Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

News to make me happy /enrage Tamas

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/04/uk-road-pricing-transport-committee-mps-electric-shift

So what your saying is that drivers contribute some 30 odd billion to the treasury.  You should say thank you

I'm not sure this even covers the cost of extra road maintanace. Let alone fuel subsidies and the cost of all the more abstract problems created.

[Tamas]

I'm still broadly in the transitory camp about current inflation

I think it is going to be increasingly lonely in that camp.

EDIT: The Economist explains one reason for that: it's enough for businesses and people to expect inflation for it to be a reality and get entrenched as wages and costs rise:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/02/05/interest-rates-may-have-to-rise-sharply-to-fight-inflation

[Sheilbh]

I think it is going to be increasingly lonely in that camp.

EDIT: The Economist explains one reason for that: it's enough for businesses and people to expect inflation for it to be a reality and get entrenched as wages and costs rise:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/02/05/interest-rates-may-have-to-rise-sharply-to-fight-inflation

Yeah but the expectations bit is also something I am a little cynical about - it's the core story of central bankers and technocrats that what happened in the 90s and 2000s was that everywhere in the world at the same time and in the same way macroeconomic policy got better so they managed to keep inflation low through their expectation management. It might be part of it, but I'm more of the view that it was structural factors to do with globalisation, sudden increase in the workforce available to companies etc.

Similarly right now I think the key factors driving it are the end of covid restrictions globally, some supply shocks, big issues in supply chains and bottlenecks basically - for me the fact that inflation is overwhelmingly sectoral (energy and food) and not broadly across all sectors suggests that it should be transitory and about addressing those markets/sectors, rather than worrying about expectations. And those structural, material realities matter more than the psychology of expectations (I am very down on psychology having any impact on policy given the mistakes over covid). But I know nothing about this, could be utterly wrong

And obviously zooming out from the rich world - if the big sectors experience inflation are energy and food I'd guess we will see a lot of political turbulence in the developing world where those are far bigger and more important part of the economic pie.

Meanwhile in Britain - Labour now lead the Tories on all policy areas. I don't think we've seen something like that for a Labour opposition since the 90s:


My worry is that this is a bit like 1990 now and Sunak has the potential to be a John Major (a bit of anonymous junior minister who moved through the ranks very quickly and then ended up taking over). I've moved from excited and happpy at Labour doing better in the polls to very worried that we're going to have a 92 moment in a couple of years. As much as I'm enjoying this downfall of a PM I'm now starting to think I'd prefer if Johnson stayed in office unti the next election

[Jacob]

A seven minute NYT explainer for American audiences why Boris is in trouble: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/boris-johnson-party-scandal.html

... contains some swearing

EDIT: that link goes directly to the NYT site, which requires signing in. You can watch video on Twitter as well with no sign in required: https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1489566060328198148?t=Q_rIWPz87HW5gKTYyfr7Cw&s=19

[Sheilbh]

Drip drip drip. And "taxpayer funded" is up there with "unelected" in British political discourse

Pippa Crerar
@PippaCrerar
EXCL: Police have a photo of Boris Johnson holding a can of a beer at his lockdown birthday party in June 2020 - taken by his taxpayer funded official photographer.

Edit: Also this strikes me as an incredibly stupid idea (maybe even stupider than inviting the official photographer to the illegal parties and then keeping and sharing the photos) - and Brady doesn't have to call around so I don't know if he will

Sebastian Payne
@SebastianEPayne
NEW: PM's loyalists have "safety mechanism" on no confidence letters:

"5 or 10 of the letters are submitted by loyalists. When Brady hits the magic number, he calls around everyone to ask if they wish to withdraw. At that point, we know we're in trouble"

Another couple of MPs have gone public, by the by.

[celedhring]

So Boris digs Estrella? I thought you brits were more discerning about your beers.

[Richard Hakluyt]

So Boris digs Estrella? I thought you brits were more discerning about your beers.

From a can too 

[Josquius]

Saw this last night and it amazed me.

The media. The BBC at that. Saying positive things about the last Labour government 🤯

BBC News - Levelling up: 'It's about people, not shiny new buildings'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60154310

[The Larch]

Clearly the prim and proper, stiff upper lip attitude to have in a situation like the one he faces. 

You'll need a tank division to drag me out of Downing St, Boris Johnson tells allies

Boris Johnson has told allies that he is determined to cling on to power as he prepares to face a confidence vote as soon as this week.

Friends say the prime minister is determined to stay in No 10. "He's making very clear that they'll have to send a Panzer division to get him out of there," one senior adviser said.

[Sheilbh]

Clearly the prim and proper, stiff upper lip attitude to have in a situation like the one he faces. 

Alternately you just need a vote of confidence that he loses, or a cabinet coup etc Also Number 10 and their cabinet loyalists (mainly people like Dorries who know they've no chance of being in office without Johnson as PM) briefing against Sunak for disloyalty to a sitting PM - something that is, of course, utterly alien to Johnson.

BBC News - Levelling up: 'It's about people, not shiny new buildings'

This is wrong though Tom Forth is really good on it but compared to Germany and France or general international comparisons the UK does really well on the "people" stuff about skills and re-training. What we're really bad at is physical infrastructure which is also essential - but requires building things.

Relatedly - and rather gloriously - the inquiry into why building Edinburgh tram system was so over-budget and late, was meant to report within a year but is now entering its eighth year and is wildly over budget at a cost of about £12.5 million. There is also an inquuiry in Leeds into their failure to build a tram system

The media. The BBC at that. Saying positive things about the last Labour government 🤯

I'm not joining in BBC-bashing - they get enough of that from the right.

But there was actually an interesting take by Dominic Lawson in the Times on Gove as a great lost Labour leader. I wouldn't go that far but I definitely think he'd have been a pretty comfortable Blairite ultra minister under New Labour. Sam Freedman who was a Lib Dem Spad in the Department for Education with Gove said he always thought Gove's politics most resembled the reforming New Liberals in the Lloyd-George model. It is interesting he provokes so much hate and reaction on the left.

[Jacob]

Heh... saw a thing that said "if Boris Johnson gets forced out over these scandals, he'll be the third Prime Minister in a row to have to step back due to Boris Johnson".

[Sheilbh]

Heh... saw a thing that said "if Boris Johnson gets forced out over these scandals, he'll be the third Prime Minister in a row to have to step back due to Boris Johnson".

Yes.

We're also moving through all the stages of deposing a leader here. After the wicked advisors were fired (and one resigned) - there's now a book blaming most, if not all, of Johnson's problems on his wife. Basically it's a biography of her funded by Lord Ashcroft (Tory peer and tax avoider) who funds normally quite sensationalist biographies by a connected journalist of every new leader of the Tories/Labour or prominent figures in their circle - he also funds more interesting big reports immediately after an election with lots of polling and focus groups on why people voted the way they did.

I think Labour are quite cleverly letting this all play out in Tory circles and have just dismissed the attacks on Carrie Johnson as "sexist and misogynist" - as I say I'm not 100% sure that's right, but the level of attack/blame being put on her definitely is. So we're now in the wicked wife leading him astray stage. And apparently Cummings is doing a new blogpost on the Downing Street refurbshment - separately the "friends of Carrie" aides have been moved out of Downing Street.

Johnson's started appointing replacements for his team. For his chief of staff he's gone for an MP and Minister without portfolio and moved another MP into Downing Street as Head of Policy. Lots of people are rightly pointing out that both of those are really full-on, full time jobs that are going to be incredibly challenging for an MP to do effectively. He's also appointed Guto Harri as his spin doctor which I think is a clever appointment as he was Johnson's spin dcotor when he was mayor and seems to be pretty effective - but rather strikingly he has only taken a six month leave of absence from his current employer (Although technically Corbyn's spin doctor, Seumas Milne, was only on a leave of absence from the Guardian - it just lasted five years and he's not gone back.)

I still just don't think Johnson's "draw a line under it/move on" strategy is going to work because I think there will be other revelations. More importantly I think the anger has gone out of it now, but that just means people have gone from quite hot anger to pretty cold contempt and I don't think their opinion is going to shift (the latest opinion poll showed Johnson on a 75% disapproval rating - and I really don't see how you recover from that). More generally even if people draw a line and move on, they will be moving on to inflation peaking and a new tax rise which will not help with their popularity. Lots of backbenchers want the tax rise cancelled which I think would be a disastrous decision - Johnson has u-turned a lot under pressure but I think aside from doing Brexit, that tax rise is about the only significant policy change in the last 3 years (admittedly a lot of that is because a huge amount of time and energy went into crisis response/pandemic management). I think unwinding your one significant decisions within six months of making your party vote for it is not really going to help.

But related to this is that a lot of Tory MPs' view seems to be that Johnson just needs to become more of a normal Tory and get back to cutting taxes, cutting the state, cutting reguulation and everything will be fine (Lord Frost keeps popping up with an article arguing for exactly this). This is part of the reason there's so much briefing against Carrie and there will be for Guto Harri (who took the knee when hosting a news show). They're seen to represent the stuff about Johnson that Tory MPs don't like: tax rises, focus/ambitious policies on net zero, a perceived squishiness on culture issues, support for quite high levels of spending. The problem is that I think that's just Johnson's politics - he's a pretty liberal Tory which is why he was able to win in London and his description of himself as a "Brexity Heseltine" seems to me pretty accurate. And what Johnson did in the 2019 election is basically what he did in London: won the traditional Tory vote, plus some working class areas, plus more minority votes than the last Tory candidate (though I think Cameron in 2015 did better).

I think that dissatisfaction about policies not being Tory enough just gets to the problem they have following 2019. There is the possibility in their 2019 results for a political re-alignment but it won't just happen it requires them to move politically. It's really difficult to square the circle of keeping their current vote which wants a small state, low taxes and fewer regulations (except to block building) with their new voters who want a bigger state, will support higher taxes and a more "protective" economy - and I'm not convinced that going all out on cultural issues works because I'm not sure those voting blocs necessarily agree on this issues either. I think a lot of Tories and people on the right got high on their own supply that basically this re-alignment that would really hinder Labour and ensure endless Tory rule was just an inevitable force of nature that didn't require any policy work and delivery - we're starting to see the divides grow (especially as Labour makes a pitch for "patriotism" again). I remember Andrew Neil on the night of the 2019 election asking senior Tories, how are you going to plese your new voters without losing your old voters - and they basically I think batted back that they didn't need to choose. I think part of this is that we're seeing that doesn't work: politics is about choosing.

Edit: We've only started the brand new world of all of these new aides and it turns out that Harri (who was working as, and has takena  leave of absence as, a lobbyist) had previously lobbied for Huawei which is proving controversial.

[Duque de Bragança]

So Boris digs Estrella? I thought you brits were more discerning about your beers.

From a can too 

Does not change much, it's crappy in both cases. Drunk very cold taste should be lessened anyways. 

[Tamas]

Boris Johnson 'not a complete clown', says his new press chief
Guto Harri also says PM initiated rendition of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive when the two men met last week

[PJL]

It's a clever piece of expectations management.