It is very hard to work out whether Rishi Sunak believes in anything, except power that is. Over his first few weeks in government the messaging has been deeply confusing.
The Schools Bill has been abandoned, as has much of the online safety bill.
Housing targets have been dropped.
Policy on onshore wind has been reversed.
A coal mine has, quite astonishingly been approved.
The Bank of England has been left in charge of economic policy. Hunt has only promised cuts, which is a move hard to describe as an initiative.
And on pay disputes, the government hides behind recommendations from pay review bodies that failed to take crippling increases in the cost of living, created and exacerbated by government policy into account.
Even when it comes to solutions that are known to be required, like solving the problem of rail franchising when that era has already in practice been brought to an end, there are no signs of progress.
Notably, no action is being taken against Michelle Mone.
This was not what the Tories needed. It is certainly not what the country needed. After the debacle of Truss and the corruption and lying of Johnson what was required was calm, clear-headed thinking that provided a new direction and confidence that there might be someone in charge with at least a little understanding of the issues that the country faces. We have not got that from Rishi Sunak. He has not, even remotely, risen to the challenges that we so obviously face.
Even in the House of Commons, where he faces Keir Starmer every week, he is failing when this was the one arena where Johnson did at least sometimes deliver. Yesterday he was either so badly prepared, or so unable to think on his feet that he resorted to answering the questions he wished he had been asked even if that answer had not the remotest link to the question put to him.
No wonder then that Tory MPs are queuing up to leave the Commons, and almost all of them (Matt Hancock being the obvious exception) voluntarily. They can't stand this mess either. Not only do they know the Tories are bound to lose the next election, what they also know are three things.
The first is that the Tory rump that will be elected in 2024 (most likely) will be deeply divided, and unable to agree on almost anything because it will be riven by warring factions.
Second, those with any sense realise it will take a decade to be rid of the far-right Tufton Street element that is now making the Tories unelectable, and that is if they are lucky.
Third, this means that even if Labour make a total mess of their period in office (which cannot be ruled out, so bereft are they also of ideas) the chance of forming another effective Tory government in less than ten to fifteen years is very low.
I am not usually one to promote even moderate right wing parties. I am not changing my spots now. But this absence of anything like an effective government does trouble me.
Partly that is because I believe that the state has a duty to enhance well-being, and the government is failing to do so on many key issues right now.
It is also because this failure leaves those on the political right looking for alternatives, and those are never good.
But maybe worse, this failure also enables both the rightward shift of Labour and its own policy vacuum.
In essence the problem is that when in a two party system one party goes AWOL there is no incentive for decent politics of any sort. I think few would dispute that this is the point we have reached now. And when so much so obviously needs to be done to address the major issues in our society this is deeply troubling.
We are in urgent need of political renewal, based on strong ethics, empathy, sound economics and clear thinking. We are a long way from that. It's not just the Tories in trouble in that case. The whole system is, and by refusing to embrace PR Labour is enabling this. The sense of alienation from this total mess can only grow, and that's not good news.
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Excellent summary Richard
In a FPTP system a 2 party system is inevitable. 3rd parties can exist but almost always as, in effect, part of a localised 2 party system. 3 way marginals are very rare. As a result, most voters are ignored and theirs votes meaningless.
The dilemma is that in supporting a party that advocates PR one is enabling continued Tory rule. Maybe I am too old and tribal but I will support Labour (nationally) whatever their policy platform (or LibDems locally as they are the 2nd party in my constituency)… and kid myself that I can ‘make a difference’ from within the Party.
It feels horrible… but I don’t know what better choice there is?
You highlight the potential end game crisis for our democracy
If I may, it seems like the end game for Western FPTP democracies everywhere. The West’s decline is attributable to the way politics is done these days i.e. – not very well.
It makes it so easy for vested interests to control one or two significant parties in a state and capture them, and influence them in a very undiluted way.
I find myself in a similar dilemma. I can’t say I have been happy with even 60% of Labour’s policies and approach all the way back to the Blair government. They did well with various initiatives and did well by simply not being the Tories. So often, however, they fell back on the neo-liberal approach. Now we have a party that is almost indistinguishable from the Tories in so many areas. And yet I continue to support them with my membership.
Quite what I am going to do if Scotland leaves the union is another question.
So why do you continue to give Labour your support? They certainly won’t change if they perceive they still have significant support.
You could join the Green Party instead.
All too true.
It is only their addiction to power and privilege that keeps them where they are.
They have over-stayed their welcome and many of their quite frankly stupid ideas over the years have got them to this point by coming home to roost. They are incapable of change and can only blame other factors for their own failure.
The buck passing cannot go on any more. So we need new ideas or to re-discover good ideas that should never have been lost.
So, over to Labour and er, ……………………………………………………………………………………???????
Oh well – that’s that then!!!
Again I’d love to know who Labour’s advisors are because they must be from another planet.
Labour is planet ‘Timid’ or planet ‘No Ideas’. Or even planet ‘Neo-liberal hegemony’.
As for the Cumbrian coal mine – it looks desperate to me – a rear guard action to keep an MP in his seat and nothing more. Yet another example of a public institution being used to save some Tory scumbag’s arse.
We once had a discussion about the level of intelligence present in the Tory party and their followers. Upon reflection, are any of us really surprised at this decision?
And this is where the paucity of the House of Lords comes into play. Far from being the balancing act that it should be, or a bunch of wise ‘older heads’ keeping government on the straight and narrow!
The Tories need to be told that it is over – NOW. They’ve ran out of road and technically they must go in my view. They are totally illegitimate. These lessons must be learnt.
There is huge scope after these idiots as you say to rip it up and start again.
PSR, I wish it were otherwise but I have to say that you view the Labour Party the way I do. I try my best not to, but am unable to do it, so useless do they seem to be. The situation should be a slam dunk for them. Starmer did well at PMQs this week, but that seemed to primarily be because Sunak was so awful.
I will miss Ian Blackford’s nicely aimed stabs each week, though I understand why he has done what he has done. Good luck to him.
I feel for the Cumbrians and the need for decent jobs. Accepting this coal mine, or the plan (if it still exists) for a huge nuclear fuel dump don’t seem like good ideas to me.
At least in Scotland we have an alternative. The latest poll shows 56% for Independence. If only we can now transform that support into a Referendum.
Unless the Scottish Government stops trying to mirror Westminster in gross incompetence, I’m afraid it will be a case of ‘out of the frying pan…..’
http://robinmcalpine.org/six-months-to-save-scotland/
It seems to me that what Labour are offering is the Sleepy Joe alternative.
It may not be much, but it is our only chance of defeating the Fascism that currently threatens the lives of everybody in this country.
The problem with people like Starmer and Brown is that they seem to think that a return to a New Labour government, with a little cosmetic tinkering to the distribution of power is all that is needed.
Of course, the lack of proposals for the fundamental reforms needed could be a tactical silence, after all if the Far-right can muster enough money, propaganda and hatred to win a Brexit referendum then maybe best not to alert them to your true intentions, but I doubt if that is what they have in mind.
So maybe we just have to bite the bullet and except that Sleepy Joe is the best we going to get.
If I was looking for a gleam of sunshine i would say that Biden appears to be set fair to turn back the tide of greed, violence and corruption previously overwhelming the US.
Yes Richard, it’s the endless stymieing and lies by Tories and their mouthpieces that alienated me. I adopt the rule – think the opposite – of what they’re saying, that is likely to be true. The current Tory mob have been exceptionally disgraceful and more remote from reality than I’ve ever known!
I stopped listening to virtually all main TV news many years ago; except occasionally listening to regional news which is milder in content and often informative. Does anyone else feel distressed when listening to programmes like BBCs Question Time, I can’t do more than switch on/off, to see which monsters are featured? There must be an inverse law at play – the more content the worse the content is; a law of information dilution [or randomisation]. The more dominant the parliamentary Tory party is, the worse it is – with no restrictions and no consequences for their actions.
I duck QT and find much of BbC news hard
Thankfully, there are other way of getting news now
I gave up on mainstream news in 2016 on radio & TV. As for QT, well … total hell. World Service news is interesting … BBC presenting some aspects of UK news to the globe rather than to the itself, a more realistic take from my perspective. The Guardian is barely tolerable but as Richard says there are alternatives, Byline Times is worth a read.
Bylines is the best sub I have
Richard wrote “The sense of alienation from this total mess can only grow, and that’s not good news.” That sentence shows precisely why Scotland, Wales and N Ireland are on journeys to leave the UK. What inducement is there to stay rooted in the status quo when that ideology-driven politics of that status quo have failed miserably and the people are being systematically impoverished? Is it likely that by becoming independent nation states they could make a bigger mess of running their own affairs?
No, in a word
Michael Gove made a statement in the house, preliminary to a debate on his decision to allow a new cokin coal mine to open in Cumbria. He used his best, smooth, snakeoil sales pitch by dressing up the inspectors 280-page report which he decide to hide behind to justify the unjustifiable (save with backbench Conservatives indifferent to net-zero) as “quasi-judicial”, effectively suggesting it required to be read in full before anyone was equipped even to address the question. This proved problematic, especially for Gove: the Speaker immediately suspended the house, because the statement Gove read was not the statement submitted to the Speaker. The Ministerial Code had been broken. Not only had he failed to notice that Parliament is sovereign and not subject to quasi-juducial authority, but he had even failed to supply the Opposition with his own argument.
This car-crash Ministerial statement, that indulged every second-rate rhetorical trick in the book (separating energy and industrial policy to score a point to no substantive policy purpose whatsoever); was carried off well by Gove, only because his real talent is much less masterly debating skill, but rather his indefatigable ability to carry off complete and utter, as if perorating his greatest triumph. He is a man for the shoddiest of times.
What is most striking is that BBC Scotland Radio News appears simply to have ignored this Government wreck in the Commons, as they chase down the usual suspects day after day after day after day; long NHS A&E waiting times in Scotland; Ferries; Gordon Brown; long NHS A&E waiting times in Scotland; strikes in Scotland; Ferries; long NHS A&E waiting times in Scotland; Gordon Brown; strikes in Scotland; long NHS A&E waiting times in Scotland; strikes in Scotland ….. you get the gist.
Meanwhile the Scottish Conservatives want everyone to believe Scotland is already independent; and it is as if the BBC wanted to oblige, as their little Christmas helper.
“….. complete and utter failure”. I think I just had a Michael Gove quasi-judicial moment.
I will go and lie down in a dark room. Retribution calls. I may be away some time.
For once Hoyle actually got annoyed enough to do something
In my trainspotting days, I remember that between Chesterfield and Sheffield there used to be a coking plant. You’d smell it first before you got to it and then you’d see loads of wagons in the yard with the still warm coke waiting to be taken away (the heat used to make the air above the yard shimmer all year round).
I regretted the closing down of that plant but even more so since when it was closed very little was done to replace the jobs in that area (along with many others in the Midlands and elsewhere). When you look at how so little has been done to advance toward green energy and here we are in the 21st century going back to coke, you realise that we are in the grip of some form of malignant forces that can only be of self interest, short-termism and a total lack of imagination.
One of the first things I’d do if I was to become PM is summon and review all the top civil service departments and ask them to account for their work.
I’d then thank them for their input and where applicable make it quite clear that they were going to advise my government fuck all.
In fact I’d be giving THEM advice, as in ‘shape up or get out – hand your cards in’. Big government would be back on my watch and WE would be shaping the market and in investing in green. Go with it or get out would be my message, and if I felt you were going to get in our way you’d be out so fast your feet wouldn’t touch the ground.
I’d even have every high echelon civil servant vetted to see if they were in cahoots with big business and if so they’d be out. I’d re-write the rule book about private/government relationships because I strongly suspect something is going wildly wrong and corrupt in that department.
The whole thing needs to be repurposed towards the national interest as far as I am concerned. It is far, far from that at the moment.
I’m sad that there is continued talking down of other parties. I belong to the Green Party. We have many positive policies that are not only designed to improve social justice but also make a real impact on the dreadful climate emergency. With more publicity more people would realise that we’re not stuck with antediluvian parties. (And for those saying never with first past the post – have a look at the North Yorkshire County Council situation post May 2022)
“Even in the House of Commons, where he [Sunak] faces Keir Starmer every week, he is failing when this was the one arena where Johnson did at least sometimes deliver.”
I have never understood this proposition. It seems to me a Conservative myth. Johnson played to the barrack-room mentality, and had only two tricks he could rely on; mention Corbyn, or turn PMQs into Opposition questions, demanding Labour fix the problems for not being in Government; in short – drivel. It infuriated the Speaker, but he did nothing about it. PMQs is now reduced to farce; the standards of Johnson and Gove are now established.
Johnson at PMQs reminded me of the old wiitticism; it was like observing a dog walking on its hind legs, it is not that it is done so well that is impressive, but that it is done at all (Dr Johnson – the clever one)