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Comment by jjbinx007 | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, the electorate didn't vote for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, they were voted in by Tory membership, who are mostly old and wealthy and don't really care about the plight of the working class up and down the country.

But you are right, people voted for awful leaders like Boris Johnson because they presumably value a comedic personality over honesty and integrity, and because the Tory press do an excellent job of denigrating candidates from any party who don't serve the media owners' own interests.

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Rishi Sunak is the youngest prime minister in modern British history:

    1. *Rishi Sunak – 42 years old (2022)*

    2. *David Cameron – 43 years old (2010)*

    3. *Tony Blair – 43 years old (1997)*

    4. *Liz Truss – 47 years old (2022)*

    5. *John Major – 47 years old (1990)*

    6. *Harold Wilson – 48 years old (1964)*

    7. *David Lloyd George – 53 years old (1916)*

This says a lot... I wonder why these ultra wealthy individuals want more power and money, surely half a billion in the bank is enough? Then they tax every pound of income over (£50k to £150k) at 40%, truly perplexing.

Not exactly. The membership are only given a choice between two candidates. If the membership actually got to choose who ran the party then we'd most likely have had the first female black PM of the country (Kemi Badenoch), who would also have had computer science training. The MPs unfortunately had other ideas and so members got a choice between Sunak and Truss.

> If the membership actually got to choose who ran the party then we'd most likely have had the first female black PM of the country (Kemi Badenoch)

Doubtful. Colour me very very sceptical, for the simple reason that her political positions are quite extreme, even in the party that she finds herself in. I'm not saying that there's no "base" for that in that party, just 1) not a majority and 2) these are also mostly people who are ... shall we say, not "progressive" enough to be enthused by the thought of a "female black PM".

She was easily winning polls of the members. The idea that conservatives are racist is a left wing slur, not reality. She lost because she is too conservative for the Tory MPs, who are well to the left of the party membership.

https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/16/our-next-tory-leader...

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