Tory Leadership contest 2022

[Serge Forward]

there ought to be a phrase for the opposite of virtue signalling that tories go in for...

Iniquity signalling?

 

[Humberto]

Sewage nodes.

 

[SysOut]

Iniquity signalling?

Nastiness signalling

 

[stdP]

"Hurt you"-signalling.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Prospective PMs saying they'd press the button doesn't mean anything, it's just a weird English politics ritual like black rod and the like.

It’s an anti Corbyn measure I think, never used to be a regular question till we had a potential pacifist in charge

 

[Supine]

It’s an anti Corbyn measure I think, never used to be a regular question till we had a potential pacifist in charge

It has been a regular question since i was born.

 

[brogdale]

It has been a regular question since i was born.

That’s an interesting reply and I realised I’d not been paying attention to whether or not party leaders had explicitly been asked that question in GE campaigns or leadership elections. My assumption was that, pre-Corbyn,it was always presumed that anyone aspiring to PM would automatically accept that potentially pressing the ‘big red button’ went with the job. I really don’t recall any other potential PMs being asked that.

 

[Supine]

Maybe there have been more questions in the press around whether the left wing candidate would press the button. It wouldn’t surprise me with the right wing press.

 

[Artaxerxes]

It has been a regular question since i was born.

Maybe I’ve just never paid that much attention.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Maybe there have been more questions in the press around whether the left wing candidate would press the button. It wouldn’t surprise me with the right wing press.

It was weeks of headlines with Corbyn

 

[Pickman's model]

It was weeks of headlines with Corbyn

Months of questions about his loyalty and patriotism

 

[Artaxerxes]

Months of questions about his loyalty and patriotism

Years.

Nobody ever did congratulate him for putting on a smart tie either.

 

[brogdale]

Perhaps Miliband was asked as well?
After all, he did chose a father who hated his own country.

 

[Pickman's model]

Years.

Nobody ever did congratulate him for putting on a smart tie either.

Every time he went to the cenotaph

 

[Kaka Tim]

IIRC Kinnock got asked this in the 87 campaign. And dealt with it badly - waffling on about how - rather then pressing the button - they would ensure that a russian occupation of the uk would be made "untenable".

 

[SpookyFrank]

Perhaps Miliband was asked as well?
After all, he did chose a father who hated his own country.

You've got to love how relentlessly trash-talking the general public, pumping shit into the rivers and selling off whatever bits of the country they can't actively destroy to the lowest bidder doesn't count as 'hating this country'.

 

[PR1Berske]

It has been a regular question since i was born.

Not quite, to my memory. It used to be, "Would you go into coalition with the Lib Dems" or equivalent.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

IIRC Kinnock got asked this in the 87 campaign. And dealt with it badly - waffling on about how - rather then pressing the button - they would ensure that a russian occupation of the uk would be made "untenable".

I seem to remember it being a question put to kinnock, and a tory election poster along the lines of 'labour's defence policy' and picture of soldiers putting up a flagpole with a white flag

 

[A380]

That’s an interesting reply and I realised I’d not been paying attention to whether or not party leaders had explicitly been asked that question in GE campaigns or leadership elections. My assumption was that, pre-Corbyn,it was always presumed that anyone aspiring to PM would automatically accept that potentially pressing the ‘big red button’ went with the job. I really don’t recall any other potential PMs being asked that.

It's almost like the Torys have forgotten that it was Clem who spent the money on the British nuclear weapons programme. The socialist bomb.

 

[belboid]

I seem to remember it being a question put to kinnock, and a tory election poster along the lines of 'labour's defence policy' and picture of soldiers putting up a flagpole with a white flag

It was definitely asked to Foot too, in ‘83. He answered in a similar way to Corbyn, iirr.

It just wasn’t a question until then, of course they would.

 

[bluescreen]

It's almost like the Torys have forgotten that it was Clem who spent the money on the British nuclear weapons programme. The socialist bomb.

Yes, Ernest Bevin was passionate about an independent nuclear deterrent. He didn't trust the USA. It's always been a huge dividing factor in the party.

Labour and the bomb: a history of schism

Labour has always been divided over Britain's nuclear deterrent - the latest row is just a case of history repeating.

www.newstatesman.com

 

[Tanya1982]

I've always thought the answer to this question should be 'I couldn't discuss such a serious matter of national security on television, and anyone who would do something so irresponsible - regardless of our international partners, intelligence from the security services, and advice from military chiefs - isn't fit to be prime minister'.

You've taken a firm line without stating what you would actually do, staked a claim to the high ground, probably hung your loose lipped opponent out to dry, while appealing to dignity and your patriotic concern for national security. Even the Daily Mail would have some trouble in successfully tearing you apart on those grounds.

 

[agricola]

I've always thought the answer to this question should be 'I couldn't discuss such a serious matter of national security on television, and anyone who would do something so irresponsible - regardless of our international partners, intelligence from the security services, and advice from military chiefs - isn't fit to be prime minister'.

You've taken a firm line without stating what you would actually do, staked a claim to the high ground, probably hung your loose lipped opponent out to dry, while appealing to dignity and your patriotic concern for national security. Even the Daily Mail would have some trouble in successfully tearing you apart on those grounds.

A better one (which I wish Corbyn would have made in 2017) would be to point out that "pushing the button" isn't how our deterrent works.

 

[kabbes]

Or you could just say “if it turns out to be the best option”, which is tautologous, basically, and thus says nothing whilst appearing to say yes.

 

[Artaxerxes]

"What your asking is if I'd launch a weapon that would cause several hundred thousand people to burn in an instant, the same amount to suffer deadly burns that cause them to die melted, screaming, twisted in agony, cause a tidal wave of cancers and sickness and quite possibly trigger reprisals of the same nature on our own population? Just so we're clear here? Can we return to the favourite biscuit discussion, as that might make out to be less of a psychopath"

 

[killer b]

Why wouldn't you just say 'yes' and move as quickly as possible onto something that actually matters?

 

[JimW]

No, but I would tweak a knob if circumstances dictated.

 

[mojo pixy]

The reason tories never get asked whether they'd push the button is that of course they would, they're obvious psychopaths. Tory policies are already set on killing the poor en masse, they have no need for any bomb for that.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Why wouldn't you just say 'yes' and move as quickly as possible onto something that actually matters?

Because even having nuclear weapons in the first place constitutes a war crime?

 

[killer b]

When do the trials start? Better be soon, there's a backlog of 80 years of blatant criminality to get through