Outlandish Theory of the Week

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Outlandish Theory of the Week

#1 Post by Octavious » Tue Jan 11, 2022 9:40 am

The Conservatives in the UK have finally achieved a run of normal mid term poll numbers, which for a ruling Tory party is typically several points behind Labour. It has taken an awful lot of self inflicted wounds to get to this stage (and we've still got the not really their fault at all wound of energy prices to come) to the extent it looks very much like watching a not particularly slow motion car crash with a drunkard at the wheel.

But what if it's not?

Labour have been in a permacrisis for a while now. The Corbyn fallout has left the party hideously split and in a financial dark place. The only thing keeping them from falling apart has, some have said, the need to unite to stand a chance at defeating a Tory party at its zenith. Take away the unifying power of the common foe, and Labour may collapse in on itself. Are the Tories playing dead in order to land a killer blow on their unsuspecting rivals?

Let's see what happens. I'm inclined to favour ineptitude over cunning as a reason for the current woes of the Tories, but how Labour handles it will be interesting regardless.
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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#2 Post by Jamiet99uk » Tue Jan 11, 2022 5:16 pm

What is your theory, exactly? You don't seem to present one.
There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. - Lenin.

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#3 Post by Octavious » Tue Jan 11, 2022 7:10 pm

That the Tories are deliberately acting like a bunch of numpties in order to give Labour the opportunity to tear itself apart. Like a 16 SC Turkey pulling back from the stalemate line in the hope that the Western Triple will turn on itself
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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#4 Post by Jamiet99uk » Tue Jan 11, 2022 7:32 pm

I would suggest the application of Hanlon's razor.
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There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen. - Lenin.

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#5 Post by Octavious » Tue Jan 11, 2022 7:55 pm

Ah, but the Tories both have high levels of background malice and, in the arena of domestic politics at least, tend to be rather less stupid than their rivals. As shown by the recent humiliation of the Lib Dems by fooling then into abandoning their strong political position and voting for the election that made them irrelevant... And the betrayal of the Lib Dems as a coalition partner by targeting their seats and near wiping them out a few years before that. And (allegedly) removing their own embarrassing minister by filming him having a fumble with his mistress...
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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#6 Post by flash2015 » Tue Jan 11, 2022 10:42 pm

Perhaps they have always been a bunch of numpties (at least since Boris took over)? Perhaps Boris was a "one issue wonder" on Brexit?

We may be only realizing they are numpties now as Brexit fades into the distance and Labour, if I understand correctly, switch to the tried and tested "small target" opposition strategy.

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#7 Post by Octavious » Wed Jan 12, 2022 12:04 am

It wasn't a one issue, though. Boris getting the Brexit deal involved quite a few daunting challenges, several of which were overcome quite brilliantly. Becoming leader of the Tories in the first place wasn't an easy task. The most impressive performance was in breaking the deadlock in parliament by completely out manoeuvring the other parties who had him over a barrel. The election that followed was a masterpiece in political campaigning. The Brexit deal itself was so so, but compared to what it had been looking like being that's still a plus. A hell of a lot of very difficult politics was done extremely well.

And then the same people start acting like a bunch of schoolgirls organising a birthday party
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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#8 Post by flash2015 » Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:28 am

There is no denying that Boris was brilliant in how he took advantage of Brexit to get to number 10. And he was the only one to rightly recognize there needed to be some brinkmanship to finally get it done.

But just because he was right for one specific issue...doesn't mean he can't be an absolute numpty for everything else. This wouldn't be the first time for something like this happened. For example no one denies that Churchill was the right person to lead the UK through the second world war...but that didn't mean he could lead the peace too. He governed so badly the Tories lost in a landslide only a few months after the war ended.

I wouldn't be surprised if Boris doesn't make it to the 2024 election.

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#9 Post by Octavious » Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:52 am

flash2015 wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:28 am
For example no one denies that Churchill was the right person to lead the UK through the second world war...but that didn't mean he could lead the peace too. He governed so badly the Tories lost in a landslide only a few months after the war ended.
A few things wrong with this. Firstly, really quite a lot of people didn't think Churchill was a decent leader in WWII, especially at the time and especially in the military. Secondly, the UK government in the war was a coalition of all the major parties, so the Tories, Labour, and the Liberals all shared the responsibility of governing the country. The 1945 election was won by Clement Attlee who was the Deputy Prime Minister for the majority of the war. It was far less their record in government and far more their promises for the future that determined the election result. Churchill, of course, went on to lead the Tory Party to election victory in 1951 which began over a decade of Tory leadership.
flash2015 wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:28 am
But just because he was right for one specific issue...doesn't mean he can't be an absolute numpty for everything else.
Right on Brexit, right on how to run the general election, right on how to manage Labour and the Lib Dems in a deadlocked Parliament. This is not a single issue he fluked a right answer on. This is a sustained period of running rings around his opposition. It's like someone getting into the final of a Diplomacy tournament on the back of some impressive solos, only to spend the first few phases asking how convoys work and accidentally bouncing himself out of Belgium.
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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#10 Post by MajorMitchell » Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:02 pm

Dare I suggest, yes I will suggest that Churchill's post WW2 election loss was about Policy issues. Octavious in my opinion makes some valid points in his post.
In my opinion the Conservatives lost because there was a strong desire to "not repeat" what occurred after WW1, and a strong desire to implement the policies advocated by Labour after WW2, eg, a National Health Service as one example. Labour adopted the policy reccomendations of the Bevan report. The Conservatives offered a return to the past, where the wealthy elite would retain their priveliges and policies of economic conservatism.
Perhaps it was about perceptions as much as reality. The desire for change and the perception that Labour would deliver change and the Conservatives would not deliver change?

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#11 Post by MajorMitchell » Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:05 pm

Plus they didn't have the Dirty Digger, Rupert Murdoch's media empire screwing with British politics during that election

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#12 Post by flash2015 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 12:31 am

Octavious wrote:
flash2015 wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 2:28 am
But just because he was right for one specific issue...doesn't mean he can't be an absolute numpty for everything else.
Right on Brexit, right on how to run the general election, right on how to manage Labour and the Lib Dems in a deadlocked Parliament. This is not a single issue he fluked a right answer on. This is a sustained period of running rings around his opposition. It's like someone getting into the final of a Diplomacy tournament on the back of some impressive solos, only to spend the first few phases asking how convoys work and accidentally bouncing himself out of Belgium.
You don't see all these issues as related? UK politics revolved around Brexit primarily for half a decade. It was a very special emotionally charged "us vs them" situation. EVERYTHING was Brexit related.

He ran rings around Labour because Labour under Corbyn was an unelectable disaster. Labour was also caught between a rock and a hard place on Brexit Many of the inner city types were Remainers...while a lot of the working class wanted Brexit. So, if I understand correctly, this made the Labour message on Brexit horribly muddled. Boris was the only one offering a way out.

Now the highly emotive Brexit issue is gone and normal programming has resumed. A different set of political skills are required to handle this. Corbyn is gone and I can't see Labour repeating that mess anytime soon (at least I hope not).

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#13 Post by flash2015 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 12:35 am

MajorMitchell wrote:
Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:02 pm
Dare I suggest, yes I will suggest that Churchill's post WW2 election loss was about Policy issues. Octavious in my opinion makes some valid points in his post.
In my opinion the Conservatives lost because there was a strong desire to "not repeat" what occurred after WW1, and a strong desire to implement the policies advocated by Labour after WW2, eg, a National Health Service as one example. Labour adopted the policy reccomendations of the Bevan report. The Conservatives offered a return to the past, where the wealthy elite would retain their priveliges and policies of economic conservatism.
Perhaps it was about perceptions as much as reality. The desire for change and the perception that Labour would deliver change and the Conservatives would not deliver change?
I don't see this as disagreeing with my premise.

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#14 Post by flash2015 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:59 am

One poll puts Labour up 10 points over Conservatives with Starmer leading Johnson on preferred PM 35% to 23%:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 92008.html

politics.co.uk say the Tories have fallen to their lowest support levels this century:

https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/la ... ion-polls/

That is pretty bad.

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#15 Post by Octavious » Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:28 am

flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 12:31 am
You don't see all these issues as related? UK politics revolved around Brexit primarily for half a decade. It was a very special emotionally charged "us vs them" situation. EVERYTHING was Brexit related.
So, if I'm understanding you correctly, your argument is that Boris was only good at one specific thing, and that this one specific thing was "everything"?
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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#16 Post by Octavious » Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:53 am

flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:59 am
That is pretty bad.
True, but not particularly unusual or disastrous. Mid term slumps are the Tory norm, even without cock-ups and the like. They still hold the considerable aces of Labour disunity and uninspiring leadership. The biggest threat to the Tories is that after a decade in charge people tend to favour change, but if they can satisfy that desire with the considerable change of removing Boris then Labour lose a critical advantage.
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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#17 Post by flash2015 » Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:39 pm

Octavious wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:28 am
flash2015 wrote:
Tue Jan 18, 2022 12:31 am
You don't see all these issues as related? UK politics revolved around Brexit primarily for half a decade. It was a very special emotionally charged "us vs them" situation. EVERYTHING was Brexit related.
So, if I'm understanding you correctly, your argument is that Boris was only good at one specific thing, and that this one specific thing was "everything"?
Nope, you continue to not understand.

He was able to do things well because he was so adept at playing the nationalism card (where emotion trumps facts). But the nationalism cover is gone now and he now needs to deliver...which (so far) he isn't doing so well with.

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#18 Post by taylor4 » Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:50 pm

(Earl) Atlee's Labour Party's election victory on policy/demolishly:
N,B.: -- On the UK National Health Service (NHS):
Policy implemented to create the NHS because Nazis (PM Churchill's fave term) bombed the shit out of the hospital system. For many nights.
None dare speak for those who did not come home from WWII to the chalk cliffs of Dover but replace UK's man of the Big Three at Potsdam peace talks, they did. In Potsdam Truman intimated he had atom bomb to Stalin who ... smiled.

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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#19 Post by Octavious » Fri Jan 21, 2022 8:37 am

taylor4 wrote:
Thu Jan 20, 2022 11:50 pm
In Potsdam Truman intimated he had atom bomb to Stalin who ... smiled.
I dare say that had something to do with Stalin not speaking English...

Your posts are certainly different, taylor, but I very rarely have the foggiest idea what you're on about ;)
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Re: Outlandish Theory of the Week

#20 Post by flash2015 » Sat Feb 05, 2022 2:31 am

That lefty rag the Financial Times didn't say very nice things about Boris today:

https://www.ft.com/content/8d5b562b-a07 ... 612b58af5e

An adulterated Turkish proverb is doing the rounds: “When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.”

Well, a circus would be more organised than whatever happened in the British government this week. We have a broken swing and a clown who barely has enough balls to juggle with. Cirque du Soleil, this is not.

After four officials resigned from Downing Street on Thursday, a junior Treasury minister was asked by a news anchor if it felt like the last days of Rome. “No, it doesn’t,” he replied. “The last days of Rome, I think, were more fun.” Given that those days involved military defeats, spiralling corruption and starvation, that’s all the insight we need into the mood in Westminster.

Barring a miracle, these are the last days of Boris Johnson: Churchill impersonator, the First Fraud of the Treasury, the man who forgot being a Heineken politician was only a metaphor. We knew it would end badly, and now it is. It’s so bad that there aren’t enough female officials to act as scapegoats; some men are having to resign too.

On Monday we learnt that police are now investigating 12 parties at Downing Street, including at least four that Johnson himself attended. He responded by promising to reform government “leadership structures”, as if an organigram might remind him not to bring his own booze. There would be a new “office of the prime minister” — a Department for Revelling Up, if you will. But Australian strategist Lynton Crosby is reportedly among those declining to join.

This is the slight flaw in the idea that Johnson can run the country by delegating all the real work: what happens when there is no one left who wants to be delegated to? Meanwhile, only this prime minister’s government could publish a 101-page document about the benefits of Brexit in the same week that Northern Ireland’s first minister resigns due to the Brexit deal.

Some of the rancour against Johnson is over the top. A cake in the cabinet room is not a resignation-worthy offence. But the parties summed up his attitude to politics and life: that rules are for other people.

This week I watched him make three misleading statements in parliament: he said that the UK has “the fastest growth in the G7” (technically true but only because its economy collapsed further in the pandemic); that the government has cut crime by 14 per cent (actually it’s gone up 14 per cent — theft went down, largely due to lockdowns), and that “more people [are] in work now than before the pandemic began” (when you include the self-employed, numbers are down 600,000). That’s before his false insinuation that Labour leader Keir Starmer was involved in the failure to prosecute paedophile Jimmy Savile.

You can’t do political debate like this. Munira Mirza, No 10’s policy chief, cited the “inappropriate and partisan reference” to Savile as her reason for quitting. These undignified untruths are why, within weeks or possibly a couple of months, Tory MPs will take a stand against Johnson: you could call it the Porky Pie Plot.

When your most vocal loyalist is culture secretary Nadine Dorries, it’s time to go. Instead Johnson hangs round, a guest unable to realise that the dinner party ended an hour ago. We could open another bottle, or alternatively he could just bugger off?

He’ll be fine. The Telegraph will have him back. What about the rest of us? The city of Rotterdam is considering dismantling a historic bridge so that Jeff Bezos’s superyacht, built in its shipyards, can reach the sea. The bridge could be rebuilt, just as it was. If only British democracy could be so easily adjusted for the passing through of Johnson’s 417ft superego. Instead it has smashed through the structures. Good riddance.

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