And Suella has been sacked

[WellWellSaidTheRockingChair]

not before time - wonder who will get the poison chalice.

if William Hague is still in the commons, but o don’t think he is, Rishi would be wise to draw in his experience and counsel.

@cardibach agree.. I often wonder if this silent majority people claim to know about are 'silent' because they are embarrassed by their horrible prejudiced and discriminatory views.

It could be - but it reads to me as roar’s family have said they aren’t happy and therefore roar is extrapolating a quiet majority in the general population because it’s impossible for her (?or him?) to imagine that her social circle is so out of step with everyone else.
You are right, of course, that the views of party supporters can be way out of sync with the rest of the population.

This.

The 'silent majority' are the ones intimidated by the gobby extremists on both sides.

If you are at a table with a very vocal Labourite giving off about the evil tories and israeli babykillers, you can bet the moderate labourite won't tell them to wind their neck in and say 'its a bit more complicated than that'. Equally the person who challenges them will odds on be the Right wing Tory going on about Tofu eating wokerati and immigration, not the moderate Cameron era Tory who is quitely keeping their gob shut and eating their chips.

Thats reflective of social media where you don't get the 'its a bit more complicated' being platformed by the mainstream media. You aren't going to get into the QuestionTime audience with moderate views cos they aren't entertaining enough...

no one expected the Tories to gain so many seats in the GE in 2019

no one expected UKIP to be the third party in number of voters in 2015

many ignored the writing on the wall before the referendum or that a vote winner lead the campaign

they are not silent when it comes to elections

@Maddy70

Yes. She will be the next leader of the Tories. As if they couldn't be any worse

Unlikely. Depends if they want to get back in power in 2030 or be out of government for a decade or two.

The Tories got those seats on about a third of the population. UKIP got one seat in 2015. It’s not the majority, it’s a freak of FPTP.
There are shy Tories, for sure, but they tend to be centrist Tories, not extreme ones. Extremists tend to be gobby.

'no one expected the Tories to gain so many seats in the GE in 2019 '

Yes they did.

And it was against a background of many people feeling their 'moderate' political position was not accurately reflected in their voting options.

There is a trend within Labour AND the Tories that the membership of BOTH parties is wildly out of step with the general population and even with voters of their own parties. Party members are generally more fanatical and thats a real problem for Party Leaders who are trying to balance their internal issue and what the public want and whats in the best interests of the country generally.

This has got worse in recent years, with moderates being pushed out by the trend of social media intimidation.

Opinion polling on all issues tends to indicate the true ‘silent majority’ in the U.K. is centrist

This is almost certainly true, which makes it even more tragic that FPTP means we keep getting lumbered with right wing governments enacting suicidal economic and social policy.

Absolutely. It’s why we need PR.

The Tories got 43% of the vote at the last general election on a 67% turnout, so 29% of the eligible electorate. Their popularity has obviously dropped since then so the portion of the population they speak for will be something lower than that.

So even the Tories don't speak for any "majority", silent or otherwise. Their fascist wing that Braverman represents will be something lower again, a subset of their total support.

We need to be careful when talking about electoral results and what they really mean. We're taught that democracy means the rule of the majority but, in the UK's case at least, it certainly doesn't. Our electoral system is specifically devised to deliver power to the most electorally unified minority. That's a very different thing, and there are all kinds of games involved in determining who it is that have nothing to do with majority popularity.

In practice, most people just assume that the majority is "people who agree with me".

Having said that, the support for fascism in the UK is clearly disturbingly high, and I'm sure Braverman speaks for a significant number of people.

I’m so fed up of people describing her as a future leader. This is exactly how Boris Johnson came to power: he convinced everyone it was inevitable.

Why on earth would Suella be a future leader? She’s been fired from Government twice for misbehaviour, has zero integrity or competence…

Ah man it’s gonna be Boris bloody Johnson all over again isn’t it.

Yes they did. I'm with thecatfromjapan here.

Plenty of talk about it in the media and plenty of talk on MN about it.

The 'no one expected' line is trotted out soooo much when theres always bags of people saying it. The people saying it are the ones who are cosied up in their own echo chambers and oblivious to the rest of the world.

If you are saying this, you might want to widen where you get your political feedback from!

I can see why Sunak wants Cameron, but I’m not sure what’s in it for Cameron. He must be planning a proper return to politics, or why would he bother? There’s far more potential for failure than glory, and he’s not a May-style dutiful type.

Thing is, to get back into politics he’d have to resign the shiny peerage he’s just accepted. It’s odd.

The far right (think angry Daily Mail, Murdoch press, and Braverman) and far left (think the Twitter woke brigade) are both characterised by the inability to simply “disagree” with an opponents position. Rather they have to vilify their opponent for daring to disagree - labelling them as a terrorist supporter or a bigot or a traitor etc etc.

They were often raised in different environments but the mindset is identical. And perhaps I’m showing my political persuasion here, but I find the right wing version of this trend particularly despicable, as the right wing is more often the one (recently at least) banging on about the sanctity of free speech etc while flipping out the second someone takes a different line.

The Next Tory Leader will come from the very small pool of current Tory MPs who survive the next election.

It will be a designated survivor type scenario.

Hunt can't survive the election. Cameron isn't an MP anymore. Sunak will be forced to resign.

Cleverly probably will survive the cull. As will Braverman. But there will be a hell of a lot of big names who won't.

I think a lot of Johnson resigning from parliament was to avoid the embarassment of it. Many others have said they intend to stand down (because its fucking obvious they will lose their seat).

The problem the Tories will have is finding enough people willing to stand as candidates! (Ditto other parties tbh. The LDs always have this issue, the Greens bank balance can't afford to take the hit and Labour will probably stuggle to a certain extent too).

@cardibach @TrashedSofa I was saying what my Tory voting friends / family make of it all.

You mean apart from having the satifaction of seeing Braverman and the Tory Right go into full on meltdown at his appointment? Apart from that?

To be charitable, he may be looking for a chance to redeem himself - a little bit.

Tories will always turn up to vote, Labour voters are not so committed, centrist voters may sway but it’s more labour that have to be move to the centre than the Tories

We have more centre policies than the majority of Europe but we are more to the right. A conservative country with a small C

It’s irrelevant when it comes to a referendum how many seats UKIP had won in the election it was the numbers and it showed was many were willing to vote UKIP It was ignored

Corbyn tapped into populist politics just on the left and became very popular almost cult like

I don’t think many would see Suella Braverman as extreme

Cameron left under a cloud after losing Brexit vote.

He's getting a chance to re-enter on his own terms, gallivant around the world for a year in a prestigious office and a peerage. I mean, it's not a shit deal.

If you don’t see Braverman as extreme (and feel that the majority agree with you) I’m not sure your other musings have a lot of validity to be fair…

@HRTQueen

I think unfortunately she speaks for a large number of people in the country

She does speak for millions - but then remember that a large part of this country’s print media has spent a good two decades now winding people up about immigration and refugees at every opportunity they get, sticking it on front page after front page. That culminated in Brexit. Which of course create a whole slew of new problems without solving the “immigrant” problem as the UK’s economy is reliant on immigration: be they reasonably wealthy foreign students, pickers, drivers, healthcare workers, social care workers. So on and on it goes.

I'm In Wales - we have form of PR for welsh Senedd and can't say I've noticed it being better - most people who say anything about it generally moan about feeling they dismiss everyone and carry on with what they were going to do anyway and future changes - making it all party list based- will I feel just make it worse.