Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

I mean I'm not judging the morality, just the optics haha

Fair

It just slightly reminds me of any of those nostalgic takes like the weird yearning for the Cold War you sometimes see in Americans, fondly looking back to when the parties worked together - but it was for a big chunk of that period not a democracy, whole swathes of people were excluded from the economy and/or civil rights and took place under a relatively constant fear of nuclear annihilation. It seems odd to nostalgise

In the same way Britain was once a great and feared power - and that wasn't a good thing.

Sure but I think that yearning for a mythical golden age in the past / rose tinted glasses on the times of one's youth can apply to many societies.

[The Larch]

[Zanza]

Unfair. All Italian postwar governments were in office longer than Truss.

[The Larch]

Unfair. All Italian postwar governments were in office longer than Truss.

Shortest one was more than twice longer than Truss', in fact.

The Economist employs other arguments besides that, though, including low economic growth and subservience to bond markets.

[Zanza]

Apparently the current front runner is Boris Johnson.   

[celedhring]

Unfair. All Italian postwar governments were in office longer than Truss.

Shortest one was more than twice longer than Truss', in fact.

The Economist employs other arguments besides that, though, including low economic growth and subservience to bond markets.

Yeah, Truss had idiotic policies, and I guess the sooner she was gone the better to avoid any kind of permanent harm, but the fact she was essentially ousted by the bond markets makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'm hoping that the 100 MPs bar was set so that it is impossible for Johnson to pass it. It has frequently been said that his popularity amongst MPs is not high.

[The Larch]

Unfair. All Italian postwar governments were in office longer than Truss.

Shortest one was more than twice longer than Truss', in fact.

The Economist employs other arguments besides that, though, including low economic growth and subservience to bond markets.

Yeah, Truss had idiotic policies, and I guess the sooner she was gone the better to avoid any kind of permanent harm, but the fact she was essentially ousted by the bond markets makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.

Shades of the sovereign debt crisis indeed. The last Berlusconi government in 2011 also collapsed because of bond markets pressures.

[Josquius]

I'm reading conspiracies that Johnson was playing 3D chess and new Truss would be a disaster so got his supporters to back her.
Doesn't seem like him. But then it is believable he could have some masters of the dark arts on his payroll.
Interesting thought anyway.
And I can just see how it goes next GE
"Look at what happened next time we let someone else have a go! Vote Boris!"

[Sheilbh]

But thinking things are fundamentally fine is how you get a series of bad governments steadily making things worse.

I think that's because people voted for them and I don't think democracy guarantees good government - it just means you can change them bloodlessly and relatively quickly.

It's also why I've worried about Labour so much - although partly it's just because that's my side of politics and I want them to win. I think in our system the opposition is really important as a disciplining force, as a constant threat/risk to the government and as an accountability mechanism. Personally, I think we can see the difference even a half-way competent opposition makes just in the last two years.

That's also why I've found it very frustrating is because these have been a series of bad Tory governments - and I think they've been there for the taking for at least the last 5 years. People talk about the UK having a "good chaps" theory of government I don't really buy it, but I do think we have a "good opposition" system. For most of the last six years we haven't had one, as soon as we do things start falling apart.

But I look at Republicans electing people who deny election results and want to fiddle them, or the decline of losers' consent in the US; or the types of authoritarian constitution fiddling by PiS and Orban - and I just don't think the UK was ever in that territory. We just had a Tory government often trying to do things that are bad but that the Tories have wanted to do since 1997 (and generally they've failed because they're also bad at government).

Sure but I think that yearning for a mythical golden age in the past / rose tinted glasses on the times of one's youth can apply to many societies.

Absolutely annd I hate nostalgia generally.

But I think there is also a side to HVC's point - the UK has declined in power because it lost its empire and that's a good thing. I think it's always really important to remember that the tumble was good because the power and a lot of the wealth was based on force and coercion.

Unfair. All Italian postwar governments were in office longer than Truss.

Also I think the better comparison is Australia - especially if Johnson (like Rudd) makes a comeback. Unfortunately we're not the lucky country economically

Yeah, Truss had idiotic policies, and I guess the sooner she was gone the better to avoid any kind of permanent harm, but the fact she was essentially ousted by the bond markets makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.

Yeah I agree especially from a left-wing perspective I'm delighted and a little bit concerned.

There was a novel written by a Bennite MP and then made into a BBC drama called A Very British Coup. It was basically about a left-wing, Bennite politicians being elected and then removed very quickly by British business making market turmoil and the CIA pitching to the moderate wing. It wasn't quite that but having a leader defenestrated by bond markets is not great - I think it is, as Minsky, said a Suez moment.

The whole thing reminded me a bit of the Eurozone crisis actually. The cycle of announcing something, markets panicking, at great political cost making some concessions to reality but that not being enough for the markets - rinse and repeat etc. But for very good reasons in the current context the central bank can't commit to "whatever it takes" because their mandate is to get inflation down.

I'm reading conspiracies that Johnson was playing 3D chess and new Truss would be a disaster so got his supporters to back her.

That was Cummings' theory.

Apparently the current front runner is Boris Johnson.   

Still not sure if he meets the nomination threshold.

There's Guido Fawkes' running spreadsheet of MP support, which shows Johnson way out in front. But they are very close to Johnson and the spreadsheet includes several anonymous endorsements plus some MPs who have come out and said it's not true. So I'd handle that with care - I think they're bullshitting to create false momentum for Johnson and get their guy back.

The Sky News tracker of public endorsements as Sunak on 51, Johnson on 32 (I think he will easily get to 70 or so but the rest is a challenge) and Mordaunt on 17. I think it's probably going to be Sunak v Johnson - but I also suspect Johnson will only run if he's very sure he can win. I think it's very possible we see Johnson solemnly and graciously declining to run for noble reasons of the national interest, while heavily implying that he'd definitely have won if he'd gone for it. Also I think he'd probably like a few more months/years of earning £millions.

The fact that no candidate has declared yet (though Hunt has ruled himself out) makes me think there's an awful lot of backroom wheeling and dealing going on. Wallace has declined to run and is, reportedly, leaning towards Johnson - given that Wallace was running Johnson's 2016 campaign you wonder if, as Sam Freedman suggested, that's a hint for Sunak to firm up his position on defence spending for an endorsement. Apparently Johnson is trying to convince Sunak to run with him which seems unlikely I can definitely see Sunak pitching to Mordaunt a joint ticket of Sunak PM, Mordaunt Foreign Secretary, Hunt as Chancellor.

[Sheilbh]

It was quite painful to see on the news, walking around some town and asking people what they think, a large number of on the surface nice seeking elderly people saying to bring back Boris as he did good things like brexit

We really do need to setup a rule to stop this happening again. Only one leader change per GE allowed barring forced changes due to death and the like.

I know vox pops are cheap to produce and fill time on the evening news schedule. But I do wonder if our discousre is a little distorted by the fact that it's basically journalists roaming around towns at 2pm on a weekday so only really getting the opinions of elderly day drinkers?

[celedhring]

I'm still silently rooting for Penny Mordaunt if only because she has a surname that seems out of a villain in an Arthurian legend, coupled with "Penny".

[Sheilbh]

Obviously a swallow doesn't make spring but this is positively robust action:

Labour MP Chris Matheson resigns over 'unwanted sexual advances'
Move will trigger byelection in Chester after panel finds he breached Commons' sexual misconduct policy
Rowena Mason and Pippa Crerar
Fri 21 Oct 2022 11.48 BST
First published on Fri 21 Oct 2022 11.27 BST

A Labour MP has resigned, triggering a byelection in his Chester seat, after a report found he made "unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances" towards a junior member of staff.

Parliament's bullying and harassment watchdog, as well as the standards commissioner, found Chris Matheson had breached the sexual misconduct policy of the House of Commons.

The independent expert panel (IEP) subsequently recommended his suspension from parliament for four weeks but Matheson said on Friday he had decided to stand down.

It is understood Labour has also suspended Matheson's Labour party membership as well as launching an investigation.

The Labour chief whip is understood to have spoken to Matheson, 54, and told him he should stand down as an MP and advised him to stay away from the parliamentary estate.

In a statement, Matheson said he felt the suspension of four weeks was an "excessive and unfair penalty" but he could not challenge it further and felt it was the "honorable and right thing to stand down". He said the process had taken a toll on his health, including hospitalisation, and he was requesting privacy.

Matheson also apologised to the people of Chester, the House of Commons for the "disrepute" he had caused, and to the complainant for causing hurt. However, he also disputed the findings of the reports, saying there were provable factual inaccuracies, and saying he had "no sexual motivation in this matter".

There were two main allegations upheld by parliament's standards commissioner. In a report by the IEP, it said that in 2019 Matheson had invited the junior staff member to take a private trip to Gibraltar with him.

The commissioner found that the invitation was sexually motivated, unwanted, and had placed the complainant under pressure and intimidated her.

Secondly, it said Matheson took the junior staff member to a work-related dinner in January 2020 "and during the evening linked arms with her; made personal comments about her appearance while looking at her suggestively; made her hold his hand as they left and insisted on accompanying her to her bus stop; and once there invited her back to his flat, kissed her twice on the forehead and attempted to kiss her on the mouth".

The standards commissioner concluded that these were all unwanted and unwelcome sexual advances.

A sub-panel of the Independent Complaints and Grievance Service also found that Matheson's "continuing failure to acknowledge the full extent of his misconduct is an aggravating factor".

"It is insulting to the complainant. So too is his evidently false claim that he was acting only in a 'fatherly' or 'friendly' way towards her. In his excuses and denials, which he continues to persist in, he has sought to sow self-doubt and confusion in the mind of the complainant about his behaviour. That is quite unwarranted," it said.

Matheson has been the Labour MP for Chester since 2015. In 2017, he wrote on his website in a now-deleted post about the allegations of sexual assault and abuse against Harvey Weinstein that opened the floodgates for allegations in Westminster.

"Some of the allegations involved tittle tattle about relationships between consenting adults. I believe they should have a right to privacy and can't be conflated with sexual abuse, even though national newspapers try to do so in order to spread salacious gossip," he wrote, while later adding that he hoped women would have the confidence to tolerate sexual harassment no more.

[PJL]

I still think Johnson will win - he has a lot of grassroots support and I reckon many MPs will nominate him on Monday once they have heard from their local party office and their constituents.

[Tamas]

Yeah Johnson's name is the only one which seems to be gaining momentum at the moment.

Is it going to be time for mass protests for an election when he is re-appointed or we'll just sit still and hope it will turn out better this time around?