Not a good time for the Conservative government in the UK

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  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    There have been so many, haven't there?

    TBH, Jackboots Patel is the only recent Home Sec I can recall, though my memory (what's left of it) goes back rather further than yours.

    I was thinking of Theresa "racist van" May, Michael "prison works" Howard, Charles "90 day detention without trial" Clarke, and Blunkett, Straw...
  • There have been so many, haven't there?

    TBH, Jackboots Patel is the only recent Home Sec I can recall, though my memory (what's left of it) goes back rather further than yours.

    I was thinking of Theresa "racist van" May, Michael "prison works" Howard, Charles "90 day detention without trial" Clarke, and Blunkett, Straw...

    A Rogues' Gallery, if ever there was...
    :disappointed:
  • BTW, there is a current rumour that Cruella might be replaced by The Slithy Gove...
    :flushed:
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    Michael Dummett (*), in his book On Immigration and Refugees, in 2001, wrote that Roy Jenkins was the only humane Home Secretary in his lifetime. I don't think he'd have cause to add another were he still alive.

    (*) Best known as a Roman Catholic philosopher of logic but also a lifelong campaigner against racism.
  • SpikeSpike Ecclesiantics & MW Host, Admin Emeritus
    Telford wrote: »
    The Met Comissioner is not biased towards a particular group. He's just being practical.

    Most sensible people realise that. The Home Secretary on the other hand …
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    I don't think I've ever been able to look at the Home Sec and think "there's a decent, fair minded person primarily interested in freedom and justice".
    Possibly no one since Roy Jenkins - who enacted such radical ideas as abolishing capital punishment, starting the process of decriminalising homosexuality and liberalising law on abortion ... all things it seems that recent Home Secretaries have been trying to undo.

  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited November 2023
    There have been so many, haven't there?

    TBH, Jackboots Patel is the only recent Home Sec I can recall, though my memory (what's left of it) goes back rather further than yours.

    I was thinking of Theresa "racist van" May, Michael "prison works" Howard, Charles "90 day detention without trial" Clarke, and Blunkett, Straw...

    And from cinema...
    Cue Land Of Hope And Glory

    "Soon we may be needing all our prison space for political offendors."
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    And, I managed to miss the page change and see that @Dafyd had already nominated Roy Jenkins as the lone example of a decent and fair minded Home Secretary.
  • I wonder if Braverman is the first to incite disorder, I don't know.
  • That point has been made, I believe.
  • BoogieBoogie Heaven Host
    She needs to go and join trump …
  • Her trumpiness has also been noted...
    :flushed:
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited November 2023
    I wonder if Braverman is the first to incite disorder, I don't know.

    I'm wondering if swing voters will frame it as "inciting disorder".

    On 1/6, Trump was encouraging protestors to continue and get violent, with ensuing chaos. But, if I understand this thing about the cenotaph correctly, Braverman was trying to stop the protests from happening in the first place. Granted, she was doing it through bureaucratically disordered methods(ie. interfering in police work), but that might not register with voters as incitement to disorder the way Trump's words and actions during the storming of the capital did.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    She's claiming that the London march on Saturday afternoon will disrupt the Remembrance ceremonies at the cenotaph on Sunday morning, and that those who march for peace in Palestine will in some undefined way "desecrate" the cenotaph and other war memorials. There are already reports of some far right groups talking about gathering at the cenotaph to protect it, which effectively creates more work for the police who now have to worry about these groups as well as the peace marches. If people going to their local war memorial, either to stand in silence on Saturday or to join the ceremonies on Sunday, are considered the "wrong people" (eg: look like Muslims) by the self-appointed guardians of these memorials and assaulted who would you say incited that? And, if the police arrest those who illegally "protect" those memorials with force, guess who's going to call bias in policing?
  • I am just waiting to see the right wing "protectors" disrupt the governments planned annual publicity stunt at the cenotaph.
  • She's claiming that the London march on Saturday afternoon will disrupt the Remembrance ceremonies at the cenotaph on Sunday morning, and that those who march for peace in Palestine will in some undefined way "desecrate" the cenotaph and other war memorials. There are already reports of some far right groups talking about gathering at the cenotaph to protect it, which effectively creates more work for the police who now have to worry about these groups as well as the peace marches. If people going to their local war memorial, either to stand in silence on Saturday or to join the ceremonies on Sunday, are considered the "wrong people" (eg: look like Muslims) by the self-appointed guardians of these memorials and assaulted who would you say incited that? And, if the police arrest those who illegally "protect" those memorials with force, guess who's going to call bias in policing?

    No disagreement from me there. But I'm still wondering if the ideologically uncommited would make the same connection between Braverman's words and any ensuing violence at the cenotaph, that they might have made between Trump's words and the 1/6 violence.

    In the case of 1/6, Trump addressed the crowd directly in real time, and continued to egg them on after the chaos started. Furthermore, there was only one group of ideologues involved.

    In the case of the cenotaph, assuming Braverman keeps her mouth shut between now and the 11th, there won't be the same perception of a direct connection between her words and any violence, and if the media images are of right-wingers and antiwar protestors duking it out, alot of people might just write it off as "bad guys on both sides", and some would even think that the peace-marchers were the primary instigators.
  • Well, Braverman's fans will blame any trouble on the Palestine March, and the woke police. I think a lot of people in the centre are gobsmacked at the sight of a Home Secretary calling marchers a hate march, and a mob, and full of Islamists. But the last few weeks have seen her attacking the homeless, immigrants, etc. Surely a leadership bid.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited November 2023
    I don't think there's any doubt about her leadership bid.
    :unamused:

    The party which she may eventually lead will probably not be the tory party, though.
  • Isn't Braverman useful to Rishi, acting as a sort of flak deflector making him look a bit saner?

    PS which party do you mean @Bishops Finger ?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited November 2023
    Merry Vole wrote: »
    Isn't Braverman useful to Rishi, acting as a sort of flak deflector making him look a bit saner?

    PS which party do you mean @Bishops Finger ?

    I think BF meant that a Tory Party led by Braverman would no longer be recognisable as being the same Tory Party as led by say Cameron or May. It'll be something much nastier, more right wing, more socially authoritarian, while quite possibly economically libertarian. Your underpants will be policed while your employer is free to exploit you.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Merry Vole wrote: »
    Isn't Braverman useful to Rishi, acting as a sort of flak deflector making him look a bit saner?

    PS which party do you mean @Bishops Finger ?

    I think BF meant that a Tory Party led by Braverman would no longer be recognisable as being the same Tory Party as led by say Cameron or May. It'll be something much nastier, more right wing, more socially authoritarian, while quite possibly economically libertarian. Your underpants will be policed while your employer is free to exploit you.

    That's exactly what I meant, although I admit that I should have explained it myself.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    I think there's been a clear trajectory in the Braverman direction since Major lost power.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    I think there's been a clear trajectory in the Braverman direction since Major lost power.

    Yes, I think you're right, alas...
    :disappointed:
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    I think there's been a clear trajectory in the Braverman direction since Major lost power.

    Yes, I think you're right, alas...
    :disappointed:

    Yes. If you were to refer to the previous incarnation of toryism as "the party of Boris Johnson", I don't know if "the party of Braverman" would be that huge a leap.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    I think you could describe Johnson's principles as a bit more centrist than the rest of his party if you had a microscope to look at them with.
  • He had principles ? Who knew?

    ISTM he was just out for Number One, being a selfish oaf, whereas Cruella is actively malevolent (albeit still with an eye to the main chance).

    Any bets as to whether Wishi-Washi will chuck her out of a high window soon?
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    He had principles ? Who knew?
    On reflection they were more inclinations than principles.

  • Dafyd wrote: »
    He had principles ? Who knew?
    On reflection they were more inclinations than principles.

    Indeed.
    :grimace:
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited November 2023
    Okay. Here's a test for what differences, if any, would exist between recent-vintage toryism and bravermanism...

    If someone had somehow been able to describe the policies of Suella Braverman to Margaret Thatcher, what would Thatcher's reaction have been? Let's posit a scale running between "That's the most horrible thing I've ever heard" on one end and "A woman after my own heart" on the other.
  • I am just waiting to see the right wing "protectors" disrupt the governments planned annual publicity stunt at the cenotaph.
    I am disappointed that you regard this service to be a publicity stunt.
  • The right-wing thugs and goons weren't at the Cenotaph today AFAIK, though they made a nuisance of themselves yesterday (and ended up being arrested :lol: ).

    Maybe they forgot which day was which?

  • SpikeSpike Ecclesiantics & MW Host, Admin Emeritus
    Either that or they were still banged up in the cells
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    8.30 am on 13th November, I've just heard the happy news that Braverman has been sacked.

    She should never have been allowed back after breaking the ministerial code when she was in Truss's cabinet.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    Enoch wrote: »
    8.30 am on 13th November, I've just heard the happy news that Braverman has been sacked.

    She should never have been allowed back after breaking the ministerial code when she was in Truss's cabinet.

    Once again we find ourselves in complete agreement.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Now, we just need the rest of them to go. Bring on the General Election asap.
  • ArielAriel Shipmate
    edited November 2023
    Well thank God for that. But who will we get instead?
  • Ariel wrote: »
    Well thank God for that. But who will we get instead?

    BBC has seen Cleverly going into no. 10

    I just hope it's not that vindictive bugger Jenryck.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Well, it appears that Rishi is so short of MPs to join the Cabinet that he's called in David Cameron.
  • ArielAriel Shipmate
    WHAT?!
  • Braverman OUT.
    Cleverly - Home Secretary
    David Cameron - Foreign Secretary (with a seat in the Lords)

    Cameron at the FO is an interesting choice, but he's not the first former leader to hold such a position - Alec Douglas-Home, who resigned his Earldom to become PM, was given a life peerage. And Buckingham Palace have just confirmed a peerage for Cameron.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    It's depressing that Cameron's appointment comes as something of a relief - mild ineptitude and oblivious arrogance being preferable to the galloping incompetence and downright malice that has characterised the last 5 years or so of ministerial appointments. Not sure about the constitutional propriety these days of having one of the great offices of state led from the Lords, plus what does it say about the state of the parliamentary conservative party that no MP is considered up to the job?
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    ...
    what does it say about the state of the parliamentary conservative party that no MP is considered up to the job?

    Rather a lot, sadly.

    Was Lord Carrington Foreign Secretary back in the day, or did I imagine that?
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    Piglet wrote: »
    ...
    what does it say about the state of the parliamentary conservative party that no MP is considered up to the job?

    Rather a lot, sadly.

    Was Lord Carrington Foreign Secretary back in the day, or did I imagine that?

    No idea, I just recognise the name from the Not the Nine o'clock News Question Time sketch:
    https://youtu.be/ny7nvnshhkg?si=QCdYpOCryMC0jPbP
  • Yes he was. During both the establishment of Zimbabwean independence and the Falklands war, if memory serves.
  • ArielAriel Shipmate
    edited November 2023
    Cameron is an experienced politician, which is what Sunak needs at this time - someone to rely on, inasmuch as anyone can rely on anyone in politics.
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    I suppose Cameron can at least be assumed not to be after Sunak's job (either as PM or party leader), which is more than can be said for the rest of the cabinet.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    From Wikipedia
    [Carrington] served as Defence Secretary from 1970 to 1974, Foreign Secretary from 1979 to 1982, Chairman of the General Electric Company from 1983 to 1984, and Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988. In Margaret Thatcher's first government, he played a major role in negotiating the Lancaster House Agreement that ended the racial conflict in Rhodesia and enabled the creation of Zimbabwe.
    also
    Captain Lord Carrington played a key role as a tank commander during Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands in 1944; he led the first group of four Sherman tanks to reach the other side of the Nijmegen railway bridge across the Waal River. He was awarded the Military Cross (MC) on 1 March 1945 "in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in North West Europe"
    and
    Carrington was Foreign Secretary in 1982 when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. He took full responsibility for the failure to foresee this and resigned. As NATO secretary general, he helped prevent a war between Greece and Turkey during the 1987 Aegean crisis.
    A more considerable person IMO than the new Foreign Secretary.
  • Alan Cresswell Alan Cresswell Admin, 8th Day Host
    Ariel wrote: »
    Cameron is an experienced politician, which is what Sunak needs at this time - someone to rely on, inasmuch as anyone can rely on anyone in politics.
    With proven skills at dodging responsibility, so fitting for the position of Foreign Secretary as Little England shuts out the world and backs away from any responsibility for or assistance in world affairs.
  • I hope the Foreign Office knows where to source pig's heads.
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