I just don't understand how Johnson is not going to have to resign when he is fined for attending parties that he clearly and explicitly told Parliament did not happen.
It was a clear lie.
He can only stay if the convention and ministerial code about lying to the Commons is over and finished.
Tory MPs should bear in mind where that takes the country and our democracy.
They should close their eyes and imagine that Corbyn and his fellow travellers had won a GE and could lie at the despatch box as much as they like.
Perhaps we should remember it was the coverup that did for Nixon, not the break in. In fact, for many years there was no conclusive evidence to show he had ordered or even knew about the break in (although we all knew he did, of course).
However, one point does quite alarm me. Is it true the Met has said they will not name any individuals who are fined over lockdown breaches in this case? Not only does that run counter to the police's previous practice where they've named several people even when they had been cleared, but this was on public property. Don't we as the public have a right to know who's been breaking laws in our houses?
Yes, I did wonder about the keeping the names quiet bit. I am pretty sure the student in Nottingham was named when he got hit with a £10k fine for a house party with cakes.
Not sure about the public property bit though. These are Crown properties aren't they?
Or the woman in Derbyshire, later cleared?
On your second paragraph, no. The official owner is the Secretary of State concerned:
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
As you full know the Liberal Unionists fully backed Salisbury's Conservatives in 1892. Gladstone's Liberals only got into power because they were equally supported by the Irish Nationalists
My ex-colleagues WhatsApp group is agog at the £8.5bn written off on non-delivered or non-compliant PPE.
Remember that PPE contracts were awarded to Tories with no record in procuring PPE without tender or clauses requiring delivery of actual goods fit for purpose. As well as Liar presiding over a pissed-up Downing Street and endlessly lying to parliament, he has also presided over brazen and open corruption.
And certain people still defend *that*
Most of that was actually due to the price being inflated, not due to non-delivery or non-compliance. Who'd have thunk it when there was a made scramble for PPE going on.
There were two options: not getting any PPE in time, and paying whatever the market wanted for a very limited and suddenly in-demand resource.
The government chose the latter. It seems many of the people who were screaming about the lack of PPE in April/May 2020 are now screeching about its cost.
That is not to excuse fraud where it has happened, but the idea that the cost of PPE was not going to be extortionate during that period is fanciful. The government did everything it could to get the PPE kit - remember somebody from Labour standing up and showing a list of 'suppliers' (some bogus) that they claimed had not been contacted?
It’s such a shame. RochdalePioneers’ industry-insider knowledge would make him one of PB’s most interesting posters were he not so horribly partisan. He’s a bit like Boris, if Boris were a wet-behind-the-ears dissapointed brexit voter.
I just don't understand how Johnson is not going to have to resign when he is fined for attending parties that he clearly and explicitly told Parliament did not happen.
It was a clear lie.
He can only stay if the convention and ministerial code about lying to the Commons is over and finished.
Tory MPs should bear in mind where that takes the country and our democracy.
They should close their eyes and imagine that Corbyn and his fellow travellers had won a GE and could lie at the despatch box as much as they like.
Perhaps we should remember it was the coverup that did for Nixon, not the break in. In fact, for many years there was no conclusive evidence to show he had ordered or even knew about the break in (although we all knew he did, of course).
However, one point does quite alarm me. Is it true the Met has said they will not name any individuals who are fined over lockdown breaches in this case? Not only does that run counter to the police's previous practice where they've named several people even when they had been cleared, but this was on public property. Don't we as the public have a right to know who's been breaking laws in our houses?
Yes, I did wonder about the keeping the names quiet bit. I am pretty sure the student in Nottingham was named when he got hit with a £10k fine for a house party with cakes.
Not sure about the public property bit though. These are Crown properties aren't they?
Or the woman in Derbyshire, later cleared?
On your second paragraph, no. The official owner is the Secretary of State concerned:
Amongst several others I've been referring back to 1992-7 and specifically the General Election of 01st May 1997 which heralded one of the three greatest sea changes of my lifetime (Thatcher in 1979, Blair in 1997 and Brexit in 2016).
Of course, Keir Starmer's Labour start from a long way further back than Tony Blair's Labour and the tories the converse.
So I'm interested in betting on actual seat gains and losses.
1997 Labour Increased 145 Tories decreased 178
2024 The latest BritainElects prediction is: Labour increase 110 Tories decrease 126
What made things even worse for the tories was that in 1997 the LibDems gained 26 seats to be on 46, whereas Britain Elects is predicting a gain of 9 to reach 20 total.
On that amazing day Tony Blair's Labour polled 43% just below the level of today's ComRes for Labour on 44%.
The Speaker needs to haul Boris into Parliament and make him apologise to Keir Starmer over the Jimmy Savile claim. It's such an outrageous claim with absolutely zero evidence (in fact Starmer was someone who helped uncover Savile's horrific legacy of rape and abuse). These kinds of claims need to be corrected and the Speaker should ask Boris to present evidence for his claim or make a retraction and apology.
Of all the stupid things Boris said yesterday in the house, the claim about Starmer was the worst he's come out with in a very long time. It's a complete falsehood, a known complete falsehood and the PM has abused parliamentary privilege to slander Keir Starmer.
I make no argument either way about Boris’ pretty OTT Savile remarks. Nonetheless Team Boris have done their research. This is a meme floating around, and it hovers over Starmer
“Whether it’s fake news or not, Keir Starmer is actually remembered for the one that let Jimmy Savile get away. He was in charge of the CPS at the time. And I still don’t know who he is. He’s not made that impression.”
From an October 2021 focus group
Sounds like you are defending 'Team Boris', as you so obsequiously put it.
And to think I thought you'd discovered a moral backbone these days? Perhaps I was misinformed?
For the avoidance of doubt, i will say, for the 90th time, I think Boris should resign, He’s lied too much and too clearly, on a much too resonant subject - lockdown and the breaking thereof - it is immoral for him to stay where he is.
I say this with sadness because ( yes yes, cue much derision) he had greatness in him, from my perspective. But he just can’t deliver anything now
Now, with that established, we can argue the other points. Politically can he survive? Yes, possibly. Also he could even win in 2024, he has the kind of character than can bounce back.
And the motives of some of his enemies - who would have destroyed democracy with a “people’s vote” (ie cancel the first vote) are pukeworthy. Starmer is one such. Happy to cancel democracy. C*nt
Do you view the five-yearly general elections as cancelling democracy.
Stop being ridiculous. And boring
If you ask a different set of people to vote again about a political question that one set of people has voted on, then there is an argument for saying it is an affront to democracy. But a second vote, hugely impractical as it would have been, would have been perfectly democratic because you would have been asking the same people and they would have been allowed to change their minds or not change their minds.
dipshit
“We’re going to give you a once in a lifetime vote on the most important political subject of our time and whatever you vote YOUR vote will be RESPECTED and we will obey it, and there will be no second EU vote, no rethink, nothing like that, this is IT, the will of the British people will be RESPECTED, once and for all and I solemnly promise you this, it is IN or OUT and I am your prime minister”.. and… “What’s more to prove this is true we will send a leaflet to every single British household swearing this is the case, this is it, this is the vote”
Cue the largest EVER vote in the history of British democracy. The largest EVER. 17.4 MILLION votes in favour of LEAVE
I guess these silly stupid thick racist voters didn’t read the bits in invisible ink at the end saying “oh this is all shit you working class idiots if you vote Leave we will just fanny around for three years then have an election then reverse what you said you racist proles”
I’m sorry, there’s no getting round this. Anyone who wanted a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, ie who wanted to “cancel” or “finesse” democracy” is a Trumpite Capitol-storming Fuck-sucker of the first water, just with a posher accent
The problem I have with that analysis is that if Remain had won 52/48, should UKIP have said 'OK lads, the people have spoken and we're in the EU now.' Should they have moved to support UK membership of the EU out of respect for the referendum?
Or should they have said, 'our voters want us out, and we will fight for a second vote - which we're going to call a peoples' vote - and it's one that we're going to win'?
They'd have said the latter, like the SNP. But no serious country can allow itself to be put at risk from continuous constitutional uncertainty. So, like the SNP, they should rightly be told to take a running jump.
Really? If UKIP had won the 2017 General Election, they should have been prevented from enacting a second referendum?
I don't agree.
If they'd won a General Election on that manifesto then fair enough.
The problem in 2017-19 is that the parties seeking to have a second referendum lost the 2017 election handsomely. Less than 10% of MPs elected in 2017 were done so on a pledge of holding a second referendum.
Grieve, Starmer, Woolaston and the rest who tried to subvert democracy (not the Lib Dems to be fair) were all elected on a platform of saying the 2016 referendum was decisive and that Brexit would happen. Then they worked night and day to prevent it from happening - and to have a second referendum which went against both 2016 and 2017 commitments.
They worked day and night because the British public had not given any party an unambiguous mandate to implement the referendum result. It was a hung parliament and Dominic Grieve et al was returned by his constituents who I'm pretty sure knew his views on the subject.
I'm not sure they did considering in his personal election material in 2017 he said that Brexit would happen. He then voted down every single Brexit option, something not even Ken Clarke did.
His constituents then chose not to return him in 2019 once he outed himself as willing to subvert democracy.
You and Seanie are silly on this one. The 2017 parliament was not bound by the 2015 one. A basic principle of our system of parliamentary sovereignty.
A referendum can't bind a parliament either.
Even if it did, it binds *that* parliament. Any parliament is free to pass any laws it sees fit regardless of the actions of previous parliaments, laws on statute etc etc.
There seem to be a few people who both bang the Brexit table as being required for parliamentary sovereignty whilst suggesting that parliament not be allowed to be sovereign.
Of course new parliament is not bound by what previous parliaments did. Yes a new vote would have been democratic, assuming it had been voted through etc. But the point is that joe public, the ones that we decry for not being politically engaged, and for not voting, would have felt cheated. For them it was a vote to be respected. You cannot get away from that. And it was that that led to the Johnson majority. Lots of remain voters felt that the vote should be respected. If we elect a new government in 2024 on a manifesto to rejoin, or Closer alighnment then so be it.
I just don't understand how Johnson is not going to have to resign when he is fined for attending parties that he clearly and explicitly told Parliament did not happen.
It was a clear lie.
He can only stay if the convention and ministerial code about lying to the Commons is over and finished.
Tory MPs should bear in mind where that takes the country and our democracy.
They should close their eyes and imagine that Corbyn and his fellow travellers had won a GE and could lie at the despatch box as much as they like.
Perhaps we should remember it was the coverup that did for Nixon, not the break in. In fact, for many years there was no conclusive evidence to show he had ordered or even knew about the break in (although we all knew he did, of course).
However, one point does quite alarm me. Is it true the Met has said they will not name any individuals who are fined over lockdown breaches in this case? Not only does that run counter to the police's previous practice where they've named several people even when they had been cleared, but this was on public property. Don't we as the public have a right to know who's been breaking laws in our houses?
Yes, I did wonder about the keeping the names quiet bit. I am pretty sure the student in Nottingham was named when he got hit with a £10k fine for a house party with cakes.
Not sure about the public property bit though. These are Crown properties aren't they?
Or the woman in Derbyshire, later cleared?
On your second paragraph, no. The official owner is the Secretary of State concerned:
As this illustrates, the rule exists because lying to the House was once regarded as such a serious offence that it required a full parliamentary debate & contempt proceedings. We've lost the sanction against lying, but retained the sanction against those who draw attention to it
This is a worry: who decides that Boris lied, if he doesn't admit it? Speaker can say if lie, then out of order, but can he adjudicate on the substantive point?
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
As you full know the Liberal Unionists fully backed Salisbury's Conservatives in 1892. Gladstone's Liberals only got into power because they were equally supported by the Irish Nationalists
Yes, to both. I am an expert on politics in that period, having written seven articles and a book on it, and also neither party had a majority and both had to rely on allied parties to form a government.
So your point there isn't correct either. I know Wiki says different but as so often Wiki is wrong.
Equally, that should strengthen your case. So why are you continuing to wriggle?
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Apparently Starmer wouldn't be getting smeared if we had all learned to love Jezza.
"Owen Jones @OwenJones84 Here's the thing. A lot of people didn't speak out loudly about, say, Jeremy Corbyn being falsely portrayed as a Czech spy because they didn't like the guy.
But in doing so, they helped normalise a right-wing smear machine, and well, here we are guys!"
That just looks to me like a perfectly valid and relevant observation from Jones.
Sounds a bit paranoid. I thought Ed Miliband was the most smeared Labour leader. Corbyn never had a chance after three quarters of his own MPs voted against him and they weren't reacting to smears
Isn't there a qualitative difference between a newspaper smearing someone like this and the actual PM?
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
He said I had no brain the other night, if you insult me I will insult back.
There are also far worse insults used by some on here than that
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
"The driver who mowed down and killed a man who had just stabbed his ex-partner to death in the street in Maida Vale has been released without charge. The Metropolitan Police said that investigators had reviewed the law around self-defence and defence of another, and now considered the 26-year-old "a vital witness" rather than a suspect."
Well, that's good, but actually it was right he should be treated as a suspect at first if only so he could be given proper cautions, protections and legal counsel. Bearing in mind, he had just deliberately killed somebody. Yes, we could all see he had good reasons and I've no doubt the police could too, but suppose he had turned out to be a husband/boyfriend of one of the dead people?
I am as fervent as anyone except possibly @Cyclefree in my disdain for the police, but I think they did this one the right way round.
I’m not particularly bothered about the police here, just the lack of media interest. Obviously pretty young white women abducted and murdered is more newsworthy than a person of colour killed by a stalky ex husband, who was killed by a bystander.
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
As you full know the Liberal Unionists fully backed Salisbury's Conservatives in 1892. Gladstone's Liberals only got into power because they were equally supported by the Irish Nationalists
Yes, to both. I am an expert on politics in that period, having written seven articles and a book on it, and also neither party had a majority and both had to rely on allied parties to form a government.
So your point there isn't correct either. I know Wiki says different but as so often Wiki is wrong.
Equally, that should strengthen your case. So why are you continuing to wriggle?
My whole point was neither party had a majority and had to use allied parties
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
He said I had no brain the other night, if you insult me I will insult back.
There are also far worse insults used by some on here than that
You've forgotten I said you had no moral courage as well.
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
My ex-colleagues WhatsApp group is agog at the £8.5bn written off on non-delivered or non-compliant PPE.
Remember that PPE contracts were awarded to Tories with no record in procuring PPE without tender or clauses requiring delivery of actual goods fit for purpose. As well as Liar presiding over a pissed-up Downing Street and endlessly lying to parliament, he has also presided over brazen and open corruption.
And certain people still defend *that*
Most of that was actually due to the price being inflated, not due to non-delivery or non-compliance. Who'd have thunk it when there was a made scramble for PPE going on.
There were two options: not getting any PPE in time, and paying whatever the market wanted for a very limited and suddenly in-demand resource.
The government chose the latter. It seems many of the people who were screaming about the lack of PPE in April/May 2020 are now screeching about its cost.
That is not to excuse fraud where it has happened, but the idea that the cost of PPE was not going to be extortionate during that period is fanciful. The government did everything it could to get the PPE kit - remember somebody from Labour standing up and showing a list of 'suppliers' (some bogus) that they claimed had not been contacted?
Hypocrisy runs rampant. See also: people who spent March 2020 to January 2022 demanding lockdowns now complaining about the costs of them.
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
I just don't understand how Johnson is not going to have to resign when he is fined for attending parties that he clearly and explicitly told Parliament did not happen.
It was a clear lie.
He can only stay if the convention and ministerial code about lying to the Commons is over and finished.
Tory MPs should bear in mind where that takes the country and our democracy.
They should close their eyes and imagine that Corbyn and his fellow travellers had won a GE and could lie at the despatch box as much as they like.
Perhaps we should remember it was the coverup that did for Nixon, not the break in. In fact, for many years there was no conclusive evidence to show he had ordered or even knew about the break in (although we all knew he did, of course).
However, one point does quite alarm me. Is it true the Met has said they will not name any individuals who are fined over lockdown breaches in this case? Not only does that run counter to the police's previous practice where they've named several people even when they had been cleared, but this was on public property. Don't we as the public have a right to know who's been breaking laws in our houses?
Yes, I did wonder about the keeping the names quiet bit. I am pretty sure the student in Nottingham was named when he got hit with a £10k fine for a house party with cakes.
Not sure about the public property bit though. These are Crown properties aren't they?
Or the woman in Derbyshire, later cleared?
On your second paragraph, no. The official owner is the Secretary of State concerned:
Which seems to leave open the possibility that everyone involved but him gets fined, on the basis that (a) it's his house, and (b) he didn't organise any of the parties.
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
As you full know the Liberal Unionists fully backed Salisbury's Conservatives in 1892. Gladstone's Liberals only got into power because they were equally supported by the Irish Nationalists
Yes, to both. I am an expert on politics in that period, having written seven articles and a book on it, and also neither party had a majority and both had to rely on allied parties to form a government.
So your point there isn't correct either. I know Wiki says different but as so often Wiki is wrong.
Equally, that should strengthen your case. So why are you continuing to wriggle?
My whole point was neither party had a majority and had to use allied parties
No, your claim was 'However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.'
Which as I have pointed out was in fact incorrect. In fact, on a careful check the Conservatives won 269 seats to 272 Liberals, a gap of three not one as I thought.
So they were not the largest party.
The Irish Nationalists of course invariably supported the Liberals anyway in the hope of getting a Dublin Parliament. Even from 1906 to 1910 when the Liberals had 242 more seats than the Unionists. Just as the Liberal Unionists backed the Tories for the opposite reason. So it's a bit misleading of Wiki to classify the parties that way.
I don't get the feeling whoever did the entries for the nineteenth century really knew what they were doing (they keep lumping the Radicals and Peelites in with the Whig totals from 1846 to 1859, for example). It's on my list of things to correct when I ever have a moment.
"The driver who mowed down and killed a man who had just stabbed his ex-partner to death in the street in Maida Vale has been released without charge. The Metropolitan Police said that investigators had reviewed the law around self-defence and defence of another, and now considered the 26-year-old "a vital witness" rather than a suspect."
Well, that's good, but actually it was right he should be treated as a suspect at first if only so he could be given proper cautions, protections and legal counsel. Bearing in mind, he had just deliberately killed somebody. Yes, we could all see he had good reasons and I've no doubt the police could too, but suppose he had turned out to be a husband/boyfriend of one of the dead people?
I am as fervent as anyone except possibly @Cyclefree in my disdain for the police, but I think they did this one the right way round.
I’m not particularly bothered about the police here, just the lack of media interest. Obviously pretty young white women abducted and murdered is more newsworthy than a person of colour killed by a stalky ex husband, who was killed by a bystander.
The problem with the arrest-to-protect-your-rights stuff is that the arrest is recorded and will turn up on certain kinds of background checks.
Plenty of jobs ask you - have you ever been arrested?
I had this argument with a policeman once, socially. It was curious how he couldn't grasp the idea that you could make provision for all the rights stuff, without an arrest. It would be perfectly possible to write a law - something like - "You subject to a police enquiry" - all the rights ensue when they announce that, formally.
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Oh dear, does that mean HYUFD has to call for Johnson's resignation?
One can always hope
Each conservative announcing they have submitted their letter to the 1922 gives me a lift and just hope it becomes an avalanche
It's more like a trickle at the moment however.
It is the direction of travel and I expect more after tomorrow's pmqs
Your avalanche analogy is right.
I forget who it was who said, about bankruptcy, that it "happens very gradually, then very suddenly".
My reading is that is what is happening here. It will at times look very lacking in momentum, and people will say it is petering out. Then, very suddenly, he'll be gone.
I don't agree, I doubt there will be a VONC any time soon.
It’s time to look at my maxim on management decision making, based on 20 years of project management experience. “Management will always decide not to make a decision if that remains an option, especially if the point by which a decision should have been made has already passed”. For management read Tory MPs. So the real question is, when does not making a decision cease to be an option? I suggest after the May local elections next year. That would leave 12-18 months for a successor to turn things round. Until then there is always an excuse to wait, after that Johnson stays.
For 54 letters to call for him to go before then would require something even worse to happen than heretofore (and it’s hard to see what that could be if Johnson’s performance isn’t already deemed unacceptable), or one of the potential candidates to succeed him to break ranks and force the issue (also unlikely).
The 'worse' is happening every day and his interview in Kiev was a car crash, not for what he said but the caustic questions from journalists, and this is going to deteriorate every day including tomorrow's pmqs, especially if he uses Savile v Starmer
Indeed, I now think he will be very fortunate to survive the week
He will indeed be very fortunate. I know you have already decided, but my point is that if as a Tory MP you haven't already made your mind up, I can't see anything dramatic enough happening to override your instinct (like my management) to 'wait and see'. The constant drip, drip, drip hasn't been enough so far, why will that change for more than a handful of MPs?
PMQs tomorrow, Humble Address, more embarrassing pressers, bad polls, couplemore MPs going public. That's how drip drip drips work.
PMQs = Rayner v Raab do we think?
That will be interesting.
In presentational politics, big picture generally beats master of the detail (behind the scenes, often the opposite). Which is why Starmer often struggles against the clown. But Rayner is big picture and Raab is the lawyer; Rayner should be short odds on coming out ahead.
I expect it to be Boris v Starmer and pure theatre
Boris is home this evening
Dull. Repeat of yday
His mps will be the focus
Will someone do something dramatic
I think it was last week that David Davis deployed Leo Amery, which seemed dramatic enough at the time, but wasn't enough to conjure up 54 letters.
Maybe someone will bite their thumb at Johnson this week?
I think as David Davis sat down he had visions of being the Geoffrey Howe de nos jours.
I can see his giant head filling with his original and damning statement (not damning and not original) resonating through time as the moment Boris fell.
He pictured endless replays on the news and it being replayed on BBC parliament in 30 years time.
Unfortunately he wasn’t the roaring lion that he thought he was, not even the SAS assassin but a dead sheep that was full of gas that deflated over two weeks with only the farmer and hill walkers noticing and remembering the noise.
It needs someone nobody would expect to deliver the coup de grace rather than the ineffectual Coup de Trump.
He went for a soundbite without the surrounding full and reasoned speech. Mistake.
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
Jeffrey Archer has written books, it does not make him the oracle of creative writing and literature
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Despite your assertion that I am part of Johnson's misinformation cabal (I am far too old and drink very little) I have never supported Johnson's tactic from yesterday. However I did say it was a very clever (if a cynical two footed studs up) challenge. As @rcs1000 has suggested it is a diversionary tactic to move the agenda to a discourse over Starmer rather than Johnson misleading Parliament.
I saw it as very dangerous for Starmer because there is now a subliminal connection between Starmer and Savile. It is straight out of the Crosby playbook. I also thought Johnson's drug use allegations against the Opposition front bench were dangerous. He wouldn't make the accusations outside Parliament, but the words just trip off his tongue.
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
In fairness, he took his lead on this from me. I told him off when having made another silly error like this he refused to admit it and kept claiming he had said something else. Like many people, I'm finding his currently increasingly bizarre attitude towards refusing to admit his mistakes, of which he makes plenty (as we all do, me included) both unedifying and unpleasant. And frustrating, because when he sticks to areas he does know he's actually pretty shrewd.
However, there is a certain irony in being accused of being pompous by somebody who thinks when the facts conflict with his views the facts are wrong.
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
Jeffrey Archer has written books, it does not make him the oracle of creative writing and literature
He didn't get a doctorate from the University of Oxford. TBF neither did Mr Johnson. And he wrote a book about Churchill, apparently (not sure ig ghosted, or am I thinking of the Shakespeare one?).
And a thesis is a book by any standard. So Ydoethur has two to his credit (or perhaps two editions of the same book).
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
Jeffrey Archer has written books, it does not make him the oracle of creative writing and literature
He didn't get a doctorate from the University of Oxford. TBF neither did Mr Johnson. And he wrote a book about Churchill, apparently (not sure ig ghosted, or am I thinking of the Shakespeare one?).
And a thesis is a book by any standard. So Ydoethur has two to his credit (or perhaps two editions of the same book).
Two of the same book. I am still trying to write another on railways, this time, in my snatches of spare time.
But the doctorate wasn't from Oxford, of course, it was from a much better uni
Edit - one reason I want to quit teaching or at least reduce my hours is I want more time to write.
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
In fairness, he took his lead on this from me. I told him off when having made another silly error like this he refused to admit it and kept claiming he had said something else. Like many people, I'm finding his currently increasingly bizarre attitude towards refusing to admit his mistakes, of which he makes plenty (as we all do, me included) both unedifying and unpleasant. And frustrating, because when he sticks to areas he does know he's actually pretty shrewd.
However, there is a certain irony in being accused of being pompous by somebody who thinks when the facts conflict with his views the facts are wrong.
TBF he did admit the other day that he was wrong in writing something along the lines that the Scottish army joined the Parliamentarian forces in fighting against Cromwell, when I queried that interpretation of history (I forget his exact words).
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
In fairness, he took his lead on this from me. I told him off when having made another silly error like this he refused to admit it and kept claiming he had said something else. Like many people, I'm finding his currently increasingly bizarre attitude towards refusing to admit his mistakes, of which he makes plenty (as we all do, me included) both unedifying and unpleasant. And frustrating, because when he sticks to areas he does know he's actually pretty shrewd.
However, there is a certain irony in being accused of being pompous by somebody who thinks when the facts conflict with his views the facts are wrong.
TBF he did admit the other day that he was wrong in writing something along the lines that the Scottish army joined the Parliamentarian forces in fighting against Cromwell, when I queried that interpretation of history (I forget his exact words).
The Speaker needs to haul Boris into Parliament and make him apologise to Keir Starmer over the Jimmy Savile claim. It's such an outrageous claim with absolutely zero evidence (in fact Starmer was someone who helped uncover Savile's horrific legacy of rape and abuse). These kinds of claims need to be corrected and the Speaker should ask Boris to present evidence for his claim or make a retraction and apology.
Of all the stupid things Boris said yesterday in the house, the claim about Starmer was the worst he's come out with in a very long time. It's a complete falsehood, a known complete falsehood and the PM has abused parliamentary privilege to slander Keir Starmer.
I make no argument either way about Boris’ pretty OTT Savile remarks. Nonetheless Team Boris have done their research. This is a meme floating around, and it hovers over Starmer
“Whether it’s fake news or not, Keir Starmer is actually remembered for the one that let Jimmy Savile get away. He was in charge of the CPS at the time. And I still don’t know who he is. He’s not made that impression.”
From an October 2021 focus group
Sounds like you are defending 'Team Boris', as you so obsequiously put it.
And to think I thought you'd discovered a moral backbone these days? Perhaps I was misinformed?
For the avoidance of doubt, i will say, for the 90th time, I think Boris should resign, He’s lied too much and too clearly, on a much too resonant subject - lockdown and the breaking thereof - it is immoral for him to stay where he is.
I say this with sadness because ( yes yes, cue much derision) he had greatness in him, from my perspective. But he just can’t deliver anything now
Now, with that established, we can argue the other points. Politically can he survive? Yes, possibly. Also he could even win in 2024, he has the kind of character than can bounce back.
And the motives of some of his enemies - who would have destroyed democracy with a “people’s vote” (ie cancel the first vote) are pukeworthy. Starmer is one such. Happy to cancel democracy. C*nt
Do you view the five-yearly general elections as cancelling democracy.
Stop being ridiculous. And boring
If you ask a different set of people to vote again about a political question that one set of people has voted on, then there is an argument for saying it is an affront to democracy. But a second vote, hugely impractical as it would have been, would have been perfectly democratic because you would have been asking the same people and they would have been allowed to change their minds or not change their minds.
dipshit
“We’re going to give you a once in a lifetime vote on the most important political subject of our time and whatever you vote YOUR vote will be RESPECTED and we will obey it, and there will be no second EU vote, no rethink, nothing like that, this is IT, the will of the British people will be RESPECTED, once and for all and I solemnly promise you this, it is IN or OUT and I am your prime minister”.. and… “What’s more to prove this is true we will send a leaflet to every single British household swearing this is the case, this is it, this is the vote”
Cue the largest EVER vote in the history of British democracy. The largest EVER. 17.4 MILLION votes in favour of LEAVE
I guess these silly stupid thick racist voters didn’t read the bits in invisible ink at the end saying “oh this is all shit you working class idiots if you vote Leave we will just fanny around for three years then have an election then reverse what you said you racist proles”
I’m sorry, there’s no getting round this. Anyone who wanted a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, ie who wanted to “cancel” or “finesse” democracy” is a Trumpite Capitol-storming Fuck-sucker of the first water, just with a posher accent
The problem I have with that analysis is that if Remain had won 52/48, should UKIP have said 'OK lads, the people have spoken and we're in the EU now.' Should they have moved to support UK membership of the EU out of respect for the referendum?
Or should they have said, 'our voters want us out, and we will fight for a second vote - which we're going to call a peoples' vote - and it's one that we're going to win'?
They'd have said the latter, like the SNP. But no serious country can allow itself to be put at risk from continuous constitutional uncertainty. So, like the SNP, they should rightly be told to take a running jump.
Really? If UKIP had won the 2017 General Election, they should have been prevented from enacting a second referendum?
I don't agree.
If they'd won a General Election on that manifesto then fair enough.
The problem in 2017-19 is that the parties seeking to have a second referendum lost the 2017 election handsomely. Less than 10% of MPs elected in 2017 were done so on a pledge of holding a second referendum.
Grieve, Starmer, Woolaston and the rest who tried to subvert democracy (not the Lib Dems to be fair) were all elected on a platform of saying the 2016 referendum was decisive and that Brexit would happen. Then they worked night and day to prevent it from happening - and to have a second referendum which went against both 2016 and 2017 commitments.
They worked day and night because the British public had not given any party an unambiguous mandate to implement the referendum result. It was a hung parliament and Dominic Grieve et al was returned by his constituents who I'm pretty sure knew his views on the subject.
I'm not sure they did considering in his personal election material in 2017 he said that Brexit would happen. He then voted down every single Brexit option, something not even Ken Clarke did.
His constituents then chose not to return him in 2019 once he outed himself as willing to subvert democracy.
You and Seanie are silly on this one. The 2017 parliament was not bound by the 2015 one. A basic principle of our system of parliamentary sovereignty.
As I said if the 2017 Parliament had a majority pledging a new referendum when they were elected then that is democracy.
But when the likes of Grieve said they would honour the referendum result including in their 2017 election materials then do the opposite then that is undermining and subverting democracy.
It is no different to US Senators attempting to throw out the 2020 election result and replace it with saying Trump is elected President because they can, rather than because that's how people voted.
Just because you can does not always mean you should.
Robert Peston @Peston · 1h The argument from some Tory MPs - @markjenkinsonmp just now on @itvnews - that breaching Covid rules is equivalent to parking on a double yellow line is odd. They can’t think the threat to life from anti-social parking is the same as failing to limit the spread of a virus…
Robert Peston @Peston that killed more than 150,000
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
In fairness, he took his lead on this from me. I told him off when having made another silly error like this he refused to admit it and kept claiming he had said something else. Like many people, I'm finding his currently increasingly bizarre attitude towards refusing to admit his mistakes, of which he makes plenty (as we all do, me included) both unedifying and unpleasant. And frustrating, because when he sticks to areas he does know he's actually pretty shrewd.
However, there is a certain irony in being accused of being pompous by somebody who thinks when the facts conflict with his views the facts are wrong.
TBF he did admit the other day that he was wrong in writing something along the lines that the Scottish army joined the Parliamentarian forces in fighting against Cromwell, when I queried that interpretation of history (I forget his exact words).
And he's apologised tonight.
We'll make a scholar of him yet...
Come on you know better than that. Scholars never apologise. The bitterest conflict is over the trivial details...
My ex-colleagues WhatsApp group is agog at the £8.5bn written off on non-delivered or non-compliant PPE.
Remember that PPE contracts were awarded to Tories with no record in procuring PPE without tender or clauses requiring delivery of actual goods fit for purpose. As well as Liar presiding over a pissed-up Downing Street and endlessly lying to parliament, he has also presided over brazen and open corruption.
And certain people still defend *that*
Where exactly would you have bought cheap PPE from in early 2020?
"The driver who mowed down and killed a man who had just stabbed his ex-partner to death in the street in Maida Vale has been released without charge. The Metropolitan Police said that investigators had reviewed the law around self-defence and defence of another, and now considered the 26-year-old "a vital witness" rather than a suspect."
Well, that's good, but actually it was right he should be treated as a suspect at first if only so he could be given proper cautions, protections and legal counsel. Bearing in mind, he had just deliberately killed somebody. Yes, we could all see he had good reasons and I've no doubt the police could too, but suppose he had turned out to be a husband/boyfriend of one of the dead people?
I am as fervent as anyone except possibly @Cyclefree in my disdain for the police, but I think they did this one the right way round.
I’m not particularly bothered about the police here, just the lack of media interest. Obviously pretty young white women abducted and murdered is more newsworthy than a person of colour killed by a stalky ex husband, who was killed by a bystander.
The problem with the arrest-to-protect-your-rights stuff is that the arrest is recorded and will turn up on certain kinds of background checks.
Plenty of jobs ask you - have you ever been arrested?
I had this argument with a policeman once, socially. It was curious how he couldn't grasp the idea that you could make provision for all the rights stuff, without an arrest. It would be perfectly possible to write a law - something like - "You subject to a police enquiry" - all the rights ensue when they announce that, formally.
AIUI - although I am no expert on this - that bit about background checks applies only to arrests for sex offences.
Also AUIUI employers shouldn't be asking if you have ever been arrested, only if you've ever been convicted, and then only for specific offences in a particular timeframe for certain jobs.
Robert Peston @Peston · 1h The argument from some Tory MPs - @markjenkinsonmp just now on @itvnews - that breaching Covid rules is equivalent to parking on a double yellow line is odd. They can’t think the threat to life from anti-social parking is the same as failing to limit the spread of a virus…
Robert Peston @Peston that killed more than 150,000
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
In fairness, he took his lead on this from me. I told him off when having made another silly error like this he refused to admit it and kept claiming he had said something else. Like many people, I'm finding his currently increasingly bizarre attitude towards refusing to admit his mistakes, of which he makes plenty (as we all do, me included) both unedifying and unpleasant. And frustrating, because when he sticks to areas he does know he's actually pretty shrewd.
However, there is a certain irony in being accused of being pompous by somebody who thinks when the facts conflict with his views the facts are wrong.
TBF he did admit the other day that he was wrong in writing something along the lines that the Scottish army joined the Parliamentarian forces in fighting against Cromwell, when I queried that interpretation of history (I forget his exact words).
And he's apologised tonight.
We'll make a scholar of him yet...
Come on you know better than that. Scholars never apologise. The bitterest conflict is over the trivial details...
The Speaker needs to haul Boris into Parliament and make him apologise to Keir Starmer over the Jimmy Savile claim. It's such an outrageous claim with absolutely zero evidence (in fact Starmer was someone who helped uncover Savile's horrific legacy of rape and abuse). These kinds of claims need to be corrected and the Speaker should ask Boris to present evidence for his claim or make a retraction and apology.
Of all the stupid things Boris said yesterday in the house, the claim about Starmer was the worst he's come out with in a very long time. It's a complete falsehood, a known complete falsehood and the PM has abused parliamentary privilege to slander Keir Starmer.
I make no argument either way about Boris’ pretty OTT Savile remarks. Nonetheless Team Boris have done their research. This is a meme floating around, and it hovers over Starmer
“Whether it’s fake news or not, Keir Starmer is actually remembered for the one that let Jimmy Savile get away. He was in charge of the CPS at the time. And I still don’t know who he is. He’s not made that impression.”
From an October 2021 focus group
Sounds like you are defending 'Team Boris', as you so obsequiously put it.
And to think I thought you'd discovered a moral backbone these days? Perhaps I was misinformed?
For the avoidance of doubt, i will say, for the 90th time, I think Boris should resign, He’s lied too much and too clearly, on a much too resonant subject - lockdown and the breaking thereof - it is immoral for him to stay where he is.
I say this with sadness because ( yes yes, cue much derision) he had greatness in him, from my perspective. But he just can’t deliver anything now
Now, with that established, we can argue the other points. Politically can he survive? Yes, possibly. Also he could even win in 2024, he has the kind of character than can bounce back.
And the motives of some of his enemies - who would have destroyed democracy with a “people’s vote” (ie cancel the first vote) are pukeworthy. Starmer is one such. Happy to cancel democracy. C*nt
Do you view the five-yearly general elections as cancelling democracy.
Stop being ridiculous. And boring
If you ask a different set of people to vote again about a political question that one set of people has voted on, then there is an argument for saying it is an affront to democracy. But a second vote, hugely impractical as it would have been, would have been perfectly democratic because you would have been asking the same people and they would have been allowed to change their minds or not change their minds.
dipshit
“We’re going to give you a once in a lifetime vote on the most important political subject of our time and whatever you vote YOUR vote will be RESPECTED and we will obey it, and there will be no second EU vote, no rethink, nothing like that, this is IT, the will of the British people will be RESPECTED, once and for all and I solemnly promise you this, it is IN or OUT and I am your prime minister”.. and… “What’s more to prove this is true we will send a leaflet to every single British household swearing this is the case, this is it, this is the vote”
Cue the largest EVER vote in the history of British democracy. The largest EVER. 17.4 MILLION votes in favour of LEAVE
I guess these silly stupid thick racist voters didn’t read the bits in invisible ink at the end saying “oh this is all shit you working class idiots if you vote Leave we will just fanny around for three years then have an election then reverse what you said you racist proles”
I’m sorry, there’s no getting round this. Anyone who wanted a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, ie who wanted to “cancel” or “finesse” democracy” is a Trumpite Capitol-storming Fuck-sucker of the first water, just with a posher accent
The problem I have with that analysis is that if Remain had won 52/48, should UKIP have said 'OK lads, the people have spoken and we're in the EU now.' Should they have moved to support UK membership of the EU out of respect for the referendum?
Or should they have said, 'our voters want us out, and we will fight for a second vote - which we're going to call a peoples' vote - and it's one that we're going to win'?
They'd have said the latter, like the SNP. But no serious country can allow itself to be put at risk from continuous constitutional uncertainty. So, like the SNP, they should rightly be told to take a running jump.
Really? If UKIP had won the 2017 General Election, they should have been prevented from enacting a second referendum?
I don't agree.
If they'd won a General Election on that manifesto then fair enough.
The problem in 2017-19 is that the parties seeking to have a second referendum lost the 2017 election handsomely. Less than 10% of MPs elected in 2017 were done so on a pledge of holding a second referendum.
Grieve, Starmer, Woolaston and the rest who tried to subvert democracy (not the Lib Dems to be fair) were all elected on a platform of saying the 2016 referendum was decisive and that Brexit would happen. Then they worked night and day to prevent it from happening - and to have a second referendum which went against both 2016 and 2017 commitments.
They worked day and night because the British public had not given any party an unambiguous mandate to implement the referendum result. It was a hung parliament and Dominic Grieve et al was returned by his constituents who I'm pretty sure knew his views on the subject.
I'm not sure they did considering in his personal election material in 2017 he said that Brexit would happen. He then voted down every single Brexit option, something not even Ken Clarke did.
His constituents then chose not to return him in 2019 once he outed himself as willing to subvert democracy.
You and Seanie are silly on this one. The 2017 parliament was not bound by the 2015 one. A basic principle of our system of parliamentary sovereignty.
As I said if the 2017 Parliament had a majority pledging a new referendum when they were elected then that is democracy.
But when the likes of Grieve said they would honour the referendum result including in their 2017 election materials then do the opposite then that is undermining and subverting democracy.
It is no different to US Senators attempting to throw out the 2020 election result and replace it with saying Trump is elected President because they can, rather than because that's how people voted.
Just because you can does not always mean you should.
That is a very fair point: there are a number of people who behaved with bad faith, such as Dominic Grieve.
By contrast, the former MP for Eastbourne Stephen Lloyd, was willing to lose the Liberal Democrat whip to maintain the promise he'd made to his electorate to support the referendum result.
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
In fairness, he took his lead on this from me. I told him off when having made another silly error like this he refused to admit it and kept claiming he had said something else. Like many people, I'm finding his currently increasingly bizarre attitude towards refusing to admit his mistakes, of which he makes plenty (as we all do, me included) both unedifying and unpleasant. And frustrating, because when he sticks to areas he does know he's actually pretty shrewd.
However, there is a certain irony in being accused of being pompous by somebody who thinks when the facts conflict with his views the facts are wrong.
TBF he did admit the other day that he was wrong in writing something along the lines that the Scottish army joined the Parliamentarian forces in fighting against Cromwell, when I queried that interpretation of history (I forget his exact words).
And he's apologised tonight.
We'll make a scholar of him yet...
Come on you know better than that. Scholars never apologise. The bitterest conflict is over the trivial details...
Robert Peston @Peston · 1h The argument from some Tory MPs - @markjenkinsonmp just now on @itvnews - that breaching Covid rules is equivalent to parking on a double yellow line is odd. They can’t think the threat to life from anti-social parking is the same as failing to limit the spread of a virus…
Robert Peston @Peston that killed more than 150,000
Thing is, in a sense they are correct. The offences attracted fixed penalties (at the time, certainly). The reason it’s a huge scandal is that (a) these were the people setting the rules and (b) they didn’t feel the need to abide by them themselves.
The government chose the latter. It seems many of the people who were screaming about the lack of PPE in April/May 2020 are now screeching about its cost.
I knew that the same people screeching about "no PPE" would eventually moan about the cost. I have nothing but contempt for them.
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
In fairness, he took his lead on this from me. I told him off when having made another silly error like this he refused to admit it and kept claiming he had said something else. Like many people, I'm finding his currently increasingly bizarre attitude towards refusing to admit his mistakes, of which he makes plenty (as we all do, me included) both unedifying and unpleasant. And frustrating, because when he sticks to areas he does know he's actually pretty shrewd.
However, there is a certain irony in being accused of being pompous by somebody who thinks when the facts conflict with his views the facts are wrong.
TBF he did admit the other day that he was wrong in writing something along the lines that the Scottish army joined the Parliamentarian forces in fighting against Cromwell, when I queried that interpretation of history (I forget his exact words).
And he's apologised tonight.
We'll make a scholar of him yet...
Come on you know better than that. Scholars never apologise. The bitterest conflict is over the trivial details...
I knew it, I am a scholar.
I presume your thesis was on how people who have pineapple topped pizzas have been punished through the ages?
On the polls - there was definitely a swing back to the Conservatives as partygate faded in resonance. Once back in the spotlight it's clear the polls are going back to Labour. FWIW I think they will swing again but not by enough to save the Tories as long as Boris remains. His time is up and he needs to go. No amount of HYUFD's dodgy poll analysis can alter that. If he goes then it's all to play for as Starmer is currently the 'lucky general' benefiting from Boris's lunacy wrt flouting the covid regs. It really is not very complicated and I agree with Leon it is now truly boring and needs to end.
Of course Boris is in Ukraine this afternoon.
If Putin invaded Ukraine next week partygate would be forgotten within a week.
Precisely.
Nobody is going to forget soaring gas prices and the highest tax rates in 70 years though. Not now. Not for a generation.
Behold your tories.
That is also Sunak's Tories, so replacing Boris does not suddenly lead to a Tory win.
Only time a PM has won a general election since universal suffrage in 1918 after 10 years of their party in power was Major in 1992 and he had a big policy difference with Thatcher on the poll tax which he scrapped
You quite often play this game. By saying "since 1918" the suggestion you make is that it's common to have ten years in power.
My assumption is you're not counting 1918 itself or 1945 as cases of trying to save an election by changing a leader - neither Lloyd-George nor Churchill had won the previous election as party leader but were longstanding war PMs. One won (in a fashion), the other lost.
So you're left with: (i) 1964 - which in all fairness Douglas-Home very nearly pulled it off from an incredibly difficult position; (ii) 1992 - the "exception" proving your supposed "rule"; and (iii) 2010 - which Brown lost by about the amount of the Tory lead before he took it on (albeit the financial crisis was a pretty big element, defining his Premiership).
So you invent these political "laws" by spinning the thinnest of evidence. In fact, you're looking at three data points with mixed messages, aren't you?
Churchill also lost in 1945 after 14 years of the Tories in power.
In 1918 the Liberals lost after 12 years in power, even the combined total of Asquith's Liberals and Lloyd George's National Liberals was less than the 379 Tory MPs Bonar Law won. Even if Lloyd George stayed PM it was a Tory dominated government.
In fact you have to go back to Lord Salisbury's win in 1900 after 14 years of Tory rule (BigG remembers it well) to find the last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992
Re: last para, this is factually incorrect (or "wrong" in plain English) as it totally ignores period from 15 August 1892 through 22 June 1895 when Liberal Party governed, first under Gladstone's last administration then under Lord Rosebery's first (and only).
So Lord Salisbury's victory in Khaki Election of 1900 came after just five years in power NOT fourteen.
And thus "last time a PM won a general election after 10 years of their party in power pre Major 1992" was in 1826, when Lord Liverpool secured his 4th consecutive general election triumph, thus continuing Tory rule that had begun in 1807 thru to 1831 general election which was won by Whigs.
You are partly right apologies in that the Liberals were in power after the 1892 election until 1895.
However the Conservatives did still win most seats in the 1892 general election, 314 to 272 for Gladstone's Liberals.
Salisbury did not initially resign and in the end Gladstone formed a minority government propped up by the Irish Nationalists and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery as PM in 1894. Salisbury's Tories then won an overall majority at the 1895 general election.
Just goes to show how difficult it is to win a general election after 10 years of your party in power. In the last 200 years, only John Major and Lord Liverpool have managed it
I'd written a response to your post ponting out your error, but @SeaShantyIrish2 beat me to it.
My post would have ended with 'This does of course tend to strengthen your argument, but I will be interested to see if you admit your mistake this time.'
The answer would appear to be 'no.' You said 'party in power.' The Unionists had only been in power for five years in 1900.
Out of curiosity what would it take for you to admit a mistake?
Edit - although I note you do use the word 'apologies' before trying to downplay your error.
Of course that error ironically strengthened my argument.
Liverpool and Major being the only PMs in the last 200 years ever to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power. Indeed Major being the only PM to have won a general election after 10 years of their party in power since the 1832 Reform Act
Well, yes - which is why I am baffled that you still tried to qualify your withdrawal. It was an error. An understandable one for somebody who's not an expert, and not even a significant one, but still an error.
So why did you go into a long raas ynt about the party strengths in 1892 instead of just admitting it?
(Edit - incidentally the Tories were second to the Liberals in 1892, by one seat. They held an overall lead because the 45 Liberal Unionists, still a separate party until 1912, had said they would continue to offer support to Salisbury ahead of Gladstone.)
Not an expert of course unlike your pompous self.
You really ought to retract that
Absolutely I will not.
You take your lead from BoJo.
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
In fairness, he took his lead on this from me. I told him off when having made another silly error like this he refused to admit it and kept claiming he had said something else. Like many people, I'm finding his currently increasingly bizarre attitude towards refusing to admit his mistakes, of which he makes plenty (as we all do, me included) both unedifying and unpleasant. And frustrating, because when he sticks to areas he does know he's actually pretty shrewd.
However, there is a certain irony in being accused of being pompous by somebody who thinks when the facts conflict with his views the facts are wrong.
TBF he did admit the other day that he was wrong in writing something along the lines that the Scottish army joined the Parliamentarian forces in fighting against Cromwell, when I queried that interpretation of history (I forget his exact words).
And he's apologised tonight.
We'll make a scholar of him yet...
Come on you know better than that. Scholars never apologise. The bitterest conflict is over the trivial details...
So you're saying we already have?!
Had. If he’s started apologising then he’s lost to the academic community.
The Speaker needs to haul Boris into Parliament and make him apologise to Keir Starmer over the Jimmy Savile claim. It's such an outrageous claim with absolutely zero evidence (in fact Starmer was someone who helped uncover Savile's horrific legacy of rape and abuse). These kinds of claims need to be corrected and the Speaker should ask Boris to present evidence for his claim or make a retraction and apology.
Of all the stupid things Boris said yesterday in the house, the claim about Starmer was the worst he's come out with in a very long time. It's a complete falsehood, a known complete falsehood and the PM has abused parliamentary privilege to slander Keir Starmer.
I make no argument either way about Boris’ pretty OTT Savile remarks. Nonetheless Team Boris have done their research. This is a meme floating around, and it hovers over Starmer
“Whether it’s fake news or not, Keir Starmer is actually remembered for the one that let Jimmy Savile get away. He was in charge of the CPS at the time. And I still don’t know who he is. He’s not made that impression.”
From an October 2021 focus group
Sounds like you are defending 'Team Boris', as you so obsequiously put it.
And to think I thought you'd discovered a moral backbone these days? Perhaps I was misinformed?
For the avoidance of doubt, i will say, for the 90th time, I think Boris should resign, He’s lied too much and too clearly, on a much too resonant subject - lockdown and the breaking thereof - it is immoral for him to stay where he is.
I say this with sadness because ( yes yes, cue much derision) he had greatness in him, from my perspective. But he just can’t deliver anything now
Now, with that established, we can argue the other points. Politically can he survive? Yes, possibly. Also he could even win in 2024, he has the kind of character than can bounce back.
And the motives of some of his enemies - who would have destroyed democracy with a “people’s vote” (ie cancel the first vote) are pukeworthy. Starmer is one such. Happy to cancel democracy. C*nt
Do you view the five-yearly general elections as cancelling democracy.
Stop being ridiculous. And boring
If you ask a different set of people to vote again about a political question that one set of people has voted on, then there is an argument for saying it is an affront to democracy. But a second vote, hugely impractical as it would have been, would have been perfectly democratic because you would have been asking the same people and they would have been allowed to change their minds or not change their minds.
dipshit
“We’re going to give you a once in a lifetime vote on the most important political subject of our time and whatever you vote YOUR vote will be RESPECTED and we will obey it, and there will be no second EU vote, no rethink, nothing like that, this is IT, the will of the British people will be RESPECTED, once and for all and I solemnly promise you this, it is IN or OUT and I am your prime minister”.. and… “What’s more to prove this is true we will send a leaflet to every single British household swearing this is the case, this is it, this is the vote”
Cue the largest EVER vote in the history of British democracy. The largest EVER. 17.4 MILLION votes in favour of LEAVE
I guess these silly stupid thick racist voters didn’t read the bits in invisible ink at the end saying “oh this is all shit you working class idiots if you vote Leave we will just fanny around for three years then have an election then reverse what you said you racist proles”
I’m sorry, there’s no getting round this. Anyone who wanted a 2nd vote, without enacting the first, ie who wanted to “cancel” or “finesse” democracy” is a Trumpite Capitol-storming Fuck-sucker of the first water, just with a posher accent
The problem I have with that analysis is that if Remain had won 52/48, should UKIP have said 'OK lads, the people have spoken and we're in the EU now.' Should they have moved to support UK membership of the EU out of respect for the referendum?
Or should they have said, 'our voters want us out, and we will fight for a second vote - which we're going to call a peoples' vote - and it's one that we're going to win'?
They'd have said the latter, like the SNP. But no serious country can allow itself to be put at risk from continuous constitutional uncertainty. So, like the SNP, they should rightly be told to take a running jump.
Really? If UKIP had won the 2017 General Election, they should have been prevented from enacting a second referendum?
I don't agree.
If they'd won a General Election on that manifesto then fair enough.
The problem in 2017-19 is that the parties seeking to have a second referendum lost the 2017 election handsomely. Less than 10% of MPs elected in 2017 were done so on a pledge of holding a second referendum.
Grieve, Starmer, Woolaston and the rest who tried to subvert democracy (not the Lib Dems to be fair) were all elected on a platform of saying the 2016 referendum was decisive and that Brexit would happen. Then they worked night and day to prevent it from happening - and to have a second referendum which went against both 2016 and 2017 commitments.
They worked day and night because the British public had not given any party an unambiguous mandate to implement the referendum result. It was a hung parliament and Dominic Grieve et al was returned by his constituents who I'm pretty sure knew his views on the subject.
I'm not sure they did considering in his personal election material in 2017 he said that Brexit would happen. He then voted down every single Brexit option, something not even Ken Clarke did.
His constituents then chose not to return him in 2019 once he outed himself as willing to subvert democracy.
You and Seanie are silly on this one. The 2017 parliament was not bound by the 2015 one. A basic principle of our system of parliamentary sovereignty.
As I said if the 2017 Parliament had a majority pledging a new referendum when they were elected then that is democracy.
But when the likes of Grieve said they would honour the referendum result including in their 2017 election materials then do the opposite then that is undermining and subverting democracy.
It is no different to US Senators attempting to throw out the 2020 election result and replace it with saying Trump is elected President because they can, rather than because that's how people voted.
Just because you can does not always mean you should.
That is a very fair point: there are a number of people who behaved with bad faith, such as Dominic Grieve.
By contrast, the former MP for Eastbourne Stephen Lloyd, was willing to lose the Liberal Democrat whip to maintain the promise he'd made to his electorate to support the referendum result.
Hang on, the Labour manifesto said they would honour the referendum result but also explicitly ruled out a no deal Brexit IIRC.
My ex-colleagues WhatsApp group is agog at the £8.5bn written off on non-delivered or non-compliant PPE.
Remember that PPE contracts were awarded to Tories with no record in procuring PPE without tender or clauses requiring delivery of actual goods fit for purpose. As well as Liar presiding over a pissed-up Downing Street and endlessly lying to parliament, he has also presided over brazen and open corruption.
And certain people still defend *that*
Where exactly would you have bought cheap PPE from in early 2020?
It's also completely fake news.
The majority of the write off is perfectly usable PPE in stockpiles but it's now worth less than when purchased as the price has come back down.
What should have been done? Not pay market rates at the time it was purchased? So have no PPE for those who need it? Or not write off the fact it's not worth as much today, which would be dishonest.
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
While we await the election of the final four MPs from Portugal (overseas voters perhaps?), contrasting polls from the same organisation in Germany.
The INSA poll for Bild am Sonntag (fieldwork 24/1 - 28/1) has the SPD on 26%. the Union on 24%, Greens on 16%, FPD and AfD both on 11% and Linke on 6% so support for the three parties in the coalition Government at 53% so very close to the September 2021 election.
For the daily Bild paper, INSA did another poll (fieldwork 28/1 - 31/1) which has the Union on 25% ahead of the SPD on 24%, Greens on 15%, FDP on 12.5%, AfD on 10% and Linke on 6.5%.
So a statistical tie within margin of error and the governing coalition parties close to or just above the 50.2% they achieved in September 2021 so early days but new CDU leader Friedrich Merz hasn't had a huge poll bounce as yet and the Union remains close to the 24.1% poll from last September.
The government chose the latter. It seems many of the people who were screaming about the lack of PPE in April/May 2020 are now screeching about its cost.
I knew that the same people screeching about "no PPE" would eventually moan about the cost. I have nothing but contempt for them.
It's a lot of money to write off, buried on page 199 of the NHS Annual Report. It is the auditors that have raised concerns:
My ex-colleagues WhatsApp group is agog at the £8.5bn written off on non-delivered or non-compliant PPE.
Remember that PPE contracts were awarded to Tories with no record in procuring PPE without tender or clauses requiring delivery of actual goods fit for purpose. As well as Liar presiding over a pissed-up Downing Street and endlessly lying to parliament, he has also presided over brazen and open corruption.
And certain people still defend *that*
Where exactly would you have bought cheap PPE from in early 2020?
It's also completely fake news.
The majority of the write off is perfectly usable PPE in stockpiles but it's now worth less than when purchased as the price has come back down.
What should have been done? Not pay market rates at the time it was purchased? So have no PPE for those who need it? Or not write off the fact it's not worth as much today, which would be dishonest.
I know it's the write off, the point is that it was unavoidable. All you could do in early 2020 was pay whatever it takes to get PPE. If people didn't twig at the time that a huge amount of money was being flushed down the drain on PPE, vaccines, testing, furlough, loans and so on, that's on them. It was blindingly obvious to me that money was going to be "wasted" on a scale not seen since the war, but it was still the right thing to do.
The government chose the latter. It seems many of the people who were screaming about the lack of PPE in April/May 2020 are now screeching about its cost.
I knew that the same people screeching about "no PPE" would eventually moan about the cost. I have nothing but contempt for them.
It's a lot of money to write off, buried on page 199 of the NHS Annual Report. It is the auditors that have raised concerns:
Sure, there was an emergency and price gouging going on, but don't you think it reasonable to look into whether fraud occurred?
I also wouldn't have a problem barring the companies that did profiteer from further government contracts.
I hope they do the same for Test and Trace. For the money they wasted on that I could have given every child a decent laptop with a dongle and revolutionised teaching through the pandemic via Nightingale schools. Which would also have had incalculable benefits far into the future.
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Robert Peston @Peston · 1h The argument from some Tory MPs - @markjenkinsonmp just now on @itvnews - that breaching Covid rules is equivalent to parking on a double yellow line is odd. They can’t think the threat to life from anti-social parking is the same as failing to limit the spread of a virus…
Robert Peston @Peston that killed more than 150,000
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Would he really fight or would he "allow his name to go forward"?
It's been well documented had Thatcher chosen to fight the second ballot, with the payroll vote no longer beholden, she'd have got 80-90 votes maximum. I suspect Boris will find his support melts away once he loses the VoNC.
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Would he really fight or would he "allow his name to go forward"?
It's been well documented had Thatcher chosen to fight the second ballot, with the payroll vote no longer beholden, she'd have got 80-90 votes maximum. I suspect Boris will find his support melts away once he loses the VoNC.
80 to 90 votes though could still have got Thatcher to the runoff spot as runner up to Heseltine with MPs under Hague's rules.
Thatcher could even have won the runoff amongst the membership.
Boris will try and use Hague's rules to get to the membership as Corbyn in 2016 used Ed Miliband's rules to win the Labour leadership again amongst members even though most Labour MPs wanted him gone
Conservative Party MPs can initiate a no confidence vote in the leader when 15% (54 MPs) of Conservative MPs write to the chair of the party’s 1922 Committee (a committee representing backbench Conservative MPs).
The no confidence vote is then scheduled by the chair in consultation with the party leader. MPs then vote in support or against the leader. This can happen quickly. For example, the no confidence vote in Theresa May was held on 12 December 2018, the day after she was informed that the 15% threshold had been reached. May needed 159 MPs to support her to stay in office, and won the vote by 200 to 117.
Under current rules, if more than 50% of all Conservative MPs (181 MPs) vote in support of the prime minister, they can stay as party leader and prime minister and no new vote can be triggered for 12 months.
If the leader lost the confidence vote among Conservative MPs, they would not be able to stand again – allowing any other Conservative MP to stand for the party leadership.
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Conservative Party MPs can initiate a no confidence vote in the leader when 15% (54 MPs) of Conservative MPs write to the chair of the party’s 1922 Committee (a committee representing backbench Conservative MPs).
The no confidence vote is then scheduled by the chair in consultation with the party leader. MPs then vote in support or against the leader. This can happen quickly. For example, the no confidence vote in Theresa May was held on 12 December 2018, the day after she was informed that the 15% threshold had been reached. May needed 159 MPs to support her to stay in office, and won the vote by 200 to 117.
Under current rules, if more than 50% of all Conservative MPs (181 MPs) vote in support of the prime minister, they can stay as party leader and prime minister and no new vote can be triggered for 12 months.
If the leader lost the confidence vote among Conservative MPs, they would not be able to stand again – allowing any other Conservative MP to stand for the party leadership.
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Even if Boris loses a VONC amongst MPs, loyalists say he would fight a subsequent leadership election. If he gets enough support still from loyalist MPs to get to the final two, a la Corbyn 2016 he would then let Tory members decide
Comments
So Gove is the owner.
As you full know the Liberal Unionists fully backed Salisbury's Conservatives in 1892. Gladstone's Liberals only got into power because they were equally supported by the Irish Nationalists
Appropriate though given he apparently knows how to throw a really amazing party.
Of course, Keir Starmer's Labour start from a long way further back than Tony Blair's Labour and the tories the converse.
So I'm interested in betting on actual seat gains and losses.
1997 Labour Increased 145
Tories decreased 178
2024 The latest BritainElects prediction is:
Labour increase 110
Tories decrease 126
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1488537754598260737
What made things even worse for the tories was that in 1997 the LibDems gained 26 seats to be on 46, whereas Britain Elects is predicting a gain of 9 to reach 20 total.
On that amazing day Tony Blair's Labour polled 43% just below the level of today's ComRes for Labour on 44%.
If we elect a new government in 2024 on a manifesto to rejoin, or Closer alighnment then so be it.
ForgottenGenius
@ExStrategist
·
23m
Boris Johnson vs Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 was the worst national choice ever offered in an election.
The only worst head to head I can think of was John McDonnell vs Terry Dicks in Hayes and Harlington 1992, which was essentially the IRA vs the BNP.
https://mobile.twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1488512334960238593
This is a worry: who decides that Boris lied, if he doesn't admit it? Speaker can say if lie, then out of order, but can he adjudicate on the substantive point?
So your point there isn't correct either. I know Wiki says different but as so often Wiki is wrong.
Equally, that should strengthen your case. So why are you continuing to wriggle?
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1488594714899144718?s=20&t=F5MeBLxuJfxsD7jkw6tCHQ
Or did May smear Corbyn as a spy? I missed that.
He said I had no brain the other night, if you insult me I will insult back.
There are also far worse insults used by some on here than that
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dominic-cummings-boris-johnson-partygate-photographs_uk_61f97ac6e4b04f9a12c33b10
'A Leader resigning from the Leadership of the Party is not eligible for re-nomination in the consequent Leadership election.'
Schedule 2, rule 2, page 18. Put in to stop anyone else doing a Major.
That is also held to apply to leaders removed by a VONC as Iain Duncan Smith found out.
Of course, he would face utter humiliation if he did, a la Thatcher, so it would be funny to watch, but it can't happen.
Opinium found 66% of Tory members still wanted Boris to stay PM and party leader last month
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1469370138441003010?s=20&t=F5MeBLxuJfxsD7jkw6tCHQ
But it was more the first half. He clearly is an expert having written articles and a book on the subject, so whilst you may feel it's your right to call him pompous for being an expert, it isn't your right to tell a lie.
Which seems to leave open the possibility that everyone involved but him gets fined, on the basis that (a) it's his house, and (b) he didn't organise any of the parties.
Which as I have pointed out was in fact incorrect. In fact, on a careful check the Conservatives won 269 seats to 272 Liberals, a gap of three not one as I thought.
So they were not the largest party.
The Irish Nationalists of course invariably supported the Liberals anyway in the hope of getting a Dublin Parliament. Even from 1906 to 1910 when the Liberals had 242 more seats than the Unionists. Just as the Liberal Unionists backed the Tories for the opposite reason. So it's a bit misleading of Wiki to classify the parties that way.
I don't get the feeling whoever did the entries for the nineteenth century really knew what they were doing (they keep lumping the Radicals and Peelites in with the Whig totals from 1846 to 1859, for example). It's on my list of things to correct when I ever have a moment.
Plenty of jobs ask you - have you ever been arrested?
I had this argument with a policeman once, socially. It was curious how he couldn't grasp the idea that you could make provision for all the rights stuff, without an arrest. It would be perfectly possible to write a law - something like - "You subject to a police enquiry" - all the rights ensue when they announce that, formally.
I saw it as very dangerous for Starmer because there is now a subliminal connection between Starmer and Savile. It is straight out of the Crosby playbook. I also thought Johnson's drug use allegations against the Opposition front bench were dangerous. He wouldn't make the accusations outside Parliament, but the words just trip off his tongue.
EXCL: Rishi Sunak sat in a packed Commons on Monday despite a close family member testing positive for Covid - and against official guidance.
Treasury insiders denied the PM had set a precedent by holing up in Downing Street when his daughter had Covid.
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1488581553642954753
However, there is a certain irony in being accused of being pompous by somebody who thinks when the facts conflict with his views the facts are wrong.
And a thesis is a book by any standard. So Ydoethur has two to his credit (or perhaps two editions of the same book).
But the doctorate wasn't from Oxford, of course, it was from a much better uni
Edit - one reason I want to quit teaching or at least reduce my hours is I want more time to write.
Interesting that the FT wants to pass the old slide rule over the promises and fantasies that are Johnson's levelling up.
Perhaps they think the failure to deliver will determine the next GE?
We'll make a scholar of him yet...
But when the likes of Grieve said they would honour the referendum result including in their 2017 election materials then do the opposite then that is undermining and subverting democracy.
It is no different to US Senators attempting to throw out the 2020 election result and replace it with saying Trump is elected President because they can, rather than because that's how people voted.
Just because you can does not always mean you should.
Robert Peston
@Peston
·
1h
The argument from some Tory MPs - @markjenkinsonmp just now on
@itvnews
- that breaching Covid rules is equivalent to parking on a double yellow line is odd. They can’t think the threat to life from anti-social parking is the same as failing to limit the spread of a virus…
Robert Peston
@Peston
that killed more than 150,000
https://twitter.com/Peston/status/1488582435910602755
Also AUIUI employers shouldn't be asking if you have ever been arrested, only if you've ever been convicted, and then only for specific offences in a particular timeframe for certain jobs.
By contrast, the former MP for Eastbourne Stephen Lloyd, was willing to lose the Liberal Democrat whip to maintain the promise he'd made to his electorate to support the referendum result.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/01/eight-ways-sue-grays-partygate-report-makes-things-worse-boris/?utm_content=politics&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1643741039-2
The majority of the write off is perfectly usable PPE in stockpiles but it's now worth less than when purchased as the price has come back down.
What should have been done? Not pay market rates at the time it was purchased? So have no PPE for those who need it? Or not write off the fact it's not worth as much today, which would be dishonest.
It's possible he'll just go floppy and defeated, but I'm expecting something ugly to get rid of him.
Sorry, not sorry...
While we await the election of the final four MPs from Portugal (overseas voters perhaps?), contrasting polls from the same organisation in Germany.
The INSA poll for Bild am Sonntag (fieldwork 24/1 - 28/1) has the SPD on 26%. the Union on 24%, Greens on 16%, FPD and AfD both on 11% and Linke on 6% so support for the three parties in the coalition Government at 53% so very close to the September 2021 election.
For the daily Bild paper, INSA did another poll (fieldwork 28/1 - 31/1) which has the Union on 25% ahead of the SPD on 24%, Greens on 15%, FDP on 12.5%, AfD on 10% and Linke on 6.5%.
So a statistical tie within margin of error and the governing coalition parties close to or just above the 50.2% they achieved in September 2021 so early days but new CDU leader Friedrich Merz hasn't had a huge poll bounce as yet and the Union remains close to the 24.1% poll from last September.
https://twitter.com/Wills_Robinson/status/1488601774218952705
Note that the Salville lie was basically something circulating on alt-right facebook until Johnson took hold of it.
https://twitter.com/BBCRosAtkins/status/1488587034591744006
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ministers-write-off-9-billion-on-lost-unusable-or-overpriced-ppe-262kpdr8v
Sure, there was an emergency and price gouging going on, but don't you think it reasonable to look into whether fraud occurred?
I also wouldn't have a problem barring the companies that did profiteer from further government contracts.
The unloyalists will just be laughing at them.
Unlike A Johnson, I will withdraw.
It's been well documented had Thatcher chosen to fight the second ballot, with the payroll vote no longer beholden, she'd have got 80-90 votes maximum. I suspect Boris will find his support melts away once he loses the VoNC.
No explicit reference to a leader who loses a VONC though
(Echoes of the Alex cartoon about Thatcher's downfall. In the end, she was turned on by men in grey suits.)
Oh wait he was serious. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
However, interestingly I can't see anywhere it sets out the rules for a confidence motion. So it may be more ad hoc than that.
Equally, I cannot imagine that Graham Brady would accept a nomination for somebody who lost a VONC as valid even if Johnson tried to stand again.
Would the PM tell the House which viol........
Thatcher could even have won the runoff amongst the membership.
Boris will try and use Hague's rules to get to the membership as Corbyn in 2016 used Ed Miliband's rules to win the Labour leadership again amongst members even though most Labour MPs wanted him gone
The no confidence vote is then scheduled by the chair in consultation with the party leader. MPs then vote in support or against the leader. This can happen quickly. For example, the no confidence vote in Theresa May was held on 12 December 2018, the day after she was informed that the 15% threshold had been reached. May needed 159 MPs to support her to stay in office, and won the vote by 200 to 117.
Under current rules, if more than 50% of all Conservative MPs (181 MPs) vote in support of the prime minister, they can stay as party leader and prime minister and no new vote can be triggered for 12 months.
If the leader lost the confidence vote among Conservative MPs, they would not be able to stand again – allowing any other Conservative MP to stand for the party leadership.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/conservative-party-leadership-contests
NEW THREAD
If Brady tries and blocks him standing again could we even see Boris loyalists try and storm the 1922 cttee?
But one never knows with @HYUFD.
Mind you, would be funny to see Nadine and JRM against the entire 1922.