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Have Tory MPs the bottle to oust Johnson? – politicalbetting.com
Have Tory MPs the bottle to oust Johnson? – politicalbetting.com
One thing we have learned this past week is that Johnson is not going anywhere of his own accord. For him to cease to be PB is going to require Tory MPs to act – first to have a confidence ballot and then for the MPs to decide by a simple majority that he should go.
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The vast majority of DUP and TUV voters want Donaldson to withdraw from Stormont's Executive, although most UUP voters still do not
https://twitter.com/SuzyJourno/status/1484657507914104833?s=20
That would be ballsy, if stupid.
Or Bullshitter.
Not that it will happen because the average Tory MP is clueless and doesn’t understand the harm not removing Boris is doing day on day, week by week to their future prospects.
But I'm still not even persuaded about a VONC until it actually occurs.
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1484644054902190081
.@GiertychRoman, a lawyer who has uncovered corruption in the Polish ruling party, gave his phone details to Toronto University's
@citizenlab, which analyzed it and found Pegasus spyware.
The next day, the government issued a warrant for Giertych's arrest. Can't be a coincidence…
https://twitter.com/eurobriefing/status/1484437442581176320?s=21
Could be argued they've evolved into their name?
The 90k as an MP also surprises me actually, I thought it was lower (albeit not by much) even now or is that because of committe membership etc?
I do feel quite dirty asking you about salary but my sense from your postings over the years is you won't mind...
We've debated how competitive MP salaries are, and it obviously depends what you were doing before. Coming from a high-wage country the difference was pretty extreme. But politics is a bug, as most MPs of all parties will confirm - if you catch it, you don't really care much about salary, because a fascinating job where you hope to do some good is simply more fun than buying a big house or whatever.
I don't pretend to have any great insight into the minds of Tory MPs, but I think it is unlikely that Sue Gray will provide the backbone they appear to have currently misplaced. The last thing a senior civil servant is going to want to do is to be seen to bring down a PM. She will play a dead bat.
And so we will go on, with the May elections seen as the next possible trigger point for bringing down the Johnson Ministry. But there don't seem to be the number of Conservative councillors that would create an eye-catching number of losses.
Most of the local election contests are in areas of relative Labour strength (or at least, relative Conservative weakness), and with FPTP that means there might not be that many Conservative councillors around to lose their seats.
If the number of councillors lost is less than expected, even though that could be because there were never that many to be lost in the first place, then this would provide another excuse for procrastinating plotters to delay again.
I did use to confidently assert that betting on Starmer to be next PM was a terrible bet, because either Johnson would crush him in a general election, or the Tories would replace Johnson if it looked like he would lose. Now, I'm not so sure.
When Thatcher was pushed out it was made easier by her unpopularity in the opinion polls, of course, but the policy issue of Europe was the motivating issue. Similarly, May wasn't ousted due to the disastrous 2017 GE campaign, but only two years later when the issue of how to achieve Brexit had reached a point of chronic crisis.
Johnson is undoubtedly unpopular. And his actions fail any reasonable test of fitness to be a Minister, let alone the Prime Minister, but there is no pressing issue of public policy to force the plotters' hand. It could well be that we are in a similar situation to 2008-10, when many in the governing party wish they had a different PM, but no-one is willing to go through with doing what is required to make that happen, because it may turn out that MPs are not as motivated by self-preservation as popularly assumed, but on whether a change in leadership would produce a change in policy. And it's not obvious that any of the contenders for the Tory leadership would do anything much different to the status quo.
So maybe Johnson will be PM for the next election after all. And Starmer might have a decent chance of being next PM. Checks quickly whether Johnson has gone in the time it took to type this...
Currently Johnson is trashing the brand at a rate of knots. He doesn't seem to stand for anything very much, and most of his likely replacements are if anything more likely to occupy the ideological space that appeals to the average Tory MP. I don't think he's much liked by most of his MPs, who he mostly seems to treat like dirt.
Dispatching him occurs via secret letters and a secret ballot, so the risks of revenge if he survives are small.
What possible incentive is there for Tory MPs not to write to Graham Brady? And yet it seems that they won't.
They also seem to be touting some odd alternatives - quite a few of whom are very much yesterday's men.
If I was a Tory MP I'd try and get Steve Baker in as Boris's replacement. He's presentable (good hair goes a long way on TV). He's against lockdown, right at the moment when if can definitely be rolled back, and the country has had enough anyway. He's not even tainted by the whole boozy party saga, whilst there are quite possibly skeletons in some of the front-runners closets waiting to appear (realistically Dom has probably got at least some dirt on all the current cabinet).
He's sound on Brexit, and low taxation. And last but certainly not least, he actually appears to be truthful.
In a lot of ways, he's pretty much an anti-Boris, and surely that's exactly what the party needs right now.
The nine-member panel is now in possession of ‘all the records’ which former president Donald Trump sued to block the committee from obtaining
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-capitol-riot-committee-records-b1998102.html
BREAKING: U.S. reports 3,707 new coronavirus deaths, highest since February 2021
On one side you have people like my own anti vax father and his wife. He lives in a southern state, is a Republican along with his wife, and although we talk regularly it's not mentioned as ultimately it's his own decision and I can't be bothered with the debate. It's just annoying that it's also people like himself who are prolonging the pandemic there.
On the other side, you have a sizeable minority of the Democrat leaning public who can only be described as subscribing to an iSAGE on steroids Covid assessment, as demonstrated in this rather ridiculous article I read today.
The author seems to react to Covid as if it's just as deadly as 2020 and has resorted to imprisoning her kids indefinitely under the premise of keeping them safe despite being double jabbed, while completely ignoring that their social skills and development are bound to suffer.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/01/covid-parenting-challenges-stress/621322/
The main prize is taking control of the party’s policy and direction, blaming off iffy mid term locals on previous incumbent doesn’t register against the real prize.
And they were right to try. Boris is a lazy sod with no attention or grasp on detail, his inane broad brush economic ideas are arguably not even what made Conservatives great in the first place.
But they have failed. The coup smashed into a brick wall of just how popular Boris still is on the back benches, amongst his own cabinet, throughout the Tory press.
UPDATE: U.S. reports 3,896 new coronavirus deaths, highest since January 2021
*Betting Post because it’s *Horse Racing 🐎 🙂🙂🙂🙂
Posting a bit early, before morning check going stick and non runners, I might sleep in if I get comfortable. I have fallen off horses so many times my back and hip not happy from time to time.
All three PB Racing Shrewdies tipped a winner last week, yours truly 2/4
I appreciate not every gambler loves sharing and sharing publicly. I suspect though some reading PB may be betting on horse racing regular particularly the Saturday coverage, I will be placing at least Lucky 15 today and means a degree of “due diligence” on my choices - I’m a open and honest girl I don’t mind sharing what led to my decision even if it likely a illegal mix of chemicals 😵💫
It’s my chance of contributing something back to the site actually 🙂 as I know nothing about anti tank drones, Epidemiology, chimpanzee testicles, or how 200 conservative PMs can collectively lose their spines at the same time.
My Lucky 15 today and my reasons
ASCOT - 13:45 - Stellar Magic (NAP)
Secret weapon on my betting slip. Just the 4 races under rules in career so far, 2 wins at this distance.
HAYDOCK - 14:00 - Hunters Call
Has form, but not like the favourite of this race, I’m betting against Tommys Oscar managing 4 in a row. I do such things sometimes. Maybe today it will work.
ASCOT - 14:55 - Amour De Nuit (LONG SHOT)
Based on form in last race, and previous history for being there or thereabouts.
ASCOT - 15:35 - Amoola Gold (THE GIRLS LOST IT)
Alcohol, Tranquillisers, pickled eggs, a bad back and bad night means I am overlooking its priced at 100-1? With a bit of looking into its history and there is no way it should be priced at that in this small field.
Good luck 🙋♀️
The damage he's doing to the Tory brand is mostly already done, and a lot of what's left is about him personally. He definitely has some political skill so he might recover. And if you wait until 2023 the new guy can plausibly do a snap election off the bounce, or not as they prefer.
Just give it a year and keep your options open, there's not much downside.
Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points
DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson faces a major challenge to be First Minister as DUP support has fallen again with Sinn Fein opening up an 8% lead over its rival.
With her party on 25%, Michelle O’Neill is on course to secure Stormont’s top job after May’s Assembly election, according to a LucidTalk opinion poll for the Belfast Telegraph.
https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/disaster-for-dup-leader-jeffrey-donaldson-as-sinn-fein-extends-lead-to-eight-points-41266170.html
(£)
DUP 17% (-1)
All 14% (nc)
UUP 14% (nc)
TUV 12% (+1)
SDLP 11% (-1)
(LucidTalk/Belfast Telegraph; changes from November)
Approx seat projection:
Unionists:
DUP 19
UUP 13
TUV 11
Total 43
Pro-reunification:
SF 23
SDLP 11
Total 34
Neutral:
Alliance 13
The current situation is frightening for them. And is about to become a lot more frightening, as their local councils are about to lose their Blue hue.
The only thing that matters are the views of Unionists.
Remarkable lack of guts. The pathetic excuse of waiting for the report is no better. You need a report to tell you the PM needs to be axed? That's as dumb as the PM claiming he thought the party was a 'work event'.
I think that the main issue is the difference of opinion over timing. Once the letters pass the threshold then Johnson has had it. He's not a credible figure and his ratings are abysmal. Moreover, if the MPs do vote to keep him in, then they're effectively saying that they believe Sunak and all the rest of the alternatives are even worse: a truly damning indictment both of their willingness to tolerate and to shill for bad governance, and the total lack of talent amongst their own number that such a decision would necessarily imply.
I have especially noticed that when the facts are in conflict with his view, he considers the facts are wrong.
You have decided that it has already failed on the basis that Boris is so popular 'still' on the back benches? Then I'm afraid you have no knowledge of the Conservative Party in parliament. He has never been popular on the back benches and he's deeply unpopular among them right now. Throwing Owen Paterson under the bus was the final straw for those few left who were still loyal.
Most tory MPs know it's only a matter of time until Johnson is ousted.
Are you one yourself? Or married to one? Or a member of Brady’s staff?
If not I would advise you to consider the far more sensible comment of @pigeon above: ‘We can't know exactly what's going on with vacillating Conservative backbenchers.’
If the implication of a result anything like the one suggested by this survey is meant to be that a border poll is coming then that's obviously wrong. A Sinn Fein First Minister would be a symbolic event that would generate a lot of fevered chatter for about two days, but in the Northern Irish context of mandatory coalitions, where the DUP Deputy would continue to be an equal figure in all but name, that's as far as it goes.
One thing that Northern Ireland and Scotland have in common is that their respective electorates are hopelessly split both on the constitutional issue and whether or not they want to endure a "national conversation" about the topic. Unless or until that changes, neither is going anywhere.
Of course, one can plausibly argue that this state of affairs is temporary, and that the Union is progressively unravelling and is therefore doomed in the long term, but politicians are always too busy shoring up their positions within the current electoral cycle to think about what could happen in ten, twenty or fifty years' time (which might well end up being someone else's problem anyway.) For now, the Union is safe. The Unionists will take that.
I mean, that’s a clear cut breach of the law which even your average 50IQ Civil Servant must have realised, and it’s disgusting they will get away with it due to what I can only assume is corruption within the Met. And I hope everybody who was fined for lockdown parties now appeals and sues the hell out of the government for malicious prosecution until we have jammed the entire rotten justice system solid.
But at the same time, given what a terrible mess they made of things I am wishing they had spent a great deal more time drinking so they weren’t making pointless decisions and stupid mistakes.
If the DfE’s had been permanently pissed, instead of having just one illegal party, we wouldn’t have had three contradictory sets of instructions before 9am every day or threats of illegal lawsuits, and my life would have been much easier.
You also need to be aware that in the US, those without insurance will have their care paid for by the Federal government where they have Covid. There is a real incentive to present at hospital with Covid - and for hospitals to look for Covid.
I think he's right to say it's about 70/30 that Johnson will be ousted this year. My hunch is that he will go because he has lost support from every wing of the party in parliament. The only base he now has is the whips office and the cabinet, some of whom are being duplicitous. For that reason I think Johnson will be out in the month but it's by no means certain.
And, unlike Edmund in Toyko, I think the longer Johnson stays the more toxic he makes the tory party. There is no imaginary finitude to toxicity.
What Johnson may be doing is ensuring that the Conservative Party are not out of power for one term but for a generation.
Which of course, brings the question of who ends up in power? Will Sunak and Gove be the men actually running the country, or can No.10 somehow manage to hire a decent team to run things without interference?
Henry IV (altogether better than Johnson, of course), was effectively removed from power due to illness and his son (the future Henry V, no less) ran things. Yet the crown was his and Henry IV managed to return to actual power.
When Richard II had conditions imposed due to a strong rebellion (on part due to the aforementioned king) he also returned to governing entirely on his own account.
It is not the partying that is the problem.
Nor is it disrespecting the monarchy.
It is partying and disrespecting the monarchy while the electorate do the opposite.
But I still strongly believe that the whole system of controls was wrong, and the conduct of those in power, as now revealed, proves this beyond all reasonable doubt. This was a power grab with consequences simultaneously devastating and pointless - most significantly in schools, which have to deal with dictatorial rules which appear to serve no purpose at all other than serving the whims of drunken clowns.
The people should rise up against the government, but they won't because of the age old problem that it is too much trouble and they can't be bothered. Life goes on. But the lesson is that you need journalists and a free press, however annoying they are, they can at least reveal abuses of power.
Thought which strikes me; how many Conservative MP's have only been MP's since 2017? In other words, have only experienced the febrile and confused atmosphere we see today.
And how does that compare with Labour.
I know the answer from some will (reasonably) be DYOR but just because I'm a very OAP doesn't mean that life isn't busy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/01/21/exclusive-government-seeks-gag-bbc-spy-story/
BBC say that naming the spy is in the public interest, presumably in relation to another international story.
I guess this is either an assault on the free press, or an issue with significant national security implications, depending on what’s the actual story here. Best not speculate!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_MPs_by_seniority_(2019–present)
Looks like about 150 Tory MP started 2017 on.
That’s an extraordinary high turnover.
https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2017/10/mays-men-and-women-the-conservative-commons-intake-of-2017.html
A few would have dropped off, mostly in Scotland.
If he's branded a lying, useless piece of shit by tory MPs then some of the lumpen are going to think... hang on, this is the bloke that talked us into Brexit...
Particularly as it hasn't really delivered anything beyond roaming charges, traffic jams and expensive eBay purchases.
None of the potential replacements are really on message when in comes to Brexit. Love Laugh Liz was a remainer and Rishi is more interested in Hood By Air jeans and not being photographed next to anyone taller than 5'4".
So this situation is, to them, 'normal'.
I see the Stuart Dickinson is using Northern Ireland to challenge The Tankie on lack of knowledge of one of the constituent parts of the UK. I suggest that Mr Dickinson takes his Swedish S tank on a ferry (or something) to NI for a visit to learn about the place.
On topic : It has barely started yet. Due to the 24/7 media cycle, it seems like this has been running for years. A lot of MPs are using the "Wait for the Gray Report" to not appear to be running to the media cycle, but the facts, from what I hear...
COVID - Thanks to the stupidity of large numbers of Americans on not getting vaccinated we have new...
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/01/unvaccinated-5x-more-likely-to-get-omicron-than-those-boosted-cdc-reports/
- Vaccines (and especially boosters) do have an effect on infections rates. A substantial one. So the argument that vaccination does nothin for infection rates turns out to be garbage.
- Massive effects on showing up at A&E
- Massive effects on hospitalisation
Please light a candle for all the fucking morons who died to give us this data.
Or was it just the usual mundane walking around with his underpants on his head, pencils up his now, saying "wibble"?
But actually he was also of the more mundane sort. After the battle of Northampton he was found sitting under a tree singing songs about butterflies having not noticed there was a battle going on around him in which his cousin and last remaining supporter had been killed.
I think at that point the DUp would collapse the executive on the basis of A16 and the NI protocol. That won't be fixable to their satisfaction though because the issue is really the loss of Unionist dominance.
I don't see how a border poll can be put off much longer.
We need have no illusions about the Conservative party of old. We know its record. We know that Margaret Thatcher had her own kind of revolutionary zeal, just as we know the destructive impact of David Cameron’s austerity. But there were lines it dared not cross, monarchy and the union among them. This is a different animal. Brexit transformed it from a conservative party into a national-populist party. Its instincts now are those of Viktor Orbán, funnelling public money and jobs to ideological allies, ready to burn down even the most valued institutions that stand in its way. Of course, it has contempt for the people, as all populists ultimately do. It even had contempt for the Queen on the night of her greatest grief. So let’s not pretend these faults were Johnson’s alone. Brexit is the virus. Boris Johnson was only ever its most visible carrier.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/21/partygate-conservatism-corrupted-boris-johnson-brexit-monarchy-union-bbc
Ascot 1.45 Fils d'Oudaries so against you there
Ascot 2.20 Anything for Love
Haydock 2.35 Empire Steel
Ascot 2.55 Knight in Dubai
‘No king who loses his crown twice, who dies in prison, whose reign ends in civil war, can be counted a success. Henry’s reign was a disaster for the realm, and even gave us Boris Johnson.’
They know what they don't want but don't have a clue what to do next. So the ship of fools sails on with no one on the rudder and the crew mutinous. Just as well it is fair weather and no rocks...
However the HUGE difference is that Corbyn was only ever leader of the opposition not Prime Minister. Thankfully he never held the reins of power, never had a chance to inflict his brand of misery on the country, never therefore injected his poison into the veins of the British people. He was nothing more than the bogeyman: the monster in the woods. His toxic brand was 'out there' and has passed like a will o'the wisp.
To witness the venom and fury of the loony left over the defection was a thing of immense wonder and joy.
At times last week the lorry queue in Kent was longer than the distance across the Channel.
Not that he cares now, sitting in California counting the millions he’s being paid by a company that’s turned civil society upside down.