Johnson Gets His Mandate

TALKING POLITICS

Catherine Carr

News, News & Politics

4.7 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2019

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We gather the morning after the Tory triumph the night before to discuss how they did it and what it means. From Swinson's hubris to Corbyn's comeuppance, from Scottish independence to constitutional challenges, from the start of Brexit to the end of the Brexit party, we try to cover it all in a bumper edition. With Helen Thompson, Chris Brooke, Chris Bickerton, Alison Young, Peter Sloman, Kenneth Armstrong, and some overnight reflections from other TP regulars. If you want to hear more, David and Helen are also on 538 discussing the election result.

Talking Points:

It was a good night for the Conservatives, a bad one for Labour, and cosmically bad for the Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems made a fatal mistake in backing Revoke and running a presidential style campaign.
They lured fewer Tory remainers than they had hoped.
Six months ago, the Conservatives were in existential crisis, and now they are like Thatcher in all her pomp.

How grim are things for Labour?

They lost seats they’ve held for decades. But they didn’t lose by that much. If the problems are Corbyn and Brexit, those won’t be there the next time around.
Realignment in the North and Midlands may not be permanent.
Labour is popular among young people and renters. There are more of them in cities, where Labour is already strong.
Who can bridge the urban-rural, traditional base-new base divide?

Now that there’s a clear majority, will Parliament go back to working as usual?

It’s not only the two parties: there’s also the SNP.
They will probably repeal the fixed term parliament act.
What about the Supreme Court? Could Scotland be the next thing they weigh in on?

What will happen to the Labour Party post-Corbyn?

It’s not easy to separate the Corbyn factor from the Brexit factor.
Corbyn’s record on security issues mattered—his support never recovered from the Salisbury poisoning. A lot of people don’t see him as a patriot.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Further Learning:

And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello my name is David Ronserman and this is Talking Politics. It is 8.25 am on the morning
0:09.7	after the night before. This one's different from the other ones in that we're not having
0:14.1	to keep checking the updates. We didn't really have to check the updates at 5 past 10.
0:20.0	It was clear what was going to happen. Exotives of one are thumping majority and now what
0:26.1	are we going to talk about? Let's talk about what comes next. Talking Politics is brought to you
0:36.3	in partnership with the London reviewer books. This Christmas hits thoughts that counts. Give
0:42.1	everyone you know a subscription to the LRB for just 1999 and they'll throw in a free 2020
0:49.3	calendar featuring some of the best of their fantastic cover art. Find this special festive
0:54.8	offer at lrb.me forward slash Christmas. Where from this plug-in? I know that. I went to sleep
1:08.3	about 10 past four and the alarm went off again at 5. Yes I actually genuinely was too nervous to
1:14.4	watch the exit poll. I stayed up for the exit polls and then my wife was up at 4 to catch a
1:20.7	plane and so I was up and catching up. I think I was asleep at about quarter past three and then
1:27.6	my alarm woke me up at 6.45 and I think it was quite good sleep too. The dream team of Helen Thompson,
1:34.2	Chris Brooker and Chris Brooker here and other people are going to join us. We've had lots of
1:37.6	people contributing to our discussions about British politics and Brexit, constitutional issues,
1:44.6	legal issues. We'll be getting to that too. Let's focus on the core politics. There are
1:50.0	100 stories but there are three main stories. Good night for the Conservatives. Bad night for
1:55.8	Labour. Something more cosmically awful for the Liberal Democrats. Should we do the Liberal Democrats
2:01.1	first? It's not just that Josephson lost her seat. It's not just that they now have I think 11.
2:09.0	One was a parliament before they had 12 but they precipitated this. I mean that's the thing. They
2:13.9	did. I'm not sure we can replay it but there is certainly a few among some Labour MPs including I
2:20.0	have to say the MP for this constituency Cambridge that Johnson was trapped and Josephson opened the
	...

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