Category: UK Politics

Prime Minister Sunak

You can tell it’s been a busy week when you almost miss the chance to congratulate Rishi Sunak on becoming the new Prime Minister of the UK on Monday.  Sunak is the first British Asian and the first Hindu to hold that position and I hope he does well.

I honestly thought it would be Boris and I still think there’s an above average chance that Boris Johnson will be Prime Minister again at some point in the future.  But I have a feeling it will probably come after someone like Keir Starmer takes over at Number 10 and reminds everyone of why they got fed up with Labour in the first place.

Truss Resigns, Boris Returns

I didn’t expect Liz Truss to be Prime Minister for a very long but I figured that she would at least make it to 6 months.  Instead, she quit after 44 days and brought Labour back from the dead.

For now, everyone knows Boris Johnson is going be PM again by the end of next week, right?

The King’s Speech

For all my worries about Charles III as King, he handled his first speech well.  For all the talk of Charles III’s advanced age, he’s still younger than both Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton.  He’s also a good deal more articulate than all three of them as well.

Here in the States, at lot of the usual suspects are grousing that the networks aired Charles’s speech but declined to air to Biden’s red sermon.  Considering just how bad Biden’s speech was, the White House should be happy that it wasn’t broadcast to more people.

The Queen’s Health

The news coming out of the UK about the Queen’s health is not encouraging.  You never want to get ahead of yourself with speculation when it comes to something like this but the Queen in 96 years old, she recently had COVID, and her husband died just last year.  On the BBC, the presenters have changed into black clothing, which is thought to be a part of the protocol for announcing the death of a monarch.  It could just be a precaution on their part or it could be a sign that they know more than they’re currently announcing.  Elizabeth II has ruled for 70 years.  Most Britons can’t even remember a time when Elizabeth was not the Queen.

The rumor has always been that the Queen consistently declined to abdicate because she felt that Charles would not be able to handle taking over.  Charles has a deserved reputation for being flaky, easily led, and not particularly bright.  If he wants to be well-remembered, the best thing that King Charles III could do would be to immediately abdicate for William but, after waiting 73 years to be king, I doubt Charles is going to do that.

For now, I’m keeping an eye on the BBC.

Congratulations to Liz Truss

Congratulations to Liz Truss, the UK’s new prime minister.  She’s coming to power at a difficult time for the Tories but, to her advantage, the opposition is being led by Keir Starmer, who is about as hapless as they come.  If she can hold off the General Election until 2025, she will probably survive.

Regardless of how things for for Liz Truss, I will still be stunned if Boris Johnson is not again leading the Tories by the end of the decade.  He’s younger than the average former prime minister and Boris Johnson does not have the personality necessary to accept just fading away.  As much as they may not want to admit it, I’m not sure that many everyday Britons want him to fade away.  Much like Trump, Boris will always have his admirers and the attempts to turn him into a pariah will only make them admire him more.

My favorite scenario is one that I’ve seen on Twitter and I’m not even sure is legal, i.e. Boris reclaims his American citizenship and runs for office over here.  Boris was born in New York City and had dual citizenship.  He later renounced his U.S. citizenship when he started to get serious about one day becoming Prime Minister.  Can you go back on a decision like that?  I’m not sure and I imagine Boris would have a prohibitively heavy retroactive tax bill waiting for him if he did.  It may not be realistic but, as far as scenarios go, it’s an entertaining one, much like Boris himself.

Watching British Politics In America

It’s always interesting to watch American coverage of British politics, if just because there’s always this tendency to try to find parallels between what’s happening in the two country despite the fact that the two of them have very different political systems.

Whereas only one President has ever resigned from office, it’s actually a fairly common occurrence for the Prime Minister to step down as the leader of their party.  The thing that makes Boris Johnson unique is that he stepped down more due to scandal than to anger over his policies.

In the US, saying that a government has fallen leads to images of violent revolution and military-style coups.  In most parliamentary countries, saying the government has fallen just means that the Prime Minister has resigned and now, a new one has to be selected.

Occasionally, you do hear that the U.S. would be better off if it had adopted a Parliamentary system of government, one in which the party that won a majority in the House and the Senate would be responsible for selecting the head of state.  Considering what happens to leaders who can’t lead in the parliamentary system, I’m guessing that Joe Biden is thankful that we don’t have one.

Lord Buckethead For PM

I shared this on twitter yesterday and now I’m going to share it here because it just seems like Lord Buckethead is being given the consideration he deserves.

Tom Tugendhat for PM

I suspect that either Ben Wallace or Penny Mordaunt will be the next PM but, look at the poll below, I have to give my personal endorsement to Tom Tugendhat, just because he has the perfect name for a British prime minister.  If Monty Python was writing the script, the Prime Minister would undoubtedly be named Tugendhat.

One intriguing scenario that I’ve heard has Theresa May agreeing to serve as interim Prime Minister until the next general election, with the understanding that May would stand down as leader of the party afterwards.  That would depend on how quickly the Tories want to get Boris out of Downing Street.  I doubt that would happen but scenarios like that are always an enjoyable thing to consider.

The 2023 British Parliament Constituencies Map

Unlike the U.S., redistricting is not a regular thing in the UK.  The last time that the constituency maps were redrawn was in 2005!  Since that time, the effort to redraw the maps has continually been delayed but it looks like it’s finally going to happen.  Though it’s too early to say for sure and this map is only a first draft, it looks like the Lib Dems are getting pushed to the suburbs while the Welsh Nationalists are going to get totally screwed as this map does away with half of their seats.