Steady on. A slightly less awful era perhaps, but golden?
Sorry if I missed it Apples, Iâll try harder next time 
Us silly old dodderers can take a while to grasp things. Now, whereâs me Tanqueray flavoured Complan gone?
What do folks here make of The Climate Party?
It claims to be a response to the failure of Truss or Sunak to be sensible about net zero, therefore the need for a right-wing pro-climate-action party. But by putting up candidates in a hundred Tory marginals held by climate recalcitrants, wonât they just split the anti-Tory vote further?
Nice jibe by Nesrine Malik in todayâs Guardian:
Itâs worth noting here that Sunak started out as the âcommonsenseâ candidate, who was going to be âhonestâ and not depend on âfairytalesâ. But then, presumably after actually getting to know the voting Tory membership⊠decided that fewer facts and more empty posturing was the way to go.
The Economist daily briefing.
The people choosing Britainâs next prime minister
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
What is a Tory? Once the question was answered with comic references to pink faces and pinker trousers. The humour has faded. In the past four years, Conservative Party members have twice chosen Britainâs prime minister. After Boris Johnson announced his resignation in July, they are being called upon once again. On Tuesday they will gather in Darlington in north-east England, the latest stop on a tour by Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, the candidates seeking to woo them. By the end of the week members will have received their postal ballots, due back by September 2nd.
No one knows exactly how many Tory party members there are; it is thought to be around 160,000. They are overwhelmingly male, old and white. At hustings they are polite, if prone to the odd harrumph. Some are attracted by the âbonkersâ nature of Ms Truss, the foreign secretary and favourite to beat Mr Sunak, the former chancellor. And many do, in fact, wear pink trousers.
Are you suggesting therefore they are predominantly âMale, pale & staleâ?
Is the Labour Party system any better ? Blair resigned and was succeeded by Godawful Brown, probably the worst PM ever.
The system needs to change so a new PM is elected by the people in a GE.
Frankly at this point Brown could have eaten a baby live on the 6 o Clock news and still wouldnât be the worst PM everâŠ
I thought his approach yesterday was quite sensible in trying to do something to tackle the cost of living crisis in UK. The current government are totally absent at this important time which is appalling.
I would also suggest that there have been a number of PMs since who are competing between themselves for the title - but will probably be eclipsed by Liz âMensaâ Truss.
I think GB is a decent bloke with a great intellect who was much misaligned by the media.
You have strange values if you think Brown was worse than Johnson, or even Cameron and May.
perhaps the opposition too 
Yes Cat, a little harsh maybe but GB didnât really want to integrate with thĂ© EU so maybe set the seeds for an eventual Brexit. I thought he spoke well yesterday, a lot of sense thoâ itâs easy to talk a good game.
Yes, Boris has been atrocious thoâ has any PM really covered themselves in glory over the past fifty years ?
scathing endorsement for TrussâŠ
They look and sound utterly ghastly. And thick.
I imagine they were carefully chosen to suit PoliticsJoeâs agenda.
I suppose the problem is that you have to be a certain type of person to be a member of the Conservative & Unionist Party, and if you see everything going wrong, you hang on even more tightly.
Brown was a bit of a disappointment in terms of policy initiatives, but thank goodness was bright enough to do the right things when the financial crisis hit us in 2007-8 (if you think it was good to avoid a total collapse of the financial system, that is).
I doubt if any subsequent PM (or any Tory come to that) would have the intelligence to react similarly. When the Tories and LibDems came in in 2010 they predictably did exactly the wrong things (just as Truss etc are now again proposing).