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[Great Order]

Political meltdown. It's hilarious and I choose to ignore all the problems it can and will cause because if I don't I'll be sad.

[Grim Portent]

On the bright side I think this will lead to a long term improvement in government policy, especially if the current Tory crash sticks. The fallout of all this is going to be bad for Britain, but I think it will be far worse for the Tories, hopefully to the point that they are consigned to the same fringe party limbo that the Lib Dems were in for a long time.

I'd cheerfully settle for Labour and the Lib Dems trading places as being in power/the opposition for the next few decades. Don't exactly trust the Lib Dems with a number of things, but I think they generally support electoral reform, so that's a plus.


Current polling puts Labour's lead in English constituencies as so dominant that the SNP would be the official opposition party in Westminster if the polls held true in an actual GE, which would be absolutely hilarious to me. Two years until the next scheduled one, unless the Tory party grows some balls and does the right thing, so things might change. Given the current crop of nutters the Tory party has I doubt they can do any better leadership wise though.

[Loud Whispers]

Hearing Kwasi was gone and Jeremy was in was like having a vice taken off my nuts by a blacksmith but they walk back in the room with a beartrap and ask if I want the free upgrade

[Starver]

And it seems like Number 11 is calling the shots on pretty much everything Number 10 ever cared about. (Number 10 has to agree or it likely gets messier. Everybody else has to agree or its another spin of the revolving black door and it definitely gets messier. At least for those 'in power'.)

[McTraveller]

And it seems like Number 11 is calling the shots on pretty much everything Number 10 ever cared about. (Number 10 has to agree or it likely gets messier. Everybody else has to agree or its another spin of the revolving black door and it definitely gets messier. At least for those 'in power'.)

I choose to read this in the context of Doctor Who.

[Loud Whispers]

And it seems like Number 11 is calling the shots on pretty much everything Number 10 ever cared about. (Number 10 has to agree or it likely gets messier. Everybody else has to agree or its another spin of the revolving black door and it definitely gets messier. At least for those 'in power'.)

It's hilarious how in the Tory government the exchequer has swung from powerless to god almighty back and forth like a tennis ball in wimbledon

Well, maybe not hilarious. But what can you do but laugh

[Grim Portent]

Seeing rumblings that the Tory members want Boris back, and the MPs are starting to talk about May as a stable and competent alternative to the current mess.

While backtracking is preferable to the ongoing how-low-can-we-go? shitshow, it won't be a good look for the party if it happens.

[hector13]

It’s fairly typical with how out of touch with reality they are.

In other news, the staff Chinese consulate - allegedly even the consul-general himself - in Manchester decided to pull a protester into their grounds and assault them before the police pulled them back out.

[Loud Whispers]

It’s fairly typical with how out of touch with reality they are.

In other news, the staff Chinese consulate - allegedly even the consul-general himself - in Manchester decided to pull a protester into their grounds and assault them before the police pulled them back out.

Xi Jinping is wilding damn

Seeing rumblings that the Tory members want Boris back, and the MPs are starting to talk about May as a stable and competent alternative to the current mess.

While backtracking is preferable to the ongoing how-low-can-we-go? shitshow, it won't be a good look for the party if it happens.

'...And after everyone grows sick of new slurm, we reintroduce regular slurm and brand it SLURM CLASSIC!'

[Starver]

Seeing rumblings that the Tory members want Boris back, and the MPs are starting to talk about May as a stable and competent alternative to the current mess.

To be fair(!), they always actually wanted Maggie back, in one form or other. Including, quite possibly, as the actual mostly rotted zombie of her corpse. (Which others would also like, but for yet other reasons.)

The amusing thing is that Starmer has something like a -5% approval rating (might be weighted by left-of-Left people, to some degree?) and yet is still officially more popular (by several tens of percentage-points, in some cases) than pretty much any serious Tory (potential-)leader, right this moment. Obviously, the solution is clear to everyone on every side of the political spectrum... Appoint Starmer as Conservative Leader!  It solves all problems and hardly creates any new ones, right?

[Lidku]

Seeing rumblings that the Tory members want Boris back, and the MPs are starting to talk about May as a stable and competent alternative to the current mess.

While backtracking is preferable to the ongoing how-low-can-we-go? shitshow, it won't be a good look for the party if it happens.

Can the UK literally find no one new that's suitable at all?

lol

[Grim Portent]

Can the UK literally find no one new that's suitable at all?

lol

Not in the Conservative Party, no. All the sensible ones were lost post-Brexit. Cameron was more than a bit of a twat but he was at least able to form a functioning government, May got handed a poisoned chalice and since then it's been steadily downhill. Or straight off a cliff, steadily downhill implies this was slow and reasonably safe. The Tories have been eating themselves alive with factionalism and internal bickering behind the scenes, not to mention the effects wealthy party donors have on things.

Problem for everyone else is that because the PM is chosen by parliament, and the Cons have a majority and so appoint which ever MP is their party leader, there's no (legal) way to force the Conservatives out of power so someone who isn't actively imploding can take over unless the Conservatives vote No Confidence in their own government, which they almost certainly won't do because most of them would lost their seats in the ensuing election and as such their jobs. So we're stuck with this mess for two years, which is when the parliament term ends.

Well technically King Charles could dissolve parliament and force an early election unilaterally, but the convention is that the monarch can't actually use the powers they supposedly have so it's not an actual option.

[hector13]

Well he can’t use those powers because he’s an unelected figurehead and it would be hugely questionable if he did attempt to do anything like that in a 21st Century democracy.

Then again, Truss was elected by a little over 80,000 people in a country of 60 million plus, so wtf do I know.

[Loud Whispers]

He can't use those powers unilaterally, he can however use the powers if it is so requested by the right ministers, similar to how the governor-general of Australia has dissolved parliament from time to time. The situation isn't really dire enough yet, but say a PM was trying to establish their own presidential dictatorship, abolish the country, ignore election results, refuse transfer of power or something very silly along those lines, a bunch of government officers could ask the reigning monarch for permission to dissolve parliament. The King or Queen's just one person, but the Crown's a whole crowd

[Great Order]

Oh man, Braverman's gone insane too.

https://twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1582410099263275010

"I'm afraid it's the Labour Party, it's the Lib Dems, it's the Coalition of chaos, it's the Guardian-reading, Tofu-eating, wokerati - dare I say the anti-growth coalition that we have to thank for the disruption we are seeing on our roads today!"

Turns out you just need to apply the slightest modicum of pressure to this lot and they lose their minds.

EDIT: https://twitter.com/___Mezzala/status/1582415198530699264?t=XR4YlpQRXQP66-kSOn2rrg& for the actual clip.