There is a special UK tax arrangement for rich people who have earning overseas (non - domicile or non-dom).
Rishi Sunak, the former finance minister and leading candidate for prime minister has a wife who is extremely wealthy. When it was revealed she took advantage of this tax status, there were mutterings of disapproval that this was a tax dodge.
She quickly gave up this status to avoid any more mud being thrown that Rishi is too rich for ordinary folk to relate to in a General election.
Here’s a useful rundown of the remaining five candidates from The Guardian.
Aside from the fact that as Attorney General, she basically hand waved all the ways Boris threatened to break international law, despite supposedly being the person to advise the PM on such matters, she also voiced that she’d like us to withdraw from European Court of Human Rights, so we can presumably throw migrants back into the Channel. She wants to abandon climate action entirely. She supports to dreadful idea of sending migrants who land on our shores to Rwanda. She’s a Boris toady and a Brexiteer. But then, most of them are.
Hell, she sounds a lot more like a Republican than a Tory. No wonder she’s stumbling failed. Even the nuttiest of British RW nutters recognize a bridge that much too far.
Thanks for the rundown - appreciate it.
Well, she’s a Tory:)
But seriously, she is the Attorney-General, i.e. the ultimate house lawyer for the government, who has been attempting to argue that there was nothing wrong with bringing in a law to override the Northern Ireland Protocol (a legally enforceable international agreement that they put through parliament barely two years ago). Plus harping on the anti-woke bandwagon and unrealistic tax cut promises, but she’s not the only one there.
And, unfortunately for her, Nigel Farage was all for her.
I like Penny Mordaunt. Former Sec Def, reality TV Diver and she made a punny joke yesterday, sorta quoting Thatcher “Every Prime Minister needs a Willie”. Her initials are PM! And she is ! Rishi.
Thatcher casts a long show over the Conservative party. Three of the candidates are strong minded women from the radical fringe of the party. Sunak looks like a competent accountant and Tuggenaut is ex-military.
They are all the product of the Brexit madness because that is the only policy the Conservatives have. I would not trust any of them to deliver anything positive from the mess Johnson has made.
Other than calling the EU back and saying “We wuz insane, but we’re better now. Please take us back! We’ll bring money!!” I have a hard time imagining any way for anyone of any party to deliver something positive from the mess Johnson has made.
To be sure there are a lot more ways to make it worse. Or not very much better. So there is still plenty to play for; no reason to throw up one’s hands and say the TOry leadership choice doesn’t greatly matter.
As an American I’m humbly aware of the pot calling the kettle black here, but the Brexit vote followed by the Johnson premiership may be one of the largest own goals in Western history. Overshadowed only by our own upcoming Civil War.
Indeed, the populism trend has given the world a lesson in how a nation can shoot itself in the foot and think that is good leadership.
I hope this is phase that has passed because there is great need for competent political leadership right now. There are some serious international issues to deal with rather than being preoccupied by all this internal strife.
There always are. Always.
I’ve been following this story in the Guardian, the Daily Mail, and (worst of all!) the Daily Express.
It’s striking the way the coverage of the past few days, even in the Guardian, has been burying front-runner Rishi Sunak and playing up challenger Penny Mordaunt.
There could be legitimate editorial reasons for this, but it could also be sheer manipulation. I wish I understood the context for this decision.
As an aside, does anyone else think “Penny Mordaunt” sounds like the alter ego of a Batman supervillain?
Or Buckeroo Banzai’s weird depressive GF?
At this stage, where the campaigns are directed at the 350 or do Conservative MPs, the newspapers find it difficult to keep up. The radio is a far more immediate medium. The coverage by LBC talk radio is very London centric and gets a lot of high profile guests as well the general public. It can reach the Conservative associations very quickly and this is useful on such a fast news cycle.
The Telegraph newspaper is virtually the Conservative house magazine. The Mail and Express are just shouty tabloids in search of sensation.
There is a lot of silly Ad-hominem stories at the moment as the candidates and their supporters try to spike their rivals campaigns.
This is the issue with this internal party election. There are not many substantive policy differences between the candidates. They are all full of Brexit stuff and tax cutting payed for by some magical process. So they are just taking pot shots at each other and posturing.
It does not really inspire a lot of confidence that any of these contenders are going to be able to sort out the mess.
Did any of our UK friends bite the bullet, swallow their gorge, and watch the debate tonight? Anything to report?
Yes, Populism is the new fascism. Just fool the voters with lies and empty promises, and you can get away with stuff a dictator can’t. Appeal to the bigots, the Xenophobes, the ignorant- the voters who were ignored by sane politicians.
Yep, more lies for the rubes.
Answering my own question re: the debates this weekend: apparently they went so badly that Sunak and Truss pulled out of the third debate (scheduled for tonight) and it was subsequently cancelled. Commentary from the weekend debates seems to indicate that they were nasty and personal, though that’s from media who love that kind of dogfighting, so take it with a grain of salt.
Another MP vote today, with Tom Tugendhat widely expected to miss the cut.
Why have the Tories chosen this absurdly protracted system? Did they look at the endless US primaries and think: that’s what we want? I understand the impulse to give ordinary Tory members a say but you could still have a much simpler system with one or two rounds of MPs choosing the top 2 and then a final round with the members.
I am also confused about the status of the race. Odds trackers like this one suggest that Sunak has gained heavily at Mordaunt’s expense but is there head-to-head member polling to back that?
The Yougov poll posted above suggests that Mordaunt would crush Sunak with the members and it’s hard to believe that it’s all changed in five days.
Btw it is striking how diverse the Tory leadership has become over the last decade. I would love to read a detailed analysis of that story.