Archive for October 24, 2022
WHU have delivered
WHU 2 Bournemouth 0
Up to tenth in the table!
Next games:
Silkeborg (H)
Manchester Utd (A)
FCSB (A)
Crystal Palace (H)
Blackburn Rovers (League Cup, H)
Leicester (H)
“I will deliver“
It was true when I assumed in one of my latest posts that we would know the new PM on Monday before kick-off of West Ham’s game against Bournemouth.
I had planned to be in London these days. But unfortunately I have to watch the current developments and the West Ham game from abroad, not being able to make the trip. I’m staying at home due to my second Covid-19 infection.
Johnson and Mordaunt out before deadline
Boris Johnson pulled out of the PM race on Sunday evening and Penny Mordaunt did so shortly before the 2 p.m. deadline for gaining the support of at least 100 MPs on Monday, informing the public that she also had decided not to run:
I feel a little sorry for “P.M.” that with approximately 90 votes she fell narrowly short of reaching the treshold of 100 MPs which was necessary to make the ballot. Not having got the votes needed to give the members of the conservative party an other chance to have their say on who will be the next PM, means that only the Tory MPs have decided the outcome of the leadership race.
I think it might have been better to give the members a choice to decide between Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, but this would have meant that the decision who would be the next prime minister was delayed until the weekend. And Rishi Sunak could have lost a second time against a more or less untested female candidate as he did last time against Liz Truss, less than two months ago. Sunak’s coronation will delight the capital market, but what the electorate’s reaction will be remains to be seen…
UK similar to Austria
Now the situation in the UK isn’t much different from Austria: we also have a “Bundeskanzler” who was not the leader of the Conservative party when they won the latest elections. Karl Nehammer also came into office later on, and the Austrian government, too, has dramatically lost support according to the polls. And in Austria we won’t have a general election before 2024 either.
Sherelle Jacobs writes in The Telegraph:
“Mr Sunak must then, for the good of the country, level with the electorate that the era of cheap borrowing and low inflation is over, and that pain is inevitable. He must find a way of protecting the interests of ordinary people through the storm. He must prove to a sceptical public that he is a leader, not a technocrat. In this, even those who didn’t support him must wish him well; it isn’t just in the interests of the Tory party that he succeeds, but of the whole country.”
Rishi Sunak will meet King Charles on Tuesday morning before taking over as prime minister and will then give a speech by 11:30 a.m. in front of No10.
He says the UK faces ‘profound economic challenge’ and promises to serve as PM with ‘integrity’ in a brief first address in which he also said that he would deliver what was needed now.
Youngest PM in more than 200 years
Rishi Sunak becomes prime minister just seven years after entering parliament in 2015 – faster than any other politician in recent British history.
Moreover, Sunak (aged 42) becomes the youngest prime minister in more than 200 years. The youngest prime minister was William Pitt the Younger, who became PM in 1783 at the age of 24. He led the Tory Party to victory in the 1784 general election when aged 25 and served as PM twice. He died aged only 46, exhausted by the demands of an office whose modern conception he helped to establish, and of a peculiarly threatening international situation which frustrated many of his political goals.
Unite or die
In some papers the task he’s facing is described as a suicide mission. Economists doubt that Sunak can get the country’s finances under control and at the same time keep the Tories’ numerous quarrelling factions together. Under the given circumstances Rishi Sunak is right to tell the party: “Unite or die“.
However, let’s wish him well for reuniting the party and bringing stability back to the the UK.
And for now I hope that West Ham will deliver against Bournemouth tonight – the game which we had planned to visit – and move up the table in which they sit only in 17th place right now.
West Ham XI: Fabianski, Cresswell, Zouma, Kehrer, Johnson, Soucek, Rice, Downes, Benrahma, Scamacca, Bowen.
Subs: Areola, Randolph, Coufal, Ogbonna, Emerson, Lanzini, Coventry, Antonio, Fornals.
Come on you Irons!
EXTRA TIME 
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