I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
France has had this surge on since Omicron, it's a function of lesser natural immunity and similar vaccine immunity overall. I expect Denmark will have the same issues. Our adult population is ca. 90% double vaxxed and 70% triple vaxxed and we've had something like 20m infections in the last 6 months. It's probably one of the best immunity profiles in the world and why the UK is probably a bit more resilient to any new variant or subvariant. Even with Omicron the hospitalisation rate looks like it peaked at about 900-1200 per day non-incidental in England.
Europe made a huge error in not reopening fully and letting the virus let rip in the summer, this is the result. Stupidly New Zealand is about the make the same error.
According to the UKHSA blood survey the UK had 98% of adults with antibodies, and that was months ago. There are very few people in the UK who are both unvaccinated and have never had a covid infection. Unless some sort of super-vaccine comes out this is about as good as it can get.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
The BBC News won't, which is half the battle
I quite enjoy some one-line responses but in this case I'm afraid you're just plain wrong.
The BBC would see straight through it like the rest of us.
If Boris Johnson declares we're on a war footing with Russia the men in white coats will be paying a visit.
I see this morning the latest on Ukraine is probably regime change by Russia.
I did wonder how they'd think they could pull off a complete invasion and annexation of the whole country. I don't think Putin wants that. Too much hassle. But maybe regime change, a new 'friendly' government like Belarus or Kazakhstan's. This government is then a puppet of Moscow, and maybe a small border adjustment can be agreed (or none at all) and Russia goes back to doing what the Soviet Union used to do in the Cold War. Lots of eastern european puppet states.
The obvious danger for Russia is keeping these as puppets as the Soviets did have to deal with regular uprisings (Hungary '56, Cze '68 and arguably Poland '81) against Soviet rule. Direct annexation would be better, but might be harder to pull off.
If they invade and lose then Ukraine gets Crimea back. That is the card that Blinken is using to change Putin’s risk calculation
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
I see this morning the latest on Ukraine is probably regime change by Russia.
I did wonder how they'd think they could pull off a complete invasion and annexation of the whole country. I don't think Putin wants that. Too much hassle. But maybe regime change, a new 'friendly' government like Belarus or Kazakhstan's. This government is then a puppet of Moscow, and maybe a small border adjustment can be agreed (or none at all) and Russia goes back to doing what the Soviet Union used to do in the Cold War. Lots of eastern european puppet states.
The obvious danger for Russia is keeping these as puppets as the Soviets did have to deal with regular uprisings (Hungary '56, Cze '68 and arguably Poland '81) against Soviet rule. Direct annexation would be better, but might be harder to pull off.
If they invade and lose then Ukraine gets Crimea back. That is the card that Blinken is using to change Putin’s risk calculation
Russia isn’t going to lose a war against Ukraine like
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, making some startling announcement to demonstrate the gravity of our predicament, maybe reintroducing conscription. Really going to town on the severity of the situation.
He indicates his strength and resolve and if necessary his fearless use of the nuclear deterrent, contrasting himself with the weakness of Starmer, Biden, Germany, the EU and NATO.
He calls out his detractors as traitorous Russian shills. Safety assured, and a ten point poll lead by next weekend, particularly if Putin pulls the trigger in the meantime.
Imagine the opportunity too for PB Johnsonites to claim his foresight and statesmanship.
Ten point poll lead as thousands of body bags arrive in England?
He doesn't have to send any troops. The demonstration of his Churchillian resolve would be enough. Sending troops would be foolhardy.
Thatcher had to sent ships and troops to the south Atlantic to get her poll boost.
The comparison doesn't really work. Whether or not you agree with us being in charge of a bit of rock 8000 miles away, the fact remains that it was British sovereign territory that was invaded.
I think it's probably time to be a bolder in what I state: next-to-no-one in Britain really cares about the Ukraine. Sorry, I know it's bad in theory but they don't. Just as they don't really care about Taiwan.
They will only care if we're stupid enough to get involved and British service personnel start returning in body bags. Viz. Afghanistan.
Opinions can change quickly. In April* 1982, 39% of people thought the Falklands situation was the most important issue facing the country, exactly equal with unemployment. Three weeks later "Falklands" was up to 61% and "Unemployment" was down to 25%.
*Nearly 2 weeks after the invasion
The Falklands were unimportant until the Argentine military junta made them important.
Then it became an issue. When it became clear that it wasn't a stupid border dispute and it was going to involve people shooting at each other, it popped to the top of the *popular* political agenda
Most people don't spend the day think about, or worrying about various bits of territory - no one was sparing much thought for Montserrat until the eruption, for example.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
By assembling a random assortment of disparate units the UK could deploy something approximately brigade strength (5,000 - 6,000 troops) to the strategic transport hub of Kharkiv. That would be a significant deterrent but if the situation went kinetic by accident then we are into WW3.
Before it happened Biden would get on the phone, give us a bollocking and that would be the end of that.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
I am trying to remember which French General, who when asked how big a BEF would be large enough to be helpful, said "1"....
We have "speed bump*" forces, exactly as described in the Baltic States. As have the Americans.
In the deterrence between nations, there is a big thing about a direct fight between opposing sides. Direct fighting between Russian and American or British units would be an escalation. And both sides know it.
Applebaum is spinning wildly there. I've been educated on PB to understand the case for weapons to Ukraine better, but it's not disreputable for someone to argue the other way. I very much doubt if China will express an opinion either way.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, making some startling announcement to demonstrate the gravity of our predicament, maybe reintroducing conscription. Really going to town on the severity of the situation.
He indicates his strength and resolve and if necessary his fearless use of the nuclear deterrent, contrasting himself with the weakness of Starmer, Biden, Germany, the EU and NATO.
He calls out his detractors as traitorous Russian shills. Safety assured, and a ten point poll lead by next weekend, particularly if Putin pulls the trigger in the meantime.
Imagine the opportunity too for PB Johnsonites to claim his foresight and statesmanship.
Ten point poll lead as thousands of body bags arrive in England?
He doesn't have to send any troops. The demonstration of his Churchillian resolve would be enough. Sending troops would be foolhardy.
Thatcher had to sent ships and troops to the south Atlantic to get her poll boost.
The comparison doesn't really work. Whether or not you agree with us being in charge of a bit of rock 8000 miles away, the fact remains that it was British sovereign territory that was invaded.
I think it's probably time to be a bolder in what I state: next-to-no-one in Britain really cares about the Ukraine. Sorry, I know it's bad in theory but they don't. Just as they don't really care about Taiwan.
They will only care if we're stupid enough to get involved and British service personnel start returning in body bags. Viz. Afghanistan.
Opinions can change quickly. In April* 1982, 39% of people thought the Falklands situation was the most important issue facing the country, exactly equal with unemployment. Three weeks later "Falklands" was up to 61% and "Unemployment" was down to 25%.
*Nearly 2 weeks after the invasion
The Falklands were unimportant until the Argentine military junta made them important.
Then it became an issue. When it became clear that it wasn't a stupid border dispute and it was going to involve people shooting at each other, it popped to the top of the *popular* political agenda
Most people don't spend the day think about, or worrying about various bits of territory - no one was sparing much thought for Montserrat until the eruption, for example.
Under Thatcher, and possibly I think, Callaghan, some sort of deal was being discussed with the Argentines for joint control of the Islands, which the FO saw as too far away to be of interest in a post-colonial world. Unfortunately, and stupidly, Galteri jumped the gun.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
Does it? It might have made the defeat worse but had Healey won the Labour leadership in 1980 not Foot would he have beaten Thatcher in 1983? I doubt it. Had Clarke beaten Hague for the Tory leadership in 1997 would he have beaten Blair in 2001? I doubt it. Had David Miliband beaten Ed Miliband for the Labour leadership in 2010 would he have beaten Cameron in 2015? I doubt it, though he might have prevented a Tory majority and just seen Cameron win most seats again.
Had Healey won in 1980 there would have been no SDP and no Alliance. I'm sure Margaret Thatcher would have won in 1983 but not with a 144-seat majority. The Conservative vote share fell 1.5% from 1979 to 1983 even with the "Falklands Factor". Assuming Healey can keep most of the Labour vote that would put Labour at 37-38% so a closer result than 1979.
Clarke would undoubtedly have reduced the Blair majority in 2001 but could he have carried on after that defeat? It's clear the Conservative Party was changing during that period and Clarke's once mainstream Conservative views were now a minority especially on Europe. Perhaps he would have been challenged by Iain Duncan-Smith or William Hague - it's an interesting line.
As for whether David Miliband would have won in 2015 - I think that's a hard one to call. The Conservatives won their majority primarily on the back of the LD collapse while Labour's main losses were to the SNP. Could a David Miliband leadership have prevented any of that? It's hard to see how but he wouldn't have had to make much difference to stop Cameron winning a majority.
A minority Cameron Government - he's off the hook of a referendum on the EU as he doesn't have a parliamentary majority but would such semantics have cut any ice with his backbenchers - I suspect not.
One reason for the 2015 manifesto promise of a referendum was that few people expect Cameron to win a majority, most Tory leadership expected a second coalition with the Lib Dems with the referendum dropped as one of the first compromises.
That doesn't however explain the completely incompetent remain campaign that did nearly as much to lose the referendum as leave did to win it.
Arguably Labour electing Ed Miliband not David Miliband in 2010 meant Cameron got a majority in 2015 and ended the Coalition leading to the EU referendum. Labour then electing Corbyn over Burnham in 2015 meant May risked an election in 2017, lost her majority and forced the Tories to make Boris their leader.
So arguably the ultimate blame for Brexit and Boris lies with Labour Party members
Reminds me of that old game, '6 degrees of Kevin Bacon'.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
By assembling a random assortment of disparate units the UK could deploy something approximately brigade strength (5,000 - 6,000 troops) to the strategic transport hub of Kharkiv. That would be a significant deterrent but if the situation went kinetic by accident then we are into WW3.
Before it happened Biden would get on the phone, give us a bollocking and that would be the end of that.
A touching faith in the speed of Biden's reaction.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
To defend the UK, primarily. Not quite the same thing. All else is secondary. For instance, there is arguably no point in having a carrier force for intervention in the Pacific if it means that defence of maritime trade routes and economic assets (e.g. power systems) in the coastal waters and approaches has been neglected.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
To defend the UK, primarily. Not quite the same thing. All else is secondary. For instance, there is arguably no point in having a carrier force for intervention in the Pacific if it means that defence of maritime trade routes and economic assets (e.g. power systems) in the coastal waters and approaches has been neglected.
Well I know right. We need to decide. The carriers are not going to help us defend the British Isles are they?
...one former Cabinet Minister told me: ‘Wakeford delayed it by a day or two. But Boris’s best friends are acting like his biggest enemies now. Jacob [Rees-Mogg] is annoying everyone with his rudeness and Nadine [Dorries] is doing the same with half-cock announcements.’
Shout out to Fabricant too
If I reported every time I had been threatened by a Whip or if a Whip reported every time I had threatened them, the police wouldn’t have any time to conduct any other police work! What nonsense from WW.
It is late April 1945, and people are theorising about the Fuhrer relaunching himself after the May locals.
Mike seems to be confused about what the complaint is about - it's not a whip pointing out that if you don't vote we won't do you any favours it's if you don't vote for X we will scrap the school we were planning to build.
And that sort of pork belly politics shouldn't exist in the UK
Exactly. Whips are the enforcers and everyone accepts that but there are limits on what they can enforce and how.
It seems they may have crossed a line here and it does MF and his Party no good to pretend otherwise.
A bit like very elderly women bemoaning younger women complaining about inappropriate behaviour or sexual assault? I have been told that "In my day men's hands went where they liked and you just had to get used to it"
Some behaviours need calling out and stopping!
A timely reminder that "hands going where they like" is yet another accusation that has been levelled at Boris Johnson. It's so hard to keep up with all the allegations. If you remember the alleged sexual assault you forget the racism. If you remember that he facilitated someone's plan to beat up a guy, you forget that he takes cash from donors for doing up his flat. When you remember the lockdown party you forget him lying to parliament, the Queen, the public, his own ministers, his partners, everyone.
It's functionally impossible to keep track of how unsuitable a person he is to run even a church tombola let alone a country.
It's quite sad, when one used to make (imo extremely warranted) comparisons between BJ and Trump you used to get outraged Boris defenders rallying to the standard, now nary a squeak.
A level of comparison was warranted, the problem was over egging it. I recall John Oliver's piece on that comparison, and he certainly sees Boris as deeply unpleasant and malevolent, and the problem being Boris is more complex in a number of ways, so to just go 'Boris is like Trump!' risks missing understanding and so how to combat him.
Problem also is people then pretend that is a defence of Johnson when it is no such thing. You've just done it acting like any critique is a Boris defence. They're both terrible, similar in some ways but terrible in distinct ways as well (one distinction being how Boris is more part of traditional establishment, so problems might be more ingrained beyond him too).
Does it? It might have made the defeat worse but had Healey won the Labour leadership in 1980 not Foot would he have beaten Thatcher in 1983? I doubt it. Had Clarke beaten Hague for the Tory leadership in 1997 would he have beaten Blair in 2001? I doubt it. Had David Miliband beaten Ed Miliband for the Labour leadership in 2010 would he have beaten Cameron in 2015? I doubt it, though he might have prevented a Tory majority and just seen Cameron win most seats again.
Had Healey won in 1980 there would have been no SDP and no Alliance. I'm sure Margaret Thatcher would have won in 1983 but not with a 144-seat majority. The Conservative vote share fell 1.5% from 1979 to 1983 even with the "Falklands Factor". Assuming Healey can keep most of the Labour vote that would put Labour at 37-38% so a closer result than 1979.
Clarke would undoubtedly have reduced the Blair majority in 2001 but could he have carried on after that defeat? It's clear the Conservative Party was changing during that period and Clarke's once mainstream Conservative views were now a minority especially on Europe. Perhaps he would have been challenged by Iain Duncan-Smith or William Hague - it's an interesting line.
As for whether David Miliband would have won in 2015 - I think that's a hard one to call. The Conservatives won their majority primarily on the back of the LD collapse while Labour's main losses were to the SNP. Could a David Miliband leadership have prevented any of that? It's hard to see how but he wouldn't have had to make much difference to stop Cameron winning a majority.
A minority Cameron Government - he's off the hook of a referendum on the EU as he doesn't have a parliamentary majority but would such semantics have cut any ice with his backbenchers - I suspect not.
One reason for the 2015 manifesto promise of a referendum was that few people expect Cameron to win a majority, most Tory leadership expected a second coalition with the Lib Dems with the referendum dropped as one of the first compromises.
That doesn't however explain the completely incompetent remain campaign that did nearly as much to lose the referendum as leave did to win it.
Arguably Labour electing Ed Miliband not David Miliband in 2010 meant Cameron got a majority in 2015 and ended the Coalition leading to the EU referendum. Labour then electing Corbyn over Burnham in 2015 meant May risked an election in 2017, lost her majority and forced the Tories to make Boris their leader.
So arguably the ultimate blame for Brexit and Boris lies with Labour Party members
Reminds me of that old game, '6 degrees of Kevin Bacon'.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, making some startling announcement to demonstrate the gravity of our predicament, maybe reintroducing conscription. Really going to town on the severity of the situation.
He indicates his strength and resolve and if necessary his fearless use of the nuclear deterrent, contrasting himself with the weakness of Starmer, Biden, Germany, the EU and NATO.
He calls out his detractors as traitorous Russian shills. Safety assured, and a ten point poll lead by next weekend, particularly if Putin pulls the trigger in the meantime.
Imagine the opportunity too for PB Johnsonites to claim his foresight and statesmanship.
Ten point poll lead as thousands of body bags arrive in England?
He doesn't have to send any troops. The demonstration of his Churchillian resolve would be enough. Sending troops would be foolhardy.
Thatcher had to sent ships and troops to the south Atlantic to get her poll boost.
The comparison doesn't really work. Whether or not you agree with us being in charge of a bit of rock 8000 miles away, the fact remains that it was British sovereign territory that was invaded.
I think it's probably time to be a bolder in what I state: next-to-no-one in Britain really cares about the Ukraine. Sorry, I know it's bad in theory but they don't. Just as they don't really care about Taiwan.
They will only care if we're stupid enough to get involved and British service personnel start returning in body bags. Viz. Afghanistan.
Opinions can change quickly. In April* 1982, 39% of people thought the Falklands situation was the most important issue facing the country, exactly equal with unemployment. Three weeks later "Falklands" was up to 61% and "Unemployment" was down to 25%.
*Nearly 2 weeks after the invasion
The Falklands were unimportant until the Argentine military junta made them important.
Then it became an issue. When it became clear that it wasn't a stupid border dispute and it was going to involve people shooting at each other, it popped to the top of the *popular* political agenda
Most people don't spend the day think about, or worrying about various bits of territory - no one was sparing much thought for Montserrat until the eruption, for example.
Under Thatcher, and possibly I think, Callaghan, some sort of deal was being discussed with the Argentines for joint control of the Islands, which the FO saw as too far away to be of interest in a post-colonial world. Unfortunately, and stupidly, Galteri jumped the gun.
Yes, that was the Foreign Office internal policy. Which was why they got violently upset with MI6 guy in Argentina who was warning about trouble. He risked upsetting the institutional policy. The FO had tried to get rid of the Falklands several times - but the politicians always came back to the wishes of the islanders...
In the aftermath of the Falklands, it was found that the FO had been trying to bribe some overseas dependent territories to declare independence.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
To defend the UK, primarily. Not quite the same thing. All else is secondary. For instance, there is arguably no point in having a carrier force for intervention in the Pacific if it means that defence of maritime trade routes and economic assets (e.g. power systems) in the coastal waters and approaches has been neglected.
Well I know right. We need to decide. The carriers are not going to help us defend the British Isles are they?
They have their uses, to be fair, but need so much defence themselves and with the Navy so small now ...
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
You do this kind of thing quite a lot. Who exactly are the people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops?
The Nus Ghani allegations are appalling, if not exactly surprising.
Boris has completely screwed up the party for a generation, I suspect. The culture of bullying, nastiness, insouciance of the rules, arrogance, and incompetence will years to sort out, and I don't think voters are going to forgive the Tories for a long time. Eventually some future David Cameron may emerge and take the party through all the detoxification again, but it could be a long wait. And that's without even taking into account the multiple crises coming (NHS backlog, care for elderly crisis, cost of living, justice system backlogs, Brexit damage to the economy...). Some of those are admittedly not entirely the government's fault, but it will get the blame all the same.
Good on those Tory MPs (including, if the reports are true, our very own member for Newcastle under Lyme) who have grasped the nettle. Getting rid of Boris is the indispensable first step for improving things, both for the party and, more importantly, the country, but it will be only the first step.
I'm not so sure. I don't think people are seeing the Tory Party per se as the culprit but Boris Johnson. The analogy is with 1990 and when Major replaced Thatcher.
Also, and this has gotten forgotten in the mists of time, Labour has a deep structural problem - the "Labour till I die" types in RW seats are dying off, in many places the Labour brand is toxic as it is associated with minority causes and the party is becoming an unstable coalition of urban, liberal professionals with socially conservative ethnic minority voters. The risk for Labour in the current situation is they fail to address the structural issues and believe they can ride to victory on Tory Sleaze. If anyone is going to profit from these disenchanted voters, it will be a restructured UKIP (which is why I think Farage was getting involving in the Djokavic case - it got him publicity a and association with a cause that has its adherents).
Does it? It might have made the defeat worse but had Healey won the Labour leadership in 1980 not Foot would he have beaten Thatcher in 1983? I doubt it. Had Clarke beaten Hague for the Tory leadership in 1997 would he have beaten Blair in 2001? I doubt it. Had David Miliband beaten Ed Miliband for the Labour leadership in 2010 would he have beaten Cameron in 2015? I doubt it, though he might have prevented a Tory majority and just seen Cameron win most seats again.
Had Healey won in 1980 there would have been no SDP and no Alliance. I'm sure Margaret Thatcher would have won in 1983 but not with a 144-seat majority. The Conservative vote share fell 1.5% from 1979 to 1983 even with the "Falklands Factor". Assuming Healey can keep most of the Labour vote that would put Labour at 37-38% so a closer result than 1979.
Clarke would undoubtedly have reduced the Blair majority in 2001 but could he have carried on after that defeat? It's clear the Conservative Party was changing during that period and Clarke's once mainstream Conservative views were now a minority especially on Europe. Perhaps he would have been challenged by Iain Duncan-Smith or William Hague - it's an interesting line.
As for whether David Miliband would have won in 2015 - I think that's a hard one to call. The Conservatives won their majority primarily on the back of the LD collapse while Labour's main losses were to the SNP. Could a David Miliband leadership have prevented any of that? It's hard to see how but he wouldn't have had to make much difference to stop Cameron winning a majority.
A minority Cameron Government - he's off the hook of a referendum on the EU as he doesn't have a parliamentary majority but would such semantics have cut any ice with his backbenchers - I suspect not.
One reason for the 2015 manifesto promise of a referendum was that few people expect Cameron to win a majority, most Tory leadership expected a second coalition with the Lib Dems with the referendum dropped as one of the first compromises.
That doesn't however explain the completely incompetent remain campaign that did nearly as much to lose the referendum as leave did to win it.
Arguably Labour electing Ed Miliband not David Miliband in 2010 meant Cameron got a majority in 2015 and ended the Coalition leading to the EU referendum. Labour then electing Corbyn over Burnham in 2015 meant May risked an election in 2017, lost her majority and forced the Tories to make Boris their leader.
So arguably the ultimate blame for Brexit and Boris lies with Labour Party members
Er, I dont think you can identify historical factors leading up to a situation as having 'ultimate blame' for something over the people who made the choice. That takes away their agency for a start.
I regret voting for Brexit but I cannot shy away from my contribution to any click ups arising from it. Not as much as those taking decisions, particular on elements not inevitable, but certainly more than Labour not picking the right Miliband.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
To defend the UK, primarily. Not quite the same thing. All else is secondary. For instance, there is arguably no point in having a carrier force for intervention in the Pacific if it means that defence of maritime trade routes and economic assets (e.g. power systems) in the coastal waters and approaches has been neglected.
Well I know right. We need to decide. The carriers are not going to help us defend the British Isles are they?
They have their uses, to be fair, but need so much defence themselves and with the Navy so small now ...
They should have been named "HMS Pork Barrel" and "HMS Job Creation"
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
So this is the same Putin who ordered the murders of several people on UK soil and laughs at us - he does not care and knows that ultimately there is nothing we can do because ultimately we don’t have a military advantage over Russia and that he’s crazy enough to take big casualties and we aren’t.
He’s a “good times make soft men” kinda guy.
Is our military there to defend democracy against bullies? If so where is it stopping bullies elsewhere at the moment? Is it in Hong Kong asserting Hong Kong’s democracy and the agreements with the Chinese we made? Why not? Doesn’t matter if they would be absolutely slaughtered because we were defending democracy against bullies.
Our military now are there to defend certain interests where a military intervention will make a difference and not end up in an absolute shitstorm - hopefully a lesson learnt from Afghanistan and Iraq.
US forces in big numbers would be a deterrent but also would allow Putin to say “look - I was right, those western imperialist pigs are putting troops on our borders to threaten us”.
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, making some startling announcement to demonstrate the gravity of our predicament, maybe reintroducing conscription. Really going to town on the severity of the situation.
He indicates his strength and resolve and if necessary his fearless use of the nuclear deterrent, contrasting himself with the weakness of Starmer, Biden, Germany, the EU and NATO.
He calls out his detractors as traitorous Russian shills. Safety assured, and a ten point poll lead by next weekend, particularly if Putin pulls the trigger in the meantime.
Imagine the opportunity too for PB Johnsonites to claim his foresight and statesmanship.
Ten point poll lead as thousands of body bags arrive in England?
He doesn't have to send any troops. The demonstration of his Churchillian resolve would be enough. Sending troops would be foolhardy.
If Boris is going to go to war with anyone for a poll bounce it would be a tiny country easy to beat.
Boris is not so stupid as to go to war with Russia alone without the rest of NATO with him
A false flag secessionist takeover of Gibraltar and subsequent recapture would be about right.
Our army and navy and airforce is certainly still bigger than Spain's unlike Russia's. As a historian Boris will also be aware a war fought in the Russian winter is not a good prospect, it even defeated Hitler and Napoleon. A war in the Mediterranean in winter less of a problem.
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
In all this talk of ditching the NI increase, no one seems to be mentioning what will happen to the social care sector which these funds are supposedly for in the medium term.
Revealing thread on “where (many) Germans are coming from”:
Now that there's a spotlight on Germany's "interesting" Russia policy, a lot of people have asked me why on earth Germany behaves the way it does. In short: Different perception of the way the world works, history, economic self-interest, public opinion, party politics.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
Is our military there to defend democracy against bullies? If so where is it stopping bullies elsewhere at the moment?
I'm sure involving ourselves directly militarily will not happen and would not help, but I would comment that just because we cannot realistically or practically defend everyone we would like, or stop all those we would like, it doesn't follow that we should never do either.
Just because you cannot do everything doesn't mean you cannot do something.
Here? Token measures are probably the extent of it, hoepfully that will help, but the principle of selective involvement in places is not in itself preposterous.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, making some startling announcement to demonstrate the gravity of our predicament, maybe reintroducing conscription. Really going to town on the severity of the situation.
He indicates his strength and resolve and if necessary his fearless use of the nuclear deterrent, contrasting himself with the weakness of Starmer, Biden, Germany, the EU and NATO.
He calls out his detractors as traitorous Russian shills. Safety assured, and a ten point poll lead by next weekend, particularly if Putin pulls the trigger in the meantime.
Imagine the opportunity too for PB Johnsonites to claim his foresight and statesmanship.
If only half the country was Hartlepool it would be in with a chance.
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
In all this talk of ditching the NI increase, no one seems to be mentioning what will happen to the social care sector which these funds are supposedly for in the medium term.
No one in politics cares (and so far the public have not made them care), else it would not have gotten to this point in the first place.
Frequently overlooked in the “Let’s don’t be beastly to the Russians”
The Nazis killed 8 million Ukrainians. Not showing much interest for the country’s future would certainly inflame passions. There is something called historical responsibility
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
To defend the UK, primarily. Not quite the same thing. All else is secondary. For instance, there is arguably no point in having a carrier force for intervention in the Pacific if it means that defence of maritime trade routes and economic assets (e.g. power systems) in the coastal waters and approaches has been neglected.
As we all now know they are not there to help out with the SNP’s failing health service.
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
In all this talk of ditching the NI increase, no one seems to be mentioning what will happen to the social care sector which these funds are supposedly for in the medium term.
It's worth saying that the reason why the social care funds are from 2023 onwards is that when they were announced it was too late to change the 2022 rules (you can change percentages round but you can't add new fields at the late a stage).
I suspect we are getting to the point where you couldn't reverse the 2022/23 NI increases even if you wanted to.
The attempted putsch has unleashed infighting between rival camps of Tory MPs, with whips also accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives.
One MP claims it was hinted that he would be outed as homosexual, while another was reportedly warned that alleged sexual harassment would be revealed. A third was confronted with hotly denied claims of unusual sexual peccadillos with male prostitutes. One has threatened to release a recording of a whip’s threats.
One thing that struck me in the Dan Hodges Mail article was this line:
"But any hopes within No 10 that this provided evidence of the Chancellor’s loyalty were misplaced. Within hours Tricky Rishi was holding meetings with leading rebels, who set out their terms for backing him in any leadership contest."
If Rishi starts to get the reputation (?) for being slippery and not to be trusted, it;s potentially very damaging. It doesn't sound as though he convinced many of the Red Wall MPs he would follow through on more funding for the RW.
I wouldn't trust Sunak one iota but I feel that about anyone who worked at the hedge fund he was at.
Ms Cyclefree - you have mentioned a few times that you have an issue with the hedge fund Sunak worked for and that you do not trust him. Please could you expand on this as it’s not clear if you are saying there was some sort of illegality or just sharp practice - obviously there is plain illegality at one end of the spectrum and things that aren’t great morally but perfectly legal at the other.
I think if you are going to cast shade on Sunak by virtue of his work history it’s only fair to make it clear if it’s something he has done, something in the culture of his employers and if legal or not.
I could be being very naive but I don’t really understand why, if there are skeletons in his closet, they haven’t been thrown out there either by Boris and outriders, rivals or by the guardian in a deep reporting exposé so think if someone is hinting at this then would only be fair to back it up and explain why you hint at dark issues or alternatively not hint at them unless they can be backed up?
If you are right then it’s important that people know this but if you aren’t then it’s also not right to cast shade.
What would your view be of someone who has had a successful career at Axe Capital (from the TV show Billions)?
I don't think David Miliband would have beaten Cameron in 2015. People forget how associated he was with some of the low points of the New Labour era, which people were then still extremely fed up with.
I think to have won in 2015 David Miliband would either have to dealt with the 'you will be in Nicola/Alex's pocket' attack line better or have somehow managed to have prevented supported for SLAB collapsing as a result of indyref. Can't see I'm convinced he'd been able to pull off either.
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
In all this talk of ditching the NI increase, no one seems to be mentioning what will happen to the social care sector which these funds are supposedly for in the medium term.
No one in politics cares (and so far the public have not made them care), else it would not have gotten to this point in the first place.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, making some startling announcement to demonstrate the gravity of our predicament, maybe reintroducing conscription. Really going to town on the severity of the situation.
He indicates his strength and resolve and if necessary his fearless use of the nuclear deterrent, contrasting himself with the weakness of Starmer, Biden, Germany, the EU and NATO.
He calls out his detractors as traitorous Russian shills. Safety assured, and a ten point poll lead by next weekend, particularly if Putin pulls the trigger in the meantime.
Imagine the opportunity too for PB Johnsonites to claim his foresight and statesmanship.
Ten point poll lead as thousands of body bags arrive in England?
He doesn't have to send any troops. The demonstration of his Churchillian resolve would be enough. Sending troops would be foolhardy.
Thatcher had to sent ships and troops to the south Atlantic to get her poll boost.
The comparison doesn't really work. Whether or not you agree with us being in charge of a bit of rock 8000 miles away, the fact remains that it was British sovereign territory that was invaded.
I think it's probably time to be a bolder in what I state: next-to-no-one in Britain really cares about the Ukraine. Sorry, I know it's bad in theory but they don't. Just as they don't really care about Taiwan.
They will only care if we're stupid enough to get involved and British service personnel start returning in body bags. Viz. Afghanistan.
Opinions can change quickly. In April* 1982, 39% of people thought the Falklands situation was the most important issue facing the country, exactly equal with unemployment. Three weeks later "Falklands" was up to 61% and "Unemployment" was down to 25%.
*Nearly 2 weeks after the invasion
The Falklands were unimportant until the Argentine military junta made them important.
Then it became an issue. When it became clear that it wasn't a stupid border dispute and it was going to involve people shooting at each other, it popped to the top of the *popular* political agenda
Most people don't spend the day think about, or worrying about various bits of territory - no one was sparing much thought for Montserrat until the eruption, for example.
Under Thatcher, and possibly I think, Callaghan, some sort of deal was being discussed with the Argentines for joint control of the Islands, which the FO saw as too far away to be of interest in a post-colonial world. Unfortunately, and stupidly, Galteri jumped the gun.
Yes, that was the Foreign Office internal policy. Which was why they got violently upset with MI6 guy in Argentina who was warning about trouble. He risked upsetting the institutional policy. The FO had tried to get rid of the Falklands several times - but the politicians always came back to the wishes of the islanders...
In the aftermath of the Falklands, it was found that the FO had been trying to bribe some overseas dependent territories to declare independence.
Missed the info in your last paragraph. Thanks. I lived in Castle Point at the time and the MP, who I knew reasonably well, was Bernard Braine, one of the whistle-blowers.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
So this is the same Putin who ordered the murders of several people on UK soil and laughs at us - he does not care and knows that ultimately there is nothing we can do because ultimately we don’t have a military advantage over Russia and that he’s crazy enough to take big casualties and we aren’t.
He’s a “good times make soft men” kinda guy.
Is our military there to defend democracy against bullies? If so where is it stopping bullies elsewhere at the moment? Is it in Hong Kong asserting Hong Kong’s democracy and the agreements with the Chinese we made? Why not? Doesn’t matter if they would be absolutely slaughtered because we were defending democracy against bullies.
Our military now are there to defend certain interests where a military intervention will make a difference and not end up in an absolute shitstorm - hopefully a lesson learnt from Afghanistan and Iraq.
US forces in big numbers would be a deterrent but also would allow Putin to say “look - I was right, those western imperialist pigs are putting troops on our borders to threaten us”.
The murders in the UK, under the long standing conventions of the Cold War, weren't a cause to start a war....
The attempted putsch has unleashed infighting between rival camps of Tory MPs, with whips also accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives.
One MP claims it was hinted that he would be outed as homosexual, while another was reportedly warned that alleged sexual harassment would be revealed. A third was confronted with hotly denied claims of unusual sexual peccadillos with male prostitutes. One has threatened to release a recording of a whip’s threats.
One thing that struck me in the Dan Hodges Mail article was this line:
"But any hopes within No 10 that this provided evidence of the Chancellor’s loyalty were misplaced. Within hours Tricky Rishi was holding meetings with leading rebels, who set out their terms for backing him in any leadership contest."
If Rishi starts to get the reputation (?) for being slippery and not to be trusted, it;s potentially very damaging. It doesn't sound as though he convinced many of the Red Wall MPs he would follow through on more funding for the RW.
I wouldn't trust Sunak one iota but I feel that about anyone who worked at the hedge fund he was at.
Ms Cyclefree - you have mentioned a few times that you have an issue with the hedge fund Sunak worked for and that you do not trust him. Please could you expand on this as it’s not clear if you are saying there was some sort of illegality or just sharp practice - obviously there is plain illegality at one end of the spectrum and things that aren’t great morally but perfectly legal at the other.
I think if you are going to cast shade on Sunak by virtue of his work history it’s only fair to make it clear if it’s something he has done, something in the culture of his employers and if legal or not.
I could be being very naive but I don’t really understand why, if there are skeletons in his closet, they haven’t been thrown out there either by Boris and outriders, rivals or by the guardian in a deep reporting exposé so think if someone is hinting at this then would only be fair to back it up and explain why you hint at dark issues or alternatively not hint at them unless they can be backed up?
If you are right then it’s important that people know this but if you aren’t then it’s also not right to cast shade.
What would your view be of someone who has had a successful career at Axe Capital (from the TV show Billions)?
I would be very, very, very cautious about running the slightest risk of defaming one of the richest men in the country on a matter which goes to the heart of his career and ambitions
your standard reminder: the person primarily at risk when defamatory matter is posted on PB is the poster, not OGH
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
You do this kind of thing quite a lot. Who exactly are the people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops?
The people talking about air-chair generals "sending our boys to die" in a foreign war about a country we know little.
The Nus Ghani allegations are appalling, if not exactly surprising.
Boris has completely screwed up the party for a generation, I suspect. The culture of bullying, nastiness, insouciance of the rules, arrogance, and incompetence will years to sort out, and I don't think voters are going to forgive the Tories for a long time. Eventually some future David Cameron may emerge and take the party through all the detoxification again, but it could be a long wait. And that's without even taking into account the multiple crises coming (NHS backlog, care for elderly crisis, cost of living, justice system backlogs, Brexit damage to the economy...). Some of those are admittedly not entirely the government's fault, but it will get the blame all the same.
Good on those Tory MPs (including, if the reports are true, our very own member for Newcastle under Lyme) who have grasped the nettle. Getting rid of Boris is the indispensable first step for improving things, both for the party and, more importantly, the country, but it will be only the first step.
If the pattern for the future is going to be a couple of decades of painful detoxification followed by a rapid retox, the Conservatives really are in trouble. I blame the seventy years or so of peace.
Big-picture wise, I'm still of the view that the facts of life are broadly Conservative. It's better to give people the space to do brilliant things than demand the state tries to manage it all. But there is a line that it's important not to cross; roughly the one between freedom and what you will being the whole of the law. It's the difference between Thatcher (who saw wealth as a conferring a duty to do good with it) and some of her acolytes (who see it as something to grab).
For a couple of generations after WW2, the experience of War kept individual Conservatives human, connected to others. Major's upbringing did the same for him, and I suspect that Cameron's experience with his son knocked the edges off him. But now we're in a world where it's possible for people to do well and convince themselves that their success is down to their own merits and that alone. If you are at the top, and that is because you alone are brilliant, then of course you can do what you damn well please. We've seen it with Johnson, and elements of it with Sunak (that pseudo-Randian riff at the end of his Budget speech). If that is the future for the Conservatives, they have a problem, as do all of us who may be ruled by them.
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
It wasn't. As I've pointed out multiple times before I've never seen a chancellor further away from a tax increase at any point I remember.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
I'm afraid that after the 45 minute dossier no-one will believe a word anyone says on threats
The attempted putsch has unleashed infighting between rival camps of Tory MPs, with whips also accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives.
One MP claims it was hinted that he would be outed as homosexual, while another was reportedly warned that alleged sexual harassment would be revealed. A third was confronted with hotly denied claims of unusual sexual peccadillos with male prostitutes. One has threatened to release a recording of a whip’s threats.
One thing that struck me in the Dan Hodges Mail article was this line:
"But any hopes within No 10 that this provided evidence of the Chancellor’s loyalty were misplaced. Within hours Tricky Rishi was holding meetings with leading rebels, who set out their terms for backing him in any leadership contest."
If Rishi starts to get the reputation (?) for being slippery and not to be trusted, it;s potentially very damaging. It doesn't sound as though he convinced many of the Red Wall MPs he would follow through on more funding for the RW.
I wouldn't trust Sunak one iota but I feel that about anyone who worked at the hedge fund he was at.
Ms Cyclefree - you have mentioned a few times that you have an issue with the hedge fund Sunak worked for and that you do not trust him. Please could you expand on this as it’s not clear if you are saying there was some sort of illegality or just sharp practice - obviously there is plain illegality at one end of the spectrum and things that aren’t great morally but perfectly legal at the other.
I think if you are going to cast shade on Sunak by virtue of his work history it’s only fair to make it clear if it’s something he has done, something in the culture of his employers and if legal or not.
I could be being very naive but I don’t really understand why, if there are skeletons in his closet, they haven’t been thrown out there either by Boris and outriders, rivals or by the guardian in a deep reporting exposé so think if someone is hinting at this then would only be fair to back it up and explain why you hint at dark issues or alternatively not hint at them unless they can be backed up?
If you are right then it’s important that people know this but if you aren’t then it’s also not right to cast shade.
I am a little constrained in what I can say. There are issues around the legality of some of the stuff which went on in 2007 which I cannot discuss in a public forum. All I will say is that there was more illegality going on than has come out and there were huge missed opportunities to clamp down hard on behaviour which was in my view unlawful and which, if done, could have reduced or potentially stopped some of the worst effects in this country of the financial crisis. Some of it has spilt out from other players. The reason why more has not come out is because (a) there are and have been legal constraints on this happening; (b) it does not reflect well on others who have an interest - even now - in not fully lifting up the carpet on what went on in the finance sector in this country in 2007/2008, a cost for which we as taxpayers are still paying.
I do not have anything against Sunak personally. I am happy to make this clear. But I do have confidential information about the activities of The Childrens Investment Fund, the hedge fund where he worked, in relation to the period in 2007-2008, which makes me doubtful about those working there at the time. The culture of the place was not a good one. There have been serious criticisms of the truthfulness of the evidence given by its founder, Chris Hohn, by various judges in various legal cases. Culture comes from the top.
There are some who think that Sunak will be better because he is skilled, is a money man, has worked effectively in business. And that may well be the case. The Treasury was pretty competent with the furlough scheme. But if it is right to praise him for the skills he has learnt then it is also right to wonder about what else he learnt from the culture of the place he worked at.
That is why I am sceptical about the idea that he is some sort of clean skin Messiah. These doubts are reinforced by three things: 1.The government's initial instincts on the financial consequences of Covid were wrong. I wrote about this at the time here - https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/03/17/budgeting-for-a-crisis/. Sunak was Chancellor then. He reversed pretty quickly which is to his credit. But that has raised a doubt in my mind about how good his instincts really are. 2. His subsequent decisions as Chancellor - on UC, on the NI increase etc, on funding for transport schemes in the North. 3. The way he apparently seeks to distance himself from his own decisions when they become uncomfortable or unpopular. I wonder whether he is a bit like Chris Hohn in that instance - good at the positive self-publicity ("my hedge fund gives money to charities!") but quick to evade responsibility and under the surface not quite as nice as he likes to make out.
I see this morning the latest on Ukraine is probably regime change by Russia.
I did wonder how they'd think they could pull off a complete invasion and annexation of the whole country. I don't think Putin wants that. Too much hassle. But maybe regime change, a new 'friendly' government like Belarus or Kazakhstan's. This government is then a puppet of Moscow, and maybe a small border adjustment can be agreed (or none at all) and Russia goes back to doing what the Soviet Union used to do in the Cold War. Lots of eastern european puppet states.
The obvious danger for Russia is keeping these as puppets as the Soviets did have to deal with regular uprisings (Hungary '56, Cze '68 and arguably Poland '81) against Soviet rule. Direct annexation would be better, but might be harder to pull off.
If they invade and lose then Ukraine gets Crimea back. That is the card that Blinken is using to change Putin’s risk calculation
Russia isn’t going to lose a war against Ukraine like
It’s low probability that they would lose. But the lose of Crimea would be fatal* for Putin. So it increases the risk.
Central case is they get bogged down in a low level guerrilla war, slowly sapping their energy and resources and there is an unfortunate accident which destroys Nordstream 2.
One reason for the 2015 manifesto promise of a referendum was that few people expect Cameron to win a majority, most Tory leadership expected a second coalition with the Lib Dems with the referendum dropped as one of the first compromises.
That doesn't however explain the completely incompetent remain campaign that did nearly as much to lose the referendum as leave did to win it.
You forget - Cameron's aim was to re-negotiate the terms of our membership. The In/Out referendum was the last throw of the dice when those negotiations failed to produce anything.
Cameron hoped his personal popularity would be enough to win a referendum (backed, so he thought, by most of his party, Labour and the LDs) against what looked an ill-assorted group of anti-EU types. The EU probably thought Cameron would win and he would be forced to acquiesce to the status quo.
Both were of course naive and foolish - inasmuch as REMAIN failed to put forward a persuasive argument for the EU, they left themselves open to the variety of "promises" of how wonderful life would be if we left and especially the vulnerability on the immigration question.
All that is beside the point - in 2015, any referendum wasn't going to be on our membership but on a renegotiated membership package rejection of which wouldn't mean leaving the EU but would mean either the status quo or more negotiations.
I don't think David Miliband would have beaten Cameron in 2015. People forget how associated he was with some of the low points of the New Labour era, which people were then still extremely fed up with.
I think to have won in 2015 David Miliband would either have to dealt with the 'you will be in Nicola/Alex's pocket' attack line better or have somehow managed to have prevented supported for SLAB collapsing as a result of indyref. Can't see I'm convinced he'd been able to pull off either.
I’ll yield to any insider info from Lab supporters but D.Miliband has always struck me as lacking in the empathy and winning people round departments, certainly compared to his brother. The editor of the Holyrood magazine described him as the rudest interviewee that she’s encountered, and I imagine she’s interviewed a few rude buggers.
The Nus Ghani allegations are appalling, if not exactly surprising.
Boris has completely screwed up the party for a generation, I suspect. The culture of bullying, nastiness, insouciance of the rules, arrogance, and incompetence will years to sort out, and I don't think voters are going to forgive the Tories for a long time. Eventually some future David Cameron may emerge and take the party through all the detoxification again, but it could be a long wait. And that's without even taking into account the multiple crises coming (NHS backlog, care for elderly crisis, cost of living, justice system backlogs, Brexit damage to the economy...). Some of those are admittedly not entirely the government's fault, but it will get the blame all the same.
Good on those Tory MPs (including, if the reports are true, our very own member for Newcastle under Lyme) who have grasped the nettle. Getting rid of Boris is the indispensable first step for improving things, both for the party and, more importantly, the country, but it will be only the first step.
If the pattern for the future is going to be a couple of decades of painful detoxification followed by a rapid retox, the Conservatives really are in trouble. I blame the seventy years or so of peace.
Big-picture wise, I'm still of the view that the facts of life are broadly Conservative. It's better to give people the space to do brilliant things than demand the state tries to manage it all. But there is a line that it's important not to cross; roughly the one between freedom and what you will being the whole of the law. It's the difference between Thatcher (who saw wealth as a conferring a duty to do good with it) and some of her acolytes (who see it as something to grab).
For a couple of generations after WW2, the experience of War kept individual Conservatives human, connected to others. Major's upbringing did the same for him, and I suspect that Cameron's experience with his son knocked the edges off him. But now we're in a world where it's possible for people to do well and convince themselves that their success is down to their own merits and that alone. If you are at the top, and that is because you alone are brilliant, then of course you can do what you damn well please. We've seen it with Johnson, and elements of it with Sunak (that pseudo-Randian riff at the end of his Budget speech). If that is the future for the Conservatives, they have a problem, as do all of us who may be ruled by them.
An aspect which concerns me is that some Conservatives seem to think 'business' is all about being a 10%+ middleman achieved through contacts acquired from family / school / political connections.
As opposed to actually creating wealth by producing a useful good or service.
The attempted putsch has unleashed infighting between rival camps of Tory MPs, with whips also accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives.
One MP claims it was hinted that he would be outed as homosexual, while another was reportedly warned that alleged sexual harassment would be revealed. A third was confronted with hotly denied claims of unusual sexual peccadillos with male prostitutes. One has threatened to release a recording of a whip’s threats.
This to me looks like the heavy hand of Conservative Whips, not Johnson.
Seriously? Who do whips take their orders from?
Also
"My old friend Christopher Bland, when chairman of the BBC, once described to me how he received an angry phone call from Johnson, denouncing the corporation’s “gross intrusion upon my personal life” for its coverage of one of his love affairs.
“We know plenty about your personal life that you would not like to read in the Spectator,” the then editor of the magazine told the BBC’s chairman, while demanding he order the broadcaster to lay off his own dalliances.
Bland told me he replied: “Boris, think about what you have just said. There is a word for it, and it is not a pretty one.”
He said Johnson blustered into retreat, but in my own files I have handwritten notes from our possible next prime minister, threatening dire consequences in print if I continued to criticise him."
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
I'm afraid that after the 45 minute dossier no-one will believe a word anyone says on threats
The attempted putsch has unleashed infighting between rival camps of Tory MPs, with whips also accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives.
One MP claims it was hinted that he would be outed as homosexual, while another was reportedly warned that alleged sexual harassment would be revealed. A third was confronted with hotly denied claims of unusual sexual peccadillos with male prostitutes. One has threatened to release a recording of a whip’s threats.
One thing that struck me in the Dan Hodges Mail article was this line:
"But any hopes within No 10 that this provided evidence of the Chancellor’s loyalty were misplaced. Within hours Tricky Rishi was holding meetings with leading rebels, who set out their terms for backing him in any leadership contest."
If Rishi starts to get the reputation (?) for being slippery and not to be trusted, it;s potentially very damaging. It doesn't sound as though he convinced many of the Red Wall MPs he would follow through on more funding for the RW.
I wouldn't trust Sunak one iota but I feel that about anyone who worked at the hedge fund he was at.
Ms Cyclefree - you have mentioned a few times that you have an issue with the hedge fund Sunak worked for and that you do not trust him. Please could you expand on this as it’s not clear if you are saying there was some sort of illegality or just sharp practice - obviously there is plain illegality at one end of the spectrum and things that aren’t great morally but perfectly legal at the other.
I think if you are going to cast shade on Sunak by virtue of his work history it’s only fair to make it clear if it’s something he has done, something in the culture of his employers and if legal or not.
I could be being very naive but I don’t really understand why, if there are skeletons in his closet, they haven’t been thrown out there either by Boris and outriders, rivals or by the guardian in a deep reporting exposé so think if someone is hinting at this then would only be fair to back it up and explain why you hint at dark issues or alternatively not hint at them unless they can be backed up?
If you are right then it’s important that people know this but if you aren’t then it’s also not right to cast shade.
I am a little constrained in what I can say. SNIP
No kidding.
You also almost certainly have professional and contractual duties which prevent you from saying a lot of that, before we come to defamation issues. You are a lawyer and it is not for me to tell you that, but I am concerned about other posters being misled into thinking, precisely because you are a lawyer, that this is all kosher and fair game.
The attempted putsch has unleashed infighting between rival camps of Tory MPs, with whips also accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives.
One MP claims it was hinted that he would be outed as homosexual, while another was reportedly warned that alleged sexual harassment would be revealed. A third was confronted with hotly denied claims of unusual sexual peccadillos with male prostitutes. One has threatened to release a recording of a whip’s threats.
One thing that struck me in the Dan Hodges Mail article was this line:
"But any hopes within No 10 that this provided evidence of the Chancellor’s loyalty were misplaced. Within hours Tricky Rishi was holding meetings with leading rebels, who set out their terms for backing him in any leadership contest."
If Rishi starts to get the reputation (?) for being slippery and not to be trusted, it;s potentially very damaging. It doesn't sound as though he convinced many of the Red Wall MPs he would follow through on more funding for the RW.
I wouldn't trust Sunak one iota but I feel that about anyone who worked at the hedge fund he was at.
Ms Cyclefree - you have mentioned a few times that you have an issue with the hedge fund Sunak worked for and that you do not trust him. Please could you expand on this as it’s not clear if you are saying there was some sort of illegality or just sharp practice - obviously there is plain illegality at one end of the spectrum and things that aren’t great morally but perfectly legal at the other.
I think if you are going to cast shade on Sunak by virtue of his work history it’s only fair to make it clear if it’s something he has done, something in the culture of his employers and if legal or not.
I could be being very naive but I don’t really understand why, if there are skeletons in his closet, they haven’t been thrown out there either by Boris and outriders, rivals or by the guardian in a deep reporting exposé so think if someone is hinting at this then would only be fair to back it up and explain why you hint at dark issues or alternatively not hint at them unless they can be backed up?
If you are right then it’s important that people know this but if you aren’t then it’s also not right to cast shade.
What would your view be of someone who has had a successful career at Axe Capital (from the TV show Billions)?
I’m not known to people on PB as someone whose career is investigating financial institutions and their employees. I’m not an investigator of clearly high repute and experience and so what I say is of no foundation but the hints by someone who is carry weight and would clearly either suggest knowledge of something wrong - which would be important to share now rather than find out later - or be just a prejudice based on links in which case it’s not really appropriate surely?
But if I was an renowned financial investigator and was posting negative things about someone who worked at Axe Capital I would probably want to be able to back it up or would not say anything - I would also probably clarify whether I don’t trust that individual because of specific things related to their work at Axe Capital or just because of “feels” as it’s quite a big difference.
If I was known here an established investigator of abuse by the Catholic Church and I said “I don’t trust Bishop X one iota but I feel like that about anyone who works in the Catholic Church” I’m not sure it would be appropriate as it imparts a suggestion of wrongdoing without clarifying or backing up the statement.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
To defend the UK, primarily. Not quite the same thing. All else is secondary. For instance, there is arguably no point in having a carrier force for intervention in the Pacific if it means that defence of maritime trade routes and economic assets (e.g. power systems) in the coastal waters and approaches has been neglected.
I couldn't disagree with you more.
The coastal waters around the UK aren't at real risk of a gunfight and if it ever came to that the world has already gone to hell in a handcart already.
We need to deal with the world as it is, and suggesting we can abdicate potential troubles in the Pacific as nothing to do with us is as wilfully naïve as suggesting that some people getting sick from a strange novel virus in Wuhan, China is nothing to do with us.
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
It wasn't. As I've pointed out multiple times before I've never seen a chancellor further away from a tax increase at any point I remember.
And yet...
If he was that unhappy with government policy, he could very easily have resigned. Staying on-board, whilst briefing that he didn't like it, shows something both sneaky and weak about him.
And if he doesn't want an NI rise, how else does he intend to find the money needed to clear NHS backlogs and then sort-of fix Social Care?
Probably not. Watch a minute or so of half a dozen of his videos on Youtube, and work out if he sounds presidential or dull as a Starmer. Remember that every politician who does anything at all will be touted as a presidential candidate over the next couple of years.
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
Mentioned before but this is why I think a candidate will emerge from that faction, ideally (from a voting standpoint) in combo with the Spartans / ERG. Neither Sunak nor Truss are ideologically committed to their core concepts and, certainly in the case of Rishi, he is starting to get a reputation for being slippery.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
To defend the UK, primarily. Not quite the same thing. All else is secondary. For instance, there is arguably no point in having a carrier force for intervention in the Pacific if it means that defence of maritime trade routes and economic assets (e.g. power systems) in the coastal waters and approaches has been neglected.
Well I know right. We need to decide. The carriers are not going to help us defend the British Isles are they?
They have their uses, to be fair, but need so much defence themselves and with the Navy so small now ...
They should have been named "HMS Pork Barrel" and "HMS Job Creation"
TBF, barrels of salt pork have a very long history in the navy.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
I'm afraid that after the 45 minute dossier no-one will believe a word anyone says on threats
The attempted putsch has unleashed infighting between rival camps of Tory MPs, with whips also accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives.
One MP claims it was hinted that he would be outed as homosexual, while another was reportedly warned that alleged sexual harassment would be revealed. A third was confronted with hotly denied claims of unusual sexual peccadillos with male prostitutes. One has threatened to release a recording of a whip’s threats.
One thing that struck me in the Dan Hodges Mail article was this line:
"But any hopes within No 10 that this provided evidence of the Chancellor’s loyalty were misplaced. Within hours Tricky Rishi was holding meetings with leading rebels, who set out their terms for backing him in any leadership contest."
If Rishi starts to get the reputation (?) for being slippery and not to be trusted, it;s potentially very damaging. It doesn't sound as though he convinced many of the Red Wall MPs he would follow through on more funding for the RW.
I wouldn't trust Sunak one iota but I feel that about anyone who worked at the hedge fund he was at.
Ms Cyclefree - you have mentioned a few times that you have an issue with the hedge fund Sunak worked for and that you do not trust him. Please could you expand on this as it’s not clear if you are saying there was some sort of illegality or just sharp practice - obviously there is plain illegality at one end of the spectrum and things that aren’t great morally but perfectly legal at the other.
I think if you are going to cast shade on Sunak by virtue of his work history it’s only fair to make it clear if it’s something he has done, something in the culture of his employers and if legal or not.
I could be being very naive but I don’t really understand why, if there are skeletons in his closet, they haven’t been thrown out there either by Boris and outriders, rivals or by the guardian in a deep reporting exposé so think if someone is hinting at this then would only be fair to back it up and explain why you hint at dark issues or alternatively not hint at them unless they can be backed up?
If you are right then it’s important that people know this but if you aren’t then it’s also not right to cast shade.
I am a little constrained in what I can say. There are issues around the legality of some of the stuff which went on in 2007 which I cannot discuss in a public forum. All I will say is that there was more illegality going on than has come out and there were huge missed opportunities to clamp down hard on behaviour which was in my view unlawful and which, if done, could have reduced or potentially stopped some of the worst effects in this country of the financial crisis. Some of it has spilt out from other players. The reason why more has not come out is because (a) there are and have been legal constraints on this happening; (b) it does not reflect well on others who have an interest - even now - in not fully lifting up the carpet on what went on in the finance sector in this country in 2007/2008, a cost for which we as taxpayers are still paying.
I do not have anything against Sunak personally. I am happy to make this clear. But I do have confidential information about the activities of The Childrens Investment Fund, the hedge fund where he worked, in relation to the period in 2007-2008, which makes me doubtful about those working there at the time. The culture of the place was not a good one. There have been serious criticisms of the truthfulness of the evidence given by its founder, Chris Hohn, by various judges in various legal cases. Culture comes from the top.
There are some who think that Sunak will be better because he is skilled, is a money man, has worked effectively in business. And that may well be the case. The Treasury was pretty competent with the furlough scheme. But if it is right to praise him for the skills he has learnt then it is also right to wonder about what else he learnt from the culture of the place he worked at.
That is why I am sceptical about the idea that he is some sort of clean skin Messiah. These doubts are reinforced by three things: 1.The government's initial instincts on the financial consequences of Covid were wrong. I wrote about this at the time here - https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/03/17/budgeting-for-a-crisis/. Sunak was Chancellor then. He reversed pretty quickly which is to his credit. But that has raised a doubt in my mind about how good his instincts really are. 2. His subsequent decisions as Chancellor - on UC, on the NI increase etc, on funding for transport schemes in the North. 3. The way he apparently seeks to distance himself from his own decisions when they become uncomfortable or unpopular. I wonder whether he is a bit like Chris Hohn in that instance - good at the positive self-publicity ("my hedge fund gives money to charities!") but quick to evade responsibility and under the surface not quite as nice as he likes to make out.
Thank you Ms Cyclefree for your clarification. It wasn’t a personal attack but obviously it helps to know that someone with your background feels that this is substantial rather than speculation. Your knowledge and experience carries weight.
If Sunak has skeletons then it’s clearly in the interest of all to expose now rather than it being used later and causing more political instability as we’ve had enough of that for a lifetime……
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
It wasn't. As I've pointed out multiple times before I've never seen a chancellor further away from a tax increase at any point I remember.
And yet...
If he was that unhappy with government policy, he could very easily have resigned. Staying on-board, whilst briefing that he didn't like it, shows something both sneaky and weak about him.
And if he doesn't want an NI rise, how else does he intend to find the money needed to clear NHS backlogs and then sort-of fix Social Care?
It's all about getting to the next election/month/increasingly week. Does anyone really think fixing waiting lists or social care is at all a priority above fixing the polling deficit?
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
The Nus Ghani allegations are appalling, if not exactly surprising.
Boris has completely screwed up the party for a generation, I suspect. The culture of bullying, nastiness, insouciance of the rules, arrogance, and incompetence will years to sort out, and I don't think voters are going to forgive the Tories for a long time. Eventually some future David Cameron may emerge and take the party through all the detoxification again, but it could be a long wait. And that's without even taking into account the multiple crises coming (NHS backlog, care for elderly crisis, cost of living, justice system backlogs, Brexit damage to the economy...). Some of those are admittedly not entirely the government's fault, but it will get the blame all the same.
Good on those Tory MPs (including, if the reports are true, our very own member for Newcastle under Lyme) who have grasped the nettle. Getting rid of Boris is the indispensable first step for improving things, both for the party and, more importantly, the country, but it will be only the first step.
If the pattern for the future is going to be a couple of decades of painful detoxification followed by a rapid retox, the Conservatives really are in trouble. I blame the seventy years or so of peace.
Big-picture wise, I'm still of the view that the facts of life are broadly Conservative. It's better to give people the space to do brilliant things than demand the state tries to manage it all. But there is a line that it's important not to cross; roughly the one between freedom and what you will being the whole of the law. It's the difference between Thatcher (who saw wealth as a conferring a duty to do good with it) and some of her acolytes (who see it as something to grab).
For a couple of generations after WW2, the experience of War kept individual Conservatives human, connected to others. Major's upbringing did the same for him, and I suspect that Cameron's experience with his son knocked the edges off him. But now we're in a world where it's possible for people to do well and convince themselves that their success is down to their own merits and that alone. If you are at the top, and that is because you alone are brilliant, then of course you can do what you damn well please. We've seen it with Johnson, and elements of it with Sunak (that pseudo-Randian riff at the end of his Budget speech). If that is the future for the Conservatives, they have a problem, as do all of us who may be ruled by them.
An aspect which concerns me is that some Conservatives seem to think 'business' is all about being a 10%+ middleman achieved through contacts acquired from family / school / political connections.
As opposed to actually creating wealth by producing a useful good or service.
This was partly also a result of "business" always being assumed to me a good thing, which continued very importantly right through the New Labour years. Business can be any business.
Ed Miliband was the first opposition leader to try and challenge this dangerously simplistic consensus for almost fifteen years, after which Theresa May began trying to borrow some of his clothes. At a second remove, Johnson also inherited the new social rhetoric , but only as a shallow gimmick so far.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
An an inteventionist, it's barking.
We absolutely should be intervening, but conscription is the last thing that should be on the agenda.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
A nuclear war would certainly solve Bojo's unpopularity in London and other inner city constituencies. Could be considered a bit extreme, though.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
An an inteventionist, it's barking.
We absolutely should be intervening, but conscription is the last thing that should be on the agenda.
The suggested policy wouldn't save BJ - it would finish him within the hour.
Incidentally, which countries should we defend with UK military forces if attacked?
1) Latvia 2) Estonia 3) Lithuania 4) Poland 5) Germany 6) France 7) Italy 8) Spain ?
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
A nuclear war would certainly solve Bojo's unpopularity in London and other inner city constituencies. Could be considered a bit extreme, though.
@HYUFD would see the bright side that rural constituencies would be least affected.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
A nuclear war would certainly solve Bojo's unpopularity in London and other inner city constituencies. Could be considered a bit extreme, though.
He'd have to make sure he was at Chequers when the bomb drops.
The Nus Ghani allegations are appalling, if not exactly surprising.
Boris has completely screwed up the party for a generation, I suspect. The culture of bullying, nastiness, insouciance of the rules, arrogance, and incompetence will years to sort out, and I don't think voters are going to forgive the Tories for a long time. Eventually some future David Cameron may emerge and take the party through all the detoxification again, but it could be a long wait. And that's without even taking into account the multiple crises coming (NHS backlog, care for elderly crisis, cost of living, justice system backlogs, Brexit damage to the economy...). Some of those are admittedly not entirely the government's fault, but it will get the blame all the same.
Good on those Tory MPs (including, if the reports are true, our very own member for Newcastle under Lyme) who have grasped the nettle. Getting rid of Boris is the indispensable first step for improving things, both for the party and, more importantly, the country, but it will be only the first step.
I'm not so sure. I don't think people are seeing the Tory Party per se as the culprit but Boris Johnson. The analogy is with 1990 and when Major replaced Thatcher.
Also, and this has gotten forgotten in the mists of time, Labour has a deep structural problem - the "Labour till I die" types in RW seats are dying off, in many places the Labour brand is toxic as it is associated with minority causes and the party is becoming an unstable coalition of urban, liberal professionals with socially conservative ethnic minority voters. The risk for Labour in the current situation is they fail to address the structural issues and believe they can ride to victory on Tory Sleaze. If anyone is going to profit from these disenchanted voters, it will be a restructured UKIP (which is why I think Farage was getting involving in the Djokavic case - it got him publicity a and association with a cause that has its adherents).
You seem completely oblivious to everything Keir Starmer has said and done since he took over.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
Don't we already have troops "training"? Suspect those-who-are-not-mentioned may be there and calling in the airstrikes/spotting for artillery if the tanks come across the border. We could fly drones fairly deniably as well, think they are based at Culdrose.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
An an inteventionist, it's barking.
We absolutely should be intervening, but conscription is the last thing that should be on the agenda.
The suggested policy wouldn't save BJ - it would finish him within the hour.
Incidentally, which countries should we defend with UK military forces if attacked?
1) Latvia 2) Estonia 3) Lithuania 4) Poland 5) Germany 6) France 7) Italy 8) Spain ?
The problem for the Red Wallers is that even though Boris won’t deliver on his promises, Rishi is actively ideologically opposed to levelling up, and Liz Truss can’t be trusted either.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon. I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
It wasn't. As I've pointed out multiple times before I've never seen a chancellor further away from a tax increase at any point I remember.
And yet...
If he was that unhappy with government policy, he could very easily have resigned. Staying on-board, whilst briefing that he didn't like it, shows something both sneaky and weak about him.
And if he doesn't want an NI rise, how else does he intend to find the money needed to clear NHS backlogs and then sort-of fix Social Care?
He works for the Treasury who I'm 100% sure want the money.
It's just going to make April's pay pockets very painful when your pay packet drops 2% or so and prices are heading sky high. I suspect discretionary spending will drop like a cliff.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
An an inteventionist, it's barking.
We absolutely should be intervening, but conscription is the last thing that should be on the agenda.
The suggested policy wouldn't save BJ - it would finish him within the hour.
Incidentally, which countries should we defend with UK military forces if attacked?
1) Latvia 2) Estonia 3) Lithuania 4) Poland 5) Germany 6) France 7) Italy 8) Spain ?
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
A nuclear war would certainly solve Bojo's unpopularity in London and other inner city constituencies. Could be considered a bit extreme, though.
To pick a Gov as candidate would be an admission that the Dem leadership in Washington had failed.
Which would very likely mean a GOP win in 2024.
I don't think your logic works here.
If there are concerns over Democrat leadership in Washington - and that's likely to play out in mid-terms in November - the sensible reaction is surely NOT to deny there is a problem and stick with a Washington insider, but embrace someone outside that as candidate.
There's an analogy with Johnson who, despite having been Foreign Secretary, did successfully present in 2019 as being a new thing as opposed to a continuation of a Conservative run/led Government had been in place for a decade. It didn't work for all that long and the administration now very much looks its age... but it worked for long enough to win an election handsomely.
I think a GOP win in the mid-terms also causes them problems, by the way. They are the ones then setting the domestic agenda - so do they allow Biden the opportunity to do things like veto a further Obamacare repeal (gifting him a "saving your health cover" message) or go for things that are harder to veto, doubtless riling the right including Trump? It isn't a great election to win.
Dominic Hill - the real one @South_SPC To the lady in the red car who just stuck two fingers up at me as you left the in-excess garden centre near Landford after I tooted my car horn.
Your handbag probably isn't on the roof of your car any more.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
An an inteventionist, it's barking.
We absolutely should be intervening, but conscription is the last thing that should be on the agenda.
The suggested policy wouldn't save BJ - it would finish him within the hour.
Incidentally, which countries should we defend with UK military forces if attacked?
1) Latvia 2) Estonia 3) Lithuania 4) Poland 5) Germany 6) France 7) Italy 8) Spain ?
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
Don't we already have troops "training"? Suspect those-who-are-not-mentioned may be there and calling in the airstrikes/spotting for artillery if the tanks come across the border. We could fly drones fairly deniably as well, think they are based at Culdrose.
A small number of people explaining how the weapons we are sending work - primarily trining up Ukrainian instructors who will then instruct the front line troops - as I understand it.
Using UK equipment directly controlled by UK troops/advisers would be a different thing - and would escalate the potential war to another level. I would bet heavily that that doesn't happen.
The Hereford Boat Club are probably in Ukraine at the moment, as observers.
The Nus Ghani allegations are appalling, if not exactly surprising.
Boris has completely screwed up the party for a generation, I suspect. The culture of bullying, nastiness, insouciance of the rules, arrogance, and incompetence will years to sort out, and I don't think voters are going to forgive the Tories for a long time. Eventually some future David Cameron may emerge and take the party through all the detoxification again, but it could be a long wait. And that's without even taking into account the multiple crises coming (NHS backlog, care for elderly crisis, cost of living, justice system backlogs, Brexit damage to the economy...). Some of those are admittedly not entirely the government's fault, but it will get the blame all the same.
Good on those Tory MPs (including, if the reports are true, our very own member for Newcastle under Lyme) who have grasped the nettle. Getting rid of Boris is the indispensable first step for improving things, both for the party and, more importantly, the country, but it will be only the first step.
I'm not so sure. I don't think people are seeing the Tory Party per se as the culprit but Boris Johnson. The analogy is with 1990 and when Major replaced Thatcher.
Also, and this has gotten forgotten in the mists of time, Labour has a deep structural problem - the "Labour till I die" types in RW seats are dying off, in many places the Labour brand is toxic as it is associated with minority causes and the party is becoming an unstable coalition of urban, liberal professionals with socially conservative ethnic minority voters. The risk for Labour in the current situation is they fail to address the structural issues and believe they can ride to victory on Tory Sleaze. If anyone is going to profit from these disenchanted voters, it will be a restructured UKIP (which is why I think Farage was getting involving in the Djokavic case - it got him publicity a and association with a cause that has its adherents).
You seem completely oblivious to everything Keir Starmer has said and done since he took over.
Why don't you enlighten me (and us) instead of just making a statement without explanation?
As far as I can see, Starmer has not done anything concrete except focused on the one issue that is of overwhelming importance to London Zone 1 wealthy Labour liberals like yourself, namely dealing with JC and the allegations of anti-Semitism. If he spent as much time on developing his policies for what he is going to do to address levelling up (and other issues) as he did on that topic, all of us might have a better understanding of what he stands for.
Does it? It might have made the defeat worse but had Healey won the Labour leadership in 1980 not Foot would he have beaten Thatcher in 1983? I doubt it. Had Clarke beaten Hague for the Tory leadership in 1997 would he have beaten Blair in 2001? I doubt it. Had David Miliband beaten Ed Miliband for the Labour leadership in 2010 would he have beaten Cameron in 2015? I doubt it, though he might have prevented a Tory majority and just seen Cameron win most seats again.
Had Healey won in 1980 there would have been no SDP and no Alliance. I'm sure Margaret Thatcher would have won in 1983 but not with a 144-seat majority. The Conservative vote share fell 1.5% from 1979 to 1983 even with the "Falklands Factor". Assuming Healey can keep most of the Labour vote that would put Labour at 37-38% so a closer result than 1979.
Clarke would undoubtedly have reduced the Blair majority in 2001 but could he have carried on after that defeat? It's clear the Conservative Party was changing during that period and Clarke's once mainstream Conservative views were now a minority especially on Europe. Perhaps he would have been challenged by Iain Duncan-Smith or William Hague - it's an interesting line.
As for whether David Miliband would have won in 2015 - I think that's a hard one to call. The Conservatives won their majority primarily on the back of the LD collapse while Labour's main losses were to the SNP. Could a David Miliband leadership have prevented any of that? It's hard to see how but he wouldn't have had to make much difference to stop Cameron winning a majority.
A minority Cameron Government - he's off the hook of a referendum on the EU as he doesn't have a parliamentary majority but would such semantics have cut any ice with his backbenchers - I suspect not.
One reason for the 2015 manifesto promise of a referendum was that few people expect Cameron to win a majority, most Tory leadership expected a second coalition with the Lib Dems with the referendum dropped as one of the first compromises.
That doesn't however explain the completely incompetent remain campaign that did nearly as much to lose the referendum as leave did to win it.
Arguably Labour electing Ed Miliband not David Miliband in 2010 meant Cameron got a majority in 2015 and ended the Coalition leading to the EU referendum. Labour then electing Corbyn over Burnham in 2015 meant May risked an election in 2017, lost her majority and forced the Tories to make Boris their leader.
So arguably the ultimate blame for Brexit and Boris lies with Labour Party members
I thought we had already discussed this: Eric Joyce gets drunk and punches a couple of people in a HoC bar; He gets expelled from Labour; Unite try to fix the Falkirk constituency selection for his replacement; Ed Miliband brings in One Member One Vote to take the unions down a peg; Corbyn wins members' ballot; etc. etc.
The Nus Ghani allegations are appalling, if not exactly surprising.
Boris has completely screwed up the party for a generation, I suspect. The culture of bullying, nastiness, insouciance of the rules, arrogance, and incompetence will years to sort out, and I don't think voters are going to forgive the Tories for a long time. Eventually some future David Cameron may emerge and take the party through all the detoxification again, but it could be a long wait. And that's without even taking into account the multiple crises coming (NHS backlog, care for elderly crisis, cost of living, justice system backlogs, Brexit damage to the economy...). Some of those are admittedly not entirely the government's fault, but it will get the blame all the same.
Good on those Tory MPs (including, if the reports are true, our very own member for Newcastle under Lyme) who have grasped the nettle. Getting rid of Boris is the indispensable first step for improving things, both for the party and, more importantly, the country, but it will be only the first step.
I'm not so sure. I don't think people are seeing the Tory Party per se as the culprit but Boris Johnson. The analogy is with 1990 and when Major replaced Thatcher.
Also, and this has gotten forgotten in the mists of time, Labour has a deep structural problem - the "Labour till I die" types in RW seats are dying off, in many places the Labour brand is toxic as it is associated with minority causes and the party is becoming an unstable coalition of urban, liberal professionals with socially conservative ethnic minority voters. The risk for Labour in the current situation is they fail to address the structural issues and believe they can ride to victory on Tory Sleaze. If anyone is going to profit from these disenchanted voters, it will be a restructured UKIP (which is why I think Farage was getting involving in the Djokavic case - it got him publicity a and association with a cause that has its adherents).
You seem completely oblivious to everything Keir Starmer has said and done since he took over.
Why don't you enlighten me (and us) instead of just making a statement without explanation?
As far as I can see, Starmer has not done anything concrete except focused on the one issue that is of overwhelming importance to London Zone 1 wealthy Labour liberals like yourself, namely dealing with JC and the allegations of anti-Semitism. If he spent as much time on developing his policies for what he is going to do to address levelling up (and other issues) as he did on that topic, all of us might have a better understanding of what he stands for.
I'm not sure that's quite true. On just about every issue where we've heard a peep from him, he's advocating more state - more spending, more intervention, more regulation, more nannying. In particular he's pretty much been in favour of stricter lockdowns throughout.
I think that approach would be a complete disaster for the country (as the current government often shows), because what we need is actually much less government overall, but at least it's a consistent view.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
I'm afraid that after the 45 minute dossier no-one will believe a word anyone says on threats
The attempted putsch has unleashed infighting between rival camps of Tory MPs, with whips also accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives.
One MP claims it was hinted that he would be outed as homosexual, while another was reportedly warned that alleged sexual harassment would be revealed. A third was confronted with hotly denied claims of unusual sexual peccadillos with male prostitutes. One has threatened to release a recording of a whip’s threats.
One thing that struck me in the Dan Hodges Mail article was this line:
"But any hopes within No 10 that this provided evidence of the Chancellor’s loyalty were misplaced. Within hours Tricky Rishi was holding meetings with leading rebels, who set out their terms for backing him in any leadership contest."
If Rishi starts to get the reputation (?) for being slippery and not to be trusted, it;s potentially very damaging. It doesn't sound as though he convinced many of the Red Wall MPs he would follow through on more funding for the RW.
I wouldn't trust Sunak one iota but I feel that about anyone who worked at the hedge fund he was at.
Ms Cyclefree - you have mentioned a few times that you have an issue with the hedge fund Sunak worked for and that you do not trust him. Please could you expand on this as it’s not clear if you are saying there was some sort of illegality or just sharp practice - obviously there is plain illegality at one end of the spectrum and things that aren’t great morally but perfectly legal at the other.
I think if you are going to cast shade on Sunak by virtue of his work history it’s only fair to make it clear if it’s something he has done, something in the culture of his employers and if legal or not.
I could be being very naive but I don’t really understand why, if there are skeletons in his closet, they haven’t been thrown out there either by Boris and outriders, rivals or by the guardian in a deep reporting exposé so think if someone is hinting at this then would only be fair to back it up and explain why you hint at dark issues or alternatively not hint at them unless they can be backed up?
If you are right then it’s important that people know this but if you aren’t then it’s also not right to cast shade.
I am a little constrained in what I can say. There are issues around the legality of some of the stuff which went on in 2007 which I cannot discuss in a public forum. All I will say is that there was more illegality going on than has come out and there were huge missed opportunities to clamp down hard on behaviour which was in my view unlawful and which, if done, could have reduced or potentially stopped some of the worst effects in this country of the financial crisis. Some of it has spilt out from other players. The reason why more has not come out is because (a) there are and have been legal constraints on this happening; (b) it does not reflect well on others who have an interest - even now - in not fully lifting up the carpet on what went on in the finance sector in this country in 2007/2008, a cost for which we as taxpayers are still paying.
I do not have anything against Sunak personally. I am happy to make this clear. But I do have confidential information about the activities of The Childrens Investment Fund, the hedge fund where he worked, in relation to the period in 2007-2008, which makes me doubtful about those working there at the time. The culture of the place was not a good one. There have been serious criticisms of the truthfulness of the evidence given by its founder, Chris Hohn, by various judges in various legal cases. Culture comes from the top.
There are some who think that Sunak will be better because he is skilled, is a money man, has worked effectively in business. And that may well be the case. The Treasury was pretty competent with the furlough scheme. But if it is right to praise him for the skills he has learnt then it is also right to wonder about what else he learnt from the culture of the place he worked at.
That is why I am sceptical about the idea that he is some sort of clean skin Messiah. These doubts are reinforced by three things: 1.The government's initial instincts on the financial consequences of Covid were wrong. I wrote about this at the time here - https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/03/17/budgeting-for-a-crisis/. Sunak was Chancellor then. He reversed pretty quickly which is to his credit. But that has raised a doubt in my mind about how good his instincts really are. 2. His subsequent decisions as Chancellor - on UC, on the NI increase etc, on funding for transport schemes in the North. 3. The way he apparently seeks to distance himself from his own decisions when they become uncomfortable or unpopular. I wonder whether he is a bit like Chris Hohn in that instance - good at the positive self-publicity ("my hedge fund gives money to charities!") but quick to evade responsibility and under the surface not quite as nice as he likes to make out.
- “… under the surface not quite as nice as he likes to make out.“
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
I'm afraid that after the 45 minute dossier no-one will believe a word anyone says on threats
The attempted putsch has unleashed infighting between rival camps of Tory MPs, with whips also accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives.
One MP claims it was hinted that he would be outed as homosexual, while another was reportedly warned that alleged sexual harassment would be revealed. A third was confronted with hotly denied claims of unusual sexual peccadillos with male prostitutes. One has threatened to release a recording of a whip’s threats.
One thing that struck me in the Dan Hodges Mail article was this line:
"But any hopes within No 10 that this provided evidence of the Chancellor’s loyalty were misplaced. Within hours Tricky Rishi was holding meetings with leading rebels, who set out their terms for backing him in any leadership contest."
If Rishi starts to get the reputation (?) for being slippery and not to be trusted, it;s potentially very damaging. It doesn't sound as though he convinced many of the Red Wall MPs he would follow through on more funding for the RW.
I wouldn't trust Sunak one iota but I feel that about anyone who worked at the hedge fund he was at.
Ms Cyclefree - you have mentioned a few times that you have an issue with the hedge fund Sunak worked for and that you do not trust him. Please could you expand on this as it’s not clear if you are saying there was some sort of illegality or just sharp practice - obviously there is plain illegality at one end of the spectrum and things that aren’t great morally but perfectly legal at the other.
I think if you are going to cast shade on Sunak by virtue of his work history it’s only fair to make it clear if it’s something he has done, something in the culture of his employers and if legal or not.
I could be being very naive but I don’t really understand why, if there are skeletons in his closet, they haven’t been thrown out there either by Boris and outriders, rivals or by the guardian in a deep reporting exposé so think if someone is hinting at this then would only be fair to back it up and explain why you hint at dark issues or alternatively not hint at them unless they can be backed up?
If you are right then it’s important that people know this but if you aren’t then it’s also not right to cast shade.
I am a little constrained in what I can say. There are issues around the legality of some of the stuff which went on in 2007 which I cannot discuss in a public forum. All I will say is that there was more illegality going on than has come out and there were huge missed opportunities to clamp down hard on behaviour which was in my view unlawful and which, if done, could have reduced or potentially stopped some of the worst effects in this country of the financial crisis. Some of it has spilt out from other players. The reason why more has not come out is because (a) there are and have been legal constraints on this happening; (b) it does not reflect well on others who have an interest - even now - in not fully lifting up the carpet on what went on in the finance sector in this country in 2007/2008, a cost for which we as taxpayers are still paying.
I do not have anything against Sunak personally. I am happy to make this clear. But I do have confidential information about the activities of The Childrens Investment Fund, the hedge fund where he worked, in relation to the period in 2007-2008, which makes me doubtful about those working there at the time. The culture of the place was not a good one. There have been serious criticisms of the truthfulness of the evidence given by its founder, Chris Hohn, by various judges in various legal cases. Culture comes from the top.
There are some who think that Sunak will be better because he is skilled, is a money man, has worked effectively in business. And that may well be the case. The Treasury was pretty competent with the furlough scheme. But if it is right to praise him for the skills he has learnt then it is also right to wonder about what else he learnt from the culture of the place he worked at.
That is why I am sceptical about the idea that he is some sort of clean skin Messiah. These doubts are reinforced by three things: 1.The government's initial instincts on the financial consequences of Covid were wrong. I wrote about this at the time here - https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/03/17/budgeting-for-a-crisis/. Sunak was Chancellor then. He reversed pretty quickly which is to his credit. But that has raised a doubt in my mind about how good his instincts really are. 2. His subsequent decisions as Chancellor - on UC, on the NI increase etc, on funding for transport schemes in the North. 3. The way he apparently seeks to distance himself from his own decisions when they become uncomfortable or unpopular. I wonder whether he is a bit like Chris Hohn in that instance - good at the positive self-publicity ("my hedge fund gives money to charities!") but quick to evade responsibility and under the surface not quite as nice as he likes to make out.
- “… under the surface not quite as nice as he likes to make out.“
In fairness, he is a Tory.
Wouldn't be surprised if Ruth is on the Rishi bus when it comes careering round the corner.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
Don't we already have troops "training"? Suspect those-who-are-not-mentioned may be there and calling in the airstrikes/spotting for artillery if the tanks come across the border. We could fly drones fairly deniably as well, think they are based at Culdrose.
A small number of people explaining how the weapons we are sending work - primarily trining up Ukrainian instructors who will then instruct the front line troops - as I understand it.
Using UK equipment directly controlled by UK troops/advisers would be a different thing - and would escalate the potential war to another level. I would bet heavily that that doesn't happen.
The Hereford Boat Club are probably in Ukraine at the moment, as observers.
When did they "observe" anything?
Whatever, we need to make sure that if Putin orders a general advance across the border, he is met with fire and iron.
My worry is that there is a nasty little salient between Belarus, Ukraine and Russia that puts Moscow within striking distance of Kyiv. Some of it is the Pripyat Marshes but I bet a lot of it is good tank country. It might be a good theatre to test a few fuel-air bombs.
I have been working out ways that Johnson survives. Here is my most ludicrous, but it could work
What if at 20.00 this evening he addresses the nation, surrounded by flags, reporting that we are on the brink of war with Russia. He puts us on an immediate war footing, .
The whole nation will see straight through it.
Your conscription thing is hilarious - the military would simply reject it, as a start.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
That was my insanity not @Heathener It would be simply rhetoric to save Johnson. Sending the recently conscripted troops as Russian cannon fodder would be political suicide.
No - it wouldn't even be rhetoric. There is no mechanism for conscription in the UK. CDS would simply phone everyone to say that the PM has lost the plot. BJ would be in the Priory for "stress" within hours.
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
As a non- interventionist, I wouldn't for one moment suggest sending troops, that would be absolute suicidal insanity.
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
Don't we already have troops "training"? Suspect those-who-are-not-mentioned may be there and calling in the airstrikes/spotting for artillery if the tanks come across the border. We could fly drones fairly deniably as well, think they are based at Culdrose.
Culdrose is FAA helicopters. The new MQ-9Bs will be based at Waddington. Until they arrive the UK has no UAS that can operate in controlled airspace.
The Nus Ghani allegations are appalling, if not exactly surprising.
Boris has completely screwed up the party for a generation, I suspect. The culture of bullying, nastiness, insouciance of the rules, arrogance, and incompetence will years to sort out, and I don't think voters are going to forgive the Tories for a long time. Eventually some future David Cameron may emerge and take the party through all the detoxification again, but it could be a long wait. And that's without even taking into account the multiple crises coming (NHS backlog, care for elderly crisis, cost of living, justice system backlogs, Brexit damage to the economy...). Some of those are admittedly not entirely the government's fault, but it will get the blame all the same.
Good on those Tory MPs (including, if the reports are true, our very own member for Newcastle under Lyme) who have grasped the nettle. Getting rid of Boris is the indispensable first step for improving things, both for the party and, more importantly, the country, but it will be only the first step.
I'm not so sure. I don't think people are seeing the Tory Party per se as the culprit but Boris Johnson. The analogy is with 1990 and when Major replaced Thatcher.
Also, and this has gotten forgotten in the mists of time, Labour has a deep structural problem - the "Labour till I die" types in RW seats are dying off, in many places the Labour brand is toxic as it is associated with minority causes and the party is becoming an unstable coalition of urban, liberal professionals with socially conservative ethnic minority voters. The risk for Labour in the current situation is they fail to address the structural issues and believe they can ride to victory on Tory Sleaze. If anyone is going to profit from these disenchanted voters, it will be a restructured UKIP (which is why I think Farage was getting involving in the Djokavic case - it got him publicity a and association with a cause that has its adherents).
You seem completely oblivious to everything Keir Starmer has said and done since he took over.
Why don't you enlighten me (and us) instead of just making a statement without explanation?
As far as I can see, Starmer has not done anything concrete except focused on the one issue that is of overwhelming importance to London Zone 1 wealthy Labour liberals like yourself, namely dealing with JC and the allegations of anti-Semitism.
That was a necessary prerequisite to enable him to get a hearing later.
The Nus Ghani allegations are appalling, if not exactly surprising.
Boris has completely screwed up the party for a generation, I suspect. The culture of bullying, nastiness, insouciance of the rules, arrogance, and incompetence will years to sort out, and I don't think voters are going to forgive the Tories for a long time. Eventually some future David Cameron may emerge and take the party through all the detoxification again, but it could be a long wait. And that's without even taking into account the multiple crises coming (NHS backlog, care for elderly crisis, cost of living, justice system backlogs, Brexit damage to the economy...). Some of those are admittedly not entirely the government's fault, but it will get the blame all the same.
Good on those Tory MPs (including, if the reports are true, our very own member for Newcastle under Lyme) who have grasped the nettle. Getting rid of Boris is the indispensable first step for improving things, both for the party and, more importantly, the country, but it will be only the first step.
I'm not so sure. I don't think people are seeing the Tory Party per se as the culprit but Boris Johnson. The analogy is with 1990 and when Major replaced Thatcher.
Also, and this has gotten forgotten in the mists of time, Labour has a deep structural problem - the "Labour till I die" types in RW seats are dying off, in many places the Labour brand is toxic as it is associated with minority causes and the party is becoming an unstable coalition of urban, liberal professionals with socially conservative ethnic minority voters. The risk for Labour in the current situation is they fail to address the structural issues and believe they can ride to victory on Tory Sleaze. If anyone is going to profit from these disenchanted voters, it will be a restructured UKIP (which is why I think Farage was getting involving in the Djokavic case - it got him publicity a and association with a cause that has its adherents).
You seem completely oblivious to everything Keir Starmer has said and done since he took over.
Why don't you enlighten me (and us) instead of just making a statement without explanation?
As far as I can see, Starmer has not done anything concrete except focused on the one issue that is of overwhelming importance to London Zone 1 wealthy Labour liberals like yourself, namely dealing with JC and the allegations of anti-Semitism. If he spent as much time on developing his policies for what he is going to do to address levelling up (and other issues) as he did on that topic, all of us might have a better understanding of what he stands for.
A major flaw with this argument is that you say distancing Labour from Corbynism is of importance to "London Zone 1 wealthy Labour liberals" but actually Labour did reasonably well in such areas under Corbyn - their only 2019 gain, indeed, was Putney (which is possibly zone 2 but you get the point).
I'd suggest the very public distancing from Corbyn is very much to appeal to Red Wall areas in the Midlands and North, who felt that Labour under Corbyn was more about Palestine, Assange, and the plight of Chilean textile workers than health, education and crime.
I'm not a massive Starmer fanboy, by the way. I do think he struggles to connect and often presents as a fairly cold, elitist figure. But I also think he gets the challenge in strategic terms in a way that Labour hasn't in a while, and shouldn't be underestimated by the Tories as a threat.
At risk of sounding like an armchair general, couldn’t we plonk a load of British troops in Ukraine on “training” and dare Putin to attack? Would he?
Would you be volunteering to be amongst those troops?
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
It would be a deterrent. If it would be enough of a deterrent, that’s another question.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
To defend the UK, primarily. Not quite the same thing. All else is secondary. For instance, there is arguably no point in having a carrier force for intervention in the Pacific if it means that defence of maritime trade routes and economic assets (e.g. power systems) in the coastal waters and approaches has been neglected.
I couldn't disagree with you more.
The coastal waters around the UK aren't at real risk of a gunfight and if it ever came to that the world has already gone to hell in a handcart already.
We need to deal with the world as it is, and suggesting we can abdicate potential troubles in the Pacific as nothing to do with us is as wilfully naïve as suggesting that some people getting sick from a strange novel virus in Wuhan, China is nothing to do with us.
A pirate has a vested interest in there being no useful naval presence.
I said 'primarily'; if the RN can't defend the UK at home (for instance, the lack of antisubmarine torpedo tubes in new friegates as discussed here) then it has failed in its primary mission.
But of course you don't believe in energy security or food security. Import everything if it is a few pence cheaper. As much discussed previously.
Comments
Boosted people are far less likely to get Omicron. The "vaccination doesn't affect infection" meme is simply wrong.
EDIT: Many Trumpet morons died unvaxed to bring us this data.
The BBC would see straight through it like the rest of us.
If Boris Johnson declares we're on a war footing with Russia the men in white coats will be paying a visit.
The only result of the action you describe would be to cause problems with bookies claiming that the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street in a strait jacket doesn't count as him losing office.
It wouldn’t deter Putin one bit as he would say that they shouldn’t have been there as it’s not our business and there is f all we could do in retaliation apart from the actions we can take already if Russia invades - so some British families lose loved ones for nothing and the situation is as it was anyway……
Then it became an issue. When it became clear that it wasn't a stupid border dispute and it was going to involve people shooting at each other, it popped to the top of the *popular* political agenda
Most people don't spend the day think about, or worrying about various bits of territory - no one was sparing much thought for Montserrat until the eruption, for example.
Before it happened Biden would get on the phone, give us a bollocking and that would be the end of that.
We have "speed bump*" forces, exactly as described in the Baltic States. As have the Americans.
In the deterrence between nations, there is a big thing about a direct fight between opposing sides. Direct fighting between Russian and American or British units would be an escalation. And both sides know it.
Which is why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham was a moment.
*As in they might slow the Russians down a bit.
Unfortunately, and stupidly, Galteri jumped the gun.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/23/sue-gray-partygate-report-dominic-raab
Pretty transparent nonsense.
But at the end of the day, if not to defend democracy against international bullies, what on earth is our military for?
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2022/01/boris-johnsons-rule-breaking-and-risk-taking-have-finally-caught-up-with-him?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB
EDIT: there seem to be quite a few people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops. I presume because it is hard to attack a policy of giving weapons to a democracy that is trying to defend itself.
@JohnRentoul
·
2h
Jared Polis, Dem governor of Colorado, increasingly mentioned as poss presidential candidate
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1485179806253821954
===
worth a nibble at 150?
Problem also is people then pretend that is a defence of Johnson when it is no such thing. You've just done it acting like any critique is a Boris defence. They're both terrible, similar in some ways but terrible in distinct ways as well (one distinction being how Boris is more part of traditional establishment, so problems might be more ingrained beyond him too).
In the aftermath of the Falklands, it was found that the FO had been trying to bribe some overseas dependent territories to declare independence.
Who exactly are the people on the non-intervention side who seem upset that the UK isn't sending troops?
Also, and this has gotten forgotten in the mists of time, Labour has a deep structural problem - the "Labour till I die" types in RW seats are dying off, in many places the Labour brand is toxic as it is associated with minority causes and the party is becoming an unstable coalition of urban, liberal professionals with socially conservative ethnic minority voters. The risk for Labour in the current situation is they fail to address the structural issues and believe they can ride to victory on Tory Sleaze. If anyone is going to profit from these disenchanted voters, it will be a restructured UKIP (which is why I think Farage was getting involving in the Djokavic case - it got him publicity a and association with a cause that has its adherents).
I regret voting for Brexit but I cannot shy away from my contribution to any click ups arising from it. Not as much as those taking decisions, particular on elements not inevitable, but certainly more than Labour not picking the right Miliband.
He’s a “good times make soft men” kinda guy.
Is our military there to defend democracy against bullies? If so where is it stopping bullies elsewhere at the moment? Is it in Hong Kong asserting Hong Kong’s democracy and the agreements with the Chinese we made? Why not? Doesn’t matter if they would be absolutely slaughtered because we were defending democracy against bullies.
Our military now are there to defend certain interests where a military intervention will make a difference and not end up in an absolute shitstorm - hopefully a lesson learnt from Afghanistan and Iraq.
US forces in big numbers would be a deterrent but also would allow Putin to say “look - I was right, those western imperialist pigs are putting troops on our borders to threaten us”.
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
The Spartan faction have the same issue. The Brexit opportunity is being “wasted” by Boris, apparently, but who has a plan to do it differently?
Still I think he’ll be done soon.
I did it highly significant that Rishi is now briefing that the NI raise was nothing to do with him.
Now that there's a spotlight on Germany's "interesting" Russia policy, a lot of people have asked me why on earth Germany behaves the way it does. In short: Different perception of the way the world works, history, economic self-interest, public opinion, party politics.
https://twitter.com/marceldirsus/status/1485199504668303366?s=21
Just because you cannot do everything doesn't mean you cannot do something.
Here? Token measures are probably the extent of it, hoepfully that will help, but the principle of selective involvement in places is not in itself preposterous.
The Nazis killed 8 million Ukrainians. Not showing much interest for the country’s future would certainly inflame passions. There is something called historical responsibility
https://twitter.com/MacaesBruno/status/1485227562548830210?s=20
I suspect we are getting to the point where you couldn't reverse the 2022/23 NI increases even if you wanted to.
Can't see I'm convinced he'd been able to pull off either.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohdan_Stashynsky and many other incidents.
your standard reminder: the person primarily at risk when defamatory matter is posted on PB is the poster, not OGH
You have been warned
Big-picture wise, I'm still of the view that the facts of life are broadly Conservative. It's better to give people the space to do brilliant things than demand the state tries to manage it all. But there is a line that it's important not to cross; roughly the one between freedom and what you will being the whole of the law. It's the difference between Thatcher (who saw wealth as a conferring a duty to do good with it) and some of her acolytes (who see it as something to grab).
For a couple of generations after WW2, the experience of War kept individual Conservatives human, connected to others. Major's upbringing did the same for him, and I suspect that Cameron's experience with his son knocked the edges off him. But now we're in a world where it's possible for people to do well and convince themselves that their success is down to their own merits and that alone. If you are at the top, and that is because you alone are brilliant, then of course you can do what you damn well please. We've seen it with Johnson, and elements of it with Sunak (that pseudo-Randian riff at the end of his Budget speech). If that is the future for the Conservatives, they have a problem, as do all of us who may be ruled by them.
I do not have anything against Sunak personally. I am happy to make this clear. But I do have confidential information about the activities of The Childrens Investment Fund, the hedge fund where he worked, in relation to the period in 2007-2008, which makes me doubtful about those working there at the time. The culture of the place was not a good one. There have been serious criticisms of the truthfulness of the evidence given by its founder, Chris Hohn, by various judges in various legal cases. Culture comes from the top.
There are some who think that Sunak will be better because he is skilled, is a money man, has worked effectively in business. And that may well be the case. The Treasury was pretty competent with the furlough scheme. But if it is right to praise him for the skills he has learnt then it is also right to wonder about what else he learnt from the culture of the place he worked at.
That is why I am sceptical about the idea that he is some sort of clean skin Messiah. These doubts are reinforced by three things:
1.The government's initial instincts on the financial consequences of Covid were wrong. I wrote about this at the time here - https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/03/17/budgeting-for-a-crisis/. Sunak was Chancellor then. He reversed pretty quickly which is to his credit. But that has raised a doubt in my mind about how good his instincts really are.
2. His subsequent decisions as Chancellor - on UC, on the NI increase etc, on funding for transport schemes in the North.
3. The way he apparently seeks to distance himself from his own decisions when they become uncomfortable or unpopular. I wonder whether he is a bit like Chris Hohn in that instance - good at the positive self-publicity ("my hedge fund gives money to charities!") but quick to evade responsibility and under the surface not quite as nice as he likes to make out.
Central case is they get bogged down in a low level guerrilla war, slowly sapping their energy and resources and there is an unfortunate accident which destroys Nordstream 2.
* possibly literally
Cameron hoped his personal popularity would be enough to win a referendum (backed, so he thought, by most of his party, Labour and the LDs) against what looked an ill-assorted group of anti-EU types. The EU probably thought Cameron would win and he would be forced to acquiesce to the status quo.
Both were of course naive and foolish - inasmuch as REMAIN failed to put forward a persuasive argument for the EU, they left themselves open to the variety of "promises" of how wonderful life would be if we left and especially the vulnerability on the immigration question.
All that is beside the point - in 2015, any referendum wasn't going to be on our membership but on a renegotiated membership package rejection of which wouldn't mean leaving the EU but would mean either the status quo or more negotiations.
As opposed to actually creating wealth by producing a useful good or service.
You also almost certainly have professional and contractual duties which prevent you from saying a lot of that, before we come to defamation issues. You are a lawyer and it is not for me to tell you that, but I am concerned about other posters being misled into thinking, precisely because you are a lawyer, that this is all kosher and fair game.
But if I was an renowned financial investigator and was posting negative things about someone who worked at Axe Capital I would probably want to be able to back it up or would not say anything - I would also probably clarify whether I don’t trust that individual because of specific things related to their work at Axe Capital or just because of “feels” as it’s quite a big difference.
If I was known here an established investigator of abuse by the Catholic Church and I said “I don’t trust Bishop X one iota but I feel like that about anyone who works in the Catholic Church” I’m not sure it would be appropriate as it imparts a suggestion of wrongdoing without clarifying or backing up the statement.
The coastal waters around the UK aren't at real risk of a gunfight and if it ever came to that the world has already gone to hell in a handcart already.
We need to deal with the world as it is, and suggesting we can abdicate potential troubles in the Pacific as nothing to do with us is as wilfully naïve as suggesting that some people getting sick from a strange novel virus in Wuhan, China is nothing to do with us.
If he was that unhappy with government policy, he could very easily have resigned. Staying on-board, whilst briefing that he didn't like it, shows something both sneaky and weak about him.
And if he doesn't want an NI rise, how else does he intend to find the money needed to clear NHS backlogs and then sort-of fix Social Care?
Which would very likely mean a GOP win in 2024.
If Sunak has skeletons then it’s clearly in the interest of all to expose now rather than it being used later and causing more political instability as we’ve had enough of that for a lifetime……
Does anyone really think fixing waiting lists or social care is at all a priority above fixing the polling deficit?
I was merely suggesting a means to save Big Dog under the cover of current international circumstances.
He'd either be running against an incumbent President or an incumbent Veep and they have exceptionally rarely lost the primaries.
How often has the incumbent President or Veep lost their primary and their party has still won the General?
Having said that, something can be both unlikely and value at 150.
Ed Miliband was the first opposition leader to try and challenge this dangerously simplistic consensus for almost fifteen years, after which Theresa May began trying to borrow some of his clothes. At a second remove, Johnson also inherited the new social rhetoric , but only as a shallow gimmick so far.
We absolutely should be intervening, but conscription is the last thing that should be on the agenda.
Incidentally, which countries should we defend with UK military forces if attacked?
1) Latvia
2) Estonia
3) Lithuania
4) Poland
5) Germany
6) France
7) Italy
8) Spain
?
It's just going to make April's pay pockets very painful when your pay packet drops 2% or so and prices are heading sky high. I suspect discretionary spending will drop like a cliff.
If there are concerns over Democrat leadership in Washington - and that's likely to play out in mid-terms in November - the sensible reaction is surely NOT to deny there is a problem and stick with a Washington insider, but embrace someone outside that as candidate.
There's an analogy with Johnson who, despite having been Foreign Secretary, did successfully present in 2019 as being a new thing as opposed to a continuation of a Conservative run/led Government had been in place for a decade. It didn't work for all that long and the administration now very much looks its age... but it worked for long enough to win an election handsomely.
I think a GOP win in the mid-terms also causes them problems, by the way. They are the ones then setting the domestic agenda - so do they allow Biden the opportunity to do things like veto a further Obamacare repeal (gifting him a "saving your health cover" message) or go for things that are harder to veto, doubtless riling the right including Trump? It isn't a great election to win.
Dominic Hill - the real one
@South_SPC
To the lady in the red car who just stuck two fingers up at me as you left the in-excess garden centre near Landford after I tooted my car horn.
Your handbag probably isn't on the roof of your car any more.
Using UK equipment directly controlled by UK troops/advisers would be a different thing - and would escalate the potential war to another level. I would bet heavily that that doesn't happen.
The Hereford Boat Club are probably in Ukraine at the moment, as observers.
As far as I can see, Starmer has not done anything concrete except focused on the one issue that is of overwhelming importance to London Zone 1 wealthy Labour liberals like yourself, namely dealing with JC and the allegations of anti-Semitism. If he spent as much time on developing his policies for what he is going to do to address levelling up (and other issues) as he did on that topic, all of us might have a better understanding of what he stands for.
Eric Joyce gets drunk and punches a couple of people in a HoC bar;
He gets expelled from Labour;
Unite try to fix the Falkirk constituency selection for his replacement;
Ed Miliband brings in One Member One Vote to take the unions down a peg;
Corbyn wins members' ballot;
etc. etc.
I think that approach would be a complete disaster for the country (as the current government often shows), because what we need is actually much less government overall, but at least it's a consistent view.
In fairness, he is a Tory.
Whatever, we need to make sure that if Putin orders a general advance across the border, he is met with fire and iron.
My worry is that there is a nasty little salient between Belarus, Ukraine and Russia that puts Moscow within striking distance of Kyiv. Some of it is the Pripyat Marshes but I bet a lot of it is good tank country. It might be a good theatre to test a few fuel-air bombs.
No, 10 sees Whips Office as a service not a listening conduit, says Andrew Mitchell.
I'd suggest the very public distancing from Corbyn is very much to appeal to Red Wall areas in the Midlands and North, who felt that Labour under Corbyn was more about Palestine, Assange, and the plight of Chilean textile workers than health, education and crime.
I'm not a massive Starmer fanboy, by the way. I do think he struggles to connect and often presents as a fairly cold, elitist figure. But I also think he gets the challenge in strategic terms in a way that Labour hasn't in a while, and shouldn't be underestimated by the Tories as a threat.
I said 'primarily'; if the RN can't defend the UK at home (for instance, the lack of antisubmarine torpedo tubes in new friegates as discussed here) then it has failed in its primary mission.
But of course you don't believe in energy security or food security. Import everything if it is a few pence cheaper. As much discussed previously.