Sunak has finally called for an election. I’m not sure if he simply wished to catch Labour and the Illiberal Anti-Democrats off guard or if he simply wished to put the current Parliament out of its misery. It’s a far drop from the jubilation of 2019. In December 2019, the UK looked set to be an Anglophile Japan. Japanese voters might not always have liked the ruling LDP, but they kept voting for them because the opposition was too useless and chaotic. Of course, that all changed. Boris lost the plot, Truss was set up to fail (and she made some unforced errors as well) and the men in grey took control of the situation, ensuring that Sunak was coronated before Charles III.
Sunak was a capable chancellor. He’s obviously bright, serious and diligent. He also lacks a strong personality and a political mind. Despite my grudge against Boris, he had a strong personality and, were he not thrown off balance in 2020-2021, a keen political mind. His weakness was always his lack of a strong centre, his tendency to vacillate between different positions.
Sunak was doomed from the start, being more a political sacrificial lamb than anything else. His coronation after a firm rejection by Tory voters a mere months earlier hollowed out the party’s base. Why vote for a party that insists on shoehorning a rejected candidate after an obvious putsch? The men in grey, Dictator Dementia in Washington and even the idiot Hamburger in Berlin colluded to get him in. He’s proven to be utterly useless. He picks up on some important ideas, occasionally, but he simply lacks the mettle to follow through.
At the same time, Labour are facing their own set of challenges. Of course, the British electoral system is rather different than the American — but the Democrats and Labour are stuck in a similar predicament, one of their own making. Much like the Democrats turned on their traditional working-class base and jumped into bed with urban radicals, Labour have flirted for far too long with Cur-bin and his ilk, with many unsavoury elements. They are now having to circle the political square of keeping their traditional base onboard whilst also keeping the new radicals onside. The two do not mix. The working class are patriotic, socially conservative and not particularly fond of fanatic religious ideologies from other lands. The new radicals are anti-British, anti-Semitic and fanatically woke. Labour will also need an even bigger swing than Tony Blair received in 1997 to win a working majority. Tony Blair was able to keep the party base united whilst also selling himself as moderate enough to make conservative (spelling intentional) voters comfortable sitting out the election.
The British election, I suspect, will be fairly similar to the most recent Australian without the compulsory voting. After a long term in opposition, a Labour leader from an urban constituency with a long history in the left of his party will come to power, but not by as much as many expected. Starmer will, I think, win a working majority — in part because of the SNP’s fall from grace in Scotland. Much like Dementia Joe in the USA, however, he’s being held to ransom by the leftist fringe. If he does not placate them, they will most likely sit the election out. If, however, he placates them, he’ll turn off the traditional Labour base and moderates. He might also scare enough voters to turn out for the Illiberal Anti-Democrats or even to very, very grudgingly vote for the Tories.
Much like Albanese, Starmer will not find being in power easy. If his leftist instincts emerge too strongly, he’ll see a quick response. Public opinion in Britain is febrile. The nation remains conservative and patriotic. Even if many have become disillusioned by how the British government handled liberation, few want to open that psycho-drama up again. An “enhanced partnership” with the EU isn’t going to go over very well, either, especially since we all know by now how toxic the EU actually is. Even if the passengers are discontented, the ship has sailed. I also doubt having to join an EU that is in even worse shape than it was in 2016, with even worse prospects, with the express requirement to join the eurozone, the Schengen zone, no longer having the rebate and having half the continent on the brink of civil war is exactly an inviting proposition.
As for me, well… It all went to hell again and I am writing this from an old East German flat on the Baltic Sea. My life is decent enough. My flat is small, but comfortable. The people in the former East Germany are a lot more agreeable than those in the former West. They’re far more down-to-earth, they are far more relaxed about most things and they lack the in-your-face arrogance of many in the former West. My inability to sort rubbish, something which was an issue in Rheinland-Pfalz, is not an issue here. In fact, nobody even cares. The area is pretty enough and quite clean, close to some beautiful beaches.
I’m still fighting some of the old battles with the German state, giving it two fingers in the air at each opportunity. Oh, you want me to pay for a television licence when I don’t actually have a television — or a radio? For that matter, even though I don’t actually listen to or watch any German-produced content? I’ll drag this out for as long as possible. Ah, quite. My hostility to doctors might be a bit extreme. Fair enough, I’ll sort it out.Five minutes later, I’m registered with a private dental surgery, a private GP surgery and a Chinese Medicine Specialist — all in Dorset. Can’t be bothered with the Germans, they don’t speak English and don’t grasp my height in feet or weight in stone. I rang up the Americans to ask what they think of the costs, they’re all reasonable by American standards, so won’t be moaning about it!
Boadicea's Chariot 
Christopher, I think the main reason to go for the early surprise election is to throw Reform off guard. The Libdems and Labour have been ready for months, whereas Reform are far from ready.
As Reform are still climbing in the polls, and many voters are searching for a political home, they are the biggest risk to Sunak, as most of their votes come out of the Tory camp.
I have spoken to many people who always voted Conservative, but no longer can, after the chaos of recent years. They also can’t bring themselves to vote Labour, which leaves Reform as a likely option. Either that, or they simply don’t bother voting, as many think it is pointless.
Gaz: Reform are strongest in the Midlands and the North. They draw much of their support from ex-Labour voters who plumbed for Boris, but don’t particularly care for how Jeremy (Berkshire) Hunt and ‘Rishi’ Sunak gave them the old dagger-in-the-back treatment. The old allegiances have broken down and voters are far more unpredictable than they used to be.
Some are trying to use the local elections to read the political tea leaves. Dorset went from Tory to Illiberal Anti-Democrat, never a good sign. Tactical voting, low turnout, etc. all played their role, but it’s hard to see most of Dorset voting for the Limp Dims in a general election.
Much like in Australia, Labour benefits more from public disgust at the Tories than it does from its own manifesto. Much like Australia, voters in Britain will be quick to turn on any government that doesn’t read the air properly. Labour will probably win by default, but in a very low-turnout election with disappointing results, a fractured electorate and a public mood that will become hostile within a year at most.
I can see Starmer getting the Schulz treatment. The question is how the right respond. In Australia, they did well by choosing Dutton. He might, just, get in at the next election if the ALP keep making own-goals. If the British right coalesce around conservative, capable leadership then it will regain power at the next election as Starmer will have a Labour civil war to contend with and they’re not going to be content to play it safe.
It’s no bad thing that previous allegiances have (finally) gone – none too soon in my opinion!
Personnally, I don’t think Rishi stands a chance. He and his cohorts clearly destabalised Johnson. Whoever thought up the idea of giving card-carrying members the right to vote for his follow-up and then high-handedly dismissed their choice and imposed Rishi in top place needs to hang their heads in shame. If anything showed ‘loyal’ Tories that their opinions had no value that little excercise did. So it would not surprise me if many erstwhile Tory voters turned to Reform. You ignore and trample over loyal supporters at your peril.
I think one has to add that to the pot that is bubbling in the UK elections – as well as the ‘anybody but the last mob’ factor. Labor, here in Oz, benefitted from that – especially with the stupid compulsory voting and preferential system. I hate to think that I might have landed my constituency with a Greenie simply because I can’t stop my vote but have to pass it onto people I think should be kept as far away from Canberra as possible.
The problem is that whoever ‘wins’ will believe they have a mandate to do exactly what they want. At least here we can make a change after three years – I don’t think many people would be willing to change that after the fiasco we have now. The U.K. is stuck with five years and that’s a long time to do great damage.
I was interested to read that you like Dutton. I do – but a lot of people here don’t. At least the guy worked before he took up politics and that’s more than one can say for most of the others. A good dose of ‘reality’ should be the first qualification of any M.P.
Your last sentence says it all – a capable conservative leader with a clear program and no baggage might get a chance in the next U.K. election if, and I suspect you are right, Labour destroy themselves with in-fighting.
We live in interesting times!!
Boadicea: I wrote a reply yesterday and it disappeared. Bother. Technology hates me.
When Truss came to power, she at least enjoyed the benefit of a doubt. She was a highly competent, capable minister who might have been on the wrong side of the occasional issue (most notably British liberation), but embraced the public’s choice and set out to make a success of it. Even some of the people I know who have long voted Labour and/or Illiberal Anti-Democrat saw her fall for what it was — a very British coup. Truss was loyal to the end, only putting her hat in the ring after Boris has accepted his fate and given her his blessing. It became very, very clear that the men in grey and power brokers in Berlin, Paris, Brussels and Washington wanted Sunak and wouldn’t accept anyone else. His goose is not so much cooked as it is carbonised. Had he governed as a conservative and sought to implement the 2019 Manifesto, he would still have lost — but he would have lost respectably. He’s been utterly useless. The only chance he has of losing with honour is Labour going to war with itself in advance of the election.
Sunak is part of a recent phenomenon. A lot of so-called heads of government are not so much political leaders as they are placeholders. It’s becoming fairly clear that we no longer have politics as much as we have a soft, technocratic dictatorship. Sunak, Biden, von der Leyen, Tusk, da Silva, etc simply lack the mettle or credibility to lead. What they can do is hold office and be counted on not to use that power to question the technocracy. Boris, Truss, Trump, Meloni, (Tony) Abbott, etc are in many ways deeply flawed, but they are their own people with their own minds, hence the number of enemies they have. You can also see the difference in how people in political positions are treated. Peta Credlin might not be everyone’s taste, but she doesn’t deserve the hatred that she’s often been shown. Diane Abbott has done much worse for much longer, but she was handled with kid gloves for decades. Starmer deserves at least some credit for finally removing the whip, although it’s not clear if he’s going to give her yet another pass in order to avoid a second ordeal in London. The other one, of course, is the Cur-bin running as an independent against Labour in Islington North.
This is one of those instances in which the UK’s political structure doesn’t necessarily help it. In Canada, in Australia, in the US power is divided and distributed in such a was as to check the ambitions of even the strongest national government. A British PM with a large majority can rule almost as a dictator. Of course, so can a Canadian PM, but the provinces can fight tooth-and-nail and drag things out. I do, however, suspect that British public opinion has moved beyond politics and Labour are going to have a hard go of it.
As fur Dutton… His election as Liberal leader showed that the party did not take the wrong lesson from the last election. ScumMo’s unpopularity and Albosleazy’s pseudo bonhomie coupled with a relatively conservative platform, an operation radish to paraphrase Penny Mourdaunt, was the cause of the change in government. Too often, centre-right parties assume that an election loss means that they need to move to the centre, to become some sort of Labour-light, in order to remain viable. In choosing Dutton, they selected a highly capable, conservative leader who has done well in selecting popular positions. At the rate they’re going, the ALP will most likely ruin themselves and it’s only a matter of time before the teals lose their lustre as well. Even in Victoria, Labour are exhausting public patience.
Well now we have the result…
… as I said to a friend in England today – it’s amazing how many turkeys there are in the U.K. voting for Christmas. I hope they like stuffing – because they will certainly get stuffed.
Watch those who can move their money out as fast as possible and those who can’t find ways to safeguard it as best they can. Starmer seems to have a rather puritan view of those who must contribute to his grand schemes… I wonder where he places himself and his money.
I’m not sure I really want to ‘Watch this Space’ … too much power is not a ‘good thing’.
Boadicea: It was an interesting result. Starmer has an historic majority, but he did not really improve on Labour’s 2019 share of the vote. Labour won only because the Tory vote utterly imploded, both through underwhelming turnout and massive defections to Reform. It’s worth noting that Reform outperformed the Illiberal Anti-Democrats as a share of the national vote, but only received a tiny fraction of their seats. I get the sense that Starmer is going to be deeply unpopular very quickly, have a restless and extremely demanding parliamentary party eager to overplay their hand — and have a country that is in no mood for any of the nonsense on offer. Britain looks that it, like France, will become essentially ungovernable.
Hey, I just received my voting papers, three weeks after the election. Do you think I can still vote?
What a system!