Yorkshire could have their right to host international matches restored as early as next week — after their chairman warned that the county would “not be financially viable” without having England games at Headingley.
Constitutionally there was no need for a ballot at all. The PM remains in office until a VONC in Parliament. Thatcher could have ignored her party's 'local poll' and stood her ground. "I'm staying until HoC passes a VONC'" she might well have said. How many Tory MPs would have failed to support her?
This is not irrelevant to the current situation. The Conservative Party is nothing more than a voluntary association. It has no constitutional significance at all.
If the Conservative Party elects a new leader and the PM doesn't resign, HMQ will be having a word.
There is no point the incumbent PM not resigning as there would shortly be a confidence vote in the Commons and they would lose. The only point would be if there is some doubt about the state of the House or just bloody mindlessness.
There was speculation around the time Johnson took over that he would be able to ignore a vote of no confidence going against him in the Commons, wait out the two weeks, and force an election in preference to allowing a different PM take over.
That might be the scenario he would suggest in an attempt to keep MPs fearful of losing their seats in line.
That appears to be what happens under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. It isn't a mechanism to force the PM to resign and it's unclear whether the result of codifying the form of confidence motion has been to make it impossible for the house to indicate its support for a successor (they can only stave off an election 14 days after a no confidence vote by voting confidence in HM Government, not a notional alternative government - so the previous government has to have resigned first).
Another instance of the FTPA messing up the constitution.
I think in such a scenario (renegade PM holding the house to hostage) the only way to prevent a GE would be for the house to vote confidence in HMG. I don’t think the FTPA has messed with the convention that a PM who loses the confidence of the house has to tender his or her resignation to the monarch, though it is unclear at what point the confidence is lost (I.e at the point of the VONC or the 14 days elapsing).
Whatever the confusion in that situation, I think a monarch is correctly executing their powers to dismiss the PM if they were to establish that an alternative government could be formed. So if the Tory Party MPs were to notify her that they would get behind an alternative figure as PM, and there were enough of them to sustain a majority in the HoC, whatever Boris’ position on the matter I suspect the dismissal would take place and a new PM would take over, to table a vote of confidence in HMG and stop the 14 days elapsing.
Of course all of this would be a complete mess and in many ways our crisis moment just like the storming of the Capitol. Our constitution does rely on the PM of the day having a sense of fair play and knowing when the game is up, for the most part.
I don't think it's confusing, beyond the fact that the name of the act isn't really what it does. The old system gave the PM a weird prerogative that they could abuse, and the FTPA fixes this.
Without FTPA: PM can call an election whenever they like, technically they're within their rights to call an election to prevent themselves from being replaced by a new leader.
With FTPA: Parliament is in the driving seat, so if the majority of MPs want to kick out their PM and substitute someone else, they can. The mechanism is: Vote of confidence to dismiss the old PM, indicate to The Queen (by a formal vote or a letter or whatever) that they support someone else, and that person becomes PM.
If MPs go ahead and vote to repeal the FTPA, they're writing a blank cheque to their PM, who they know only cares about himself, to send them on a kamikaze run to save his own job. It's probably not in their best interests to let him do that.
Under FTPA a vote of confidence doesn't dismiss the old PM - it simply sets the clock ticking for a GE.
That's what I said: The vote of confidence doesn't dismiss the old PM (likewise under the old system). Doing that *then finding somebody else who can command a majority* dismisses the old PM. The difference is that with the FTPA, MPs unambiguously get a chance to do that, whereas without it the rejected PM may be able to dissolve parliament instead.
But under FTPA the only thing that stops an election is a vote of confidence in "HM Government" - not "somebody else". You can't vote confidence in them until they are appointed, and they can't be appointed unless the PM resigns or is dismissed. Agree that the rejected PM can't dissolve parliament, but that's what happens automatically 14 days later.
If MPs find someone they support the PM resigns or is dismissed. What do you think the 14-day period is for, just to give everyone a chance to see if they change their minds?
That's wasn't Starmer's finest hour. Not often a PM faces a criminal investigation, so quite a target to aim for. Instead he just ejected soundbites and didn't pin down Johnson on anything. Even allowed him to wriggle away on how much of the Gray report would be published #PMQs
I do think that some of the public are getting fed up with the endless reporting of this party stuff. Yesterday's story regarding the birthday cake with everything else that is going on in the world was pushing it too far. To have headline news that a man had a bit of birthday cake whilst at work whilst Russia is on the brink of invading the Ukraine is a bit silly.
Labour to be below 40% after everything that has happened over the past 3 months is pretty poor. They should be mid 40s regularly. Corbyn got 40% at the 2017 GE
There's a danger of overegging the pudding and that the opposition push this too much. Lab and SNP would have been better to wait for Sue Gray at this point.
Starmer targets partygate while Boris deals with the important issues
Curious as to how he is dealing with the important issues when he and the Downing Street operation are on the piss all the time. THAT is what people believe they are doing, they're hardly going to nod now and say "but they're working hard for me"
Boris Johnson in deliberately combative mood at PMQs. Raises interesting question of how he’ll handle statement on Gray? Will he come out swinging or opt for contrition?
Yorkshire could have their right to host international matches restored as early as next week — after their chairman warned that the county would “not be financially viable” without having England games at Headingley.
"We might be racists, but we'll go out of business if you don't give us a test match."
Azeem Rafiq is supportive of this move, he said changes have made, and it would be a tragedy if kids from Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Wakefield et al don't get to see England play at Headingley.
Not Starmer's absolute best performance of the last few months, but not his worst either. Everyone knows the key information is still missing, and this isn't really the main action.
Suspect that the next play will be to formally go after the breach of the ministerial code. He got it very clearly from the accused that he agrees with the code that lying equals the chop. That was the key takeaway, setting things up for the next one. Watch Cummings play another card with yet another lie from the dispatch box.
Starmer targets partygate while Boris deals with the important issues
Curious as to how he is dealing with the important issues when he and the Downing Street operation are on the piss all the time. THAT is what people believe they are doing, they're hardly going to nod now and say "but they're working hard for me"
I think a monarch is correctly executing their powers to dismiss the PM if they were to establish that an alternative government could be formed. ...
Our constitution does rely on the PM of the day having a sense of fair play and knowing when the game is up, for the most part.
The key weakness it exposes in our constitution is the lack of legitimacy of the position of the Monarch. This lack of legitimacy means that the Monarch is completely unable to execute its residual functions for fear of inserting itself on one side of a political controversy.
Instead the Monarch does only exactly as told by the PM, hoping that the PM has the sense of fair play that you mention and behaves as though the Monarch is capable of independent action.
This is why we need an elected President along the lines that Ireland has.
As the PM stands up in PMQS to say they've got 'all the big calls right' - this is published. Email from FCDO official on Nowzad animal evacuation from Afghanistan "the PM has just authorised their staff and animals to be evacuated." The PM consistently said he had 'no influence' https://twitter.com/Mollie_Malone1/status/1486314122010578951/photo/1
There is also that possibility that Starmer wants him to stay in place for a little while. He's certainly shown himself to be capable of more combative performances himself whenever he's wanted to over the last few months.
Mr. Roberts, interesting you choose to call him Christ.
I enjoyed Religious Studies at school. Easily the most interesting and useful subject I took.
I enjoyed it too, and I enjoyed vigorous debates with my schools Chaplain.
I recall when we had one set of exams and the results came out some of the other kids in my class were upset that the top two grades had gone to the classes only atheist and only Jew.
You don't need to be religious to understand religion, or be interested in it. Indeed for a critical understanding, it can help not to go in with your own prejudices.
Indeed, for better and for worse, religion has shaped (and continues to shape) the world around us. You can't understand history or even the present without an undertsanding of religion.
I also enjoyed RE at school, as an agnostic.
Dawkins and others haven't helped in creating a climate of quite often aggressive and proud ignorance about religion, I would say. Religious fundamentalists of all stripes haven't helped either, naturally.
Dawkins is an unpleasant evangelical atheist with no more ability to prove there is no deity than anyone can prove otherwise. He enjoys mocking those with with religious conviction, which just underlines he is a tosser.
Dawkins is yes just a fundamentalist militant atheist.
Most of the global population are religious, whether Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist, most of them are not as fundamentally religious however as Dawkins is fundamentally atheist
I remember reading one of Dawkins' books perhaps 20 years ago, in which he defined a 7-point scale, on which 1 was pure theism, 7 was pure atheism, and the rest were varying shades of agnosticism. He claimed that he saw himself as somewhere between 5 and 6 at the time, and possibly he was noting he had moved "upwards" on the scale throughout his career.
Listening to some of his more recent output, you'd be hard pressed to call him anything other than a solid 7, though. I do sometimes get the impression that his views are driven more by dislike of theism than anything else.
That was in The God Delusion. He's not a 7 because, as he explains, he is a scientist and does not know there is no god. Rather, he is a "De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. ""I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there"."
Dawkins has been criticised for his forays into religious philosophy, a tad unfairly I think. But he is at his best for sure when he sticks to his field - natural selection. The Selfish Gene is simply superb.
Quite right. Dawkins doesn't rule out God completely - He might be lurking in some indiscoverable corner of the universe and has cunningly hidden his every intervention from empirical validation. But there's no rational reason to admit of his existence. Certainly the of numerous and varying contents of ancient parchments scraps cobbled together centuries after the event don't cut it.
Not Starmer's absolute best performance of the last few months, but not his worst either. Everyone knows the key information is still missing, and this isn't really the main action.
Suspect that the next play will be to formally go after the breach of the ministerial code. He got it very clearly from the accused that he agrees with the code that lying equals the chop. That was the key takeaway, setting things up for the next one. Watch Cummings play another card with yet another lie from the dispatch box.
This is all getting very much like Clinton defining words to make his "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" statement not be a lie though.
Of course not but it seems very obvious his mps are behind him at present
Well of course they are behind him and a few to the side of him - that’s the layout….. but seriously it could rather be that it’s not support for Boris but anti-Starmer.
If Boris is to go it’s because the Tories decide he goes and want to ensure that Starmer gets no credit so mock and boo Starmer as he’s wrong and will be wrong with a new Tory leader.
Just because our boss is crap it doesn’t mean we think you are good. Behind the scenes however……
I hate to say it but, despite not having watched a moment of PMQs, as I was having a siesta here in Colombo, I found Starmer's performance surprisingly wooden and starchy. His demeanour is quite odd, it is something beyond smugness, a kind of theatrical rigor mortis
However, as I say, this opinion must be tempered by the fact I didn't watch any of it, so I am just making this shit up
Boris just pissing off the entire legal profession there.
Most criminal and legal aid and human rights lawyers vote Labour anyway, even many corporate and commercial lawyers would now vote Starmer Labour or LD not Tory as they oppose Brexit.
Lawyers are hardly Boris' core vote and the redwall and most Tory Leavers are not exactly in love with lawyers either
Can we have the full list of professions that can be written off by the Tories? Also why not double tax on professions that mostly vote Labour? Would serve them right imo.
I can't believe the Prime Minister is winning this.
Starmer has probably become too predictable.
I try to get into the mind (it's difficult) of my window cleaner, airport driver, neighbour and father-in-law - all former Johnson fans and now all have fallen out with him and say they will not vote CP again while he is leader.
However - if they watched PMQs today (they won't have) I am absolutely sure that they would still side with Johnson rather than Starmer, who they will dislike intensely for his general demeanor - which lets's call it a sneery superior cat's-got-the-cream (if you see what I mean).
CPs biggest risk ins't switchers; it's that their natural supporters may not turn out.
Starmer targets partygate while Boris deals with the important issues
Curious as to how he is dealing with the important issues when he and the Downing Street operation are on the piss all the time. THAT is what people believe they are doing, they're hardly going to nod now and say "but they're working hard for me"
Maybe but Boris was far from downbeat today
I cannot see his mps vonc just now
Agreed. They will need to keep powder dry until after May. There will be a lot more revelations. Johnson's bombast could be his political death throes of course, but I think he has got a few more months to torture the country with his dishonesty and incompetence.
I hate to say it but, despite not having watched a moment of PMQs, as I was having a siesta here in Colombo, I found Starmer's performance surprisingly wooden and starchy. His demeanour is quite odd, it is something beyond smugness, a kind of theatrical rigor mortis
However, as I say, this opinion must be seen tempered by the fact I didn't watch any of it, so I am just making this shit up
Not bad, but you forgot to criticise him for going to a posh school but pretending not to.
It is craven and pathetic, and I hope it loses them custom. Get rid of the Kovid Kabuki masks
I expect all supermarkets will just revert to their pre-Plan B policies. Sainsburys and Tesco both requested mask wearing, pre Plan B - Sainsbury's rather more insistently than Tesco, which felt more like going through the motions to my ears. Mask wearing in Sainsburys in Sale was certainly much more enthusiastic than mask wearing in Tesco. Co-op, much to my surprise, was quite clear that it was optional. You'd expect Co-op to be the wokest of the woke, but pleasingly this shows you can't always use the same pigeonholes that you could for the previous issues. My reading is that each supermarket is reading the preferences of its tribe of customers - the Co-op demographic is rather more working class than Tesco, which is in turn a notch down the scale from Sainsbury's.
Agree entirely that it is craven and pathetic though.
I hate to say it but, despite not having watched a moment of PMQs, as I was having a siesta here in Colombo, I found Starmer's performance surprisingly wooden and starchy. His demeanour is quite odd, it is something beyond smugness, a kind of theatrical rigor mortis
However, as I say, this opinion must be seen tempered by the fact I didn't watch any of it, so I am just making this shit up
Boris Johnson in deliberately combative mood at PMQs. Raises interesting question of how he’ll handle statement on Gray? Will he come out swinging or opt for contrition?
Contrition wont work as at this point it is forced, and so false, contrition.
Given few MPs like to be brave or divisive brazening it out has few drawbacks for him personally, even though such an attitude is damaging (and in this context I'd agree Trumpesque comparison).
Starmer targets partygate while Boris deals with the important issues
Curious as to how he is dealing with the important issues when he and the Downing Street operation are on the piss all the time. THAT is what people believe they are doing, they're hardly going to nod now and say "but they're working hard for me"
Maybe but Boris was far from downbeat today
I cannot see his mps vonc just now
Oh they will. Just not right now. Or they won't and scores of them will be former MPs. Either way is fine
I think a monarch is correctly executing their powers to dismiss the PM if they were to establish that an alternative government could be formed. ...
Our constitution does rely on the PM of the day having a sense of fair play and knowing when the game is up, for the most part.
The key weakness it exposes in our constitution is the lack of legitimacy of the position of the Monarch. This lack of legitimacy means that the Monarch is completely unable to execute its residual functions for fear of inserting itself on one side of a political controversy.
Instead the Monarch does only exactly as told by the PM, hoping that the PM has the sense of fair play that you mention and behaves as though the Monarch is capable of independent action.
This is why we need an elected President along the lines that Ireland has.
Who would you vote for in the Farage v Morgan run off?
.@BorisJohnson clearly banking everything on refusing to go. His calculation seems to be: the mess of forcing him out will be worse than the mess of keeping him in
There is also that possibility that Starmer wants him to stay in place for a little while. He's certainly shown himself to be capable of more combative performances himself whenever he's wanted to over the last few months.
Yep. Starmer looked super relaxed and it's obvious why. He's toying with Johnson.
Yorkshire could have their right to host international matches restored as early as next week — after their chairman warned that the county would “not be financially viable” without having England games at Headingley.
"We might be racists, but we'll go out of business if you don't give us a test match."
Azeem Rafiq is supportive of this move, he said changes have made, and it would be a tragedy if kids from Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Wakefield et al don't get to see England play at Headingley.
I hate to say it but, despite not having watched a moment of PMQs, as I was having a siesta here in Colombo, I found Starmer's performance surprisingly wooden and starchy. His demeanour is quite odd, it is something beyond smugness, a kind of theatrical rigor mortis
However, as I say, this opinion must be tempered by the fact I didn't watch any of it, so I am just making this shit up
You always make shit up but on this occasion you were spot on.
It is craven and pathetic, and I hope it loses them custom. Get rid of the Kovid Kabuki masks
I expect all supermarkets will just revert to their pre-Plan B policies. Sainsburys and Tesco both requested mask wea ring, pre Plan B - Sainsbury's rather more insistently than Tesco, which felt more like going through the motions to my ears. Mask wearing in Sainsburys in Sale was certainly much more enthusiastic than mask wearing in Tesco. Co-op, much to my surprise, was quite clear that it was optional. You'd expect Co-op to be the wokest of the woke, but pleasingly this shows you can't always use the same pigeonholes that you could for the previous issues. My reading is that each supermarket is reading the preferences of its tribe of customers - the Co-op demographic is rather more working class than Tesco, which is in turn a notch down the scale from Sainsbury's.
Agree entirely that it is craven and pathetic though.
It seems quite random. M&S (certainly in Camden) were quite insistent that masks were *optional*, and indeed mask wearing dropped well below 50%, down to about 20-30% at its lowest
Mask wearing in Sainsbury's Camden was supposedly mandatory but very much optional in effect. Camden is an unruly and disparate place full of drunks, oddballs, layabouts, intellectuals, worldly travellers, sex addicts, smack addicts, bibliophiles and ex-cons, and that's just ME, so it's a hard place to keep in line
I think a monarch is correctly executing their powers to dismiss the PM if they were to establish that an alternative government could be formed. ...
Our constitution does rely on the PM of the day having a sense of fair play and knowing when the game is up, for the most part.
The key weakness it exposes in our constitution is the lack of legitimacy of the position of the Monarch. This lack of legitimacy means that the Monarch is completely unable to execute its residual functions for fear of inserting itself on one side of a political controversy.
Instead the Monarch does only exactly as told by the PM, hoping that the PM has the sense of fair play that you mention and behaves as though the Monarch is capable of independent action.
This is why we need an elected President along the lines that Ireland has.
Who would you vote for in the Farage v Morgan run off?
"Instead the Monarch does only exactly as told by the PM"
Johnson's demeanour suggest to me someone who now knows that all the big revelations have come out. He is therefore past the peak of embarrassment.
He (and a number of Tories) have also evidently decided it's better to brazen this out, Trump style, even if that means telling the general public they are unreasonable puritans, rather than going apologetic. It worked with them in the Cummings era with prorogation of parliament and various other nose-thumbing efforts, so presumably they reason it will work for them now.
I think they're right. And Ukraine will save Boris.
Starmer couldn't get past the rowdy Tories, the interrogation thing only works in the deathly silence of previous weeks.
No, it wasn't. It's not an election winning slogan. It's no "Get Brexit done"! Johnson's being investigated by the police: plenty of the public will think a lawyer in comparison is just who is needed.
PBers would be well advised to remember Chris Huhne, who brazened it out extremely convincingly until the moment it was announced he would be charged. I was told by an MP, who had been in a meeting with him a couple of hours before the announcement was due, that Huhne conducted the meeting as though everything was normal, and showed not the slightest flicker of concern that he might soon be going to jail with his career in tatters.
Politicians who get to or near the top are extremely robust, and able to keep to their chosen line when the rest of us would be overwhelmed with worry and shame. So don't set any store by the fact that Boris may seem feisty and unworried.
Meanwhile, I see that it is now confirmed that he was lying when he denied he'd interfered in the Afghan evacuation to prioritise dogs who were not at risk over men and women who were. One of the most disgusting episodes in recent British political history.
The good news from an Opposition perspective is it looks like Boris is going to survive this.
That is not good news. Any perceived benefits from damage to the Tory brand they believe is being done would be outweighed by the damage he could do to them and the public with the powers of PM.
There is also that possibility that Starmer wants him to stay in place for a little while. He's certainly shown himself to be capable of more combative performances himself whenever he's wanted to over the last few months.
Yep. Starmer looked super relaxed and it's obvious why. He's toying with Johnson.
It struck me that Starmer is setting Johnson up for the post Gray fall. Johnson's retorts were totally contradictory to what the voters believe. As Johnson gets more confident that his far fetched defence is working he is becoming more ebullient. Presumably he also feels vindicated by his interpretation of the Gray report.
Johnson's demeanour suggest to me someone who now knows that all the big revelations have come out. He is therefore past the peak of embarrassment.
He (and a number of Tories) have also evidently decided it's better to brazen this out, Trump style, even if that means telling the general public they are unreasonable puritans, rather than going apologetic. It worked with them in the Cummings era with prorogation of parliament and various other nose-thumbing efforts, so presumably they reason it will work for them now.
I think they're right. And Ukraine will save Boris.
Hello. Here's some straw. Would you like to clutch it?
Meanwhile, I see that it is now confirmed that he was lying when he denied he'd interfered in the Afghan evacuation to prioritise dogs who were not at risk over men and women who were. One of the most disgusting episodes in recent British political history.
I thought the issue was that our troops were at risk to help get them out?
I thought that bloke had raised the money himself to get them out - and I don't have a problem with that.
Yep, if that is some people's idea of winning an argument then they are the type of fools that Johnson likes. What was interesting though was that he was clearly playing to the gallery and putting his all into it. He doesn't look like someone who is about to throw in the towel.
Johnson is going to degrade the Conservative party and - much more importantly - the entire country for as long as he remains Prime Minister. You cannot be a patriot and support his continued leadership. It really is that simple. The one bright light in all this is that the longer he stays the higher the likelihood Labour wins the next election.
Without the report issued, think SKS went for a groundwork PMQs there. Certainly on the lying to parliament part, this could look like a future win for Starmer. It wasn't as tight after that.
I think moving on from this is difficult for him, as it would be a tacit signal that oartygate is over, so even with all that is going on, he is going to stick to it.
.@BorisJohnson clearly banking everything on refusing to go. His calculation seems to be: the mess of forcing him out will be worse than the mess of keeping him in
Yep. Go Big or Go Home. I am the PM. I have lied to the house but I won't resign. I broke all the Covid rules but I won't resign. I'm about to be made to look a twunt by the Gray report but I won't resign. I am to be roasted by the Police but I won't resign.
Great! The '22 hold off a little longer. Meanwhile out there in the country the damage to the Boris brand and the Tory brand goes deeper. They can't play this off into "we're busy on the big stuff" when they have been on the piss every week. People aren't stupid enough to buy that.
Johnson is going to degrade the Conservative party and - much more importantly - the entire country for as long as he remains Prime Minister. You cannot be a patriot and support his continued leadership. It really is that simple. The one bright light in all this is that the longer he stays the higher the likelihood Labour wins the next election.
This PMQs is a waste of time . Without the report being released it’s really a phony war.
I think that’s where SKS was thrown off a bit. No report so couldn’t go full coup de grace.
With any luck for Starmer the report will be out today and that will move the story on from this PMQs. I say this as someone who wants Boris to go, but Boris brought the fight in him today to keep his side’s chin up and Starmer unfortunately didn’t seem to be able to capture that spirit he had in the last few weeks of being able to inject a bit of “zing.”
I think a monarch is correctly executing their powers to dismiss the PM if they were to establish that an alternative government could be formed. ...
Our constitution does rely on the PM of the day having a sense of fair play and knowing when the game is up, for the most part.
The key weakness it exposes in our constitution is the lack of legitimacy of the position of the Monarch. This lack of legitimacy means that the Monarch is completely unable to execute its residual functions for fear of inserting itself on one side of a political controversy.
Instead the Monarch does only exactly as told by the PM, hoping that the PM has the sense of fair play that you mention and behaves as though the Monarch is capable of independent action.
This is why we need an elected President along the lines that Ireland has.
When was the last time the President of Ireland dismissed an Irish PM? Answer: Never.
The Irish President like our monarch is obliged to accept as Taisoeach whoever the Dail (Ireland's Parliament) designates as Irish PM without the right to refuse it
The good news from an Opposition perspective is it looks like Boris is going to survive this.
That is not good news. Any perceived benefits from damage to the Tory brand they believe is being done would be outweighed by the damage he could do to them and the public with the powers of PM.
And there is the chance that the public will forgive Boris, yet again. Like the unfaithful husband he is, the British voters, ie the wife, might sigh and say Well, at least he's amusing - and the alternatives don't excite. And one can sense a general weariness at the partygate revelations, even in Sri Lanka: it has become a kind of political French Farce that has been playing in the West End for 29 years, it ceases to interest the locals
If there was a dashing Blair waiting in the wings, with a vigorous and revived party behind him, Boris would be utterly finished already. But there isn't
Can Boris Houdini his way out of yet another scrape, and make it all the way to the GE and another victory? I give him a 20-30% chance. Improbable, but far from impossible
Saddens me to have to say it, but I think that was a missed opportunity from Starmer there. He needed to find a way to link the public's anger over partygate with the government's failure to deal with the cost of living crisis, NHS backlog crisis, or to be taken seriously on the world stage (should have mentioned Russian money funding the Tories).
In light of the PM’s decision earlier today to evacuate the staff of the Nowzad animal charity, the [animal charity – name redacted] (another animal rights NGO) is asking for agreement to the entry of [details redacted] staff, all Afghan nationals.
It is craven and pathetic, and I hope it loses them custom. Get rid of the Kovid Kabuki masks
I expect all supermarkets will just revert to their pre-Plan B policies. Sainsburys and Tesco both requested mask wea ring, pre Plan B - Sainsbury's rather more insistently than Tesco, which felt more like going through the motions to my ears. Mask wearing in Sainsburys in Sale was certainly much more enthusiastic than mask wearing in Tesco. Co-op, much to my surprise, was quite clear that it was optional. You'd expect Co-op to be the wokest of the woke, but pleasingly this shows you can't always use the same pigeonholes that you could for the previous issues. My reading is that each supermarket is reading the preferences of its tribe of customers - the Co-op demographic is rather more working class than Tesco, which is in turn a notch down the scale from Sainsbury's.
Agree entirely that it is craven and pathetic though.
It seems quite random. M&S (certainly in Camden) were quite insistent that masks were *optional*, and indeed mask wearing dropped well below 50%, down to about 20-30% at its lowest
Mask wearing in Sainsbury's Camden was supposedly mandatory but very much optional in effect. Camden is an unruly and disparate place full of drunks, oddballs, layabouts, intellectuals, worldly travellers, sex addicts, smack addicts, bibliophiles and ex-cons, and that's just ME, so it's a hard place to keep in line
The thing is, unless they're going to challenge maskless people (which they generally haven't been doing even when there is a mandate(*), it's always going to be effectively optional.
(*) Anecdote, but I've been challenged maybe three times in the 18 months since the first mandate, and only once in the most recent period. I stopped wearing the sunflower lanyard last summer.
I hate to say it but, despite not having watched a moment of PMQs, as I was having a siesta here in Colombo, I found Starmer's performance surprisingly wooden and starchy. His demeanour is quite odd, it is something beyond smugness, a kind of theatrical rigor mortis
However, as I say, this opinion must be tempered by the fact I didn't watch any of it, so I am just making this shit up
You always make shit up but on this occasion you were spot on.
Lawyer not a leader thats Captain Hindsight
You do know that some folk on the left are setting up a new party? You could have another attempt to support Mr Thicky, sorry, Mr Corbyn, to the highest office in the land. The only problem is timing. I think people have had enough of clowns.
Constitutionally there was no need for a ballot at all. The PM remains in office until a VONC in Parliament. Thatcher could have ignored her party's 'local poll' and stood her ground. "I'm staying until HoC passes a VONC'" she might well have said. How many Tory MPs would have failed to support her?
This is not irrelevant to the current situation. The Conservative Party is nothing more than a voluntary association. It has no constitutional significance at all.
If the Conservative Party elects a new leader and the PM doesn't resign, HMQ will be having a word.
There is no point the incumbent PM not resigning as there would shortly be a confidence vote in the Commons and they would lose. The only point would be if there is some doubt about the state of the House or just bloody mindlessness.
There was speculation around the time Johnson took over that he would be able to ignore a vote of no confidence going against him in the Commons, wait out the two weeks, and force an election in preference to allowing a different PM take over.
That might be the scenario he would suggest in an attempt to keep MPs fearful of losing their seats in line.
That appears to be what happens under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act. It isn't a mechanism to force the PM to resign and it's unclear whether the result of codifying the form of confidence motion has been to make it impossible for the house to indicate its support for a successor (they can only stave off an election 14 days after a no confidence vote by voting confidence in HM Government, not a notional alternative government - so the previous government has to have resigned first).
Another instance of the FTPA messing up the constitution.
I think in such a scenario (renegade PM holding the house to hostage) the only way to prevent a GE would be for the house to vote confidence in HMG. I don’t think the FTPA has messed with the convention that a PM who loses the confidence of the house has to tender his or her resignation to the monarch, though it is unclear at what point the confidence is lost (I.e at the point of the VONC or the 14 days elapsing).
Whatever the confusion in that situation, I think a monarch is correctly executing their powers to dismiss the PM if they were to establish that an alternative government could be formed. So if the Tory Party MPs were to notify her that they would get behind an alternative figure as PM, and there were enough of them to sustain a majority in the HoC, whatever Boris’ position on the matter I suspect the dismissal would take place and a new PM would take over, to table a vote of confidence in HMG and stop the 14 days elapsing.
Of course all of this would be a complete mess and in many ways our crisis moment just like the storming of the Capitol. Our constitution does rely on the PM of the day having a sense of fair play and knowing when the game is up, for the most part.
I don't think it's confusing, beyond the fact that the name of the act isn't really what it does. The old system gave the PM a weird prerogative that they could abuse, and the FTPA fixes this.
Without FTPA: PM can call an election whenever they like, technically they're within their rights to call an election to prevent themselves from being replaced by a new leader.
With FTPA: Parliament is in the driving seat, so if the majority of MPs want to kick out their PM and substitute someone else, they can. The mechanism is: Vote of confidence to dismiss the old PM, indicate to The Queen (by a formal vote or a letter or whatever) that they support someone else, and that person becomes PM.
If MPs go ahead and vote to repeal the FTPA, they're writing a blank cheque to their PM, who they know only cares about himself, to send them on a kamikaze run to save his own job. It's probably not in their best interests to let him do that.
Under FTPA a vote of confidence doesn't dismiss the old PM - it simply sets the clock ticking for a GE.
That's what I said: The vote of confidence doesn't dismiss the old PM (likewise under the old system). Doing that *then finding somebody else who can command a majority* dismisses the old PM. The difference is that with the FTPA, MPs unambiguously get a chance to do that, whereas without it the rejected PM may be able to dissolve parliament instead.
But under FTPA the only thing that stops an election is a vote of confidence in "HM Government" - not "somebody else". You can't vote confidence in them until they are appointed, and they can't be appointed unless the PM resigns or is dismissed. Agree that the rejected PM can't dissolve parliament, but that's what happens automatically 14 days later.
If MPs find someone they support the PM resigns or is dismissed. What do you think the 14-day period is for, just to give everyone a chance to see if they change their minds?
FTPA isn't a great bit of legislation and I think it was drafted assuming that a PM would behave honourably in line with convention and resign. The 14 days are to allow time to find someone who can command the confidence of the house - I've not gone back to Hansard or the explanatory notes to the Bill to check but my best guess is that nobody raised the question if what would happen if a PM refused to resign. There might be some other authority that makes it sufficiently clear that a PM has to go in that case such that HMQ would dismiss him if he doesn't resign, but I've not seen anything to that effect.
Even BigG is coming round, who'd of thought it a few days ago!
Boris gets safer by the day as Tory rebels still fail to produce their 54 letters
Lol. Comical Ali strikes again.
He's right on both counts though.
No, not really. "Boris" as he so lovingly calls him slips into greater jeopardy by the day. I imagine Cummings is keeping some ammunition ready for the locals in May. It will be these that cause MPs to make calculations of swing applied to their own seats. Unlike Corbynistas, Tories don't enjoy opposition. My guess is that he will be ousted by June.
I'm amused that Starmer fans are trying to spin that Starmer did badly there because he wants Boris to survive.
I think that he set up the pincer move to come. Peppa has confirmed that he believes a minister should resign if they knowingly mislead the house and that the rules apply to him. Starmer suggested a couple of occasions that may concern him and it was deflected away.
As we get the Gray report. And the police investigation. And the irrefutable proof that parliament has been misled over and over and over again. Thats when Starmer comes back to this statement. No debate about having misled the house. But when Peppa says he won't resign that in itself is misleading the house.
Do I think BJ will *actually* follow the code and resign? No. But it kicks the legs out of any credibility that they can try and rebuild.
It is craven and pathetic, and I hope it loses them custom. Get rid of the Kovid Kabuki masks
I expect all supermarkets will just revert to their pre-Plan B policies. Sainsburys and Tesco both requested mask wea ring, pre Plan B - Sainsbury's rather more insistently than Tesco, which felt more like going through the motions to my ears. Mask wearing in Sainsburys in Sale was certainly much more enthusiastic than mask wearing in Tesco. Co-op, much to my surprise, was quite clear that it was optional. You'd expect Co-op to be the wokest of the woke, but pleasingly this shows you can't always use the same pigeonholes that you could for the previous issues. My reading is that each supermarket is reading the preferences of its tribe of customers - the Co-op demographic is rather more working class than Tesco, which is in turn a notch down the scale from Sainsbury's.
Agree entirely that it is craven and pathetic though.
It seems quite random. M&S (certainly in Camden) were quite insistent that masks were *optional*, and indeed mask wearing dropped well below 50%, down to about 20-30% at its lowest
Mask wearing in Sainsbury's Camden was supposedly mandatory but very much optional in effect. Camden is an unruly and disparate place full of drunks, oddballs, layabouts, intellectuals, worldly travellers, sex addicts, smack addicts, bibliophiles and ex-cons, and that's just ME, so it's a hard place to keep in line
The thing is, unless they're going to challenge maskless people (which they generally haven't been doing even when there is a mandate(*), it's always going to be effectively optional.
(*) Anecdote, but I've been challenged maybe three times in the 18 months since the first mandate, and only once in the most recent period. I stopped wearing the sunflower lanyard last summer.
Shortly people with active covid will be allowed to walk around supermarkets and go to pubs and restaurant maskless. Meanwhile we are sacking NHS workers who are unvaccinated. Seems a pretty piss poor bit of risk analysis.
Personally, I would suggest that supermarkets have masked mornings and mask less afternoons, so people can shop as they prefer.
Comments
Boris gets safer by the day as Tory rebels still fail to produce their 54 letters
"We might be racists, but we'll go out of business if you don't give us a test match."
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1486313550817726464?s=20
Labour going nowhere near power under SKS
https://twitter.com/JGForsyth/status/1486313492890148864?s=20
Destroying YCCC doesn't help defeat racism.
I cannot see his mps vonc just now
Instead the Monarch does only exactly as told by the PM, hoping that the PM has the sense of fair play that you mention and behaves as though the Monarch is capable of independent action.
This is why we need an elected President along the lines that Ireland has.
If Boris is to go it’s because the Tories decide he goes and want to ensure that Starmer gets no credit so mock and boo Starmer as he’s wrong and will be wrong with a new Tory leader.
Just because our boss is crap it doesn’t mean we think you are good. Behind the scenes however……
However, as I say, this opinion must be tempered by the fact I didn't watch any of it, so I am just making this shit up
I am expressing an observation but I do not expect him to survive post may locals
However - if they watched PMQs today (they won't have) I am absolutely sure that they would still side with Johnson rather than Starmer, who they will dislike intensely for his general demeanor - which lets's call it a sneery superior cat's-got-the-cream (if you see what I mean).
CPs biggest risk ins't switchers; it's that their natural supporters may not turn out.
Agree entirely that it is craven and pathetic though.
Given few MPs like to be brave or divisive brazening it out has few drawbacks for him personally, even though such an attitude is damaging (and in this context I'd agree Trumpesque comparison).
Starmer couldn't get past the rowdy Tories, the interrogation thing only works in the deathly silence of previous weeks.
https://twitter.com/Mij_Europe/status/1486314904151859203?s=20
https://twitter.com/adamboultonTABB/status/1486316195095719945
Liar, not a leader, will be on every leaflet in the locals...
Destroying YCC is a win in itself.
Lawyer not a leader thats Captain Hindsight
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1486314221390413825?s=20
And every week Johnson says how much he enjoys working constructively with Blackford behind the scenes.....
Mask wearing in Sainsbury's Camden was supposedly mandatory but very much optional in effect. Camden is an unruly and disparate place full of drunks, oddballs, layabouts, intellectuals, worldly travellers, sex addicts, smack addicts, bibliophiles and ex-cons, and that's just ME, so it's a hard place to keep in line
No they don't.
He (and a number of Tories) have also evidently decided it's better to brazen this out, Trump style, even if that means telling the general public they are unreasonable puritans, rather than going apologetic. It worked with them in the Cummings era with prorogation of parliament and various other nose-thumbing efforts, so presumably they reason it will work for them now.
I think they're right. And Ukraine will save Boris.
Starmer was deliberately laidback. He has the situation on a string.
Politicians who get to or near the top are extremely robust, and able to keep to their chosen line when the rest of us would be overwhelmed with worry and shame. So don't set any store by the fact that Boris may seem feisty and unworried.
Meanwhile, I see that it is now confirmed that he was lying when he denied he'd interfered in the Afghan evacuation to prioritise dogs who were not at risk over men and women who were. One of the most disgusting episodes in recent British political history.
Interesting pop at Sunak too:
https://twitter.com/LBCNews/status/1486310304938184704?t=7qdcLhYb4vyAW25vwYHJEQ&s=19
https://octokatherine.github.io/word-master/
I thought that bloke had raised the money himself to get them out - and I don't have a problem with that.
I already know that Johnson is a liar.
I think moving on from this is difficult for him, as it would be a tacit signal that oartygate is over, so even with all that is going on, he is going to stick to it.
The Tory benches were poor today.
Great! The '22 hold off a little longer. Meanwhile out there in the country the damage to the Boris brand and the Tory brand goes deeper. They can't play this off into "we're busy on the big stuff" when they have been on the piss every week. People aren't stupid enough to buy that.
Boris 6-0 SKS
SKS lucky to get nil
With any luck for Starmer the report will be out today and that will move the story on from this PMQs. I say this as someone who wants Boris to go, but Boris brought the fight in him today to keep his side’s chin up and Starmer unfortunately didn’t seem to be able to capture that spirit he had in the last few weeks of being able to inject a bit of “zing.”
The Irish President like our monarch is obliged to accept as Taisoeach whoever the Dail (Ireland's Parliament) designates as Irish PM without the right to refuse it
If there was a dashing Blair waiting in the wings, with a vigorous and revived party behind him, Boris would be utterly finished already. But there isn't
Can Boris Houdini his way out of yet another scrape, and make it all the way to the GE and another victory? I give him a 20-30% chance. Improbable, but far from impossible
But it was all too narrow.
In light of the PM’s decision earlier today to evacuate the staff of the Nowzad animal charity, the [animal charity – name redacted] (another animal rights NGO) is asking for agreement to the entry of [details redacted] staff, all Afghan nationals.
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/43225/html/
(*) Anecdote, but I've been challenged maybe three times in the 18 months since the first mandate, and only once in the most recent period. I stopped wearing the sunflower lanyard last summer.
Like all lawyers they are not leaders
As we get the Gray report. And the police investigation. And the irrefutable proof that parliament has been misled over and over and over again. Thats when Starmer comes back to this statement. No debate about having misled the house. But when Peppa says he won't resign that in itself is misleading the house.
Do I think BJ will *actually* follow the code and resign? No. But it kicks the legs out of any credibility that they can try and rebuild.
Personally, I would suggest that supermarkets have masked mornings and mask less afternoons, so people can shop as they prefer.