She has earned the nickname “Cruella” Bravermann very thoroughly.
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Not quite. James Cleverly has been appointed to the post of Home Secretary - her position. David Cameron is now an unelected Foreign Secretary - Cleverly’s old position.
The only way that Cameron will be able to take the position is for him to be given a life peerage, which means that he won’t have to face scrutiny in the House of Commons. There is genuine concern about this. Plus the fact that Cameron is under scrutiny for lobbying for the now-collapsed Greensill Capital in the UK…
Messy times in UK politics.
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That’s why I said “cabinet” instead of “the Home Office”. It’s also why I referred to foreign dignitaries.
Seems to be that kind of day around here.
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There’s absolutely nothing except ‘convention’ that says a member of the cabinet has to be a member of the Commons or Lords. The PM can appoint whoever they feel like.
And then you look a little deeper and find that there’s no laws or constitution that says we have to have a PM, or what their powers are. Originally the PM got their power because they were ‘First Lord of the Treasury’, and because they controlled the purse strings, they defacto had the most power in the government. Now that job is done by someone else, but the PM still calls policy etc.
The title ‘prime minister’ was originally a term of abuse rather than a description of an official role. It implied that an individual subject had risen improperly above others within the royal circle, and had echoes of a political institution imported from France
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This is true, but there is also the ‘convention’ that a cabinet member must be available for questioning* by members of Parliament (whether in the Upper or Lower Houses.) This is much more difficult if they are not members themselves, although it is obviously not impossible.
I mean, I don’t disagree with your observations - it’s unfortunately true that we are stuck with a system that will not change because it benefits the politicians too much to risk codifying something. Although ironically, I do wonder if this appointment might actually cause Starmer some trouble as it will increase internal pressure to move ‘Constitutional Reform’ much higher up the agenda than he would like.
*Of course, there’s also the fact that in recent years, cabinet members have consistently forced their junior ministers to actually have to face questions. The ministers seem to be confining themselves to making statements or tabling a specific Bill. The sole real exception is, of course, Prime Minister’s Questions which is more of a cabaret show than anything else nowadays.
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I put money on being sacked was her plan all along - it’s the “Johnson Gambit” - although he quit, this worked out better for Sue-Ellen as she can play the martyr to the rest of the ERG from the back benches, and plan for her election as leader when Sunak crashes in the next GE.
Here is her manifesto - all the ERG big hits are there! ‘A betrayal of our agreement’: Suella Braverman’s letter to Rishi Sunak in full | Suella Braverman | The Guardian
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On the other hand, this is the Tories we are dealing with. A Christmas season election could be ideal for stopping people voting against them, and ruining everyone’s time.
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Yes, I entirely agree - she thought she was putting Sunak in a no-win scenario.
What’s interesting to me is that Sunak managed to find a winning play though; he clearly spent a long time planning the Cameron coup but needed to wait until after the Remembrance Sunday event (which is when all PMs turn out) in order to pull it off. And the result was that all the headlines were fawning over Sunak and Cameron instead. It’s hard not to admire as a political gambit (even as it will likely make things worse, both for the Tory party and for the country.)
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You know someone’s doing the electoral maths over whether to call an election in university term or holiday…
It’s holidays. Of students on the electoral roll I bet:
- most are only registered at uni
- most skew left. Or at least, anti-Tory.
- most haven’t registered a postal ballot.
One of the recent by-elections that the Tories held would very likely have flipped if it was term time, so it should be high on Tory HQ’s minds.
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OK, I was wrong. It was, in fact, option (c) the Court ruled against them, but they are effectively going to try and ignore it. This is a worse option than either (a) or (b) but this is the modern Tory party, so what do you expect?
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Well, I mean it’s a tricky one. I don’t know how many students are registered at their university as well as at home. (It’s legal, as long as they only vote in one place.)
But practically all universities are in cities, which tend generally to be more left wing than rural areas anyway. And most students come from cities because that is where most people live.
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It was a lifestyle choice, in a tents situation.
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They’re not ignoring the ruling - they’re doing something worse by changing the law so the action is no longer illegal. All of the time saying they respect the judgement of the court.
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OK, bad phrasing on my part; yeah, I agree with you entirely on that.
One interesting* thing is that because they clearly want to write a law which says:
“This law states that this law cannot be challenged in court”**, they are going to have to use primary legislation. Which will lead to several consequences, including likely delays in the House of Lords and a probable confrontation with the Scottish legal system (which was the part that largely struck down the prorogation strategy some years ago.)
*for certain definitions of the word “interesting”.
**which couldn’t possible go wrong, could it?
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