According to polling by More in Common, most people want a change of government:
They also want that change soon:
The appetite for delay only exists amongst older Tory voters.
I am sure Labour would agree with the majority.
That is probably why delay is most likely. I have a strong feeling that Sunak would like at least two years as PM on his CV. I can think of no other reason why he would not want to end the Tory misery as soon as possible.
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I am not sure how valuable being a former Tory MP/PM/Minister will be after the next General Election.
I suspect if anything it might be a turn off for any half way decent organisation
It could well be he’d like to see a few SEZs or Charter Cities (or whatever) actually up and running before he quits. That’d earn him brownie points in the sort of circles he moves in, I understand, and stand him in good stead for the future.
When pundits talk about the Tories having a thirst for power, they are partly right. What drives that thirst is not only having the opportunity to feather the nest of their own class, because boy do they do that whenever they’re in power. It is also the fact they then get to block anyone from using the governments power to help people who *really* need that help. In recent decades that desire to block the government from providing support to the poorer and vulnerable has become overwhelming in the Tory party, particularly more so as their wider ideology is now clearly seen to have failed. That’s the reason for all the small state guff: “well if it doesn’t work for us YOU certainly can’t have it!” and it’s why being in power is an end in itself: it absolutely stops those who would wield power for the less powerful getting their hands on those levers. It’s why Sunak may well hold out right up to January 2025.
I think we miss the point the Conservative Party exists to further the interests of the rich and holding onto power for as long as possible helps do that. Here is a probable example:-
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/22/tory-donors-anthony-mark-bamford-jcb-empire-could-face-500m-bill-to-settle-tax-inquiry
My suspicion is that Sunak will want to hang on for longer in the hope that something will turn up to reduce the loss. Something of the order of Ukraine or Palestine. Any such events may just as well be bad for Sunak as good but he will roll the dice anyway. As with Major and Brown, it won’t work. Even so, the Conservatives had an 80 seat majority in 2019 so overturning that in one go would still be pretty extraordinary.
We don’t just want a change of government, we want hope for a better world. Are we going to get it?
As Streeting (health) noted: hope is off the Tory2 menu. So sorry old chap, if you want hope you need to vote for another party – Greens?
Current events/statements show that Tory2 will be mostly like Tory1 – with some presentational change & perhaps yet another redecoration of the Downing Street flat, the latter aimed at creating news to divert serfs from the reality that like Tory1, Tory2 is vacuous in terms of policy. As a political entity, the Uk is finished.
Well, Mike, if you are right, and I think you may well be, why don’t we put Tory 2 out of its misery? I don’t understand what has gone wrong with Tory 2. They seem to have lost their ‘collective mind’, certainly at the top.
I could have ended that comment ‘and we’re not going to get it’ – that is what I’m expecting, anyway. I have no intention of voting for the current Labour Party – Starmer has ensured that the days of red-hued posters in my windows at election time won’t be coming back. After a period of flirtation with the LP during the Corbyn years (I don’t care what anyone says about him and his failings: at least he offered the hope of some decent progressive change) I am going back to the Greens, useless as that might be under our current voting system.
Does the More in Common survey of “what most Britons think” cover all of the UK, or is it the usual conflation of data relating to England with the wider Britain, which the residents of the devolved nations have to endure on a daily basis (it pervades everything from weather forecasts to health stats to politics and beyond)?
Certainly in Scotland the Tories are now dead-meat electorally since Brexit, while Labour’s optimistic view of controlling Scottish politics again is at best a chimera. Support for Independence sits persistently around 50% in Scotland before any campaigning has begun and that will increase the longer the current Tory Gov’s death throes continue. I don’t recall the UK Gov having to ask the EU for permission to conduct the Brexit poll, so by what logic is the Scottish Gov required to obtain permission from Westminster on Independence for Scotland?
Unless something weird happens, we are in for another year of Tory1 scorched earth policies and actions; it could actually get even worse if Sunak gets the boot, and is replaced by someone deranged instead of just corrupt and inadequate (Badenoch? Braverman?).
HS2 land is going to be sold off, likely to Tory donors and the building industry; contracts with massive penal clauses given out; laws framed to outlaw human rights; increased militarisation and privatisation of society, etc.
Opposition? I weary, as each week shows Labour to be Tory2. We will come to recognise that 2017-2019 was a watershed in our political history, when the welfare of the nation was subverted and eventually destroyed.
Perhaps it is just as simple as a Tory culture of “we know Tory govt is irretrievably doomed, so get as much as we can in whatever way we can for as long as we can”. Just their inherent Tory greed, they probably will delay any election for as long as possible. Cynical yes, but likely.
It had occurred to me too that Sunak wouldn’t contemplate calling an election until he had “Prime Minister 2022-24” on his CV. It now worries me that someone might have told him he could legitimately extend that (just) to “2022-25” and that will become his next motivation.
It is scary…
Sunak is a first class idiot.
He has just put in planning permission to put a four-foot high fence around his estate in Richmond. It’s because of Greenpeace scaling the mansion and putting banners on it.
You would think he would realise that a four foot high wooden fence will not keep them out if they can scale the wall and house walls. Just makes him look silly.
I can imagine that getting another 25 letters of no confidence on top the 25 that are already in.
The four foot high fence is described as post and rail, which I always understood to be upright posts linked by 2 or 3 single horizontal rails, a couple of feet apart horizontally. They wouldn’t even have to climb over the fence – they could duck under it!
Perhaps is is needed to delineate the boundary?
To discourage incursion.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-67188005
It has a high wall and gates around it anyway.
I’m curious. If it has already got high walls and gates, what difference will a four foot high post and rail fence make in preventing incursions? They clearly already managed to climb the walls (or maybe the gates were open) and then climbed on to the roof.
None of this should come as any surprise.
The Tories are rule breakers not rule takers; they are Neo-liberal and create their own reality; they are spoilt and self-entitled de-spoilers moulding the world to their needs and moral codes.
Sunak therefore is no better than Johnson – he’s just more underhand and crafty as you would expect from someone who has worked for Goldman Sachs.
Ken Matheson makes an excellent point and one which I have never thought of before (but is obvious): “I don’t recall the UK Gov having to ask the EU for permission to conduct the Brexit poll, so by what logic is the Scottish Gov required to obtain permission from Westminster on Independence for Scotland?”
The SNP needs to be much more aggressive with it’s demands. It was good on Debate Night (excellent stuff from Richard!) that an audience member challenged the Tory (and Labour) representative (of the tedious and yawnful heard it a million times “you had a referendum in 2014” (emphasising the slight pejorative ‘you had’ – code for ‘nats’) – particularly fond broken record phrase used by the Tories) of “so democracy is not a changing dynamic thing?”.
Democracy is a dynamic thing, as (hopefully) the Tories will find out with years in opposition awaiting them.
Thanks
It seems to me that Sunak’s tactic is to set up the next Labour government to fail by knowingly presenting them with post-dated invoices. Starmer’s economics will not allow the expenditure therefore causing great discontent and bringing the Tories back in (God help us).
Agreed.
But Labour also did this. We got two useless aircraft carriers as a result.
Doesn’t make it any less of a threat!