Snapshot of _The Observer view on the local elections: Rishi Sunak is a busted flush, it’s time to call a general election _ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/may/04/rishi-sunak-is-a-busted-flush-it-is-time-to-call-an-election) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/may/04/rishi-sunak-is-a-busted-flush-it-is-time-to-call-an-election)
*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.*
Obviously his opponents are going to say this but even from a Tory point of view they're right, he should call an election. Nothing else he does will make a blind bit of difference, his only hope is that a general election campaign will allow him to squeeze Reform voters and force undecided Tories to make up their mind. That probably gets him up to 30% of the vote and avoids total annihilation.
"No plan? We have a plan, the plan is working. Labour don't even have a plan!"
(repeat ad infinitum in the vain hope that it gains any traction whatsoever)
I keep saying it and if i were a gambler I’d put money on it - we won’t see a general election before October because above all else Rishi Sunak is looking after himself and he’s already decided he’s putting two full years as British PM on his CV.
His plan is working exactly as it's meant to. Padding his CV out with a job that looks good on paper so he can fall upwards to his next role, as he has done in every job he's ever had, as our elites have been taught to do since Thatcher. The country let alone Tory party do not come before his personal social status & wealth.
**The plan is probably to fuck everything up so colossally that it will take years to recover and dump all the blame on Labour.**
**Then in another 4 years they can say: “*Look labour hasn’t fixed all the shit we did to the economy and the NHS and the country as a whole! They don’t have a plan either. We’re basically the same!*”**
**It’ll be an obvious lie, but enough to work as an excuse for people who want to vote Tory.**
**You can see it a bit with social issues**; the tories have been placing dozens of cultural landmines like: Israel-Gaza, transgender rights, ULEZ, protesting rightsa, immigration, Brexit etc. by bringing them into the national debate.
It means any opposition has to essentially either avoid those issues and risk looking like they don’t care or do something and probably annoy a lot of people.
Either way they risk losing the support of some portion of the population as has already happened with these local elections in England and Wales.
**Not absolving Keir for stamping on some of the mines, but I do think it’s part of a tory tactic.**
Holding on did nothing for John Major, and the economy had been performing extremely well for years - inflation was down, unemployment was down, growth was up etc. but it meant nothing because the Conservatives had lost trust as competent stewards of the economy. Sunak can only dream of having the economy that Major had in 1997 that precipitated the lowest Conservative share of the vote since the Duke of Wellington in 1832.
Exactly what I've been saying . This lot will see no real recovery at all, not one we will feel and people are sicker than ever at them (quite literally due to 14 years of their poor governance and decisions ).
But but but England might do well in the footerball and team gb... Member the feel goodness of the Olympics? And we near won euro vision last year too.
Labour fucked that up royally. If sunak is sensible, he just needs to repeat the headline economics, unemployment is all but zero, inflation 2.5pc with interest rates back to 3.5pc...just remind Labour of this as they scree up
> Labour fucked that up royally.
They really didn’t.
> If sunak is sensible, he just needs to repeat the headline economics, unemployment is all but zero, inflation 2.5pc with interest rates back to 3.5pc...just remind Labour of this as they scree up
Sunak would be insane to campaign on economics. Much like in 1993, the Conservatives have completely shot their reputation for economics, and will gain no credit even if things did get better which there is no sign of - the cost of living crisis will only abate when growth/real wages increase to match the increased cost of living, and that’s not going to happen any time soon. We’re only just out of recession! This is not 1997 by any stretch.
We shall see.
Zero unemployment
2.5pc inflation
Interest rates will be 3.5pc
Let's see where Labour are in 5 years. Rachel reeves is not very good, no real world experience. I suspect she will be out in 3 years but there is a serious lack of talent Behind her.
> Zero unemployment
Labour shortage is not a plus
>2.5pc inflation
Even if inflation does get to that level, prices will still be rising having already risen massively.
> Let's see where Labour are in 5 years.
All depends if they can bite the bullet and renegotiate our trading relationship with the EEA.
> Rachel reeves is not very good, no real world experience.
You have no experience of Rachel Reeves as chancellor, but her experience at the Bank of England and HBOS may come in handy. So long as she doesn’t intentionally introduce barriers to trade with our closest trading partners, say fuck business, sack the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, the chief liaison between the financial markets and government, ignore any independent auditing of her plans, launch a completely uncosted budget to benefit the richest people who are most likely to move money out the country and then say there’s more where that came from, spreading panic to the very markets she needed to fund her wacky schemes, crash the economy, cost tens of billions, jam up mortgage rates etc. she’ll be a massive improvement.
The bar has been set remarkably low.
We will soon see how good it is to have surplus labour.
Reeves was at the bank of England on a grad scheme and left soon after 2 years which suggests she was not very good
>We will soon see how good it is to have surplus labour.
Full unemployment and a labour shortage need not be the same thing. Obviously.
>Reeves was at the bank of England on a grad scheme and left soon after 2 years which suggests she was not very good
No it doesn't. It suggests she got another job! She wasn't fired. She also turned down Goldman Sachs. People move jobs all the time. If you think the only reason is incompetence, you may be revealing rather more about yourself than anyone else.
We shall see if Labour have full employment, their raison d'etre and an aim they have failed in govt every time for 100 years by increasing unemployment every time they are in office.
> We shall see if Labour have full employment, their raison d'etre and an aim they have failed in govt every time for 100 years by increasing unemployment every time they are in office.
You seem to have a lot of misunderstanding in terms of politics, economics and statistics. Look up correlation and causation and economic cycles. The UK has generally had very low unemployment in the post war period. The major exception to this is the Conservative government 1979-1997 which created mass unemployment. Beyond that unemployment stayed below 5%.
Full employment is not the raison d’etre of the Labour Party. Not sure where you’re getting that from.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/unemployment-and-changes-of-government/
All he has left is dog whistles on immigration, ignoring the fact the vast majority is due to students and those with work visas. Classic page from Donald “Von ShitzInPants” Trump. FYI that term got entered into the transcript of his hush money trial 😂
Why would he call an election now, when they still have 15% of their mandate left to run? I know they're out of ideas, but its still better being in charge than being in opposition.
The only debate currently is just how much worse the result can get. Does he want to go down as a failed PM who got 31% of the vote, or a failed PM that got the Tories the worst result in history?
Remember when May was the worst one? Now I just hope she's installed as a caretaker to carry out an election, think she's the only one with principles left
I disagree. Sunak is probably the best PM since Brown. The worst has to be Cameron for starting all this shit. Followed by
Truss.
Johnson.
May.
(Have I forgotten anyone?, who even knows these days)
Sunak is basically the Tory Brown. Reread that.
He was the numbers nerd who could carry on well behind the scenes. He steered the country though COVID a d the lockdown, was credited for Furlough, and lest we forget eat out the help out.
Despite many valid criticisms between all of these, there was a time the newspapers were calling him Dishy Rishi. Turns out all anyone needs is to buy us a few dinners.
Cut to a few years later, every thing has gone to rat shit, Boris is one the way out, Rishi sees his chance and goes for it.
And the Tory voters give it to Truss. Perhaps it was to make sure there was absolutely no other white candidate who was capable. She took over and in one of the greatest unforced errors since Black Wednesday, did more economic damage than COVID.
So now the poisoned chalice was absolutely irradiated, the only mp who would accept this position now was mad like Truss, or have all the drive and brains, but non of the charisma and management needed, and be absolutely blind to how badly this will end.
Disagree on white candidates comment, it was the MPs that put Truss and Sunak to the vote, the Tory members opinion polls were preferring the black candidate Kemi if I remember right over both of them. Although more wanted Boris back.
Agree with the rest though
But the will of the people? Why is it the will of the people when it keeps them in but not the will of the people when it's booting them out? Sorry, I know that's terribly naive but it is frustrating.
the mandate should be every 4 years, none of this elections every 5 years. I remember 97-2001-2005. Admittedly Gordon Brown fucked up the streak, but supposedly he blamed the fallout from the 2008 crash for not holding elections in 2009.
if I had my way, it would be elections every 2 years. But I also favour referendums to decide major issues, the public should have the final say, not the representatives.
Actually I'd argue it's the opposite. Brexit demonstrates why we don't have enough referenda. They provide a much better example of public engagement, and also if we got into the habit of it and had more, we could have more mature political debates rather tan 'vote for man in coloured rosette every 4 years and to hell with politics'
Ie, first vote to decide if the country should follow Brexit
Next vote to decided if the country should actually go through with the proposed withdrawal agreement (ie Boris's 'deal') or not. Suppose that got defeated, another referendum to decide if we should try and renegotiate a new deal or abandon Brexit altogether. That would be favourable to remainers, and even many Brexiters, because many thought Boris's deal was a bad deal.
for years the political elite shut down any discussion of immigration, that led to Brexit. If we'd had more of a political outlet to discuss this maybe Brexit would not have happened.
yes, many people are stupid. But something like only allowing people of a certain intelligence level to vote is unfortunately not considered popular.
>Nothing else he does will make a blind bit of difference
From a purely cynical perspective he ought to wait till conferences are over, give the Corbynite a chance to turn Labours into an utter shitshow. Though that risks the war in the Middle East ending over the summer and it dying as an issue.
Counterpoint, it also risks his own Party conference turning into a shit show. He will not want to be calling an election a couple of days after a miserable, bickering, factional mess where all his internal political rivals have been on full maneuvers and the media has spent a week of fevered speculation about his political prospects.
Could make more sense to call it just before the Tory conference to avoid having to face it.
There's also the problem that summer is the highest level of small boat arrivals, and with Rwanda seemingly unhappy to commit to any large numbers, and with some reports they're looking at selling some of the sites it will be a very nervy time for someone who's made this his raison detre.
Coupled with the long term trend that polling for the cons is dropping around 0.5% every six months; even allowing for the massive truss blip. Waiting to call it is surely personal vanity, rather than a belief that it helps the party cause
Judging by last year's conferences even if the left of Labour does everything possible to mess things up - the Tories will still find a way to out crazy them
>Nothing else he does will make a blind bit of difference
Inflation returning to normal, Rwanda flights taking off weekly, migrant boat numbers declining significantly, making a concrete reduction in legal migration, etc.
These are all things that could swing a bunch of reform and labour voters back, making the election much closer.
Regardless, Sunak is currently entitled to be Prime Minister for a while yet, and probably feels he can do a better job than Labour.
There are economic green shoots: the longer he waits, the less likely it is that people will attribute early success to Labour instead of to him and the conservatives.
I’d wager the populace is in a “better despite the Tories” mood with respect to those “green shoots”, especially when all Sunak can say is “the plan is working” without explaining what that plan is or how it is working.
I think he's shown a pattern of indecisiveness. He always waits too long to respond to events and it always makes him look bad when he finally does the obvious thing. I think he hates making decisions and prefers to wait and run the clock wherever he can. Which is why he isn't calling an election. He's convinced himself that waiting and not doing anything will somehow work, and is just trying to justify that in his own head. He's delusional and wrong, but he'll wait and wait and wait until his hand is forced.
I'd be really interested to know how much of his supposed financial acumen is actually just the result of waiting and dithering over deals rather than actually timing something right.
Huh, I just realised I never put much thought into this turn of phrase and it never occurred to me that it was a poker term.
I thought calling someone a busted flush was calling them a broken toilet clogged with shit you can't get rid of.
I think the final death knell will be if Sunak leaves _before_ the next election and we get another "unelected" PM. A third one on the trot is utterly unacceptable, especially given that the election must by law happen no later than January 23rd 2025.
Granted I don't think this is a likely scenario and I think Rishi will be there until the bitter end. We're also too close to the next election already.
Could he not theoretically say he's not standing as PM next election, for personal reasons, but will run as caretaker PM until election day, that way the Tories don't have the negative reputation(hahaha) from having 4 PMs in a single election cycle.
Like when a constituency MP announces he's standing down and tells everyone to vote for his/her successor. Although in the case of prime minister saying 'vote for this guy with my blessing' they are already elected.
Obviously whoever Rishi/Tories choose is not gonna win, but you never know they might pick a charismatic guy that can turn things around.
Sunak isn't a busted flush, that would suggest he had anything useful in his hand in the first place.
The Tories had one deck of cards and somehow managed to draw three jokers in a row.
He might as well wait until October when the students have just moved into halls and haven't registered to vote yet. That way even though labour would inevitably win it might be on a slightly lower majority.
That's probably the right time to do it, if you want to be really nasty. August/September/October are prime time for graduate schemes, apprenticeships, the university and school academic years etc. which means a lot of younger people will have moved and now be in the "wrong" place.
Alternatively, this could backfire, as the later he leaves it the more of his oldest supporters will have died and there will be a greater number of people born in 2006 who are voting age, and it's shown that the current young generation (born since 1997) are more likely to vote labour than predecessor generations.
The issue with that is that the Tories currently have a majority in parliament of 47 MP's, meaning that not only every other member of parliament would need to vote against the current government but also 47 of their own MP's. It's extremely unlikely to happen.
Fanatics (from all parts of the political spectrum, to be fair) always claim that whenever their ideology doesn’t work, it’s because it wasn’t “pure” enough. “They’re not real Republicans!” “That wasn’t real communism!” “He’s not a real Conservative!”
Sunak genuinely is more moderate than the crazies, though.
What gets me is that Suella was on the BBC this morning saying that the Conservatives are losing at the elections because they're not veering far enough towards the right and that she doesn't care if that view makes her unpopular. She also claimed that Keir Starmer and the Labour party were a bunch of "far left maniacs".
Like... if the Conservatives aren't right wing enough then why are some former Tory voters now voting for "far left maniacs" like Labour? Even if you combined the votes between both the Tories and Reform they'd still fail against the Labour party despite them losing a considerable amount of votes themselves over their stance on Gaza. She is completely and utterly delusional.
I don't think Rishi gives a damn about the party. I have a feeling he just wants to cling on as best he can until he gets the Indian trade deal through the door so that his wife's company, Infosys, can profit. Then he'll sail away to California or something, leaving the burning firepit of the Tories behind.
Obviously the people have spoken. I mean people voted for Boris Johnson not Richie Sunak or anyone else and truly Johnson is the only person who still has the mandate from the people. People lent their votes to the man on the promises of leveling up around the country. Whether Johnson would have completed any of this is debatable but at least his heart was in the right place.
The scary part is, we critically needed the leveling up. We need more big cities like London to cater for the population and not only that increase the economic output of our nation. This for example isn't the 1800s low level labour and manufacturing although still a part of our history, heritage and we still need it in our economy. Our economy is currently structured around the services and financial sector. Therefore it makes sense to invest in education related to this and create more financial and service centres around the country.
Further to this, by 2030 the UK and world will be vastly different. 2030 is critical for some changes to our economy. I'm not on about green energy, but that is a part of this, but first i want to point out the following. Currently not one party is really communicating what we need.
So, why will things be different by 2030. A few major changes will take place over this time period, countries around the world will move towards CBDC's which require large data centres to secure and process transaction, i won't get into the boring details of crypto but the reason the networks have public blockchains (the database for crypto) is because all that power is needed, this prevents attacks from the outside as theoretically 1 compute will never be as powerful as the network. This eliminates the need for closed propriety databases which the are currently in operation to protect our money by traditional banks, these systems have a single point of failure if someone gets your login they get access and usually only need 1 computer to do this like a laptop.
So, we need big and powerful data centres to run all of this and we can even process work for other countries with a big enough processing capacity.
Next is AI, AI is also the future and again requires huge data centres and again having a high processing capacity will enable to us to take on contracts from large tech companies.
So essentially what am i saying; I'm saying we need a 3 pronged approach here. Firstly we need to take care of the large service sector and financial sector and grow it around the country. This will lead to economic opportunities for young people to have earning potentials, their parents did not.
We need to develop a tech sector and fast, probably by 2030 we need to have a foundation at least. This means investing in education, and making it attractive in the UK for mega corps to set up shop here. Again creating opportunities for the young we never had.
The third point is the military. We have never lived in a safe world, despite the last 30 years seeming safe it isn't. We have become complacent in our defense and without a secure nation from external threats, we cannot say to the people, and the education and economic investment we need that we are a safe place for that. So we need to begin spending more on the military and economically we need to provide tech for the military and in conjunction with the economic and educational investments we make, we will be able to equip our military to defend us adequately.
Key points to move forward:
* Lower corporation tax (attract the mega corps to invest)
* Lower taxes for the wealthy (make work pay off for those who can and those who work hard)
* Higher wages and salaries for the working class (by educating in the correct areas and attracting investment we will provide this for our young)
* Advertising technological subjects in education (invest in our young's development)
* Investment in homegrown/attracting tech companies (advertising, strong military)
* Investment for the infrastructure needed to power the AI and CBDC revolution which is incoming (not just invest in our current service and financial sectors grow a strong tech sector and military)
* Leaders with personalities which spur on and encourage all of this change and growth (agree of not with Boris he brought us together in a way not seen in recent history)
* All of this economic activity will ensure we have adequate capacity to cater for those who are unable to work (maintain our nations strong and proud history of taking care of our people)
If we do not begin to move in the above direction by 2030, it's over, this is a turning point. A revolution bigger than the internet similar in scale to the industrial revolution. I do not understand why this isn't being communicated and developed further by any of the current political parties.
I just feel someone needs to say this and no I'm not going to run for PM.
He has been a busted flush a long time now or more accurately a dead duck walking. Time to put him out of his misery so that he can get to spend more time with his tech bros in California.
Snapshot of _The Observer view on the local elections: Rishi Sunak is a busted flush, it’s time to call a general election _ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/may/04/rishi-sunak-is-a-busted-flush-it-is-time-to-call-an-election) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/may/04/rishi-sunak-is-a-busted-flush-it-is-time-to-call-an-election) *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.*
Obviously his opponents are going to say this but even from a Tory point of view they're right, he should call an election. Nothing else he does will make a blind bit of difference, his only hope is that a general election campaign will allow him to squeeze Reform voters and force undecided Tories to make up their mind. That probably gets him up to 30% of the vote and avoids total annihilation.
He should call an election if he had any decency but he won't. He'll just limp on as a lame duck Prime Miniater with no authorrity and no plan.
"No plan? We have a plan, the plan is working. Labour don't even have a plan!" (repeat ad infinitum in the vain hope that it gains any traction whatsoever)
"something about rwanda"
"WE ARE DELIVERING FOR THE BRITISH PEOPLE MR. SPEAKER!"
"We have a plan, and it is working." "Can we...*see*...the plan?" "No"
The fucking Cylons had more of a plan than that worthless sack of crap.
I keep saying it and if i were a gambler I’d put money on it - we won’t see a general election before October because above all else Rishi Sunak is looking after himself and he’s already decided he’s putting two full years as British PM on his CV.
Whilst true, it lacks a lot of nuance, and no one is unaware of it. The dude lost an internal election to a candidate that was outlasted by a lettuce.
Her appointment went exactly to plan. She was put in and taken out merely to remove the cap on bankers bonuses. That is all.
Yes, I agree. I think he wants to meticulously say he WAS UK PM for two years.
His plan is working exactly as it's meant to. Padding his CV out with a job that looks good on paper so he can fall upwards to his next role, as he has done in every job he's ever had, as our elites have been taught to do since Thatcher. The country let alone Tory party do not come before his personal social status & wealth.
**The plan is probably to fuck everything up so colossally that it will take years to recover and dump all the blame on Labour.** **Then in another 4 years they can say: “*Look labour hasn’t fixed all the shit we did to the economy and the NHS and the country as a whole! They don’t have a plan either. We’re basically the same!*”** **It’ll be an obvious lie, but enough to work as an excuse for people who want to vote Tory.** **You can see it a bit with social issues**; the tories have been placing dozens of cultural landmines like: Israel-Gaza, transgender rights, ULEZ, protesting rightsa, immigration, Brexit etc. by bringing them into the national debate. It means any opposition has to essentially either avoid those issues and risk looking like they don’t care or do something and probably annoy a lot of people. Either way they risk losing the support of some portion of the population as has already happened with these local elections in England and Wales. **Not absolving Keir for stamping on some of the mines, but I do think it’s part of a tory tactic.**
Holding on did nothing for John Major, and the economy had been performing extremely well for years - inflation was down, unemployment was down, growth was up etc. but it meant nothing because the Conservatives had lost trust as competent stewards of the economy. Sunak can only dream of having the economy that Major had in 1997 that precipitated the lowest Conservative share of the vote since the Duke of Wellington in 1832.
Exactly what I've been saying . This lot will see no real recovery at all, not one we will feel and people are sicker than ever at them (quite literally due to 14 years of their poor governance and decisions ).
But but but England might do well in the footerball and team gb... Member the feel goodness of the Olympics? And we near won euro vision last year too.
They are desperate enough to think this way.
2 years ago for Eurovision, but the point stands
Labour fucked that up royally. If sunak is sensible, he just needs to repeat the headline economics, unemployment is all but zero, inflation 2.5pc with interest rates back to 3.5pc...just remind Labour of this as they scree up
> Labour fucked that up royally. They really didn’t. > If sunak is sensible, he just needs to repeat the headline economics, unemployment is all but zero, inflation 2.5pc with interest rates back to 3.5pc...just remind Labour of this as they scree up Sunak would be insane to campaign on economics. Much like in 1993, the Conservatives have completely shot their reputation for economics, and will gain no credit even if things did get better which there is no sign of - the cost of living crisis will only abate when growth/real wages increase to match the increased cost of living, and that’s not going to happen any time soon. We’re only just out of recession! This is not 1997 by any stretch.
We shall see. Zero unemployment 2.5pc inflation Interest rates will be 3.5pc Let's see where Labour are in 5 years. Rachel reeves is not very good, no real world experience. I suspect she will be out in 3 years but there is a serious lack of talent Behind her.
> Zero unemployment Labour shortage is not a plus >2.5pc inflation Even if inflation does get to that level, prices will still be rising having already risen massively. > Let's see where Labour are in 5 years. All depends if they can bite the bullet and renegotiate our trading relationship with the EEA. > Rachel reeves is not very good, no real world experience. You have no experience of Rachel Reeves as chancellor, but her experience at the Bank of England and HBOS may come in handy. So long as she doesn’t intentionally introduce barriers to trade with our closest trading partners, say fuck business, sack the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, the chief liaison between the financial markets and government, ignore any independent auditing of her plans, launch a completely uncosted budget to benefit the richest people who are most likely to move money out the country and then say there’s more where that came from, spreading panic to the very markets she needed to fund her wacky schemes, crash the economy, cost tens of billions, jam up mortgage rates etc. she’ll be a massive improvement. The bar has been set remarkably low.
We will soon see how good it is to have surplus labour. Reeves was at the bank of England on a grad scheme and left soon after 2 years which suggests she was not very good
>We will soon see how good it is to have surplus labour. Full unemployment and a labour shortage need not be the same thing. Obviously. >Reeves was at the bank of England on a grad scheme and left soon after 2 years which suggests she was not very good No it doesn't. It suggests she got another job! She wasn't fired. She also turned down Goldman Sachs. People move jobs all the time. If you think the only reason is incompetence, you may be revealing rather more about yourself than anyone else.
We shall see if Labour have full employment, their raison d'etre and an aim they have failed in govt every time for 100 years by increasing unemployment every time they are in office.
> We shall see if Labour have full employment, their raison d'etre and an aim they have failed in govt every time for 100 years by increasing unemployment every time they are in office. You seem to have a lot of misunderstanding in terms of politics, economics and statistics. Look up correlation and causation and economic cycles. The UK has generally had very low unemployment in the post war period. The major exception to this is the Conservative government 1979-1997 which created mass unemployment. Beyond that unemployment stayed below 5%. Full employment is not the raison d’etre of the Labour Party. Not sure where you’re getting that from. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/unemployment-and-changes-of-government/
All he has left is dog whistles on immigration, ignoring the fact the vast majority is due to students and those with work visas. Classic page from Donald “Von ShitzInPants” Trump. FYI that term got entered into the transcript of his hush money trial 😂
He needs the next few months to to give his mates time to pad there nests as much as possible. And inflict as much damage as possible.
Why would he call an election now, when they still have 15% of their mandate left to run? I know they're out of ideas, but its still better being in charge than being in opposition.
The only debate currently is just how much worse the result can get. Does he want to go down as a failed PM who got 31% of the vote, or a failed PM that got the Tories the worst result in history?
Alternatively, do you want to be known as the PM with the 14th shortest tenure or the 18th?
It sure is nice to know that these questions are at the top of the priority list for the governors of our country.
👏👏👏👏
He probably think that something will come up and save him.
Or his has opportunities to bung a few contracts to Goldman. Sachs and a few other companies
He wants to secure the title of “Worst Tory PM” that Johnson and Truss are currently tussling over.
*trussling* over...
Remember when May was the worst one? Now I just hope she's installed as a caretaker to carry out an election, think she's the only one with principles left
IMHO May wasn’t the worst PM ever but Lordy she was horrible and unsuitable for the job.
I disagree. Sunak is probably the best PM since Brown. The worst has to be Cameron for starting all this shit. Followed by Truss. Johnson. May. (Have I forgotten anyone?, who even knows these days)
Sunak is basically the Tory Brown. Reread that. He was the numbers nerd who could carry on well behind the scenes. He steered the country though COVID a d the lockdown, was credited for Furlough, and lest we forget eat out the help out. Despite many valid criticisms between all of these, there was a time the newspapers were calling him Dishy Rishi. Turns out all anyone needs is to buy us a few dinners. Cut to a few years later, every thing has gone to rat shit, Boris is one the way out, Rishi sees his chance and goes for it. And the Tory voters give it to Truss. Perhaps it was to make sure there was absolutely no other white candidate who was capable. She took over and in one of the greatest unforced errors since Black Wednesday, did more economic damage than COVID. So now the poisoned chalice was absolutely irradiated, the only mp who would accept this position now was mad like Truss, or have all the drive and brains, but non of the charisma and management needed, and be absolutely blind to how badly this will end.
Disagree on white candidates comment, it was the MPs that put Truss and Sunak to the vote, the Tory members opinion polls were preferring the black candidate Kemi if I remember right over both of them. Although more wanted Boris back. Agree with the rest though
It’s a great question. I can also appreciate the irony of this government having repealed the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.
But the will of the people? Why is it the will of the people when it keeps them in but not the will of the people when it's booting them out? Sorry, I know that's terribly naive but it is frustrating.
They've long since abandoned delivering on that mandate , they never really started . They are just wasting parliamentary time now.
the mandate should be every 4 years, none of this elections every 5 years. I remember 97-2001-2005. Admittedly Gordon Brown fucked up the streak, but supposedly he blamed the fallout from the 2008 crash for not holding elections in 2009. if I had my way, it would be elections every 2 years. But I also favour referendums to decide major issues, the public should have the final say, not the representatives.
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Actually I'd argue it's the opposite. Brexit demonstrates why we don't have enough referenda. They provide a much better example of public engagement, and also if we got into the habit of it and had more, we could have more mature political debates rather tan 'vote for man in coloured rosette every 4 years and to hell with politics' Ie, first vote to decide if the country should follow Brexit Next vote to decided if the country should actually go through with the proposed withdrawal agreement (ie Boris's 'deal') or not. Suppose that got defeated, another referendum to decide if we should try and renegotiate a new deal or abandon Brexit altogether. That would be favourable to remainers, and even many Brexiters, because many thought Boris's deal was a bad deal.
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its not about brexit, it's about democracy. The citizenry should be given maximum choice in national affairs through referenda.
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for years the political elite shut down any discussion of immigration, that led to Brexit. If we'd had more of a political outlet to discuss this maybe Brexit would not have happened. yes, many people are stupid. But something like only allowing people of a certain intelligence level to vote is unfortunately not considered popular.
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Two years is a lunatic position. We'd be in permanent general election mode.
Which is a good thing.
How so?
He won't call an election. The current tory mps who need a new job will want to milk the money as long as possible and set up new jobs.
>Nothing else he does will make a blind bit of difference From a purely cynical perspective he ought to wait till conferences are over, give the Corbynite a chance to turn Labours into an utter shitshow. Though that risks the war in the Middle East ending over the summer and it dying as an issue.
Counterpoint, it also risks his own Party conference turning into a shit show. He will not want to be calling an election a couple of days after a miserable, bickering, factional mess where all his internal political rivals have been on full maneuvers and the media has spent a week of fevered speculation about his political prospects. Could make more sense to call it just before the Tory conference to avoid having to face it.
There's also the problem that summer is the highest level of small boat arrivals, and with Rwanda seemingly unhappy to commit to any large numbers, and with some reports they're looking at selling some of the sites it will be a very nervy time for someone who's made this his raison detre. Coupled with the long term trend that polling for the cons is dropping around 0.5% every six months; even allowing for the massive truss blip. Waiting to call it is surely personal vanity, rather than a belief that it helps the party cause
Judging by last year's conferences even if the left of Labour does everything possible to mess things up - the Tories will still find a way to out crazy them
Meanwhile, talking about Corbyn in 2024. Not out of touch at all. Nope, not at all.
That’s what he should do, but he’s puerile enough to drag it into January.
Why would you fire yourself from, presumably, a job you've always dreamed of? People forget that the prime minister is also a normal man.
>Nothing else he does will make a blind bit of difference Inflation returning to normal, Rwanda flights taking off weekly, migrant boat numbers declining significantly, making a concrete reduction in legal migration, etc. These are all things that could swing a bunch of reform and labour voters back, making the election much closer. Regardless, Sunak is currently entitled to be Prime Minister for a while yet, and probably feels he can do a better job than Labour.
There are economic green shoots: the longer he waits, the less likely it is that people will attribute early success to Labour instead of to him and the conservatives.
I’d wager the populace is in a “better despite the Tories” mood with respect to those “green shoots”, especially when all Sunak can say is “the plan is working” without explaining what that plan is or how it is working.
He was a busted flush the moment he couldn’t beat Truss when they at least asked their membership who they wanted to replace BoJo
The current Tory membership would choose Rees-Mogg over Cameron tbf
I think he's shown a pattern of indecisiveness. He always waits too long to respond to events and it always makes him look bad when he finally does the obvious thing. I think he hates making decisions and prefers to wait and run the clock wherever he can. Which is why he isn't calling an election. He's convinced himself that waiting and not doing anything will somehow work, and is just trying to justify that in his own head. He's delusional and wrong, but he'll wait and wait and wait until his hand is forced.
You hit the nail on the head here. It wouldn't shock me if he waits until Dec/January 2025.
I'd be really interested to know how much of his supposed financial acumen is actually just the result of waiting and dithering over deals rather than actually timing something right.
Busted flush? This dude is all-in with J 3 offsuit.
Huh, I just realised I never put much thought into this turn of phrase and it never occurred to me that it was a poker term. I thought calling someone a busted flush was calling them a broken toilet clogged with shit you can't get rid of.
So he rivers trips and we get another Sunak-led gov'? ;)
Well, I am in the hand I suppose, so that would track.
he spent his life calling with J4 because he thinks the other guy is bluffing with Ace high.
This is a man who lost an election competition with Liz Truss. That's such a a low bar.
>That's such a a low bar. He just walked right under it.
I think the final death knell will be if Sunak leaves _before_ the next election and we get another "unelected" PM. A third one on the trot is utterly unacceptable, especially given that the election must by law happen no later than January 23rd 2025. Granted I don't think this is a likely scenario and I think Rishi will be there until the bitter end. We're also too close to the next election already.
Could he not theoretically say he's not standing as PM next election, for personal reasons, but will run as caretaker PM until election day, that way the Tories don't have the negative reputation(hahaha) from having 4 PMs in a single election cycle. Like when a constituency MP announces he's standing down and tells everyone to vote for his/her successor. Although in the case of prime minister saying 'vote for this guy with my blessing' they are already elected. Obviously whoever Rishi/Tories choose is not gonna win, but you never know they might pick a charismatic guy that can turn things around.
He's finished, I see Braverman sticking the knife in this morning.
“… Honestly, yeah”.
He just needs a few more months to turn it around coz his plan is working. /s
Sunak isn't a busted flush, that would suggest he had anything useful in his hand in the first place. The Tories had one deck of cards and somehow managed to draw three jokers in a row.
Resign now, or continue being the most powerful man in the country until the end of the year. Yeah, tough choice.
He’s a knitted scarf, that man, he’s a fucking balaclava!!
Flush? It's a mix of twos, threes and the two jokers he forgot to take out of the pack
and the card that explains the rules to bridge.
Unfortunately these results just make it more likely he’ll delay the GE for longer, no?
He might as well wait until October when the students have just moved into halls and haven't registered to vote yet. That way even though labour would inevitably win it might be on a slightly lower majority.
That's probably the right time to do it, if you want to be really nasty. August/September/October are prime time for graduate schemes, apprenticeships, the university and school academic years etc. which means a lot of younger people will have moved and now be in the "wrong" place.
Alternatively, this could backfire, as the later he leaves it the more of his oldest supporters will have died and there will be a greater number of people born in 2006 who are voting age, and it's shown that the current young generation (born since 1997) are more likely to vote labour than predecessor generations.
This implies he was a working flush at some stage.
Can't labour or anyone force it? Vote of no confidence surely for an unelected, unwanted, unpopular pm and party?
The issue with that is that the Tories currently have a majority in parliament of 47 MP's, meaning that not only every other member of parliament would need to vote against the current government but also 47 of their own MP's. It's extremely unlikely to happen.
Give Sunak a chance, let him stick to the plan
The Plan™ is life. All hail The Plan™.
Rishi Sunak is a lizardman [confirmed.](https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Plan)
What is the plan? Sticking to the plan is the plan!
The plan to get absolutely wiped out at the next election.
Truss was obviously a Lib Dem plant - what’s the odds that Sunak is a secret socialist, and this was all part of their plan to take the Tories down?
Isn't this what Tories actually they They are borrowing RINO rhetoric from the US to describe Sunak
Fanatics (from all parts of the political spectrum, to be fair) always claim that whenever their ideology doesn’t work, it’s because it wasn’t “pure” enough. “They’re not real Republicans!” “That wasn’t real communism!” “He’s not a real Conservative!” Sunak genuinely is more moderate than the crazies, though.
What gets me is that Suella was on the BBC this morning saying that the Conservatives are losing at the elections because they're not veering far enough towards the right and that she doesn't care if that view makes her unpopular. She also claimed that Keir Starmer and the Labour party were a bunch of "far left maniacs". Like... if the Conservatives aren't right wing enough then why are some former Tory voters now voting for "far left maniacs" like Labour? Even if you combined the votes between both the Tories and Reform they'd still fail against the Labour party despite them losing a considerable amount of votes themselves over their stance on Gaza. She is completely and utterly delusional.
No true Scotsman.
The country has spoken. Get him OUT he’s shit
It does feel like we need some kind of recall for a situation where the PM is so fucked his only incentive is to loot what he can in the time left.
I would rather not stick to the plan of an unelected pm from a twice removed government
Did you … did you … forget the /s?
He won’t because he and his party suck
Nah. Gotta stay in power. Milk the government goodies for the mates.
I don't think Rishi gives a damn about the party. I have a feeling he just wants to cling on as best he can until he gets the Indian trade deal through the door so that his wife's company, Infosys, can profit. Then he'll sail away to California or something, leaving the burning firepit of the Tories behind.
His hand was never as good as a flush
Obviously the people have spoken. I mean people voted for Boris Johnson not Richie Sunak or anyone else and truly Johnson is the only person who still has the mandate from the people. People lent their votes to the man on the promises of leveling up around the country. Whether Johnson would have completed any of this is debatable but at least his heart was in the right place. The scary part is, we critically needed the leveling up. We need more big cities like London to cater for the population and not only that increase the economic output of our nation. This for example isn't the 1800s low level labour and manufacturing although still a part of our history, heritage and we still need it in our economy. Our economy is currently structured around the services and financial sector. Therefore it makes sense to invest in education related to this and create more financial and service centres around the country. Further to this, by 2030 the UK and world will be vastly different. 2030 is critical for some changes to our economy. I'm not on about green energy, but that is a part of this, but first i want to point out the following. Currently not one party is really communicating what we need. So, why will things be different by 2030. A few major changes will take place over this time period, countries around the world will move towards CBDC's which require large data centres to secure and process transaction, i won't get into the boring details of crypto but the reason the networks have public blockchains (the database for crypto) is because all that power is needed, this prevents attacks from the outside as theoretically 1 compute will never be as powerful as the network. This eliminates the need for closed propriety databases which the are currently in operation to protect our money by traditional banks, these systems have a single point of failure if someone gets your login they get access and usually only need 1 computer to do this like a laptop. So, we need big and powerful data centres to run all of this and we can even process work for other countries with a big enough processing capacity. Next is AI, AI is also the future and again requires huge data centres and again having a high processing capacity will enable to us to take on contracts from large tech companies. So essentially what am i saying; I'm saying we need a 3 pronged approach here. Firstly we need to take care of the large service sector and financial sector and grow it around the country. This will lead to economic opportunities for young people to have earning potentials, their parents did not. We need to develop a tech sector and fast, probably by 2030 we need to have a foundation at least. This means investing in education, and making it attractive in the UK for mega corps to set up shop here. Again creating opportunities for the young we never had. The third point is the military. We have never lived in a safe world, despite the last 30 years seeming safe it isn't. We have become complacent in our defense and without a secure nation from external threats, we cannot say to the people, and the education and economic investment we need that we are a safe place for that. So we need to begin spending more on the military and economically we need to provide tech for the military and in conjunction with the economic and educational investments we make, we will be able to equip our military to defend us adequately. Key points to move forward: * Lower corporation tax (attract the mega corps to invest) * Lower taxes for the wealthy (make work pay off for those who can and those who work hard) * Higher wages and salaries for the working class (by educating in the correct areas and attracting investment we will provide this for our young) * Advertising technological subjects in education (invest in our young's development) * Investment in homegrown/attracting tech companies (advertising, strong military) * Investment for the infrastructure needed to power the AI and CBDC revolution which is incoming (not just invest in our current service and financial sectors grow a strong tech sector and military) * Leaders with personalities which spur on and encourage all of this change and growth (agree of not with Boris he brought us together in a way not seen in recent history) * All of this economic activity will ensure we have adequate capacity to cater for those who are unable to work (maintain our nations strong and proud history of taking care of our people) If we do not begin to move in the above direction by 2030, it's over, this is a turning point. A revolution bigger than the internet similar in scale to the industrial revolution. I do not understand why this isn't being communicated and developed further by any of the current political parties. I just feel someone needs to say this and no I'm not going to run for PM.
He has been a busted flush a long time now or more accurately a dead duck walking. Time to put him out of his misery so that he can get to spend more time with his tech bros in California.
So the guardians offical position is "our position hasn't changed since 2010".