British Politics Guide

[alice]

Hot off the press: Raab kicks bucket, Boris polls more than the next three combined.

[alice]

Hot off the press: least offensive candidate is eliminated, Boris polls exactly the same as the next three combined.

[chris_notts]

In a way, Boris may be one of the less bad candidates. It's likely he'll do such a bad job that his tenure will be a short sharp shock instead of prolonged torture for the rest of us. And at least he's not Dominic Raab.

[Salmoneus]

Stewart's departure is sad, in a way, and he should certainly be proud of how far he came. But it was also inevitable. He was fortunate that Hancock quit, with most of his votes going to Stewart; but once he beat Raab, it seemed unavoidable that between Raab voters and Boris-will-win-any-so-we-can-stick-it-to-our-nemesis Johnson voters, Javid would be able to attract more votes than Stewart.

The hype around Stewart, meanwhile*, was getting silly. The media loved him because he said things the media like - and, to be fair, in an underwhelming contest, he was the only one other than Boris who truly grabbed the attention - even in the BBC debate, I thought he showed much more PR talent, taking on questions directly, seeming sincere and serious, answering concisely (he did benefit unfairly from being the only one tall enough to have his feet on the floor, while the others dangled their legs like schoolchildren). But his Brexit policy (keep voting on May's Deal until it passes, however many years that takes) is stupid, and immensely unwelcome. And not only did he buck the party on its #1 issue, he didn't even seem that Conservative on other questions either. It's tough to run for Tory leader on a platform "we shouldn't cut taxes, we should increase spending instead". Bookies had him as second-favourite to win by the end, which was just insane.


Javid's problem in the debate, on the other hand, was equally clear: he's quite short, and has a big bald head, and yet decided to wear a slightly bulky suit, continually lean forward, and answer every question in a raised voice (and at a high pitch) with wide-open staring eyes... which made him look and sound uncannily like an angry goblin. Of course, putting him next to Stewart (who at times, when he lolled his head, looked like a really depressing scarecrow) didn't help matters.




*fun fact for those who haven't been following: it's now thought that he's a former MI6 agent. When asked point blank if he was, he replied that "if you were to ask me whether I was a spy, I would say 'no'", which is spy-code for "yes".

[alice]

Hot off the press: Boris gets majority of votes; only Rhyming Slang and Tentacles are left to stop him.

[Salmoneus]

Gove knocked out by two votes in the final parliamentary round.

That means the final ballot, among the membership as a whole, will be between Johnson and Hunt. This would almost seem to guarantee Johnson's victory. Gove was acceptable to enough of Johnson's supporters that a really brilliant campaign, or more likely a big blunder by Boris, might have forced the membership to side with Gove; with Hunt, Boris will have to do something truly calamitously awful for Hunt to stand a chance.

For a little context here, the membership aren't just rather keen on Brexit. Yougov polled members on what they would sacrifice to ensure Brexit: 54% say they would be willing for their own party to be destroyed (only 36% would save their party at the cost of Brexit), 63% would be willing for the UK to dissolve and Scotland to leave (oddly only 59% would be OK with Northern Ireland leaving) and 61% would be happy to inflict serious economic pain on the country. The only thing they hate more than Remain is Jeremy Corbyn, and even then it's marginal - 51% would rather prevent Corbyn from being PM than ensure Brexit.

However, rather shockingly, only 34% think that Labour are a big threat in the general election, compared to 69% who think the Brexit Party are a threat. Most Tories believe that Brexit will guarantee them victory at the next election, and 14% think that No Deal would ensure the Tories remain in power for the next generation (more than thought so of any alternative Brexit outcome). 46% would be happy to have Nigel Farage as leader of their own party.

[Travis B.]

63% would be willing for the UK to dissolve and Scotland to leave

These people must be insane if they are putting Brexit ahead of the very integrity of their own country...

[zompist]

63% would be willing for the UK to dissolve and Scotland to leave

These people must be insane if they are putting Brexit ahead of the very integrity of their own country...

Nah, that part is reasonable. They're insane because they prefer economic disaster to Remain.

Scotland is kind of a desert for Conservativism... 24% of seats in the Scottish parliament, 22% in the UK one. If it weren't so, the Leavers would undoubtedly hope to take Scotland with them— but when they really want to leave and the Scots don't, why insist on the union?

Besides, whatever evil plans Boris is up to besides Brexit would go easier without Scotland. Scotland leaving, at least in the short term, would really suck for English non-Conservatives.

(As Sal has said, the Tories are officially the "Conservative and Unionist Party", but party names are not a guide to policy.)

[MacAnDàil]

Scotland is kind of a desert for Conservativism... 24% of seats in the Scottish parliament, 22% in the UK one.

And that's a recent revival! In the 2010 general election, some Tories (in Glasgow East and Na h-Eileanan an Iar) didn't even reach 5% of the vote. For 20 years the Tories were fourth place in Scotland for the UK parliament and third in the Scottish parliament. The last time they got a plurality of the vote in Scotland was 1959.

[Richard W]

Nah, that part is reasonable. They're insane because they prefer economic disaster to Remain.

A lot of people who've confessed to voting for exit have said that economic considerations did not weigh with them.

I'm also hearing claims that Britain's Poles favour exit to keep the Romanians and Bulgarians out. The Danish British MEP elected on the Brexit list is not such an anomaly.[/quote]

[alice]

Scotland is kind of a desert for Conservativism... 24% of seats in the Scottish parliament, 22% in the UK one.

And that's a recent revival! In the 2010 general election, some Tories (in Glasgow East and Na h-Eileanan an Iar) didn't even reach 5% of the vote. For 20 years the Tories were fourth place in Scotland for the UK parliament and third in the Scottish parliament. The last time they got a plurality of the vote in Scotland was 1959.

A taxi driver in Edinburgh told me his passenger was once Michael Portillo, who crouched down below the bottom of the windows to avoid being recognised by the general public.

[chris_notts]

There was an extraordinary interview on R4 today when a number of interviewed Conservative party members (and Boris Johnson supporters) labelled anyone on the softer side of brexit, including Rory Stewart, quislings and traitors. Quisling in particular suggests criminal disloyalty to the state, which takes it a bit beyond mere party factionalism.

I can't imagine how these same people think BJ is going to magically reunite the party...

[Salmoneus]

There was an extraordinary interview on R4 today when a number of interviewed Conservative party members (and Boris Johnson supporters) labelled anyone on the softer side of brexit, including Rory Stewart, quislings and traitors. Quisling in particular suggests criminal disloyalty to the state, which takes it a bit beyond mere party factionalism.

I can't imagine how these same people think BJ is going to magically reunite the party...

That's not a great surprise - if you go anywhere into brexit or tory parts of the internet, the hatred of remainers (not necessarily of ALL remain voters, but certainly of anyone advocating capitulation to the EU*) is deep-seated and passionate. It's not even just members of the party - but it's certainly members of the party. I've been looking at Conservative Home now and then during this election, and the comments are often frightening - there are some token remainers, or pragmatists, but any suggestion of a complement paid toward someone like Stewart, Lidington or Hammond is met with utter fury and contempt. They're not just seen as betraying their party - and even attempting to destroy their party, since the party's continued existence is now equated with hard brexit - but as enemies of the state.

[Salmoneus]

Update: police had to intervene at Our Future Prime Minister's house, after neighbours were concerned for his girlfriend's safety (so concerned they recorded the altercation and leaked it).

Apparently Boris spilled red wine on her sofa, leading her to accuse him of being so spoilt he didn't care about money. She at one point screamed at him to "get off me!", and to "get out of my flat!"... he in turn yelled at her to stop using his laptop, after which there was immediately a loud crashing sound.

Police say both parties are now safe, police did not witness any offences occuring, and neither party is pressing charges.


This may, however, add an unusual twist to the question of who Boris makes Chancellor of the Exchequer... as the Chancellor lives next-door to the Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, apparently Boris is the only choice to restore dignity and pride to our country.

[alice]

That's not a great surprise - if you go anywhere into brexit or tory parts of the internet, the hatred of remainers (not necessarily of ALL remain voters, but certainly of anyone advocating capitulation to the EU*) is deep-seated and passionate.

And I thought the BBC's Have Your Say was bad... did you forget a footnote?

[Yiuel Raumbesrairc]

Meanwhile, apparently Boris is the only choice to restore dignity and pride to our country.

This quote is gold. Yet deeply frightening. Really, BJ represents dignity and pride of the UK. Rob Ford is then Canada's.

Ewww.

[Ares Land]

How Oxford university shaped Brexit — and Britain’s next prime minister

I'm not sure how accurate that is, as a representation of British politics and Oxford. (I feel some schadenfreude -- I'm happy to learn France isn't the only country to train its politicians in an hermetically-sealed bubble of "elite" schools)

[Raphael]

How Oxford university shaped Brexit — and Britain’s next prime minister

I'm not sure how accurate that is, as a representation of British politics and Oxford. (I feel some schadenfreude -- I'm happy to learn France isn't the only country to train its politicians in an hermetically-sealed bubble of "elite" schools)

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but my impression is that the French system is at least a bit less dominated by the traditional upper class and the systematic nepotism of the traditional upper class.

[Salmoneus]

The French system, according to my tutors at Oxford, was traditionally much more dominated by enarques than the UK system was by Oxbridge. Particularly on the elected side - we've always had a lot of highly-educated civil servants, but less so our politicians. And we've always had more diversity in terms of the number of educational establishments that counted as being adequately educated (even in ancient days, there were Trinity and the scottish universities).

The British system, incidentally, hasn't been dominated by the traditional upper class for over a century - indeed, until comparatively recently the upper classes were prohibited from sitting in the Commons altogether (although there were always occasional aristocrats who renounced their titles, like Home or Benn). The Cameron government was mostly drawn from the upper middle class, but even that was an unusual situation much remarked on at the time.


I can't read the article, because I don't subscribe to the FT (shocking, I know). But it's worth pointing out that Oxford (and I'm sure Cambridge, and I'm told other top universities) invests great resources in attempting to recruit more students from impoverished backgrounds, and from state schools more generally. They send students off on outreach programmes, they offer advice to schools, they accept students with worse grades if they think it's partly because of their background, they're now even trying to move some of their interviews to settings that will be more 'familiar' to poor people, etc etc. And of course the whole point of the interview is to help them pick out genuinely talented children from the morass of merely well-trained ones. It's also important to point out that because the teaching staff is multinational (and multiethnic), it's far less open to class prejudice than perhaps it was in the 1920s - your Italian interviewer isn't going to care whether your accent is upper class or lower class.

But the big issue is simply applications. Whether a child applies to Oxbridge is heavily influenced by their parents and by their schools, and children are often inculcated with a self-fulfilling prophecy of resentment and reverse-snobbery - "you can't go there, it's not for people like us". Private schools, on the other hand, push the option, even make it seem natural. As a result, private schools have far more people apply, and state schools in the poorest areas have the fewest people apply. It doesn't matter who the university would be willing to accept, if they don't apply in the first place.

One major thing is simply changing the onus for initiating the process. At most state schools, the student has to specifically raise the possibility of applying to Oxbridge before anyone will talk to them about it - which is daunting. At my state school, in contrast, there was a dedicated programme for encouraging us to apply. Yes, we still had to sign up for it, but we'd be told about it several times and what it entailed, given generous deadlines, reminded about them, and if the teachers thought we should apply but we hadn't signed up they'd personally encourage us to. When we signed up, the school talked us through the process and organised for us all to attend an outreach talk - the university can send people out, but if they don't have a list of prospective names to talk to, or schools won't invite them, then they can't get much done! They also organised for the parents of students, and other intelligent adults the school knew, to do interview practice with us - not just for Oxbridge, but for life generally. They weren't in any way similar to Oxbridge interviews, but just the fact that you've been in an interview setting before makes the whole thing much less intimidating. Anyway, as a result something like 20% of my year applied, and 5-10% of us got in. But when I got there, lots of other students were the only person from their school who had applied that year. It's partly about money, to be sure (mine was a middle-class school, state-funded but aided by voluntary contributions), but primarily it's about culture - I knew people who went to richer schools than mine, and just as good academically, but where nobody applied (and often they we bullied for doing so). And others who went to average schools in not-great areas, but where the school had made a point of creating a culture of educational ambition. And it's also a broader cultural issue - the big thing private school kids have that the rest of us often don't is just confidence. That's huge in the context of a daunting admissions procedure and one-on-one interviews.

And of course, all this is built on that school system. Often, universities seem to get the blame for disparities in the secondary (and primary!) education system. The fact underlying the dominance of private schools at Oxbridge is that private schools have much, much higher educational standards (on average). So the field is dramatically tilted before the universities even get to it!

----------------------------


As I say, I can't read the article. But it seems strange to me to talk about Oxford shaping Brexit - clearly, given that Oxford is fanatically remain, they didn't shape it very well!

[alice]

So now we know how Boris spends his spare time - he builds model buses out of crates and paints happy passengers on them. HE'S THE MAN!

It's interesting to notice that the national edition of today's Daily Express had the headline "TIME TO STOP THE WAR ON BORIS", but the headline of the Scottish edition instead was about David Liddington saying how Boris wasn't fit for the job.

Finally, wrt Sal's post, at my school (full disclosure: a fee-paying school for the children of expats) I was, let's say, strongly encouraged to give up my lunchtimes so that I could prepare for the Oxbridge entrance exams. I wasn't having it and said no.