What a crazy day for British politics and it’s still early in the morning here in America. Today, Liz Truss formally resigned as prime minister in a private meeting with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace. Shortly after that, Rishi Sunak met with Charles and did the hand-kissing formation-of-government thing. As I said yesterday, this is KC3’s first hand-kiss from an incoming prime minister, surely? Liz Truss had to kiss Queen Elizabeth’s hand in what would be the Truss Kiss of Death.
There are already predictions that Sunak will get “the Meghan Markle treatment” with the British media and British public. Meaning, I think, that he will be held up as a symbol of inclusion within British society, all while the British media rips him to shreds and smears the hell out of him. I think Sunak is about to find out that even with his wealth, his hard-right-wing positions and his Tory-good-soldiering, many in his party and many in his country still see him as an Indian man with “no place” in white society. I kind of wonder if he’ll be able to hang on for two full Trusses (88 days).
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Justin Ng / Avalon, Imageplotter / Avalon.
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- Rishi Sunak departs Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) after winning the leadership ballot for the Conservative Party to be the next leader and Prime Minister of Britain – CCHQ, London, England, UK on Monday 24 October, 2022.,Image: 732928285, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no, Credit line: Justin Ng / Avalon
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- London, UK, 25th Oct 2022. Liz Truss, British Prime Minister, during her final statement in Downing Street before going to Buckingham Palace to see King Charles III. Later today, Rishi Sunak will then become the new British Prime Minister.,Image: 733089722, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Imageplotter / Avalon
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- London, UK, 25th Oct 2022. Liz Truss, British Prime Minister, during her final statement in Downing Street before going to Buckingham Palace to see King Charles III. Later today, Rishi Sunak will then become the new British Prime Minister.,Image: 733089786, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: Imageplotter / Avalon
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- King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, London, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government. Picture date: Tuesday October 25, 2022.,Image: 733097445, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, London, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government. Picture date: Tuesday October 25, 2022.,Image: 733097454, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
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- King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at Buckingham Palace, London, where he invited the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government. Picture date: Tuesday October 25, 2022.,Image: 733097474, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: NO UK USE FOR 48 HOURS- Fee Payable Upon reproduction – For queries contact Avalon sales@Avalon.red London +44 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles +1 310 822 0419 Berlin +49 30 76 212 251 Madrid +34 91 533 42 89, Model Release: no, Credit line: Avalon.red / Avalon
They should keep the lettuce and see if it can outlast two Tory PMs.
What a clown show that party is. That’s what you get when you cater
to the worst to get their votes. Johnson supporters are almost like their own party now.
They want to be heard, and if you’re old money trying to act posh and distinguished, you shouldn’t have sucked up to them to get their vote.
And Liz wore Lettuce Green for her goiing away. Perfect.
Lmao!
So far, Charles has had to take orders from 1. a woman and 2. a Brown man richer than himself. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
Poor Charles. He’s finally King and this is how the Tories treat him!
It seems as some Johnson supporters already want a general election because Boris could not get back in Number 10. I am guessing the UK will be having a general election at the start of 2023.
Blow Job and his minions seem to think that if he stands for PM at a GE he will get in again – nope. He’s very much hated by the voting plebs as is his entire party.
That’ll never happen before 2024, I am afraid.
A GE is wishful thinking, a very recent poll put the Tories at 8 seats and Labour at 574.
He’s cute, that’s all I have to say.
You serious right now?!
I mean between him and Boris…
He’s into CBDCs and Crypto and not just Bitcoin and Ether. Watch him change the financial system. He even used the word “Reset”.
Keeping it positive lol
@LOLO86LF: Agreed 😻
Girl, that man wears the hell out of a suit. He fine, fine. Why are we not talking about how handsome this man is? Yeah, right wing, yada yada whatever. He fine AF.
My first thought was ‘big head, little body’ . Seriously, he’s got the body of a little boy & somebody superimposed an adult man’s head on him.
@Beaniebean: That’s the wrong way of looking at it, believe me. The man has a solid nose structure which is indicative of his 😇 potential.
@South African Girl: The conversation is way too political already. The man hasn’t wreaked havoc just yet, meaning we should focus on his looks, right?
@South African Girl,
I was thinking that too after the still photos. Almost a Trudeau. Then I watched him make a speech and the lack of blinking and gestures is… in the uncanny valley.
how is this conversation “too political?”
it is literally about politics!
personally, I don’t eff with tories, republicans, or bitcoin bros. I’m worth a lot more than that! you know who else can wear a suit? Dracula.
Now that you mention Dracula, it dawns on me that Charles has always prided himself on directly descending from Count Dracula of Romania. His family tree makes King Charles 3 the great-grandson 16 times removed to Vlad The Impaler through his great-grandmother, Queen Mary.
https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/prince-charles-descendant-dracula-owns-5326083
I saw a very interesting comment elsewhere where a tory apparently said over the summer that we would find out if the party members hated women the most or whether the racism would dominate. They then showed us to this will be very interesting. The racism runs way deeper than anything he says or does. I’m currently in France and my (extremely racist and right wing) uncle mentioned that he’s Hindu before saying anything else about him. Literally the opener to the conversation.
From your lips to god’s ears!! I have signed the petition, please any uk-ers sign it too. Thank you
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/619781
Replied to a comment that seems to have disappeared…
Thanks for posting this, hubby and I just signed it!!
They’ll rip him to shreds because of his track record, his policies, and his shady reporting of his own finances. As they should.
This sounds like how hatred and smear against Meghan is justified- it’s her “actions” we are scrutinising.
That’s a silly comparison. Meghan’s actions were not directly affecting the entire country. She was not an elected official, accountable for them. He is. Two very different situations.
Besides, what exactly do you suggest? That we can never criticize POCs in powerful positions (I’m not talking about Meghan right now, but Sunak, Obama) at all, for fear of being called racist? Surely not? Obama had it harder than most presidents because of racism, but he also got some legitimate criticism for his actions. Most people ought to be able to tell the difference between mocking a man’s wife and criticizing his use of drones. Only one of those is an action that can be evaluated.
A quick glance at his and his wife’s Wikipedia had me giving the 👀. That alone provides at least two weeks of newspaper and tabloid fodder even if it was already rehashed earlier this year.
I dunno. I think there are apt comparisons to be made re: how a country that historically spread colonialism and all the racism that went along with that portrays and treats two prominent people of color, particularly in the press. This also highlights how unexpected the rise to prominence has been of these two very different POC in their own, very different cultural contexts.
It’s much harder for me to understand rejecting this comparison— and leaping to over-generalizations about an imagined inability to criticize any POC in any circumstances anywhere “for fear of being called racist “. In my limited —USA-centric— experience, most people who aren’t racist can easily tell the difference between legitimate, well-supported criticisms and the vaguer generalizations that suggest red flags of racism as part of the mix.
@Veda — Not at all. Sunak is a dyed-in-the-wool Thatcherite and multi-billionaire, and will continue the Tory focus on cutting taxes for the rich and leaving the middle/lower classes to rot. Last year he got a lot of flack for axing a bump in social care benefits that would have helped thousands of people struggling to deal with the enormous jump in rent, heating and food prices. No matter what kind of shell game he plays, the rich will be the only ones benefiting.
Was gonna say… isn’t he as bad as the other Tories?
He very much is. He’s been in senior government posts for the past 15 years, so his record speaks for itself. Not sure what that has to do with Meghan Markle?
Not 15 years. Rishi only became an MP in 2015, and became a parliamentary under-secretary (first senior role) in 2018. But he was certainly fast-tracked.
Look at it this way. Would you say that the criticism levied against Justice Thomasnand Ben Carson on this very site is racially motivated or simply because their track record in public office is reprehensible? The USA also has a very strong racist element that still affects society to this day, but does that mean that any time you criticise someone of color who holds publuc office that makes your comments racially motivated?
Well good luck to the UK. Believe me, it’s going to be needed.
Let’s see how long Rishi lasts. The Tories will secretly dislike him cos he is not white. The other side and a lot of the UK south Asian population will dislike him as he is a Hindu. He can’t win.
Who are you referring to with “the other side”? Since one side was the Tories, did you mean the left leaning parties like Labour, LibDem etc.? Why would they mind he is a Hindu specifically?
Hindu nationalism. There was a squib about that on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight this Sunday. It’s really bad: religion and state going hand in hand to the detriment of dissenters and religious or not minorities all over. People are going mad all over the world.
But why would *Labour* go after Rishi for that?
The Labour party isn’t going to go after him for being Hindu, they’re going after him because he is toeing the Tory line to cut taxes for the rich on the backs of the poor. What BoJo started, Truss expanded upon and Sunak will continue, and we saw what a terrible effect that had not only on the UK but on world markets. We’re teetering on a massive recession and the Tory party continues to wreak havoc.
If he didn’t realise it by now, Rishi is going to find out that he was never accepted by British establishment, just tolerated. He’s a means to an end.
Watching MSNBC this morning, the narrative about how he’s the youngest, first British Asian, first POC to be PM, is already off and running. They talk about his meteoric rise in British politics, his posh background and wealth, but very little about his positions, glancing over that he was BJ’s finance minister … it’ll be interesting to see how long the honeymoon lasts……
I think it will be a very short honeymoon ending in a bitter divorce.
Hate all Tory Scum but he will be fine for a little while – it won’t go down the Truss or even the Boris way.
He’s not an idiot, he knows full well that he’s going to get shit from the media – he already was during the dying days of BoJo’s government, as BoJo attempted to kneecap him as a possible successor. His wife, her family, their tax affairs, his green card, his money and so on. But he’s rich enough that he really doesn’t need to give a damn, and his personal life seems to be devoid of sleaze. He doesn’t need to do any of this, he doesn’t need to suck up to people to line up cushy jobs for after his tenure, he doesn’t even need a peerage. So it’ll be interesting to see if the media can do anything to rattle him.
I find it fascinating this photo makes him look quite tall when he’s only about 5’3 (he’s super petit in real life)… is Charles shorter than I thought?!? Or just stooping to be polite…
Johnson superfan Nadine Dorries tried to throw him under the bus when she thought BoJo was still planning to run by implying Rishi and Boris were equally at fault for party gate. Literally going so far as to say “he knew what Boris knew” on her Twitter and asking why people were only focused on Boris being to blame. I’m guessing no cabinet role for her.
There will be no gaffes at least which our economy could use for a while to find some stability. He will be 100% aware that he cannot get away with even 1% of the shiz ppl let Boris slide for… Tory members have now proved “class” is most important to them… unless of course someone’s skin is too dark to be fake tan
He’s 5’7” per Wikipedia.
Wow! His wife must be tiny then
May I ask why CB is referring to Rishi Sunak as “Indian”? He’s of Indian *descent* but his parents immigrated from Africa, and the Indian-African relationships in South-East Africa are not always good. Plus this is a guy who was very pro sending asylum seekers to Rwanda! He has and will encounter racism in Great Britain, but he’s also very, very problematic. It’s disturbing to see him referred to as good looking or cute on this website: kind of like saying Ivanka Trump is gorgeous. He’s made a point of having nothing to do with working class people, there was that fake filling the gas tank photo op, not to mention the American green card, his financial dealings, etc.
If we want to stan a conservative half-Indian former head of state, how about Leo Varadkar?
After learning he’s 5’3 I won’t join those fawning over his looks lol. Why can’t people admit that bad people are good looking though? It’s just a comment on a site about famous people. What does pretending ivanka and this man are unattractive help, politically? Do we have to pretend everyone who is great is also attractive? I don’t like this logic
@Kassia, I’m uncertain as to whether you are a troll or not. However, if you have been keeping track of the slightest bit of European news this year, the my answer to you is Jimmy Åkesson, Giorgia Meloni, Thierry Baudet, Marine Le Pen, et al. That’s why.
Kasia, he’s not 5’3″, he’s between 5’6″ – 5’7″. Furthermore, what’s his height got to do with it? Or his looks? Yes, he’s an attractive man but his politics make him ugly and he’s walking a VERY thin line now between his party’s incomprehensibly unfair financial/economic policies and looking after people who are now unable to afford basics like food, rent and heat.
@CEEJ He can’t possibly be 5’3″. The angle from which they are photographed shows them to be of similar height.
He’s 5’7” per Wikipedia.
Good luck to him, he’s going to need it – that position is a poisoned chalice. Lets face it he can’t be any worse that Truss – but lets see.
Also, I see no one played spot Major Johnny during the coverage of the visits to the King. He was there looking fine in his full uniform and kilt 🙂
Thanks for the Major Johnny Alert! Lol. This is going to totally screw up Googles algorithms— which are showing a deep and sudden interest in British politics!
Unfortunately, Rishi Sunak will be held to another standard, and will have a hard time, even if his being PM offers him some policy wins, after that will come a pound of flesh out of his backside. Even in 2022 somewhitepeople do not like “others”, showing them up… even if it benefits all involved.
Lol at “two full Trusses”. Kaiser, as usual, you’re on fire!
I wonder how C-Rex is going to deal with a PM who happens to be Brown? How will C-Rex try to bully him? How will the Tories and the BM respond when each flexes their power? We already know how the king reacts when he doesn’t get his way (RIP ink pens)… Wishing our friends across the pond much luck!
Politics in the UK are just as badly messed up as we are here in US.
And the economy in both countries are going downhill at a record pace.
Good Luck to we the citizens.
…and Canada racing to catch up.
For sure…2023 is going to be a hell of a year.
” I think Sunak is about to find out that even with his wealth, his hard-right-wing positions and his Tory-good-soldiering, many in his party and many in his country still see him as an Indian man with “no place” in white society”. Yes, he may have gone to Eton, he may mimik his white friends all he wants but the press is about to show him what even his “friends” think of him….
Frankly was not impressed with his work under BOjos government. His policies did very little to help during last year’s price hike and he walked out on Boris at the 11th hour, which, don’t get me wrong I don’t like Boris, but felt more like a stunt than anything….
It’s also crazy that it is the Tory party to have had 3 women and 1 Asian pm and not the Labour party…