It was never about numbers. Braverman has always been a weird frontperson for the ERG, but she’s as hardline as any of them.
I expect that a top job for her, as their representative on earth, was a non-negotiable ERG demand.
As successive administrations have shown though, the ERG are the feral kids smoking at the back of the class and Rishi is just the latest supply teacher. They’ll soon get bored and start making his life a misery too.
They can never be placated. Any demand met is soon simply replaced with another two, invariably even more extreme. I’m sure they’re presently agitating that he dump the NI protocol or they’ll set the fire alarm off then turn all the taps on in the bogs
https://twitter.com/thedailymash/status/1585209864602648578?s=46&t=bkcCemyTHhIhtp6FeUnXIw
I expect that a top job for her, as their representative on earth, was a non-negotiable ERG demand.
The ERG was badly split on who to support and so chose not to.
Sunak has the same nutty fantasies as most of them but just generally has better PR so keeps them at armslength.
How did PMQs go? I forgot to listen…
Lots of soundbites instead of answers. Lots of cheering. Like they do every couple of weeks when they get a new PM
I've only read the text, but it sounds like he got a bit snarky in some of his (non) answers
but it sounds like he got a bit snarky in some of his (non) answers
Johnson clearly was his rolemodel.
Failure to answer the questions mixed with random invented insults against labour.
How did PMQs go? I forgot to listen…
It was as if he had an earpiece in, with Johnson providing him with the answers. Not really what I was expecting but given his unjustifiable position he didn't really have any other option. Starmer tore into him a bit.
Another ****? (With reference to Steve Baker (Brexit hard man)
https://twitter.com/bmay/status/1585166867429105664?s=61&t=s3juWWuROY8qrMeXZF7EGA
To be fair that ^^ interview dates from 2017 and I believe that since then the ERG has provided a list of MPs, including cabinet members, who are members.
They were forced to by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority because as Guru-Murthy points out they receive public money.
It is nice to see Braverman squirm mind.
It doesn’t really matter when the interview is from.
More the fairly obvious question it raises…
WTF?? And she’s now the Home Secretary?’ Are you *ing shitting me?!!!! *ING SERIOUSLY?!!!
Like a hamster that’s just been put through a spin cycle. I’ve got brighter plants.
Terrifying that our new PM thinks (or has been forced to think) that she’s the perfect person to hold one of the Great Offices of State
Having said that, it’s highly likely that she will be a big part in his downfall, in some form or other.
Give it a few weeks…
From the BBC:
Helen Whately as a minister in the Department for Health and Social Care
We saw during COVID that she was inept. Same old Tory Govt piss take
Ah but Cruella and the other familiar faces are the price Mr Sunnak had to pay to sit on the throne.
I expect the behind the scenes horse trading to secure his position would make an interesting read.
The reality is it’s just the same old infighting cabal fronted by a new lead singer,who also managed to get a fine for attending a party.
He’s made a seriously good comeback thou,considering when this thread was started he was pretty toasted.
Willing to do ANYTHING for their 'agenda' - be afraid.
https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin-niemoller/
TBH whilst we are watching the continuing farce of the 6 year death throes of the tory party, the machinations are still slowly grinding on with the grim EU law bill that removes uk laws by MP's just sitting on their hands.
the machinations are still slowly grinding on with the grim EU law bill that removes uk laws by MP’s just sitting on their hands.
This 100%
I tire of people stating that the tories are crippled with infighting, or during BGJ's tenure crippled by his laziness and ineptness. In reality there has been no slowing down of the legislative agenda they have and are pushing. The only victories for common decency have been forced by the courts, and I expect them to legislate to remove those barriers.
The Tories are in a state of catastrophic crisis. The latest YouGov poll, taken after Rishi Sunak became their latest leader, puts them on 23%, they have never polled less than 30% in any general election in the last 200 years. Labour are on more than double that.
Desperate and hurried changes of leaders does not appear to be helping them. We have just witnessed the shortest premiership in UK history due to the extreme unpopularity of a Tory PM.
Unpopularity based not on personality but on policy. The Tories are, for the first time in over 40 years, no longer in control of the narrative. They are rudderless, disunited, and experiencing such a crisis of ideology that they can't even agree on what thatcherism, the glue that held them together for the last 40 years, means any more.
The current Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer is now pursuing taxation policies which are diametrically opposed to the taxation policies which he himself was espousing 4 months ago, and the previous Tory Chancellor of a couple of weeks ago was determined to implement.
https://twitter.com/oprosuk/status/1585544469339951105
This is no temporary blip. The last 15 national opinion polls have placed Labour support at greater than all the other political parties put together - every single one has had Labour on over 50% of the total vote.
The Tories face wipeout in a general election. Even if they manage to claw back support so that the Labour lead of 30+% is reduced to just half of that they face a catastrophic collapse in their number of MPs due to where their loss of support is concentrated - marginal constitucies and also Tory heartlands like the South East :
https://www.ft.com/content/aee4a311-bb25-444a-8e0b-b6a55720e8d4
That ^^ is well worth a read. If the psephologist is correct, and he certainly sounds plausible, then the Tories are buggered. There is never a time to be complacent but it would be a mistake to believe that everything is pretty much going swimmingly for the Tories.
There is never a time to be complacent but it would be a mistake to believe that everything is pretty much going swimmingly for the Tories.
On the surface it may look like the tories have fixed their Truss problem, but the right wing will soon start whining about all the things they were complaining about before Truss, and they will get louder and more aggressive when Sunak's honeymoon is over. It could even happen very soon if he has to get rid of Braverman, which looks highly likely.
Also agree on the polls. Sunak will have very little good news for voters so I don't expect he'll get much of a bounce. I think finally the penny has dropped in the wider electorate that the tories are not on their side. Starmer's focus on 'being on the side of working people' is cutting through massively now, even if it's not entirely true.
Reinstating Braverman could well be Sunaks undoing. The backlash against her is huge. to me it seems obvious that reinstating her was the ERG loons price for supporting Sunak.
Yup. Either that or he’s desperate to appeal to those party activists and some of the new 2019 voters that put anti-immigration issues first and otherwise might not welcome him as leader for, er, reasons. Either way, her appointment feels like a miss-step if he is genuinely trying to widen the appeal of his party beyond the core support his party has been left with.
Sunak will have very little good news for voters so I don’t expect he’ll get much of a bounce. I think finally the penny has dropped in the wider electorate that the tories are not on their side
Yep, it seems to take them a long time to realise it and then in 10 years time they will have forgotten it again and vote the tories back in.
There are still many people on the vox pops that are expecting the government to do something to help them and don't realise the government is focusing on reducing the deficit and not even looking at helping people who are struggling to live.
I'm not sure they are that screwed. If a gneral election can't be forced by spring (I don't think it can), peopel will start to forget and I imagine the 'labour would have been just as bad' narrative will seep to the front and ratings will go the tories way once again.
Rishi Sunak is as right-wing on immigration as any other right-wing Tory. There is no reason to assume that he is reluctantly pursuing policies which he would rather not any more than other right-wingers such as Patel and Braverman.
These are his policies, there is no evidence that they have been forced on him.
Also agree on the polls. Sunak will have very little good news for voters so I don’t expect he’ll get much of a bounce.
There won't be a bounce - there will be a gradual closing of the gap. May not be enough to save them from defeat, but an election in a year or 18 months time will be closer than the polls show today.
There won’t be a bounce – there will be a gradual closing of the gap.
What do you think Sunak is going to do to change people's minds that the tories are on their side? Right now all he's offering is the fact that he's not Liz Truss. All he has to offer is more pain, more suffering, and probably more incompetence and chaos if Braverman is anything to go by. And this time the tories can't blame it on labour.
All he has to offer is more pain, more suffering, and probably more incompetence and chaos if Braverman is anything to go by.
In a Cabinet of the criminally incompetent, Braverman is up there as unbelievably, catastrophically stupid.
And Sunak can't be that smart, he must have known there'd be a backlash in re-appointing her, especially less than a week after she resigned/was sacked.
And this time the tories can’t blame it on labour.
Oh yes they can.
The party of personal responsibility is very good at blaming others for their failings.
Whether they will succeed in it is a different matter though.
What do you think Sunak is going to do to change people’s minds that the tories are on their side?
Not a lot - just time.
As long as there's no major shit-storms and interest rates don't rocket then give it a year and Boris/Liz will be a distant memory to many.
And Sunak can’t be that smart, he must have known there’d be a backlash in re-appointing her, especially less than a week after she resigned/was sacked.
It was the price he had to pay for being PM.
Without promising to the right he would appoint Braverman, Mordunt would have got enough nominations to take it to the membership and thus would be PM. It was the only was he could get to be PM
As long as there’s no major shit-storms and interest rates don’t rocket then give it a year and Boris/Liz will be a distant memory to many.
Liz will be a distant memory but inflation woudl have to go down and if people have to pay more for their energy from April combined with inflation they are going to be getting worse off than now.
Latest date for next election is over 2 years away though so things could naturally get a bit better by then without the tories doing anything so they may be able to claim what they did has started to fix it.
Could be great timing for Labour though as if they get in they then have 5 years more of natural improvement and can claim they did it.
Without promising to the right.....
Where does this strange belief that he isn't on the Tory right come from?
What evidence is there he is anything else other than a right-wing Tory?
This is a man who in private boasts of not having any working-class friends and redirecting money away from deprived inner city areas and into affluent leafy Tory-voting areas, ffs.
And why doesn't this disbelief in a Tory's right-wingness extend to other Tories? Why is it assumed that Braverman really is right-wing but Sunak isn't, or very reluctantly is?
Is it really all down to expensive tailoring and a slick professionally coached presentation?
The ERG loons etc.
Its not saying he is not right wing to acknowledge that there is a group far further to the right than him and that they are calling the shots including the appointment of Braverman as their price for supporting Sunak
So it's because Sunak has never been a member of the ERG, are you serious?
Kwasi Kwarteng has never been a member of the ERG either, are you also going to suggest that KK isn't as right-wing as Braverman?
Sunak has always been extremely ambitious, his unprecedented meteoric rise through the Tory ranks exceeds even Liz Truss's. He has only been an MP for 7 years and a cabinet minister for 2.
You don't achieve that by hamstringing yourself to a caucus.
The tory right don't like Sunak because they think he is a fake thatcherite. He says all the right things, but when the chips are down he does the opposite, like raising taxes and dishing out handouts to the poor. He'll never be forgiven for his 'socialist' economic policies during covid. In their crazy world the pandemic was a perfect opportunity to bring in US style darwinian capitalism, and Sunak wasted it.
Also on Braverman, I think given all the stuff that's now coming out I can only assume her departure is priced in. They gave her the job to buy off ERG opposition in the full knowledge that they'd probably have to get rid of her soon after. A price worth paying to secure the premiership?
He’ll never be forgiven for his ‘socialist’ economic policies during covid.
Are you sure they were his?
Sunak cited policy differences with Johnson when he resigned as Chancellor.
But the immediate impression of his latest Budget is that Boris Johnson’s name is stamped all over it. While the Chancellor signalled his intention to rebuild the public finances, the Prime Minister has forced him to splash the cash in a way last seen under Blair and Brown.
The biggest evidence of No.10 influence was that Sunak was forced to burst wide open the spending envelope he set only in March. The £150bn increase in departmental spending over the Parliament, 3.8 per cent in real terms, is a big deal with a real rises in overall spending for every single department.
Are you sure they were his?
Probably not but the right wing seem to blame him for them, probably because they can't admit to themselves that their mop haired hero wasn't the rightwing ideologue they assumed he would be.
Well he is not going to the climate conference in Egypt. Just after the UN said time is running/ran out.
Centerist to your face...
Right wing behind closed doors...
Bit like Boris likes to try and make all people happy...
No interest in the Tory Party like Blair with Labour its a convenient vehicle...
His problem is the currently piss poor and getting poorer electorate...
He will do a windfall tax with a get out" allowance" clause..
He will raise pensions and benefits in line with wages...
He will freeze Public sector budgets...
Use the fiscal head room from the Bond Market dropping...
Levelling up will be lip service...
Watch infrastructure projects get stopped...
Some tightrope.
The latest YouGov poll, taken after Rishi Sunak became their latest leader, puts them on 23%, they have never polled less than 30% in any general election in the last 200 years. Labour are on more than double that.
m not sure they are that screwed. If a gneral election can’t be forced by spring (I don’t think it can), peopel will start to forget and I imagine the ‘labour would have been just as bad’ narrative will seep to the front and ratings will go the tories way once again.
Who are these polls done on?
I work in tye construction industry and (apart from me and 1 plumber) I haven't come across anyone who actually wants a labour government in place, all last week every delivery driver wanted to talk about who's the new PM going to be, tgey all wanted Bellend Boris, saying he did "an all rite job didn't he"
" he had all that shit to deal with, covid and brexit and all that "
These people would still vote tory tomorrow. 🤦♂️
Who are these polls done on?
Very carefully selected samples. For pollsters providing results which are as accurate as possible is what their businesses rely on. Totally screwing up really isn't an option for them and the huge unprecedented Labour lead, which they all show, is way beyond their margin of error.
The polls are currently showing the Tories on 20-25% which is a lot, up to a quarter of voters and twice the level of support for the LibDems, so finding a significant amount of Tory supporters shouldn't be that difficult.
The problem for the Tories is that support for Labour is more than double that.
I agree that "Bellend Boris" isn't that unpopular with many voters, the Labour lead was mostly in single figures when he was PM, but the Tories replacing him changed everything.
Truss very effectively trebled or quadrupled the Labour lead, which is why she was gone in just over a month. I doubt that Sunak has the ability to do much better.
I can understand the nostalgia for Johnson after the chaos of Truss and the promise of difficult decisions/hard times during a cost of living crisis under Sunak, but that won't save the Tories when the next general election eventually comes.
The only uncertainty is how big the Tory wipeout will be. IMHO
This must be the first time a PM has 3 ex PMs sitting on the backbenches of their own party!
Ha!
May is there in both body and spirit.
johnson and truss are there in spirit only.
Give it 6 months and then check their attendance and voting records.
Rubbing my crystal balls tells me that one of them will have stood down - truss, I think; neither will have been regular attendees and, on the rare occasions they vote, it will be with gov.
Meh continuity arsehole isn't it.
A terrifying article from todays Guardian, just confirming what we can all now see as clear as day anyway
Braverman’s return shows how deeply Sunak is in hock to the hard right
The ERG headbangers are the ones really in power. Sunak is just their latest sock puppet
QT has just started - how long until Julia Hateful-Bastid says something hatefully bastidy?
Here comes the Rishi Sunak bounce - the first poll in two weeks which puts Labour on less than 50%, 49%.
Although two other polls since that one have Labour on over 50%, the most recent one has Labour on 55%.
It's surprising that Tory support in the BMG poll is only 26% considering this :
"Voters trust Rishi Sunak to handle the economy more than Sir Keir Starmer, and believe he would make a better Prime Minister"
Although it shouldn't alarm Labour too much as it can't have been based on anything as it was taken immediately upon him being declared to be the new Tory leader.
It is strange that it didn't translate into greater support for the Tories though.
Now JHB is a climate scientist
FFS
Watching QT too Julia Hearty-Brewrey has reinvented herself as Mail On-line in human form.
Tory MPs express concern over reappointment of Suella Braverman as home secretary
The very first job had Sunak had to do upon becoming Prime Minister was to appoint a Cabinet - he's managed to screw that up.
Thanks to pisspoor judgement, on the very first job he had to tackle, he has not only managed to follow in the now well established Tory tradition of giving the opposition open goals, but he has also achieved the remarkable feat of encouraging his own side to also kick a ball into the open goal.
His judgement is called into question by members of his own party within 3 days of becoming leader. And this was the man who was going bring in integrity after Johnson, and competence after Truss?
Truss very quickly learnt that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. It's hard to believe that Sunak also needed to learn that lesson.
ernie, what are your politics?
Who would you wish to see in power?
Who would be your preferred PM?
I ask because you're clear - I think - about who/what you don't want.
Here's your big chance - who and what do you want?
I was wondering the same Frank. I've not been able to work him out either.
He makes some interesting points sometimes but he seems to have a spectacular talent for disagreeing with those who agree with him.
You have to ask yourself, why would a man worth £750m want a job for £164k a year?
Do we?
How many £164k a year jobs get you into actual, proper history books?
Because after a while you get bored of coke and hookers and he wants a little job to keep himself busy!
You have to ask yourself, why would a man worth £750m want a job for £164k a year?
Power trip.
£750m is fine and you can swan around in some nice circles, potentially influence a lot of other rich / important people but you're having to pay for all that.
Donate here for return there, bribe this for return on that. It's all just transactional.
Far better to be the one actually pulling the strings in the first place! The one the other rich / important people come to, want to be with.
Plus you can probably swing some tax laws your own way. Oh wait a minute, he's already done that. What's that, his wife benefitted too? What a coincidence!
You have to ask yourself, why would a man worth £750m want a job for £164k a year?
Honestly if you have to ask yourself that question, you should probably get out more.
£750mill is his family wealth - most derived from his wife's connection with Infosys.
Never let the facts get in the way.
One of the reasons his wife's family is so rich is that there's no such thing as inheritance tax in India. It was abolished in 1985.
An idea I'm sure he'd like to introduce over here.
French TV on…
LE CHAOS ANGLAIS…
They’re successfully joining the dots between the three PMs of 2022, and laughing off the idea that the government can have a genuinely fresh start. They are pointing out though that Sunak will have a very hard time telling the people they must tighten their belts still further when he is so obviously rich.
Keep an eye on climate change issues with this “new” government… stopping fracking welcome, but new North Sea licenses need stopping, and renewables and storage ramped up fast…
Boris going to cop 27 now...
The man who would be king, filling the boots of the actual king.
Nice move Rishi.
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1586438027198418944
At 16% that is the smallest Labour lead over the Tories for over a month but if repeated in a general election would still represent a huge Labour majority.
So not good news for the Tories especially as the Opinium methodology is particularly generous to them in the way they treat undecided former Tory voters.
Plus with Truss the human hand grenade gone, and the fact that Sunak should reasonably be expecting the new PM honeymoon bounce, this is probably as good as it is going to get for the Tories.
And when the Tories eventually reveal their "hard decisions" I can only see their popularity plummeting further.
Cool. Got an answer for Franks question further up?
Truss phone hacking & cover up is going to be another tory headache
Braverman scandals are going to drag on too
https://twitter.com/TimesRadio/status/1586415240337846272?t=I_oWoNOrkf1bZSTbV6oLGA&s=19
I see also that Johnson is doing his best to undermine sunak...
https://twitter.com/secrettory12/status/1586446695134527489?t=DFsKN9iMzknTf-8bZVRqJw&s=19
tom - are you referring to my post directed at ernie which he has ignored?
ernie, what are your politics?
Who would you wish to see in power?
Who would be your preferred PM?
I ask because you’re clear – I think – about who/what you don’t want.
Here’s your big chance – who and what do you want?
He's usually assiduous in responding to posts referring to him but not this time.
Maybe he's just a provocateur.
He is actually Alexei Sayle
Here, visit his [url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001df6c ]Imaginary Sandwich Bar[/url] and fill in the gaps.
If I were totally honest, it would be awesome if Alexa was on here. Other than him not being IT, he is a very keen cyclist, so would fit in.
Back on topic though, can Sunak block Johnson from going to the COP summit in the same way as with Brian?it was never a good look that he said he was not going, but for you [very recent] predecessor to go instead just adds to the impression of chaos.
He is actually Alexei Sayle
If he was only 10% as funny as Alexei that would at least bring something to the threads.
Because after a while you get bored of coke and hookers
Another dream ruined!
You have to ask yourself, why would a man worth £750m want a job for £164k a year?
Au contraire. Why would someone want some tedious ForMoney job if they already had more money than they could spend?
They are pointing out though that Sunak will have a very hard time telling the people they must tighten their belts still further when he is so obviously rich.
Ah the old ‘all in this together’ line will get some reuse.
I’m wondering how long he’ll stay the course until he bails,I can’t see him hanging around when he really gets piled into and as said he does’nt need the money so can’t be held to stay on till election time.
It’s looking increasingly like Sunak may have plated a blinder with re-appointing the darling of the far right fruit loops as Home Secretary
Sir Roger Galeis reporting this morning that conditions for asylum seekers are absolutely desperate and squalid and he believes this to be a deliberate policy taken by the Home Secretary to try and deter people from coming to the UK
Looks like Cruella might be being made to own the inhuman mess that her and her equally vile predecessor created
She’s meant to be in Parliament this afternoon to be questioned by Yvette Cooper about the whole sorry episode
Do we think she’ll actually turn up? Or send a junior lackey (again)?
Either way, I doubt he’s surprised by the latest revelations, or be losing any sleep that it’s Braverman in the firing line
He is actually Alexei Sayle
If I were totally honest, it would be awesome if Alexa was on here.
"Alexa, turn on the lights."
"Turn them on yourself you fascist bastard!"
Alexa where is Baku....
binners
Full MemberSir Roger Galeis reporting this morning that conditions for asylum seekers are absolutely desperate and squalid and he believes this to be a deliberate policy taken by the Home Secretary to try and deter people from coming to the UK
Just a continuation of Theresa May's "success by failure" approach- the whole process has been intentionally run down for years, it's just that more recently we got past the point of understaffing, underfunding, and intentionally byzantine processes that constantly changed being enough, so they moved on to the really nasty stuff. But it's the same thought process. And it's never worked, at all.
The UK immigration problem is a really simple one. We have a system that can't deal with the numbers, not even close and so we have a huge backlog- of people, human beings- and that's terrible for everyone. Means we have more people to deal with, means they can't go on with their lives- can't get deported, but also can't contribute to society. Drives up costs insanely. We've basically built along the lines of "worst possible, for everyone" and it even produces news headlines about TOO MANY IMMIGRANTS!, it's a win for the government and a lose for literally everyone else, unless you happen to actually be a terrorist or fraudulent asylum seeker.
Braverman etc have the natural bully's instinct to make it worse on a small scale for individuals but it takes the destructive cleverness of a Theresa May to industrialise it.
Anyone watching the cosplaying hobgoblin in her statement to the house, she certainly hit all the dog whistling buzzwords such as “invasion, criminals, illegal’s”. An utterly despicable whitewashing of her actions in inflaming the pitiful treatment of asylum seekers.
Hard-faced doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Just a combination of dog-whistle racism and gaslighting
Hard faced and bloody evasive, she hasn't given a straight answer a question yet.
Using questions on Albania to take up time.
Dreadful.
We're a week in to Sunak's tenure and it's looking like a showdown between him and the ERG over Braverman. It's clear that she never misses an opportunity to bollix something up, while learning nothing and being unrepentant about it. She can't remain in post, but would any ERG-approved successor be any less inept?
I am thinking at one point in the not too distant future Cruella will admit to 'carrying out orders' then you will know the Tories have went full on nasty party.