The dust hasn’t yet completely settled, but there is no doubt about it, that Prime Minister Theresa May’s judgement in calling a snap General Election has turned out to be very suspect – though it certainly didn’t look much like a two-way gamble when she placed her roulette bet, did it? Riding high on the crest of a popularity wave, she like all and sundry of us, fully expected to rake-in her substantial winnings from the gambling table, didn’t she?
Not to be though, as she not only misjudged the mood of the Country but she ran a very poor lacklustre campaign to boot, which clearly exposed her inexperience of a leadership role, surely? Now, make no mistake about it will you, but as Prime Minister she has to carry the can as being the ultimate decision maker, so it is no good her supporters blaming the backroom advisers, or anyone else for that matter, for this devastating result for the Conservative party, is it?
She failed to promote the Conservative’s party itself, nor its core values and principles, to instead concentrated on her own leadership qualities (which proved wanting?), nor did she set-out to convince the younger voters (who skewed the election result?) that the Country living beyond it means (as Labour was promoting?), was NOT sustainable, so seemingly forgot to adequately promote the principle of “it’s the economy stupid”.
Nevertheless, May actually got a slightly increased popular vote and moreover a greater share of the vote than Margaret Thatcher did when she got her epic landslide second term victory against a similar leftist Labour party under Michael Foot, nearly thirty-five years ago, while this time the Tory PM actually lost 13 seats and her majority, eh?
As a result, Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party is supposedly ‘cock-a-hoop’ over their performance. On the other hand, the stark truth of the matter though is that he in no way came anywhere near becoming PM and the party has tellingly lost its 3rd election on the trot (as well as getting trounced in the previous local elections). Into the bargain, is almost certain that it has peaked now (only due of course to the Conservatives temporary aberration?) and will fight and LOSE the NEXT election in 5 years’ time because Corbyn and his ultra-left-wing cronies will now still be in charge – the death rattle of the once great Labour party will continue for a while longer, don’t you think?
The big problem that May now faces is that, together with her internally criticised previous ‘bunker style’ approach to leading the government, not only will her colleagues in Westminster be doubting her judgement on major electoral issues, but also the electorate will have misgivings about her ability to provide the “strong and stable” leadership for the Country that she rigorously promoted, eh? And that indeed is a much BIGGER issue, don’t you think?
Moreover, you need to know that the Tory party is an unforgiving beast at the best of times, so it is ruthlessly cruel to its failed leaders, as past events have shown. Now the closest example and parallel to May’s bid to go to the Country for a mandate, and totally fail, is of course that of Prime Minister Ted Heath (a big EU advocate, which was part of his downfall?) going back nigh-on forty-five years ago. He was also expected to win as he was equally an ultra-popular PM with the public, when at the time of the ‘3-day week’, he sought to take on the Unions and in particular the miners, but dramatically lost his thirty majority to a minority Labour government – causing a hung-parliament (and after that and yet another election, it heralded 5 years of Labour power, didn’t it?). After his failure, he lasted just a meagre a year as leader, but was then pitilessly dispatched by new girl Margaret Thatcher.
Is May as PM now ‘living on borrowed time’, as arch enemy ex- Chancellor George Osborne has claimed [well, she did sack HIM as soon as she gained power, didn’t she? Now Editor of the London Evening Standard newspaper (and no longer an MP) he is using that vehicle to put the boot in, isn’t he?].
Certainly, the knives are out for her in some quarters, particularly the Europhiles (and indeed reportedly with the majority of grassroot party members currently wanting her gone!), but much depends on how things go in the very very near future, not least because the BREXIT negotiations with the EU are underway imminently. The Tories will definitely NOT ditcher her in this time of trouble and strife to actually give Corbyn another and possibly more successful bite of the cherry, will they? But don’t expect May to be in place to fight the next election, will you (unless she has spectacular success with the EU)?
IF May was right in thinking that she needed a better mandate from the public to give her GREATER strength in the Brussels talks, then her abject failure at the polls must make her much weaker, surely? That also comes at a time when the bureaucrats running the EU have been readying weapons and sharpening their knives in readiness for killing-off the UK for having the temerity to leave their bloody EU, when our own attention has been diverted to our solely domestic issues, eh?
Without doubt that must worry us all, because the final outcome of those discussions will make or break this Country. We are up against one Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, who enters the fray with fully established hardline guidelines on how to screw the UK, with their eyewatering and terminally damaging demands for a so-called divorce settlement, which includes an unsustainable concept of so-called ‘obligations’ & ‘liabilities’ to continue financing the EU [to the tune of some £100billion, it is said?]. Now, you like the rest of us might wonder who the hell is Michel Barnier and how the heck did he come to get in such a pivotal position, eh? The answer to that, is that he is a French ex-cabinet national politician and subsequently an EU insider, including being an ‘appointed’ Commissioner before his latest role a serving MEP.
It is all going to kick-off with a bloodletting battle for us, because the EU seems determined to have their way on obtaining Britain’s commitment to meeting THEIR demands, before they will even discuss the matters that WE want to resolve, and that of course critically includes a ‘free trade deal’, doesn’t it?
Yep, you see that this now ‘minority’ Government’s need to strike a deal with the EU (when the government’s suggested potential “no deal” option now seems utterly unattainable?), which relies on a ‘confidence and supply‘ arrangement with Northern Ireland’s DUP, puts many things in jeopardy, because the NI is reliant on an open border with the Republic [probably some 15billion total pounds of cross borer goods encompassing both directions, that both countries are financially dependent upon]. [The unavoidable basic fact is that the EU simply CANNOT allow an open border between two counties where one of them is not a member [in the absence of a free-trade (or some kind of customs union) agreement, can they?].
So, turning to Scotland Assembly’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon then, she has been getting-up the noses of the English for the past year at least (particularly since the EU Referendum last summer), that has prompted her demands that Scotland alone should be allowed to determine the future of the UK, combined with her and her party’s obsession of gaining independence and breaking up the Union. Well, the election certainly showed that with her strident attitude, she has been equally getting up the noses of our Scottish relatives into the bargain, who had already made crystal clear that they intended to maintain their ties with Britain (and that didn’t include handing over control of Scotland to the EU, did it?). Oh yes, she got her true comeuppance with the loss of over a third of her MP seats at Westminster, and that has completely blown her undue influence there, as well as having damaged her ongoing credibility within Scotland as a whole, and that is combined also with major big-beasts of the SNP biting the dust (the irony of all that is that such an unexpected outturn has ‘saved’ May’s bacon with an extra dozen MPs). Perhaps more importantly however, has been the fact that she has brought about a resurgence of the Conservative party North of the border, which has now returned more than a dozen Tory MPs rather than the previous single one, eh?
Today, we know the make-up of Theresa May’s new cabinet, and many Brexit supporters will be aghast that the current circumstances (when she is hanging onto power), have now prevented her from the ‘signaled ousting’ of Chancellor Philip Hammond, who is a toxic player in achieving a successful BREXIT (that the public voted for), as he is a committed and stoic Remainer. He is only one though of the BREXIT deniers at the heart of government and they are all plotting behind the scenes to thwart Britain leaving the European Union in any way the can – time they were pensioned-off (without a triple lock, eh?).
[If Theresa May doesn’t deliver on BREXIT and regain control, expect riots on the streets?]
ramblings007 