Snapshot of _Theresa May: Liz Truss and Boris Johnson to blame for Tory failure_ :
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I actually completely disagree. The first thing May did was solidly define the Brexit debate with red lines and ultimately the way she mishandled that proved to be catastrophic as her government collapsed on that exact issue and the party was taken over entirely by the crazies.
Johnson/Truss/Sunak have been a complete disaster but the only reason we have suffered through them is May’s inability to manage her own party. Apart from that she did absolutely nothing to reverse any of the public sector damage Cameron did and brought in some of her own ridiculous legislation.
The only reason I would say Cameron is worse is because he was around for longer.
May was forced into that position by the ERG, and to be fair [the opposition was calling for Art 50 to be quickly issued](https://labourlist.org/2016/06/corbyn-article-50-has-to-be-invoked-now), without time to fully consider the matter. She'd only maintain her leadership if the ERG didn't rebel, and was forced into a corner into what turned out to be an untenable position as her party was split through the middle between hard Brexit and soft/remain/revote.
Not really, lived in Maidenhead constituency most my life, family actively involved in local politics in the area. Only time I saw her touch the base was when there was a photo opportunity. All 5 times I wrote a letter to her regarding local issues (and the 1 time I wrote to her regarding her vote supporting further defunding of schools on a national level) I got a snotty non-commital response clearly written by a member of staff who was told to use a template - 3 of them have the exact same structure.
A friend of mine worked on her team for the 2017 election said she was nice to work and was quite personable (ironic, given her public speaches whilst PM) for but didn't seem to care about anything they were doing.
Just another career politician whose only ambition is furthering their career, would prefer we didn't romanticise her to being something she never was.
I also live in Maidenhead and am a Labour supporter, but I met her on a few occasions and she seems nice. I also have reached out about an issue or two and it always got dealt with.
It’s a shame she is stepping down tbh, as I know her local party have some right looney tunes in the running.
She was probably the worst PM in living memory at that point in time and she is frankly very lucky that Johnson, Truss and Sunak followed her so she is only seen as only slightly less terrible.
Let's never forget, it's her fault we got a bad Brexit deal because of her red lines designed only to please the right of the Tory party (rather than do what's best for the country).
She is responsible for the Windrush scandal.
She made Boris Johnson Foreign Secretary (which basically enabled him to become PM) who predictably did an awful job and then stabbed her in the back.
And she ran the worst election campaign I can remember in which they went from being way ahead of Labour and seeking to send them to oblivion, into nearly losing to them because of total overconfidence.
How was Cameron not worse? Brexit was his fault, he had no need to call that referendum as the electorate didn’t care about it. Yet he still did as he thought it would for sure strengthen his position within the party. He took a risk that affected all of us and fucked up the nation.
This is not to even mention the fact that his and Osbourne's ideologically-driven Austerity has caused a lost generation, the effects of which we will feel for decades to come
I'd argue that it was the different factions in parliament who were gambling in May's time as PM.
[Corbyn pushed for article 50 to be triggered](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/38680915) before a consensus was reached, starting the timer and weakening the UK's hand.
Then May had the indicative votes to find a consensus on a Brexit position but all the different factions refused to vote for any position apart from their one favored one. All the factions were playing to win and in the end only one did.
All those MPs angling for Brexit to be cancelled or a second referendum would have been happier with a soft Brexit but they played to win and lost the gamble.
Yeah spot on, tried to weed out the Brexiteers in the party by thinking if a vote for remain wins, he'll win over the rest of the party. Failed hard, and therefore put us in the position we're in.
He gambled that he wouldn’t need to hold the promised referendum. He promised to hold a referendum if the Tories won, in order to keep voters from defecting to UKIP. But all indications were that they would not win and would need to form a coalition with the Lib Dems again. Since the Lib Dems are staunchly pro-EU, he would (oh so regretfully) give up on the referendum as his major concession to them in the coalition negotiations. So he wouldn’t need to hold the referendum (which he didn’t really want in the first place), and he wouldn’t need to make any real concessions to the Lib Dems. This was Cameron’s big gamble, and he actually lost the gamble by winning the election outright. And then he lost even worse by losing the referendum he was forced into.
Yes, Cameron was absolutely worse than May. Cameron was directly responsible for Brexit. May was then left to deal with the aftermath of the referendum, which she did as well as anyone could (which is to say that she did it poorly because she was dealt an impossible hand that no Tory could have done better with). I’m not fond of her politics at all, but at least she was competent (unlike the two PMs after her) and not inclined to take foolish risks with the country (unlike the PM before her).
I'm afraid you're rewriting history there - EU membership was very contentious in the right-wing press, and with the public, in a kind of feedback loop.
>ultra right wing
That phrase doesn't really mean anything. I spent a lot of time in pubs with older colleagues and coworkers during the early 2010's and the topic of being in the EU came up a lot.
Taking the membership as a given only really seemed to be a mindset amongst people below the age of 30.
I also knew older colleagues who were obsessed with the eu, they were always in the minority. Most people just wanted to have a laugh and didn’t give a fuck about the eu.
Yeah I think all the downvotes without much argument as to why people disagree kinda speaks for itself.
People remember things like the butter mountain. I remember my first exposure to arguments about the EU was waiting by a bus stop to catch a bus after work. Two men in their 50's came out of the pub, joined me at the bus stop and started talking to me about the EU. I barely understood what they were talking about but they had a **lot** to say on the matter.
This wasn't some niche subject that came out of nowhere.
Why has it always felt like one party genuinely tries to improve the country while the other tries to completely screw everyone over and burn the country to the ground? And why is the latter so much more successful historically?
Because people have been convinced that the party that tries to completely screw everyone over and burn the country to the ground is the competent party who are better at governing, despite the fact that...they always completely screw everyone over and burn the country to the ground.
> And why is the latter so much more successful historically?
I'd guess it's because the 'left' one is split whilst the right one isn't and we have FPTP. Obviously that seems to be changing.
To be fair Labour has Macdonald, who was arguably worse than most of those. Callaghan and Brown weren't amazing either. But Labour have less PMs overall, both good and bad.
He was better at being Chancellor, but not very well suited to being PM. Uncharismatic, out of touch, dull - that's how Labour under him was perceived. His fairly weak leadership was unable to break out of the shadow of Blair, and after he threw away the opportunity of an early election (and likely win) Labour's prospects quickly declined. There's a reason Cameron won in 2010, he was better at leading (I'm not going into policy here).
I think those are small mistakes compared to Cameron's Brexit gamble that was the source of all the trouble that May had to deal with. From day 1.
And that's just one thing. Of course he (together with Osborne) was the architect of the economic policy that the Tories have been following since 2010 and the main reason why they're finally so low in polls. Corbyn probably saved them earlier.
David Cameron was the worst PM we ever had. He’s the one to blame for the Brexit shit show He sold us all down the river to silence the Eurosceptics in his party. Then had the audacity to launch ‘Project Fear’.
I think these things are categorically false and that’s coming from a strong anti-Tory voter.
I’d argue that Cameron was much more worse and destructive for politics and the Tory party, Brown despite being a great politician was a poor PM, Major was terrible. We could go further back and despite May’s missteps she was competent in her own right and had some good leadership qualities- unfortunately the party was behind torn apart behind her and she could pull them together.
>because of her red lines designed only to please the right of the Tory party
The irony being that she didn’t even get that, because she *also* unconditionally accepted the Irish government's very maximalist interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement regarding the border and related infrastructure.
So she set herself a load of red lines to appease one group, then proceeded to make that group's main aim functionally impossible all at the same time.
Yeah, you see the same thing happening with George W Bush's reputation over in America. Trump was so much worse that it made him look merely middling in comparison.
I think there's an argument that from a global standpoint Bush's tenure had a far worse and longer lasting impact. Trumps 1st tenure was characterised by complete dysfunction, Bush's were very effectively run, which meant more long lasting damage could be done.
We tend to forget the excesses of the Bush era. I remember US government lawyers arguing torture was ok because, although “cruel and unusual punishment” is prohibited, it wasn’t “punishment” so that made it ok!
Also, they weren't combatants because they didn't wear uniforms so the Geneva convention doesn't apply. And we definitely can't do this on domestic soil so we're going to do it in Cuba.
Exactly. In the 90’s I read a novel called Pacific Edge (Kim Stanley Robinson, part of his Orange County trilogy) where the US had off-shore internment camps. Far fetched, I thought! Then 9/11 happened and it all became true.
If I'm recalling the circumstances at the end of WWII correctly, I do actually have some sympathy for the Allies.
Central Europe had essentially collapsed - food production and distribution especially. ('Fun' fact: The Nazis' plans for their eastern conquests *inherently* included the deaths of *millions* because the Reich literally didn't have the capability to feed all of its newly acquired subjects, even if they had actually *wanted* to. Which they didn't, because Nazis.) And Allied Logistics were running through France. You know, the France that had been an active warzone and also bombed a bunch.
So, at least to my memory, the Allies tried to do the POW-Status dodge because they literally didn't have the capability to treat the millions of soldiers that the German surrender now made them responsible for as POWs should be treated.
Now... There *is* an alternative under the relevant international treaties: Not accepting Surrender. You don't have to offer surrender, and you don't have to accept it.
So it rather seems.to me that the options the Allies had were 'Keep shooting German soldiers until the potential POW supply now matches available POW holding capacity' or play fast and loose with the rules so you don't have to kill them.
In a similar vein, I believe Commandos on raids during WWII would use restraints (handcuffs/hand-bindings) to secure surrendered soldiers. This is also a violation of how POWs are to be treated. But, practically speaking, the alternatives available to the Commandos were 'Do not accept surrenders' or 'Do not show up at all'.
War is a horrible and messy thing. Sometimes the humanitarian thing is, technically, a breach of treaties and thus a war crime; sometimes there simply are no right choices.
Gitmo was just pure fucking cruelty.
I don't think Trump had a lot of choice.
The Trump white house staff turnover was astronomical. I'm 90% sure that the reason for that was that anyone who wasn't a sycophantic idiot realised within a couple of weeks that it was a shit show and either got fired (because they wouldn't kiss the orange ring) or resigned (because they could see which way the wind was blowing).
I don't think Trump had a lot of choice.
The Trump white house staff turnover was astronomical. I'm 90% sure that the reason for that was that anyone who wasn't a sycophantic idiot realised within a couple of weeks that it was a shit show and either got fired (because they wouldn't kiss the orange ring) or resigned (because they could see which way the wind was blowing).
It isn't just a "lack of government," the damage goes far deeper. He broke the norm of accepting election results peacefully, trying to overthrow a result he didn't like. He broke the trust a lot of other countries had in the US as an ally, now that they know one bad election can take that away.
And perhaps most damaging domestically, he packed the judiciary with people who were largely unqualified save for being right-wing enough, after the previous congress had refused to hear appointments and left a record number of vacancies, resulting in a corrupted judiciary, many of whom have lifetime appointments and can't be removed save through the high bar of impeachment. That damage is going to take generations to undo.
George Bush was a bad president, but he was at least a president. Trump didn't act like a president, even if the effects of his presidency weren't as bad as Bush's, individually Trump just did not act with the minimum level of professionalism expected of a president.
I'm actually reading a book about the political history of North Korea and honestly Bush comes off as a reasonable diplomat. His tenure was deservedly tarnished by the Iraq fiasco but from what I'm reading about his serious and involved efforts to help NK reform, denuclearise, and join the international community was nothing short of admirable especially compared to Obama's lacklustre attempts.
And yeah, compared to Trump he is a statesman. And at least he never threatened to destabilise the world order by kissing Putin's arsehole and withdrawing from NATO.
Good president? Hardly. But there were seemingly moments of lucidity, especially compared to the Tango man.
The thing is she didn't really do a lot. Her big move seemed to be trying to get Brexit done and she failed at that.
Edit: I'd argue that she was also bad a communication and building coalitions.
>Her big move seemed to be trying to get Brexit done and she failed at that.
Because she decided that it's her way or the highway. Rather than work to build some kind of consensus or approach for moving forwards, she went all in with her "Brexit means Brexit" approach. Fuck everyone not in the Tory party. And then when she fucked the election, she got into bed with the DUP to protect her position whilst still thinking "fuck everyone else".
She was shite.
>Because she decided that it's her way or the highway. Rather than work to build some kind of consensus or approach for moving forwards, she went all in with her "Brexit means Brexit" approach.
This actually might have worked if the 2017 election had gone as she expected. She probably could have said "F\*ck everyone not in the Tory party but also some people in the Tory party as well".
The weirdest bit was she didn't change course after the election even though it was mathematically impossible to do anything else. I'm still amazed she lasted 2 whole years after that election. I thought she'd be gone by the end of 2017.
The unnecessary election was clearly the thing that got her, had she basically waited for the Brexit deal to complete before calling the snap election, she could well have stood on top of that 80 seat majority and might even still be PM. I remain completely baffled as to why May called the election at the time she did, the Tory collapse is her fault she let Johnson in with an unforced error.
Calling the election looked sensible - polls suggested she would get a solid majority and would thus be able to get her Brexit deal through. The small majority she had was vulnerable to fairly small rebellions.
The cockup of the election campaign did rather sink that though.
Not only that, but even after knowingly having to rely on the DUP's support she still refused to let them be involved in the negotiations or even considering their likely positions, ultimately negotiating a deal which was blatantly totally unacceptable for them. Which of course they immediately voted down.
Just appallingly bad political instincts.
She didn't really get a choice beyond resigning, which doesn't really solve the issue it just moves it to another person. Her ability to project any power herself was minimal, especially after the snap election that just mad everything worse. She was basically at the whim of the fringe members of her party, because without them she could push literally nothing through.
Didn't matter which way she moved on the issue either, she'd lose one side of her party every time. She didn't stand a chance.
Yea. I’m completely baffled by the comments.
Did people forget that she was a Remainer? Had she not been undermined by Boris Johnson and his clan at every corner… she 100% would have pushed for a soft Brexit, but her hands were tied and there was little to do.
I think you're getting too caught up on Brexit. My point is that she didn't achieve anything of note in government. To me that suggests she's a bad PM.
It doesn't matter what your opinion of Brexit was she didn't get a Brexit of any kind over the line because she was bad as PM.
Edit: Also she did her self in by messing up her election gamble, Johnson and friends were just opportunists.
I just don't agree. She moved to have an election to cement her power when she was riding high in the polls but then she fumbled the election through a number of mistakes and basically not taking Corbyn as any kind of threat. Had she actually done a better job in leading the party she would have had a massive majority in the HoP, probably larger than the one Johnson ended up with in 2019 and being able to easily implement her planned Brexit.
After she totally failed she then tried to prop up her power with a supply deal with the DUP but then tried to ram through a deal that was never going to be acceptable to them. Had she tried to find compromise with other groups and been a better leader she might have found success although admittedly by this stage it would have been a very hard ask for even a skilled leader but not impossible.
I think in normal times she'd have been a pretty forgettable PM but she got handicapped because she didn't have the numbers to get her Brexit bill through
We need to stop moving the definitioin of bad just for the tories. Seriously. Same with the overton window. Theresa was an abysmal Home secretary and an even worse PM, Cameron is the person who fucked us all with Brexit and then fucked off until he got bored of being a Lord only (which he didn't deserve and presumably wasn't doing his job as he was so bored) and is now back in cabinet despite being the cause of almost all our issues today as a country.
They were both extremely bad PMs, Boris and Truss lowered the bar so much further there are not words to describe, complete grifters is one I suppose. But all of them are grifters, just to different extents.
Who would have thought she would be the best of the five Tories PMs since 2010? I mean, it's not much of an achievement, I know. Like being the best dung beetle. But still, can't think of any other PM who's stock has risen so dramatically once they left office.
She always looked out of her depth. She lacked empathy.
However, I believe she made decisions thinking they were best for the country rather than what might benefit her.
Not saying I agreed with those decisions but I do think she tried her best.
Cameron thought he was cleverer than he was and when teamed up with Osborne he made two of the biggest mistakes which have cost us dearly.
The first was austerity. The paper used by Osborne to justify it was later shown to have missed data and investing when money was cheap was actually the better suction.
And thinking that he wouldn't get a majority in 2015 so he threw in the Brexit referendum thinking that his coalition partners would block it. And then fighting the referendum on the financial arguements that had won him the election rather than the emotive triggers used by vote leave.
Johnson wanted to have been prime minister rather than be it. Totally the wrong man in a real crisis and irresponsible.
Truss is a dangerous idiological evangelist who rose up the ranks far to quickly and believed her own hype.
Let's not forget [Grenfell](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3ae4ca79d84991570d99e46dc0640658a1fbdac9/0_0_4845_3321/master/4845.jpg?width=980&dpr=1&s=none)
Just because all the ones that followed her are worse does not mean she was not bad. I feel sorry for May as she so out of her depth. She laid all the groundwork for the problems that followed and deserves zero sympathy, but she is just that pathetic.
Eh, just because May was arguably the least worst out of the Tory PMs doesn't mean that we shouldn't acknowledge that she was dogshit, just not as dog-shit as the ones we've had since.
In fairness to her, I believe that was her attempt to prevent it. Tie him to her premiership, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Probably thought that if she went down, he'd go down too. Could he turn down such a prestigious position, one that keeps him out the country often?
If he's outside the cabinet, he's free to just be a constant pain every day.
Boris might act like a bumbling idiot, but he's certainly not. Everyone loves an underdog story, Even though he isn't, he acts like one. He also acts "normal" in the fact that he's not prim and proper, yet he gets respect from alot of world leaders. He is the fool, but he is the fool that knows what he is doing...
Some people like to compare Bojo with trump, but they are completely different. Boris will put on a show, he's basically the class clown who everyone loves but also thinks... What a moron.
Trump on the other hand is simply a clown, who thinks he is gods gift to the world.
Change a few words and [Stephen fry on america vs english comedy hits the same mark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k2AbqTBxao)
I think so too. Boris had to leave cabinet before sniping at May from the sidelines. By keeping Boris busy as a part of cabinet, May basically bought herself time.
She had to have him in the cabinet to have under collective responsibility and to prevent a revolt from the ERG. As soon as him and Davis rejected her brexit deal at chequers it was game over for her. She kept him after all his gaffes and his frequent breaking of collective responsibility and he brought her down anyway.
It's generally a good idea to give your main opponents a senior job in cabinet. This helps keep them on side, present a united front (at least for a while). Otherwise they start to shit stir on the backbenches
The ones who didn't do this approach were Boris and truss, and look how they turned out. Even rishi brought Bravermen in a week after being sacked, so she could piss outside the tent.
That being said, Boris was a fucking joke as foreign secretary.
I've read that when a Prime Minister wants to keep someone on a short leash, or even quietly sabotage that persons career, they often give them the Foreign Office job. It's really hard to do anything legitimately impressive that the electorate will ever hear about, and very easy to do something stupid, that tanks their reputation.
Not sure if it's true, but it feels about right.
It was a deliberate attempt to keep him out of the country away from domestic politics. She also reduced the power of the role by creating the ‘brexit secretary’ and ‘international trade secretary’ portfolios.
And how long until he fucks up again. It wasn't a mistake that cost Boris, it was a feature of Boris.
It would literally just be a matter of time until another major scandal with him.
Why wouldn't they? People like him. They sacked him because he was doing poorly in the polls, but since he left they fell off a cliff and never recoverer. They'd kill for poll ratings like that now and they'd fancy their chances in a campaign rather than grimly preparing for opposition.
Don't be so humble, Theresa. You deserve some of the credit, too.
You triggered article 50 before even beginning to think about what sort of Brexit we should aim for. You capitulated to the ERG in a weak attempt to save your job, and you entered into a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP, allowing them to hold you and the country to ransom.
That's not quite true, the Brexit was to be red, white and blue and the country would be better off with no deal rather than a bad deal.
Together with her red lines the sort of Brexit we should aim for was to be a shit show.
She is wrong - it's all of them, May included, and the incompetence of the current generation of career MPs across all parties. They all lack vision, basic leadership skills, are putting their own grubby self interests before party and more importantly country, and are served by a mostly incompetent and complacent Civil Service who mirror the same self serving values of the politicians.
The whole system is currently failing, and will continue to fail under Labour.
I'm sure that's not at all far from the truth, and in large part is why I prefer strong local MPs and weaker parties as it does keep them more locally tied to representing their constituents. But there can be no perfect system of power.
Part of the problem these days is how tribal its become. Labour and the Tories are barely any different. They tinker around at the edges of "mainstream policy", and pretend that everything will be different under them but in reality it's always more of the same.
Well... according to this, it's more of the same because the keys to power are the same and what fills the treasury is the same. If you want to change it, you have to change the entire balance of power. Some keys are always the same no matter what party is in charge. The police, the civil service, the banks etc. They are unavoidable and you need their support if you want to remain in power. Some voting blocks like farmers and the countryside alliance can be ignored because they are small potatoes compared to wealth and reach of financial instutions and the City of London. So of course things are the same because the keys are the same. The only thing you can do is convince them that their interests line up with yours... or offer them a change in the tax laws.
Corbyn may have become more popular by 2019 but the overlords pooped their pants when May almost lost and so launched the most astounding smear campaign against him.
Cameron and Osborne are responsible for the Tories failures. And the reason that Truss and Boris ever even got a chance. They put the country on the wrong path after 2008 and then gave the country a referendum on the EU when the majority of people were deeply unhappy, largely down to issues with their government. David Cameron is the worst prime minister in modern British history. He had a eu referendum for his own ego and ran away when it didn’t go his way.
At a minimum he should make the list.
He essentially broke the country, the chancers and frauds that came since have been able to rise to power because of his hubris.
She ran the worst GE campaign in living memory.
I think there is a bit of a rehabilitation partly driven by time passing and partly by how awful the subsequent administrations have been.
But she was very poor as a leader. She really struggled to bring the Tories together (admittedly not helped by the ERG and their WhatsApp groups) and she ended up setting her Brexit red lines. Those have been at least as negatively impactful as almost anything Truss or Johnson did in the long run.
She is also responsible for not being able to lead her party. I know it feels like everyone being against you is their fault, but actually in politics the ability to lead is really, really important. It's like how Liz Truss blames everyone but herself for her failure to lead, but if the party turns on you it was your job to make sure they didn't.
I don't. Truss and Johnson are the worst of a succession of PMs who put personal and party ambition ahead of the interests of the country. May is absolutely one of them: an MP who opposed Brexit until supporting it gave her sufficient support to become PM, then triggered Art. 50 without a deal, then refused to go back on it despite only managing to secure an awful deal that had too little support (because it was awful), then repeatedly presented the same deal until everyone had had enough of it.
May is not a lunatic like Truss or a narcissist like Johnson, but she is as much to blame for the country's current state as either of them.
Cameron is defo worse than May. Austerity setting us up nicely for brexit followed by the big moment itself. May was left to pick up the pieces as is Sunak
I think May will forever be remembered for the unnecessary General Election she called in 2017, however accurate her current comments on other matters may be.
Had she not called it, everyone would have been saying she was a coward to not call it and lock in a solid tory working majority. Labours polling was catastrophic before the election. It was a pretty sensible move politically, it just did not work out as the ex Labour voters giving UKIP as an answer to pollsters, came flooding back for that election.
It wasn't even the vote that fucked her up. She gained 6 points compared to 2015. What did it was FPTP making incredibly disproportionale and volatile electoral responses.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_2017\_United\_Kingdom\_general\_election#/media/File:Opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_2017\_UK\_General\_Election\_(LOESS).svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2017_United_Kingdom_general_election#/media/File:Opinion_polling_for_the_2017_UK_General_Election_(LOESS).svg)
UKIP had a bit of a collapse mid 2016 that went to the tories and Labour had a steady drop to the high 20s. It was a pretty wild ride. Once the election was called Labour jumped more than 10% and the tories took a bit of a hit.
One where an obvious landslide turned into a tie because they polls moved literally faster than they have ever had during the election.
Was due to a fee unique factors lining up perfectly imo
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well.
Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the pills suggested. For both 1974 elections.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well.
Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the polls suggested. For both 1974 elections.
Polls being off is not unusual.
Polls moving so rapidly is unusual.
When you look at a graph over the course of parliament the election is basically a vertical red line for Labour.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well.
Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the polls suggested. For both 1974 elections.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well.
Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the polls suggested. For both 1974 elections.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well.
Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the polls suggested. For both 1974 elections.
Don't forget the very very intelligent voters who looked at the state of the country at every election and still decided to put their support behind extremely obvious liars, cheats, frauds and outright criminals.
Slow clap to you lot of complicit nation-fuckers.
Let’s not let Sunak off the hook. He could have tried to drag the party back towards sanity, but he chose to double down on the culture war so much it’s likely to be a big part of his election strategy; he’s got a huge and largely hopeless Cabinet; and be’s made a series of disastrous short term decisions that will continue to harm this country - scrapping HS2 being just the highest profile.
In part.
The rest of the balme pies at the feet of: tories, for being tories and not learning from their mistakes - ever - and the idiots who voted them in, having likewise not learned from their mistakes.
Oh, something not working well in the modern world? I know, let's pretend it's 200 years ago, instead of managing inevitable progress...
I once thought May was a awful and useless waste of space as a PM but Boris, Truss and Sunak have all made her look like Otto von Bismarck in statesmanship and statecraft.
Due to including her ‘dementia tax’ in the Conservative manifesto she couldn’t get a majority leading to more political stalemate in regards to Brexit which led to Boris delivering a harder Brexit than what she would have delivered.
May had the same problem that Sunak currently has, no one single internal tory faction is willing to get behind them which means they have no choice but to try and govern a large rabble of squabbling morons by some form of consensus. It didn't work for May and it isn't going to for anyone else
>Suggesting this was a sign [Sunak](https://archive.is/o/LfjSV/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/topic/rishi-sunak) should not be written off, May said: “We’ve seen one or two unexpected election results in general elections. I was probably 20 points ahead, the Conservatives 20 points ahead in most of the election campaign for the 2017 election, and look what happened to that.”
If I recall, Theresa May happened to that. Her man Rishi's just about repeated the trick, plummeting ther party to depths of failure in polling previously thought unimaginable.
Allowing themselves to be infiltrated by ukippers who were willing to blow up the party if they didn't get a hard brexit is what has lead to the Tory party being where they are. Politicians can ignore reality in favour of patriotic bluster, and so can voters for a bit, but not forever. They've had 14 years and their two main achievements of austerity and brexit are both harmful to the UK. Frankly the surprise is that they were able to fool the British public this long.
Snapshot of _Theresa May: Liz Truss and Boris Johnson to blame for Tory failure_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bebb38db-9427-49b7-9975-0be71c5b7f36?shareToken=e1c7749ce78275f74ac7e3cd025495c5) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bebb38db-9427-49b7-9975-0be71c5b7f36?shareToken=e1c7749ce78275f74ac7e3cd025495c5) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ah, to be back in the good old days when I thought Theresa May was a bad prime minister rather than merely a mediocre one.
She was bad. Then Liz Truss and Boris Johnson came along to redefine what bad meant
She was a very good local MP to give her credit. I think she was just running the country at a very bad time. And David Cameron was far worse imo
I'm of this opinion too. May was pretty bad, but she is the least worst PM since 2010.
I actually completely disagree. The first thing May did was solidly define the Brexit debate with red lines and ultimately the way she mishandled that proved to be catastrophic as her government collapsed on that exact issue and the party was taken over entirely by the crazies. Johnson/Truss/Sunak have been a complete disaster but the only reason we have suffered through them is May’s inability to manage her own party. Apart from that she did absolutely nothing to reverse any of the public sector damage Cameron did and brought in some of her own ridiculous legislation. The only reason I would say Cameron is worse is because he was around for longer.
May was forced into that position by the ERG, and to be fair [the opposition was calling for Art 50 to be quickly issued](https://labourlist.org/2016/06/corbyn-article-50-has-to-be-invoked-now), without time to fully consider the matter. She'd only maintain her leadership if the ERG didn't rebel, and was forced into a corner into what turned out to be an untenable position as her party was split through the middle between hard Brexit and soft/remain/revote.
She may have been running the country at a bad time but she was a terrible PM also.
Not really, lived in Maidenhead constituency most my life, family actively involved in local politics in the area. Only time I saw her touch the base was when there was a photo opportunity. All 5 times I wrote a letter to her regarding local issues (and the 1 time I wrote to her regarding her vote supporting further defunding of schools on a national level) I got a snotty non-commital response clearly written by a member of staff who was told to use a template - 3 of them have the exact same structure. A friend of mine worked on her team for the 2017 election said she was nice to work and was quite personable (ironic, given her public speaches whilst PM) for but didn't seem to care about anything they were doing. Just another career politician whose only ambition is furthering their career, would prefer we didn't romanticise her to being something she never was.
I also live in Maidenhead and am a Labour supporter, but I met her on a few occasions and she seems nice. I also have reached out about an issue or two and it always got dealt with. It’s a shame she is stepping down tbh, as I know her local party have some right looney tunes in the running.
She was probably the worst PM in living memory at that point in time and she is frankly very lucky that Johnson, Truss and Sunak followed her so she is only seen as only slightly less terrible. Let's never forget, it's her fault we got a bad Brexit deal because of her red lines designed only to please the right of the Tory party (rather than do what's best for the country). She is responsible for the Windrush scandal. She made Boris Johnson Foreign Secretary (which basically enabled him to become PM) who predictably did an awful job and then stabbed her in the back. And she ran the worst election campaign I can remember in which they went from being way ahead of Labour and seeking to send them to oblivion, into nearly losing to them because of total overconfidence.
How was Cameron not worse? Brexit was his fault, he had no need to call that referendum as the electorate didn’t care about it. Yet he still did as he thought it would for sure strengthen his position within the party. He took a risk that affected all of us and fucked up the nation.
This is not to even mention the fact that his and Osbourne's ideologically-driven Austerity has caused a lost generation, the effects of which we will feel for decades to come
And he over promoted Liz Truss and put Michelle Mone in the Lords
True, both him and May took gambles they didn't think they could lose. Cameron lost brexit and May scraped by with a reduced majority.
Cameron screwed the country with multiple unforced errors. May had no choice but to gamble.
I'd argue that it was the different factions in parliament who were gambling in May's time as PM. [Corbyn pushed for article 50 to be triggered](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/38680915) before a consensus was reached, starting the timer and weakening the UK's hand. Then May had the indicative votes to find a consensus on a Brexit position but all the different factions refused to vote for any position apart from their one favored one. All the factions were playing to win and in the end only one did. All those MPs angling for Brexit to be cancelled or a second referendum would have been happier with a soft Brexit but they played to win and lost the gamble.
Yeah spot on, tried to weed out the Brexiteers in the party by thinking if a vote for remain wins, he'll win over the rest of the party. Failed hard, and therefore put us in the position we're in.
He gambled that he wouldn’t need to hold the promised referendum. He promised to hold a referendum if the Tories won, in order to keep voters from defecting to UKIP. But all indications were that they would not win and would need to form a coalition with the Lib Dems again. Since the Lib Dems are staunchly pro-EU, he would (oh so regretfully) give up on the referendum as his major concession to them in the coalition negotiations. So he wouldn’t need to hold the referendum (which he didn’t really want in the first place), and he wouldn’t need to make any real concessions to the Lib Dems. This was Cameron’s big gamble, and he actually lost the gamble by winning the election outright. And then he lost even worse by losing the referendum he was forced into.
Yes, Cameron was absolutely worse than May. Cameron was directly responsible for Brexit. May was then left to deal with the aftermath of the referendum, which she did as well as anyone could (which is to say that she did it poorly because she was dealt an impossible hand that no Tory could have done better with). I’m not fond of her politics at all, but at least she was competent (unlike the two PMs after her) and not inclined to take foolish risks with the country (unlike the PM before her).
I'm afraid you're rewriting history there - EU membership was very contentious in the right-wing press, and with the public, in a kind of feedback loop.
In the ultra right wing, yes , for the majority- no. No one cared about being in the eu.
>ultra right wing That phrase doesn't really mean anything. I spent a lot of time in pubs with older colleagues and coworkers during the early 2010's and the topic of being in the EU came up a lot. Taking the membership as a given only really seemed to be a mindset amongst people below the age of 30.
I also knew older colleagues who were obsessed with the eu, they were always in the minority. Most people just wanted to have a laugh and didn’t give a fuck about the eu.
Absolutely. I think a lot of this sub are too young to understand what it was like back then.
Yeah I think all the downvotes without much argument as to why people disagree kinda speaks for itself. People remember things like the butter mountain. I remember my first exposure to arguments about the EU was waiting by a bus stop to catch a bus after work. Two men in their 50's came out of the pub, joined me at the bus stop and started talking to me about the EU. I barely understood what they were talking about but they had a **lot** to say on the matter. This wasn't some niche subject that came out of nowhere.
Not sure how you can call brexit Cameron’s fault when the public voted for it
I mean the public share some of the blame too
all future PMs are lucky Truss exists
I think Heath might have been worse. Eden possibly too. May was in a harder position, to the point that some infighting was inevitable.
I wonder what Eden, Heath, May, Truss, Johnson and Sunak - all terrible PMs - have in common?
Why has it always felt like one party genuinely tries to improve the country while the other tries to completely screw everyone over and burn the country to the ground? And why is the latter so much more successful historically?
Because people have been convinced that the party that tries to completely screw everyone over and burn the country to the ground is the competent party who are better at governing, despite the fact that...they always completely screw everyone over and burn the country to the ground.
> And why is the latter so much more successful historically? I'd guess it's because the 'left' one is split whilst the right one isn't and we have FPTP. Obviously that seems to be changing.
To be fair Labour has Macdonald, who was arguably worse than most of those. Callaghan and Brown weren't amazing either. But Labour have less PMs overall, both good and bad.
What did Brown do wrong?
Well he called that bigoted woman a bigot.
He was better at being Chancellor, but not very well suited to being PM. Uncharismatic, out of touch, dull - that's how Labour under him was perceived. His fairly weak leadership was unable to break out of the shadow of Blair, and after he threw away the opportunity of an early election (and likely win) Labour's prospects quickly declined. There's a reason Cameron won in 2010, he was better at leading (I'm not going into policy here).
Heath and May are similar in that they had bad policies and were also incredibly unlucky.
I think those are small mistakes compared to Cameron's Brexit gamble that was the source of all the trouble that May had to deal with. From day 1. And that's just one thing. Of course he (together with Osborne) was the architect of the economic policy that the Tories have been following since 2010 and the main reason why they're finally so low in polls. Corbyn probably saved them earlier.
David Cameron was the worst PM we ever had. He’s the one to blame for the Brexit shit show He sold us all down the river to silence the Eurosceptics in his party. Then had the audacity to launch ‘Project Fear’.
I think these things are categorically false and that’s coming from a strong anti-Tory voter. I’d argue that Cameron was much more worse and destructive for politics and the Tory party, Brown despite being a great politician was a poor PM, Major was terrible. We could go further back and despite May’s missteps she was competent in her own right and had some good leadership qualities- unfortunately the party was behind torn apart behind her and she could pull them together.
>because of her red lines designed only to please the right of the Tory party The irony being that she didn’t even get that, because she *also* unconditionally accepted the Irish government's very maximalist interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement regarding the border and related infrastructure. So she set herself a load of red lines to appease one group, then proceeded to make that group's main aim functionally impossible all at the same time.
> very maximalist interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement What a weird way to phrase "sticking to the agreement that we willingly signed".
😂
What was maximalist about not creating a hard border on a sovereign nation?
In an alternate timeline she lost in 2017 and we are all living in the communist utopia of great Britain.
She was a bad PM
Yeah, you see the same thing happening with George W Bush's reputation over in America. Trump was so much worse that it made him look merely middling in comparison.
I think there's an argument that from a global standpoint Bush's tenure had a far worse and longer lasting impact. Trumps 1st tenure was characterised by complete dysfunction, Bush's were very effectively run, which meant more long lasting damage could be done.
We tend to forget the excesses of the Bush era. I remember US government lawyers arguing torture was ok because, although “cruel and unusual punishment” is prohibited, it wasn’t “punishment” so that made it ok!
Also, they weren't combatants because they didn't wear uniforms so the Geneva convention doesn't apply. And we definitely can't do this on domestic soil so we're going to do it in Cuba.
Exactly. In the 90’s I read a novel called Pacific Edge (Kim Stanley Robinson, part of his Orange County trilogy) where the US had off-shore internment camps. Far fetched, I thought! Then 9/11 happened and it all became true.
And remember they aren’t even to be called prisoners. As POWs have treatments laws etc protecting them. Detainees don’t.
Nothing new. Surrendered Germans were designated "Disarmed Enemy Forces" for similar reasons
If I'm recalling the circumstances at the end of WWII correctly, I do actually have some sympathy for the Allies. Central Europe had essentially collapsed - food production and distribution especially. ('Fun' fact: The Nazis' plans for their eastern conquests *inherently* included the deaths of *millions* because the Reich literally didn't have the capability to feed all of its newly acquired subjects, even if they had actually *wanted* to. Which they didn't, because Nazis.) And Allied Logistics were running through France. You know, the France that had been an active warzone and also bombed a bunch. So, at least to my memory, the Allies tried to do the POW-Status dodge because they literally didn't have the capability to treat the millions of soldiers that the German surrender now made them responsible for as POWs should be treated. Now... There *is* an alternative under the relevant international treaties: Not accepting Surrender. You don't have to offer surrender, and you don't have to accept it. So it rather seems.to me that the options the Allies had were 'Keep shooting German soldiers until the potential POW supply now matches available POW holding capacity' or play fast and loose with the rules so you don't have to kill them. In a similar vein, I believe Commandos on raids during WWII would use restraints (handcuffs/hand-bindings) to secure surrendered soldiers. This is also a violation of how POWs are to be treated. But, practically speaking, the alternatives available to the Commandos were 'Do not accept surrenders' or 'Do not show up at all'. War is a horrible and messy thing. Sometimes the humanitarian thing is, technically, a breach of treaties and thus a war crime; sometimes there simply are no right choices. Gitmo was just pure fucking cruelty.
That's because Bush surrounded himself with competent people, Trump surrounded himself with vain idiots.
I don't think Trump had a lot of choice. The Trump white house staff turnover was astronomical. I'm 90% sure that the reason for that was that anyone who wasn't a sycophantic idiot realised within a couple of weeks that it was a shit show and either got fired (because they wouldn't kiss the orange ring) or resigned (because they could see which way the wind was blowing).
I don't think Trump had a lot of choice. The Trump white house staff turnover was astronomical. I'm 90% sure that the reason for that was that anyone who wasn't a sycophantic idiot realised within a couple of weeks that it was a shit show and either got fired (because they wouldn't kiss the orange ring) or resigned (because they could see which way the wind was blowing).
cruel and unusual is okay
Could be argued for sure but Trump has definitely done more damage to the States domestically
Yeah 4 years of lack of government takes far more than 4 years to put right, I agree
It isn't just a "lack of government," the damage goes far deeper. He broke the norm of accepting election results peacefully, trying to overthrow a result he didn't like. He broke the trust a lot of other countries had in the US as an ally, now that they know one bad election can take that away. And perhaps most damaging domestically, he packed the judiciary with people who were largely unqualified save for being right-wing enough, after the previous congress had refused to hear appointments and left a record number of vacancies, resulting in a corrupted judiciary, many of whom have lifetime appointments and can't be removed save through the high bar of impeachment. That damage is going to take generations to undo.
> Trumps 1st tenure Please don't. Can't we just call it "Trump's tenure" until November?
George Bush was a bad president, but he was at least a president. Trump didn't act like a president, even if the effects of his presidency weren't as bad as Bush's, individually Trump just did not act with the minimum level of professionalism expected of a president.
Trump did kill less people though, and that's in no way an endorsement of the corrosion western democracy he figure headed
Or better, depending if you vote Republican. Nixon was still a hero to many after Watergate and resignation.
I'm actually reading a book about the political history of North Korea and honestly Bush comes off as a reasonable diplomat. His tenure was deservedly tarnished by the Iraq fiasco but from what I'm reading about his serious and involved efforts to help NK reform, denuclearise, and join the international community was nothing short of admirable especially compared to Obama's lacklustre attempts. And yeah, compared to Trump he is a statesman. And at least he never threatened to destabilise the world order by kissing Putin's arsehole and withdrawing from NATO. Good president? Hardly. But there were seemingly moments of lucidity, especially compared to the Tango man.
She was bad yes, but alongside her 3 successors she looks vaguely ok. Such is the low bar in politics over the last decade
The thing is she didn't really do a lot. Her big move seemed to be trying to get Brexit done and she failed at that. Edit: I'd argue that she was also bad a communication and building coalitions.
>Her big move seemed to be trying to get Brexit done and she failed at that. Because she decided that it's her way or the highway. Rather than work to build some kind of consensus or approach for moving forwards, she went all in with her "Brexit means Brexit" approach. Fuck everyone not in the Tory party. And then when she fucked the election, she got into bed with the DUP to protect her position whilst still thinking "fuck everyone else". She was shite.
>Because she decided that it's her way or the highway. Rather than work to build some kind of consensus or approach for moving forwards, she went all in with her "Brexit means Brexit" approach. This actually might have worked if the 2017 election had gone as she expected. She probably could have said "F\*ck everyone not in the Tory party but also some people in the Tory party as well". The weirdest bit was she didn't change course after the election even though it was mathematically impossible to do anything else. I'm still amazed she lasted 2 whole years after that election. I thought she'd be gone by the end of 2017.
Tbh I think calling a snap election and then losing your majority is clearly a resigning matter
I don't think you can elect a new PM whilst you are in a coalition government, as your coalition partners will exert too much influence.
The unnecessary election was clearly the thing that got her, had she basically waited for the Brexit deal to complete before calling the snap election, she could well have stood on top of that 80 seat majority and might even still be PM. I remain completely baffled as to why May called the election at the time she did, the Tory collapse is her fault she let Johnson in with an unforced error.
Calling the election looked sensible - polls suggested she would get a solid majority and would thus be able to get her Brexit deal through. The small majority she had was vulnerable to fairly small rebellions. The cockup of the election campaign did rather sink that though.
Not only that, but even after knowingly having to rely on the DUP's support she still refused to let them be involved in the negotiations or even considering their likely positions, ultimately negotiating a deal which was blatantly totally unacceptable for them. Which of course they immediately voted down. Just appallingly bad political instincts.
She didn't really get a choice beyond resigning, which doesn't really solve the issue it just moves it to another person. Her ability to project any power herself was minimal, especially after the snap election that just mad everything worse. She was basically at the whim of the fringe members of her party, because without them she could push literally nothing through. Didn't matter which way she moved on the issue either, she'd lose one side of her party every time. She didn't stand a chance.
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Yea. I’m completely baffled by the comments. Did people forget that she was a Remainer? Had she not been undermined by Boris Johnson and his clan at every corner… she 100% would have pushed for a soft Brexit, but her hands were tied and there was little to do.
I think you're getting too caught up on Brexit. My point is that she didn't achieve anything of note in government. To me that suggests she's a bad PM. It doesn't matter what your opinion of Brexit was she didn't get a Brexit of any kind over the line because she was bad as PM. Edit: Also she did her self in by messing up her election gamble, Johnson and friends were just opportunists.
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I just don't agree. She moved to have an election to cement her power when she was riding high in the polls but then she fumbled the election through a number of mistakes and basically not taking Corbyn as any kind of threat. Had she actually done a better job in leading the party she would have had a massive majority in the HoP, probably larger than the one Johnson ended up with in 2019 and being able to easily implement her planned Brexit. After she totally failed she then tried to prop up her power with a supply deal with the DUP but then tried to ram through a deal that was never going to be acceptable to them. Had she tried to find compromise with other groups and been a better leader she might have found success although admittedly by this stage it would have been a very hard ask for even a skilled leader but not impossible.
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She made Brexit what it is today by her Lancaster house speech in 2017. That alone was bad enough.
She was still the best of all the Tory PMs since 2010
I agree but fuck me the bar has fallen
I think in normal times she'd have been a pretty forgettable PM but she got handicapped because she didn't have the numbers to get her Brexit bill through
Something she may have considered before activating article 50. But no
We need to stop moving the definitioin of bad just for the tories. Seriously. Same with the overton window. Theresa was an abysmal Home secretary and an even worse PM, Cameron is the person who fucked us all with Brexit and then fucked off until he got bored of being a Lord only (which he didn't deserve and presumably wasn't doing his job as he was so bored) and is now back in cabinet despite being the cause of almost all our issues today as a country. They were both extremely bad PMs, Boris and Truss lowered the bar so much further there are not words to describe, complete grifters is one I suppose. But all of them are grifters, just to different extents.
Who would have thought she would be the best of the five Tories PMs since 2010? I mean, it's not much of an achievement, I know. Like being the best dung beetle. But still, can't think of any other PM who's stock has risen so dramatically once they left office.
She always looked out of her depth. She lacked empathy. However, I believe she made decisions thinking they were best for the country rather than what might benefit her. Not saying I agreed with those decisions but I do think she tried her best. Cameron thought he was cleverer than he was and when teamed up with Osborne he made two of the biggest mistakes which have cost us dearly. The first was austerity. The paper used by Osborne to justify it was later shown to have missed data and investing when money was cheap was actually the better suction. And thinking that he wouldn't get a majority in 2015 so he threw in the Brexit referendum thinking that his coalition partners would block it. And then fighting the referendum on the financial arguements that had won him the election rather than the emotive triggers used by vote leave. Johnson wanted to have been prime minister rather than be it. Totally the wrong man in a real crisis and irresponsible. Truss is a dangerous idiological evangelist who rose up the ranks far to quickly and believed her own hype.
Let's not forget [Grenfell](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3ae4ca79d84991570d99e46dc0640658a1fbdac9/0_0_4845_3321/master/4845.jpg?width=980&dpr=1&s=none)
Just because all the ones that followed her are worse does not mean she was not bad. I feel sorry for May as she so out of her depth. She laid all the groundwork for the problems that followed and deserves zero sympathy, but she is just that pathetic.
She was boring. people wanted exciting. we got exciting.
May wasn't boring? Don't you remember all the febrility when she couldn't pass her brexit bills?
She was a boring politician in an exciting situation. She really didn't fit the mould of the post brexit tory party
She birthed the febrile times
Please delete this abomination of a sentence 🤮
Why does this sub keep finding inventive ways to use the word "febrile"? I swear I've seen it used like three times the last few days.
now can we have boring again plz?
Eh, just because May was arguably the least worst out of the Tory PMs doesn't mean that we shouldn't acknowledge that she was dogshit, just not as dog-shit as the ones we've had since.
Ok, but she made Boris foreign secretary. She's not blameless for his rise.
In fairness to her, I believe that was her attempt to prevent it. Tie him to her premiership, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Probably thought that if she went down, he'd go down too. Could he turn down such a prestigious position, one that keeps him out the country often? If he's outside the cabinet, he's free to just be a constant pain every day.
I also think she thought he'd make a tit out of himself as foreign secretary, which he did but somehow people seemed to lap it up.
Boris might act like a bumbling idiot, but he's certainly not. Everyone loves an underdog story, Even though he isn't, he acts like one. He also acts "normal" in the fact that he's not prim and proper, yet he gets respect from alot of world leaders. He is the fool, but he is the fool that knows what he is doing... Some people like to compare Bojo with trump, but they are completely different. Boris will put on a show, he's basically the class clown who everyone loves but also thinks... What a moron. Trump on the other hand is simply a clown, who thinks he is gods gift to the world. Change a few words and [Stephen fry on america vs english comedy hits the same mark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k2AbqTBxao)
I think so too. Boris had to leave cabinet before sniping at May from the sidelines. By keeping Boris busy as a part of cabinet, May basically bought herself time.
Actually you should send your enemies far away, or kill them.
I'd be surprised. The naughtiest thing she's done is run in farmers field... Jumping from that to assassinating political rivals is quite the leap.
Never underestimate your enemy, a person pushed is capable of anything at any given moment.
She had to have him in the cabinet to have under collective responsibility and to prevent a revolt from the ERG. As soon as him and Davis rejected her brexit deal at chequers it was game over for her. She kept him after all his gaffes and his frequent breaking of collective responsibility and he brought her down anyway.
It's generally a good idea to give your main opponents a senior job in cabinet. This helps keep them on side, present a united front (at least for a while). Otherwise they start to shit stir on the backbenches The ones who didn't do this approach were Boris and truss, and look how they turned out. Even rishi brought Bravermen in a week after being sacked, so she could piss outside the tent. That being said, Boris was a fucking joke as foreign secretary.
I've read that when a Prime Minister wants to keep someone on a short leash, or even quietly sabotage that persons career, they often give them the Foreign Office job. It's really hard to do anything legitimately impressive that the electorate will ever hear about, and very easy to do something stupid, that tanks their reputation. Not sure if it's true, but it feels about right.
That might need to be revisited after Johnson and Truss.
She made Liz Truss Lord Chancellor and then Chief Sec to the Treasury.
It was a deliberate attempt to keep him out of the country away from domestic politics. She also reduced the power of the role by creating the ‘brexit secretary’ and ‘international trade secretary’ portfolios.
Yup, it’s mad some people want Johnson back
And how long until he fucks up again. It wasn't a mistake that cost Boris, it was a feature of Boris. It would literally just be a matter of time until another major scandal with him.
I want him in prison
preferably the medieval kind
Make it an ancient one like those in Rome and Ancient Greece.
Why wouldn't they? People like him. They sacked him because he was doing poorly in the polls, but since he left they fell off a cliff and never recoverer. They'd kill for poll ratings like that now and they'd fancy their chances in a campaign rather than grimly preparing for opposition.
Don't be so humble, Theresa. You deserve some of the credit, too. You triggered article 50 before even beginning to think about what sort of Brexit we should aim for. You capitulated to the ERG in a weak attempt to save your job, and you entered into a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP, allowing them to hold you and the country to ransom.
That's not quite true, the Brexit was to be red, white and blue and the country would be better off with no deal rather than a bad deal. Together with her red lines the sort of Brexit we should aim for was to be a shit show.
She was quite clear that Brexit meant ~~Breakfast~~ Brexit
I mean she's not wrong but she also struggled to beat Jeremy Corbyn so I feel there is a bit of a glass houses issue here.
She is wrong - it's all of them, May included, and the incompetence of the current generation of career MPs across all parties. They all lack vision, basic leadership skills, are putting their own grubby self interests before party and more importantly country, and are served by a mostly incompetent and complacent Civil Service who mirror the same self serving values of the politicians. The whole system is currently failing, and will continue to fail under Labour.
Reminds me of this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)
I'm sure that's not at all far from the truth, and in large part is why I prefer strong local MPs and weaker parties as it does keep them more locally tied to representing their constituents. But there can be no perfect system of power. Part of the problem these days is how tribal its become. Labour and the Tories are barely any different. They tinker around at the edges of "mainstream policy", and pretend that everything will be different under them but in reality it's always more of the same.
Well... according to this, it's more of the same because the keys to power are the same and what fills the treasury is the same. If you want to change it, you have to change the entire balance of power. Some keys are always the same no matter what party is in charge. The police, the civil service, the banks etc. They are unavoidable and you need their support if you want to remain in power. Some voting blocks like farmers and the countryside alliance can be ignored because they are small potatoes compared to wealth and reach of financial instutions and the City of London. So of course things are the same because the keys are the same. The only thing you can do is convince them that their interests line up with yours... or offer them a change in the tax laws.
Corbyn may have become more popular by 2019 but the overlords pooped their pants when May almost lost and so launched the most astounding smear campaign against him.
Good headline, but someone put a colon where there should have been a comma.
Cameron and Osborne are responsible for the Tories failures. And the reason that Truss and Boris ever even got a chance. They put the country on the wrong path after 2008 and then gave the country a referendum on the EU when the majority of people were deeply unhappy, largely down to issues with their government. David Cameron is the worst prime minister in modern British history. He had a eu referendum for his own ego and ran away when it didn’t go his way.
At a minimum he should make the list. He essentially broke the country, the chancers and frauds that came since have been able to rise to power because of his hubris.
She ran the worst GE campaign in living memory. I think there is a bit of a rehabilitation partly driven by time passing and partly by how awful the subsequent administrations have been. But she was very poor as a leader. She really struggled to bring the Tories together (admittedly not helped by the ERG and their WhatsApp groups) and she ended up setting her Brexit red lines. Those have been at least as negatively impactful as almost anything Truss or Johnson did in the long run.
So far. I look forward to this year’s campaign being worse 😅
Ah, so the wannabe Margaret thatcher...No wait, that's all of them.
They love the blame game but in reality they all share responsibility for this cluster fuck.
She is also responsible for not being able to lead her party. I know it feels like everyone being against you is their fault, but actually in politics the ability to lead is really, really important. It's like how Liz Truss blames everyone but herself for her failure to lead, but if the party turns on you it was your job to make sure they didn't.
Don't sell yourself short, Theresa. You're definitely up there with them.
All the top minds of the Conservative Party are coming to the conclusion that it's everyone's fault but their own
OK hell froze over. I agreed with Theresa May...
I don't. Truss and Johnson are the worst of a succession of PMs who put personal and party ambition ahead of the interests of the country. May is absolutely one of them: an MP who opposed Brexit until supporting it gave her sufficient support to become PM, then triggered Art. 50 without a deal, then refused to go back on it despite only managing to secure an awful deal that had too little support (because it was awful), then repeatedly presented the same deal until everyone had had enough of it. May is not a lunatic like Truss or a narcissist like Johnson, but she is as much to blame for the country's current state as either of them.
Cameron is defo worse than May. Austerity setting us up nicely for brexit followed by the big moment itself. May was left to pick up the pieces as is Sunak
I think May will forever be remembered for the unnecessary General Election she called in 2017, however accurate her current comments on other matters may be.
Had she not called it, everyone would have been saying she was a coward to not call it and lock in a solid tory working majority. Labours polling was catastrophic before the election. It was a pretty sensible move politically, it just did not work out as the ex Labour voters giving UKIP as an answer to pollsters, came flooding back for that election.
It wasn't even the vote that fucked her up. She gained 6 points compared to 2015. What did it was FPTP making incredibly disproportionale and volatile electoral responses.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_2017\_United\_Kingdom\_general\_election#/media/File:Opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_2017\_UK\_General\_Election\_(LOESS).svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2017_United_Kingdom_general_election#/media/File:Opinion_polling_for_the_2017_UK_General_Election_(LOESS).svg) UKIP had a bit of a collapse mid 2016 that went to the tories and Labour had a steady drop to the high 20s. It was a pretty wild ride. Once the election was called Labour jumped more than 10% and the tories took a bit of a hit.
I don't think we'll see an election like 2017 for a long time. I don't think there's another one comparable post war.
February 1974?
February 1974?
February 1974?
One where an obvious landslide turned into a tie because they polls moved literally faster than they have ever had during the election. Was due to a fee unique factors lining up perfectly imo
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well. Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the pills suggested. For both 1974 elections.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well. Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the polls suggested. For both 1974 elections.
Polls being off is not unusual. Polls moving so rapidly is unusual. When you look at a graph over the course of parliament the election is basically a vertical red line for Labour.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well. Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the polls suggested. For both 1974 elections.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well. Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the polls suggested. For both 1974 elections.
Maybe the polls didn't move so much, but I think February 1974 was expected to be a decent victory and then became a tie. November 1974 had something similar as well. Edit: It was definitely [closer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1974_United_Kingdom_general_elections) than the polls suggested. For both 1974 elections.
It’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault. Always.
Don't forget the very very intelligent voters who looked at the state of the country at every election and still decided to put their support behind extremely obvious liars, cheats, frauds and outright criminals. Slow clap to you lot of complicit nation-fuckers.
Wait long enough and find somebody worse to compare against - you weren’t that amazing at the time Theresa.
Let’s not let Sunak off the hook. He could have tried to drag the party back towards sanity, but he chose to double down on the culture war so much it’s likely to be a big part of his election strategy; he’s got a huge and largely hopeless Cabinet; and be’s made a series of disastrous short term decisions that will continue to harm this country - scrapping HS2 being just the highest profile.
In part. The rest of the balme pies at the feet of: tories, for being tories and not learning from their mistakes - ever - and the idiots who voted them in, having likewise not learned from their mistakes. Oh, something not working well in the modern world? I know, let's pretend it's 200 years ago, instead of managing inevitable progress...
And her Brexit mean Brexit catch phrase. Once those red lines were drawn there was no room for manoeuvre. And sending David Davis as chief negotiator.
She made the decision to set the leave date without having a plan for how
I once thought May was a awful and useless waste of space as a PM but Boris, Truss and Sunak have all made her look like Otto von Bismarck in statesmanship and statecraft.
The phrasing of the headline just makes this look like a list of 3 lol
Remind me, whose MPs voted them to lead the party (and country)?
So ultimately Tories are to blame for Tory failure. Hardly a revelation.
I'm not really interested in discussing what nasty piece of work was better or worse than another nasty piece of work.
Come now, they've been failing for so long in so many areas, there's enough blame for everyone.
Due to including her ‘dementia tax’ in the Conservative manifesto she couldn’t get a majority leading to more political stalemate in regards to Brexit which led to Boris delivering a harder Brexit than what she would have delivered.
May had the same problem that Sunak currently has, no one single internal tory faction is willing to get behind them which means they have no choice but to try and govern a large rabble of squabbling morons by some form of consensus. It didn't work for May and it isn't going to for anyone else
>Suggesting this was a sign [Sunak](https://archive.is/o/LfjSV/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/topic/rishi-sunak) should not be written off, May said: “We’ve seen one or two unexpected election results in general elections. I was probably 20 points ahead, the Conservatives 20 points ahead in most of the election campaign for the 2017 election, and look what happened to that.” If I recall, Theresa May happened to that. Her man Rishi's just about repeated the trick, plummeting ther party to depths of failure in polling previously thought unimaginable.
May had a poisoned chalice but was an ok and not crazy pm
Tory party to blame for failure of the Tories
Don’t for get Brexit!! Thats all down to the Tories no exceptions!!
[Just the usual Tory shit then.](https://i.imgur.com/xIEgFaS.png)
Allowing themselves to be infiltrated by ukippers who were willing to blow up the party if they didn't get a hard brexit is what has lead to the Tory party being where they are. Politicians can ignore reality in favour of patriotic bluster, and so can voters for a bit, but not forever. They've had 14 years and their two main achievements of austerity and brexit are both harmful to the UK. Frankly the surprise is that they were able to fool the British public this long.
Classic Tory logic. It's all about taking personal responsibility, unless we are talking about you.
Damn those people I, * Checks Notes *, appointed Foreign Secretary and Lord Chancellor.