Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

Started by Josquius, February 20, 2016, 07:46:34 AM

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How would you vote on Britain remaining in the EU?

British- Remain
12 (12%)
British - Leave
7 (7%)
Other European - Remain
21 (21%)
Other European - Leave
6 (6%)
ROTW - Remain
34 (34%)
ROTW - Leave
20 (20%)

Total Members Voted: 98

Grey Fox

Around here, that's illegal. Our customer protection law states that method of payments do no constitute part of the contracted goods/services.
Colonel Caliga is Awesome.

Razgovory

Quote from: Jacob on August 12, 2022, 02:44:39 AM
Quote from: HVC on August 11, 2022, 10:39:15 PMNon political, but I'm irrationally angered by the Brit's use of the term hose pipe. It's like saying car vehicle. That is all.

A hose is a leg-covering.

A pipe is a rigid tube, frequently used for conveying liquids.

A hose pipe, presumably has the characteristics of both of those objects. Perhaps it has the floppy flexibility of hoses, while the liquid conveying ability of a pipe?

Or, and this is much more likely, a hose pipe is a pipe with a leg in it.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Jacob

Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2022, 06:35:02 PMOr, and this is much more likely, a hose pipe is a pipe with a leg in it.

Maybe if you're some sort of necromancer-gardener. Most regular folks don't have bodyparts inside their gardening tools.

Tamas

Just caught a few seconds of Sunak talking about how his plan is going to address the problems of everyone living in the United Kingdom.

The absolute lack of conviction in his voice coupled with the slight movement of his body as if outside of the camera he was thumping his foot in a "give me the job now!" way was kind of mesmerising.

Razgovory

Quote from: Jacob on August 13, 2022, 09:45:59 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on August 13, 2022, 06:35:02 PMOr, and this is much more likely, a hose pipe is a pipe with a leg in it.

Maybe if you're some sort of necromancer-gardener. Most regular folks don't have bodyparts inside their gardening tools.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Sheilbh

Let's bomb Russia!

Sheilbh

#21621
:lol: Sunak as imagined by Guy Ritchie in his latest campaign video - one of the most baffling things I've ever seen in British politics :bleeding:
https://twitter.com/tomhfh/status/1560692742765830145?s=20&t=aQHCE0MwyiRQQ06FwicnPw

Edit: On the other hand I know the polling is all consistent and basically shows the contest as very much over at this point - but it is technically very difficult to poll Tory party members. I know it's very much anecdata but it is striking how many very crowded events Sunak seems to be doing and if he's done events with 16,000 members that's almost 10% of the membership so....:hmm:
Let's bomb Russia!

Tamas

Maybe for the Tory membership its one thing to go and see the funny rich Asian man grovel to them, but it's an entirely different matter to choose him over the white lady for the PM job.

Sheilbh

Already briefed by the Truss team that "Gove is done" if she wins:
QuoteTom Payne
@TomEPPayne
Bombshell political exclusive in @TheTimes tonight.

Gove endorses Sunak and announces he is bringing his frontline political career to a close.

He says Truss's campaign has been a "holiday from reality" and that her tax cuts will put FTSE 100 executives before the poorest.
Gove says: "I am deeply concerned that the framing of the leadership debate by many has been a holiday from reality ... I cannot see how safeguarding the stock options of FTSE 100 executives should ever take precedence over supporting the poorest in our society."

Not a great sign from probably the most competent minister since 2010 (not a crowded field, admittedly).
Let's bomb Russia!

Josquius

Funny he pops up now. I imagine gove is on a lot of people's minds at the moment with events in Finland.
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Sheilbh

:lol: Never has a man exuded "recently divorced energy" more.
Let's bomb Russia!

Sheilbh

Gove's piece - interesting that he re-endorses Kemi Badenoch who I think is very likely to be the next but one Tory leader. Otherwise, again, this seems unusually brutal for a party leadership campaign between "colleagues":
QuoteAs the Truss bandwagon clatters on, this is why I'm backing Rishi Sunak
Michael Gove
Friday August 19 2022, 9.00pm, The Times

It's just one business. But it's also one man's life. One family's dream. And one community's focus. The Royal Crown Chinese restaurant in Torry, the harbourside area of Aberdeen where my father grew up, has been at the centre of local life for five decades. Now it's about to close, crippled by energy bills that its owner, Martin Tang, just cannot pay. And Martin isn't alone. Small businesses across the UK are facing staggering increases in costs. In the cliché so favoured by politicians, these businesspeople worked hard, they did the right thing. And now their future is fire and ashes.

As their dreams die, so do the hopes of millions more quietly suffocated. Research by my former colleague James Frayne indicates that at least a quarter of the population are already at the point where, once urgent bills have been paid, there is nothing left at the end of the month. Nothing. No money for saving, for emergencies, for Christmas. That is happening right now, despite the extensive support the government has provided. Before energy prices rise, before inflation further outpaces any increase in wages, before further interest rate increases add to mortgage costs, before the worst economic winter for decades.

When the next prime minister takes office in a few weeks' time there will be millions of our fellow citizens under unprecedented pressure. It is a task that would daunt any politician. And our new prime minister will also be conscious that they inherit a fractured party still suffering from the aftershocks of Boris Johnson's removal. Much has been written about Boris's leadership, some of it about my relationship with him. All I want to say here is that I admired him hugely in his premiership and thought him brave and right in his handling of Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. I also know how driven he was by the mission to level up the country and bring opportunity to overlooked families and undervalued communities. I was saddened both by the fact and manner of his departure, and regret deeply that it happened. It is no small challenge to succeed him.

After Boris resigned there was no question in my mind that the person best equipped to meet the challenge of leadership was Kemi Badenoch. Of all those who served in departments I led she was the outstanding talent — brave, brilliant, analytically superb and, above all, honest.

I was disappointed when Kemi was knocked out. I take comfort from the fact that the next prime minister will have her at the heart of their government. And from the fact that both the remaining candidates are politicians of intelligence, conviction and proven experience.


When Liz Truss was a minister alongside me at the education department, appointed after a powerful campaign from the back benches to reform childcare, she threw herself into early years and school reform. She is tenacious, brave and has a huge appetite for policy detail.

Rishi Sunak has all those virtues too. And more. Within months of becoming an MP he was told his career would be blighted if he backed Brexit. I asked him to follow his heart and do what he thought best for the country, not his career. He did. I know he always will.

Weeks after he became chancellor, the country and our economy were devastated by the Covid pandemic. Rishi designed, introduced and defended support for the most vulnerable at a time of crisis. He put the strength of the state at the service of the weakest. I know he always will.


So as this final stage of the leadership contest began, with Kemi no longer a candidate, my heart inclined me to vote for Rishi. But, like so many other Tory members, I wanted to see what the candidates had to say as the campaign went to the country before voting.

Liz has been admirably clear, consistent and principled in the case she has made. She's made her argument with a winning brio. But I do not think her prospectus is the right answer for the world we face. It does not address the fundamental problems of potential neglected, productivity suppressed and the vulnerable suffering the most.

Central to unlocking potential and improving productivity is further reform of our education system. Our biggest challenge remains the attainment gap between rich and poor. We will prosper only if children in poor neighbourhoods have the opportunities the successful enjoy. A focus on the fate of students with A* at A-level, who are already on course for success, and a call for more grammar schools, when there is neither the money to build them nor the evidence they advance social mobility, should not be our priority.

Even more important is what a future government will adopt as its central economic plan. And here I am deeply concerned that the framing of the leadership debate by many has been a holiday from reality. The answer to the cost of living crisis cannot be simply to reject further "handouts" and cut tax. Proposed cuts to national insurance would favour the wealthy, and changes to corporation tax apply to big businesses, not small entrepreneurs. I cannot see how safeguarding the stock options of FTSE 100 executives should ever take precedence over supporting the poorest in our society, but at a time of want it cannot be the right priority.

In contrast, I believe Rishi makes the right arguments. On education he has stressed the need for new free schools in areas of disadvantage and higher expectations in maths and English for all students. And, even more importantly, on the central economic questions he has told the truth. We cannot cut general taxation further until we get inflation under control, and control spending and reduce borrowing. We cannot reduce spending quickly on the scale required to make the tax cuts we want when support for the poorest is so necessary.

The tax burden at present is a consequence of Covid, not Rishi's inner preferences. When I hear people describe his approach to the economy as Labour-lite, I wonder where they've been in government. How do they think the support we provided during Covid could possibly have been funded? Do they think furlough was an error, and the universal credit boost a terrible mistake? I never heard any critique of these measures from other ministers, let alone an alternative.

Rishi was resolute throughout the pandemic in putting the economy first. He was always trying to rein in departmental expenditure so we could focus on essentials and cut tax in future. I know, because I was on the receiving end of his meticulous search for savings. Some of those criticising him loudest now for not cutting taxes further and faster were fiscal Nimbys who resisted every reduction in their own spending while expecting virtue of all others.

I read, of course, that this election is already decided. A bandwagon is clattering down Whitehall with eager new adherents clambering aboard. The SW1 consensus has already called it.

Well, maybe. But I don't think Conservative members are unduly influenced by whether this or that candidate has run a smarter race by the rules of the Westminster game. As they cast their votes they think of people like Martin Tang and the thousands like him whose small businesses are the economic spine of this country. And they think of the millions of working people who are its heart and soul and who need help as never before from a leader who will pledge only what he knows can be delivered. And that is why I believe they will vote for Rishi.

I make my case from my heart too. I do not expect to be in government again. But it was the privilege of my life to spend 11 years in the cabinet under three prime ministers. I know what the job requires. And Rishi has it.
Let's bomb Russia!

Tamas

If even somebody like Gove gives up on trying to be part of this circus, we are in deep, deep trouble.

Sheilbh

As I say, I know Gove is hated but I think he's been by some distance the most competent and interesting cabinet minister of the last 12 years.

It's also particularly striking that when he left Justice, penal reformers and barristers issued statements saying they were sad to see him go because he was listening and trying to do things - the same happened at DEFRA with Friends of the Earth and at Levelling Up with social housing and cladding campaigners. That's unusual for a Tory cabinet minister and I think in recent years few have been mourned even by ostensible allies.

In Education he made far more enemies but I think it's the balance of leaving him in a department long enough to get some things done (which hasn't happened for a while - but he undid all of Grayling's "reforms" at Justice within six months), but not so long that he starts to see everyone as a vested interest out to block reform.

I think there is something to the idea that Gove is basically at the right-wing edge of Blairism (plus Brexit).
Let's bomb Russia!

Sheilbh

Interesting piece by Robert Colville on how the pace of media drives government - and causes problems for our politics:
QuoteAt the heart of the media whirlpool, it's a fight for any PM to cling on to their objectives
Robert Colvile
Saturday August 20 2022, 6.00pm, The Sunday Times

What's the most important thing for a new prime minister to have? A brilliant set of policies? A winning smile? Strongly held convictions? If you talk to those who have worked in No 10, the real answer is rather different. It is the ability to cope with speed.

Back when I started my career in journalism, it was still possible — even common — to head to the pub at lunch. Sometimes we even had food. But gradually, over the years, the pressure mounted. Whereas once reporters would work on one story a day, they now found themselves writing three, four or five. And they weren't saving them for the morning paper. They were putting them up on the internet just as soon as they could.

This acceleration of the media has had a seismic impact on politics. Governments have always been determined to stay on top of, and ahead of, the news agenda. Robin Cook was once called by Alastair Campbell on his way to the airport: the newspapers had proof of Cook's adultery, so he needed to choose between his wife and his mistress — before the first-edition deadline. But in the Twitter age, stories spring up minute after minute. On Thursday, Rishi Sunak told ITV's This Morning that he liked to get the breakfast wrap at McDonald's with his kids. Instantly, internet sleuths pointed out the item had been discontinued in 2020. Cue a blizzard of stories, jokes and denials that completely distracted from Sunak's economic plans.

A few years ago I wrote a book called The Great Acceleration, about how technology is accelerating the pace of life. For the section on politics, I spoke to many No 10 veterans, Tory and Labour. They were unanimous that the modern media environment was one of the defining facts of politics — and that it was making good government much, much harder.

During the present leadership campaign, for example, the candidates have had six long weeks of news grid to fill. So they have been forced to put out ever more press releases on ever more topics. It was only once she felt secure in her lead that Liz Truss could switch out of announcement mode, with press releases promising to spend or save billions replaced by the cheery news that she would be posing in front of the world's biggest Union Jack.

This need to fill the news grid has, in fact, been an underappreciated factor in the recent swelling of the state. Governments need more and more announcements, and each announcement needs a bigger figure to capture the media's attention. On top of which, voters' memories are growing ever shorter. As chancellor, Sunak would repeatedly announce multibillion-pound packages of economic support, only for demands for more to begin almost immediately.

The media environment also makes it harder for politicians to get on the front foot in the first place, to be active rather than passive.

When Gordon Brown took over at No 10, he based himself in a vast, open-plan "war room": Sky on one wall, BBC News on the other. But instead of commanding the agenda, he became trapped by it. Whenever he escaped from one of the formal meetings with which a prime minister's diary is littered, he would storm in to demand what was being done about whatever story happened to be flashing up on screen. To give the impression of decisive leadership, Brown took to convening the Cobra committee for even the most minor emergencies. Alistair Darling, his chancellor, wrote in his memoirs of "a permanent air of chaos and crisis" in Downing Street, with endless meetings but no decisions made. Theresa May took another approach. She was of the view, having watched disapprovingly from the sidelines for years, that David Cameron was entirely too obsessed with the media. Her government wouldn't offer official prime ministerial comments on every last piece of online frippery. It would stay above the fray.

The problem, of course, was that the news vacuum was rapidly filled by her enemies. Downing Street's failure to comment on a story would itself become a story.


Under Boris Johnson, media strategy became a core source of division within government. Dominic Cummings has long taken the view, loudly and frequently expressed, that most of the media is utterly irrelevant. He argued that the government should focus on its big strategic priorities and ignore the froth. If No 10 needed to communicate with the voters, it would do so directly, via daily televised news briefings.

Johnson's view could not have been more different. As a politician, he was far more sensitive to electoral opinion. And as a former journalist, he was acutely attuned to — and often surprisingly sensitive about — what his former colleagues were saying about him. That does not mean he always did what the Tory papers wanted, especially over lockdown. But the media was always a background presence, with well-thumbed newspapers on the table and screens outside his office showing not just the news channels but, according to his former aide Cleo Watson, "a Twitter word bubble to see what people 'out there' were talking about".

If Truss does take power, she will still need a press office ferociously dedicated to winning every day, hour and minute. As one No 10 veteran says: "If you're losing news cycles, eventually they add up." But the ultimate success of her administration will be decided by whether she can also carve out the time to focus on her core objectives and deliver on them. One intriguing sign on this front is that she has promised to reverse Tony Blair's symbolic decision to move the press office into 12 Downing Street and kick out the party whips. And although she made her name as a prolific user of social media, Truss revealed during the campaign debates that she has deleted Twitter from her phone.

The No 10 insiders I spoke to for my book were unanimous that the key skill a modern PM needs is to take difficult decisions quickly and well, then move on to the next. But they also worried that it was growing harder to make time and space to do that properly. The more tempestuous the situation, the worse things become. When you are tackling huge problems such as the pandemic or the energy crisis, it can be almost impossible to look beyond the next hour, let alone do big strategic thinking, not least because the physical experience of coping with these crises can be incredibly draining.

HL Mencken once described politics as the art of running the circus from the monkey cage. Today it can feel more like doing so from inside a piranha tank.

Slightly prompted by a Westminster bubble-y story about Truss' plans if she wins. It seems a little contradictory but you have the traditional intention to move to more traditional cabinet government (like every PM since Blair - it never lasts for the reasons in that article), a plan to ditch "the Grid" and focus on delivery (ditto) and to fight every day like a campaign because she's only got two years till the next election (which seems to contradict the other two).

I think the media environment and pace of politics now is a problem and I'm not sure how to solve it. You read about 20th century politics and you have things like de Gaulle disappearing during a crisis, only to re-appear like a hero with a solution or Thatcher spending long periods of weeks with advisors hammering out ideas. I'm just not sure there's the space to do that any more - far less MacMillan's "quiet, calm deliberation" solving every problem. If you fail to respond then you become the story, so you respond quickly and if you later work out another policy response would be better that's a u-turn. I think you might get away with a bit of space if you have a relatively benign/friendly media environment but, obviously, that doesn't exist in the UK.

I'm not really sure how you fix it and I wonder if there's a generational issue. Actually if it's a bit like Finnish party story and a younger generation who've always grown up with a media environment at that pace will know better how to handle it? My instinct is that Cummings is probably right - have a few big points/goals, most stories are froth and the way to manage the media is to try to go over their heads, but also try to give them a regular central point of attention with something like a daily briefing (as in the US) rather than leaning into the rolling 24 hour news cycle. But that is almost certainly easier said than done.
Let's bomb Russia!