Liz Truss tries to lead the UK {and resigns as of 2022-10-20}

Yeah, could well be. 'Look, we dealt with that problem, right?"

And yet both parties keep winning elections. Sigh.

Yes, why is that? My guess is that the public live in a media saturated world and they confuse the postures and preening fantasy of reality TV with the more serious business of electing competent politicians. The public want a circus and my goodness did they get one. A lot of damage has been done that only gives comfort to foreign adversaries who try to take advantage of the weakness they perceive.

I hope that politics returns to normal and elections will favour regular statesmen and women who have a vision, policies and run a competent administration. Instead of a bunch of clowns who only want the trappings of power.

Politics seems to be all about getting elected. Being able to actually do the job afterwards is not an optional extra, it is an essential requirement. I hope the parties and the wider electorate have learnt that lesson. They are certainly going to see the consequences of electing economically incompetent populists in their monthly bills.

I don’t follow British politics very closely but after reading this thread I kind of went down a rabbit hole. I couldn’t believe some of the things I saw. I mean, yea, American politics has con artists and demagogues, but they’re at least minimally skilled at being con artists and demagogues. Segments like this I find baffling and surreal:

What is happening in these segments? I can’t get my head around what I’m seeing.

I can’t find a link right off the bat, but apparently she had a rough time of it yesterday on TV?

Breaking news: the Home Secretary has been sacked. She was in office for 43 days, a post war record. Apparently, sacked for a breach of security to do with email.

Suella Braverman departs as UK home secretary | Suella Braverman | The Guardian

Home Secretary is a senior Cabinet position (one for the four great offices of state) responsible for immigration, security, policing, drugs, counterterrorism and general law and order. Sacking the Home Secretary is a big deal.

Sacking a HS who is popular with the right of your party just before a three-line-whip vote which you’ve declared is a vote of confidence in your administration is…bold, verging on courageous.

None us can

Holy macaroni! Could the Truss government be melting down any faster? Yikes!

(Also, that Guardian article mentions nothing about email security. Where did you hear that?)

In her resignation letter she said she had sent an official document from her personal email, which was against the rules.
BBC coverage

Thanks for that. Does anyone else think that’s…not the real reason she was sacked?

Here’s a bit more detail:

Suella Braverman resigns as home secretary after sharing secure information from private email | Politics News | Sky News

Braverman’s resignation letter posted on Twitter. “I have concerns about the direction of this government” is a rather bold statement for someone allegedly resigning just because of a mistaken email sent earlier today.

And here :

Hmm. She has ‘concerns about the direction of this government’, and passed a document about immigration policy to an MP. A cynic might think she was trying to stage a rearguard action amongst the bankbenchers against plans to drop whatever madcap scheme she was dreaming up to be beastly to boat people: but I couldn’t possibly comment.

I’ll wait while you go and find out about Jacob Rees-Mogg.

I’m mean, I’m here for you but I’ve no explanation. All I can do is hold back your hair while you vomit.

Very much the Al Capone’s tax evasion approach to dealing with troublemakers.

Well, Braverman had a disastrous time yesterday, made a total fool of herself in the commons referring to the “tofu eating wokerati” to much hilarity across the uk twittersphere today. She seemed to have gone from zero to full Patel rolley-eyed-nutter in a few weeks, “dreaming of sending people to Rwanda”.

Perhaps that was a symptom rather than a cause, but she has certainly not been any of the stability required by robo-truss at the moment, who’s batteries seemed to have run out.

I mean two days ago the replacement for our PM said she wasn’t “hiding under a desk”.

Well, yes, I suppose “straight down the loo” is a concerning direction…

I’ll be happy to peruse links to similarly bizarre moments.

It would appear a few too many of the current crop of Tory top-level folks have been watching too much of the (un-)reality TV that’s the US RW-o-sphere. And have mistaken our frothing RW populace for your right-leaning populace.

“Tofo-eating wokerati” would have gone down a treat if hurled as an insult by a US RW Congressional candidate at a campaign rally or debate. In the UK, apparently not so much.

I just looked up Suella Braverman, whom I hadn’t heard of before yesterday, and she seems like a straight-up racist. Like what might be termed a self-hating minority.