A Political Thread pt. 2

[Ragey Erasmus]

According to someone on twitter...
Andrew Tate is tweeting that he’s being held in the highest level of solitary confinement while fighting his extradition the UK. No commissary, no visits, no contact with the outside world.

Yes, that's right, he's tweeting about how he has no contract with the outside world.

I think we're all still waiting for it to sink in...

You mean to tell me this fine speciMEN couldn't give Einstein and Newton a run for their money?

 

[Tomma235]

I get that. I'm just not getting too excited yet over some crowd pleasing headlines. Not saying it's wrong of him, but it also doesn't mean he's now doing an incredible job already and unless he's planned these properly, they could come back to bite him.

You're not really meant to get excited, the idea is just a. To keep him top of the news in a good way b. Promote little feelings of good will. Your last point is most important: it is a huge risk. Once it's established this setup works incredibly well (New Labour 97) but if it does go wrong it could take months to recover if at all

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Burnham doesn’t have a mandate, but I don’t think anyone wants a GE now for various reasons. More to the point if other parties don’t insist on one now, which would be on a point of principle, then they shouldn’t be able to subsequently howl for one at a time when it’s more politically expedient.

And surely we can legislate so a PM has to serve a full term except in exceptional circumstances such as ill-health. Might make people stop and think about the long term which would surely be beneficial.

 

[Quel Carreleur]

Which of May, Johnson, Truss would you have wanted serving their full term?

Burnham does have a mandate, as the mandate was given to his party and he's the leader of that party. That's the system we have, and anyone ignorant of it is either new to politics, or willfully ignorant. We have representational party politics, not a presidency (though of course, the PM carries a lot of weight, and sets tone for the party and government)
We may not like it, but we can't pretend that we don't have that system.

I've long held that an incoming new PM OUGHT to call a GE within, say, 6 months, but I've never believed that it was actually compulsory, and I don't think it's ever happened as a point of principle (as opposed to cynical expedience).

TBH, the leadership of Johnson, and especially of Truss has made me much more wary of making it more difficult for a governing party to take out their own leader. Though I do think that all (major) parties - say any party with 10+ seats should have the same mechanism for removing (and selecting) their leader.

 

[Saintjay]

Part of the problem with the current parties is It's the political ambition of those in your own party.

Haigh has said Team Burnham have been planning the take over for at least a year.

Streeting, Milliband, Healey, all awared for turning on Starmer. Sawar has got a nice trade role.

As one pod cast put it, being a traitor pays off if your side wins. The worry for Burnham is Labour turns into a den of vipers with the Starmer loyalists far from happy how the coup came about.

 

[Tomma235]

Which of May, Johnson, Truss would you have wanted serving their full term?

Burnham does have a mandate, as the mandate was given to his party and he's the leader of that party. That's the system we have, and anyone ignorant of it is either new to politics, or willfully ignorant. We have representational party politics, not a presidency (though of course, the PM carries a lot of weight, and sets tone for the party and government)
We may not like it, but we can't pretend that we don't have that system.

I've long held that an incoming new PM OUGHT to call a GE within, say, 6 months, but I've never believed that it was actually compulsory, and I don't think it's ever happened as a point of principle (as opposed to cynical expedience).

TBH, the leadership of Johnson, and especially of Truss has made me much more wary of making it more difficult for a governing party to take out their own leader. Though I do think that all (major) parties - say any party with 10+ seats should have the same mechanism for removing (and selecting) their leader.

It's only recently that people have started to claim a lack of mandate. No one even considered asking Major or Brown to call a GE, it was just accepted that work continued until the next GE.

May had a GE in 2017 but it had nothing to do with being told she had no mandate, it was to try to quiet the rebellious arm of her party. Similarly with Johnson, it had nothing to do with his mandate, he was proving to the party that he was in control.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

It's only recently that people have started to claim a lack of mandate. No one even considered asking Major or Brown to call a GE, it was just accepted that work continued until the next GE.

May had a GE in 2017 but it had nothing to do with being told she had no mandate, it was to try to quiet the rebellious arm of her party. Similarly with Johnson, it had nothing to do with his mandate, he was proving to the party that he was in control.

Sorry but the Tories definitely called on Brown to call a GE.

 

[Tomma235]

Sorry but the Tories definitely called on Brown to call a GE.

You're right. Apologies.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Burnham does have a mandate, as the mandate was given to his party and he's the leader of that party. That's the system we have, and anyone ignorant of it is either new to politics, or willfully ignorant. We have representational party politics, not a presidency (though of course, the PM carries a lot of weight, and sets tone for the party and government)
We may not like it, but we can't pretend that we don't have that system.

The mandate was given to his party on the basis of their manifesto.

As yet I haven’t heard Burnham say he’s going to stick religiously to that or the spirit of it.

So, yes he is entitled to govern. But he as leader / PM and his policies, which he’s stayed largely quiet on, have not had electorate debate or approval. Call it a moral mandate if you prefer.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

The mandate was given to his party on the basis of their manifesto.

As yet I haven’t heard Burnham say he’s going to stick religiously to that or the spirit of it.

So, yes he is entitled to govern. But he as leader / PM and his policies, which he’s stayed largely quiet on, have not had electorate debate or approval. Call it a moral mandate if you prefer.

Whilst true in theory, in practice their mandate came from not being Tories.

I doubt many could say what Labour had in their manifesto prior to the election.

 

[Tomma235]

The mandate was given to his party on the basis of their manifesto.

As yet I haven’t heard Burnham say he’s going to stick religiously to that or the spirit of it.

So, yes he is entitled to govern. But he as leader / PM and his policies, which he’s stayed largely quiet on, have not had electorate debate or approval. Call it a moral mandate if you prefer.

Burnham is fully within his rights to throw the manifesto out of the window. However if he were to do so he would need to be very confident that by the next GE no one would care.

 

[Reiser99]

Other issue is how many voted for Labour based on the manifesto itself. You will have traditional Labour voters who vote Labour regardless. You had plenty who voted just wanted the Tories out, some would have voted for their local MP and any who did vote for Labour based on the manifesto will probably have voted only for 1 or 2 key policies and probably can't tell you many others in the manifesto.

Personally, I feel that a change in leader shouldn't be easy and should mean a GE is called as I don't like a small number of people voting for a PM and the rest of the country having to accept it.

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Other issue is how many voted for Labour based on the manifesto itself. You will have traditional Labour voters who vote Labour regardless. You had plenty who voted just wanted the Tories out, some would have voted for their local MP and any who did vote for Labour based on the manifesto will probably have voted only for 1 or 2 key policies and probably can't tell you many others in the manifesto.

Personally, I feel that a change in leader shouldn't be easy and should mean a GE is called as I don't like a small number of people voting for a PM and the rest of the country having to accept it.

People voted Labour for a whole host of reasons. Habit, tactical, local, manifesto fine print, whatever.

But the fact remains that we have a PM that we don’t know what they stand for or what they want to do. Which doesn’t really feel like representative democracy.

Not a party thing, hated it in blue too.