Good Morning everyone. As someone else said, a powerful piece by Ms Cyclefree. I really do not recall a time when flagrant dishonesty was so common in public life.
I keep being told that politicians always lie, why am I making such a fuss. Nice to hear you say differently
It's a fact of life that people lie. How the governing system deal with that is a choice. As Monday's events - and the actions of the Speaker - showed, we now have a system which rules those lies in order, and suspends from the Commons MPs who call out those lies.
Although Blackford, as usual, bungled it. He should have asked if Johnson could reconcile his statement that there were no parties in his flat with Gray's finding that there was one, and asked the Speaker, separately, what the penalty is for misleading the House.
Then he'd not only have got away with it but effectively forced the Speaker to be the one calling out Johnson for lying.
Perhaps this is what Starmerama will do today. Or will Johnson hide behind being tired from his Ukraine jaunt and not turn up?
If I was him in question 1 I would ask Johnson to state categorically for the parliamentary record if he will release the Gray report in full and without delay. And if he prevaricates at all I would begin question 2 by giving notice of a parliamentary motion to compel him to. That’s a motion he would so easily win that Johnson would cave before the vote.
He can then follow up by forcing the issue of Johnson’s prior statements to the house, inviting him to correct the Parliamentary record, given he has accepted the Gray Update in full. And if he refuses to, turn it over to the Speaker. And if the Speaker refuses to (which he probably would the wet flannel), then give notice of a further parliamentary motion along the lines of “This House condemns the Prime Minister for misleading parliament”. Force the Tory rebels to put their cards on the table.
Personally I think it’s time for Starmer to go for the jugular. It will be a far more compelling narrative for him if he is the one that directly sets in motion Johnson’s exit than to let his future opponent claim the credit for being the new broom cleaning up the mess.
Agree.
I don't know if it's been discussed but currently it takes 54 Tory MPs and then a successful VONC by the same Tory MPs to remove him. Instead why can't there be a VONC in him in Parliament. It is single step and only requires just over 35 Tory MPs to vote against or even to be achieved with a few more MPs abstaining.
Or a VONC in the government. Typically that results in a GE, but it doesn't have to if the Tories can form a new government. That is not uncommon in Europe under PR and only doesn't happen here because a loss of confidence isn't normally recoverable, but with a 70+ majority is currently.
As long as Boris has at least 50 loyalists amongst Tory MPs, those loyalists can vote down any alternative Tory Leader and PM except Boris. So a VONC in Boris' government would lead to a general election which most Tory MPs would still not risk
I didn't know that. Odd rule if another Tory can get a majority but 50 can stop it. Are you sure?
And surely they wouldn't support him if that would result in a GE. Surely they would get behind a compromise candidate so as not to force a GE.
On a point of fact do you think my 2 suggestions are valid in principle even if not practical in practice?
If Boris lost a VONC and Boris loyalists threatened to not support an alternative leader's government in a Starmer VONC in that government, then yes there would be a general election. Unlikely yes but not impossible.
That is also assuming Boris resigns after losing a VONC and does not try and contest a subsequent leadership election so as to get his loyalist MPs to put him through to the membership stage in the runoff as runner up
Cheers @hyufd but I was really after your opinion on the specific question I asked namely:
On a point of fact do you think my 2 suggestions are valid in principle even if not practical in practice? Eg:
1) You can have a vonc in parliament on the Govt and the same Govt reform under a different leader without a GE because they have a majority. Is this correct?
2) Can you have a vonc in parliament on the PM, and not the Govt itself, and what is the impact of this?
AND
3) Are you sure 50 Mps can stop a replacement even if a replacement gets a majority of MPs from his party to vote for him/her?
Cheers kjh
My understanding is:
1. If a Government loses a VONC the Government falls. That does not directly lead to a GE. Parliament then decides if there is a majority for a new Government or if a GE is necessary. Only if no one else can garner the support to form a new Government does there have to be a GE.
2. In effect if you have a VONC in the Government you are having a VONC in the PM. What you are not having is a VONC in the makeup of Parliament itself. Hence the reason why a GE may not be necessary.
As such it would be entirely possible to have a VONC in a Government and subsequently have the same party form a new Government if they can show it will be stable - clearly have majority support in Parliament. Alternatively if somehow the Opposition had majority support then they could try to form a Government.
Of course in practice the PM having lost a VONC in Parliament could in the past have called a GE but that option is now removed and requires 2/3rds of the MPs to agree under the FTPA.
The idea touted by HYUFD and Jacob Rees-Mogg that a GE is inevitable after a lost VONC is, I believe, incorrect.
Your point 1 is correct(*), but it doesn't address how a new government is formed - and critically, to avoid a GE the new government has to be formed and the Commons has to vote confidence in it within 14 days.
The risk is that after the Commons VONC, Boris refuses to resign as party leader, therefore there's nobody that HMQ can ask to form a government as nobody else could be said to have any chance of winning a Commons confidence vote.
DACOP has Lords Report stage next Wednesday. It cleared Committee stage without amendment and Labour support it, so it should theoretically clear the remaining stages and receive Royal Assent pretty quickly - looking at the progress of other bills, I'd expect Lords 3rd Reading a week later and unless any amendments are made, it should get Royal Assent by the middle of the month - though if there were a Commons VONC passed before Royal Assent it would be interesting if assent were delayed until after the 14 day clock, as granting it would stop the clock.
(*) Technically, I don't think there's anything in FTPA which prevents the Commons changing its mind and voting confidence in the same government within 14 days, but it seems rather unlikely.
What Boris does after losing a VONC is immaterial. The mere fact he has lost a VONC means he will not be able to command a majority of Parliament going forward even whilst remaining as leader of the Tory party. And faced with the choice between a GE in which many of them would lose their seats and getting a new leader, the vast majority of Tory MPs will have no compunction about pushing his arse out of the window.
Technically, Labour and the SNP could vote to keep him in, but it would be pretty machiavellian to do so. As well as risk backfiring.
Tobias Ellwood on Sky just announced he is submitting his letter to the 1922 today
It might not be about parties and lies. Elwood was on R4 PM last night highly critical of Johnson's Ukrainian escapade.
He wants British and NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine today!
Supplies yes, boots no.
Certainly not unless a NATO member country is invaded which Ukraine is not
No Ellwood, unless I am very much mistaken, wants NATO soldiers defending Ukraine in Ukraine as a precursor to defending Europe from the combined forces of an Eastward looking Putin.
You are peddling Johnson's proposal. I don't know who is right, but Ellwood is of the opinion strength is the only game Putin understands. Ellwood was very compelling, down to his understanding of Putin's personal hatred of the fall of the Soviet Union because to make ends meet he was driving taxis in St Petersburg, and sees the recovery of Soviet satellite states as a mission to right that prrsonal wrong.
His idea that there might be any possibility of NATO dispatching a brigade to Ukraine didn't demonstrate much understanding of our side, whatever his understanding of Putin.
It's an appalling idea whether it would work on official Russian policy or not. One of the nightmare scenarios of the Cold War was a nuclear war escalating from an accidental exchange of gunfire across the NATO/Warsaw Pact border. Dropping NATO troops into what is already a warzone would be reckless in the extreme.
Quite concerning to see something so reckless coming from the chair of the parliamentary committee.
And the alternative - letting Putin steal whatever bits of other countries he fancies - is less "reckless"?
That is a rather dubious false dichotomy. The choice is not between deployment of British troops in the Ukraine and Putin annexing places.
There are plenty of options in the middle, not least the current government policy.
Oh, come off it. At some point, if Putin is to stop, he will have to be stopped.
The deployment of British troops wouldn't stop it. More likely to precipitate it.
Negotiations to de-escalate and demilitarise the border on both sides are what is needed.
It also wouldn't be like Iraq or Afghanistan where we enjoyed total air supremacy and could just tool around taking random potshots at anybody with a beard while keeping an eye out for IEDs.
This would be full on mechanised warfare (until it went nuclear) with massive amounts of long range fires. The 6-7,000 troops that the UK could assemble would take 100s of KIAs per day. It would be completely politically unsustainable for any British government for more than a day or two. Putin knows this only too well so another way to talk him down is going to have to be found.
Yes, I would have thought the worst case scenario for Putin is another Afghanistan: an expensive multi-year insurgent war with well supplied Ukrainian militias that keep sending Russians home in body bags while the Rouble plummets and Nordstream 2 gets put on indefinite ice. Not NATO sending in conventional forces, which would be overreach and stupid.
I think that is the Western strategy. Convince Putin of an Afghanistan plus massive sanctions and then provide him with some kind of facesave. The latter is essential.
The obvious facesave is to open NordStream 2. Can't think what else there would be and whether it would be enough for Putin.
Doesn't make the future much better for Europe or Ukraine either.
Nordstream 2 was designed explicitly so that Putin could fuck over Eastern Europe without disrupting supplies to Germany etc. So Russia could play "Core Europe" off against the periphery......
If we fail to deter Russian aggression in Ukraine we will inevitably have further Russian aggression elsewhere and risk being seen as unwilling to counter that aggression.
20,000 NATO troops in Ukraine tomorrow, and a clear commitment to provide reinforcements if necessary, would prevent a Russian attack on Ukraine. Putin isn't about to fire missiles at American soldiers.
You're literally betting your life on that conjecture.
We'd do better to hold the NATO line, regroup, reinforce all other lines of defence (cyber, infowars), flush out the dirty money from London, and the fellow travellers from Europe. This is about containment and patience, not idiocy.
And rejoin the EU, and eliminate all Brexiteers from our politics, as they helped to build this shit.
As the author says, if Starmer had nothing to apologise for re Saville, why did he apologise?
Cameron apologised for Bloody Sunday. Do you think he was in the parachute regiment in 1972?
Apologising is not in the playbook of authoritarian nationalists, so not a surprise they don't get what it means. Double down, create an us v them division and ignore the damaging long term structural problems to manage the headlines today and tomorrow is all that matters.
Tobias Ellwood on Sky just announced he is submitting his letter to the 1922 today
It might not be about parties and lies. Elwood was on R4 PM last night highly critical of Johnson's Ukrainian escapade.
He wants British and NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine today!
Supplies yes, boots no.
Certainly not unless a NATO member country is invaded which Ukraine is not
No Ellwood, unless I am very much mistaken, wants NATO soldiers defending Ukraine in Ukraine as a precursor to defending Europe from the combined forces of an Eastward looking Putin.
You are peddling Johnson's proposal. I don't know who is right, but Ellwood is of the opinion strength is the only game Putin understands. Ellwood was very compelling, down to his understanding of Putin's personal hatred of the fall of the Soviet Union because to make ends meet he was driving taxis in St Petersburg, and sees the recovery of Soviet satellite states as a mission to right that prrsonal wrong.
His idea that there might be any possibility of NATO dispatching a brigade to Ukraine didn't demonstrate much understanding of our side, whatever his understanding of Putin.
It's an appalling idea whether it would work on official Russian policy or not. One of the nightmare scenarios of the Cold War was a nuclear war escalating from an accidental exchange of gunfire across the NATO/Warsaw Pact border. Dropping NATO troops into what is already a warzone would be reckless in the extreme.
Quite concerning to see something so reckless coming from the chair of the parliamentary committee.
And the alternative - letting Putin steal whatever bits of other countries he fancies - is less "reckless"?
That is a rather dubious false dichotomy. The choice is not between deployment of British troops in the Ukraine and Putin annexing places.
There are plenty of options in the middle, not least the current government policy.
Oh, come off it. At some point, if Putin is to stop, he will have to be stopped.
The deployment of British troops wouldn't stop it. More likely to precipitate it.
Negotiations to de-escalate and demilitarise the border on both sides are what is needed.
It also wouldn't be like Iraq or Afghanistan where we enjoyed total air supremacy and could just tool around taking random potshots at anybody with a beard while keeping an eye out for IEDs.
This would be full on mechanised warfare (until it went nuclear) with massive amounts of long range fires. The 6-7,000 troops that the UK could assemble would take 100s of KIAs per day. It would be completely politically unsustainable for any British government for more than a day or two. Putin knows this only too well so another way to talk him down is going to have to be found.
Yes, I would have thought the worst case scenario for Putin is another Afghanistan: an expensive multi-year insurgent war with well supplied Ukrainian militias that keep sending Russians home in body bags while the Rouble plummets and Nordstream 2 gets put on indefinite ice. Not NATO sending in conventional forces, which would be overreach and stupid.
I think that is the Western strategy. Convince Putin of an Afghanistan plus massive sanctions and then provide him with some kind of facesave. The latter is essential.
The obvious facesave is to open NordStream 2. Can't think what else there would be and whether it would be enough for Putin.
Doesn't make the future much better for Europe or Ukraine either.
Nordstream 2 was designed explicitly so that Putin could fuck over Eastern Europe without disrupting supplies to Germany etc. So Russia could play "Core Europe" off against the periphery......
Yes. I hoped it would be stopped, and there was movement in that direction before the build-up around Ukraine.
However, I note the language around it is along the lines of, "if you invade Ukraine we'll have to cancel NordStream 2", which opens up the possibility of a trade on opening it in return for peace this day.
Starmer promises a windfall tax on oil and gas companies and no tax cuts for banks
The first is completely, off-the-wall barmy (when did a windfall or any other tax reduce prices???), but probably good if cynical politics, as is the latter.
Starmer looks quite fat, suddenly. Or maybe I only just noticed
Compared to the svelte Johnson we all look fat!
Starmer has suddenly got that unfortunate too-tight white-shirt with a red-neck-and-face bulging-out-the-top look
He's an old man like me. You just wait until you reach the late fifties milestones and you might look a little portly too.
He's 59. He's always looked younger than his years, until now. Suddenly he looks much nearer his age. It is a dangerous time to put on the chunk (and I speak ruefully as a man right now on a pretty fierce diet)
If we fail to deter Russian aggression in Ukraine we will inevitably have further Russian aggression elsewhere and risk being seen as unwilling to counter that aggression.
20,000 NATO troops in Ukraine tomorrow, and a clear commitment to provide reinforcements if necessary, would prevent a Russian attack on Ukraine. Putin isn't about to fire missiles at American soldiers.
You're literally betting your life on that conjecture.
We'd do better to hold the NATO line, regroup, reinforce all other lines of defence (cyber, infowars), flush out the dirty money from London, and the fellow travellers from Europe. This is about containment and patience, not idiocy.
And rejoin the EU, and eliminate all Brexiteers from our politics, as they helped to build this shit.
Ah I see the lunatic fringe is still alive and well.
What a lot of twaddle from both of them. Tedious, infantile shite
Imagine if you just first tuned into to see the biggest spectacle of weekly British politics. THIS
Are you new to PMQs?
Sure. But that was a pretty fucking poor show, from both sides.
It's not like we lack serious issues to discuss. To make it worse, all the jokes and barbs misfired, on all sides. Boris floundered, Starmer made some weird Thelma and Louise reference. It was like two 15 year olds making a poor attempt at their own PMQs. Dreadful
What a lot of twaddle from both of them. Tedious, infantile shite
Imagine if you just first tuned into to see the biggest spectacle of weekly British politics. THIS
This from the plonker who thinks we all care about how many olives he's eaten in the last three days?
I was unaware I was broadcasting my insights to the entire nation on live television, from the Mother of Parliaments, rather than just making random anonymous comments on an obscure blog which you are free to scroll past and ignore
Tobias Ellwood on Sky just announced he is submitting his letter to the 1922 today
It might not be about parties and lies. Elwood was on R4 PM last night highly critical of Johnson's Ukrainian escapade.
He wants British and NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine today!
Supplies yes, boots no.
Certainly not unless a NATO member country is invaded which Ukraine is not
No Ellwood, unless I am very much mistaken, wants NATO soldiers defending Ukraine in Ukraine as a precursor to defending Europe from the combined forces of an Eastward looking Putin.
You are peddling Johnson's proposal. I don't know who is right, but Ellwood is of the opinion strength is the only game Putin understands. Ellwood was very compelling, down to his understanding of Putin's personal hatred of the fall of the Soviet Union because to make ends meet he was driving taxis in St Petersburg, and sees the recovery of Soviet satellite states as a mission to right that prrsonal wrong.
His idea that there might be any possibility of NATO dispatching a brigade to Ukraine didn't demonstrate much understanding of our side, whatever his understanding of Putin.
It's an appalling idea whether it would work on official Russian policy or not. One of the nightmare scenarios of the Cold War was a nuclear war escalating from an accidental exchange of gunfire across the NATO/Warsaw Pact border. Dropping NATO troops into what is already a warzone would be reckless in the extreme.
Quite concerning to see something so reckless coming from the chair of the parliamentary committee.
And the alternative - letting Putin steal whatever bits of other countries he fancies - is less "reckless"?
That is a rather dubious false dichotomy. The choice is not between deployment of British troops in the Ukraine and Putin annexing places.
There are plenty of options in the middle, not least the current government policy.
Oh, come off it. At some point, if Putin is to stop, he will have to be stopped.
The deployment of British troops wouldn't stop it. More likely to precipitate it.
Negotiations to de-escalate and demilitarise the border on both sides are what is needed.
It also wouldn't be like Iraq or Afghanistan where we enjoyed total air supremacy and could just tool around taking random potshots at anybody with a beard while keeping an eye out for IEDs.
This would be full on mechanised warfare (until it went nuclear) with massive amounts of long range fires. The 6-7,000 troops that the UK could assemble would take 100s of KIAs per day. It would be completely politically unsustainable for any British government for more than a day or two. Putin knows this only too well so another way to talk him down is going to have to be found.
Yes, I would have thought the worst case scenario for Putin is another Afghanistan: an expensive multi-year insurgent war with well supplied Ukrainian militias that keep sending Russians home in body bags while the Rouble plummets and Nordstream 2 gets put on indefinite ice. Not NATO sending in conventional forces, which would be overreach and stupid.
I think that is the Western strategy. Convince Putin of an Afghanistan plus massive sanctions and then provide him with some kind of facesave. The latter is essential.
The obvious facesave is to open NordStream 2. Can't think what else there would be and whether it would be enough for Putin.
Doesn't make the future much better for Europe or Ukraine either.
Nordstream 2 was designed explicitly so that Putin could fuck over Eastern Europe without disrupting supplies to Germany etc. So Russia could play "Core Europe" off against the periphery......
Yes. I hoped it would be stopped, and there was movement in that direction before the build-up around Ukraine.
However, I note the language around it is along the lines of, "if you invade Ukraine we'll have to cancel NordStream 2", which opens up the possibility of a trade on opening it in return for peace this day.
Then Putin will move to playing games with gas prices to Eastern Europe, while saying to the Germans - "It would be a pity if something happened to the price of the nice cheap gas I am selling you".
The advantage of that, for him, is that without the overt military stuff, lots of people will be writing sagely articles about how Russia has the right to dominate Eastern Europe and it is all a commercial dispute anyway....
Starmer looks quite fat, suddenly. Or maybe I only just noticed
Compared to the svelte Johnson we all look fat!
Starmer has suddenly got that unfortunate too-tight white-shirt with a red-neck-and-face bulging-out-the-top look
He's an old man like me. You just wait until you reach the late fifties milestones and you might look a little portly too.
He's 59. He's always looked younger than his years, until now. Suddenly he looks much nearer his age. It is a dangerous time to put on the chunk (and I speak ruefully as a man right now on a pretty fierce diet)
He's 59? That genuinely shocks me, I kind of assumed he was lowish 50s.
Guess what the latest threat is to Tory backbenchers thinking of toppling the PM? That @BorisJohnson would 'do a Corbyn': fight a leadership ballot and win with the backing of party members.
I thought this was just a hyufd fantasy, apparently not
I didn't think that was possible under Tory rules. The incumbent faces a VONC, if they lose that is it. They are not allowed to be a candidate in the new election. If they win they are, in theory, safe for a year but May showed that is not necessarily the case in practice.
It also doesn't work in practice, since Tory members are already keener to see him go now than are the MPs, and if he'd already been rejected by the MPs his path through the ballot would likely see him lose. The further you get away from Parliament the less support he has.
Not true, only last month 66% of Tory members still wanted Boris to stay PM and Tory leader with Opinium. That was far higher than the 28% of the public and even the 49% of 2019 Tory voters who wanted Boris to stay
My point was that "Tory members are already keener to see him go now than are the MPs", and that is demonstrably true. It is also true that Tory voters are keener to see him go than are Tory members and that all voters are keener than are Tory voters.
In the scenario where he had already been rejected by the MPs, he would be toast. So it's a bluff.
Many thought the same when Corbyn lost a VONC amongst Labour MPs in 2016.
Yet Labour members re elected him
Good that you keep equating Johnson with Corbyn. Dumb and Dumber. thankfully Labour got rid of Dumber. It is time Conservatives got rid of Dumb.
Tory MP asking the PM to override the Manchester Mayor. OK, he wants to make his point, but it doesn’t look good if you are announcing a Levelling Up agenda including devolving powers.
Starmer looks quite fat, suddenly. Or maybe I only just noticed
Compared to the svelte Johnson we all look fat!
Starmer has suddenly got that unfortunate too-tight white-shirt with a red-neck-and-face bulging-out-the-top look
He's an old man like me. You just wait until you reach the late fifties milestones and you might look a little portly too.
He's 59. He's always looked younger than his years, until now. Suddenly he looks much nearer his age. It is a dangerous time to put on the chunk (and I speak ruefully as a man right now on a pretty fierce diet)
He's 59? That genuinely shocks me, I kind of assumed he was lowish 50s.
Yes, he is well preserved. Or he was until recently. Needs to hit the gym and get better suits and shirts. They are not flattering him
Starmer looks quite fat, suddenly. Or maybe I only just noticed
Compared to the svelte Johnson we all look fat!
Starmer has suddenly got that unfortunate too-tight white-shirt with a red-neck-and-face bulging-out-the-top look
He's an old man like me. You just wait until you reach the late fifties milestones and you might look a little portly too.
He's 59. He's always looked younger than his years, until now. Suddenly he looks much nearer his age. It is a dangerous time to put on the chunk (and I speak ruefully as a man right now on a pretty fierce diet)
He's 59? That genuinely shocks me, I kind of assumed he was lowish 50s.
Good point from Boris, no Labour government has left office with unemployment lower than when it came in
Such diversionary tactics cannot last forever though. Brown was still trying the 'last Tory government' excuse 13 years into a Labour government but it no longer resonated.
Don't disagree with Cyclefree's header, it's a good catalogue of government failings. But unless people are prepared to vote this government out, it won't change.
And I worry that the Conservatives are very good at finding issues which enrage otherwise hostile voters and stop them from voting Labour... like trans rights or border crossings or human rights or woke or free speech etc.
What a lot of twaddle from both of them. Tedious, infantile shite
Imagine if you just first tuned into to see the biggest spectacle of weekly British politics. THIS
Are you new to PMQs?
And the thing is, the infantile stuff is what they, and the public, want from PMQs. If it weren't, they would have changed it by now. It's why Bercow was talking bollocks whenever he went on a tangent about people watching not liking what they saw etc.
What a lot of twaddle from both of them. Tedious, infantile shite
Imagine if you just first tuned into to see the biggest spectacle of weekly British politics. THIS
Are you new to PMQs?
And the thing is, the infantile stuff is what they, and the public, want from PMQs. If it weren't, they would have changed it by now. It's why Bercow was talking bollocks whenever he went on a tangent about people watching not liking what they saw etc.
But there's good funny infantile, and terrible, cringey infantile
Starmer looks quite fat, suddenly. Or maybe I only just noticed
Compared to the svelte Johnson we all look fat!
Starmer has suddenly got that unfortunate too-tight white-shirt with a red-neck-and-face bulging-out-the-top look
Roger has recently drawn attention to Starmer's ill-fitting suits.
Both Starmer and Johnson would be better off with well-cut double breasted suits to hide their paunches. Starmer probably would look quite good in one.
SKS also hasn't updated his shirt collection recently as well, so he could probably do with a 1/4 - 1/2 increase in collar size.
What a lot of twaddle from both of them. Tedious, infantile shite
Imagine if you just first tuned into to see the biggest spectacle of weekly British politics. THIS
Are you new to PMQs?
And the thing is, the infantile stuff is what they, and the public, want from PMQs. If it weren't, they would have changed it by now. It's why Bercow was talking bollocks whenever he went on a tangent about people watching not liking what they saw etc.
Every time Johnson says anything for the rest of his life I want the response to be something like, "How do I know you're not lying again?"
He has to be made an example for everyone else in public life, otherwise he will be the proof that we tolerate any amount of lying.
The reason Bell's 'Do you think I'm a fool?' question worked so well, in my opinion, is that by his actions we know with a high degree of certainty that the answer was yes. Not that Boris will have put his mind to the question about Bell specifically, but about people who did trouble themselves to follow rules. Whereas possibly more relevant and cutting questions Boris could evade better will not have stuck as well as a simple, personal question, where he has to say no, but we can see the answer is otherwise.
Starmer looks quite fat, suddenly. Or maybe I only just noticed
Compared to the svelte Johnson we all look fat!
Starmer has suddenly got that unfortunate too-tight white-shirt with a red-neck-and-face bulging-out-the-top look
Roger has recently drawn attention to Starmer's ill-fitting suits.
Both Starmer and Johnson would be better off with well-cut double breasted suits to hide their paunches. Starmer probably would look quite good in one.
SKS also hasn't updated his shirt collection recently as well, so he could probably do with a 1/4 - 1/2 increase in collar size.
Yes, he hasn't accepted he's got a fatter neck
It's like a 42 year old man convinced he can still fit 32 waist jeans, the result can be mortifying
Don't disagree with Cyclefree's header, it's a good catalogue of government failings. But unless people are prepared to vote this government out, it won't change.
And I worry that the Conservatives are very good at finding issues which enrage otherwise hostile voters and stop them from voting Labour... like trans rights or border crossings or human rights or woke or free speech etc.
I worry about that too but not quite as much as I used to - because I'm more and more thinking Starmer has it covered.
What a lot of twaddle from both of them. Tedious, infantile shite
Imagine if you just first tuned into to see the biggest spectacle of weekly British politics. THIS
Are you new to PMQs?
And the thing is, the infantile stuff is what they, and the public, want from PMQs. If it weren't, they would have changed it by now. It's why Bercow was talking bollocks whenever he went on a tangent about people watching not liking what they saw etc.
I don't believe the respondents, I think it is an example where people reply with what they think they should be saying rather than what they believe, social desirability bias. It's loud, brash and partisan, and we know that we should say that is wrong.
Take the 67% saying there is 'too much party political point scoring', that's a load of nonsense. People love political point scoring, we reward our politicians for it, and we tend not to reward those who don't create a spectacle or who genuinely try to cooperate with their opponents.
If we didn't like partisan theatrics we would not have gotten into a situation where they are rewarded, or face no consequences, for indulging in it.
Starmer looks quite fat, suddenly. Or maybe I only just noticed
Compared to the svelte Johnson we all look fat!
Starmer has suddenly got that unfortunate too-tight white-shirt with a red-neck-and-face bulging-out-the-top look
Roger has recently drawn attention to Starmer's ill-fitting suits.
Both Starmer and Johnson would be better off with well-cut double breasted suits to hide their paunches. Starmer probably would look quite good in one.
SKS also hasn't updated his shirt collection recently as well, so he could probably do with a 1/4 - 1/2 increase in collar size.
Yes, he hasn't accepted he's got a fatter neck
It's like a 42 year old man convinced he can still fit 32 waist jeans, the result can be mortifying
No PMQ withdrawal of support then. Quite a lot of obsequious plant questions. Not sure whether I should be ordering that hair shirt for June, but still hopeful he will be out by then.
Starmer looks quite fat, suddenly. Or maybe I only just noticed
Compared to the svelte Johnson we all look fat!
Starmer has suddenly got that unfortunate too-tight white-shirt with a red-neck-and-face bulging-out-the-top look
Roger has recently drawn attention to Starmer's ill-fitting suits.
I reckon Starmer is in that awkward situation (which I recognise) of having 14 shirts & 7 suits for work which are now slightly too small for him but he's said to himself 'I'll lose the weight' rather than pop for a new wardrobe.
Do party leaders get a clothes allowance? Might be a bit embarrassing to ask for a payout cos you've become a bit of a fatty.
What a lot of twaddle from both of them. Tedious, infantile shite
Imagine if you just first tuned into to see the biggest spectacle of weekly British politics. THIS
Are you new to PMQs?
And the thing is, the infantile stuff is what they, and the public, want from PMQs. If it weren't, they would have changed it by now. It's why Bercow was talking bollocks whenever he went on a tangent about people watching not liking what they saw etc.
I don't believe the respondents, I think it is an example where people reply with what they think they should be saying rather than what they believe, social desirability bias. It's loud, brash and partisan, and we know that we should say that is wrong.
Take the 67% saying there is 'too much party political point scoring', that's a load of nonsense. People love political point scoring, we reward our politicians for it, and we tend not to reward those who don't create a spectacle or who genuinely try to cooperate with their opponents.
If we didn't like partisan theatrics we would not have gotten into a situation where they are rewarded, or face no consequences, for indulging in it.
Maybe. I don't enjoy the party political points scoring. I would be tempted to say that Leon's "You really are quite a strange person" is perhaps accurate, but seeing as the majority agree with me I'll have to think it over.
Starmer looks quite fat, suddenly. Or maybe I only just noticed
Compared to the svelte Johnson we all look fat!
Starmer has suddenly got that unfortunate too-tight white-shirt with a red-neck-and-face bulging-out-the-top look
Roger has recently drawn attention to Starmer's ill-fitting suits.
Both Starmer and Johnson would be better off with well-cut double breasted suits to hide their paunches. Starmer probably would look quite good in one.
SKS also hasn't updated his shirt collection recently as well, so he could probably do with a 1/4 - 1/2 increase in collar size.
Yes, he hasn't accepted he's got a fatter neck
It's like a 42 year old man convinced he can still fit 32 waist jeans, the result can be mortifying
Here I sit at 55 in my 28 waist jeans. Buff.
That is bloody impressive. There were fatter British men in Japanese POW camps. Well done
And the thing is, the infantile stuff is what they, and the public, want from PMQs. If it weren't, they would have changed it by now. It's why Bercow was talking bollocks whenever he went on a tangent about people watching not liking what they saw etc.
I agree it's not what the public want. (Side note: surprised 'have seen some PMQs' is as high as 54%, I'd have guessed lower. I suppose for a lot of the people saying yes it will be "evening news had a clip from it".) But I suspect that for a fair number of MPs it *is* part of what they want out of it -- otherwise there'd be a bigger push to change it, and MPs have leverage to push that change, where the wider public don't.
@dixiedean - further to your comments on the Canadian men's football team, I read a piece on them in World Soccer and I hadn't realised that they have an English manager:
What a lot of twaddle from both of them. Tedious, infantile shite
Imagine if you just first tuned into to see the biggest spectacle of weekly British politics. THIS
Are you new to PMQs?
And the thing is, the infantile stuff is what they, and the public, want from PMQs. If it weren't, they would have changed it by now. It's why Bercow was talking bollocks whenever he went on a tangent about people watching not liking what they saw etc.
I don't believe the respondents, I think it is an example where people reply with what they think they should be saying rather than what they believe, social desirability bias. It's loud, brash and partisan, and we know that we should say that is wrong.
Take the 67% saying there is 'too much party political point scoring', that's a load of nonsense. People love political point scoring, we reward our politicians for it, and we tend not to reward those who don't create a spectacle or who genuinely try to cooperate with their opponents.
If we didn't like partisan theatrics we would not have gotten into a situation where they are rewarded, or face no consequences, for indulging in it.
I'm not sure that's exactly the case. My theory is as follows: Politician A behaves constructively towards politician B: public awards politician A 3 points and and politician B 1 point. Politician A engages in partisan theatrics towards politician B: public awards politician A 1 point and politician B -2 points. I think the public like to see positive politics, but the game theory points politicians towards behaving negatively. In a two party system, you win not by being liked but by being liked more than your principal opponent.
Every time Johnson says anything for the rest of his life I want the response to be something like, "How do I know you're not lying again?"
He has to be made an example for everyone else in public life, otherwise he will be the proof that we tolerate any amount of lying.
The reason Bell's 'Do you think I'm a fool?' question worked so well, in my opinion, is that by his actions we know with a high degree of certainty that the answer was yes. Not that Boris will have put his mind to the question about Bell specifically, but about people who did trouble themselves to follow rules. Whereas possibly more relevant and cutting questions Boris could evade better will not have stuck as well as a simple, personal question, where he has to say no, but we can see the answer is otherwise.
The "Fool" angle will hopefully do great damage. It works multiple ways. Johnson thinks people are fools for following the Covid rules - the specific Aaron Bell point. Then in general he takes the electorate for fools. All of this leading to the big one - as any sort of floating voter you ARE a fool if you vote for him again.
Comments
Starmer is much much better these days.
Utterly magnificent.
Do not underestimate the brilliance of a top lawyer.
Also, her birth date is nearer to the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne (1837) than to today.
And if she lives another year or so, her birth date will be nearer to the accession of King William IV.....
We'd do better to hold the NATO line, regroup, reinforce all other lines of defence (cyber, infowars), flush out the dirty money from London, and the fellow travellers from Europe. This is about containment and patience, not idiocy.
And rejoin the EU, and eliminate all Brexiteers from our politics, as they helped to build this shit.
Hammer away.
However, I note the language around it is along the lines of, "if you invade Ukraine we'll have to cancel NordStream 2", which opens up the possibility of a trade on opening it in return for peace this day.
He's the classic supply teacher with no control
You'll just keep threatening and threatening to do something, but never dare actually do it.
Had most Tory MPs voted for my MP Dame Eleanor Laing in 2019, who came 3rd, she would probably be Speaker now
Imagine if you just first tuned into to see the biggest spectacle of weekly British politics. THIS
Top tip to both: cutaway collars exacerbate the prob.
This is not true. There are 600,000 fewer. The @StatsRegulation literally wrote to Downing Street about this false claim yesterday.
The PM *must* correct the official record.
https://twitter.com/FullFact/status/1488849902973198336
It's not like we lack serious issues to discuss. To make it worse, all the jokes and barbs misfired, on all sides. Boris floundered, Starmer made some weird Thelma and Louise reference. It was like two 15 year olds making a poor attempt at their own PMQs. Dreadful
You really are quite a strange person
https://twitter.com/JasonGroves1/status/1488851595727101952
Apart from the legendarily modest ones of course.
Anyway… For how long can Johnson go on just ducking every Partygate question?
The advantage of that, for him, is that without the overt military stuff, lots of people will be writing sagely articles about how Russia has the right to dominate Eastern Europe and it is all a commercial dispute anyway....
I thought you were interested in Politics
He has to be made an example for everyone else in public life, otherwise he will be the proof that we tolerate any amount of lying.
But unless people are prepared to vote this government out, it won't change.
And I worry that the Conservatives are very good at finding issues which enrage otherwise hostile voters and stop them from voting Labour... like trans rights or border crossings or human rights or woke or free speech etc.
Anything important missed?
This was the latter
He’s got to be careful on the tax burden stuff though. It does allow Boris cheap and easy hits on the “I’m doing it for the NHS” line.
SKS also hasn't updated his shirt collection recently as well, so he could probably do with a 1/4 - 1/2 increase in collar size.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/pmqs-poll
It's like a 42 year old man convinced he can still fit 32 waist jeans, the result can be mortifying
How do you intend to vote at the next GE I havent got a clue except it wont be Lab under Starmer?
Take the 67% saying there is 'too much party political point scoring', that's a load of nonsense. People love political point scoring, we reward our politicians for it, and we tend not to reward those who don't create a spectacle or who genuinely try to cooperate with their opponents.
If we didn't like partisan theatrics we would not have gotten into a situation where they are rewarded, or face no consequences, for indulging in it.
Buff.
Shoot them down, Lynton Crosby!
Do party leaders get a clothes allowance? Might be a bit embarrassing to ask for a payout cos you've become a bit of a fatty.
I'm fortunate I live in a Lab/LD marginal.
I would be tempted to say that Leon's "You really are quite a strange person" is perhaps accurate, but seeing as the majority agree with me I'll have to think it over.
Apparently, Starmer's fucked because he's a fat bastard with ill-fitting suits who let Jimmy Savile off.
Have I got that right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Herdman
That's an interesting journey. One to watch for the future.
My theory is as follows:
Politician A behaves constructively towards politician B: public awards politician A 3 points and and politician B 1 point.
Politician A engages in partisan theatrics towards politician B: public awards politician A 1 point and politician B -2 points.
I think the public like to see positive politics, but the game theory points politicians towards behaving negatively.
In a two party system, you win not by being liked but by being liked more than your principal opponent.