British Politics Guide

[Linguoboy]

And the "we're getting a PM we didn't vote for" brigade are already out. How can these people be so unaware of how general elections work? Are they so taken up by US politics and presidential races that they think our own elections are the same? – You vote for a party to form a government, you are not voting for who you want to be PM. If you voted Tory you voted for the Tories to form the Government and it is they who choose their leader - who will also be the PM. It's not hard.

And the "let me 'splain how a parliamentary system works" brigade are right there on their heels.

Yes, we all know what the underlying mechanics of this arrangement are. But if you look at actual voting behaviour, the party's choice of who will lead the government they propose to form is a major factor in how much faith people have in that party to actually govern. This doesn't seem like a hard concept to grasp either. A party only governs with the consent of the electorate so it seems perfectly reasonable for it to return to that electorate and say, "Hey, we're putting someone else in charge now; do you still want us to run things?" They don't have to do this, of course, but being dismissive of those who ask them to seems unhelpful at best.

[Ketsuban]

The UK parliamentary system wants to have it both ways—you're simultaneously voting for who you want to be the MP for your constituency (i.e. at least theoretically it's about local politics, even though the overwhelming majority of MPs are backbenchers who sit on inconsequential committees, expense their holiday homes and creature comforts, and generally seem to do fuck all outside election season) and voting for which party you want to form the government (so as long as there isn't an election they're allowed to play musical chairs with government positions and you have no say in the matter whatsoever).

[Raphael]

So Jeremy Hunt is out in the first round. I remember when that guy was a Big Deal.

Also, since "Tugend" is German for "virtue", I can't look at a news report mentioning Tom Tugendhat without asking myself what a "virtue hat" is and how it might look like.

[Travis B.]

So Jeremy Hunt is out in the first round. I remember when that guy was a Big Deal.

Also, since "Tugend" is German for "virtue", I can't look at a news report mentioning Tom Tugendhat without asking myself what a "virtue hat" is and how it might look like.

Wouldn't that be Tugendhut?

[Raphael]

Belated afterthought:

Trump was the tragedy, Boris the farce. Discuss!

Trump is an idiot, while I still kind of suspect that Boris just plays one on TV (to get votes).

[Raphael]

Wouldn't that be Tugendhut?

Yes, of course, but I speak English, too, so I know what "hat" means, too.


BTW, "Tugend" as a word sounds so old-fashioned these days that I'd almost say it has died out. I think it was very popular during the Romantic Age, though.

[Raphael]

BTW, why, exactly, did Sajid Javid drop out?

[Travis B.]

Wouldn't that be Tugendhut?

Yes, of course, but I speak English, too, so I know what "hat" means, too.


BTW, "Tugend" as a word sounds so old-fashioned these days that I'd almost say it has died out. I think it was very popular during the Romantic Age, though.

Even "virtue" in English does not seem like a word that people throw around much anymore.

[Arkasas]

BTW, why, exactly, did Sajid Javid drop out?

He had to - if you didn't get more than 30 votes on the first ballot, you were out. He got 25.

[Raphael]

BTW, why, exactly, did Sajid Javid drop out?

He had to - if you didn't get more than 30 votes on the first ballot, you were out. He got 25.

Huh? As far as I know, he dropped out before the first ballot.

[MacAnDàil]

Yes, he likely dropped tou support his pal Sunak (who might lose to May mark 2 Truss or May mark 2 Mordaunt)

[Arkasas]

Too many Tories, not enough sleep.

Javid dropped out because he couldn't make the 20 nominations threshold. He didn't endorse anyone, presumably because he wants to stay in Cabinet and pissing off the wrong person is a great way to do that when the wrong person becomes PM.

[Raphael]

Too many Tories, not enough sleep.

Javid dropped out because he couldn't make the 20 nominations threshold. He didn't endorse anyone, presumably because he wants to stay in Cabinet and pissing off the wrong person is a great way to do that when the wrong person becomes PM.

Ah, thank you!

[MacAnDàil]

Yes, he likely dropped tou support his pal Sunak (who might lose to May mark 2 Truss or May mark 2 Mordaunt)

I was wrong about Javid supporting Sunak. Javid has announced his support for Truss. I might still be right about Truss winning and her stay at 10 Downing Street being similar to that of May.

[Richard W]

Javid’s declaration of support for Truss might simply be a job application.

[MacAnDàil]

Javid’s declaration of support for Truss might simply be a job application.

That's true.

[Raphael]

Truss.

[alice]

She's now going to unite her party, cut taxes, create growth, and fix the cost-of-living crisis for once and for all.

[sangi39]

At the moment my circle of friends is just waiting to see if Truss continues the recent trend of calling for an early general election, following on from May and Johnson, remembering, of course, that a) it took those two nine and six months respectively to call for an early GE, and b) that calling for a general election after a change of party leadership isn't, like, legally required or even a common thing (neither Brown nor Major called for one, so it's a very recent trend, to be fair, and I suspect, in part, a direct response to the fact that Brown didn't)

We're all fairly confident Truss won't. Labour seem to have been ahead in most opinions polls throughout 2022 so far, so calling for an early GE might risk a Labour win (1951 election at least sets a precedent for Labour winning the populat vote but Conservatives gaining the most seats, however), and who wants to become Prime Minister only to immediately lose the position before being able to implement any significant policies? We suspect that she either won't call for one for at least the next year, at which point she might just try to hold off until 2024 when she'd pretty much have to call one anyway, and use the year or two in the run up to that to try and swing opinion polls back in favour of the Conservatives (probably hoping that a large part of the swing to Labour was down to a specific dislike of Johnson as PM rather than a general dislike of Tory policy)

[Moose-tache]

Given that the longest she can go is a little over two years, does it even matter if she calls an "early" election?

Besides, who cares? It's not like British elections have multiple possible outcomes.

EDIT: Sorry, that was unfair. There are two possible outcomes to British elections. Either the people say they want the Conservatives, and the Conservatives win, or the people say they want literally anyone but the Conservatives, and the Conservatives win.