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I make no comment on her politics, but the previous UK Prime Minister had exactly the demeanor you could ask of a public servant. It feels like she was the las

I make no comment on her politics, but the previous UK Prime Minister had exactly the demeanor you could ask of a public servant. It feels like she was the last of her kind, and it is governments of salesmen from here on in. If you encounter someone in your life who exhibits the culture of rule bending, bring technically correct, or trying to get away with something, then please hold them to a higher standard, especially if they have any kind of public role. The alternative is these double speaking wheeler dealers — in this example, one who is concocting a self serving interpretation of the lockdown rules — who break that most golden of all rules: do unto others as you would have done to yourself. Or as I like to say it — what if everyone behaved like you did?

GordonS 6y ago
I could never forgive her after her stint as home secretary, after she instituted additional mass surveillance and argued strongly for far more, as usual, all under the guise of "keeping us safe". But as much as I disliked her for her stance on surveillance, I do have to say that she had an impossible job in that limbo state after the brexit vote.
- kybernetikos 6y ago
  But she was also exactly the wrong person to do that impossible job. As you say, the job was impossible, but the best chance of success would have required someone who was amazing at making deals (rather than trying to forge a course that ignores those you disagree with), getting people to compromise and come together, and the ability to question your own assumptions.
- thu2111 6y ago
  It wasn't impossible, was it? Johnson has proven that. She used the same tactic as Boris Johnson by calling an election to try and get a big majority which could implement the referendum in the face of opposition parties who had voted for it but now refused to actually abide by it. She was such a poor politician she instead lost her majority and ended up in a limbo controlled by her opponents. She had a party filled with MPs who openly lied to the voters during her disastrous GE campaign, saying they'd implement the Brexit vote and then immediately turning around and doing everything they could to stop it once elected. She did nothing to get a grip on her party and just drifted, completely lost and weak. Then Boris Johnson stepped up. 1. He won the party leadership. 2. He kicked out a huge number of MPs (>40?) that had openly betrayed the voters, in some cases by switching after being elected to a party with the exact opposite of the policies they ran on. This plunged him deep into minority territory. 3. Parliament was filled with MPs who knew they'd lose the moment an election occurred due to those betrayals, and thus for the first time in history Johnson was faced with an opposition that kept voting against a chance to take power - the entire reason for their existence! Yet he still managed to get another general election. 4. He forced all of his prospective MPs to take a public oath that they'd actually implement what they said they'd implement in the party manifesto this time. He flushed out huge numbers of them that were untrustworthy. 5. He ran a strong campaign that gave him a huge majority. 6. He filled the cabinet with people who were committed to "getting brexit done" as he put it. He brought in a notoriously tough advisor who has already supposedly squashed multiple plots to reverse the referendum. 7. He replaced the Brexit negotiator with someone who is actually interested in negotiating and who believed in British independence, vs Theresa May's picks who didn't. Except for the first step these are all things Theresa May could have done but was too weak or politically un-astute to do. Hardly impossible, it just required political strength and leadership.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    It's amusing that a timeline of recent British parliamentary history is now worthy of downvotes. Down the memory hole we go!
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - mercer 6y ago
      I see someone complain about downvotes, I downvote! Then I often check if I maybe wasn't too hasty, and so far it's always been warranted. For some reason people complaining about downvotes correlates strongly with shitty comments and a history of shitty comments. EDIT: and you're one of the shitty commenters, it seems. congrats!
  - GordonS 6y ago
    You make some good points, but I still think it was a largely impossible job. As much as you believe Boris has succeeded where she failed, he hasn't actually got any better a deal from the EU than she did, and we're still arguing about when Brexit should actually happen (we've only had a repreve due to the COVID situation!). Realistically, the EU holds all the cards here. But I'm not going to argue much on this, as I strongly dislike here actions as home secretary, and believe she would have gone further on mass surveillance after Brexit - I'm not here greatest fan.
- Jefro118 6y ago
  It wasn't impossible after Brexit, it became impossible (or at least very difficult) after she and her advisors screwed up the 2017 election.
a_humean 6y ago
May did have a public persona of duty, but she was also exceptionally dishonest both publically and privately with allies and opponents alike. She was running a non-stop gaslighting operation on the public and MPs, and she was never honest about what choices were available. Nobody would trust a thing she said by the end. She also did more than anyone else to widen the brexit divisions with the loss of losers consent on the Remain side of the brexit.
sideshowb 6y ago
I'm not particularly outraged about what Cummings did under lockdown. Having a medical emergency in the family ourselves a few weeks back we were actually encouraged by healthcare workers to do something similar, though in fact we decided against. I am outraged that he didn't at the time realise that others may need to do similar, and issue clarification on the rules to publicise that this sort of thing was permissible.
- kybernetikos 6y ago
  I agree with this take. I think almost everyone can understand why he would have done what he did, but that's because lots of people were caught in similar situations and had to make the difficult decision whether or not to follow the official guidance that he was involved in making. Lots of people did follow the guidance despite it being really difficult for them to do so, and it's yet another story where it seems to be a case of 'rules for thee, but not for me'. The right way to handle this would have been to confess and apologise and say it was a lapse of judgement - I think lots of people, understanding the difficult situation he was in would have accepted that. To brazen it out and claim it was good judgement and responsible behaviour is to admit that the government guidance and response as a whole was flawed.
  - sideshowb 6y ago
    I think it's more a case of social attitudes being about 50% split* between "follow all rules whatever" and "use them as guidance but apply your own judgement". Of course when making the rules you should bloody well get them right in order to be fair to people with the first kind of attitude. *if I remember correctly from my previous work on the british social attitudes survey
    - cm2187 6y ago
      Absolutely. It’s like the imperial college guy. I think he deserves an outrage for his fantasist models, but him not respecting the lockdown after he recovered from covid, and could neither infect or be infected, is common sense. The lockdown was aimed at reducing the pace of infections, not to enforce some petty rules when they don’t make sense. The outrage is really only about loving the rule over what it is trying to achieve.
signal11 6y ago
> but the previous UK Prime Minister had exactly the demeanor you could ask of a public servant. Who, Theresa May? She was a big user of 'spin' and chicanery too, only -- she wasn't very good at it. She had her own "master of the dark arts", Nick Timothy, who was fired after her embarrassing loss in the polls. I think you'd have to go to John Major if you want an old-style Tory. Tony Blair himself was a big user of 'spin' and media management. IMHO, and this may be controversial, there's nothing wrong with spin and media management if there's some sincerity behind your beliefs, and Blair was an unabashed left-of-centre neoliberal, like him or hate him. Obama had a very good spin machine too, but of course there was a fair amount of substance to the man -- I say this as someone who laughed at his Nobel Prize win. The current lot are very empty in the ideas department, are incompetent, and are only clinging on to power thanks to the first past the post system which makes it hard for a divided Opposition to win a plurality of seats. That is, any pretence of governing from the centre is gone. They're happy to use data science to ferret out the path to victory and use polarizing social media messaging tactics to win key seats.
- sideshowb 6y ago
  John Major has notably spoken out against the current lot “The NHS is about as safe with them as a pet hamster would be with a hungry python” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/05/john-major-nhs-risk-brexit-pythons-johnson-and-gove https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/05/john-major-...
rbg246 6y ago
I agree completely with the sentiment of your comment. But I wouldn't hold Theresa May up too highly. Here is Theresa May deleting her 2009 blog post with her strong opposition to the 3rd runway at Heathrow... https://www.tmay.co.uk/news?page=31 https://www.tmay.co.uk/news?page=31 After she reversed her decision as Prime Minister betraying her electorate who are under the flight path. https://web.archive.org/web/20111007162146/http://www.tmay.co.uk/news/?month=2009-01 https://web.archive.org/web/20111007162146/http://www.tmay.c... This is the now missing article: https://web.archive.org/web/20130103045701/http://www.tmay.co.uk/news/111/theresa-speaks-out-against-governments-decision-to-approve-a-third-runway-at-heathrow https://web.archive.org/web/20130103045701/http://www.tmay.c...
- Reason077 6y ago
  Thankfully, Boris Johnson's Heathrow position appears to have remained consistent since he became PM. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/heathrow-expansion-boris-johnson-court-of-appeal-ruling-third-runway-a9362786.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/heathrow-expa...
  - rbg246 6y ago
    Wow I am somewhat inpressed. I was expecting a sharp u turn on the issue
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
metafunctor 6y ago
Isn't a representative democracy necessarily a government of salesmen? If you really liked Theresa May, perhaps she was just more successful at selling to you than the others.
- arethuza 6y ago
  We have had rather good Prime Ministers who were quite remarkably unlike salesmen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Attlee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Attlee
dreen 6y ago
I haven't liked Theresa May since she went full Janet Reno over video games during her time as HS. It was the first time I heard her name probably. Minor thing but strikes a cord with me. As PM she was just marginally better than Johnson.
- Nursie 6y ago
  For me it was throwing out or suppressing evidence-based reports and policy recommendations on drug harms during the coalition years, causing at least one home office minister to quit in protest. Because clearly her biases are better than evidence driven policy. Was glad she only lasted a year or so.
  - dreen 6y ago
    Oh absolutely, her husband profiteers from legal cannabis while she held a hard line of prosecuting people for using it due to "no health benefits" https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-blasted-links-medical-cannabis-12701871 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-blasted-links-...
Nursie 6y ago
> I make no comment on her politics, but the previous UK Prime Minister had exactly the demeanor you could ask of a public servant. Hells no. Repeatedly ignored real scientific evidence in favour of her own authoritarian bias when it came to a whole bunch of stuff. Dreadful attitude. A pox on all their houses.
t0ddbonzalez 6y ago
> "then please hold them to a higher standard, especially if they have any kind of public role." Thing is, the law doesn't allow one class of persons to be held to a higher standard. Everybody is supposed to be held to the same standard. Of course, it seems in this situation that certain people in public service can exempt themselves from the common standard altogether with no punishment.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > Thing is, the law doesn't allow one class of persons to be held to a higher standard. Misconduct in Public Office isn't used very often, but it exists and is there ebcause we do hold people in public office to a higher standard.
  - t0ddbonzalez 6y ago
    The offence of Misconduct in Public Office, as the name suggests, applies only to those in public office. So it's not a higher standard - it's another, different standard. You or I couldn't be prosecuted for the offence (assuming you don't hold a public office...).
    - DanBC 6y ago
      I don't get it. You or I can't be prosecuted under it because we're not in public office, but people in public office can be prosecuted under it, thus there's a class of people held to higher standards. There's a bunch of stuff that you and I can do, but that we couldn't do if we were in public office.
      - t0ddbonzalez 6y ago
        How can there be a higher standard if something doesn't apply to you?
        DanBC 6y ago
        Members of the public are expected to meet one standard. There are additional -higher- standards placed upon people in public office. I don't understand how a law that applies to a certain class of people, but not everybody, is not treating that certain class of people differently. The law creates the higher standard. Behaviour that's perfectly legal for most people becomes illegal for people in public office because we expect higher standards from those people and we expect these higher standards so strongly we created a law to enforce it.
afandian 6y ago
Regardless of her political stances, there is plenty to critique. The "sound" old public-school-boy* persona that used to rule Westminster used to be considered trustworthy by the ruling class. Now it's widely seen as risible. Wherever we see honour or holiness we should be very careful IMHO, it's often two-faced. Theresa May's "selfless-public-service" persona represented inflexibility to the point of negligence. I don't doubt that she did personally suffer for it. But in taking the lines she did, she inflicted far more suffering and pain in some of the most vulnerable in society. She persisted with a disasterous public policy with Brexit. Whatever the politics of it, the inflexibility that formed the subtance of her persona was dysfunctional. She'll be remembered for her "hostile environment policy" and "Brexit means Brexit". * "public school" = private, often elite, schools

GordonS 6y ago

I could never forgive her after her stint as home secretary, after she instituted additional mass surveillance and argued strongly for far more, as usual, all under the guise of "keeping us safe". But as much as I disliked her for her stance on surveillance, I do have to say that she had an impossible job in that limbo state after the brexit vote.

kybernetikos 6y ago
But she was also exactly the wrong person to do that impossible job. As you say, the job was impossible, but the best chance of success would have required someone who was amazing at making deals (rather than trying to forge a course that ignores those you disagree with), getting people to compromise and come together, and the ability to question your own assumptions.
thu2111 6y ago
It wasn't impossible, was it? Johnson has proven that. She used the same tactic as Boris Johnson by calling an election to try and get a big majority which could implement the referendum in the face of opposition parties who had voted for it but now refused to actually abide by it. She was such a poor politician she instead lost her majority and ended up in a limbo controlled by her opponents. She had a party filled with MPs who openly lied to the voters during her disastrous GE campaign, saying they'd implement the Brexit vote and then immediately turning around and doing everything they could to stop it once elected. She did nothing to get a grip on her party and just drifted, completely lost and weak. Then Boris Johnson stepped up. 1. He won the party leadership. 2. He kicked out a huge number of MPs (>40?) that had openly betrayed the voters, in some cases by switching after being elected to a party with the exact opposite of the policies they ran on. This plunged him deep into minority territory. 3. Parliament was filled with MPs who knew they'd lose the moment an election occurred due to those betrayals, and thus for the first time in history Johnson was faced with an opposition that kept voting against a chance to take power - the entire reason for their existence! Yet he still managed to get another general election. 4. He forced all of his prospective MPs to take a public oath that they'd actually implement what they said they'd implement in the party manifesto this time. He flushed out huge numbers of them that were untrustworthy. 5. He ran a strong campaign that gave him a huge majority. 6. He filled the cabinet with people who were committed to "getting brexit done" as he put it. He brought in a notoriously tough advisor who has already supposedly squashed multiple plots to reverse the referendum. 7. He replaced the Brexit negotiator with someone who is actually interested in negotiating and who believed in British independence, vs Theresa May's picks who didn't. Except for the first step these are all things Theresa May could have done but was too weak or politically un-astute to do. Hardly impossible, it just required political strength and leadership.
- thu2111 6y ago
  It's amusing that a timeline of recent British parliamentary history is now worthy of downvotes. Down the memory hole we go!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mercer 6y ago
    I see someone complain about downvotes, I downvote! Then I often check if I maybe wasn't too hasty, and so far it's always been warranted. For some reason people complaining about downvotes correlates strongly with shitty comments and a history of shitty comments. EDIT: and you're one of the shitty commenters, it seems. congrats!
- GordonS 6y ago
  You make some good points, but I still think it was a largely impossible job. As much as you believe Boris has succeeded where she failed, he hasn't actually got any better a deal from the EU than she did, and we're still arguing about when Brexit should actually happen (we've only had a repreve due to the COVID situation!). Realistically, the EU holds all the cards here. But I'm not going to argue much on this, as I strongly dislike here actions as home secretary, and believe she would have gone further on mass surveillance after Brexit - I'm not here greatest fan.
Jefro118 6y ago
It wasn't impossible after Brexit, it became impossible (or at least very difficult) after she and her advisors screwed up the 2017 election.

a_humean 6y ago

May did have a public persona of duty, but she was also exceptionally dishonest both publically and privately with allies and opponents alike. She was running a non-stop gaslighting operation on the public and MPs, and she was never honest about what choices were available. Nobody would trust a thing she said by the end. She also did more than anyone else to widen the brexit divisions with the loss of losers consent on the Remain side of the brexit.

sideshowb 6y ago

I'm not particularly outraged about what Cummings did under lockdown. Having a medical emergency in the family ourselves a few weeks back we were actually encouraged by healthcare workers to do something similar, though in fact we decided against. I am outraged that he didn't at the time realise that others may need to do similar, and issue clarification on the rules to publicise that this sort of thing was permissible.

kybernetikos 6y ago
I agree with this take. I think almost everyone can understand why he would have done what he did, but that's because lots of people were caught in similar situations and had to make the difficult decision whether or not to follow the official guidance that he was involved in making. Lots of people did follow the guidance despite it being really difficult for them to do so, and it's yet another story where it seems to be a case of 'rules for thee, but not for me'. The right way to handle this would have been to confess and apologise and say it was a lapse of judgement - I think lots of people, understanding the difficult situation he was in would have accepted that. To brazen it out and claim it was good judgement and responsible behaviour is to admit that the government guidance and response as a whole was flawed.
- sideshowb 6y ago
  I think it's more a case of social attitudes being about 50% split* between "follow all rules whatever" and "use them as guidance but apply your own judgement". Of course when making the rules you should bloody well get them right in order to be fair to people with the first kind of attitude. *if I remember correctly from my previous work on the british social attitudes survey
  - cm2187 6y ago
    Absolutely. It’s like the imperial college guy. I think he deserves an outrage for his fantasist models, but him not respecting the lockdown after he recovered from covid, and could neither infect or be infected, is common sense. The lockdown was aimed at reducing the pace of infections, not to enforce some petty rules when they don’t make sense. The outrage is really only about loving the rule over what it is trying to achieve.

signal11 6y ago

> but the previous UK Prime Minister had exactly the demeanor you could ask of a public servant. Who, Theresa May? She was a big user of 'spin' and chicanery too, only -- she wasn't very good at it. She had her own "master of the dark arts", Nick Timothy, who was fired after her embarrassing loss in the polls. I think you'd have to go to John Major if you want an old-style Tory. Tony Blair himself was a big user of 'spin' and media management. IMHO, and this may be controversial, there's nothing wrong with spin and media management if there's some sincerity behind your beliefs, and Blair was an unabashed left-of-centre neoliberal, like him or hate him. Obama had a very good spin machine too, but of course there was a fair amount of substance to the man -- I say this as someone who laughed at his Nobel Prize win. The current lot are very empty in the ideas department, are incompetent, and are only clinging on to power thanks to the first past the post system which makes it hard for a divided Opposition to win a plurality of seats. That is, any pretence of governing from the centre is gone. They're happy to use data science to ferret out the path to victory and use polarizing social media messaging tactics to win key seats.

sideshowb 6y ago
John Major has notably spoken out against the current lot “The NHS is about as safe with them as a pet hamster would be with a hungry python” https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/05/john-major-nhs-risk-brexit-pythons-johnson-and-gove https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/05/john-major-...

rbg246 6y ago

I agree completely with the sentiment of your comment. But I wouldn't hold Theresa May up too highly. Here is Theresa May deleting her 2009 blog post with her strong opposition to the 3rd runway at Heathrow... https://www.tmay.co.uk/news?page=31 https://www.tmay.co.uk/news?page=31 After she reversed her decision as Prime Minister betraying her electorate who are under the flight path. https://web.archive.org/web/20111007162146/http://www.tmay.co.uk/news/?month=2009-01 https://web.archive.org/web/20111007162146/http://www.tmay.c... This is the now missing article: https://web.archive.org/web/20130103045701/http://www.tmay.co.uk/news/111/theresa-speaks-out-against-governments-decision-to-approve-a-third-runway-at-heathrow https://web.archive.org/web/20130103045701/http://www.tmay.c...

Reason077 6y ago
Thankfully, Boris Johnson's Heathrow position appears to have remained consistent since he became PM. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/heathrow-expansion-boris-johnson-court-of-appeal-ruling-third-runway-a9362786.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/heathrow-expa...
- rbg246 6y ago
  Wow I am somewhat inpressed. I was expecting a sharp u turn on the issue

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

metafunctor 6y ago

Isn't a representative democracy necessarily a government of salesmen? If you really liked Theresa May, perhaps she was just more successful at selling to you than the others.

arethuza 6y ago
We have had rather good Prime Ministers who were quite remarkably unlike salesmen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Attlee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Attlee

dreen 6y ago

I haven't liked Theresa May since she went full Janet Reno over video games during her time as HS. It was the first time I heard her name probably. Minor thing but strikes a cord with me. As PM she was just marginally better than Johnson.

Nursie 6y ago
For me it was throwing out or suppressing evidence-based reports and policy recommendations on drug harms during the coalition years, causing at least one home office minister to quit in protest. Because clearly her biases are better than evidence driven policy. Was glad she only lasted a year or so.
- dreen 6y ago
  Oh absolutely, her husband profiteers from legal cannabis while she held a hard line of prosecuting people for using it due to "no health benefits" https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-blasted-links-medical-cannabis-12701871 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tories-blasted-links-...

Nursie 6y ago

> I make no comment on her politics, but the previous UK Prime Minister had exactly the demeanor you could ask of a public servant. Hells no. Repeatedly ignored real scientific evidence in favour of her own authoritarian bias when it came to a whole bunch of stuff. Dreadful attitude. A pox on all their houses.

t0ddbonzalez 6y ago

> "then please hold them to a higher standard, especially if they have any kind of public role." Thing is, the law doesn't allow one class of persons to be held to a higher standard. Everybody is supposed to be held to the same standard. Of course, it seems in this situation that certain people in public service can exempt themselves from the common standard altogether with no punishment.

DanBC 6y ago
> Thing is, the law doesn't allow one class of persons to be held to a higher standard. Misconduct in Public Office isn't used very often, but it exists and is there ebcause we do hold people in public office to a higher standard.
- t0ddbonzalez 6y ago
  The offence of Misconduct in Public Office, as the name suggests, applies only to those in public office. So it's not a higher standard - it's another, different standard. You or I couldn't be prosecuted for the offence (assuming you don't hold a public office...).
  - DanBC 6y ago
    I don't get it. You or I can't be prosecuted under it because we're not in public office, but people in public office can be prosecuted under it, thus there's a class of people held to higher standards. There's a bunch of stuff that you and I can do, but that we couldn't do if we were in public office.
    - t0ddbonzalez 6y ago
      How can there be a higher standard if something doesn't apply to you?
      - DanBC 6y ago
        Members of the public are expected to meet one standard. There are additional -higher- standards placed upon people in public office. I don't understand how a law that applies to a certain class of people, but not everybody, is not treating that certain class of people differently. The law creates the higher standard. Behaviour that's perfectly legal for most people becomes illegal for people in public office because we expect higher standards from those people and we expect these higher standards so strongly we created a law to enforce it.

afandian 6y ago

Regardless of her political stances, there is plenty to critique. The "sound" old public-school-boy* persona that used to rule Westminster used to be considered trustworthy by the ruling class. Now it's widely seen as risible. Wherever we see honour or holiness we should be very careful IMHO, it's often two-faced. Theresa May's "selfless-public-service" persona represented inflexibility to the point of negligence. I don't doubt that she did personally suffer for it. But in taking the lines she did, she inflicted far more suffering and pain in some of the most vulnerable in society. She persisted with a disasterous public policy with Brexit. Whatever the politics of it, the inflexibility that formed the subtance of her persona was dysfunctional. She'll be remembered for her "hostile environment policy" and "Brexit means Brexit". * "public school" = private, often elite, schools