Ready, Steady -Rishi!

[Stavros]

As they lay out the Diwali lights outside No 10 Downing St, the new occupant and his supporters hope this is the end of chaos and uncertainty. Rishi is the 'steady hand' who understands the Markets, he has a grip on the fiscal policy of the UK which saw this country through the Pandemic and which now can tackle the problems of Debt, and Public Spending.

Hmmm....but these problems did not originate with Liz Truss, but Boris Johnson -when Rishi Sunak was Chancellor....and Billions were wasted on schemes in the Pandemic that didn't work, and lost to fraud. But a week is a long time in politics, or maybe 24 hours, and Sunak inherits a financial mess, and a party divided that may give him a lot of Rope right now, but could just as easily hang him out to dry if things go wrong.
Whatever. Some basic facts-

Sunak is from Southampton, a dreary, racist shithole on the Southern Coast with two ferries to the Isle of Wight (East Cowes, or West Cowes, depending on how desperate you are to get away).

His Indian heritage makes him the first Hindu Prime Minister of the UK, and the first from an 'Ethnic Minority' (not Benjamin Disraeli for reasons we won't go into here).

We are told this means the axis of his power base is his links between the UK, India and the US, where he made most of his money -for in addition to the other first, he is also the Youngest Prime Minister since the Napoleonic Wars (which ended in 1815), and also The Richest, his net worth being somewhere in the region of £750 million, small change compared to his wife's family -her father founded Insfosys in India. Does this make a post-Brexit Trade Deal with India a slam dunk? I doubt it.

If anything, it reinforces the 'Atlantic Obsession' the UK has with the US at the expense of Europe, Sunak being a Brexiteer, but with what passion remains to be seen.

That said, his parents were born in Kenya not India, and are part of that wave of 'East African Asians' who either emigrated to the UK in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s (1966 in the Sunak case), or were expelled in a wave of 'Black Nationalist' politics that in the UK gave the Neo-Nazi National Front a cause to champion, while at the same time a Conservative MP, Enoch Powell gave a speech in which he predicted race riots consequent on what Tucker Carlson would call 'Race Replacement'. He was expelled from the Conservative Party a few years later. And many of the 'East African Asians' have done exceptionally well in the UK. As for this 'flood' of immigrants threatening to swamp the UK, it was somewhere around 50,000.

Sunak's father was a GP, his mother a Pharmacist, and they scraped the money together to send their boy to nearby Winchester College, where, guess what?, he became 'Head Boy'. So in addition to being the richest Pm we have had, the first Asian, we have the first Wykehamist to become Prime Minister, though previous alumni have held high office -eg Geoffrey Howe was Margaret Thatcher's first Chancellor. And when he went up to Lincoln College, Oxford, guess what he took his degree in? Yup, PPE.

Anyway, it might be his moment to 'take control' and even repair the damage he has caused, and in doing so repair the Conservative Party's fortunes with the voters. Or not. Too early to say.

Two links which give a reasonable profile of our new P<-

Analysis: Can Rishi Sunak end the chaos and restore Britain's credibility? | CNN

Everything you wanted to know about Rishi Sunak but were too afraid to ask – POLITICO

[Stavros]

Or is Ready, Steady -Go! ?
When Rishi Sunak announced the Govt's intentions to amend its Net Zero policy, it was hailed as a triumph by those for whom there is no science in Climate Change that can be translated into policy without costing consumers more money than they want to spend, the alleged reason why Labour did not win Boris Johnson's seat, where local residents are opposed to the Mayor of London imposing on them an Ultra Low Emissions Zone.

Now with the announcement of major delays to Horror Story 2, or HS2 as it is conveniently called, the entire policy of 'Levelling Up' (it even has a Secretary of State to do it) which aimed to boost the economy of 'The North' looks to be, if not in shreds, in chaos.

There is a colossal failure of policy making here, and it dates back to the origins of Horror Story 2 in the Blair government when the experts were told by the politicians that their proposals would be ignored.

Horror Story 1 to some is a success -the high speed rail link from London to Paris and Brussels known as Eurostar. This is the project that could have gone east from the coast Stratford in East London (in time for the London Olympics in that location) but was rejected in favour of a line via Ashford to, first Waterloo station pending its move to a re-vamped St Pancras Station, only these days the Eurostar doesn't stop at Ashford International and it has suffered revenue and passenger decline due mostly to the Covid Pandemic. Whether or not it has been value for money is debatable, and the link below not only gives an insight into the HS1 issues, but goes further to explain why Horror Story 2, the High Speed link to Birmingham -Phase 1- and 'The North' -phases 2-200 or whatever- has been a financial and planning flop of giant proportions. Imagine the Industrial Revolution and a railway project that began in 1834 and ended in 1904....

What the link does not explore is how Brexit has helped to sever the rationale, because HS2 was to be an extension of HS1 and thus integrate the UK's rail network to Europe -a commuter would board a train in Aberdeen and get off in Paris. Factor in the politics and the finances that were never able to agree on routes, or capacity, or where the rail line in the UK should even begin or end, and you have the situation today.

Thus Sunak, attempting to take hold of a positive agenda in advance of the next election -next year though he could hang on to January or February 2025, is currently in charge of a Govt as chaotic as, well, HS2.

Sunak is a clever man, and a rich man, tout confort his natural environment. He was a success at everything until he chose Politics, at which, so far, he can only be judged a failure.

But even if he goes, nobody knows what the fate of HS2 is going to be under the next Govt. If only they had consulted the people first and asked that devastating question: What do you want? Labour had been in power too long when it started this shambles, policy shaped by Hubris not Honesty. Spain built a high speed line, over 400 km from Madrid to Seville in 5 years and in budget. It is true that rather than push growth from Madrid to Seville, it was Madrid that benefited most, just as the idea economic spurs will branch out from London to 'The North' may in fact just maintain London's economic prominence. So really the whole project of a 21st, rather than a 19th century railway model needs smart thinking.

But that would need smart people. And when it comes to politics, Rishi just ain't smart.

Interesting read
What HS2 could have learned from HS1’s 30 years of success | New Civil Engineer

Cabinet split over Sunak’s HS2 ‘gross act of vandalism’ (yahoo.com)

Even HS2’s defenders are abandoning it. Rishi Sunak, it’s time to follow suit | Simon Jenkins | The Guardian

[Stavros]

After 13 Years of Misrule, Rishi Sunak is proposing a package of reforms as if he did not need to account for the mess the country is in, not Austerity, not Brexit, not the colossal fraud that cost the taxpayer £4 billion when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Now he is proposing to reform the exam system in Education, he has scrapped the northern leg of Horror Story 2, and proposes legislation to effectively ban young people from smoking.

Tories have 'reformed' education before, yet we have an Apartheid system that is designed for the Aristocrats and the Bourgeoisie, while the rest can just hope for the best, and probably not get it.

HS2 has been exposed for what it was when first proposed by Labour -an ill-conceived project nobody wanted. What we have now is what people did want then: a regional overhaul to improve East-West travel in the north, eg from Leeds through Manchester to Liverpool. Some people somewhere are still grinning from ear to ear at the money they made from HS2. But hey, what's £35 billion these days?

As for smoking, those Libertarians in the Conservative Party must be fuming -what business is it of the Govt to decide if people can or cannot smoke? It may be useful to stop young people smoking, but once they are 21 or whatever the age is (and Parliament must decide and approve the policy), they will be free to smoke themselves to death -isn't that their choice? They already think Sunak is Brexit-Wary, so all in all what Rishi thinks is a vote-winning package may not work with the public, and further divide his deeply divided party.

Fascinating, innit?

Sunak scraps Manchester HS2 leg, plans to stop children today ever legally smoking and says A-levels to be replaced – as it happened | Politics | The Guardian

[Stavros]

This year's Diwali lights are back on, and in a light-bulb moment, the UK's Prime Minister has sacked his provocative Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, given her job to James Cleverly [sic] who is being replaced as Foreign Secretary by former Prime Minister David Cameron, who will be given a Peerage so he can represent Govt policy on foreign affairs in the House of Lords.

David Cameron is the man whose record looks like this, albeit a selection of his Greatest Hits

1- the General Election of 2015 which gave the Conservative Party its first Common majority since 1993
2- the legalization of same-sex marriage, which took place during his time as PM of the Coalition Govt 2010-2015
3- Regime change in Libya
4- the Brexit Referendum, after which he resigned, rather than take responsibility for the legislation required to implement the result.

The legacy: chaos in politics; a divided country; a divided party that has had 4 leaders since Cameron left; political debate polarised, sectarian, bitter and functionally useless.

As for Israel and the Palestinians, this is what the new Foreign Secretary said in 2010

"Cameron's criticism of Tel Aviv came when he called for Israel to relax its restrictions on Gaza. "The situation in Gaza has to change," he said. "Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."He strongly condemned Israel after the assault on the Gaza flotilla. "The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable," he said. "I have told prime minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous. "Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change.""
David Cameron: Israeli blockade has turned Gaza Strip into a 'prison camp' | David Cameron | The Guardian

For the record
David Cameron gets award for introducing same-sex marriage | David Cameron | The Guardian

MPs attack Cameron over Libya 'collapse' - BBC News

[rodinuk]

I thought his record looked more like: Austerity,Farage,Greensill?

[Stavros]

I thought his record looked more like: Austerity,Farage,Greensill?

That is a scary trio, even if one of them is now destined to eat scorpions in the jungle, and survive.

Meanwhile, Esther McVay has been appointed Minister Without Portfolio (I think this nonsense job was first created by Harold Wilson in the 1960s), which some have called either the Minister for Common Sense, or more worryingly, the 'Common Sense Tsar' -not sure which Tsar she is going to emulate -Ivan the Terrible, or Boris Godunov?

Counting the days to the next election!

From your Super, Soaraway Sun
Esther McVey appointed minister for 'common sense' by Rishi Sunak with brief to tackle scourge of wokery | The Sun

[Stavros]

I guess we really are at the fag end of a Conservative Govt, running out of ideas. Yes, the medical case against smoking is strong, but the statistics on what kills people is not that good for alcohol, or given their volume, motor vehicles -but to ban smoking?

Save the Planet -ban MEAT!

Puff, puff...and then they're gone.

Tory rightwingers criticise plans for gradual smoking ban in Commons debate – UK politics live (theguardian.com)