely. They either just take their money overseas, hire lawyers to find enough loopholes in those huge volumes of legislation the leftards love so much to drive a truck through, or bribe whomever necessary to avoid the whole thing. And whenever leftist morons promise to "tax the rich" it's always the middle class that "somehow" ends up getting hit. You think Wall Street votes Democrat because of kindness of their hearts? LOL.
Re:Cut spending, not taxes (Score:5, Insightful)
You think Wall Street votes Democrat because of kindness of their hearts?
They don't vote consistently for either party. They don't love Biden so much as hate Trump's chaos.
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They won't flee overseas if the government leaves taxes alone and just cuts spending.
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I believe that was tried just a few weeks ago and that's why Liz Truss is no longer PM. Did I miss something?
Truss lowered taxes and increased spending, which was to be funded by borrowing. She U-turned on these when the pound collapsed as a result.
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LOL, what? No, they don't cry, at least not sincerely. They either just take their money overseas, hire lawyers to find enough loopholes in those huge volumes of legislation the leftards love so much to drive a truck through, or bribe whomever necessary to avoid the whole thing. And whenever leftist morons promise to "tax the rich" it's always the middle class that "somehow" ends up getting hit. You think Wall Street votes Democrat because of kindness of their hearts? LOL.
So what is your solution then?
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LOL, what? No, they don't cry, at least not sincerely. They either just take their money overseas, hire lawyers to find enough loopholes in those huge volumes of legislation the leftards love so much to drive a truck through, or bribe whomever necessary to avoid the whole thing. And whenever leftist morons promise to "tax the rich" it's always the middle class that "somehow" ends up getting hit. You think Wall Street votes Democrat because of kindness of their hearts? LOL.
So what is your solution then?
Simple low linear tax, like "tax is 10%, PERIOD. No deductions, no subtractions, no writeoffs for charity funds, no green energy bonuses, no sad puppy foundation writeoffs, no different tax rates for food makers or healthcare or whatever, no tax relief for hugging trees, no tax relief for providing employment to coal miners, no nothing". But that reeks too much of small government, so can't have that, eh? Think of all the taxmen we'd have to fire! And yet, I guarantee to you that the 10% PERIOD is more than
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You're half right, it less small government, and more under the Constitution there's very few levers of power provided to the govt. So taxes and spending is the way to compel behavior and wield power. And it's a hell of a drug, so we get the current system of rebates and incentives, and a whole manner of bullshit to lead people around the maze like mice with cheese.
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The entitled will howl when they get given fewer goodies for free.
It's not "entitlement" to expect the government to not, for example, bankrupt you if they accuse you of a crime and you are found not guilty. Or do you think it's "entitlement" for expecting the government who is actively trying to lock you up to provide exonerating evidence when they have it?
That's what Tory cuts have given us.
Re:First 'minority', youngest since 1814, richest (Score:5, Insightful)
Given Labour have been out of power for 12+ years, on what are you basing this opinion? Looking at the utter trashing of the economy, support structures, reputation etc that the Tories have been responsible for, I'm struggling to think of how it could be much worse.
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First "minority" very much depends on your definitions. Disraeli was Jewish and Lloyd George was Welsh.
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Hence the ''s.
I am a minority, of 1. Give me a job, bitches.