[Politics] Reshuffle news...

[The Clamp]

I see Coffey is out. She’s another mad old lunatic. Utterly clueless.

 

[MJsGhost]

It's an interesting tactical move from Sunak. Talk has been that he couldn't sack Braverman because the lunatic right wing would come for him. By sacking her and bringing back Cameron, he's attempting to align himself more centrally and be seen to be turning back to a bit of normality.

It might outflank the loonies, but he forgets that, as Johnson might have phrased it (although he would probably have referenced Suetonius, not Robert Graves), Cameron was the one who played the role of Claudius and "Let all the poisons that are in the mud hatch out." I recall that Danny Dyer put it more eloquently. Cameron is no longer seen by the public as one of the grown-ups in the room, he's the idiotic gambler who's massive arrogance caused the sh*tshow of the last seven years.

Indeed he did!

 

[maltaseagull]

Foreign Secretary

18 months of apologising to our European friends for his disastrous referendum!

Surely the disaster was not the actual referendum but the result?

 

[WATFORD zero]

I can't remember what was in the 2019 Tory manifesto TBH, apart from 'get Brexit done', and I'm really not minded to go and research it. I'm pretty sure they would say that COVID and Ukraine have totally changed the economic landscape and priorities.

Obviously there are many flaws in our democracy and electoral system. Some form of PR is long overdue, and I'm disappointed that Starmer has ruled out electoral reform. Unfortunately no Labour or Tory government is likely to change an electoral system that has brought them to power, and swap it for one that will almost certainly keep them out of power forever (except as part of a broad coalition).

As for Cameron, it's permitted under current rules to have someone in the Lords acting as a govt minister. Didn't Blair have someone? And I'm pretty sure Thatcher did but I can't recall who. Again, not saying it's a good system but it's how things have always been. In a weird way I think Cameron might just make a half decent Foreign Secretary. At least we know who he is, as do the foreign leaders he'll be dealing with.

I can guarantee that a huge proportion of their votes didn't come from anything in a manifesto about running a country beyond 'Get Brexit Done'

The real issue isn't that any sort of representational system would be the end of the Conservatives and Labour taking turns in absolute power, it's that it would be the end of Labour and the Conservatives as current political parties.

Could you imagine the two wings of both of those parties actually being in the same postcode, let alone pretending to be politically aligned if that prize of absolute power wasn't there to stop them tearing each other apart.

And that, Boys and Girls, is how you get a choice of Johnson or Corbyn

 

[bluenitsuj]

Replying one **** for another

 

[The Clamp]

Surely the disaster was not the actual referendum but the result?

It was a disaster for democracy.

 

[A1X]

They’re just making shit up now

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I can't remember what was in the 2019 Tory manifesto TBH, apart from 'get Brexit done', and I'm really not minded to go and research it. I'm pretty sure they would say that COVID and Ukraine have totally changed the economic landscape and priorities.

Obviously there are many flaws in our democracy and electoral system. Some form of PR is long overdue, and I'm disappointed that Starmer has ruled out electoral reform. Unfortunately no Labour or Tory government is likely to change an electoral system that has brought them to power, and swap it for one that will almost certainly keep them out of power forever (except as part of a broad coalition).

As for Cameron, it's permitted under current rules to have someone in the Lords acting as a govt minister. Didn't Blair have someone? And I'm pretty sure Thatcher did but I can't recall who. Again, not saying it's a good system but it's how things have always been. In a weird way I think Cameron might just make a half decent Foreign Secretary. At least we know who he is, as do the foreign leaders he'll be dealing with.

Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. As you rightly note.

PR would probably mean no single party will ever get a majority again.

Mind you, we could then welcome in a rainbow coalition of liberals, greens, and other minor parties who these days never get enough votes to return an MP. I wonder if Pat Arrowsmith is still going? We could certainly get the Monster Raving Loony Party in the tent.

On the other hand, the Tories could rule the roost in a coalition with the BNP, NF, GBNews, Likud, the UDA and Britain First.

Those who imagine a civilised coalition between Labour and the Liberals might be in luck. But a lot of knives would have to be pulled out of chests first.

At the end of the day the Brits don't get a coalition. When the liberal bloke dropped some of his manifesto commitments to Get Coalitionexit Done, he was basically condemned into outer darkness for his utter, complete and utter betrayal by those who voted liberal expecting a liberal government.

We don't get coalitions. We don't do coalitions. We won't be getting PR.

If you hate the tories but can't bring yourself to vote labour (or tactically) then the best you can hope for is a tory coalition (and see above for it's likely hue).

A PR coalition as described above won't be more consensual. It will be more extreme, just like the Likud/nutter/mentalist coalition in Israel.

I'm out (was never in TBF).

 

[lawros left foot]

Cleverly has come out with the usual Tory Home Secretary spiel” I am committed to STOP THE BOATS” blah ,blah, blah.
In fact, the Tories have introduced 173 changes to migration policy since 2010, which is more than one per month
And over 40 policy announcements about small boats just since 2019.

Anyway, this makes it Cleverley’s 8th govt appointment in 7 years

Shapps has had 10 jobs in 7 years

Steve Barclay, sacked as health minister today – is leaving his 7th job in 6 years

Strong and Stable.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

The real issue isn't that any sort of representational system would be the end of the Conservatives and Labour taking turns in absolute power, it's that it would be the end of Labour and the Conservatives as current political parties.

Could you imagine the two wings of both of those parties actually being in the same postcode, let alone pretending to be politically aligned if that prize of absolute power wasn't there to stop them tearing each other apart.

And that, Boys and Girls, is how you get a choice of Johnson or don’t totally understand

Sorry, I didn’t totally understand that.

For me, one of the most appealing, yet unpredictable, aspects of PR is that all political parties would be reshaped with several new small parties appearing who may well hold the balance of power in a coalition. At the moment you’d expect a roughly left / socially liberal coalition to take power but in the future that might well switch back to the right. In that respect nothing would change but we’d have far more parties having some real power, and voices being heard that were previously silent. Most important, voting turnout would increase significantly, with far fewer people thinking their votes didn’t count as they lived in a ‘safe seat'. All quite exciting I think.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Surely the disaster was not the actual referendum but the result?

It was the refrendum in as much as, unlike when we voted to join, the threshold was not set at 60:40 needed for change, but 50.00001% versus 49.99999%.

The innumerate, arrogant, lazy, useless twat!

 

[JoeKidd]

I always thought that to hold a post in gov you had to be an elected member of parliament, guess I was wrong.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. As you rightly note.

PR would probably mean no single party will ever get a majority again.

Mind you, we could then welcome in a rainbow coalition of liberals, greens, and other minor parties who these days never get enough votes to return an MP. I wonder if Pat Arrowsmith is still going? We could certainly get the Monster Raving Loony Party in the tent.

On the other hand, the Tories could rule the roost in a coalition with the BNP, NF, GBNews, Likud, the UDA and Britain First.

Those who imagine a civilised coalition between Labour and the Liberals might be in luck. But a lot of knives would have to be pulled out of chests first.

At the end of the day the Brits don't get a coalition. When the liberal bloke dropped some of his manifesto commitments to Get Coalitionexit Done, he was basically condemned into outer darkness for his utter, complete and utter betrayal by those who voted liberal expecting a liberal government.

We don't get coalitions. We don't do coalitions. We won't be getting PR.

If you hate the tories but can't bring yourself to vote labour (or tactically) then the best you can hope for is a tory coalition (and see above for it's likely hue).

A PR coalition as described above won't be more consensual. It will be more extreme, just like the Likud/nutter/mentalist coalition in Israel.

I'm out (was never in TBF).

We don’t 'get' coalitions because FPTP makes coalitions pretty rare beasts. Under some form of PR however, we’d probably have a permanent coalition and would have no choice but to change with the times, and behave like most democracies. I struggle to see how PR will ever come about though, as long as both main parties refuse to embrace it.

 

[AK74]

This is all being written, produced and directed by Armando Iannucci, isn't it?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I can guarantee that a huge proportion of their votes didn't come from anything in a manifesto about running a country beyond 'Get Brexit Done'

The real issue isn't that any sort of representational system would be the end of the Conservatives and Labour taking turns in absolute power, it's that it would be the end of Labour and the Conservatives as current political parties.

Could you imagine the two wings of both of those parties actually being in the same postcode, let alone pretending to be politically aligned if that prize of absolute power wasn't there to stop them tearing each other apart.

And that, Boys and Girls, is how you get a choice of Johnson or Corbyn

Mmmmm.....no, Johnson and Corbyn were selected by their parties. All parties have the right to select their leaders however they see fit.

We had a choice between Johnson, Corbyn and all the other twats. The outcome was the result of voting.

As noted a million times, if you want the BNP, NF, SWP and any number of mad Christian and Islamist single issue parties all sitting around the table at number ten, you're welcome.

I'm happy with the system we have now.

A bad VAR decision is like a bad election. There is no need to bin the system. Just make sure we have better candidates/Var officials. If you don't think your local party is selecting the right candidates, get involved! Unfortunately VAR won't improve all the while the refs are marking their own homework. Maybe we could make refereeing decisions using PR?

(People ONLY support PR because they think it will increase the likelihood of their favourite team winning. Fact).

 

[WATFORD zero]

Sorry, I didn’t totally understand that.

For me, one of the most appealing, yet unpredictable, aspects of PR is that all political parties would be reshaped with several new small parties appearing who may well hold the balance of power in a coalition. At the moment you’d expect a roughly left / socially liberal coalition to take power but in the future that might well switch back to the right. In that respect nothing would change but we’d have far more parties having some real power, and voices being heard that were previously silent. Most important, voting turnout would increase significantly, with far fewer people thinking their votes didn’t count as they lived in a ‘safe seat'. All quite exciting I think.

I agree that coalitions would be the future, but I don't believe either the Conservatives or Labour would be able to hold their current 'parties' (which are really huge coalitions of people with nothing in common other than the pursuit of absolute power) together. Both would split into a number of parties and Starmer and Corbyn, Johnson and Rory Stewart wouldn't have been bedfellows in the first place.

Personally I would prefer a choice of parties led by Starmer, Corbyn, Stewart, Johnson, Lucas and Farage than what we got in 2019 (although I'm sure a few years of PR would give even more choice). @Harry Wilson's tackle is worried that the country's government would be subservient to extreme parties, that he thinks would be necessary in order to form a Government and wants to keep FPTP.

So FPTP gives you a choice of Johnson or Corbyn and 'the electorate' decide to go for Johnson, Patel, Braverman, Truss, Kwarteng etc, with no extremists there whatsoever

I think that in Britain, most votes would go to the moderate parties, most moderate parties would be 'in' Government after every election and we could start having to take long term grown up views about how to Govern Britain, rather than blaming the 'other lot' every few years

*edit*
(And, I don't have a favourite Team - Fact )
BNP, NF, GBNews, Likud, the UDA and Britain First in coalition with the Conservatives ? I think there may be a bit of double counting there

 

[Thunder Bolt]

 

[Baldseagull]

Sunak deciding a bit of squad rotation is required, but finding his squad is so utterly shit he has to get not quite as shit Dave Cameron in on loan.

 

[A1X]

If Andrea isn’t happy then Rishi must be doing something right

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I agree that coalitions would be the future, but I don't believe either the Conservatives or Labour would be able to hold their current 'parties' (which are really huge coalitions of people with nothing in common in the pursuit of absolute power) together. Both would split into a number of parties and Starmer and Corbyn, Johnson and Rory Stewart wouldn't have been bedfellows in the first place.

Personally I would prefer a choice of parties led by Starmer, Corbyn, Stewart, Johnson, Lucas and Farage than what we got in 2019 (although I'm sure a few years of PR would give more choice). @Harry Wilson's tackle is worried that the country's government would be subservient to extreme parties, that he thinks would be necessary in order to form a Government and wants to keep FPTP.

So FPTP gives you a choice of Johnson or Corbyn and 'the electorate' decide to go for Johnson, Patel, Braverman etc, with no extremists there whatsoever

I think that in Britain, most votes would go to the moderate parties, most moderate parties would be 'in' Government after every election and we could start taking long term grown up views about how to Govern Britain, rather than blaming the 'other lot' every few years

*edit*
(And, I don't have a favourite Team - Fact )

It would be nice if PR delivered a perpetual center coalition, allowing the arguments about immigration, gender identity and all the other issues currently populating the 'woke' versus 'caant' culture war to fade gently away.

On the downside, I am not sure I want a permanent grey government, and I am confident it would not shut down the extreme voices. The likes of Farage, who can monetize his old bollocks without getting remotely near being an MP at present, would very certainly now be sitting in parliament. In addition his current media presence, which is almost zero (I have never ever heard of him, have you? No idea who he is) would mushroom with his added credibility as a actual MP. People would start to hear him. And there would be loads of flies attracted to his shit.

You also seem to forget that we would need two polarized parties who vacuum up most of the votes presently to morph themselves into carey-sharey middle grounders, happy to work with other parties, giving up power of their own to....

Oh hang on. You think labour and tory would simply self combust if we had a PR system. Er....why? Why would the green, liberals, BNP, NF, GB First etc not also combust with PR?

You think labour and tory would disintegrate because they are already coalitions, if we brought in PR? Why would the biggest most successful parties (in terms of their ability to win and govern, even if badly) voluntarily liquidate themselves just because of PR? What drives individuals and collectives (parties) that seek power? The pursuit of power, obviously.

No, not that this will ever happen anyway (because labour and tory are against) but why would any of them even think about wanting it? Only the liberals, of the main parties want it - because it is the only way they think they will get some power.

This is not about what I want. It is about what is feasible. PR for parliament is not feasible. £200 to REMF if it happens in my lifetime.

(It would take labour and/or tories, from a position of power having been elected as a majority government to voluntarily impose a PR system that would disadvantage them, following which each main party would voluntarily dismantle itself into small like-minded factions, with a view to forming a coalition. Sorry I'll be back along to add more later, but I think I just heard Shergar neighing at my patio door)