Rishi Sunak tries to lead the UK

Politics & Elections
181

How do you think he’s opposite? The press does a narrative when they’ve got a new leader (again) about it all being a new start, but he’s been chancellor for two years and as much of a new start as Brown was after Blair.

He’s a Brexit true believer, is continuing most of Johnson’s policies (including banning protest at a number of levels like Russia or China, and getting rid of Northern Ireland Protocol, probably causing a trade war with the largest trading block on the planet, and pissing off the lead of the second largest due to breaking Good Friday Agreement).

I think it’s important to make a distinction between the tax cutting policies of Truss and the insanity of doing them at a time of national crisis. Sunak is still pro the former, just he’s not as absolutely insane/stupid to do them around now like Truss was. However, he got the safe seat in the UK because he was feeding radical right wing policies to the right wing think tanks, which they love. This is no opposite. It’s more of the same. The culture war will continue. Probably joggers (and their damn healthiness) will be the next target for them to keep the country arguing.

I’ve yet to see any difference with him, just more of the same, with Braverman reinstated and going “BY THE POWER OF RACISM” shows little shift to the centre. Neither is undoing direct bankrupting of the counties pension funds in weeks. But the 10% inflation will continue, the heating prices will continue to soar but the chairs will be nice as they hit the water.

The only real difference I see is that the stable of cartoon characters that Johnson used to deploy to talk nonsense to the press has been stripped down, but it’s as if they’ve been squished together to form a Mega-Toon in Braverman.

The hate is still there. Competence is still not an attribute required of a government minister (Grayling, Jenrick are back), though it is less of a talent pool, more of a spray of spit.

182

Small nitpicks - Grayling isn’t back in government AFAIK*. Did you mean Grant Shapps (or whatever he’s calling himself today)?

*I see he was championing the cause of greater protections for hedgehogs recently, though.

183

Johnson had a renewable energy policy and had a hosted tbe Climate change meeting. Sunak does not seem keen. Johnson had policy of rewarding farmers for rewilding less productive land post Brexit. That might go under Sunak to keep the big landowners happily subsidised as they were under the EU.

I am reserving judgement until I know more about Sunaks policies. But so far…

184

I spoke too soon. Sunak has now decided to attend COP27. This is almost certainly connected with Boris Johnson intention to attend.

Johnson has not gone away, he is highly regarded by the party members (he won an election). Sunak has not won an election and therefore has less credibility within his own party.

Johnson will be a thorn in Sunak’s side as he tries, as PM, to consolidate his authority in a Conservative party riven with factions.

However Johnson is under investigation by a cross party committee for his misdeeds. in the worst case he may be forced to resign as an MP. I am sure Sunak would not shed any tears.

185

Or it might have something to do with King Charles basically bringing COP27 to London where the PM will be giving “brief” remarks.

186

Yes !

187

Sunak is definitely now going to Egypt for COP27.

I am wondering whether King Charles will now be allowed to attend.

188

Boris Johnson declared he wanted the UK to become the Saudi Arabia of wind power. That and building some more hugely expensive nuclear power plants were the key parts of long term energy policy.

Does Sunak agree with this or not? It is all long term stuff. COP27 is a very high profile opportunity for Sunak to meet other world leaders. He needs to be there.

Sunak says he wanted to keep a close eye on the preparation of economic recovery plan due out soon.

Just a case of bad timing and Johnson’s attendance forcing this U-turn.

This is not a good look for Sunak.

However Johnson will soon have things to worry about himself.

189

An interesting article here suggests that it is deliberate choices to have asian home secretaries because they have more range for openly racist policies, and it would have been unacceptable for a white one to send people to Rwanda. Kemi Badenoch also chosen to defend the UK’s colonial record, and it was fine because she’s nigerian. Maybe someone went back into the history books and noticed it was African chiefs who helped round up the slaves to send to the west.

190

Ah yes, I see that, I do get confused by the reoccurring incompetence of them all and they do merge into each other. Gavin Williamson might be in there too (I notice Gove seems to have nipped back into Levelling up, the cocaine supply in Wolverhampton must be acceptable, I must look out for him dancing at 3am down The Giffard, the local rock pub which opens late, when I next have the stamina to stay late there).

191

I do so agree. With me I blame it on advancing years. I’m old enough for half of them to look like they’re doing it for Bob-A-Job Week and most of them have gone by the time I’ve learnt who they are, whatever the party (anyone remember Hazel Blears?) - and none of them looks like, say, Bevin, Bevan or Butler.

192

Didn’t know this about the PM:

193

Another nitpick.

Pritti Patel’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. That policy involved spending a lot of money to compensate the Rwandan government and was halted by legal challenges. Also the airline chosen has now declined to participate. Precisely zero UK asylum seekers are in Rwanda.

The policy looks to be an expensive failure.

Immigration issues are predictably headline grabbing. The UK news is full of stories and it gets everyone very indignant. Lots of finger pointing.

But it is really a minor issue in the big scheme things.

There are far bigger economic problems facing the UK that the government prefers to remain in the background. Immigration is a convenient distraction. Very easy to get people riled up and the sensationalist press love these stories. As if making it difficult for a few wretched refugees will help pay your fuel bill or stop your mortgage payments from rising.

194

I never knew this either. He’s given up his green card, right?

195

Yes, just over a year ago, apparently:

196

Classic right wing playbook stuff. Blame someone different to you. Rinse and repeat.

197

Whereas Braverman is sending them to…Victoria Station?

It’s going great, folks.

198

Another self-inflicted wound for Sunak, as scandal brews around Sir Gavin Williamson, whom Sunak recently appointed to Cabinet in the role of Minister Without Official Portfolio. While this is often a role given to a PM-friendly ‘fixer’ who gets license to oversee/interfere with any other Minister’s business on the PMs behalf, widespread speculation is that this time it is a sinecure handed out for support during the leadership campaign. Sir Gavin* is a former Chief Whip, by all accounts a very effective one, and thus a good person to have on side. He was also unbelievably incompetent as Education Minister under Johnson.

When he became PM, Sunak made a dignified little speech about how his government would have

integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.

Who could argue with that? But like, “I love you”, “I’ll have it on your desk on Friday” or “Don’t worry, the handbrake’s on”, this falls firmly in the category of “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it”.

It turns out that Sir Gavin has been sending bullying and abusive messages to Wendy Morton, the Chief Whip**. The inciting incident was that Gavin was NFI’d to the Queen’s funeral, an “offense” which he has been slow to forgive.

An official complaint was raised and Sir Gavin is under investigation. It is not very close to the highest standards of integrity, professionalism and accountability, therefore, to promote him to Cabinet even or especially into a sinecure.

But how could Sunak know, you ask? Because he was told, is the depressingly obvious answer. Recently retired Chair of the Conservative Party Jake Berry has gone on record saying that Sunak was informed there was a complaint raised against Sir Gavin.

Sunak’s line is that the messages are “completely unacceptable” but that he hadn’t seen them until now.

This raises two questions: first, if you know that there’s a complaint being investigated, do you actually need to see the messages to think that maybe rushing to appoint the guy to Cabinet isn’t such a smart move? And secondly, what does “unacceptable” mean in this instance? Does it, for example, mean that it’s unacceptable for Sir Gavin to continue in Cabinet and that Sunak should fire him? So far, apparently not.

But it’s a ludicrous own-goal. Of course you don’t appoint people being investigated for bullying! Of course there are going to be leaks from angry people and of course you’re going to have to burn political capital shoring it up. How can you not see this coming? The tawdry ethics of it aside, it’s just woeful political witlessness.

*The idea that a slimy, incompetent, vicious non-entity of Sir Gavin’s stamp has been made a knight of the realm is such a condemnation of the whole system that the only way I can express my contempt is to give him his full title at all times.

**(long time fans of the show will remember her as the Chief Whip who quit and unquit over Liz Truss’s fracking ban shambles)

199

And breaking: a further complaint has been raised, this time concerning Sir Gavin’s action as Chief Whip. Apparently he blackmailed an MP using details of their personal life:

The Tory MP, who told the Conservative party at the weekend that she was willing to discuss the matter, said that Williamson had called her into his office when he was chief whip in 2016.

At the time she was campaigning on an issue that was causing the government difficulty. During the meeting Williamson is said to have raised a sensitive issue about her private life, which she interpreted as a tacit threat.

Allies of Williamson denied that he had been trying to silence the MP and said that he had raised the issue in a “pastoral capacity”.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when my client followed up his observation that this was a nice place by remarking that it would be a shame if anything happened to it, he was simply acting in a pastoral capacity”.

This is ever so slightly unfair on Sir Gavin, insofar as blackmailing rebellious MPs over their personal life is a Chief Whip’s stock-in-trade and pretty much everybody does it. On the other hand, if you plan to emerge from your time as Chief Whip with further political ambitions, maybe you should be careful not to piss people off. On the third hand, maybe institutionalised blackmail is a fucking horrible state of affairs and it’ll do no harm and some good for there to be visible consequences.

200

Anyone who watched House of Cards (the original) might think that was precisely what the Chief Whip is for (but I couldn’t possibly comment).