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The Premiership of Mary Elizabeth Truss.Sept 2022 - Oct 2022

It’s the system we’ve got. People don’t complain about it when it suits them, only when it doesn’t. The only way the tories are out is if enough people vote labour. Yet they won’t, they’ll vote Lib Dem, green, snp, plaid etc, split the votes and therefore seats.

I’ve understood the lack of democracy in the UK all my life. You clearly support minority elite rule. Many of us don’t and the time to fight against it may rather closer than you would like.
 
I am wondering how long it will be until Tory MPs decide it is time for another change of party leader. Who will be the first MP to send their letter in to the 1922 Committee?
 
I am wondering how long it will be until Tory MPs decide it is time for another change of party leader. Who will be the first MP to send their letter in to the 1922 Committee?

The Times were speculating there were a dozen letters ready and waiting before she even won the Tory leadershit contest. I posted a Twitter link yesterday somewhere.
 
It’s the system we’ve got. People don’t complain about it when it suits them, only when it doesn’t. The only way the tories are out is if enough people vote labour. Yet they won’t, they’ll vote Lib Dem, green, snp, plaid etc, split the votes and therefore seats.
Yes. Spot on. It’s all part of how the tories win with a minority of the electorate voting for them.
 
I’ve understood the lack of democracy in the UK all my life. You clearly support minority elite rule. Many of us don’t and the time to fight against it may rather closer than you would like.
He makes an observation and he "supports minority elite rule"? Come on Tony, that's a bit weak.
 
I’ve understood the lack of democracy in the UK all my life. You clearly support minority elite rule.

I thought minority rule was not possible in a democracy, Tony. Only a coalition comes close and I guess whichever party is in power considers themselves elite. I've grown up living with various incarnations of both Labour and Conservative governments and like most people, I suppose, have found fault with all but have never been that bothered which was in power, as the huge and well-tested civil service organisation just keeps plodding on, paying pensions, taking tax and generally having an effect on everyone's lives. At least, that was how it used to be.

Maybe it's my age and the effects of the last 5 or more years, but I've become more aware of the fragility of things, and of mere mortals being able to sort things out when society has changed so much and expectations likewise. Given that this situation is composed of ominous global influences, war and pretty obvious climatic catastrophes, I'm not holding my breath for any person or party to come up with a magic wand.
 
Still don’t get this. Lib Dem to Tory - not a huge leap. Remain to Leave is a well worn path. It seems an odd caricature when dogmatism looks like being the defining trait.
This may be because you affect to view all politics to the right of John McDonnell as largely equivalent (all variations of Tory and presumed neoliberal). It is a bit like the predicament of those US Republicans that call anyone to the left of Gingrich/Gengis Khan a socialist and presumed communist.

Truss has ostensibly gone from proclaiming herself a republican to being a monarchist, from Liberal to one-nation Tory to hardline tax cutter, from Remainer (calling Brexit a triple tragedy) to supporting a very hard Brexit, etc. The only thing that hasn’t changed, in fact, is her willingness to say anything and espouse any position for a moment, if she thinks it will help her to get ahead. Most politicians have this trait, but Truss takes it to another level. She could still surprise us and start travelling back in the other direction, if she were to believe it would help her to remain in power a bit longer, and that selfish pragmatism is perhaps the best thing that can be said about her.
 
I thought minority rule was not possible in a democracy,

The FPTP system returns a (almost always Tory) government to a position of absolute power with a minority voteshare, e.g. even a “landslide” such as Johnson’s at the last election only took 43% of the vote. That is obviously no mandate for absolute power. This system with its vast numbers of ‘safe’ career seats for life also disenfranchises vast numbers of people away from voting at all as it is genuinely a waste of time turning out in a seat with a vast majority for any party. The turnout was 67% last time, so in reality Johnson was backed by just 28% of the electorate. As an example I live in a very safe working class Labour seat. Voting is an insult to my intelligence as I know I’ll never obtain representation for my vote. Same story growing up in a similarly safe Tory seat. No way of altering such a stacked field, no way of obtaining representation.

I have understood and supported PR since I was about 14-15. The system is so obviously flawed even a child can figure it out.

PS I do still vote, but only so my Green, LD or whatever vote can be counted on the national voteshare and be used in the ongoing campaign for electoral reform. I would vote tactically against the Tories in a marginal, but I can’t recall ever living in one. I’ve lived in a succession of Tory or Labour safe seats. I don’t think I have ever had representation for my vote in anything other than the EU election where I helped elect both Green and LD MEPs.
 
This may be because you affect to view all politics to the right of John McDonnell as largely equivalent (all variations of Tory and presumed neoliberal). It is a bit like the predicament of those US Republicans that call anyone to the left of Gingrich/Gengis Khan a socialist and presumed communist.

Truss has ostensibly gone from proclaiming herself a republican to being a monarchist, from Liberal to one-nation Tory to hardline tax cutter, from Remainer (calling Brexit a triple tragedy) to supporting a very hard Brexit, etc. The only thing that hasn’t changed, in fact, is her willingness to say anything and espouse any position for a moment, if she thinks it will help her to get ahead. Most politicians have this trait, but Truss takes it to another level. She could still surprise us and start travelling back in the other direction, if she were to believe it would help her to remain in power a bit longer, and that selfish pragmatism is perhaps the best thing that can be said about her.
No need for all that, I was just querying a point. Truss seems to have been pretty consistent in her supply-side monomania since leaving student politics behind (and possibly before that: it's just a fact that some Lib Dems are economically right wing, I don't mean this pejoratively). The rest of the "flip-flopping" can be put down to priorities and opportunism (some people - e.g. Starmer, student Trot and True Remainer - grow up and realise they don't care *that* much about the monarchy, or Brexit). I just think we're missing the point of Truss if we see her as a politically empty media creature like Johnson. She's no weathervane: she's a hardcore, committed Thatcherite and that seems likely to shape what's coming down the pipe.
 
I just think we're missing the point of Truss if we see her as a politically empty media creature like Johnson. She's no weathervane: she's a hardcore, committed Thatcherite and that seems likely to shape what's coming down the pipe.

I’m far from convinced. She just doesn’t strike me as having the independent thought to have a firm ideological position on anything. Far more the sort who echoes their surroundings in an attempt to fit in. Tribal politics of all colours is rammed full of these people. As is religion. Pack animals, herd followers, regurgitators. The clue is just how quickly she comes unstuck under even the slightest scrutiny. There is zero depth to her “position”.
 
On the subject of British 'democracy' isn't it amusing that Dorries, who campaigned day and night against the EU for its unelected bureaucrats, is expected to be unelected herself in the House of Lords...
 
I’m far from convinced. She just doesn’t strike me as having the independent thought to have a firm ideological position on anything. Far more the sort who echoes their surroundings in an attempt to fit in. Tribal politics of all colours is rammed full of these people. As is religion. Pack animals, herd followers, regurgitators. The clue is just how quickly she comes unstuck under even the slightest scrutiny. There is zero depth to her “position”.
I don’t really understand why you’d say this. If you look at the book she co-authored with Kwarteng et al it’s consistent with the kind of thing she’s saying now. She’ll flip on this or that policy, as Thatcher did, as all leaders do, but the basic framework and principles are consistent. I think she believes this stuff and will try to implement it, even if it makes her unpopular or pisses off important clients.
 
I’ve understood the lack of democracy in the UK all my life. You clearly support minority elite rule. Many of us don’t and the time to fight against it may rather closer than you would like.

I wouldn’t call an 80 seat majority a minority elite rule. Unless we have compulsory voting by law, you can’t cite % of eligible population voting or not. Labour happily benefited from this system 1997 - 2010. True PR in the UK would be completely unworkable. You’d have everything from EDL to socialist party representatives all demanding their say on the basis of ‘democracy’.
 
You know when you're arguing against someone who supports the Tories and you're trying to think of all the bad things they've done. Surely the fact that they collectively ripped off the country for billions is all you have to say?
Doesn't that one thing say it all? Or does the typical Tory think "I'd do that if I could get away with it". Or do they think it's the looney lefts imagination, and it never really happened?
 
She's no weathervane: she's a hardcore, committed Thatcherite and that seems likely to shape what's coming down the pipe.

It's not just her trasnformation from student to adult politics though it's her lifelong habit of basically saying and doing whatever people want at this point in time. You could see it in the hustings where everything she did had an air of saying what I think this person wants to hear rather than any conviction or principle.

So I think she will do some terrible Thatcherite things but not because she is a Thatcherite but because she has made a devils pact with the ERG wing of the Tory parliamentary party.
 
I wouldn’t call an 80 seat majority a minority elite rule. Unless we have compulsory voting by law, you can’t cite % of eligible population voting or not. Labour happily benefited from this system 1997 - 2010. True PR in the UK would be completely unworkable. You’d have everything from EDL to socialist party representatives all demanding their say on the basis of ‘democracy’.

Labour! Tony Blair was more right-wing than John Major.
 
You know when you're arguing against someone who supports the Tories and you're trying to think of all the bad things they've done. Surely the fact that they collectively ripped off the country for billions is all you have to say?
Doesn't that one thing say it all? Or does the typical Tory think "I'd do that if I could get away with it". Or do they think it's the looney lefts imagination, and it never really happened?

They think it doesn't matter as long as we get to stay in power and do Tory things.
 


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