UK News and Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

I think Johnson will probably win the leadership contest. It would totally fit the surreal timeline we've been living in since 2016 or so. Another few weeks of chaos will follow. More and more Tory MPs will resign or cross the floor. The calls for a General Election will become overwhelming. We'll get the election in Q1 or Q2 2023 – it'll be a Labour landslide. Perhaps not quite the near-total wipeout for the Tories that we're seeing in the polls right now, but enough to cause serious, long-term damage to the party. They'll be finished for at least the next 10 years, and possibly longer, given the demographics at play and the waning influence of Boomers.

As one of his first actions, Starmer will enact a large windfall tax on the obscene profits of energy firms. In subsequent years, we'll apply to rejoin the Single Market. Slowly, the UK will return to stability and begin the long road to recovery from the economic, political, cultural, and moral catastrophe that's been inflicted on our great nation by these evil, monstrous sociopaths. There'll be many problems along the way, and it won't be an overnight change, but we'll finally see light at the end of the tunnel.

Well hopefully Labour would fix ties with the European Union in the years ahead too and re-ban Fracking.

[weatheriscool]

Race for U.K. Prime Minister Heats Up as Nominations Roll In
Source: New York Times

LONDON — The competition to replace Liz Truss as Britain’s prime minister intensified on Sunday, with Rishi Sunak pulling ahead in the scramble for votes of Conservative lawmakers, but Boris Johnson mounting a lively campaign to reclaim the job he gave up three months ago amid a cascade of scandals.

Mr. Sunak, who formally declared his candidacy with a promise to “fix our economy,” had lined up at least 144 votes by early Sunday afternoon, according to a tally by the BBC, more than double the 56 votes pledged to Mr. Johnson. A third candidate, Penny Mordaunt, had 23.

Beyond the numerical advantage, Mr. Sunak has picked up significant endorsements from people on the right flank of the Conservative Party. On Sunday morning, Steve Baker, a lawmaker who represents an influential group of euro-skeptics in Parliament, announced he would support Mr. Sunak.

“Boris Johnson would be a guaranteed disaster,” Mr. Baker told Sophy Ridge of Sky News. “We cannot allow it to happen.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/23/worl ... hnson.html

[Xyls]

BREAKING



I believe that means Sunak is now likely to be the next PM. I don't think Mordaunt will clear 100 backers?

[Time_Traveller]

Rishi Sunak becomes UK's next prime minister after Penny Mordaunt drops out of leadership race

Rishi Sunak will become the UK's next prime minister after Conservative leadership rival Penny Mordaunt dropped out of the race at the last minute.

The former chancellor was selected by MPs to succeed Liz Truss as Tory leader and will enter Downing Street less than two months after he lost the last race.

The extraordinary turn of events means he will be the UK's third prime minister in seven weeks, after Ms Truss resigned just 44 days into her premiership.

Mr Sunak's comeback represents a number of symbolic milestones: He will be the UK's first Hindu prime minister, the first of Asian heritage, and the youngest for more than 200 years at the age of 42.

Ms Mordaunt bowed out of the leadership race at the eleventh hour on Monday after failing to get the 100 nominations from Tory MPs required by the 2pm deadline.

https://news.sky.com/story/penny-mordau ... m-12727550

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

Sick imbeciles like this caller are allowed to vote.

[erowind]

.

[wjfox]

UK is screwed economically. Recession until 2024.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -3-percent

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

The Tories concocted the myth of the ‘migrant crisis’. Now their survival depends on it

Mon 7 Nov 2022 06.00 GMT

Britain exists in an imaginary state of crisis about immigration. Nothing soothes this anxiety – not facts, not real numbers of arrivals, not the distinction between migrants in general and asylum seekers in particular. In the past week alone, reports have emerged of illegally detained migrants at overcrowded centres falling ill, of underage sexual assault, and of others being dropped off in the middle of cities and promptly forgotten about. These appalling failures have occurred not because there are too many migrants, but because the government has broken its own asylum system.

This is a crisis by design, not of arrivals. The government is keen to stress the recent increase in Channel crossings, yet asylum applications are half what they were 20 years ago. The real and only cause of the debacle at Manston and other failing centres is this: the number of asylum applications processed within six months has fallen from almost 90% to about 4%. It’s not that more people are arriving than ever before, it’s that more of them aren’t being processed, and so are stuck in the asylum system for years. Efficiency has been dropping sharply since 2014, one year after Theresa May established the “hostile environment” and in the middle of George Osborne’s austerity programme. The intersection of those two forces created an underfunded, cruel Home Office, and with it Britain’s immigration “crisis”.

And it is a crisis that the government has every interest in maintaining, or at least no pressing interest in resolving. The Tories have finessed a narrative in which the country is under a migrant siege that the government is trying valiantly to rebuff, but is frustrated in its efforts by a string of culprits – “activist” lawyers, human rights law, tofu eaters, the Labour opposition. It is that tired fallback of failing rightwing government: plead helplessness in the face of a ubiquitous fifth column, an abstract leftwing blob that only last week the Sunday Telegraph editor, Allister Heath, promoted to the status of wielding “near total intellectual hegemony”.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ion-centre

[Time_Traveller]

Labour calls on Rishi Sunak to block Boris Johnson's 'conveyer belt of cronies' resignation peerages

Tuesday 8 November 2022 15:47, UK

Labour has called on Rishi Sunak to block Boris Johnson's "conveyer belt of cronies" resignation peerages.

Scotland Secretary Alister Jack, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, former minister Nigel Adams and the outgoing COP26 President Alok Sharma are among those expected to be nominated by the former prime minister to be elevated to the House of Lords.

The Times newspaper also reports that Mr Johnson has nominated two of his loyal advisers - Ross Kempsell, the Conservative Party's former political director and Charlotte Owen, a former assistant to the former PM - to become the youngest life peers in history.

A source close to Mr Johnson said: "We never comment on speculation about honours."

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-call- ... s-12741476

[Time_Traveller]

'She shouldn't be arrested for doing her job': Minister blasts cops who nicked LBC reporter covering Just Stop Oil

9 November 2022, 12:23

A minister has hit out at police for arresting LBC reporter Charlotte Lynch as she covered Just Stop Oil protests yesterday.

Charlotte was arrested on the side of the M25 on Tuesday and held for five hours, despite the fact she had her press identification with her.

Hertfordshire Police defended their actions, saying officers faced "very challenging circumstances" and they had "reasonable grounds at the time to make an arrest in order to ascertain the circumstances surrounding [the journalist's] presence at the location".

However they later said ordered an independent investigation of their approach, saying they recognised "the concerns over the recent arrests of journalists" and added that "additional measures are now in place to ensure that legitimate media are able to do their job".

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan told LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: "Journalists shouldn't get arrested for doing their job."

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/police-shutt ... -arrested/

[wjfox]

Truly dreadful.

[wjfox]

I mean, this country is f***ed, basically.

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

About damn time. It's the 21st century and we still have an unelected upper chamber.

This would be a huge change!

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Keir Starmer: I will abolish House of Lords to ‘restore trust in politics’

Sat 19 Nov 2022 19.30 GMT

Keir Starmer will abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a new elected chamber as part of plans to “restore trust in politics”, the Observer understands.

In a sweeping constitutional overhaul, the Labour leader has told the party’s peers that he wants to strip politicians of the power to make appointments to the Lords as part of the first-term programme of a Labour government. Starmer said that the public’s faith in the political system had been undermined by successive Tory leaders handing peerages to “lackeys and donors”.

It is understood that Labour will hold a consultation on the composition and size of a new chamber as well as immediate reforms to the current appointments process. Final proposals will be included in the party’s next election manifesto.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... n-politics