BoJo banished - Liz Truss down. Is Rishi next for the toaster? **threadbans in OP**

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315432#Comment_118315432

Yes, and the EU spent quite a lot of money investing in the underdeveloped regions of the UK, money that the Tories promised to match using the savings from withdrawing from the EU. Guess what happened? Those regions got screwed by Johnson and have had development funding slashed.

These places are not being 'Levelled up' they're significantly worse off than when they were in the EU

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315164#Comment_118315164

There's no doubt she was radical. However, there's very little sense in celebrating a radical for the sake of them being radical. Some industries she gutted were sunset industries like coal and were on the way out - others were gutted because she simply wanted to discipline labour (as in organised labour, not the party) such as shipbuilding - all she saw were nails and she only had a hammer.

While shipbuilding was under pressure at the time from low-cost countries like South Korea*, the UK still held many advantages and centuries of expertise. Fairly prosperous communities were given the bullet for no particular reason. She insisted that shipbuilding would have to do without any strategic government support on the world market while countries (like Korea) were bankrolling their industry through soft loans to destroy the British one. That's not smart, radical or any other positive adjective - it's bullheaded adherence ideology that destroyed a critical UK sector that sustained cities.

The really ugly part is the value system of 'honest days pay for honest days work' - while cutting the throat of a pillar industry for ideology's sake. Call centres on the Clyde don't and still haven't made up for all the quality engineering, construction and plain old working-class jobs like welding that were destroyed.

*The irony is that the Korean shipbuilding industry is heavily unionised. The wealthiest city in Korea isn't Seoul, it's Ulsan where the majority of the shipbuilding takes place (and those in the industry are very well looked after). I don't imagine the Korean government is going to destroy a city and a nationally important industry just to teach some union leaders a lesson, but that's what Thatcher did. They're smarter than that, and the Korean shipbuilding industry still retains a competitive advantage despite now being a high-cost labour market that has very high union coverage.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315482#Comment_118315482

That's up to the country itself to decide how to spend it's own money.

It's their business, not ours or Brussels.

If they want to spend it in inappropriate ways that's for them to decide. The electorate can form a judgement.

It's no one else' business.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315496#Comment_118315496

This was never my point. My point was that I could appreciate why some people admire her.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315542#Comment_118315542

Yes, but the difference between the EU, and the Tory government, is that the EU thinks it is worthwhile to invest in developing its people, to promote investment and enterprise in regions, and to allocate a significant portion of the EU budget towards improving the lives and well being of citizens in EU member states.

The issue is that the Tories have no interest in developing these regions. They are perfectly happy to spend the exchequers finances in regions that are politically expedient to them even if this means whole swathes of the UK population are abandoned and left to fester for generations with little or no investment

Imagine what Northern Ireland would look like today if it wasn't for EU investment?

Snickers Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118293522#Comment_118293522

Not true, actually. The last Prime Minister from the House of Lords was Lord Salisbury 120 years ago.

You're probably thinking of Alec Douglas-Home who was originally Lord Home but renounced his hereditary peerage so that he could sit in the Commons and become Prime Minister. Tony Benn, formerly Viscount Stansgate also renounced his peerage so that he could sit in the Commons, although he didn't do it primarily to become Prime Minister.

I don't think it's possible to appoint someone from outside Parliament to the Lords to enable them to become Prime Minister although one could in theory appoint someone to the Lords so that they could become a Cabinet minister with a less vital portfolio.

The Irish Constitution requires cabinet members to be members of the Oireachtas, either Dail or Senate. In theory, two cabinet ministers can come from the Senate at any one time so it is permissible for a Taoiseach to appoint somebody to the Senate and then give them a cabinet post. However, it is extremely rare and hasn't happened since Jim Dooge was made a Senator by Garret Fitzgerald in 1981 so that he could become Foreign Minister. That government only lasted a few months anyway.

Furthermore, both Taoiseach and Finance Minister MUST come from the Dail under our Constitution. The British famously don't have a written Constitution but "accepted practice" now is that the Prime Minister must be from the Commons. So even if Stewart were to be swiftly ennobled, he couldn't become Prime Minister. Without bending the rules.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315560#Comment_118315560

Well her radicalness is lauded as some sort of trait as if running a country and managing a society is a personality contest (a bit like Bojo trying to pull the same trick while stuffing up all around him). I appreciate in the dark hearts of some in middle England love the thought of being a steely-eyed 'sensible' type who tells their lessers what's what and what honest work is while gutting critical sectors of the economy out of a misguided pursuit to look strong.

Thatcher was an archetypical fable politician. She told simplified stories about how society should be ordered and drew up a moral framework about who deserves what and why. It wasn't about what worked or what didn't, it was about carving up Britain into neat little piles morally gated from each other - and going to war with those that threatened the constituency of finance, middle Englanders, and property interests she stitched together. If it it meant harming the country or economy at large by dismantling an industry, she did it.

She was a Cold War kid, and if you break things down into their constituent parts, Thatcher's behavior and outlook wasn't all that different from Bolsheviks in terms of tactics and how she ran her game. She was just wearing a different jersey.

People who laud Thatcher are lauding her as an avatar, some sort of nebulous force of personality that they are drawn to for their own reasons - because her record if you look at it actually kind of stinks. And I don't believe that the UK ever really recovered culturally from her divisiveness.

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315613#Comment_118315613

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqTkLoekm_0

If a love of hedgehogs maketh a leader, then Rory must lead.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315610#Comment_118315610

Brussels knows best is the crux of what you are saying. Not democratically elected sovereign governments.

The problem with that argument is that it's dangerous. I'm an Irish citizen, I pay my taxes, what business is it of Brussels how the government I elect spend the taxes I pay on services in my country?

It is none of their business. It has nothing to do with them.

If i'm not happy with how our government goes about it's business I will use my vote to try and vote them out.

It's clear for some the harsh lesson of the UK leaving the EU has not been learned. You're dealing with fundamental issues of sovereignty in your arguments. Hence why I say it is dangerous.

That's why I don't believe this is going to last. More countries are going to end up leaving. You see it particularly in the eastern bloc, they aren't being told how to live, how their societies should be structured, how to spend their money...

The deeper you go down this rabbit hole the less you are talking about pooling sovereignty for common good and the more you enter the realms of regaining national independence.

This has never been a good argument to be having in a European context throughout history. It's no different today than it ever was.

It doesn't have to end like that of course but that's for a different thread.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315613#Comment_118315613

No, Home was in the Lords when he became PM

He resigned from the Lords afterwards - days afterwards, but afterwards none the less - and became an MP some weeks later.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315809#Comment_118315809

He was also where the expression "Bob's your uncle" originated from.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315496#Comment_118315496

so what you are saying s that Shipbuilding should have been nationalised and given large amounts of subsidies so that it could compete with shipbuilders in other countries?

Isn't that against EU laws?

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315831#Comment_118315831

I said nothing about nationalization.

EU State aid: It is not against commission rules and that's a misunderstanding of how EU State Aid rules work. There are examples as long as your arm of very large state aid schemes across the EU bloc. For instance, for restructuring and rescuing, regionally significant industries (automotive industry is the biggest example) that are highly capital intensive, aid measures are frequently assented to by the EU Commission - usually in the form of soft loans financed by state backed bond issuances. In 2013, the French government had 7.5bn in state aid approved for a specific automotive manufacturer.

The test is if the aid distortive and the relative market power of the aid recipient (the more critical the industry is to the economy, the more likely the aid is to be approved, and this is doubly true for large bloc members like Britain).

State Aid for the shipbuilding industry was entirely possible at that time, and indeed the likes of West Germany weren't shy about using state aid for various pillar industries. There would be no world-class German car industry without state aid, that's a fact. We'd all be driving Japanese if there was no state aid (and let's not get started on Japanese government aid to their auto sector). As recently as 2020, the German government has been throwing billions at its auto industry.

"So you're saying" - no, that's not what I'm saying.

Leroy42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315743#Comment_118315743

But the government did elect what to spend your taxes on, it elected to pay money into the EU project for the return it received. Once paid over, it was then the EU money to spend as it saw fit.

The difference is that the EU did believe in levelling up. Look at the investment in Ireland. And now in eastern Europe. They don't just pay lip service. Of source the UK are now completely free to use the money 'saved' from EU investment to target those areas, but currently it appears that the only thing they are worried about it targeting areas that can secure them votes. Rather than need.

Saying I want control of where my taxes go sounds great, there really isn't anyone that can argue with that sentiment. The issue is that the taxpayer has no more control over where the UK government spends their money than they do over the EU.

Boris the blade. Or Boris the Bullet dodger. Apparently it's just impossible to sack the bastard.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315432#Comment_118315432

The EU gave it back to the poor areas through the RDF. Now that money if given at all is given to the Tory councils

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118319433#Comment_118319433

I said a few days ago that Boris would shuffle through this irrelevant sideshow, and that's proving to be correct.

Did we really believe that Boris would get sacked over an image of him at a Christmas quiz? It's wishful thinking.

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315743#Comment_118315743

Look, we get it, you despise the EU and everything it stands for.

Firstly, you do get to elect the parliament in Brussels though via MEP elections. Not happy? Vote for a different MEP.

Secondly, Ireland has done incredibly well out of the EU through being a net benefactor until very recently, it is only recently we have become a net contributor. Be a bit rich to start complaining about wealth distribution at an EU level now.

Thirdly, the EU doesn't get to decide how taxes are spent - we choose ourselves to spend the highest per capita on healthcare yet have one of the worst healthcare systems in Europe. We choose ourselves to place excise on cars making them far more expensive to buy. We choose to place ourselves last in terms of investment in education as a proportion of our GDP. We choose ourselves to exclude a huge proportion of the working population from tax, then have an extremely steep ramp up in taxation levels for typical middle income earners that quickly tapers off the impact for the much higher earners. We choose to place large amounts of excise on fuel and alcohol. We choose to tax corporations the way that we do, much to the annoyance of many elsewhere in the EU. I could keep going on...

Fourth, what we do send to the EU, is only direct costs, some of which we get back.

The indirect costs are unquantifiable - access to an enormous global single market, for example. Uniform standards. Freedom of movement of capital, people, goods and services. Costs the UK are only now suddenly being faced with, costs they won't be able to actually predict so as to try and avoid or minimise their impact. So far, figures would suggest the costs of Brexit in the short few years since it was implemented have outweighed their cumulative total of all EU contributions ever made. And despite saying they'll redirect the money directly to the disadvantage areas, bypassing the Brussels round-trip, well, the evidence of that happening has so far yet to materialise.

But hey, at least the British population decided that's how British government money should be spent, right!

Boris has played this one well.

Under immense pressure over the No. 10 Christmas parties, Boris pivots toward the Omicron variant. Boris probably knows perfectly well that the data, to date, on the Omicron variant in South Africa is highly favourable - even more so for an even more vaccinated population in the UK. Yet by creating the narrative that the variant could overwhelm the NHS with hospitalisations, it has inculcated fear among the population - and now the journalists are wasting their time on this, rather than focussing on the No. 10 parties. Boris was doubly-lucky that his wife gave birth 1-day after the whole parties row blew up - as Keir Starmer could hardly criticise Johnson on the day his 7th child was born. And as time progresses, the parties will become less and less relevant. And as the Omicron storm passes, Johnson may even be forgiven by the population given his performance on Omicron itself / saving lives.

So yes, played very well - even though I do believe the restrictions and "emergency" in the UK is largely exaggerated.

The Raging Bile Duct

And all the while, in the background the Tories set about stripping people's rights and neutering the power of the judiciary. Well played, Boris! I wish we all could have leaders as charismatic and with a devil-may-care what happens to plebs attitude as good old BJ!

steddyeddy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118314006#Comment_118314006

So we shouldn't be able to criticise a politician unless we were alive during their time in power?

steddyeddy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118314532#Comment_118314532

The irony of you describing a group as angry while going on an angry rant with name calling such as "lefties".

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118320192#Comment_118320192

being alive at the time does help people actually understand the climate at the time and why she became so powerful while also being disliked..

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118320353#Comment_118320353

you confuse my amusement at the angry lefites as anger.

It does make me laugh that the same red faced ranters, will then go on about gammons, as if they aren't one themselves.

steddyeddy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118320450#Comment_118320450

We can use history to assess why people born before us come to power too.

He came into power under the sufferance of a wealthy elite who run media and business interests in britain and when the tory rump are informed that he has served his purpose he will be disposed of

How he measures up as an actual prime minister will be so irrelevant to the entire debacle that anyone focusing on it will just look naive im afraid

Yurt2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118315432#Comment_118315432

We're net contributors to the EU now. Having taken a long hard look at how Brexit is panning out, do you seriously think it worth our while economically to ditch the bloc and get a rebate on our contributions?

The UK was a massive net beneficiary of the trading system (particularly in financial services and banking and other discreet industries too numerous to mention) and the improved economic health and productivity of trading partners.

Essentially, they spent decades investing in places, and they cut themselves off from the returns that will now continue to flow to other EU member states via diverted trade. The height of idiocy.

steddyeddy

I think the fact is that there's a new class of voter who simply votes for a certain politician because they annoy the other side. The consequences of this are the elections of demagogues such as Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. That said, Trump never did anything economically damaging to his country as Brexit. The damage Boris Johnson has caused Britain will be felt for decades. He knowingly campaigned for his country to leave the EU because of the increase in popularity it would afford him.

What baffles me about all of this is the fact that BJ has admitted to making up stories about the EU prior to the Brexit vote and still his followers believed in his anti-EU rhetoric. So no, the same idiots who believed Johnson when he was sacked as a journalist for lying will be stupid enough to vote for him next time.

 “[I] was sort of chucking these rocks over the garden wall and I listened to this amazing crash from the greenhouse next door over in England as everything I wrote from Brussels was having this amazing, explosive ­effect on the Tory party – and it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of power,”

Leroy42

Johnson will get through this, it will blow over and it would be very difficult to force him to resign over a party. There are multiple layers are sacrificial lambs available to protect him.

But what it does is yet another blow to his authority. There is an increasing number of Tory MP's willing to stand up ti him on the upcoming Covid vote.

As with Thatcher, it is usually not some massive scandal or point in time event that gets them, save from elections, it is usually a slow process of drip drip reduction in their capacity to control the party.

He was largely voted in to 'Get Brexit Done' which according to him is now a complete disaster and they have to start again or crash out. He was carried along on the wave of the early vaccine success, but that has passed and the latest surge shows that the success was not the answer it was sold as.

The economy continues to splutter, with big tax rises coming down the track. Once his authority is removed, then he will find it increasingly difficult to get anything done, and being the good time funny man is his thing. He can't do that if his hands are tied by Sunak or Truss.

Sunak will have his own ambitions and won't readily give away treats just to help Johnson stay in No.10. It won't be the press that will get him, it will be the Tory party itself.

L1011

101 rebels (not counting abstentions). Appalling party discipline.

gmisk

Photos now coming out from one of the "business" meetings.....

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/extraordinary-image-shows-raucous-xmas-25699183