I know we should wait until the PM is actually appointed yet, or even be betting on who it will be (apparently, Rishi Sunak is the favorite), but I wanted to get in early on the betting for how long this one lasts before being discarded. I’d like to place a dollar on 69 days. I think Sunak is a little smarter than Truss, so he’ll hang on longer, but he’s a BoJo-adjacent Tory, so I’m pretty sure some scandal or stupidity will scuttle him eventually.
I guess he already has a head start.
Sunak got the nod. I’m sure the white aristocrats who are pulling his strings are pleased. Now they can say “How can you call the Tory’s ‘racist?’ We installed a dirty w*g as PM!”
So will Johnson supporters bring down the government to force an election?
@Akire Mackenzie, #1,
It’s okay. He has enough money to be white. (According to Tory policy)
louis
Now Mordaunt has dropped out it will indeed be Sunak. Hardly a surprise.
The test will be whether his administration can calm the economic chaos we’re in in some way. If they can’t then 69 days seems optimistic. Of course, in order to improve matters he will have to break sharply with both Tory economic policy for the last twelve years (especially the last six, post-Brexit years) and his own class interests as a disgusting wealth hoarder.
I doubt that will happen. Though I’m not certain. When Sunak was chancellor during the height of the pandemic, he did understand the immediate exigencies of the situation and provide substantial amounts of support to ordinary people in a way unthinkable before for a Tory. So he’s not a complete idiot. Whether the current economic crisis registers with him and his ilk in the same way… well, that’s uncertain.
@ 3
LOL
He’s still heading a party of awful people with awful ideas and awful bigotries though. Expect continued opportunistic transphobia and constant anti-immigrant sentiments going forward.
Can it even be described as getting the nod when every other contender pulled out? It seems more like the Tories asked for a gallant hero to bravely pick up the poisoned chalice of leadership and everyone else took a big step backwards.
He’s now conformed as the new leader and shortly to be apointed PM. The betting now is on how long this one will last, the Nasty Party having sacked that last three, and in fact every leader since Churchill, save Cameron and Major who sacked themselves for incompetence.
69 days from today would mean until Sunday, January 1st, 2023. It’s a bold move to bet that anything important would happen in the last week of December and first few days of January. It’s not like Parliament ever passes any important legislation on 30 December, or even sits during that time of the year >cough< oven-ready >cough<.
Unfortunately not. Some said before the leadership contest that there should be an election if Johnson was not returned to office, but few will stick by that, because they would be risking their own seats, and certainly out of government. Assuming a Tory MP will act solely in their own perceived interest is an excellent heuristic – although of course their perceptions are often faulty. My own view is that the Tories have forfeited any moral claim to remain in government without a fresh election – and would have done so whoever they chose – and that a general strike and campaign of civil disobedience should be mounted to force them to call one. But that is most unlikely to happen. Probably Sunak will be in until some time in 2024, when either he will call an election, or if the Tories are still well behind in the polls, they will replace him. But it’s possible strikes aimed at gaining reasonable wages and uncoordinated riots will reach such a pitch this winter that Sunak will decide on a “Who runs the country?” election. But he should reflect that when Edward Heath tried that in 1974 (in the face of a miners’ strike forcing a 3-day week for industry), the electorate’s answer was “Well, not you anyway, chum.”
Sunak: saner than Liz Truss, less visibly decadent than Boris Johnson. Which is like saying “tallest of the seven dwarves”.
I seriously doubt the Tories will try to unseat or replace Sunak, unless he somehow fux things up as badly and blatantly as BoJo did. They represent the (Zero-Point-)One-Percent, they know they’re the plutocratic minority, so they all know they have no choice but to settle on a credible leader already, close ranks, and stay united, if they’re to have any hope of winning the next election. Some high-ranking Tories persuaded Truss to give up, and BoJo not to try to come back; I’m sure those same people will be doing their best to keep Sunak from losing whatever credibility he came in with.
As others have pointed out, Sunak is richer than King Charles.
Chuck’s going to bow to Sunak when they meet.
THAT is how out of touch and alien our leaders are.
Louis
Remember that Truss’s Chancellor of the Exchequer was Kwasi Kwarteng.
Jim Balter@14,
Hence the new British idiom: “You really kwasied that up, didn’t you?”.
Worth noting that Sunak is a hardline Brexiteer. Much of the UK corporate elite was anti-Brexit, but Sunak’s pre-politics jobs were in the investment bank and hedge fund sector, which stood to (and did) gain from it. He’s apparently promised the ERG (ultra-Brexiteer carpet-chewers among Tory MPs) to press ahead with radically changing the Northern Ireland Protocol, unilaterally (i.e., breaking international law) if necessary.
Sunak also has important links, through his father-in-law, to Indian politicians and plutocrats. Hindutva-fascist Modi would of course have sent congratulations to whoever won, but those to Sunak were notably enthusiastic, mentioning a hope of “working closely together on global issues, and implementing Roadmap 2030” (the latter is a plan for a “comprehensive strategic partnership” between India and the UK). I imagine Sunak will have the sense to keep a distance from Modi, particularly given the latter’s equivocal position on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, but we’ll see. Sunak’s enormous wealth makes his skin look a lot whiter to Tory racists, but being too chummy with Modi would swiftly lead to accusations that he’s under foreign influence.
Resignation statements, abbreviated.
Cameron: Oops.
May: I’m sorry.
Johnson: You bastards.
Truss: I was right.
— Matthew Holehouse of The Economist