Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

So if you are Sunak...you are all but certain to make the runoff. Considering the remaining candidates are very close together, why not get your supports to defect to the weaker candidate and then conquer in the runoff?

Lots of rumours he might already be doing this. He has four former chief whips backing his campaign and it's something Johnson did.

The last round couple of rounds have been quite weird in terms of who is gaining etc. it seems very implausible that Truss for example gained 15 votes when the last candidate who was eliminated was the one nation, most critical of Johnson candidate. Also Sunak keeps gaining very low numbers like 1-3 votes each round, which doesn't matter because he's the front runner with MPs but seems a bit odd for the front runner.

Edit: The challenge is Sunak isn't that popular with the members, so it's balancing picking his opponent (if he can) v getting a really solid endorsement from MPs. Not sure he has the votes to do both.

[Josquius]

Would be hilarious if we end up with a tory Corbyn due to this 

[alfred russel]

Probably because its a high risk low reward proposition.

High risk involves having a lot to lose. The favorite to be the next prime minister is Liz Truss. She is however third in the voting by MPs. She could be knocked out tomorrow in the MP vote.

[Sheilbh]

Would be hilarious if we end up with a tory Corbyn due to this 

No doubt, like Remain she'll now recant this. But I'm a Trussite now
https://news.sky.com/story/truss-build-a-million-homes-on-green-belt-land-to-boost-the-economy-11720267

[Sheilbh]

High risk involves having a lot to lose. The favorite to be the next prime minister is Liz Truss. She is however third in the voting by MPs. She could be knocked out tomorrow in the MP vote.

Yes. Although I struggle to see Truss as PM. It's not based on any analysis or the evidence - just that she seems a bit Miliband-y for me. It's mean and probably unfair, but she just comes across a little odd (eg the old cheese "that. Is. A. Disgrace" speech) and I think it might cause MPs or members to stop.

Mordaunt and Sunak I can both see as PM.

[crazy canuck]

Probably because its a high risk low reward proposition.

High risk involves having a lot to lose. The favorite to be the next prime minister is Liz Truss. She is however third in the voting by MPs. She could be knocked out tomorrow in the MP vote.

If you go back and read Shielbh's edit you will see the point.  He will make himself look weaker than he is to the membership if he gives his votes away.  But I was also thinking about what will happen when that sort of manipulation is found out - as it inevitably would be.  Maybe the membership won't care.  But if they were denied the opportunity to vote for the person they like, a lot of them would probably vote against him just to spite him.

[Sheilbh]

That's fair - it is fairly common though. Johnson definitely lent votes to Rory Stewart to knock out several more threatening opponents.

Both in this round for the Tories now and in leadership elections when it was just MPs, who you don't want to win is as important as who you do. And I think there is a decent block of "anyone but Truss" MPs. It also helps that in membership polls Mordaunt and Truss are about neck and neck so it wouldn't necessarily deprive them of a massive favourite.

Edit: Although worth noting there are also rumours Sunak is lending votes to Truss because he'd rather face her than Mordaunt - so who knows

[Sheilbh]

Robust tweet and link to a Telegraph article by Allison Pearson (paywalles so can't read) from Mordaunt:

Tory MPs – vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss today and you'll murder the party you love

Fairly sure that'll backfire...

[Josquius]

Robust tweet and link to a Telegraph article by Allison Pearson (paywalles so can't read) from Mordaunt:

Tory MPs – vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss today and you'll murder the party you love

Fairly sure that'll backfire...

Let's be keeping that one for election time.

[Sheilbh]

Labours already having fun with this race:
https://twitter.com/uklabour/status/1549337977704402954?s=21&t=N2aqgI01Qp5YCq-bqqx0_w

[OttoVonBismarck]

I've seen a bit of chattering negatively about Johnson's plans to name certain politicians to peerages on his way out. Is this much ado about nothing? I thought it was pretty customary behavior, but it seems at least a few journalists are presenting it as a further abuse of office.

[Sheilbh]

Six of one, half dozen of the other.

It is a tradition that PMs do a resignation honours list giving out gongs and seats in the Lords etc. Although neither Blair or Brown did it. It has often been controversial for PMs giving them to cronies (Lloyd-George and Wilson's lavender list spring to mind).

Johnson seems to be planning an unusually long list of people. Is it an abuse of power? Maybe (I think the entire honours system is and is intrinsically corrupt, personally). Is it anything new or shocking or serious? Not really.

Although part of me wonders if the reason for the rumoured appointment of some MPs (eg Dorries) to the Lords is to make life difficult for his successor by making them fight by elections within months of becoming leader.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Johnson claimed that his "mission is largely accomplished...for now" 

Does make me wonder what his mission was.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Johnson is an interesting figure to me, he essentially got his start in politics as a journalist who enjoyed trolling the EU for various nonsensical things it did from time to time. He seemed to just build up on trolling after that, all the way to being Mayor, then a national political force and finally Prime Minister. At least from my observation in all that time he appeared to have no significant personal governing ethos or cause other than self-aggrandizement.

[Sheilbh]

Fair.

The bit I'd add on governing is the intersection of libertinism and liberalism. He was always moaning about the nanny state (but did nothing about it in power), as a backbench MP he rebelled several times to vote for gay rights, he was the first Tory politician (I think) to attend pride (in a massive pink stetson he'd wave at the crowds.

And he loves a grand projet (again, not delivered in power) - the Olympics, an artificial island airport for London, the Garden Bridge etc. I think this is also why he went all in early on vaccines and is big on net zero. I think tying the two together is a broadly very optimistic/boosterish story (again, not supported by actual delivery).

Tories who used to love him when he was backbencher would talk about how his conference speech gave a sense of being a part of some great, optimistic project into the future - followed by a lingering, slow dawning awareness there was no substance.

He's doing his bucket list now so flew a fighter at an air show - and I think his remarks afterwards showed a bit of that, which it's impossible to imagine any other politician (far less a Tory one) delivering - weird formatting is standard for his speeches:

It was here that the de Havilland comet ushered in the jet age; here that the world first saw the Vulcan bomber, a beautiful machine I remember from my childhood; and here that spectators saw first the amazing aeronautical ability of the Typhoon - which I experienced myself last Thursday

With the help of wing commander Paul Hanson I took off from RAF Coningsby straight up like a vertical firecracker; we slipped the surly bonds of earth, as the poet Magee puts it, and danced the skies on laughter silvered wings; we flung that eager craft through footless halls of air and generally put it through its paces, I can tell you; and after a while the wing commander said to me:
"do you want to have a go?"

and I said "are you sure? it seems very expensive to me - we only have 148 of them and they cost about £75m a pop"

and he said "don't worry; you can't break it"

and I thought "oh well famous last words"

and so I pushed the joystick right over to the right and we did an aileron roll and then I hauled the joystick right back and we did a fantastic loop the loop; and then I did a more complicated thing called a barrel roll in which I pushed the stick up and right a bit; and we started to pull a few Gs, as they say

and when I came back to consciousness I could see the sea getting closer and closer; and I started to dream about the incredible forest of wind farms I could see; and I thought about the way this government in the last few years has been reclaiming doggerland — harvesting the drowned prairies of the north sea; and harvesting them once again with gigawatt after gigawatt of clean green energy

helping to deliver a long term sustainable solution to our energy needs; ending any dependence on Putin whatsoever; and this reverie must have gone on for a while because my colleague said "er I am taking back control now"

and we headed happily home

Of course tragedy is to grand for him. But it is a thing that the coalition he built for vote Leave is almost the exact opposite to who he'd previously spent his career appealing to. So the route to power was winning votes from a more pessimistic, illiberal, conservative coalition. The only way he could work as a PM (to the extent he could), which was basically as the type of fun, liberal Tory he was as mayor, was foreclosed by the path he chose to get there.