In the interest of fairness I can’t tear Russia’s idiotic decisions to shreds and not call out the British Conservative Party for using the United Kingdom as a stage on which to play out their reality-TV “drama”. They spent a year bickering about kicking Boris Johnson out, then they finally did, then they spent three months choosing a new one who spent a month and a half in office before being forced to resign by her own party. If they don’t announce that a new general election will be held they might as well change the British national anthem to Einzug der Gladiatoren.
You can’t drag the whole country down with you as you play Survivor. Well, I mean you obviously can do that but I mean that you at least have to give the electorate an opportunity to vote on whether they accept your attempt to change the form of government from constitutional monarchy to Benny Hill slapstick. Because you didn’t run on a platform of Benny Hill slapstick in the previous election! You gave no indication whatsoever that you were intending to treat the positions of prime minister or chancellor of the Exchequer as a game of three card Monte.
The thing is, even if a very competent government with ample support from it’s own party ran the country they’d still be hard pressed to improve matters. Because the UK has been racking up massive debt for a long time and so it can’t borrow lots of money to introduce reforms that are necessary for the country to improve its ability to pay back the money it owes. That’s why you don’t rack up quite so much debt! It leaves you with a lot fewer choices.
If they cut public spending on things that don’t generate income, focus heavily on education and expand both IT and traditional industry domestically they might be able to crawl up the hill they are currently sliding down. The services they cut may well be things that improve public health, standard of living and international prestige but right now the UK is fighting to stave off bankruptcy. When you reach that point you need to play hard ball. Again, this is why you don’t decay for years and years and years and just say “This is fine.“
2022-10-22
So far, the BBC estimates that Mr Sunak has the most MPs declaring their support, with 63, compared to 38 for Mr Johnson and 17 for Ms Mordaunt.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-63338171
I often think about what Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation said about people launching a new MMO:
So the obvious question when you’re proposing a new MMORPG is “ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE?! World of Warcraft picks bigger rivals than you out of its teeth every morning! “
https://youtu.be/FRXb1Lr4G3c?t=107
Someone needs to get the Tories together and run all their ideas through Yahtzee or some equivalent before saying anything publicly. I thought the worst case scenario here was that they elected someone new and then fired them after six hours. It never occurred to me that bringing back Boris Johnson would even be part of someone’s fever-dreams. You spent a year publicly debating his position as party leader before finally booting him out! That was fifteen weeks ago! I’m not surprised that he has his supporters within the party but I had thought some modicum of common sense would keep people from discussing this where other people could hear them…
2022-10-25
So Boris Johnson bowed out and Rishi Sunak won. Credit to Boris Johnson for seeing the absurdity in him vying for the leadership a few months after being kicked out. Now begins the real work, as opposed to Tory drama and picking fights with Britain’s creditors! I suspect Mr Sunak will go down in infamy. He will have to bring reality to the British people and I don’t think they will like that. He will fix the country and will be blamed for all the hardship that his predecessors made an inevitability. A sin-eater.