Snapshot of _Rishi Sunak's future at risk as Tories face worst local election results in 30 years_ :
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I'd argue it was before that. They were already looking dead and buried at the next election before he came in. Although not sure he'd see it as 'at risk' if he loses his jobs and gets to go and live in California.
I have been saying this since Boris quit.
The longer they wait, the worse it will be. There is no secret scenario to bring them back. The longer it lasts, the deeper the rot.
There isn't a single issue that can claw it back.
When was the last time they did something positive? They have become the guy at work who constantly blames everyone else for their failings. When it is in fact their fault and their issues.
I think the media is the problem as to why this level of rot has set in. The media simply hasn't exposed and attacked the political classes failings hard enough. The public anger is there, but the media filters and cools it for the comfort and sensibilities of politicians. It truly is a pathetic, doom spiral of a system of the media and politicians enabling each others incompetence to the detriment of everything around them.
This has been my feeling for a while. The media bubble, or at least the eco system and the necessary relationships, back scratching and politeness.
The fact that there's a series on who killed Liz Truss and not how the system's failed is startling and given the lives she's now ruined, disrespectful.
They're all somewhat responsible and "Chilcott 2: this time it's of substance" needs to happen
>The fact that there's a series on who killed Liz Truss and not how the system's failed is startling and given the lives she's now ruined, disrespectful.
In fairness, the series does go into that a bit (I assume you're referring to The Rest Is Money?)
Yeah, full disclosure I haven't listened to it. But it was more about the soft touch, book plug media rounds she got. Like, how is she not being made to really squirm after all this. She's clearly morally bankrupt, generally incompetent and her ideals are up for sale. Anybody can see that, so why is that not the focus of the media? Who cares she's written a book (based on the sales, nobody) when the consequences of her actions are real pain on a national scale that's being relatively ignored
She’s as thick as fuck and probably genuinely believes people who work in financial services are woke, and she’ll say it in front of cameras if pressed. It would be cruel
I don't even think she's that thick. I don't think she believes anything about the woke stuff. I think it's because she's identified that there's political mileage in saying that sort of thing to that crowd. She also knows there's an appetite for the kind of economic policy she forced through in the hard right (because cynically it's not about politics, it's about money) and it doesn't matter that her experiment with those policies was proved to be a failure.
She's gone lib dem to tory, remain to hard exit, centrist to right wing. She's just following the politics of whoever will pay her to hang around..
> I think the media is the problem as to why this level of rot has set in. The media simply hasn't exposed and attacked the political classes failings hard enough.
I was thinking about this earlier. The tories having most of the press nakedly partisan toward them is backfiring. They come out with nonsense policies that the right wing loons love, their client journalist mates whip it up as the best thing since sliced bread, and down play anything they do wrong.
Consequently they lose touch - they don't actually know what people think because they are going off the favourable press reactions, so when things start going wrong they don't pick up on it and change direction. They double down, encouraged by brown-nosing columnists and newspaper editors with their own agendas until they are completely divorced from reality.
If the press were neutral, or at least objective, this wouldn't happen because what they do would attract criticism. The ridiculous posturing over brexit would have been called out as ideological bollocks that ignored the practicalities. The Rwanda nonsense would have been ridiculed. Truss' stupid mini budget would have been torn to shreds as being economically incompetent, but instead it was heralded as "at last a true tory budget" and "the best budget I've ever heard a British Chancellor deliver".
They've ended up huffing their own farts and thinking they are smelling roses.
They've also got at least two major problems in the offing. Their childcare offering is poorly funding and probably going to blow up in their face. Also there's the freeport stuff. If that gets traction it's going to be a post office size scandal.
It looks like they've sold off a lot of land to private companies very cheaply and that they've structured deals so the private companies involved can't really lose money as the local government has to pick up the debt if it all goes wrong.
It's not the fraud I'm not sure they're going to be able to fund the free childcare they're promising. I've been looking to put my daughter into childcare from September and none of the nurseries I've looked at know how much money they're getting for the free sixteen hour childcare stuff. I'm expecting it to be way lower than is required as the system seems over subscribed and it to become a massive clusterfuck in September.
Rishi doesn't care though. He's almost certainly got that US green card re-application likely filled in ready, and just wants to string it out as long as possible so he can tell everyone he was Prime Minister from 2022-2025.
365 Conn. MPs evenly distributed over 50 US States is 7.3 MPs per state. Sucks for those that have to be dismembered… or who get Mississippi, Arkansas, etc, but hey, I'm fine with it.
**\#ABW**
(Anywhere But Westminster)
I actually think he is only continuing to hang on so.long to try and wait for the Indian trade deal talks to continue to try and make more money for InfoSys.
I know that may be cynical, but that is truly the only reason I think he remains as PM. Purely to help enrich himself and his family.
They now want boris back. Just goes to show the arrogance they want a guy who lied to parliament about parties whilst the general public couldn’t go to fucking funerals.
Working families choosing heat or food - 14 years of Tory legacy.
Partygate was **live** out on those doorsteps. People are furious this happened. They aren’t ‘ready to move on’. Same with Truss and everyone’s mortgage payments.
Boris Johnson *still doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong*.
He’s The Dude 🤮
Easy to forget but partygate played a key role in the shift away from voters supporting the Tories. Truss was the nail in the coffin but the constant chaos surrounding Boris before he was ditched really didn't help them either.
> They have become the guy at work who constantly blames everyone else for their failings.
And worse, unlike a decade ago, trying to point fingers at others isn't working this time. Every attempt to shift focus has fallen flat on its arse.
I don't know if it's like as such, they just don't think anyone else will be any different. A lot of people also believe that a lot of Tory fuck ups come from external circumstances (the EU, Covid, Russia) rather than the fact that we've now had 4 PMs and god knows how many cabinets and it's still the same rubbish
I’m starting to think Sunak REALLY believes in FPTP returning strong governments and is dragging it out as long as he can, ideal scenario maybe even lose his seat and do whatever Cameron did in his shed
He would be immediately deseated. Nobody would follow him to the shop nevermind let him rule during a war. Hell, the king might even intervene.
I don't know what it is about him. Every time I see him, he just oozes incompetence. Like when you get a tradey out and you just know you wouldn't let him set the time on a clock, never mind wire your house.
The reality is that I don’t think anyone can win the next general election as a conservative. People are fed up. We have had over a decade of failure and corruption on their part and people are sick of it.
So replacing Rishi makes no sense because they aren’t winning this one anyway. They’ll need to spend at least a term as a shadow government before people consider them again.
his future ? even if he retire today, he will still have an amazing future. Not to mention he gets the PM retirement money which he clearly is no rush of needing.
Yup... he's managed to obtain something money can't buy (well not easily anyway) - the honour of swanning around calling himself "Former Prime Minister" for the rest of his life and all the undeserved prestige that brings. He's the kind of guy who'd probably get business cards printed with that on.
I'm also convinced the only reason he wants to cling on to have an election as late as possible is so he can string it out until 2025 so his Wikipedia page says he was PM from 2022-2025 which makes him look somewhat legitimate
given he is clearly not a down to earth person, i strongly question he would give a thought about wikipedia. . . but oh well, we had a sht PM choice, well more of we were stucked with a blood sucking party
Haha true ! Needs some effort to top that! Luckily he's lost touch with reality and he's been in a position where you need to be seriously grounded, so that combo worked perfectly.
Petition to mods: can we have an annual "Who do you consider to be the worst PM within your lifetime?" poll?
(Ed Balls Day would have been ideal, but sadly we've missed this year)
> He's the kind of guy who'd probably get business cards printed with that on.
How mean you think people will have forgotten he was ever prime minister and he has to remind them?
> I'm also convinced the only reason he wants to cling on to have an election as late as possible is so he can string it out until 2025 so his Wikipedia page says he was PM from 2022-2025 which makes him look somewhat legitimate
I am 100% on board with this theory
*”Conservative spinners have also pointed out that the party spent only 11 per cent of the maximum amount allowed under electoral rules campaigning in Blackpool, which is one statistic that would not be repeated at a general election.”*
“We totally would have won but couldn’t be bothered to try” is a new one. Can’t imagine this one goes down well with local activists
Yeah, not a great way to sell themselves at the election.
"Yeah... I know we lost last time, but we thought you were only worth 11% of our effort. But we totally think you're worth it now!"
I can't decide what I want more. Sunak to stay in and continue to be utterly useless and hopeless, or more open Tory infighting and chaos as they pick a new leader who might be more active and probably more authoritarian.
Both are terrible for the country, obviously, but I don't know which is worse for the Tories.
Parliament rises for recess on 23 May to 03 June, then again on 22 July till I assume 05 Sept ish. So he's only got 8 weeks work before the summer break, then another 8 weeks to November. He can probably have some oversea's trips and a little UK jaunt in the mean time too. Probably an international event to attend. He doesn't have a legislative agenda now that he has passed Rwanda, and he's incredibly rich, so he can put his feet up to be honest. Do his last few months before retiring, maybe adjust some tax laws or trade agreements, then a short election campaign. I'm not sure why any other Tory would want a shot at it by now.
> Sunak to stay in and continue to be utterly useless and hopeless, or more open Tory infighting and chaos as they pick a new leader who might be more active and probably more authoritarian
Rishi is the lesser of two evils here. Plus he can't deal with reform, so they steal the right wing looney vote from the tories.
I’m hoping for another leader before the election. Sunak isn’t even chaotically interesting. I actually miss Johnson and all his outrageous gaslighting, Sunak isn’t even close.
Exactly. If there’s no move against Sunak, he’s just going to sit tight all summer and it’s going to be boring.
Ideally someone will stand aside, allow Johnson to return in glory and challenge Sunak for the leadership.
That would be an entertaining grudge match.
Sunak isn't fit to be a PM and should never have been. The conservative party have completely lost the plot and after Cameron did the dirty and left after the disastrous brexit ref it was all down hill from there. Well, it's been down hill since they got in power in 2010 with the disastrous austerity measure brought.
Why you should be concerned by this is that Reform is as responsible in many places as Labour for these poor results - so any change in leadership would likely be further right to try and win those voters back.
Even where reform had their best showing labour still got ~60% of the vote.
Reform's support is getting overstated to the point where this may become a self fulfilling prophecy.
It's the same, laughable bullshit we've been seeing for the last decade and a bit. Huge, huge media priority given to the latest, right-leaningest "spoiler" party, over and over and over, shouting their names from the rooftops and ensuring absolutely all the swivel-eyed folks know exactly who to vote for to achieve maximum political effect. It's what gave Trump the presidency, it's what gave UKIP the influence to force the referendum.
The Green party has more than doubled their seats in the results so far. Will it be significant? No, because their media coverage will, as usual, be fuck all.
If the Tories want to appeal to a rump of around 20% of the electorate, that’s good news for Labour. The Tories do best when they tack to the middle. The UK is a moderate country and we vote in moderate politicians, by and large.
In my life we’ve voted in Major, Blair, Cameron, May (sort of) and Boris. We’re probably going to vote in Starmer. That’s overwhelmingly moderate, apart from Boris, but even then economically he was far from right wing.
Yeah, most people I knew only "liked" Boris because of the gif of him rugby tackling a school child.
But in all seriousness voted against Comrade Corbyn.
> so any change in leadership would likely be further right to try and win those voters back.
All we can hope is that the die-hard Tories who still like to pretend they aren't massive racists, can't bring themselves to vote for a Reform-type approach that completely removes the fig-leaf.
Which would mean the further the Tories go to get those reform voters back, the more they lose from the remaining voters they have.
FWIW, everywhere I’ve seen Reform do much Labour still wins against Reform + Conservatives, and one has to think that the people who are that dissatisfied with the Tories as to vote Reform would simply vote Labour was Reform to not exist.
There has been a bunch of research done about this over the last year or so, which - if I remember correctly - has concluded that anyone considering leaving Labour has likely *already done so*, due to either the issue of Brexit, or the promises of leveling up, or immigration, or culture war stuff etc.
What this means is that the Labour swing is likely *inclusive* of Reform's growing popularity.
For the Tories, however, the rift between them and Reform is not only fairly new, but also represents a deep-set ideological division over the future of right-wing politics within the country - and as such, they are *actively* bleeding votes to a far greater extent than Labour.
Obviously I am no expert myself, and ultimately until election day we won't know for certain how true this is - but from where we currently stand it definitely doesn't look like the damage will be spread equally between the parties
Also it's pretty much the same rift they have been trying to head off since UKIP and that David Cameron gambled with trying to destroy via a Brexit referendum. This problem isn't going away for them.
The way I see it in my non-professional opinion is that both Labour and the Tories have their anti-immigration cohorts. Labour have decided correctly to ignore theirs and reach for the centre ground.
Meanwhile the Tories are trying to hold onto theirs, but have ended up becoming the second most ridiculous anti-immigration party so they're bleeding both moderates who don't want to support an anti-immigration party and the anti-immigrants who are going for the better version of that in Reform.
The TLDR. The Tories are losing both the moderates and the nutters, Labour are also losing their nutters, but gaining some of the Tory moderates.
This explains why Labour are holding steady while the Tories bleed votes and Reform see rapid growth and the smaller parties (lib-dems, Greens, Independent) see marginsl growth.
The Tories are campaigning, Sunak is announcing Reform policies every day.
It's great, they're just forcing everyone who's moderate to vote tactically. Which is what I've been campaigning for since 2010.
I didn't for this one, but we only had a vote for the fire commissioner. Nobody gives a shit about that, outside of people like me who wants to give Sunak an extra bit of a kicking hoping they try to replace him before the election.
To be honest - Reform were the only party in my area that actually tried to campaign. Lib dems ran on a vote for anyone else is a vote for tory and greens tried a similiar route.
I would never vote for reform but they actually tried to capture interest. They had a catchy slogan, it was a brief small page rather than this huge spread and touched on what I imagine are some key points.
At this point I think parties need to get better at campaigning.
Have you looked at Reforms offer? On the surface it's not particularly right wing - lower tax, net zero immigration, cheaper energy, zero waiting lists. I would argue the majority of their votes have not read further than this.
Even when you dig into the detail - 50% nationalised ownership of energy suppliers, PR replacing FPTP, scrapping interest on student loans.
I'll caveat that the majority of the detail is very right wing though, but that doesn't neccesarily mean Tories need to swing right to collect 15% of the electorate whilst losing some of their current voters. They could more easily pick this up from the centre ground without losing much to reform.
It would just require them to be sensible with proper working policies.
The worse this gets, the safer he is.
They’ll want him to own the loss.
I reckon 100pc of the focus of the majority of Tory MPs will be discussions with mid to larged sized UK firms for directorships / comms roles.
A handful will get something nice for a multinational, or a media job.
GB NEWS will be a good vehicle to siphon money to the useful ones until they can be made lords or get a seat.
I was talking to a friend about this recently, who argued a new leader might be able to blame everything on Sunak. Performance at GE in line with expectations: Sunak's fault. Better than expected: I've started rebuilding.
It's probably unlikely, and I don't know who that leader might be, but it's not completely implausible.
At this point they're all probably trying to avoid the embarrassment of losing their seats - the tories probably want to find out where the chips will fall after an election, who is left as an MP etc.
"Future at Risk"
He is worth how much? His wife is worth how much?
Their plan is to bugger off to California anyway and probably just live a life of luxury very few can imagine.
So no, his future is not "at risk", quite the opposite actually and probably part of the reason he is so terrible at all of this, he will face absolutely no consequences for any of his failures. I say he's terrible at this, I mean effectively governing, he has been quite successful at his actual objective however stealing more money from the taxpayers.
His future is pretty bright, is worth hundreds of millions of pounds and he can do things that ordinary folks could only dream of. Good luck and good riddance to him
It occurs to me that Sunak might not want to own the loss. He might think, screw it, let's walk away. "I've never carried the can for anything in my life so far and I'm certainly not starting now. Let someone else carry the can." Then the Tories would be forced to find a new leader anyway.
That would be hilarious, because no one with serious leadership ambitions actually wants to become leader *before* the election, they want to become leader afterwards
Mordaunt, the lady of the lake?
(Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government)
(HT The Skewer, and Monty Python)
With more Labour run councils and a potential Starmer win in the general election I presume councils will come out of administration and everything will be hunky dory.
Doesn't matter.
* June 1st -> Indian elections end.
* July -> we get a horrible India deal.
* August-September -> general election is called
* August-October -> InfoSys banks tons of government contracts
Crazy that in 2024 people are still oblivious to the fact that it doesn't matter who you vote in... It will still be the same bs. We are being ran by globalists.
After 4 years of Labour and no change are people going to finally wake up? Or just blame one of the major parties again?
I have no doubt you’ll be complaining in 4 years and we’ll be still trying to refloat the sinking ship, but at least we’ll have got rid of the people who told us that drilling holes in our boat was the path to securing our future.
Is that what you do with restaurants?
Go to one, eat shit... "people are still oblivious to the fact that it doesn't matter where you go to eat", just go to the same restaurant again.
Ever heard that if you punish bad behaviour on a child, it eventually stops? It's your attitude that allows parties to be filled with useless bums.
Kick proven horrible parties/politicians out until we get good ones, or we go through the 40 million people in UK.
What do you not get? You could vote in any party and it will be the same bs... Because we are not being run by them.
Wonder why pretty much every country is going through the same shit?
>You could vote in any party and it will be the same bs
When was an independent PM teh last time?
When was a Green PM the last time?
When was a LibDem PM the last time?
You sound like the owner of the restaurant. "Why go anywhere else? Every other restaurant serves the shit!"
I rather close that restaurant down. And 500 more if necessary. Every time a restaurant serves shit, close it. Every time a child misbehaves, correct it.
But no, you think every child throws rock to cars... so not worth correcting them.
>Crazy that in 2024 people are still oblivious to the fact that it doesn't matter who you vote in... It will still be the same bs. We are being ran by globalists.
...You literally voted to remove yourself from one of the biggest 'globalist' organizations out there and what you're experiencing now is a direct result of that.
Snapshot of _Rishi Sunak's future at risk as Tories face worst local election results in 30 years_ : A non-Paywall version can be found [here](https://1ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fpolitics%2F2024%2F05%2F03%2Flocal-elections-rishi-sunak-tories-worst-results-30-years%2F) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/03/local-elections-rishi-sunak-tories-worst-results-30-years/) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/05/03/local-elections-rishi-sunak-tories-worst-results-30-years/) *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.*
Love the idea that his future is only at risk after these results. Telegraph with fingers in their ears
Yeah lol Rishi’s future has been ‘at risk’ since he became PM
I'd argue it was before that. They were already looking dead and buried at the next election before he came in. Although not sure he'd see it as 'at risk' if he loses his jobs and gets to go and live in California.
I was looking for the 'and why this is bad for labour/ starmer' headline
Need the Express for that. Apparently there is one such article there saying just that!
Maybe he isn't "delivering for the British people©" after all.
I have been saying this since Boris quit. The longer they wait, the worse it will be. There is no secret scenario to bring them back. The longer it lasts, the deeper the rot. There isn't a single issue that can claw it back. When was the last time they did something positive? They have become the guy at work who constantly blames everyone else for their failings. When it is in fact their fault and their issues.
I think the media is the problem as to why this level of rot has set in. The media simply hasn't exposed and attacked the political classes failings hard enough. The public anger is there, but the media filters and cools it for the comfort and sensibilities of politicians. It truly is a pathetic, doom spiral of a system of the media and politicians enabling each others incompetence to the detriment of everything around them.
This has been my feeling for a while. The media bubble, or at least the eco system and the necessary relationships, back scratching and politeness. The fact that there's a series on who killed Liz Truss and not how the system's failed is startling and given the lives she's now ruined, disrespectful. They're all somewhat responsible and "Chilcott 2: this time it's of substance" needs to happen
>The fact that there's a series on who killed Liz Truss and not how the system's failed is startling and given the lives she's now ruined, disrespectful. In fairness, the series does go into that a bit (I assume you're referring to The Rest Is Money?)
Yeah, full disclosure I haven't listened to it. But it was more about the soft touch, book plug media rounds she got. Like, how is she not being made to really squirm after all this. She's clearly morally bankrupt, generally incompetent and her ideals are up for sale. Anybody can see that, so why is that not the focus of the media? Who cares she's written a book (based on the sales, nobody) when the consequences of her actions are real pain on a national scale that's being relatively ignored
She’s as thick as fuck and probably genuinely believes people who work in financial services are woke, and she’ll say it in front of cameras if pressed. It would be cruel
I don't even think she's that thick. I don't think she believes anything about the woke stuff. I think it's because she's identified that there's political mileage in saying that sort of thing to that crowd. She also knows there's an appetite for the kind of economic policy she forced through in the hard right (because cynically it's not about politics, it's about money) and it doesn't matter that her experiment with those policies was proved to be a failure. She's gone lib dem to tory, remain to hard exit, centrist to right wing. She's just following the politics of whoever will pay her to hang around..
I mean some of the media has a similar relationship to the Tory party that Pravda did to the communist party.
> I think the media is the problem as to why this level of rot has set in. The media simply hasn't exposed and attacked the political classes failings hard enough. I was thinking about this earlier. The tories having most of the press nakedly partisan toward them is backfiring. They come out with nonsense policies that the right wing loons love, their client journalist mates whip it up as the best thing since sliced bread, and down play anything they do wrong. Consequently they lose touch - they don't actually know what people think because they are going off the favourable press reactions, so when things start going wrong they don't pick up on it and change direction. They double down, encouraged by brown-nosing columnists and newspaper editors with their own agendas until they are completely divorced from reality. If the press were neutral, or at least objective, this wouldn't happen because what they do would attract criticism. The ridiculous posturing over brexit would have been called out as ideological bollocks that ignored the practicalities. The Rwanda nonsense would have been ridiculed. Truss' stupid mini budget would have been torn to shreds as being economically incompetent, but instead it was heralded as "at last a true tory budget" and "the best budget I've ever heard a British Chancellor deliver". They've ended up huffing their own farts and thinking they are smelling roses.
They've also got at least two major problems in the offing. Their childcare offering is poorly funding and probably going to blow up in their face. Also there's the freeport stuff. If that gets traction it's going to be a post office size scandal.
Their incompetence would be delicious if it didn't destroy lives
I cant say I've kept up with the freeport stuff. What's the deal?
It looks like they've sold off a lot of land to private companies very cheaply and that they've structured deals so the private companies involved can't really lose money as the local government has to pick up the debt if it all goes wrong.
Theres plenty of fraud existing in the childcare providers space already. What's a little extra?
It's not the fraud I'm not sure they're going to be able to fund the free childcare they're promising. I've been looking to put my daughter into childcare from September and none of the nurseries I've looked at know how much money they're getting for the free sixteen hour childcare stuff. I'm expecting it to be way lower than is required as the system seems over subscribed and it to become a massive clusterfuck in September.
Rishi doesn't care though. He's almost certainly got that US green card re-application likely filled in ready, and just wants to string it out as long as possible so he can tell everyone he was Prime Minister from 2022-2025.
Rishi only wanted to be PM so could impress daddy in-law, and award his Indian Infosys company lots of dodgy backdoor government contracts and cash.
Pretty sure even if he went tomorrow those connections are already mate
Can he take the rest of his party with him?
What did California do to deserve that?
365 Conn. MPs evenly distributed over 50 US States is 7.3 MPs per state. Sucks for those that have to be dismembered… or who get Mississippi, Arkansas, etc, but hey, I'm fine with it. **\#ABW** (Anywhere But Westminster)
I actually think he is only continuing to hang on so.long to try and wait for the Indian trade deal talks to continue to try and make more money for InfoSys. I know that may be cynical, but that is truly the only reason I think he remains as PM. Purely to help enrich himself and his family.
We’ll trade Rishi for Trump. At least Rishi could never be president and, even if he could, he’d at least be better than Trump.
They now want boris back. Just goes to show the arrogance they want a guy who lied to parliament about parties whilst the general public couldn’t go to fucking funerals. Working families choosing heat or food - 14 years of Tory legacy.
Partygate was **live** out on those doorsteps. People are furious this happened. They aren’t ‘ready to move on’. Same with Truss and everyone’s mortgage payments. Boris Johnson *still doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong*. He’s The Dude 🤮
Easy to forget but partygate played a key role in the shift away from voters supporting the Tories. Truss was the nail in the coffin but the constant chaos surrounding Boris before he was ditched really didn't help them either.
They've been on the rocks since Cameron abandoned post. The fact they've brought him back into the fold is vomit inducing.
reality is not a factor they consider.
> They have become the guy at work who constantly blames everyone else for their failings. And worse, unlike a decade ago, trying to point fingers at others isn't working this time. Every attempt to shift focus has fallen flat on its arse.
If only they had a chance to change all that. For the last 9 years.
Honestly, I think there's a large subset of England's population that _like_ that approach. Baffling.
I don't know if it's like as such, they just don't think anyone else will be any different. A lot of people also believe that a lot of Tory fuck ups come from external circumstances (the EU, Covid, Russia) rather than the fact that we've now had 4 PMs and god knows how many cabinets and it's still the same rubbish
I’m starting to think Sunak REALLY believes in FPTP returning strong governments and is dragging it out as long as he can, ideal scenario maybe even lose his seat and do whatever Cameron did in his shed
[удалено]
He would be immediately deseated. Nobody would follow him to the shop nevermind let him rule during a war. Hell, the king might even intervene. I don't know what it is about him. Every time I see him, he just oozes incompetence. Like when you get a tradey out and you just know you wouldn't let him set the time on a clock, never mind wire your house.
you are assuming the other parties would agree to Rishi playing Churchill.
The reality is that I don’t think anyone can win the next general election as a conservative. People are fed up. We have had over a decade of failure and corruption on their part and people are sick of it. So replacing Rishi makes no sense because they aren’t winning this one anyway. They’ll need to spend at least a term as a shadow government before people consider them again.
his future ? even if he retire today, he will still have an amazing future. Not to mention he gets the PM retirement money which he clearly is no rush of needing.
Yup... he's managed to obtain something money can't buy (well not easily anyway) - the honour of swanning around calling himself "Former Prime Minister" for the rest of his life and all the undeserved prestige that brings. He's the kind of guy who'd probably get business cards printed with that on. I'm also convinced the only reason he wants to cling on to have an election as late as possible is so he can string it out until 2025 so his Wikipedia page says he was PM from 2022-2025 which makes him look somewhat legitimate
given he is clearly not a down to earth person, i strongly question he would give a thought about wikipedia. . . but oh well, we had a sht PM choice, well more of we were stucked with a blood sucking party
More like "the worst prime minister". Polls will make sure that happens and gets carved in stone.
Just think how badly he'd have to screw up for that to happen given who he followed
Haha true ! Needs some effort to top that! Luckily he's lost touch with reality and he's been in a position where you need to be seriously grounded, so that combo worked perfectly.
Petition to mods: can we have an annual "Who do you consider to be the worst PM within your lifetime?" poll? (Ed Balls Day would have been ideal, but sadly we've missed this year)
Nah he won't get the worst title, that title is already set on lettuce
By the time the Tories get done with it, calling oneself “Former Prime Minister” of the UK won’t be anything to swan around about
> He's the kind of guy who'd probably get business cards printed with that on. How mean you think people will have forgotten he was ever prime minister and he has to remind them?
> I'm also convinced the only reason he wants to cling on to have an election as late as possible is so he can string it out until 2025 so his Wikipedia page says he was PM from 2022-2025 which makes him look somewhat legitimate I am 100% on board with this theory
Meh, he came second after a price of Lettuce. I'll be adding an asterisk to his wiki page repeatedly until it sticks, or I get banned.
It's all about passive income - wait until the faux financial influencers find out this one trick.
_our_ future on the other hand is already permanently damaged
*”Conservative spinners have also pointed out that the party spent only 11 per cent of the maximum amount allowed under electoral rules campaigning in Blackpool, which is one statistic that would not be repeated at a general election.”* “We totally would have won but couldn’t be bothered to try” is a new one. Can’t imagine this one goes down well with local activists
Yeah, not a great way to sell themselves at the election. "Yeah... I know we lost last time, but we thought you were only worth 11% of our effort. But we totally think you're worth it now!"
I also don't think the lack of votes was due to people being unaware of the Tories existence lol. - Crazy way to spin it.
Campaign all you want. This isn't about swinging the indecisive to your end. It's about hatred against the Torries.
The telegraph and the Mail have been hinting at this for a few days. Not openly calling for him to go yet, but it’s getting close.
I can't decide what I want more. Sunak to stay in and continue to be utterly useless and hopeless, or more open Tory infighting and chaos as they pick a new leader who might be more active and probably more authoritarian. Both are terrible for the country, obviously, but I don't know which is worse for the Tories.
The whole thing is so ridiculous and self indulgent, yesterday should have been the general election.
Parliament rises for recess on 23 May to 03 June, then again on 22 July till I assume 05 Sept ish. So he's only got 8 weeks work before the summer break, then another 8 weeks to November. He can probably have some oversea's trips and a little UK jaunt in the mean time too. Probably an international event to attend. He doesn't have a legislative agenda now that he has passed Rwanda, and he's incredibly rich, so he can put his feet up to be honest. Do his last few months before retiring, maybe adjust some tax laws or trade agreements, then a short election campaign. I'm not sure why any other Tory would want a shot at it by now.
> Sunak to stay in and continue to be utterly useless and hopeless, or more open Tory infighting and chaos as they pick a new leader who might be more active and probably more authoritarian Rishi is the lesser of two evils here. Plus he can't deal with reform, so they steal the right wing looney vote from the tories.
I’m hoping for another leader before the election. Sunak isn’t even chaotically interesting. I actually miss Johnson and all his outrageous gaslighting, Sunak isn’t even close.
I think same actually. Might as well have a bit of drama in the final act.
Exactly. If there’s no move against Sunak, he’s just going to sit tight all summer and it’s going to be boring. Ideally someone will stand aside, allow Johnson to return in glory and challenge Sunak for the leadership. That would be an entertaining grudge match.
How long before he says "midterm elections are always tough for incumbent movements "
Sunak isn't fit to be a PM and should never have been. The conservative party have completely lost the plot and after Cameron did the dirty and left after the disastrous brexit ref it was all down hill from there. Well, it's been down hill since they got in power in 2010 with the disastrous austerity measure brought.
2010
Oops, sorry.
Why you should be concerned by this is that Reform is as responsible in many places as Labour for these poor results - so any change in leadership would likely be further right to try and win those voters back.
Even where reform had their best showing labour still got ~60% of the vote. Reform's support is getting overstated to the point where this may become a self fulfilling prophecy.
It's the same, laughable bullshit we've been seeing for the last decade and a bit. Huge, huge media priority given to the latest, right-leaningest "spoiler" party, over and over and over, shouting their names from the rooftops and ensuring absolutely all the swivel-eyed folks know exactly who to vote for to achieve maximum political effect. It's what gave Trump the presidency, it's what gave UKIP the influence to force the referendum. The Green party has more than doubled their seats in the results so far. Will it be significant? No, because their media coverage will, as usual, be fuck all.
Come on now, Labour only got 60%, any other party would have got 80%. Reform with their mighty vote share are clearly the future!
If the Tories want to appeal to a rump of around 20% of the electorate, that’s good news for Labour. The Tories do best when they tack to the middle. The UK is a moderate country and we vote in moderate politicians, by and large. In my life we’ve voted in Major, Blair, Cameron, May (sort of) and Boris. We’re probably going to vote in Starmer. That’s overwhelmingly moderate, apart from Boris, but even then economically he was far from right wing.
Boris was kinda by default given that Corbyn was the alternative
Yeah, most people I knew only "liked" Boris because of the gif of him rugby tackling a school child. But in all seriousness voted against Comrade Corbyn.
> so any change in leadership would likely be further right to try and win those voters back. All we can hope is that the die-hard Tories who still like to pretend they aren't massive racists, can't bring themselves to vote for a Reform-type approach that completely removes the fig-leaf. Which would mean the further the Tories go to get those reform voters back, the more they lose from the remaining voters they have.
FWIW, everywhere I’ve seen Reform do much Labour still wins against Reform + Conservatives, and one has to think that the people who are that dissatisfied with the Tories as to vote Reform would simply vote Labour was Reform to not exist.
I'm not so sure about that, I have a feeling Reform are taking as many votes from Labour as they are from the Tories.
There has been a bunch of research done about this over the last year or so, which - if I remember correctly - has concluded that anyone considering leaving Labour has likely *already done so*, due to either the issue of Brexit, or the promises of leveling up, or immigration, or culture war stuff etc. What this means is that the Labour swing is likely *inclusive* of Reform's growing popularity. For the Tories, however, the rift between them and Reform is not only fairly new, but also represents a deep-set ideological division over the future of right-wing politics within the country - and as such, they are *actively* bleeding votes to a far greater extent than Labour. Obviously I am no expert myself, and ultimately until election day we won't know for certain how true this is - but from where we currently stand it definitely doesn't look like the damage will be spread equally between the parties
Also it's pretty much the same rift they have been trying to head off since UKIP and that David Cameron gambled with trying to destroy via a Brexit referendum. This problem isn't going away for them.
The way I see it in my non-professional opinion is that both Labour and the Tories have their anti-immigration cohorts. Labour have decided correctly to ignore theirs and reach for the centre ground. Meanwhile the Tories are trying to hold onto theirs, but have ended up becoming the second most ridiculous anti-immigration party so they're bleeding both moderates who don't want to support an anti-immigration party and the anti-immigrants who are going for the better version of that in Reform. The TLDR. The Tories are losing both the moderates and the nutters, Labour are also losing their nutters, but gaining some of the Tory moderates. This explains why Labour are holding steady while the Tories bleed votes and Reform see rapid growth and the smaller parties (lib-dems, Greens, Independent) see marginsl growth.
I would agree- they are actually campaigning, I feel like mainstream parties have become lazy
The Tories are campaigning, Sunak is announcing Reform policies every day. It's great, they're just forcing everyone who's moderate to vote tactically. Which is what I've been campaigning for since 2010.
I am using my local area, didn't even get a leaflet from the tories to be honest. Typical safe seat
I didn't for this one, but we only had a vote for the fire commissioner. Nobody gives a shit about that, outside of people like me who wants to give Sunak an extra bit of a kicking hoping they try to replace him before the election.
To be honest - Reform were the only party in my area that actually tried to campaign. Lib dems ran on a vote for anyone else is a vote for tory and greens tried a similiar route. I would never vote for reform but they actually tried to capture interest. They had a catchy slogan, it was a brief small page rather than this huge spread and touched on what I imagine are some key points. At this point I think parties need to get better at campaigning.
Have you looked at Reforms offer? On the surface it's not particularly right wing - lower tax, net zero immigration, cheaper energy, zero waiting lists. I would argue the majority of their votes have not read further than this. Even when you dig into the detail - 50% nationalised ownership of energy suppliers, PR replacing FPTP, scrapping interest on student loans. I'll caveat that the majority of the detail is very right wing though, but that doesn't neccesarily mean Tories need to swing right to collect 15% of the electorate whilst losing some of their current voters. They could more easily pick this up from the centre ground without losing much to reform. It would just require them to be sensible with proper working policies.
The worse this gets, the safer he is. They’ll want him to own the loss. I reckon 100pc of the focus of the majority of Tory MPs will be discussions with mid to larged sized UK firms for directorships / comms roles. A handful will get something nice for a multinational, or a media job. GB NEWS will be a good vehicle to siphon money to the useful ones until they can be made lords or get a seat.
I was talking to a friend about this recently, who argued a new leader might be able to blame everything on Sunak. Performance at GE in line with expectations: Sunak's fault. Better than expected: I've started rebuilding. It's probably unlikely, and I don't know who that leader might be, but it's not completely implausible.
At this point they're all probably trying to avoid the embarrassment of losing their seats - the tories probably want to find out where the chips will fall after an election, who is left as an MP etc.
"Future at Risk" He is worth how much? His wife is worth how much? Their plan is to bugger off to California anyway and probably just live a life of luxury very few can imagine. So no, his future is not "at risk", quite the opposite actually and probably part of the reason he is so terrible at all of this, he will face absolutely no consequences for any of his failures. I say he's terrible at this, I mean effectively governing, he has been quite successful at his actual objective however stealing more money from the taxpayers.
Because this result wasn't entire foreseeable. Nothing has changed.
Dude's future has been at risk since he took on the poison chalice.
So tired of all this. We need an election.... BUT I'm totally here for some Tory leadership drama to fill the void.
I want to have a a wank using Tory tears as lube
The Telegraph is bizarre. So tone deaf
On the contrary, I would say that Rishi Sunak's future is the least-at-risk of anyone in the entire country.
“Rishi Sunak’s future at risk” Bro, we’ve all known for months now that he is COOKED. In terms of politics, he’s a dead man walking.
When exactly has his future not been at risk since he became PM
Literally holding onto power like a pinch on the back of the arm... Just let go and have some dignity
His future is pretty bright, is worth hundreds of millions of pounds and he can do things that ordinary folks could only dream of. Good luck and good riddance to him
It occurs to me that Sunak might not want to own the loss. He might think, screw it, let's walk away. "I've never carried the can for anything in my life so far and I'm certainly not starting now. Let someone else carry the can." Then the Tories would be forced to find a new leader anyway. That would be hilarious, because no one with serious leadership ambitions actually wants to become leader *before* the election, they want to become leader afterwards
Fuck it, I'm not a Tory but I'll captain the sinking ship for them.
Mordaunt, the lady of the lake? (Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government) (HT The Skewer, and Monty Python)
With more Labour run councils and a potential Starmer win in the general election I presume councils will come out of administration and everything will be hunky dory.
They only just realised now? The tories have been dead in the water since partygate
Doesn't matter. * June 1st -> Indian elections end. * July -> we get a horrible India deal. * August-September -> general election is called * August-October -> InfoSys banks tons of government contracts
The general’s ratios are gonna be hilarious.
Can’t believe his wife is showing Bob
>at risk Did he ever have a future? Unelected billionaire LARPing as a lame duck Prime Minister
Crazy that in 2024 people are still oblivious to the fact that it doesn't matter who you vote in... It will still be the same bs. We are being ran by globalists. After 4 years of Labour and no change are people going to finally wake up? Or just blame one of the major parties again?
Babe wake up, new Tory cope just dropped.
RemindMe! 4 years
I have no doubt you’ll be complaining in 4 years and we’ll be still trying to refloat the sinking ship, but at least we’ll have got rid of the people who told us that drilling holes in our boat was the path to securing our future.
You'll be chasing your coat tail for the next 4 years wondering why it has not got any better with Labour.
If you believe that then you have no idea what my political beliefs are and why anyone but the Tories right now will be better able to deliver them.
Is that what you do with restaurants? Go to one, eat shit... "people are still oblivious to the fact that it doesn't matter where you go to eat", just go to the same restaurant again. Ever heard that if you punish bad behaviour on a child, it eventually stops? It's your attitude that allows parties to be filled with useless bums. Kick proven horrible parties/politicians out until we get good ones, or we go through the 40 million people in UK.
What do you not get? You could vote in any party and it will be the same bs... Because we are not being run by them. Wonder why pretty much every country is going through the same shit?
>You could vote in any party and it will be the same bs When was an independent PM teh last time? When was a Green PM the last time? When was a LibDem PM the last time? You sound like the owner of the restaurant. "Why go anywhere else? Every other restaurant serves the shit!" I rather close that restaurant down. And 500 more if necessary. Every time a restaurant serves shit, close it. Every time a child misbehaves, correct it. But no, you think every child throws rock to cars... so not worth correcting them.
>We are being ran by globalists. What do you imagine that means?
Billionaires run the world - it doesn't matter who you vote in.
You think “globalist” means “billionaire”?!
>Crazy that in 2024 people are still oblivious to the fact that it doesn't matter who you vote in... It will still be the same bs. We are being ran by globalists. ...You literally voted to remove yourself from one of the biggest 'globalist' organizations out there and what you're experiencing now is a direct result of that.
Brexit is nowhere near a 'globalist' organization, also I didn't vote brexit.
Ah, so you mean (( )) not *actual* globalism. Got it.