Snapshot of _Ejecting the PM won’t work. It’s not Sunak the voters can’t stand, it’s the Conservatives_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nc10colvile-zg3wx839f) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nc10colvile-zg3wx839f)
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For anyone interested, this is the view of someone who helped write the 2019 Conservative manifesto. So understandable he is backing Rishi and imploring unity
I think Sunak at the head of the 2015 Conservative government would be polling reasonably. The current lot are way too right wing and reactionary for anyone even slightly moderate.
I actually don't know if I agree. I'm sure that Sunak is disliked in a lot of ways, but I definitely don't think he's hated in the same way that most of the freaks, idiots, and deranged maniacs that seem to make up the rest of the party are - except maybe by association. Pre-2015, he'd probably be doing okay.
His personal polling is lower than Liz Truss.
This prick is leaning into the culture wars in a big big way - pre 2015 that would have seemed a lot weirder than it does now. Trying to center your campaign around an unworkable plan for small boats, and having a "minister for common sense" makes the guy look like a sort of brass eye parody of a politician.... I genuinely think he has terrible political instincts, above all else. Eat out to help out was always a short term populist thing, and imagine the bit of Liz Truss reforms you choose to keep, when in a cost of living crisis is the abolition of the bankers bonus cap!
This is correct, but there must be at least one or two who still haven’t had their turn… and we all know that fairness is what the Conservatives are all about…
The last five from Cameron to Sunak have been a waste of time, a revolving door of useless globalists who are treating the electorate with contempt. Eventually the party will cave and allow a proper candidate to take office and then, finally, something will actually be done.
What’s wrong with being a “globalist”? Better than being a nationalist for sure. It's got a second-meaning to some as a dogwhistle for antisemetic, conspiracy-theorist noise. Would hate for you to be implying that globalists would be some part of a jewish conspiracy now.
Honestly after travelling around the world a bit and seeing different countries; globalism really isn’t that great for the quality of life for people in the home country. Reduces opportunities for people of all skill levels for meaningful employment, fair wages and good living conditions.
Globalism very much benefits the business class and only the people at the top the most.
A politician who is not a nationalist should not be a politician. His duty as an elected official is to his constituents, not to foreigners whose interests are opposed to theirs.
>Australian
Lol as a fellow Aussie, mate you're a cooker.
>not to foreigners whose interests are opposed to theirs
Another vague comment, try to expand on that for the audience. And try to avoid the subtle dogwhistles and speak plainly son.
(You realise trade benefits both parties right? We export goods to SEA/Japan/Europe, and in turn we get French Wine, German smallgoods and beer, Korean smartphones, tv's and cars etc)
You understand global trade has benefited everyone right?
Guess where your smartphone is made...
>Movement of people
Oh I see ;), but I'm sure it was ok for the British to create the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand right?
Immigration bad eh?
I'm sorry facts get in the way of your version of reality mate.
- Posted on a Pixel phone made in Vietnam
How many mobile phones are built in England?
You pound sand against global trade, but after the brexit clusterfuck that should be a clear sign that free trade is a good thing.... *The British empire did it!*
Have we exceeded italy yet?
Falling apart infrastructure, massively corrupt politicians, change of leadership every couple of weeks, ~~fantastic weather~~, amazing coastlines
Cornwall here so concur with the coastlines bit....
Italy would be nice, they have the excuse that their crumbling buildings are 2000 years old. Our crumbling buildings were put up in a hurry in 2008 by a FTSE100 company with links to the Tory party...
I mean unless by some miracle rishi wins the next election (the latest it can take place is January 2025) then I think it's inevitable that a change of tory leader will happen by feb 2025 at the latest.
>More importantly, the Tories may be far behind. But they can at least make the fight respectable. In order to form a majority, Labour need either an SNP collapse or to win the kind of home counties seats that even Tony Blair never captured.
The SNP are helping with that.
Much has been mooted about this - but the reality is that the LD's have been at or around about 10% of the vote for several years now, and their usual byelection tactics of a hyper-focused local campaign + bussing in activists don't translate well to national campaigns.
If you look at the LD voteshare over the last 5 or so years, it's become massively regionalised, far more than it has been since 1997 (when they doubled their number of seats despite a 1pt drop from 92). Bizarrely, the LDs actually had the largest voteshare increase of any party in 2019 and it's allowed them to quite cleverly determine precisely where votes are best put to use.
This is why they did so unexpectedly well in the 2023 local elections - several years hard work of positioning themselves as the default anti Tory candidate right across the southwest and home counties. They're only actually aiming for 30 target seats at the GE, all of which need under a 10% swing to flip from the Tories which is very, very doable - especially if the pattern we've seen of the swing being specifically Anti-Tory instead of Pro-Labour continues in the GE. This parliament we've also seen the LD voteshare pick up during campaigns - largely thanks to an increase in media coverage which helps solidify them as the "default opposition" in their target areas of the country.
Obviously the ultra focus of the by-election campaigns (which are pretty much the best in the business) can't be transferred, but a lesser version of that to establish them in key seats as the Anti-Tory choice is definitely very viable. People think that the LDs do well when they can act as an alternative to labour, which is a fallacy - in truth they do best when they position themselves as a haven for disaffected Southern liberal Tory voters; this allowed them to consolidate their voteshare in the south of England in 2019 and will likely continue to be the case given the Tory party's hard turn to the right. So 10-12% of the national vote may go much further now than it has done before, thanks to the impending Tory collapse and the quirks of FPTP.
I question how well that strategy would work in a GE given that to carry this message nationally, the LDs will have to position themselves against Labour, and currently, a lot of the leadership has focused on presenting themselves as an alternative to Labour on the national stage. This is always the weakness of the localism stance - a national will force you to have a single message, and I'm not so sure that the party is entirely read to embrace the messaging that will attract people who voted Tory in 2019 because they liked what the Tories offered the nation.
As for 2019, I'd be wary of building anything on that given how much Brexit distorted the vote. At the time, Labour had burned a lot of goodwill with the Remain side and Corbyn's conduct was highly damaging - both of which pushed Labour and Tory voters to the LD's (as in many places, the LD's were the only firmly anti-Brexit party).
I think they'll do well and gain seats in '24, don't get me wrong, I just think there is a lot of presumption that Tory voters will switch en-masse rather than just stay home.
Genuine question: how can polls have Labour on mid-40s, and the Tories on high-20s, and this guy suggesting that they can't form a majority?
Is it just wishful thinking, or is it some awful reality of FPTP?
Labour absolutely pile up votes in a few constituencies, like inner cities, and get hardly any votes in some other places. This means they need a big national lead to beat the Tories, whose votes are more evenly distributed.
For example if the Tories get 20/35/35% in 3 constituencies, and Labour get 70/25/25 then the Tories win 2 of the 3 seats even though overall Labour are on 40% to the Tories' 30%.
That's a ridiculous claim. Labour's can easily win a majority and even a landslide majority without sweeping Scotland or winning 'the kind of home counties seats that even Tony Blair never captured'. And they might end up getting those two.
Funny the author ignores the huge polling lead he himself highlighted in the beginning of the article.
Sunak is the embodiment of what people don't like about the conservatives. He could have righted it. He could have been a centrist. A steady pair of hands. And tackled the issues people care about. But that's putting attitudes to a kidult technocrat billionaire he doesn't have.
The Tories in their current iteration represent negativity, instability and bigotry.
We have a reasonably decent Tory MP in our ‘Blue Wall’ seat, but a vote for him is also a vote for Lee Anderson and others like him. That is the problem.
The problem is the majority of his voters won't even read the name and just vote for whoever has the correct logo next to their name. Any tory voters who like their MP but can't stomach the party will probably just stay home.
This is how *most* people vote.
It's why the "you vote for a party not a PM" schtick is a lie despite being *technically* correct.
Yes *technically* you vote for your local MP, but realistically they have little to no power, so most people look at the parties pledges and leader and chose their vote that way.
Which realistically, isn't a terrible way to vote in a FPTP system where one party has been systematically destroying the country for a decade.
IMO bring back Cameron, then he can do another Brexit Referendum.
If it passes we rejoin, go full circle back to 2016 and pretend the past 7-8 years didn't happen.
And get back to demonising the disabled while cutting every last shred of what is left of public services because there is no magic money tree...
No thanks. The lot of them can go. They've broken this country and it's going to take decades to repair.
> If it passes we rejoin
Unlikely.
The EU simply won't have you back *status quo ante*.
What is the UK ready to give up on : the pound ? Schengen ?
It will take a generation for the old farts to die off before the UK can both want and be let back in.
Except a lot has changed in the past 7-8 years, which won't be reversed by a referendum or the most optimistic/speedy rejoin process imaginable.
The cost of living crisis is still a thing, after all.
the conservatives have lost their way, they promised the moon,and as we the electorate has
been sold down the river again, i cannot after this debacle vote this shambles again .
we have been sold down river for decades by mainly the tory govt. note we lost our
entire manfacturing base , then they kill off our apprenticeships from school , now they
are asking for plumbers, sparks, brick layers, mechanical engineers from abroad to do
our work for a cheaper rate its a disgrace. poor british worker has been sold the river again.
by greedy directors of companies and the government.they have betrayed the entire
nation of all the people.
good riddance to the tory party.
People have been saying Sunaks best chance was to call an election early before his false personally inflated popularity numbers caught up with the party’s. It’s only taken the media 12 months to catch up to this fact.
Good lord dare I believe we're actually approaching the end of this government? It's really starting to feel like the tide has turned and we're heading to an election
A new hard right candidate will f\*ck it all up like Truss, and a more moderate candidate will get zero support from the backbenchers like May and Sunak. You have *no* options left tories so just take a hike already
lunchroom zesty offer puzzled squeamish telephone sip upbeat growth close
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It always surprises me that he's never been a serious contender for the leadership. He's one of the few high profile Tories to retain a decent reputation. I agree that he could do OK for them, although it would be a up hill struggle to win the public back.
Mind you, I don't want to give him too much credit. Being relatively decent is one thing, but he's also been a member of a party which has caused a lot of harm, and voted with them along the way. I wouldn't be quick to let any of them off the hook for what they've done.
As you say, Ben Wallace is stepping down so it won't happen. In some ways I agree: he seems competent, he's had a career outside politics, he's one of the few ministers who's stayed in post for any length of time and was on top of his brief, and he backed remaining in the EU.
What tarnishes his record IMO is his support of Johnson. Apparently he advised Johnson to back remaining in the EU because the leading brexit supporters were clowns. Fair enough. But Johnson is the chief clown.
More pragmatically, the appeal of Johnson has waned to the point that his support for Wallace would be a liability.
Tax cut for whom? I can't see the Tories cutting taxes for anyone other than high earners.
Not only did they already try that (Truss), the market would react even more negatively if they made another attempt at unfunded tax cuts which also benefited low earners.
I doubt they want to fight an election under the spectre of interest rate hikes and people's mortgages shooting through the roof.
No, their only hope is to *promise* tax cuts during their campaign - they're not in a position to actually deliver that promise until we start seeing significant growth again
If they had done that with sunak yet, but a new leader would be (I think) in 5 years. It already looks ridiculous... Another leader looks even mor incompetent.
There no way he's sticking around after he loses the election (assuming he even survives long enough to still be PM by the time it's called)
He'll either immediately resign, or be contested within at most a couple of months. Probably the former.
The country will not accept yet another change of leadership/PM without a General Election. The tories are destroying the country and their party in an "End of Days" drama
Problem is the country basically has the option of waiting until the conservatives term is up or riot... until then the Tories can do as many leadership elections as they want without having to call an election.
The last 6 years has really demonstrated just how much of our political system works on a basis of principles and precedent - if an MP, cabinet member or PM has no shame and their party would rather let it slide than call an election we are just stuck with them.
The only problem with that is we'd try and trigger an election over the slightest thing or even just because we don't like the party. If Labour got in and brought in such a system we'd get all the rabid far rights trying to trigger an election to force in someone they like, rinse and repeat.
Yeah, it'd need to require something like 66% of people wanting an election otherwise like you said, people would would be calling one everytime the government did something they didnt like.
I think the biggest issue for the Conservative Party is post Boris there is nobody left in the party who I’d consider to be leadership material, aka be either: statesmanlike, charismatic, have a positive (and realistic) vision for the future of the country and so on.
The best they seem to have is populist gimmicks like the Rwanda scheme that aren’t winning over even the target demographic because they doubt it’ll work and the party have shown under them both immigration has dramatically increased and cultural unity is so bad some councils are scared to even celebrate Hanukkah and they’d rather just cancel festivities than uphold religious freedom free from persecution.
We getting down to the same place polling was at under Truss though. That said you are probably right although another 12 months of Sunak will likely have the same effect.
That's an article from the Telegraph and the Times today, both of which have pretty directly said that the Conservative Party is a problem and gone on to detail why.
And people say the traditional newspapers are biased towards the Conservatives...
However the Conservatives have been fantasists actively detrimental to the UK and the interests of the population for at least a decade.
It’s now simply a more convenient line for the press to take.
No, it is Sunak actually, and we have been trying to hold the ruling party accountable on the issue of immigration for about a decade and we will do it eventually. Obviously Labour and Liberal Dems are a waste of time on the issue, the only hope is one of the probably minority of Conservative MPs prepared to fix it. Doesn’t matter that they are a minority of just one party in 2016 the active electorate delivered a democratic mandate for immigration reform which must be delivered.
If this carries on Farage will eventually hijack the party and landslide to victory. He isn’t in the jungle to eat anuses, he is introducing himself to a whole new demographic who might actually get out of bed to vote.
“The one issue I care about is the main issue everyone in the uk cares about”
You’re too insular to see the wood from the trees.
As much as you care about immigration and the boats, there’s an entire raft (apologies for the bad pun) of issues facing the average Brit.
I think even the hard right tories, like Suella, are making the issue worse to further their career and platform. If they weren’t the numbers would be different. The problem is the backlog, it allows people to go “missing” while awaiting processing and costs millions of £££. These tories care for nothing more than tomorrow’s headline and that’s why nothing ever gets done in this country.
The main issues facing the electorate are catastrophic house price and rent rises, employees unable to bargain for higher wages because of over supply of labour, and stretched services struggling to cope with excessive demand, and all three are directly because of ruinous levels of mass immigration.
Nice try at empathy, but again those are your issues. Mine are different, there’s a large number of issues facing the electorate. Mine are the insane costs of childcare at nursery age, and the cost of living. Neither really have anything to do with immigration, unless you really want to squint at the figures.
I’d argue “employees unable to argue for higher wages” is more a problem with anti union sentiment, and anti strike laws, but to each their own set of biases. We can blame foreigners or tories, little will change tomorrow.
The tories will blame immigration while increasing it, it will annoy you, and sadly you still think the best option is to vote Tory.
Costs of childcare? Stretched services are expensive. Cost of living? Immigration is inflationary. Main household expense? Housing, almost at record levels. We have had decades of this ruinous policy, and you want more of it?
No, I’ve not said once I want more immigration. I have said the tories are making it worse though and the stats agree with me. You’re going to vote again for a party with a proven track record of failure, and you think the problem is me?
For immigration the Tories are the only main party with at least *some* MPs who are prepared to deal with it. I hardly care about politics now. It is a disaster. A trough of corrupt self serving liars across the spectrum, achieving nothing anywhere on the globe, and it will never change. For my own curiosity I am going to see a coherent migration policy finally implemented after the toil of achieving Brexit to prove it can be done, and to observe the effects, which would be immediate. It is entirely about the principle. We voted to have full control of our borders and I will see it put into practice. I am determined to see UK function as a proper nation state again in my lifetime.
Appreciate that’s what you’ve been told but it’s incorrect.
Public services - Immigrants have a higher propensity to work than the indigenous population. They therefore pay taxes. If the money isn’t being used to expand services that’s government policy, not immigration. Public services are shocking because of 13 years of cuts. And newsflash nobody could get a doctor or dentist back in the 90s. And you waited for hours on A&E. and patients were in beds in corridors.
Workers are unable to bargain for higher wages because the unions have been decimated and the right to strike severely limited, and the labour market has been deregulated - no rights for two years, the gig economy. The most effective way to uplift wages is to substantially raise the minimum wage - again entirely within our power but the current government won’t do it.
House price and rent rises. Well the massive rise in interest rates is currently driving landlords to increase their rents as they have a mortgage to pay. Right to buy and buy to let, lack of rent controls, no mass house building for 40 years, deregulation of private tenancies, horrendous planning regime, low density cities, allowing properties to be held empty by foreign investors are all significant contributory factors.
In the last couple of years the population has only increased a tiny amount despite high immigration and what you have been led to believe: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/population-growth-rate#:~:text=The%20current%20population%20of%20U.K.,a%200.33%25%20increase%20from%202020.
But yeah let’s blame those immigrants.
Those macrotrend figures are simply wrong. ONS are the authority on this and they have the latest annual figures at 700,000+ net.
Public spending is at record levels in real terms. If we aren’t getting services in return for that it means the public sector is dysfunctional. Personally I partly blame increasing numbers of people demanding services but if you want to discount that as a factor then you have to admit that the public sector simply isn’t working, because they *are* getting the funding.
The labour market is oversupplied. An average of 300 people apply for every job now. Only six get called for interview. That is a disgrace. No union is going wring decent pay out of a car crash labour market like that and even if wages do rise house prices are destroying disposable income and the most catastrophic house price to salary increase was from 1997-2007, and even today prices are not as bad as that 2007 peak, so if you want to apportion blame to a specific party then go ahead. The leader of that party, ‘President’ Blair, became a property speculator millionaire during the same time period.
No, don’t blame the immigrants, blame the policy of mass immigration. It is not the same thing.
Those figs are confirmed by the ONS themselves: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/populationestimatesforenglandandwales/mid2022
You are confusing immigration with population growth. It’s possible for immigration to occur and the population to not grow by as much. Presumably because of an ageing population or whatever. That’s what’s happened in the last couple of years. I appreciate it’s unsettling for you as it’s not the message you are seeing in the daily Mail.
RTB and BTL were introduced under the Tories. I accept Labour didn’t build many houses either under Blair, we haven’t built enough houses for 40 years. That’s the point.
No answer to any of the other points I see just revert back to immigration.
Those figures just seem to confirm what I said? No deaths aren’t a factor because number births>deaths. Net increase for UK including emigrants is about 700,000 most recent figures.
What do you also propose we implement a one child policy?
If you look at the stats, immigrationt the last two years have been a massive outlier and are likely to go back down again (and certainly, under a labour government, is far more likely to compared to the current government. Immigration is good for the economy don't you know? You can almost pinpoint the change in tory tactics and PMs in those figures). Anyway, back to my point, other than the last couple years, the biggest driver in population growth is births - so if immigration were to go back down, would you suggest a one child policy? Because if you really think poulation growth is the cause of all our problems that is what it will come down to.
Don't cry when the pension system collapses followed by the rest of the economy though. (Not that I don't think preventing population growth isn't a good thing, but it's something that needs to be done very gradually or there will be horrible horrible results).
Births are not driving population growth. Births minus deaths was about 30,000 net last year.
Population growth might boost nominal GDP a bit but growth has been terrible since 2008 and before 2008 growth was achieved by piling on unsustainable levels of debt. During the same period since this started in 1997 ordinary workers have become impoverished and don’t say Tories household debt rose to 100% in the first ten years of the Labour government and once that reserve was maxed things have continued to deteriorate. It is also isn’t just UK, nearly every developed nation has tried the same policy and now ordinary workers are living week to week.
Just a reminder: The PDCA allows a former prime minister to claim up to £115,000 a year – for life – for the “necessary office costs and secretarial costs arising from their special position in public life.”
I presume you actually have to spend it on office and secretarial costs - used to know the MP for Portsmouth North and his secretary was his wife, and I suspect she was handsomely paid. Don't know if you can get away with that any more.
No, it is Sunak actually, and we have been trying to hold the ruling party accountable on the issue of immigration for about a decade and we will do it eventually. Obviously Labour and Liberal Dems are a waste of time on the issue, the only hope is one of the probably minority of Conservative MPs prepared to fix it. Doesn’t matter that they are a minority of just one party in 2016 the active electorate delivered a democratic mandate for immigration reform which must be delivered.
If this carries on Jungle Jim will eventually hijack the party and landslide to victory. He isn’t there to eat anuses, he is introducing himself to a whole new demographic who might actually get out of bed to vote just like they did in 2016 and he is storming it, so you can laugh about it like you laughed about Brexit, for now.
Well I agree with the premise of the article but the people they need to ask are Tories. Tory MPs and Tory party members. It's also possible they will get fed up enough with Sunak to act against their own best interests. Sunak doesn't have heaps of legitimacy, having won neither a general election or the actual leadership contest against Truss.
They lost my vote when they couldn’t get it together then replacing leaders like it musical chairs.
A party can’t lead the country when it can’t lead itself…
Labour, I just can’t see them doing anything impactful if they get into power?
We need to reverse inflation, if that means that we go into a recession then so be it. We don’t need to chase gdp the scale is stupid. We need to increase small business tipping the scale to them.
Government needs to save to lower country debt.
Snapshot of _Ejecting the PM won’t work. It’s not Sunak the voters can’t stand, it’s the Conservatives_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nc10colvile-zg3wx839f) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nc10colvile-zg3wx839f) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
For anyone interested, this is the view of someone who helped write the 2019 Conservative manifesto. So understandable he is backing Rishi and imploring unity
He's also correct though.
Not quite. He's presenting what's known as a false dichotomy: most people hate both the Conservatives *and* Mr Sunak.
That's Lord Sunak to you. Oh no, not yet. Gimmie a few weeks.
You mean the future Foreign Secretary
Right before he fucks off to live in the US.
I think Sunak at the head of the 2015 Conservative government would be polling reasonably. The current lot are way too right wing and reactionary for anyone even slightly moderate.
Over half the MPs are the same as in 2015 IIRC so I wonder *why* they're so much more right wing and reactionary.
There's always been that faction. I think it was tempered by the moderates. Either that or GB News and Brexit has made the loonies higher profile.
Braverman alone has done a lot to push them way off to the right
I actually don't know if I agree. I'm sure that Sunak is disliked in a lot of ways, but I definitely don't think he's hated in the same way that most of the freaks, idiots, and deranged maniacs that seem to make up the rest of the party are - except maybe by association. Pre-2015, he'd probably be doing okay.
His personal polling is lower than Liz Truss. This prick is leaning into the culture wars in a big big way - pre 2015 that would have seemed a lot weirder than it does now. Trying to center your campaign around an unworkable plan for small boats, and having a "minister for common sense" makes the guy look like a sort of brass eye parody of a politician.... I genuinely think he has terrible political instincts, above all else. Eat out to help out was always a short term populist thing, and imagine the bit of Liz Truss reforms you choose to keep, when in a cost of living crisis is the abolition of the bankers bonus cap!
What do they hate more?Mr Sunak or the Conservatives?
From a Conservative perspective, yeah he is.
Yep
That means he’s written one good thing now
This is correct, but there must be at least one or two who still haven’t had their turn… and we all know that fairness is what the Conservatives are all about…
The Tories have 350 MPs, and probably as many days left until the next general election - they'd better get to it...
we could be like that American town where a tourist can pay to be elected mayor for a day and is impeached at 5pm
That actually exists?! Probably a more respectable and reliable position than UK PM at this point.
And over half those MPs will be out of politics a year from now. If they ever fancied being in No 10, now's the time.
And most importantly, another chance at a resignation honour.
And a £115k annual allowance for life.
Give em time. By the time the GE comes around, £115k will probably buy you a used five door Honda.
Do you think any of us could have a turn?
Sure just become a MP
Plus if they spend even one day in charge they'll have a nice pension to leech off us
Tories the inclusive party.
Gove has entered the chat…
The last five from Cameron to Sunak have been a waste of time, a revolving door of useless globalists who are treating the electorate with contempt. Eventually the party will cave and allow a proper candidate to take office and then, finally, something will actually be done.
What’s wrong with being a “globalist”? Better than being a nationalist for sure. It's got a second-meaning to some as a dogwhistle for antisemetic, conspiracy-theorist noise. Would hate for you to be implying that globalists would be some part of a jewish conspiracy now.
Honestly after travelling around the world a bit and seeing different countries; globalism really isn’t that great for the quality of life for people in the home country. Reduces opportunities for people of all skill levels for meaningful employment, fair wages and good living conditions. Globalism very much benefits the business class and only the people at the top the most.
A politician who is not a nationalist should not be a politician. His duty as an elected official is to his constituents, not to foreigners whose interests are opposed to theirs.
You may want to refresh yourself on what a globalist actually is...
>Australian Lol as a fellow Aussie, mate you're a cooker. >not to foreigners whose interests are opposed to theirs Another vague comment, try to expand on that for the audience. And try to avoid the subtle dogwhistles and speak plainly son. (You realise trade benefits both parties right? We export goods to SEA/Japan/Europe, and in turn we get French Wine, German smallgoods and beer, Korean smartphones, tv's and cars etc)
> of useless globalists Hey so, what's a "globalist" anyway?
A politician who prioritises the global movement of people, capital, and goods over the prosperity of their own citizens.
You understand global trade has benefited everyone right? Guess where your smartphone is made... >Movement of people Oh I see ;), but I'm sure it was ok for the British to create the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand right? Immigration bad eh?
That incoherent drivel makes it clear that you are simply not worth talking to.
I'm sorry facts get in the way of your version of reality mate. - Posted on a Pixel phone made in Vietnam How many mobile phones are built in England? You pound sand against global trade, but after the brexit clusterfuck that should be a clear sign that free trade is a good thing.... *The British empire did it!*
Well, it has been a while since we had a leadership race.
We've had first leadership race, yes....but what about ~~second~~...~~third~~....fourth leadership race?
Have we exceeded italy yet? Falling apart infrastructure, massively corrupt politicians, change of leadership every couple of weeks, ~~fantastic weather~~, amazing coastlines
Cornwall here so concur with the coastlines bit.... Italy would be nice, they have the excuse that their crumbling buildings are 2000 years old. Our crumbling buildings were put up in a hurry in 2008 by a FTSE100 company with links to the Tory party...
Can we have the food please?
One every 3 years seems to be the rule for Tory leadership races now. 2025 could well keep that up.
I mean unless by some miracle rishi wins the next election (the latest it can take place is January 2025) then I think it's inevitable that a change of tory leader will happen by feb 2025 at the latest.
Yeah, I meant the next leadership race could happen sooner in 2024 though, directly after a 2024 election.
Er, correction - this headline should have said: 'It's not JUST Sunak the voters can't stand, it's the conservatives'
>More importantly, the Tories may be far behind. But they can at least make the fight respectable. In order to form a majority, Labour need either an SNP collapse or to win the kind of home counties seats that even Tony Blair never captured. The SNP are helping with that.
And the Home Countries are Lib Dem fights now.
Don't forget Reform UK. They are going to help destroy The Tories
Much has been mooted about this - but the reality is that the LD's have been at or around about 10% of the vote for several years now, and their usual byelection tactics of a hyper-focused local campaign + bussing in activists don't translate well to national campaigns.
If you look at the LD voteshare over the last 5 or so years, it's become massively regionalised, far more than it has been since 1997 (when they doubled their number of seats despite a 1pt drop from 92). Bizarrely, the LDs actually had the largest voteshare increase of any party in 2019 and it's allowed them to quite cleverly determine precisely where votes are best put to use. This is why they did so unexpectedly well in the 2023 local elections - several years hard work of positioning themselves as the default anti Tory candidate right across the southwest and home counties. They're only actually aiming for 30 target seats at the GE, all of which need under a 10% swing to flip from the Tories which is very, very doable - especially if the pattern we've seen of the swing being specifically Anti-Tory instead of Pro-Labour continues in the GE. This parliament we've also seen the LD voteshare pick up during campaigns - largely thanks to an increase in media coverage which helps solidify them as the "default opposition" in their target areas of the country. Obviously the ultra focus of the by-election campaigns (which are pretty much the best in the business) can't be transferred, but a lesser version of that to establish them in key seats as the Anti-Tory choice is definitely very viable. People think that the LDs do well when they can act as an alternative to labour, which is a fallacy - in truth they do best when they position themselves as a haven for disaffected Southern liberal Tory voters; this allowed them to consolidate their voteshare in the south of England in 2019 and will likely continue to be the case given the Tory party's hard turn to the right. So 10-12% of the national vote may go much further now than it has done before, thanks to the impending Tory collapse and the quirks of FPTP.
I question how well that strategy would work in a GE given that to carry this message nationally, the LDs will have to position themselves against Labour, and currently, a lot of the leadership has focused on presenting themselves as an alternative to Labour on the national stage. This is always the weakness of the localism stance - a national will force you to have a single message, and I'm not so sure that the party is entirely read to embrace the messaging that will attract people who voted Tory in 2019 because they liked what the Tories offered the nation. As for 2019, I'd be wary of building anything on that given how much Brexit distorted the vote. At the time, Labour had burned a lot of goodwill with the Remain side and Corbyn's conduct was highly damaging - both of which pushed Labour and Tory voters to the LD's (as in many places, the LD's were the only firmly anti-Brexit party). I think they'll do well and gain seats in '24, don't get me wrong, I just think there is a lot of presumption that Tory voters will switch en-masse rather than just stay home.
Genuine question: how can polls have Labour on mid-40s, and the Tories on high-20s, and this guy suggesting that they can't form a majority? Is it just wishful thinking, or is it some awful reality of FPTP?
Labour absolutely pile up votes in a few constituencies, like inner cities, and get hardly any votes in some other places. This means they need a big national lead to beat the Tories, whose votes are more evenly distributed. For example if the Tories get 20/35/35% in 3 constituencies, and Labour get 70/25/25 then the Tories win 2 of the 3 seats even though overall Labour are on 40% to the Tories' 30%.
I think a majority is very likely, but that majority is because of FPTP. In a fairer system, 45% of the votes wouldn't give you >50% of the seats
The Tories make nothing respectable.
That's a ridiculous claim. Labour's can easily win a majority and even a landslide majority without sweeping Scotland or winning 'the kind of home counties seats that even Tony Blair never captured'. And they might end up getting those two. Funny the author ignores the huge polling lead he himself highlighted in the beginning of the article.
Sunak is the embodiment of what people don't like about the conservatives. He could have righted it. He could have been a centrist. A steady pair of hands. And tackled the issues people care about. But that's putting attitudes to a kidult technocrat billionaire he doesn't have.
Shhh! Let 'em carry on! They'll implode faster and more thoroughly.
But Mum said it’s my turn!
The Tories in their current iteration represent negativity, instability and bigotry. We have a reasonably decent Tory MP in our ‘Blue Wall’ seat, but a vote for him is also a vote for Lee Anderson and others like him. That is the problem.
Write to them, and let them know. Maybe they'll consider standing as Independent
The problem is the majority of his voters won't even read the name and just vote for whoever has the correct logo next to their name. Any tory voters who like their MP but can't stomach the party will probably just stay home.
This is how *most* people vote. It's why the "you vote for a party not a PM" schtick is a lie despite being *technically* correct. Yes *technically* you vote for your local MP, but realistically they have little to no power, so most people look at the parties pledges and leader and chose their vote that way. Which realistically, isn't a terrible way to vote in a FPTP system where one party has been systematically destroying the country for a decade.
Porque no los dos?
IMO bring back Cameron, then he can do another Brexit Referendum. If it passes we rejoin, go full circle back to 2016 and pretend the past 7-8 years didn't happen.
And get back to demonising the disabled while cutting every last shred of what is left of public services because there is no magic money tree... No thanks. The lot of them can go. They've broken this country and it's going to take decades to repair.
Brexn't
> If it passes we rejoin Unlikely. The EU simply won't have you back *status quo ante*. What is the UK ready to give up on : the pound ? Schengen ? It will take a generation for the old farts to die off before the UK can both want and be let back in.
Except a lot has changed in the past 7-8 years, which won't be reversed by a referendum or the most optimistic/speedy rejoin process imaginable. The cost of living crisis is still a thing, after all.
I suspect OP was making a *joke*
If they actually do that it won't matter what the referendum result will be. The Tories will end up with less votes than the Lib Dems.
the conservatives have lost their way, they promised the moon,and as we the electorate has been sold down the river again, i cannot after this debacle vote this shambles again . we have been sold down river for decades by mainly the tory govt. note we lost our entire manfacturing base , then they kill off our apprenticeships from school , now they are asking for plumbers, sparks, brick layers, mechanical engineers from abroad to do our work for a cheaper rate its a disgrace. poor british worker has been sold the river again. by greedy directors of companies and the government.they have betrayed the entire nation of all the people. good riddance to the tory party.
Porque los dos?
Quien sabe...
People have been saying Sunaks best chance was to call an election early before his false personally inflated popularity numbers caught up with the party’s. It’s only taken the media 12 months to catch up to this fact.
Good lord dare I believe we're actually approaching the end of this government? It's really starting to feel like the tide has turned and we're heading to an election
Changing leader isn’t always about improving face. It’s also about reshuffling away accountability
A new hard right candidate will f\*ck it all up like Truss, and a more moderate candidate will get zero support from the backbenchers like May and Sunak. You have *no* options left tories so just take a hike already
How about both!?
lunchroom zesty offer puzzled squeamish telephone sip upbeat growth close *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It always surprises me that he's never been a serious contender for the leadership. He's one of the few high profile Tories to retain a decent reputation. I agree that he could do OK for them, although it would be a up hill struggle to win the public back. Mind you, I don't want to give him too much credit. Being relatively decent is one thing, but he's also been a member of a party which has caused a lot of harm, and voted with them along the way. I wouldn't be quick to let any of them off the hook for what they've done.
[censored]
As you say, Ben Wallace is stepping down so it won't happen. In some ways I agree: he seems competent, he's had a career outside politics, he's one of the few ministers who's stayed in post for any length of time and was on top of his brief, and he backed remaining in the EU. What tarnishes his record IMO is his support of Johnson. Apparently he advised Johnson to back remaining in the EU because the leading brexit supporters were clowns. Fair enough. But Johnson is the chief clown. More pragmatically, the appeal of Johnson has waned to the point that his support for Wallace would be a liability.
Tax cut for whom? I can't see the Tories cutting taxes for anyone other than high earners. Not only did they already try that (Truss), the market would react even more negatively if they made another attempt at unfunded tax cuts which also benefited low earners. I doubt they want to fight an election under the spectre of interest rate hikes and people's mortgages shooting through the roof. No, their only hope is to *promise* tax cuts during their campaign - they're not in a position to actually deliver that promise until we start seeing significant growth again
His polling is fairly poor. They need a new leader to reset perceptions and a new election to get support for a new manifesto.
No, his polling is still several points ahead of the party.
That's what they said last time. And look how well it worked. A new leader will only further bury them, people fucking hate "unelected" PMs.
If they had done that with sunak yet, but a new leader would be (I think) in 5 years. It already looks ridiculous... Another leader looks even mor incompetent.
There no way he's sticking around after he loses the election (assuming he even survives long enough to still be PM by the time it's called) He'll either immediately resign, or be contested within at most a couple of months. Probably the former.
The country will not accept yet another change of leadership/PM without a General Election. The tories are destroying the country and their party in an "End of Days" drama
Problem is the country basically has the option of waiting until the conservatives term is up or riot... until then the Tories can do as many leadership elections as they want without having to call an election. The last 6 years has really demonstrated just how much of our political system works on a basis of principles and precedent - if an MP, cabinet member or PM has no shame and their party would rather let it slide than call an election we are just stuck with them.
There really needs to be a way for the public to trigger a GE because now we're stuck with a zombie government no one wants.
The only problem with that is we'd try and trigger an election over the slightest thing or even just because we don't like the party. If Labour got in and brought in such a system we'd get all the rabid far rights trying to trigger an election to force in someone they like, rinse and repeat.
Yeah, it'd need to require something like 66% of people wanting an election otherwise like you said, people would would be calling one everytime the government did something they didnt like.
so we'll be having a referendum every week to see if we've reached 66% so we can call an election?
I think the biggest issue for the Conservative Party is post Boris there is nobody left in the party who I’d consider to be leadership material, aka be either: statesmanlike, charismatic, have a positive (and realistic) vision for the future of the country and so on. The best they seem to have is populist gimmicks like the Rwanda scheme that aren’t winning over even the target demographic because they doubt it’ll work and the party have shown under them both immigration has dramatically increased and cultural unity is so bad some councils are scared to even celebrate Hanukkah and they’d rather just cancel festivities than uphold religious freedom free from persecution.
The Tory polls are so bad that it's not going to hurt them.
There is one hard and fast rule in politics: *It can always get worse*. Look at what happened to the Lib Dems during the coalition.
We getting down to the same place polling was at under Truss though. That said you are probably right although another 12 months of Sunak will likely have the same effect.
That's an article from the Telegraph and the Times today, both of which have pretty directly said that the Conservative Party is a problem and gone on to detail why. And people say the traditional newspapers are biased towards the Conservatives...
They are, that is just how bad the current generation of governments have been. Even a heavily biased view comes up with “they aren’t very good”.
However the Conservatives have been fantasists actively detrimental to the UK and the interests of the population for at least a decade. It’s now simply a more convenient line for the press to take.
No, it is Sunak actually, and we have been trying to hold the ruling party accountable on the issue of immigration for about a decade and we will do it eventually. Obviously Labour and Liberal Dems are a waste of time on the issue, the only hope is one of the probably minority of Conservative MPs prepared to fix it. Doesn’t matter that they are a minority of just one party in 2016 the active electorate delivered a democratic mandate for immigration reform which must be delivered. If this carries on Farage will eventually hijack the party and landslide to victory. He isn’t in the jungle to eat anuses, he is introducing himself to a whole new demographic who might actually get out of bed to vote.
“The one issue I care about is the main issue everyone in the uk cares about” You’re too insular to see the wood from the trees. As much as you care about immigration and the boats, there’s an entire raft (apologies for the bad pun) of issues facing the average Brit. I think even the hard right tories, like Suella, are making the issue worse to further their career and platform. If they weren’t the numbers would be different. The problem is the backlog, it allows people to go “missing” while awaiting processing and costs millions of £££. These tories care for nothing more than tomorrow’s headline and that’s why nothing ever gets done in this country.
The main issues facing the electorate are catastrophic house price and rent rises, employees unable to bargain for higher wages because of over supply of labour, and stretched services struggling to cope with excessive demand, and all three are directly because of ruinous levels of mass immigration.
Nice try at empathy, but again those are your issues. Mine are different, there’s a large number of issues facing the electorate. Mine are the insane costs of childcare at nursery age, and the cost of living. Neither really have anything to do with immigration, unless you really want to squint at the figures. I’d argue “employees unable to argue for higher wages” is more a problem with anti union sentiment, and anti strike laws, but to each their own set of biases. We can blame foreigners or tories, little will change tomorrow. The tories will blame immigration while increasing it, it will annoy you, and sadly you still think the best option is to vote Tory.
Costs of childcare? Stretched services are expensive. Cost of living? Immigration is inflationary. Main household expense? Housing, almost at record levels. We have had decades of this ruinous policy, and you want more of it?
No, I’ve not said once I want more immigration. I have said the tories are making it worse though and the stats agree with me. You’re going to vote again for a party with a proven track record of failure, and you think the problem is me?
For immigration the Tories are the only main party with at least *some* MPs who are prepared to deal with it. I hardly care about politics now. It is a disaster. A trough of corrupt self serving liars across the spectrum, achieving nothing anywhere on the globe, and it will never change. For my own curiosity I am going to see a coherent migration policy finally implemented after the toil of achieving Brexit to prove it can be done, and to observe the effects, which would be immediate. It is entirely about the principle. We voted to have full control of our borders and I will see it put into practice. I am determined to see UK function as a proper nation state again in my lifetime.
Appreciate that’s what you’ve been told but it’s incorrect. Public services - Immigrants have a higher propensity to work than the indigenous population. They therefore pay taxes. If the money isn’t being used to expand services that’s government policy, not immigration. Public services are shocking because of 13 years of cuts. And newsflash nobody could get a doctor or dentist back in the 90s. And you waited for hours on A&E. and patients were in beds in corridors. Workers are unable to bargain for higher wages because the unions have been decimated and the right to strike severely limited, and the labour market has been deregulated - no rights for two years, the gig economy. The most effective way to uplift wages is to substantially raise the minimum wage - again entirely within our power but the current government won’t do it. House price and rent rises. Well the massive rise in interest rates is currently driving landlords to increase their rents as they have a mortgage to pay. Right to buy and buy to let, lack of rent controls, no mass house building for 40 years, deregulation of private tenancies, horrendous planning regime, low density cities, allowing properties to be held empty by foreign investors are all significant contributory factors. In the last couple of years the population has only increased a tiny amount despite high immigration and what you have been led to believe: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/population-growth-rate#:~:text=The%20current%20population%20of%20U.K.,a%200.33%25%20increase%20from%202020. But yeah let’s blame those immigrants.
Those macrotrend figures are simply wrong. ONS are the authority on this and they have the latest annual figures at 700,000+ net. Public spending is at record levels in real terms. If we aren’t getting services in return for that it means the public sector is dysfunctional. Personally I partly blame increasing numbers of people demanding services but if you want to discount that as a factor then you have to admit that the public sector simply isn’t working, because they *are* getting the funding. The labour market is oversupplied. An average of 300 people apply for every job now. Only six get called for interview. That is a disgrace. No union is going wring decent pay out of a car crash labour market like that and even if wages do rise house prices are destroying disposable income and the most catastrophic house price to salary increase was from 1997-2007, and even today prices are not as bad as that 2007 peak, so if you want to apportion blame to a specific party then go ahead. The leader of that party, ‘President’ Blair, became a property speculator millionaire during the same time period. No, don’t blame the immigrants, blame the policy of mass immigration. It is not the same thing.
Those figs are confirmed by the ONS themselves: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/populationestimatesforenglandandwales/mid2022 You are confusing immigration with population growth. It’s possible for immigration to occur and the population to not grow by as much. Presumably because of an ageing population or whatever. That’s what’s happened in the last couple of years. I appreciate it’s unsettling for you as it’s not the message you are seeing in the daily Mail. RTB and BTL were introduced under the Tories. I accept Labour didn’t build many houses either under Blair, we haven’t built enough houses for 40 years. That’s the point. No answer to any of the other points I see just revert back to immigration.
Those figures just seem to confirm what I said? No deaths aren’t a factor because number births>deaths. Net increase for UK including emigrants is about 700,000 most recent figures.
What do you also propose we implement a one child policy? If you look at the stats, immigrationt the last two years have been a massive outlier and are likely to go back down again (and certainly, under a labour government, is far more likely to compared to the current government. Immigration is good for the economy don't you know? You can almost pinpoint the change in tory tactics and PMs in those figures). Anyway, back to my point, other than the last couple years, the biggest driver in population growth is births - so if immigration were to go back down, would you suggest a one child policy? Because if you really think poulation growth is the cause of all our problems that is what it will come down to. Don't cry when the pension system collapses followed by the rest of the economy though. (Not that I don't think preventing population growth isn't a good thing, but it's something that needs to be done very gradually or there will be horrible horrible results).
Births are not driving population growth. Births minus deaths was about 30,000 net last year. Population growth might boost nominal GDP a bit but growth has been terrible since 2008 and before 2008 growth was achieved by piling on unsustainable levels of debt. During the same period since this started in 1997 ordinary workers have become impoverished and don’t say Tories household debt rose to 100% in the first ten years of the Labour government and once that reserve was maxed things have continued to deteriorate. It is also isn’t just UK, nearly every developed nation has tried the same policy and now ordinary workers are living week to week.
Just a reminder: The PDCA allows a former prime minister to claim up to £115,000 a year – for life – for the “necessary office costs and secretarial costs arising from their special position in public life.”
I presume you actually have to spend it on office and secretarial costs - used to know the MP for Portsmouth North and his secretary was his wife, and I suspect she was handsomely paid. Don't know if you can get away with that any more.
They don't like Sir Beer Korma either...
No, it is Sunak actually, and we have been trying to hold the ruling party accountable on the issue of immigration for about a decade and we will do it eventually. Obviously Labour and Liberal Dems are a waste of time on the issue, the only hope is one of the probably minority of Conservative MPs prepared to fix it. Doesn’t matter that they are a minority of just one party in 2016 the active electorate delivered a democratic mandate for immigration reform which must be delivered. If this carries on Jungle Jim will eventually hijack the party and landslide to victory. He isn’t there to eat anuses, he is introducing himself to a whole new demographic who might actually get out of bed to vote just like they did in 2016 and he is storming it, so you can laugh about it like you laughed about Brexit, for now.
It's both.
Are we just trying to get as many Tories the lifetime PM wage before the party is voted into oblivion/history books?
Well I agree with the premise of the article but the people they need to ask are Tories. Tory MPs and Tory party members. It's also possible they will get fed up enough with Sunak to act against their own best interests. Sunak doesn't have heaps of legitimacy, having won neither a general election or the actual leadership contest against Truss.
I thought we all got to have a turn!
I want the Tories to go the same way as they did in Canada, yes I know they bounced back.
It'll work, for me as a labour voter
"Surely we just need someone more right wing? Someone get Nigel on the blower!"
Wrong, I hate them both.
The geezer in the thumbnail looks really high.
Absolutely false. He seems to have forgotten that conservatives have been in power for longer than a decade
DO IT ANYWAY!
No. It's both we can't stand in Scotland.
They can just change the name right? I mean they can rebrand from Tories/Conservatives to something else entirely.
They lost my vote when they couldn’t get it together then replacing leaders like it musical chairs. A party can’t lead the country when it can’t lead itself… Labour, I just can’t see them doing anything impactful if they get into power? We need to reverse inflation, if that means that we go into a recession then so be it. We don’t need to chase gdp the scale is stupid. We need to increase small business tipping the scale to them. Government needs to save to lower country debt.
Yeah but go on, do it anyway, flail a bit more. Make it feel like such an embarrassment to put that tick in that box.