UK Election June 8th

[Tannin]

I agree aboput Obama's qualities. I often think we should ring him up and offer him the post of Prime Minister here, 'coz it would be a nice South seas holiday for him, and he's be 1000% better than any of our current lot going back as far as Curtain and Chifley.

But achievements? Not really. Economic success had bugger all to do with him. (Politicians can't ensure economic success; all they can ever do is, at best, not bugger things up and hope the market goes OK.) He did OK on Obamacare, but it remains to be seen how much (if any) of it will survive the Republicans. Exiting wars? Was that really him? In any case, his record for sponsoring drone strikes killing thousands of completely innocent civilians is terrible; and his record on supporting illegal spying on his own citizens is more worthy of a Bush or a Hitler or a Trump.

And all those other things he was going to do (Remember them? "Yes we can!" Only they couldn't. Obamacare aside, practically everything else of consequence he set ut to do was blocked by the mad-dog Republicans in America;'s gerrymandered Congress.

And finally, he was a complete failure at getting a credible successor lined up.

OK, most of those things were not his fault, but he wound up being a generally ineffective President, and the best thing history will have to say for him is that he wasn't Mitt Romney.

I still like and admire him. Damn shame he wasn't able to get anything much done.

[Tannin]

Cameron knowingly stuck a fuse into the dynamite and assumed somebody else would pull it out before it went off. It was a monumentally stupid risk. The technical term for this is "criminal recklessness" and in you do it in charge of a motor vehicle you go to jail.

Sure, he felt it was expedient at the time. An easy way out of some temporary political awkwardness. That is no excuse. If he wasn't able to govern for the good of the country - and he wasn't - he was obliged to resign and give the job to someone smarter than himself. And his failure to campaign effectively for a remain vote will see him forever condemned as the PM who did more damage to his country than any other in almost 100 years.

[Tannin]

As for Merkel, she used to seem like a madwoman doing great damage to the world. Now you see her on a podium next to Trump and she suddenly seems like a beacon of hope and sense.

Now that is seriously scary.

[Mugwump]

The awkwardness was only temporary in the way a famine is temporary. It avails you little that the crops will grow in five years. And when your fallback strategy is letting the people decide on a question of constitutional importance, it's strange (and dangerous) politics to keep saying no. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, as ever, but you govern on prediction and uncertainty.

[Mugwump]

As for Merkel, she used to seem like a madwoman doing great damage to the world. Now you see her on a podium next to Trump and she suddenly seems like a beacon of hope and sense.

Now that is seriously scary.

We see a different Merkel. I see someone who is cautious, essentially responsible and intelligently pursuing Germany's interests, bar that one fiasco. The question, I think, is whether she represents the historic German weakness of being great at tactics, but often failing at the level of grand strategy. The Euro and the European project is tactically wonderful for Germany in the short term - it generates economic growth by keeping Germany's exchange rate artificially low, enhances its hegemony over Europe, and - in the oldest German obsession - helps it to niggle Russia and gain influence over territory in the East (e.g. Ukraine) while being semi-peaceable. So far, so tactically attractive.

The problem is that the Euro is analogous to a single share price being managed by about 20 different managements. As such, it makes Germany indirectly liable for the decisions of its more profligate neighbours, and much of the demand has been propped up by loans made from German (and other) banks to these. So, via the back door, Germany is running a credit boom. Greece is the canary in the mine, but when this unwinds in a version of 2008 on steroids I doubt that the EU will survive it, and Germany's tactical mentality may yet again prove strategically disastrous.

Still, Merkel is a lot smarter and more civilized than Ludendorff or Hitler, and radical uncertainty inheres in all systems as complex as this, so we'll see. Trump, of course, is Tony Soprano minus about 50 IQ points, but we knew that already.

[Tannin]

^ All good points well taken. But I wouldn't call a long-sustained, deliberate long-term policy of open-slater immigration "one fiasco". More like "one stupid obsessional policy opposed by the majority and doomed to destroy much of her other good work".

[Mugwump]

^ All good points well taken. But I wouldn't call a long-sustained, deliberate long-term policy of open-slater immigration "one fiasco". More like "one stupid obsessional policy opposed by the majority and doomed to destroy much of her other good work".

Yes, I'm happy to concede that.

[regan is true fullback]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx9kaa7IsBg

[Wokko]

Theresa May, win or lose should probably resign as leader of the Conservative Party. One of the most politically inept leaders I've ever seen. How the hell do you lose an election to a Communist that you were tipped to win in a landslide? (Communist Party backed Corbyn and didn't stand any candidates in order to assist him).

Why the Tories installed an establishment candidate at this time of anti establishment sentiment is beyond me.

[Mugwump]

Elections have a way of exposing things that government does not. As each week has gone by, May has looked more and more like someone who is not up to the job. She answers every question with one of three sound bites like a malfunctioning robot crossed with a praying mantis, and it is annoying the hell out of the whole British population.

Corbyn is not up to it either, but we already knew that, and at least he communicates like a human being. And he has of course promised more free stuff to everybody except the top 5% of the population, so the polls have narrowed.

May is still long odds-on to get across the line, but she will be so damaged that it would not surprise me to see a leadership challenge within 12 months. On exposed form, this would be a deserved outcome. Not Prime Minister material, as it turns out.

I don't normally quote myself, but this seems a reasonable summary of where we stand. She has been humiliated and should stand down, as her authority is shot. I don't think it's a question of establishment candidates or anything more than a dreadful campaigner whose rigidity and aloofness has been cruelly but correctly exposed. Oh, and of course Labour's strategy of bribing 95% of the electorate with non-existent money is always popular with a certain section of the electorate.

[Wokko]

Boris Johnson's odds of becoming PM have shortened considerably

[David]

[Wokko]

Northern Irish parties will back Tories in and they'll form a minority government I'd think.

[David]

[HAL]

Northern Irish parties will back Tories in and they'll form a minority government I'd think.

Ask me another question.