UK politics

[David]

I don't know how urgently we need this thread, but felt like we needed somewhere to post the latest news about the hot mess that is the UK.

With Liz Truss having stepped down after being the shortest-serving prime minister in UK history (at just 44 days!) and Boris Johnson deciding not to challenge for the leadership, it seems the guy she beat in the last leadership contest, Rishi Sunak, is on track to be the next PM, with the only other candidate, Penny Mordaunt, running considerably behind on numbers:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-24/boris-johnson-pulls-out-of-tory-leadership-contest/101568272

Remarkably, whoever wins this leadership contest will be the fifth Conservative PM in just six-and-a-half years. Kind of remarkable that the same party has been in power since 2010 but just keeps swapping out prime ministers – makes the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison years here seem stable in comparison!

Sunak – who is of Indian descent – will also be the first non-white prime minister in British history if he wins. Australia, Canada and New Zealand have never had a non-white prime minister, and of course Barack Obama remains the only American president who wasn't white. It's interesting that sometimes it's the Conservative Party breaking ground with this stuff (all three female prime ministers in the UK have been Tories, for instance, and it's widely assumed that the party has produced a couple of gay prime ministers, too, even though they remained closeted in their lifetimes).

[think positive]

hope the other woman wins!

[pietillidie]

They're not breaking new ground, David. They're the ones who stop the opposition from appointing anyone out of the ordinary through hysterical culture wars to rile up the mob when they need to, which is when the black or brown bloke is their opponent, or they're struggling to hold onto power and need to create pandemonium. Every. Single. Time.

So, they're actually pretending to break ground, but go nuclear to block anyone else doing so. The far left (which you may or may not be) always fall for this, but the Tories really only care about status protection; not colour or sexuality, and definitely not their opposites, fairness and competition. The bigotry is just a put on for the mob vote; a tool of convenience for amoral power seeking, but just as damaging all the same.

So, if Sunak were the oppo candidate, they would without a nanosecond of moral hesitation stir the racist pot and run a covert racist campaign through grotesque proxies like Farage whom they would refuse to speak against or pull into line, as always happens.

And just to prove the point, they tried two completely unfit, dim-witted leaders in Johnson and Truss before getting to Sunak as a last resort under massive business pressure to finally appoint someone serious and stabilise the country. They would definitely be worried about the mob noticing he's brown, but at least he's tied to billionaire capital and can put a pleasant smile on a new round of cuts as government revenues decline further and wealth remains havened from taxation, which is the check box that matters to them above all.

And yes, Sunak is more apparently sane than the two before him, and I'd rather him over them from what I can tell, although now Johnson isn't there to offset Sunak's conservative economics with populist concerns, there is a chance a more extreme austere side will ultimately be revealed.

Hopefully, he will be good for green energy and technology, and better with European relations, but again it's hard to tell what his actual thinking is and what Johnson pressuring him to do as Chancellor, or what was just tough talk to please Tory ears.

Either way, I can't see what even his more progressive side cultural side can achieve if he merely cuts without arresting declining government revenues and corporate contribution, and has an expansive vision to rebuild productivity.

I definitely hope he surprises to the upside and has masked genuine insight to climb the ladder, and he will likely help my business if he doesn't do anything too dumb. But as I say, it's still unclear what he really thinks. He appeared to support some positive things (e.g., furlough during Covid and green energy investment), but that might have been Johnson's populist narcissism overruling him, and he and Hunt could still mean we're in for another round of Cameron and Osborne, i.e., cut today to preserve the status of the few and wreck tomorrow for everyone else.

Expect the worst and pray for a surprise when it comes to this lot.

[roar]

I know it's not a nice thing but I can't help but enjoy watching a nation that caused so much misery over the world, cause themselves a bunch of misery.

[pietillidie]

^I have no doubt that the Irish, South Asians, Europeans and those from many other countries feel much the same about the UK. And fair enough, too.

I can vouch for some of the best people on earth here whom I know, so bear that in mind. But by gawd the politics and media are mental. Not as mental as the US, though, and sans guns.

My favourite aspect of the UK by far is that it values learning and knowledge. And I don't mean an Oxbridge education, but rather learning as a value and objective. People and companies here are avid learners in a way I never experienced in Australia. South Korea was similar to the UK in that respect.

[roar]

Yes, many good folk. It's mostly in jest but also the misery isn't really anything terrible. Britain is still a first world country with a pretty good standard of living.

[watt price tully]

https://www.theshovel.com.au/2022/10/21/liz-truss-memoir-to-be-published-as-tweet/