U.K. Politics: Boris Johnson referred to police (AGAIN) over potential Covid rule breaches

[Wayne]

Dates of General Elections - Last 30 Years

• 12 December 2019 - three PMs (Johnson was ousted by Truss in 2022, who was ousted by Sunak in 2022).
• 8 June 2017 - two PMs (May was ousted by Johnson in 2019).
• 7 May 2015 - two PMs (Cameron was ousted by May in 2016).
• 6 May 2010 - one PM.
• 5 May 2005 - two PMs (Blair was ousted by Brown in 2007).
• 7 June 2001 - one PM.
• 1 May 1997 - one PM.
• 9 April 1992 - one PM.
• 11 June 1987 - two PMs (Thatcher was ousted by Major in 1990).
• 9 June 1983 - one PM.

I think I've got the number of PMs right.

Under the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, the Monarch's Royal Prerogative was restored - it had previously been removed as part of legislation introduced in 2011 by a coalition government called the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

Under the 2011 legislation, the Royal Prerogative was removed (meaning that the Queen could no longer dissolve Parliament at will - which constitutional precedence had established she'd only do on advice from the Prime Minister anyway) - as the Royal Prerogative was only ever exercised upon advice from the Prime Minister, this de-facto power which gave the Prime Minister control of the UK election process was removed and replaced by a fixed date (so elections would take place on a fixed date every 5 years, except for a couple of very specific circumstances).

Under the 2022 legislation, the restoration of the Royal Prerogative essentially reintroduced the de-facto power of the Prime Minister to call an election as and when he wants (unless the King was to ignore the advice of his Prime Minister, which would be without precedent). This means that further to Artoo's point, Sunak could call an election at any point he wishes - he obviously won't call one while the Tories are doing so badly in the polls (Labour have a 25+ point lead), so I expect we'll get our next general election in late 2024.

It's going to be a long 2 years.

[ludichris]

I'm not quite sure what you mean? He sold shares in his company for tens of millions of pounds - under the capital gains rules, he paid what he should've done, and was fined a penalty + interest on late payments on top.

Are you saying that someone who earns £25-£30m from a company sale shouldn't pay £3.7m in tax?

He should have been fined but not by that much! I don't think any individual in this country should be paying that much in taxes. There should be a cap of some sort at around the million mark and there definitely shouldn't be a higher rate for higher earners, 10% flat for all. In a dream world of course!

The public sector has grown far too large for that sort of thinking and I wish they hadn't let it get so big.

[Thriller]

A small minority brainwashed by the Telegraph and Daily Hate.

Not as small as I’d like.

Hopefully by late 2024 a fair few more Tory voters will have died and a fair few more other party voters will have come of age or at least be compelled to vote.

[theMathematician]

Not as small as I’d like.

Hopefully by late 2024 a fair few more Tory voters will have died and a fair few more other party voters will have come of age or at least be compelled to vote.

Did you also consider that voters also get more conservative as they get older? Meaning by the time 'a fair few more Tory voters will have died', there will be a new bunch of Tory voters?

[Thriller]

Did you also consider that voters also get more conservative as they get older? Meaning by the time 'a fair few more Tory voters will have died', there will be a new bunch of Tory voters?

That's a broad assumption plus I don't think that will apply in this relatively short timeframe.

[theMathematician]

It is a short time, but then again, there can't be too many people who die in just a year either. There are two factors that support an increase of conservatives in the near future (I can't predict what will happen in 20 or 30 years of course): People tend to get older and the share of older people among the total population will increase. Older people tend to vote more conservative.
Why the latter? As people mature, their priorities in life change (e.g. tax or inheritance aren't topics 20-year-olds deal with while at 50 quite a few do) and that impacts some people's political orientation.

[Thriller]

Around a million people will have died in the UK over the next two years, I imagine a decent chunk of them will be crusty old Tories - fingers crossed anyway.

[theMathematician]

Around a million people will have died in the UK over the next two years, I imagine a decent chunk of them will be crusty old Tories - fingers crossed anyway.

Thriller, you expect us to use decent language on here! I think you can express an opinion in a more mature way than that - especially in your role as administrator and moderator .

[Thriller]

What was indecent about my comment?

Keep my role outta your mouth

[theMathematician]

My issue was with you referring to people as 'crusty' and writing 'fingers crossed' in the context of people dying. Those are two things that don't feel well to me.

[Rihab]

Voters do NOT get significantly more conservative as they grow older. It‘s a MYTH not supported by any political science and I'm not going to explain why that is to the same individual for a 20th time. At this point this is either a case of deliberate misinformation or sheer stupidity.

[Rihab]

And if I remember correctly from our recent discussion about the Church of England and religion in general, most old people in Britain still believe in god, heaven and life after death. So we should all be happy for them when they finally move on to that exciting next chapter.

[Artoo]

British politics is all pretty straight forward - the majority vote based on how the government of the day is performing. Political allegiance has very little to do with age. We simply vote for the lesser or two evils (because they all lie and fix bugger all) and hope that whoever wins won’t create a national crisis, ruin the economy, break the law or get fired. I am so ready for a return to quiet politics, whatever that was.

[greek_boy]

Britain to be worst-performing major economy this year, warns IMF; UK mortgage approvals tumble as company insolvencies surge

More here: https://www.theguardian.com/business...-business-live

A shortage of workers, expensive mortgages and the continuing effects of Brexit are all weighing on the economy as the UK shapes up to be the weakest major G7 economy this year, the head of a leading thinktank has said.

Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said there were special factors holding back growth in the UK as politicians and analysts responded to a warning from the International Monetary Fund that the UK economy would shrink by 0.3% in 2023.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme on Tuesday, Johnson said the UK’s performance did not look quite so bad if 2022 and 2023 were considered together, since the IMF estimated growth of 4.1% last year would be the highest in the G7.


But Johnson said other countries were not being affected to the same extent as the UK by shortages of labour – identified by the IMF as one factor holding back the UK. Johnson said the UK labour force had half a million fewer people than before the pandemic as a result of people retiring early and fewer EU immigrants.

“That’s not affecting any other country in Europe … That’s a particular challenge for us,” the IFS director said. The continuing “challenges from Brexit” and the rapid impact of higher interest rates on mortgage costs were also factors, he added.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/business...ul-johnson-imf

[bm08]

Half million workers on strike today with new wave of strike action next week. Firefighters also recently backed strike action.

[Thriller]

Good, but in the meantime the government are pushing through a bill that will curb, silence and punish the workers even further.

[Wayne]

In short, our relative political stability may be about to come to an end. It’s fascinating really, that first bolded sentence. Increasingly, more senior conservative politicians are suggesting that Truss and Kwarteng had the right ideas (minus the top rate tax cut, which was a step too far) but executed them all wrong. With the next election looming in the medium term, more people are going to call for tax cuts - does that give Truss the road to redemption?

"Liz was mad but right. Rishi is wrong but competent."

Those blunt sentences come from a serving government minister - and they sum up the problem the PM may be about to face. Liz Truss is set to return to the political fray, via a Sunday morning newspaper op-ed, just four months after her rapid exit from No 10.

Her time in charge was a disaster. The financial markets melted. The shelf life of her premiership was compared, in real-time, with that of a wilting lettuce (it outlasted her).

Why on earth would she want to crawl out from under the duvet - and why would anyone listen?

Here is the official explanation from her camp: "Liz remains an active politician, keen to draw on more than a decade of experience in government as she contributes to national and international debates on a variety of issues."

So far, so vanilla. Why shouldn't a former prime minister have her say?

But here's the less official explanation from one of her political pals: ''It's human nature to want to justify what you did."

Pilloried around the country, and the world, Ms Truss wants to tell her side of the story - to explain what really happened, "not the fairytales", as one ally puts it.

It's worth noting that she's doing so in her own words in the Sunday Telegraph - a newspaper that's broadly sympathetic to her cause - and then in a pre-recorded chat for a podcast later in the week. She is not yet, despite our own invitation and no doubt many others, sitting down for live interviews with no holds barred.

Like many in her tribe, Ms Truss has never been short of that priceless political quality: a brass neck. Despite presiding over what many in the party see as one of the most disastrous political reigns in history, she is expected to argue that, essentially, she was right.

One ally says "she doesn't shirk responsibility" - but she's expected to restate her argument for low taxes and an economic shake-up.

And by arguing that she was fundamentally right, the implication is that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is fundamentally wrong.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64523277

[Artoo]

If she’s staging a comeback of sorts, it’s just going to rock the Tory boat and I’m all for that

[ferrero]

it says alot when even Russia is going to perform better than Uk for the next 2 years, according to IMF

[Artoo]

Nicola Sturgeon is to resign as Scotland's first minister after more than eight years in the role.

The Scottish National Party leader is expected to make the announcement at a hastily-arranged news conference in Edinburgh.

It is not thought that her departure will be immediate, allowing time for a successor to be elected.

A source close to Ms Sturgeon - the longest-serving first minister - told the BBC that she had "had enough".

Ms Sturgeon has been first minister since November 2014, when she took over from Alex Salmond following the independence referendum.

The first minister will hold her press conference at Bute House in Edinburgh at 11:00.

BBC

Amazing News. Finally. I’ve been waiting for this day.

[bm08]

That's quite a surprise

[Plym]

very sad day for our queen but glad to see how much she riles up people that have nothing to do with scotland and makes them seethe with anger at the mere mention of her name. hope her successor does the same! our need for independence is not resigning with her.

[Artoo]

That's quite a surprise

It really is. Nicola has been resolute in fighting for independence, to the point that she has already outlined the direction she wanted to take the party in going into the next general election.

Yes politics is tough but I actually think she really enjoys it, so I don’t think it’s that she has simply had enough. It’s hard to imagine she’s being forced out considering her polling, but I honestly don’t believe she could have delivered independence either. So whether she and the party feel she needs to step aside for someone else to have a go, I don’t know.

[greek_boy]

shocking. curious to see who's going to replace her now.

it says alot when even Russia is going to perform better than Uk for the next 2 years, according to IMF

isn't it sad? Meanwhile, the PM and some Brexit gammons insist on waiting for the 'Brexit benefits'.... this is pure self-destruction!

[Artoo]

It’s worth noting that a new poll was reported on yesterday, suggesting Scotland would not vote for independence - with ‘remain’ twelve points ahead.