Who will be our next Prime Minister? - Rishi Sunak!

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Whosoever forms the next Government elected will have particular difficult decisions to make. The Covid-19 pandemic and the Putin-inspired Ukraine situation coupled together would have been more than enough to test any elected Government and it is no use pretending that they would have fared any differently.

 

[nw1]

Shouldn't Labour have enough attraction to the electorate to win on the merits of their manifesto without the need for this referred-to tactical voting?

Tactical voting is necessary to beat the nonsense that is FPTP, when one party can have absolute power with 43% of the vote.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Tactical voting is necessary to beat the nonsense that is FPTP, when one party can have absolute power with 43% of the vote.

It would be good if Labour, the LDs and the Greens would get together and run a left coalition with one policy - to implement PR (including full detail of what sort of PR it would be*) and then immediately call another GE. The problem with tactical voting is that you get a "least worst" Government.

* AV isn't PR though it does eliminate part of the issue. That would be an option but would need explaining better than last time - it was mostly voted down because people were scared of it.

 

[nw1]

The issue of Starmer being boring certainly hasn't come up much in recent months, and I suspect losing the charismatic Johnson and seeing duller Truss and now Sunak in charge explains that a lot. Personally I don't mind boring leaders if they get on with the job properly.

Indeed, though Truss was, at times, so bad she was almost funny - and Sunak will probably be boring but also won't do the job properly (for those of us who dislike austerity and isolationism, at least). A good measure of "interesting" (not always in a good way) is how well satire works. I can imagine Spitting Image having a field day with Johnson and Truss, but they would struggle with Sunak.

I would tend to agree about Starmer though. He might be (relatively) boring but will steer the country away from the rabid-right path it's followed in recent years.

 

[takno]

You do have to wonder if those criticising Truss' public speaking abilities got around to checking that the replacement they'd lined up was going to offer any improvement.

Maybe the current purpose of the Tory party is to make Starmer appear charismatic and dynamic?

I imagine they saw the incredibly awkward interview where he was completely outsmarted by a couple of six-formers asking soft questions and thought "that's our guy".

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I would tend to agree about Starmer though. He might be (relatively) boring but will steer the country away from the rabid-right path it's followed in recent years.

In 1979, the hope was that a Conservative leader would steer the country away from the rabid-left path that had been followed.

Strange how history can repeat itself.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

* AV isn't PR though it does eliminate part of the issue. That would be an option but would need explaining better than last time - it was mostly voted down because people were scared of it.

I'm not sure AV was just that people were scared of it. I suspect a huge factor was that at the time, there was no particular interest in voting reform amongst the wider population: It was very much seen as something that was being pushed because the LibDems wanted it - but the LibDems had just made themselves incredibly unpopular with that U-turn on tuition fees, which meant very few people were willing to give them much of a hearing on their pet project.

Indeed, though Truss was, at times, so bad she was almost funny - and Sunak will probably be boring but also won't do the job properly (for those of us who dislike austerity and isolationism, at least).

Austerity... well, yeah, probably almost no-one really likes austerity. But what's the alternative? The UK Government has a huge debt and an ongoing deficit that simply isn't sustainable. Something has to be done about it. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng gave us a very clear demonstration of what happens if you try to carry on as if the deficit problem doesn't exist.

Isolationism? Uh??? I think here you're making stuff up that just isn't true. As far as I can tell, the UK has played and continues to play a very full role in the international community. Look for example at the way we were pushing for action on climate change at COP, or at our support for Ukraine.

 

[MikeWM]

Personally I don't mind boring leaders if they get on with the job properly.

Personally I agree entirely, but I think you do need a bit of media sparkle nowadays to keep people enthused. A little more than Sunak showed yesterday, in any event! Let's see if he does better today.

 

[dosxuk]

Tactical voting is necessary to beat the nonsense that is FPTP, when one party can have absolute power with 43% of the vote.

With FPTP, in a statistically ideal world where the votes are distributed equally across the entire country, a party getting >50% of the vote would win every seat, despite on the surface it looking like they should only win half the seats.

 

[nw1]

I'm not sure AV was just that people were scared of it. I suspect a huge factor was that at the time, there was no particular interest in voting reform amongst the wider population: It was very much seen as something that was being pushed because the LibDems wanted it - but the LibDems had just made themselves incredibly unpopular with that U-turn on tuition fees, which meant very few people were willing to give them much of a hearing on their pet project.



Austerity... well, yeah, probably almost no-one really likes austerity. But what's the alternative? The UK Government has a huge debt and an ongoing deficit that simply isn't sustainable. Something has to be done about it. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng gave us a very clear demonstration of what happens if you try to carry on as if the deficit problem doesn't exist.

Truss and Kwarteng were one extreme (borrow money to fund tax cuts); Richi Sunak will be the other I suspect (I would expect swingeing cuts to public services in the style of Cameron and Osborne).

Isolationism? Uh??? I think here you're making stuff up that just isn't true.

You know precisely what I mean here, but I won't be explicit as we've been warned off discussing that subject once already in the past 24 hours.

All in all, I think Sunak will open up the old left-right divide, which in recent years has been eclipsed by other divides. I fully expect the next 18 months to be reminiscent of the early years of Cameron and Osborne, but on acid, and without the internationalist leanings that were the saving grace of those two. Right-leaning affluent people who don't rely much on public services will be happy, anyone on the left, anyone making heavy use of public services (including, to keep it on topic for this forum, public transport) and anyone struggling in life will not.

Hence the Red Wall will be rebuilt but the Blue Wall may remain relatively resilient.

 

[najaB]

Austerity... well, yeah, probably almost no-one really likes austerity. But what's the alternative? The UK Government has a huge debt and an ongoing deficit that simply isn't sustainable. Something has to be done about it. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng gave us a very clear demonstration of what happens if you try to carry on as if the deficit problem doesn't exist.

It is impossible to cut your way to growth.

 

[Yew]

In 1979, the hope was that a Conservative leader would steer the country away from the rabid-left path that had been followed.

Strange how history can repeat itself.

Let’s not labour under the delusion that any mainstream political party in the UK has ever been “rabid left”, on a international scale even the most leafy leaning labour leaders have been centre left when compared to other European countries.

 

[dosxuk]

Let’s not labour under the delusion that any mainstream political party in the UK has ever been “rabid left”, on a international scale even the most leafy leaning labour leaders have been centre left when compared to other European countries.

It's always amusing to hear Americans going on about the Democrats being "extreme left", when compared to most of the world they are actually slightly to the right of centre.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's always amusing to hear Americans going on about the Democrats being "extreme left", when compared to most of the world they are actually slightly to the right of centre.

I'd say the Democrats are basically the normal (say Cameronian) Tory Party* and the Republicans are a fair way to the right of that.

* As opposed to the right-wing-nutter version we've had for a few years.

 

[nw1]

In 1979, the hope was that a Conservative leader would steer the country away from the rabid-left path that had been followed.

Strange how history can repeat itself.

Well Thatcher certainly steered things in a different direction, so that "hope" (if you can call it that) was well-founded.

I don't remember Callaghan (well, I remember the name, but knew nothing about him) but was he really rabid-left? Most articles seem to consider him on the right of the Labour party, relatively speaking. Perhaps he was a weak leader but that doesn't make him rabid-left!

By contrast some of the earlier things I remember on the news from my childhood were the 1981 riots and high unemployment figures of the early 80s in general. Nice one, Maggie.

It is impossible to cut your way to growth.

Hence Truss being on one extreme and Sunak being on the other. Neither of them are welcome as far as I'm concerned.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Truss and Kwarteng were one extreme (borrow money to fund tax cuts); Richi Sunak will be the other I suspect (I would expect swingeing cuts to public services in the style of Cameron and Osborne).

So you're advocating a middle path in between those two. But doesn't that simply mean you're leaving the deficit problem, and maybe not exacerbating it, but also not doing anything to solve it? (I'm pretty sure the real solution is of course to focus on investment/growth/efficiency while also keeping spending under control and ensuring that current spending is fully funded by taxation, even if some capital investment is funded by borrowing).

You know precisely what I mean here, but I won't be explicit as we've been warned off discussing that subject once already in the past 24 hours.

I have a suspicion that maybe you're trying to equate Brexit with isolationism. But it really isn't.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I don't remember Callaghan (well, I remember the name, but knew nothing about him) but was he really rabid-left? Most articles seem to consider him on the right of the Labour party, relatively speaking. Perhaps he was a weak leader but that doesn't make him rabid-left!

In the 1970s, were not some parts of the Labour Government occupied by rabid-left factions? Neil Kinnock stood up at Conference to denounce Liverpool Labour going round in taxis delivering redundancy notices. The Militant Tendency had advocates in certain sections of the Labour Government.

Would you feel that if Labour under Corbyn had achieved power, that Momentum would have strengthened their power base inside that Government?

 

[najaB]

In the 1970s, were not some parts of the Labour Government occupied by rabid-left factions?

Extreme Left for the UK would be centre-Left elsewhere in the world.

For example, I don't recall any Labour leader demanding the collectivisation of labour or seizure of the assets of the rich.

 

[duncanp]

I don't remember Callaghan (well, I remember the name, but knew nothing about him) but was he really rabid-left? Most articles seem to consider him on the right of the Labour party, relatively speaking. Perhaps he was a weak leader but that doesn't make him rabid-left!

James Callaghan was hampered by having a very small majority in parliament, which disappeared after several by-election losses, resulting in the "Lib-Lab pact", which was something like a confidence and supply arrangement between Labour and the Liberals.

He wasn't "rabid left" himself, but there were other people in the Labour party and the unions who were "rabid left" and his small majority in parliament meant that he was dependent on them for support.

The late 1970s were characterised by economic decline, high inflation, and strikes.

There was a possibility of an election in September 1978, but Callaghan decided against this.

The 1978/1979 "winter of discontent" culminated in the government losing a vote of confidence (by one vote) in March 1979, and at the subsequent election Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister.

 

[AlterEgo]

Sunak has been appointed as the Prime Minister just now.

 

[nw1]

In the 1970s, were not some parts of the Labour Government occupied by rabid-left factions? Neil Kinnock stood up at Conference to denounce Liverpool Labour going round in taxis delivering redundancy notices. The Militant Tendency had advocates in certain sections of the Labour Government.

Would you feel that if Labour under Corbyn had achieved power, that Momentum would have strengthened their power base inside that Government?

I suspect that had Corbyn achieved power, he would actually have been moderated by both moderates within his party and the Lib Dems who Labour would likely have been in coalition with. In fact I suspect Corbyn would have been replaced before too long, earlier than Boris was actually replaced.

 

[takno]

Austerity... well, yeah, probably almost no-one really likes austerity. But what's the alternative? The UK Government has a huge debt and an ongoing deficit that simply isn't sustainable. Something has to be done about it. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng gave us a very clear demonstration of what happens if you try to carry on as if the deficit problem doesn't exist.

In practice there are three options for dealing with a large public sector deficit; you either cut spending, raise taxes or grow the economy until the problem is eliminated. Obviously everybody prefers to go with option 3, and often it's the best plan even if involves making the deficit slightly worse in the short term.

Truss and Kwarteng clearly believed they were choosing option 3, but in doing so they actually very clearly made the deficit much worse in the short term, and talked in very general terms with no actual plan about how some heavily discredited economic theories meant it would all work out.

In the current situation, we don't have a lot of room for manoeuvre, and probably can't go for option three without doing one of the others in the meantime. The primary reasons for this are the massive build-up in the cost of debt finance caused by the policies of chancellor Rishi Sunak (uncontrolled spending on Covid and failing to refinance debt onto longer terms at favourable rates being the primary failures), the loss of tax base caused by the drop in the economically active population (this is probably around 50% caused by loss of EU migrants), the need to support energy prices, and the overall fragility of the economy which is long-term smaller and less capable of growing as a result of Brexit.

In practice cutting spending is also unlikely to be a good idea in social terms because quite a lot of people will die as a result, and in economic terms because it will kill off any real prospect of growth. The only real answer therefore is to increase taxes, and target those increases as far as possible at people whose economic activity won't be affected, or where it will trigger more desirable behaviour.

 

[nw1]

In practice cutting spending is also unlikely to be a good idea in social terms because quite a lot of people will die as a result, and in economic terms because it will kill off any real prospect of growth. The only real answer therefore is to increase taxes, and target those increases as far as possible at people whose economic activity won't be affected, or where it will trigger more desirable behaviour.

While in theory that is the case I doubt it'll be the option Richi Sunak will go for, sadly. Boris might have, to be fair: for all his faults, he was perhaps less of a hard-nosed Tory than either Sunak or Truss.

 

[Cowley]

Sunak has been appointed as the Prime Minister just now.

Which seems a good place to draw this thread to a close.

By popular demand (well at least three people anyway). We have set a new thread up to discuss things going forward.

Thanks to everyone for your contributions. The quality of the leadership in government may have been poor but the quality of the posts in this thread has been pretty high.

Here’s your new thread:

Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

Well I’ll just copy and paste some of it from the last thread. :) So here we are with a new PM (the fourth fifth in six years). How is this likely to play out and is Sunak facing the worst outlook for an incoming PM in over 40 years (I don’t know, I’m just throwing it out there ;))? It’ll be...

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