You assume he wants Zahawi back which I very much doubt he does given previous and the fact that Zahawi backed Truss and Johnson rather than Sunak. What makes you think Sunak has gone in to bat for him? The easy thing would’ve been to listen to the mob and get rid. I think he showed a decent amount of back bone.Sandydragon wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 3:09 pmI think if you asked 100 members of the general public, they would identify that more as corruption than a failure to follow process (albeit I can see the link absolutely). They want Sunak to get tough on Tory corruption; this last week wasn't the way to demonstrate that. A cynical operator, Blair for instance, would have demanded a resignation, after which Zahawi would have re-emerged Phoenix like 6 months later when everyone had forgotten. Sunak is trying to play an honest deck, but its politically dealing with the wrong problem.Mellsblue wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 12:37 pm‘Your predecessors repeatedly made a mistake which means you must now repeat the mistake for all time’ is an interesting attack line.Puja wrote: ↑Mon Jan 30, 2023 11:56 am
I agree in part that having an enquiry and following proper procedure is valid and that Starmer especially is playing dickish politics by framing it as Sunak being weak and indecisive. However, the Tories have already poisoned the well of "we should go through due process and wait until we have the report to act," by first attacking Corbyn for not taking immediate action and sacking people on first news article, and then by using it as an excuse to protect Boris during the COVID breaches by "waiting for a report" on facts that were self-evident, so now the due process sounds like it's bullshit.
While I don't care for Starmer or his safety-first, no-values, style of politics, his early decisions were clever and are paying off now - by being ruthless with anybody who offered even a hint of scandal or something embarrassing to the party, he's got carte blanche to use the vindictive you-should've-known-you-should've-acted-already environment that the Conservatives created as a weapon against them while being (relatively) secure against any blowback. And Sunak's lost a lot of the newspapers (admittedly some of them only because of daring to have brown skin, rather than any values), so they're happy to join in.
In short, you're right and so is Sunak. But the Tories shat the bed, so they have to lie in it. If Sunak was smarter/in a stronger position, he should've aped Starmer and told Zahawi that he needed to offer his resignation immediately for embarrassing the party, regardless of the enquiry. But he wouldn't or couldn't, so here he is, being beaten by the stick he helped carve.
Puja
Starmer identified Labour’s biggest weakness under he predecessor - the antiemetic underbelly - and dealt with it as it needed to be dealt with and is rightly praised. Sunak is looking to deal with one of the biggest weaknesses under his predecessors - failing to stick to due process - but is in the wrong! Horses for courses. Everything in the first nearly 100 days in office have been about deliberate, well evidenced decision making and I think that’s not only just who he is but a very public u-turn on how his predecessors ran their govts. Ultimately, this will be nothing but a footnote in history come the next election but a body of evidence that the Cons are no longer run without a care for the consequences of their actions will be front and centre, albeit it’s probably too late.
Beating someone with the following due process stick is a dangerous tactic in the long term.
I’m quite happy that we’ve gone through a process to prove someone deserved to lose their job rather than having trial by headline/social media.
I’m also enjoying how we moved on from ‘what’s the point of Johnson having an ethics adviser and not using or listening to them’ to ‘what’s the point of Sunak having an ethics adviser he should just act as he sees fit’.
