The Chronicles of Rishi

My concern is that he has only 7 years experience as an MP, 4 years experience as a Minister - I don’t believe he has have the political experience to run the Party/Country…

As someone I follow on Twitter put it (@garius)

Well, in any pre-2012 government he'd still be a Junior Minister.

That has knock-on effects for his likely performance in other vital areas to. Things you need to be good at in order to deliver and govern.

Building trust, relationships and reputation in parliament takes time. A reason all the recent PMs have been shit is they haven't done that

They've had to rely on having more people shouting loudly in their corner than in their opponent's corner. On building cliques and "winning" the argument.

That's how you win elections - general or leadership - it's not how you GOVERN. Truss was the ultimate example of that.

You also have to work out how you get a mandate from the country - yes, through actually having elections - to agree to difficult choices or trust you to make them.

Boris dodged that by flat out false promises. Truss decided she just tell us she knew best. Both failed, long-term

And, as I've talked about before, you need to have experienced failure and learned how to confront the consequences. You have to learn how to be wrong.

Sunak has demonstrated frequently so far he just doesn't know how to do that. He just gets angry at whoever suggests it.

Now you can say he's been Chancellor already, and built some experience from that. God knows it was a challenging time to do it. But his record there was spotty at best, and it highlighted he has issues with all the above.

He was still a raw Chancellor when he quit.

So over the next few months, possibly years, remember all the above. Experience is relative in the Tory Party right now.

Sunak is a junior employee in a struggling company who's shown some talent and been rapidly overpromoted as the experienced AND the grifters have jumped ship

Do I wish Sunak success? Absolutely. I live in this country. I am a patriot. I'm am lefty af but I want a competent right as much as they should want a competent left. Plus I have a mortgage to pay.

But let's not pretend he's ready for the PM job. By pre-2016 standards he isn't.

https://twitter.com/garius/status/15...8ItfMUIMSgMfhw

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Chris

No, but they’ve done it before (c.f. IDS/Michael Howard). The wider tory party doesn’t have the same sort of political consciousness as the British Left. They’ll sigh and get on with it.

Hardly roaring successes. Although I agree about the membership of the Tory party lacking consciousness.

[Taf]

I await the rumblings from the Tory Party members after being denied a vote.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Hugh

My concern is that he has only 7 years experience as an MP, 4 years experience as a Minister - I don’t believe he has have the political experience to run the Party/Country…

As someone I follow on Twitter put it (@garius)

https://twitter.com/garius/status/15...8ItfMUIMSgMfhw

That's all quite ageist drivel to be fair. By that rationale Barack Obama should never have been near the Presidency, given a short US Senate tenure and a few years in the Illinois Senate.

Originally Posted by Hugh

My concern is that he has only 7 years experience as an MP, 4 years experience as a Minister - I don’t believe he has have the political experience to run the Party/Country…

The fast acceleration from a seat to a top job has been happening a lot. Not sure what's changed but 'promising' candidates are often promoted rapidly as they already have connections to senior figures before even becoming an MP.

Originally Posted by jfman

That's all quite ageist drivel to be fair. By that rationale Barack Obama should never have been near the Presidency, given a short US Senate tenure and a few years in the Illinois Senate.

Seven is more than "a few", and it’s nothing to do with age*, it’s to do with experience - I’d feel the same if he was 52 with the same lack of experience.

*which I never mentioned

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Seven is more than "a few", and it’s nothing to do with age*, it’s to do with experience - I’d feel the same if he was 52 with the same lack of experience.

*which I never mentioned

My post was more aimed at the content you quoted which while it doesn't explicitly say age it's heavily implied to meet all the prerequisites you have to be old or in Parliament from your late teens.

Originally Posted by jfman

My post was more aimed at the content you quoted which while it doesn't explicitly say age it's heavily implied to meet all the prerequisites you have to be old or in Parliament from your late teens.

I think you may being the one being ageist now…

If someone is elected in their early 30s, 15-20 years experience makes you 45-50 when you have gained "experience" and built networks - that’s not "old"…

We’re talking about someone running a country - that needs experience.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Hugh

I think you may being the one being ageist now…

If someone is elected in their early 30s, 15-20 years experience makes you 45-50 when you have gained "experience" and built networks - that’s not "old"…

We’re talking about someone running a country - that needs experience.

I'm not really convinced by the argument he doesn't have experience, or that even if it was the case couldn't install experience within his Cabinet and work with senior officials across the Civil Service who will have thousands of years of experience between them.

The problems of the late 2020s and early 2030s will not be resolved by people who think like it's merely an extension of the 1980s or 1990s.

[Sephiroth]

Sunak's first speech at CCHQ was the most wooden presentation I've ever heard; and that's saying something after Truss. He stared straight ahead and obviously was reading some meaningless nonsense from a prompter. He even thanked Truss for trashing the economy - well not specifically, but close enough.

On another note, this is what John Redwood is advising the Chancellor:

Ways to cut spending
OCTOBER 24, 2022

The new Chancellor says he is looking for ways to cut spending to bring the borrowing down. I have sent him a list of ideas familiar to readers of this blog where they have been published before.

Today there are some easy ways to make an impact.

1 Reverse his decision with the Bank of England to sell some of the bonds they own at a loss. Not selling would save in excess of £10 bn in the year ahead.

2 Work with DWP to improve incentives and support to help 500,000 people on benefits to get jobs. Saving around £5bn from less benefit and more tax.

3.implement Braverman plan to stop small boats illegal migration. Save £3bn in annual additional hotel costs.

4. Cancel HS2 and resell land acquired. Save many billions starting this year.

5. Adjust energy package to limit subsidised energy for households to the average usage, requiring those who use more to pay full price for the extra.

6 Substitute more UK gas and oil for imports by pressing on with extra N Sea production. This will cut the import bill and boost UK tax revenues substantially.

https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/

4. is typical of the short term thinking that is the true British disease in our politics. HS2 must be completed, extended and ideally done faster than at present. Sure it will take a long time to yield benefits, but that’s exactly why it’s a government project and not a quick-buck private sector one.

[1andrew1]

Looking forward to all that money from the north being diverted down south to help us poor Londoners out. After splashing out £550m for Bond Street Crossrail Station we're rather skint!

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Looking forward to all that money from the north being diverted down south to help us poor Londoners out. After splashing out £550m for Bond Street Crossrail Station we're rather skint!

Now I can ride no-change from Twyford to Bond Street and a Salt Beef Sandwich at Selfridges. Or a top curry at Roti Chai; might even meet Sunak there!

Originally Posted by jfman

I'm not really convinced by the argument he doesn't have experience, or that even if it was the case couldn't install experience within his Cabinet and work with senior officials across the Civil Service who will have thousands of years of experience between them.

The problems of the late 2020s and early 2030s will not be resolved by people who think like it's merely an extension of the 1980s or 1990s.

And no one has said that…

A leader needs to have the experience to know which advice to take.

The points he made were

Building trust, relationships and reputation in parliament takes time

you need to have experienced failure and learned how to confront the consequences. You have to learn how to be wrong.

The problems of the late 2020s/early 2030s won’t be solved by people who haven’t built relationships and reputation, or have learned from their mistakes…

[jfman]

We can all pick and choose lines, Hugh.

Sunak is a junior employee in a struggling company who's shown some talent

I'm not quite sure that an appropriate description for someone who has actually held one of the Great Offices of State - during the economic turmoil of the pandemic of all times. I can think of 750 million reasons not to think Sunak will be a good PM but relative inexperience (compared to who?) isn't one of them.