Did anyone else find Sunak extra weird in PMQs?

I think the point is that our perceptions are being filtered through the media and by limiting our contact time to say twice daily online ‘news’ mental health is improved! Also critical faculties….

ronib

Casdon no it’s more likely that he will be staying on in London.

Is it? How do you know?

Casdon I don’t think that we are in tune with middle England. Having an eye opening conversation with my two friends made me realise that there are other views around. Middle England is able to think Sunak has failings but is the best of a bad bunch.
I am still struggling with Labour’s proposal for a Sovereign Wealth Fund!!

does he mean people are too poor to get divorced?

I don’t know what you mean ronib, sorry. I just wondered how you were so sure that Sunak would stay in London after the election. He’s a global citizen as was said earlier, the world is his oyster in my opinion

Casdon I am not so sure that he won’t be reelected - shock horror- having communicated with someone other than Gnet…

ronib

Casdon I am not so sure that he won’t be reelected - shock horror- having communicated with someone other than Gnet…

Was that someone Rishi Sunak ronib, because no pollsters agree with you? Even if the Tories win the next election he won’t be the leader, a pound to a penny.

ronib

Casdon I am not so sure that he won’t be reelected - shock horror- having communicated with someone other than Gnet…

But they are two people ronib. Hardly any sort of representative sample. Add your own bias and I don't see anything reliable, trustworthy or tested in your post.

Fair comment but have the polls asked Middle England ? Older retired professionals who will vote because it’s their duty etc? In fact when I gave YouGov the wrong answers, I wasn’t ever asked again! Gave me a rest….

The local elections in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire would suggest otherwise though. Both seats were safe Conservative seats, now Labour.

ronib

Fair comment but have the polls asked Middle England ? Older retired professionals who will vote because it’s their duty etc? In fact when I gave YouGov the wrong answers, I wasn’t ever asked again! Gave me a rest….

Well yes, the polls have asked Middle England ronib, because that’s how polls work. They select different age brackets and demographics deliberately.
I’m not sure if you’re inferring that YouGov is biased - if you think that, how do you explain that a cofounder was Nadim Zahawi, and it’s a worldwide system. What would be the point if it wasn’t representative?

ronib

Fair comment but have the polls asked Middle England ? Older retired professionals who will vote because it’s their duty etc? In fact when I gave YouGov the wrong answers, I wasn’t ever asked again! Gave me a rest….

There are more polls than just YouGove, ronib and they all point to a large lead for Labour. You surely know how polls work?

Yes MaizieD I know how polls work….. yes of course 2 people are in no way representative but I was surprised by the strength of feeling in their arguments. Something that a poll won’t give.

The polling companies will have asked ronib but, as I am sure you are aware, FPTP is a complex system to analyse so you need to understand what sort of analysis you are being offered.

When Rishi Sunak invited national leaders to attend his Bletchley Park AI summit last month, just one showed up: Giorgia Meloni.

Sunak is this weekend returning the favor, attending a political festival organized by the far-right Italian premier — who is increasingly becoming the British Conservative prime minister’s political soulmate.

Sunak’s spokesperson told journalists this week that the pair — regularly pictured laughing and joking together at meetings — “obviously get on.” He put their close relationship down to the fact they were elected at “at similar time.

But ties between the two prime ministers run much deeper, with common intellectual inspiration, shared policy goals, and concrete political and diplomatic reasons for them to stick close.

www.politico.eu/article/rushi-sunak-giorgia-meloni-love-united-kingdom-italy-prime-minister/

Sunak has said that he and Meloni are "the only two centre right leaders in Europe"

Centre Right??? Is that the same as fascist?

It looks as if it may be now varian.

After WW2 UK industry powered ahead because most of the competition had been destroyed and by the time of Macmillan we began to enjoy some benefits of that. Problem is that the foreigners recovered and became productive and competitive. It's fine to blame the Tories for messing up over the past 13 years but the UK's economic problems are longstanding and no-one seems to have a solution to our lack of productivity which is leading to economic decline and a lack of tax to fund even essential services. I think Keynes, if he were alive, might have given us useful advice. He was not tied to even his own theories because he said when the facts changed, he changed his opinions.

The problem for the UK after WWII was that it gradually lost its source of cheap raw materials and captive market as the Empire was gradually broken up.

I have also seen it suggested that because the higher echelons of our class system had a distaste for 'trade' the children of those who became wealthy through manufacturing and trade imbibed this 'distaste' as they were sent to Public School and Oxbridge and mixed with the class they were aspiring to join. So the drive to create wealth through industry became moribund.

Of course, we also spent much of the US aid money in endeavouring to hold onto the Empire, instead of investing it in industry and infrastructure as European countries did.

Our economic problems also stem from the abandonment of Keynesian informed economic policy in favour of the anti-state theories of Hayek and Friedman, the 'neoliberal' economic theories which still hold sway today. Thatcherism, and 'austerity from 2010, placed too much confidence in 'markets' and thought it right to destroy public services, which, in actual fact, made a significant contribution to GDP and growing equality.

I suspect that today Keynes would say what he said 70+ years ago. In a recession the government should spend, to keep money flowing around the economy and to maintain growth.

Starter needs to look at the USA and the sort of interventionist economics espoused by Keynes. But Biden has also mixed this with supply side economics, and Starmer would do no better to do this quickly by ensuring frictionless trade with the EU. That would be the easiest way to achieve economic growth alongside investment.

We are currently staying with sister and BiL. Sunak is their MP and they do say he is an excellent constituency MP.

MaizieD it’s interesting to read about trade/public school/Oxbridge and class aspirations. However thinking about now on the cusp of 2024, seems to me that a new billionaire class exists which is based on trade/goods. So Amazon, Microsoft, other computer businesses, Lord Sugar, Branson etc - however globally based and probably not paying much tax in the UK?
Also I think the State is spending still but is it spending wisely?

Also I think the State is spending still but is it spending wisely?

The state is certainly still spending, but it isn't investing in anything that appears to be benefitting the UK.

It has been cutting back on public sector spending with resultant inefficiencies, loss of jobs and loss of business for the multitude of private enterprises which not only supplied the state sector with the goods and services it needs but also sold goods and services to public sector employees.

Witzend

We are currently staying with sister and BiL. Sunak is their MP and they do say he is an excellent constituency MP.

Are you in North Yorkshire for Christmas? I hope you enjoy it.

I imagine it's quite useful to have the PM as your MP. I doubt if he will stay on if they loose but I wonder what they will think of him as an ordinary MP, without the leavers of power at his disposal.

If we are looking at anecdotal evidence, of the friends I have seen in the run-up to Christmas, three previously "always voted Conservative" ones have said the don't think they can vote Conservative in the next election.

As I understand it, one will not vote, another will not vote Conservative but cannot vote Labour so will vote for the minor party that most appeals to her at the time (possibly enabling Labour in that constituency). The third will almost certainly vote Labour.

Richmond is safe Tory seat anyway. I don't know if Rishi will stay if the Conservatives lose the election. The problem is who would replace him as party leader? There doesn't seem to be a huge number of suitable candidates. Most of the possibles have already stuck their foot in something, somewhere.

I don't think any seat is going to be safe Glorianny. The share of the vote the Conservatives got in the General Election in Selby and Ainsty, also in North Yorkshire, was greater that that in Richmond.

I know you cannot directly compare a by-election with a GE but neither can you call all but very few if any seats at this point. It is very noticeable that there are a lot of life-long Conservatives in this area, who are, at the very least, not willing to vote Conservative at this point in time.

This little advertisement by the Conservatives cheers the fact that money designated for Network North is being used to improve roads in London.

www.youtube.com/shorts/uRmqZQOEhqQ

The general arrogance of these Conservatives isn't just an insult to those who didn't vote for them, they seem very happy insulting those who did. Maybe those no longer prepared to vote are in the part of Richmond removed in the constituency changes - maybe they were not.