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Politics, politics, politics (so long and thanks for all the fish)

Liz Truss has been confirmed as the UK's new foreign secretary, as Boris Johnson rejigs his ministerial team.

The international trade secretary replaces Dominic Raab, who becomes justice secretary and deputy PM.

Mr Johnson sacked Gavin Williamson as education secretary and replaced him with vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi.

Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has also been fired - but Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Priti Patel keep their jobs.

Michael Gove replaces Mr Jenrick, while keeping current responsibility for the government's "levelling up" agenda - spreading wealth and opportunity around the country - and handling demands for another Scottish independence referendum.

And Nadine Dorries, a health minister and best-selling novelist, replaces Oliver Dowden as culture secretary.

In other moves:

  • Oliver Dowden is given the role of minister without portfolio at the Cabinet Office
  • Mr Dowden will also be Conservative Party co-chair, replacing Amanda Milling
  • Mark Spencer stays as chief whip, in charge of party discipline
Mr Raab - who has faced heavy criticism for his handling of the aftermath of the fall of Afghanistan - is understood to have had a long conversation with Mr Johnson before his new roles were announced.

He stood in for Mr Johnson last year when the PM was in hospital with coronavirus and was already seen as the de facto deputy PM, but his new title will formalise it.
 
Rorschach said:
Williamson gone totally? I was hearing Williamson to NI secretary earlier which would have been taking the tinkle on an epic scale. Thank fudge for that.
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Probably would have worked out well.

Anything that speeds up the vote for those who live there to start costing RoI instead of us is good.
 
P.D. said:
Do you think if we were still in the EU then Biden would have just extended the withdrawl date or paused it altogether? No he's under pressure because like it or not those type of Trump policies were and still are popular.
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Completely agree, i am not for one second saying Biden would have changed if we were in the EU. My point is he's continuing a lot of the 'America First' policies that proved popular under Trump, but whereas Germany, France etc have a collective power, we have none.

P.D. said:
Similarly why shouldn't we tinkle China off, we should be going further and applying more sanctions on individuals and setting up agreements to purchase more products from elsewhere that have more reliable suppliers. It's an oppressive state imprisoning millions of innocent people for ethnic cleansing under the guise of educating them - one of the worst abuses of power in the world today and no one does anything about it. They should be on trial in the Hague for those crimes.
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Again, not disagreeing, but you think China gives a brick about little ol' UK? We can't hold a candle to China in any format, military? GDP? population? what exactly do we hold that will make China think "ooh no, not the UK". Hence why collective agreement and power is the only way to counteract US, China, Russia. By going it alone, we have very little to actually offer or strength to wield.
 
Diamond Lights said:
Again, not disagreeing, but you think China gives a brick about little ol' UK? We can't hold a candle to China in any format, military? GDP? population? what exactly do we hold that will make China think "ooh no, not the UK". Hence why collective agreement and power is the only way to counteract US, China, Russia. By going it alone, we have very little to actually offer or strength to wield.
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You're talking about fighting a digital war with analogue weapons.

Pressure on China won't and can't come from political decisions - not in a modern world. The only thing that will force China into a corner is consumers deciding that their morals are more important than cheap goods.
 
scaramanga said:
In other news:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-58564837
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"It will let Australia build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time, using technology provided by the US."

Ultimately this doesn't change anything i posted about before. The view of shifiting to AsiaPac was established in the defence and foreign policy review. This is our post-Brexit tilt, but we stand very little to gain in this. Australia does, geographically close to China and neighbours. The US does, as China and Russia are the biggest threats on the world stage for the US.

but UK? gains very little out of this deal. Sure we're included, but doesn't really provide any meaningful benefits to us.
 
Diamond Lights said:
"It will let Australia build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time, using technology provided by the US."

Ultimately this doesn't change anything i posted about before. The view of shifiting to AsiaPac was established in the defence and foreign policy review. This is our post-Brexit tilt, but we stand very little to gain in this. Australia does, geographically close to China and neighbours. The US does, as China and Russia are the biggest threats on the world stage for the US.

but UK? gains very little out of this deal. Sure we're included, but doesn't really provide any meaningful benefits to us.
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We get to eat all their lovely datas - that's about as valuable as any geopolitical deal gets.
 
Diamond Lights said:
Completely agree, i am not for one second saying Biden would have changed if we were in the EU. My point is he's continuing a lot of the 'America First' policies that proved popular under Trump, but whereas Germany, France etc have a collective power, we have none.



Again, not disagreeing, but you think China gives a brick about little ol' UK? We can't hold a candle to China in any format, military? GDP? population? what exactly do we hold that will make China think "ooh no, not the UK". Hence why collective agreement and power is the only way to counteract US, China, Russia. By going it alone, we have very little to actually offer or strength to wield.
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They probably don't but if you want influence then you can take a stand and reduce dependence on one country, that's likely to prove more influential in the long run than carrying on as though nothing can be done. The fact we're potentially letting them build and run critical infrastructure (nuclear plants) is embarassing really, we're actually letting them gain power and influence though this. No other country has allowed a Chinese designed reactor to be build in their country to my knowledge.

You can still do that whilst working with others like the pact they just agreed with Australia and the US.
 
SpurMeUp said:
Not sure its millions of people @P.D. China is a massive country, and while their treatment of Muslim Uyghurs is out of order, I don't think they are "ethnic cleansing" as such. They are not killing off these people. Have you been to China? I'd say there is a lot more to China that this one-dimentional representation, and there is no doubt whatsoever you can not ignore China. Most things are made there, and there is a power shift already from the US to China. In real terms (depending on how to measure an economy) China has a bigger economy than the US. Even using conventional GDP measures, China will overtake the US in the next few years.

That is why there is an increasing push back against China. The US and Europe are trying to ensure the power shift isn't too great. Because its happening. And I don't think there is much to fear to be honest. At the moment Chinese stocks are down because of so-called draconian state intervention. But what is it that the communist party has done? Stopped kids playing computer games all day and night. Put some controls on large tech companies. And stopped some private education. Things that the west would probably like to achieve but are too constricted to deliver. There are some advantages to a centralised strong government that can act without fear of the media and lobbying.

The EU offers an alternative though. A larger single market than the US or China, it has started to push back against the large tech companies and assert itself. The EU can't act as swiftly as it has to take 27 nations with it, and it has to be in all of their interests.

One thing is for sure. No one is going to ignore China. How we use Brexit to trade more with the soon-to-be biggest national economy in the world is probably a more interesting question. If you want to stand up to China, we are far more powerful as part of the EU. Brexit should all be about the UK being nimble and able to work with Asian economies stealing a march on the EU. Whether the increased speed we get outweighs the EU weight is to be seen.
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Of course it's ultimately all about power, money and influence but some reports say over a million people have been imprisoned for re-education training, you cant own books about Uyghurs, they're forced to sing songs praising the Communist Party, women are forced to undergo sterilisation. Sounds like ethnic cleansing to me.
 
Unbelievably this is the guy running Scotlands NHS.
The guy that on the day reports of a man died after waiting 40 hours (forty) hours for an ambulance told the great Scottish public to think twice about calling for an ambulance.
 
P.D. said:
Of course it's ultimately all about power, money and influence but some reports say over a million people have been imprisoned for re-education training, you cant own books about Uyghurs, they're forced to sing songs praising the Communist Party, women are forced to undergo sterilisation. Sounds like ethnic cleansing to me.
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There is no doubt the Chinese government is repressing Muslim ethnic groups (it’s not just the Uyghurs). While the government maintain there is increased surveillance because of militant bombings and fundamentalists there is no excusing systematic oppression.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using glory-glory.co.uk mobile app
 
Rorschach said:
Well at least it's not diesel they are burning. Not sure this will repair the rampant self-harm the UK is doing to its international reputation.
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So far I've only seen that China are upset that their unchallenged power will be slightly challenged and the French throwing a hissy fit.

Given the propensity of the French govt to throw a hissy fit over anything and everything, I'm not sure there's much to worry about.
 
Maybe the bigger question is how a centralised (all powerful) government can make rapid changes to the environment. The west has been polluting for many years more than China, we have decades on them. But the scale of their pollution is massive. If their government was democratic and decentralised, with industry lobbying, media pressure etc. turning around the tanker would take many decades. But there is some hope that with state backing and their growing ability to innovate technologically, they could clean up a lot faster too.
 
scaramanga said:
So far I've only seen that China are upset that their unchallenged power will be slightly challenged and the French throwing a hissy fit.

Given the propensity of the French govt to throw a hissy fit over anything and everything, I'm not sure there's much to worry about.
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Ah if this were the only problem. I agree this is a bit of a storm in a teacup but this situation is but a drop in the geopolitical ocean. The UK has lot more pertinent issues to clean up closer to home. That some are now occasionally dropping the UK into their lists of illiberal countries, whether accurate or not, is a bad sign. That is a step too far in my opinion, but it is not good that some opinions are trending that way.
 
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