He gambled on running for the Tory leadership, he gambled on the Coalition, he gambled on the Scottish referendum, and finally he got his party its first Parliamentary majority in 18 years. And then Young Dave gambled on an EU referendum, and he lost. Moreover, it wasn’t just him who lost, nor the Tories. One look at the financial markets this morning tells you all you need to know about that: Britain has lost big time.
JOLLY POOR SHEOW!
Losses were at their worst point greater than those in the 1987 crash. Sterling has been marked down significantly against both US Dollar and Euro (that’s the Euro that voters were told was in crisis and facing the end times). As markets across the continent have also suffered huge losses, any prospect of other EU member stats giving Britain an easy time on negotiating trade agreements has gone out the window.
Only one person is responsible for this, and that person is Cameron. The former PR man had worked his charm so well in previous years, sold his vision for the Tories and for Britain, persuaded the right people to put their crosses in the box to get him into power and keep him there. Polling well ahead of his party, he was the successful salesman, the smooth political operator. But this time he fouled up.
The Tories who led the Out campaign - Bozza, “Oiky” Gove, Iain Duncan Cough, and the rest of the motley assemblage - wanted him to stay in Downing Street. Dead right they did. Not one of them can hold a candle to his abilities. But they will be denied their ultimate hostage to fortune, as Cameron has come straight out of Number 10 this morning and said he is going to surrender the seals of office as soon as a successor can be chosen.
Who might succeed him? The sensible candidates - Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid - all backed the Remain campaign. The Tories, and - whisper it quietly - the country, are left with the wackos: Bozza, Gove, or worse. What chance would either of them have of uniting the Tories and holding that slim majority together? More likely is that whoever succeeds Cameron will already be on the slippery slope to a snap General Election.
Already the Scots are talking of a second referendum on independence. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin are making mischief, talking about voting on a united Ireland (Northern Ireland returned a majority for Remain). Firms across the country, financial, manufacturing, transport, are looking to relocate across the Channel. Stock market losses mean Britain has ceased to be the world’s 5th largest economy (replaced by, er, France).
And our only prospect is having the country run by two over-promoted and over-sold journalists. Bozza was a disaster as Mayor of London. Gove was an equally bad Education secretary. It is now clear that Cameron has been the only one holding the Tories together, but that is about to end, as the pilot is dropped and the ship of state sails into unknown waters with two self-appointed “experts” on the bridge.
The salesman is well and truly dead. The lunatics are about to take over the asylum.
17 comments:
Sobering to think that as bad as Cameron was, his successor will be worse.
I wonder how much of it was a protest vote gone wrong. I can imagine millions waking up this morning and thinking "What the f**K was I thinking yesterday?"
Corbyn will be next. His approach to all this has been pitiful.
Having to rely on notes and reading them (very badly) the day before the vote was shameful.
The true economic ramifications of this won't be felt for 3-5 years, however I do not feel it will be long before our TV screens have images of Polish shops with abusive graffiti scrawled over the shutters letting the owners know in no uncertain terms that they are no longer welcome.
I really hope we aren't starting on a road we first took circa 85 years ago, but with every far right politician in Europe now baying for a referendum the wheels could come off very quickly.
@ Arnold:
Strange feeling on the walk in to work today, like Leicester was undergoing a collective hangover. Very much like the day after we won the league. But you know, there are good hangovers ("Wow! That was a wild and crazy night!") and there are bad ones ("Oh good God, what did I do?")? This felt like a bad one.
Corbyn has to go, his performance in this crisis has been lamentable.
Interesting reading latest BBC reports, EU rules say that once Article 50 to leave is invoked the process should be done in 2 years. Vote Leave is calling for a delay in invoking it so that we can stay in longer, they want to wait until 2020. You couldn't make it up!
Even that capitalist banker (appropriately named) Juncker got it right:
Out is out.
Everyone who voted Leave must now face the consequences of their action. Which, given the system we live under, will be severe. They can't say they weren't warned.
Britain of course will survive and get on with life. But for the immediate future we're going to be nothing but a tiny group of islands off the coast of Europe, the future looking as bleak as the weather.
It will mean too the beginning of the end of the British Union. After that......
Of course its all Corbyn's fault. We wouldn't have had a referendum if it hadn't been for him. He's spent years fighting for it. And he should then have jumped in with both feet to help Dave out, appearing alongside him at all meetings, just like Ed did in the Scottish referendum.
Labour could then have been presented as Tory-lite, with the prospects of repeating the subsequent election results of Labour and Liberal in Scotland - equal on one seat with Conservative. At least Wilson didn't make that mistake.
Corbyn clearly didn't see the need for a Referendum. For four months Labour haven't been able to consider party policy (true, neither has the Government) or attack any of the more stupid Tory policies - Cameron and Osborne were supporting the same side. What does he do - make fun of Gove and Johnson. He can't say "Vote my way and I will return control to the workers, reduce taxes or ensure free Healthcare and education!" It isn't that sort of election.
He reads speeches badly - so what. The writer has clearly never had a real academic lecture. I want a leader who thinks, not one who talks brilliantly and says nothing. However I may still get Johnson!
Sorry - I'm still sad
Ross
@ Anonymous (Ross):
I would happily settle for Johnson as PM — just make it be Alan Johnson.
Of course it's Jeremy's fault.
Let's forget the far right tories, UKIP, the BNP, New Labour, LibDems, Murdoch-Rothermere jobsworths and all the other mainstream media puppets.
Yes, Jeremy's an easy target. He caused it all. After all, he called referendum didn't he?......Er, he did, didn't he?......
You can't go blaming Corbyn for the Lumpenproletariat's ill considered and ill informed tantrums. They're as much a product of over three decades of disengagement, alienation and perceived disenfranchisement by a class of politician (cough* New Labour) only ever wiling to engage through stilted speeches, rare and highly selective patronage (i.e. only when the public's views coincide with their pre-existing ideology) and the occasional photo opportunity. Coupled with the press and mainstream political classes willingness to allow (or in many instances positively champion) the scapegoating of supranational institutions, economic migrants and refugees, the unemployed, the disabled, underfunded local government and under-resourced public servants for all and sundry AND an unwillingness to actually champion their causes, explaining their reasoning as to why there is no alternative and educate a woefully ill informed public in matters political and economic, or failing that compromise their sainted neo-liberal doctrine here it's makes sense to (e.g. actually seriously discuss rail renationalisation/mutualisation instead of coughing uncomfortably and glaring blankly into the distance). Hunkering down in their respective bunkers making decisions with civil servants, wonks and SpAds with little consideration (much less consultation) paid to the interests of ordinary folk they'd left to our rancorous and dishonest fourth estate and a smattering of fringe demagogues to 'inform' was the work of decades of New Labour and New Tory spivs. All too happy of the stupefaction and the radicalisation of their electorate, when it suited their ends. Contrary to that tendency, Jeremy Corbyn's campaign strategy seemed far more respectful and sustainable, it might just take a while for it to get through some particularly thick heads and cut through the din of raving arse holes and opportunist liberals-in-social-democrat-clothing upon whom our sensationalising and deeply ideological media seem to lavish so much of their attention on. It also might require the pig ignorant masses to do their it; maybe read something other than the sports pages and the backs of not noodle cups.
How dare anyone be so trivial as to blame Corbyn when all he has done is speak the truth in the face of blustering Tory liars and idiots. Reject politicians like him and you will get more empty masks like Cameron and Johnson (& Blair ever since the Iraq disaster) and more governments that despise the poor and worship glamour.
Remember the big coup to get him elected?
Although he was rated for being decent he was a fish out of water in comparison to other leaders.
If you think long and hard, you will realise what has happened.
There are those who plan ahead and know.
Just another reason they should be kept at arms length.
The war criminal and mass murderer Blair recently described Jeremy Corbyn as "a dangerous experiment."
You bet he is......dangerous to blood soaked killers like Blair, that is. And his New Labour accomplices.
But he's not one millionth as dangerous or lethal as RAF bombing of civilians, missiles or drone murders. Ask the families of victims in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, to say little of "special forces" and "advisers" in Ukraine.
Big coup; you mean thousands of party members, affiliates and supporters vitung for him IN SPITE of the cynical, hateful and panicked campaign of character assasination wages by tge Labour establishment (the very ones who have spend decades aliebating Labours base, who now blame Jeremy Corbyn for it all to justify their peevish dustain for party and democracy)? You mean that?! FFS, the man won a convincing if not convincing majority of both the affilliates and supporters in only the FIRST ROUND and was just shy of a majority amongst paid up members which would surely have tipped over into a majority in the second. He won, fare and square (and no, there was never any credible proof of entryism. I myself was 'purged' as a supporter for no discernable reason. I life long lefty, habitual Labour voter and now Labour Party member). He also still enjoys the support of the majority of members support and had overseen an extraordinary expansion of party membership. A coup indeed. Pfft! 😠
If by fish out of water you mean he has more in common with an academic speaker than a thouroughly greased and over rehearsed used car salesman, your right. I'd rather have him than any of the vapid Blair clones (liberals who've found themselves in the wrong party after decades if ego driven drift to the right) currently on offer. They're unconvincing to the discerning eye and will invariable fall into the same dark habits of theur spiritual forebares. Show me a credible left or centre left candidate with polish AND descerbable principals beyond a love of self and I MIGHT not abandon a post Corbyn Labour (on the proviso that (s)he doesn't rise to power on a ladder of daggers strategically placed in Corbyn, McDonald and the Labour membership's backs). My guess us you can't; or that you're just deluded enough to think that Miliband Mk1 and Chukka A'Paddy are just the men.
The rest of your post is too cryptic/ambigious to comment on.
This is just another episode in many. These arrogant Labour parliamentarians have been nipping and sniping at Corbyn ever since he was elected. They cease upon any opportunity to damage ir topple him, often forgetting their own records and role in setting the stage for some of 'Corbyn's' perceived failings (namely their own rancerous behaviour, tremendous disloyalty and decades of alienating and failing the public in ofgice and opposition). They justify this by ejaculating that they were elected in their own right (few were - that red rosette, their safe seat, the army if activists and wods of Labour cash has more to fo with it) and justify their appalling behaviour by syating that they have a duty to put their constituentd ahead of party and Labour members wishes. This is however a figleaf, a convenient excuse to air their considerable egos and mount a revanchist coup and subsequent purge/silencing of left wing voices in a left wing larty. Such us a recipe for a Labour party governed by distant ideologues whose motives are predominantly selfish (hence their long treck rightwards - left wing ideals serve the young, but the measure of a leftist is how firmly to hold on to these values as they grow more affluent and wealthy), a party whose positions are dominated developed from focus groups and XFactor politics*, with no moral or ideological goals beyond power itself. A party on a leash, lead around by an ill informed and sadly reactionary public which is itself on a leash, lead around by the handful of wealthy and sinuster media magnates who dominate discourse in this country.
* I am a fan of direct democracy, but it's outcomes are very much dependent on a electorate educated enough, motivated enough and humble enough to exercise their votes in an informed many. Too maby of lost sight of this prerequisite (if they ever had a grip of); is ill informed dolts vote on the basis if pure, visceral emotion and utter ignorance (which is my direct experience of the great majority of 'apolitical' Brexit voters over the past few months) and absent the humility to consider a principled abstention, the results are bount to be perverse and self destructive. Short significant reforms in the electoral system and our constitution, the cultures of both Fleetstreet and Westminster, and wider society's approach to a general sense of political disenfranchisement and discontent before any sort of meaningful and beneficial democracy, direct or otherwise, can take form in this wretched country. The working and middle classes need to make better strides in educating and informing THESELVES, the press aren't going to do it for THEM; Thet need to INVOLVE y
themselves in the political process (e.g. by joining or forming a political party, campaign group, etc), rather than impotently ticking boxes every few years and expecting distant and comfortable functiinaries to gift them positive change. They need to quit expecting respect from the political class when they've frankly, as a group, not earned it. As in life YOU must earn respect, it is not a given right and if the electorate are intent on limiting their political activity to perverse and sporadic tantrums inspired by demagogues they'll never gain it. So if the best you can muster is passive box ticking (and Lord knows there are precious few hours in the day for Hard Working Families™) by all means Spoil your ballot in a meaningful way! But DON'T spread your fetted excrement all over both of our beds and imagine that it'll improve anything in your life. Because I'm frankly tired of the little england mentality and the antipolital movement as it pertains to the lazy and feckless silent majority of this country.
/end rant
My god, I think I love you.
Interestingly, this morning Tony Blair refused to criticise Jeremy Corbyn. If only the loud-mouthed little suits jostling to bring him down had even that much sense.
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