Gove, Morgan, Letwin and Hunt all sacked from the government. Theresa not hanging around here. All DC allies seem to be toast.
Somebody give JRM a job.
Gove, Morgan, Letwin and Hunt all sacked from the government. Theresa not hanging around here. All DC allies seem to be toast.
Somebody give JRM a job.
I was just about to post the same. I bet Matthew Hancock is in a ditch somewhere.
Jeremy Hunt stays, the Department of Energy and Climate Change gets shut down and folded into business, and the new Brexit team gets their old building.
And now the Department for International Development is rumoured to be going. This is immense.
Maybe not. Still, Unite have voted to support mandatory re-selection.
When the pendulum swings back and sanity is restored
No more sexy Theresa Villiers on the local news.
Now it's this gimp as SoS NI:
It's a shame Gove didn't get the jock secretary gig.
He looks like Amigo when he was a nerd.
Amigo isn't a nerd any more?
You're well behind.
What's he doing now?
Donning it with GS at one of the BIG FOUR. Or at least trying to.
Lol at getting AD and Amigo mixed up
Spectacular scenes today. The seething has been incredible.
On this point, the best part about the climate change department being shut down is that the likes of Ed Miliband and Tim Farron have SEETHED on Twitter.Originally Posted by Lewis
Jeremy Hunt stays, the Department of Energy and Climate Change gets shut down and folded into business, and the new Brexit team gets their old building.
The two best appointments are clearly Leadsom and Patel, mind. She clearly thinks they're both shit, but because they're a) Leave supporters and b) women, she's given them two non-departments. Leadsom now has to handle the transition from EU subsidies for farmers to a new system, which will go down well if she fucks it up. Patel also wrote a few years ago that the DfID was wasting a load of money and should be abolished, so she's basically given her the department and told her that if she thinks it's wrong she can go and fucking fix it.
Ace. She's on her way to Scotland tomorrow, presumably to nut Sturgeon.
Kicking arse.
What happened to Osborne?
He was sacked.
You couldn't have kept him in really, after his punishment budget shite and the way he got on during the campaign. You can't have someone trying to sell Brexit when he's spent several months saying it'll be the end of civilisation.
Sacked. He'll now have more time to spend with his world class record collection, and champion the local fete in Tatton.
I would have made him Foreign Secretary. Lol as it is, it's a pretty big job for Boris.
That's pure tribalism. Tories are going to Tory, but that's a very worrying sign.
Not everything that pisses off your opponents is a good thing by default.
Glad to hear that, he's a horrible, horrible man.
Our carbon policies have done nothing but 'outsource' our carbon output to other countries, at the expense of British industry (see: Tata steel, where energy cost increases helped to cripple it).
They seem to think it should be treated as a standalone issue, whereas what May has done is put it under the control of a broader department so it can be considered as part of a wider strategy. It's eminently sensible.
Tories going Tory is, of course, a good thing. Hopefully they ingrain enough of their ideas that it's borderline impossible for the Trots to ruin it if they ever get back into power again.
Boris is either going to be a joke or inspired - there's no in between.
It makes some sense, though. Real power has been stripped out (aid is with DfID, Brexit with Davis and Trade with Fox). He did a very good job internationally when he was selling London. He can speak several languages. Downing Street takes over in the event of a genuine crisis, and the entire structure is maintained by the civil servants, ambassadors and ingrained bureaucracy the world over. He's just going to fly around giving speeches, being cheerful and basically doing an expanded role that he did well for London.
For domestic reasons, it also keeps him out of the country for vast swathes of time and he's not going to be hanging around the Commons plotting like a mooch. It's also a big job where, if he fucks up, it doesn't leave any lasting damage.
The newly-created Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy makes it sound like a load of communism is coming our way. There must have been a cupboard full of Ministry of Supply (or even Ministry of Technology) stationary somewhere that they could have saved money on.
I'd imagine its one of those situations where, however much Boris puts his foot in his own arse, the people he deals with are ultimately dealing with Britain, rather than the cartoon with the 'I'm not allowed scissors' haircut.
No party holds onto power forever, no matter how bad it seems for the other guys. The electorate will find a way to kick them out in six to ten years, when they've been established for long enough for the public to blame them for all their problems.
As for climate change, responsibility at least needs to be put as part of a department whose primary purpose is to reduce its impact. If you shunt it into a load of other things, then it'll get subsumed by "jobs and growth", or whatever the actual primary aim of the department happens to be. Given that we seem to have finally actually accepted that scientists were right rather than being a bunch of idiot liars, and that it's a serious issue, it seems like a massive step backwards.
Still, we'll see. It's possible that they may make it work. Wouldn't bet a dollar on it though.
Carbon targets to 2050 are already locked in through legislation. A move to a 'low carbon' economy requires an integrated strategy, not having one department off doing its own thing at the expense of 'jobs and growth'.
Literally the only changes here are that "climate change" isn't in the department's title, and it's now part of a coordinated and integrated strategy to a) deal with it whilst b) considering the issue holistically.
I'd also point out that we produce about 2% of global outputs, so without the Americans, Chinese, Indians and Russians getting their act together, it's not like it matters. Onwards, comrades, to reopen the coal mines.
The planet's doomed, guys. We fuck too much.
You got that last paragraph out with a straight face? I'm sure it'll help the current paradigm to facilitate the scalability of granular synergy.
Responsibility starts at home. It's a bit rich to try and convince them to tackle the real and serious problem (which they are, to greater or lesser degrees) if you aren't doing your bit as well.I'd also point out that we produce about 2% of global outputs, so without the Americans, Chinese, Indians and Russians getting their act together, it's not like it matters. Onwards, comrades, to reopen the coal mines.
EDIT: Australia needs to do the same, for the record. This isn't just finger-pointing at you guys.
I'm not sure this time, Ital. At the moment I'm not convinced I'll see another Labour government again. All previous rules seem to have gone out the window in the last five or so years.
It's a fucking long way back from where Labour are now to government. Even if they find a decent leader, which is itself years from happening, they have basically had it on a number of levels. The worst ever Tory effort, at the turn of the century, was nowhere near this bad.
I can't say I'm particularly sympathetic to it, no. We've ratcheted up energy costs here on the back of 'reforms' put forward by Ed Miliband. Instead of it benefitting 'the climate', we've just outsourced our carbon output to other countries and cost our industries global competitiveness by making it too expensive for them.
You're quite fond of articulating that Britain isn't a major power any more, so why would the Chinese give a shit if we don't bother?
It's surely another ten years of Tory government from here, now that the Labour tribes in the north have realised they're all right wing.
I'd argue in opposition, a decent leader goes a long way. That leader's not coming, though and, if you need a change in government within 6-10 years, you need someone stepping up (someone good, rather than someone who thinks they've got an opportunity) now.
It just takes enough time for the public to start blaming you for their problems. There's no chance that the status quo lasts forever, no matter what a shambles the opposition is.
If the Tories hold on for another full decade (and I imagine they will, probably easily), then the subsequent election could probably be won by Inanimate Carbon Rod. There comes a point where it really doesn't matter - people blame their problems on politicians, and no matter how well the government do, individuals will still decide that they have problems.
Politics has a short memory.
But you need pull from the opposition as well. You generally vote for someone, rather than against them.
You're overlooking the benefits of our voting system, which are still subject to pro-Tory boundary changes.
Australia's not a world power either. But the only way to tackle climate change is a concerted worldwide effort, and if prosperous nations who produce more carbon than their population share are shirking it, then it makes a worldwide approach impossible. At least the law apparently prevents them from razing the policy to the ground for now.
Quite, which makes your faux concern a bit pointless.
Calling the ability to manipulate the system a "benefit" is a weirdly anti-democratic statement, even for you.
The system is currently bent in favour of Labour. The proposed boundary change goes some way to rectifying it, but the obvious consequence is that it removes the in-built Labour bias (and is therefore favourable for the Tories).Calling the ability to manipulate the system a "benefit" is a weirdly anti-democratic statement, even for you.
Faux? Because I've never shown any concern about climate change before. Stupid.
There's still a strong anti-science streak in the Tory right, even though the mainstream has finally caught up to grown-up science, and shunting climate change down to the minor end of a portfolio seems like it's being done to mollify them. Hopefully the party leaders are smart enough that it's just a blind, but it looks more like they want to chip away at regulations whenever they deem it necessary, and they'd like it to be away from the front lines while they do.
Fair enough. They still won't rule forever. At some point, the public will eventually decide to scapegoat them for something and it'll stick. When the public decides that it's time for you to go , it typically doesn't matter who the other guys are (although you'd certainly be best served by hoping that they get past the current catastrophe by then).
That said, the Tories are in such a strong position that I can't see it happening for a long time. But things can also turn overnight in politics if you aren't careful.
EDIT: For all the gloating that goes on here, I think we can all agree that an opposition in shambles and government with effectively no checks aside from internal ones is hardly the ideal form of governance. I wouldn't want that even if I was a hardline supporter of the party in power.
Nobody is getting elected here solely on the basis they're "not the government". If you look at the last three PMs who've kicked out an existing government - Thatcher, Blair and Cameron were all highly credible individuals and their parties were in very good shape.
It's not as simple as "they're different". Labour have lost Scotland, probably Wales and its heartlands have rebelled en masse over Brexit. I think you underestimate the extent of how 'toxic' Labour as a brand is, particularly in key swing seats. There's literally no reason you'd vote for them over the Tories, and I can't see that changing for many, many years unless they have the sort of root and branch reform they'll never be able to bring themselves to undertake.
You have been fortunate enough that parties have been in decent shape with strong leaders.
It's evidence that kicking out a government requires a clearly viable alternative to be waiting in the wings, not getting it simply by virtue of not being the government.
SACKED.
Seems like British politics has moved at hyper-speed the past month.
If you look further afield, you'll see elections that weren't. The 2012 state election in Queensland left the governing party with six seats, even though the opposition were so calamitous they kicked them straight back out at the first opportunity. People were just tired of the government, and wanted to send a message. There's plenty of elections around like that, if you look for them. This is why a key art of politics is blame deflection - make sure people don't pin their problems on you - but eventually the public gets the better of you.
You can't honestly, and with a straight face, believe that the Tories will hold power forever. If you do, you're going to be disappointed.
I don't, no. I do, however, think you need to recognise that the British electorate aren't going to vote for a party, however shit they may be, solely on the grounds they're not the government.
If Labour appointed a sensible leader, got a shadow cabinet of all the talents together, recognised the gap that exists between its metropolitan liberal MP class and its working class base and addressed it and found some way of salvaging the Scottish operation - they might win post-boundary changes.
However, if Jez We Can was in charge for the next 20 years, they wouldn't win irrespective of whether the Tories bankrupt the country. The Tories would just ruthlessly cut anyone shit out at the legs if they thought they weren't going to win (see: IDS, Howard), and they'd appoint someone as leader who was viable and get behind him.
Separately:
Mentalist.
I always pictured George Osborne as an old man. He's so baby-faced.
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