... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
In a way that's the point I'm making. Probably I should have said he's sacked all his advisers except his wife.
Bizarrely - and shamefully - announcing his divorce is one thing that would actually go down well with a lot of Tory members, judging from some of the comments you see from them
Definitely a lot of misogyny around but it's also because she's perceived as the one behind his left-wing green policies, amongst a load of other alleged character defects.
Johnson has managed to piss off the whole party. Not even Theresa May managed that.
Johnson has been consistently in the Green wing of the Conservative party for a number of years - even before Cameron was leader, IIRC
I don't know how anyone can apply the word consistent to Johnson on anything. He flits and flies at the merest whim.
Some of his policies appear green one week and others hard right the next. He's an assortment of populist demagogy and downright lies.
On the green agenda stuff he has been pushing the policies fairly steadily - faster end to ICE, more wind power etc
This is a continuation of various previous government policies, but there has been no slackening of the pace on this. If anything an acceleration.
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
The storm for all of us is only just beginning. I fear inflation is possibly going to explode, feeding off itself - worldwide - heading into double digits
Like nothing we’ve experienced since the 1970s?
You do love a bit of alarmism eh? I am sure you remember the 70s better than me, being quite a bit older (according to your publicity material), but IIRC there were a lot more inflationary pressures then and no willingness to attempt to control it other than by pointless wage policies that failed miserably
I think that's a bit too dismissive of Leon's point tbh. Many of the same pressures are here now, especially the energy crisis which precipitated the trouble back then.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
Two big challenges for Sunak.
One is that he might end up being Johnson with better control of his trousers. He's just as willing to be utterly dishonest;
That Sunak article in the Sun is pretty extraordinary. He cites a "colder than usual winter" meaning we've "used up more of our gas stores". But the Tories shut down three quarters of the UK's gas storage in 2017, and so far this winter has been one of the mildest on record.
I would imagine that The Fall of Boris will be irresistible to TV drama-makers. But who would play the leads?
Presumably, Benedict Cumberbatch would revive his peerless Dom.
Boris, and Carrie, now there's two roles...
Jason Momoa to play Boris Johnson and Emilia Clarke to play Carrie.
Nailed on.
That influencer/presenter Oobah Butler to play Boris. I'm not sophisticated enough to upload pictures on here but seriously look him up. He'd need some ageing makeup but he could easily be one of Boris's children
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Partygate will be meh for many.
No, it really won't.
What almost all of us in this country went through was visceral, emotionally scarring, mentally damaging, physically draining. Not since the second world war has there been anything like it.
And all the while our dear leader was pissing around behind our backs.
We're very very angry.
It's lethal poison.
Yes, but in fairness, you hated him before any of this came out.
Indy: Cummings is correct. She [Mirza], like him, has come to the conclusion that Johnson is now beyond help, not up to the job, and it’s in everyone’s interest that she says so publicly. So, in a more circumspect fashion, has Rishi Sunak.
Johnson had a lot to thank the woman he liked to call “Dr Mirza” for. She was his gaslighter-in-chief on race. Yet on the one occasion she asked him to say sorry for something, he would not listen to her, apparently to the point of watching her resign over it. For those who think him loyal to his friends it is an appalling reflection of his selfish, stubborn, nasty personality. He’s really not as cuddly as he makes out, and relies on his own judgement. He must be getting lonely, though.
Mirza has really cut through to the fence-sitting MPs, I was told last night.
I'm not surprised. She does come across as one of the few honest brokers in this whole sordid business
The author of the whole cynical, outrage-driven "war on woke" strategy is an honest broker?
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
The storm for all of us is only just beginning. I fear inflation is possibly going to explode, feeding off itself - worldwide - heading into double digits
Like nothing we’ve experienced since the 1970s?
You do love a bit of alarmism eh? I am sure you remember the 70s better than me, being quite a bit older (according to your publicity material), but IIRC there were a lot more inflationary pressures then and no willingness to attempt to control it other than by pointless wage policies that failed miserably
I think that's a bit too dismissive of Leon's point tbh. Many of the same pressures are here now, especially the energy crisis which precipitated the trouble back then.
It is definitely a concern, particularly to those that will be hit hardest, but hopefully it may iron itself out in a few months
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
You do write some utter guff (using questionable statistics to back your wild assertions) about the politics of Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has just done what he needed to do to regain DUP voters lost to TUV as Johnson did what he needed to do to regain Tory voters lpst to the Brexit Party in 2019
As you know, I regularly travel to Northern Ireland and the politics baffles me. I do talk to people from both sides of the divide and although they tell me their relationship with the ballot box is complicated they are not stupid.
Most people in Northern Ireland seem to just want to get on with their lives. The vast majority think Poots and Donaldson are chancers. I hear stories about how they work that I wouldn't repeat on here. That is not to say moderate Unionists won't vote for them, but at the same time they understand their game.
If Johnson and Lewis think dicking about with Northern Ireland without a get away plan is clever, they are even more stupid than I took them for.
Moderate Unionists vote UUP or Alliance not DUP on the whole. Nationalists vote SF or SDLP and would not touch the DUP with a bargepole.
Hardline Unionists are the DUP core vote, so as I said Donaldson has done what he needed to do to get even harder line Unionists who have gone TUV over the NIP back voting DUP again
I would imagine that The Fall of Boris will be irresistible to TV drama-makers. But who would play the leads?
Presumably, Benedict Cumberbatch would revive his peerless Dom.
Boris, and Carrie, now there's two roles...
Jason Momoa to play Boris Johnson and Emilia Clarke to play Carrie.
Nailed on.
That influencer/presenter Oobah Butler to play Boris. I'm not sophisticated enough to upload pictures on here but seriously look him up. He'd need some ageing makeup but he could easily be one of Boris's children
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
Its total guesswork with all respect to his fine work. My mp is listed as cool but is the furthest from a rebel you can get.
... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
However, I agree that it looks awful, but I stick with the thought that he doesn't jump; he has to be pushed. And unless he is, and pushed hard, he'll stay.
And I recommend, in this context, Andrew Murrison's piece in the Guardian.
Carrie has had a reasonably free ride because it isn't polite to call someone 'Lady Macbeth' anymore. However anyone who knows the play will know that it's a toss up who is worse Lady M or Big M himself! I think the Scottish play is an almost perfect match for those two. As for the three witches....take your pick
"By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes." Shakespear is full of great lines but for me that is right up there. By the end of the play MacBeth has gone well beyond his wife.
Rishi ..................'Is this a dagger I see before me?'
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
A tank of petrol cost me £50 last year. I spent nearly £80 filling up last night.
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
Boris is the Liar in Chief. But the entire Tory party - with a few rare exceptions - are now lying about pretty much everything every time they come on air.
The idea that there are all these honest replacements waiting to take over if only Boris were to leave is just so much whistling in the dark by Tories and their supporters, some of them on here.
Their hands are "stepped in" blood quite as far as everyone else, if we want to continue with the Macbeth theme.
Though that, of course, is about being so far committed that there's no turning back. ...Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er...
It effectively shows my doubts when 'levelling up' so often means 'become more like London'.
The data research firm CACI provided me with profiles of central Ashington and Edmonton Green. In many ways, they look alike. Household income is, if anything, higher in central Ashington, while private tenants in my old neighbourhood spend almost triple their counterparts in the north-east on rent. Overall, the Londoners, my Londoners, make do with half the disposable income of those in Ashington. The one big difference is that residents of Ashington are older and 98% white, whereas Edmonton has families from Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Somalia and south Asia. Whether from the north or the south, economically these people are in the same boat – which makes it vital for the Tories to harp on about their cultural differences. Rich remainers, citizens of nowhere … you know the rest.
There's another big difference...
Tenure: Edmonton Green | Ashington
Owned: 29.7% | 55.8% Owned: Owned outright: 10.7% | 27.9% Owned: Owned with a mortgage or loan: 19.0% | 27.9%
Shared ownership (part owned and part rented): 2.3% | 0.1%
Social rented: 43.1% | 14.5% Social rented: Rented from council (Local Authority): 23.3% | 2.6% Social rented: Other: 19.8% | 11.9%
I would imagine that The Fall of Boris will be irresistible to TV drama-makers. But who would play the leads?
Presumably, Benedict Cumberbatch would revive his peerless Dom.
Boris, and Carrie, now there's two roles...
Jason Momoa to play Boris Johnson and Emilia Clarke to play Carrie.
Nailed on.
That influencer/presenter Oobah Butler to play Boris. I'm not sophisticated enough to upload pictures on here but seriously look him up. He'd need some ageing makeup but he could easily be one of Boris's children
Good call. I didn't know the name, but I remember the "fake restaurant" thing.
Also, on my Google autocomplete, the top suggestion for "oobah butler" is "oobah butler boris johnson"...
Indy: Cummings is correct. She [Mirza], like him, has come to the conclusion that Johnson is now beyond help, not up to the job, and it’s in everyone’s interest that she says so publicly. So, in a more circumspect fashion, has Rishi Sunak.
Johnson had a lot to thank the woman he liked to call “Dr Mirza” for. She was his gaslighter-in-chief on race. Yet on the one occasion she asked him to say sorry for something, he would not listen to her, apparently to the point of watching her resign over it. For those who think him loyal to his friends it is an appalling reflection of his selfish, stubborn, nasty personality. He’s really not as cuddly as he makes out, and relies on his own judgement. He must be getting lonely, though.
Mirza has really cut through to the fence-sitting MPs, I was told last night.
I'm not surprised. She does come across as one of the few honest brokers in this whole sordid business
Honest? I know that there is this rush to canonise everyone who resigns as some sort of saint just because on this one occasion they say something the hearer agrees with. But really. She's been his principal adviser for 14 years, apparently essential to him. So she's been a large part of creating and sustaining the problem he is. Let's not forget her responsibility for that.
She has also been described as his key policy advisor. And what might those amazing policies be, then? Because it's hard to think of any which have amounted to anything more than bluster.
Really? Starmer should have no difficulty unpicking the untruths set out by Sunak in his latest Sun article - the claim that our gas supplies are so low because of the terrible winter we've been having when the reality is the opposite. It has not been a bad winter and it was this government's decision to shut down three-quarters of the country's gas storage in 2017 which has made energy supplies more difficult than they might otherwise be.
Two easily disproved lies by PB's now favourite Tory - Sunak.
I hope Starmer goes for him.
The Natural Gas storage factor is indeed far too often ignored by the press in the current debate. On the question of Munira Mirza, she has a very strange background in that cultish group around Frank Furedi, communists turned revolutionary capitalists obsessed with "modernity" , at all costs. This strange group are are also behind Spiked/Living Marxism/ all their other many and diverse incarnations , etc.
Claire Fox is another one of those weirdos. I seem to recall there was much humming and deflecting about who sponsored her appointment to the HoL, nuthin' to do with oor Boris etc. I assume like BJ's non-similarities to Trump, we can all now drop those pretenses.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Partygate will be meh for many.
No, it really won't.
What almost all of us in this country went through was visceral, emotionally scarring, mentally damaging, physically draining. Not since the second world war has there been anything like it.
And all the while our dear leader was pissing around behind our backs.
We're very very angry.
It's lethal poison.
Yes, but in fairness, you hated him before any of this came out.
Well, the penny dropped several years ago as it did for many people on pb.com judging by the threads.
I saw through the magician's sleight of hand and once that's happened you can't undo it. Max Hastings nailed it, of course but so did some others.
I don't hate all Conservatives per se or by default. I felt rather sorry for Theresa May because she was dealt a rotten hand and there's still an awful lot of misogyny on the tory benches. As someone close to the scene whispered to me, 'if her deal had been presented by a man it probably would have gone through.'
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
The storm for all of us is only just beginning. I fear inflation is possibly going to explode, feeding off itself - worldwide - heading into double digits
Like nothing we’ve experienced since the 1970s?
You do love a bit of alarmism eh? I am sure you remember the 70s better than me, being quite a bit older (according to your publicity material), but IIRC there were a lot more inflationary pressures then and no willingness to attempt to control it other than by pointless wage policies that failed miserably
I think that's a bit too dismissive of Leon's point tbh. Many of the same pressures are here now, especially the energy crisis which precipitated the trouble back then.
Normally, @Nigel_Foremain would be right. Pandemics generally lead to LOWER inflation. The Black Death is an exception
But the combo of circs now is highly unusual. An energy crunch, a populist move against migration (driving up labour costs), geopolitical instability, the rise of autocracies, a sudden halt and pull back in globalisation, plus continuing covid shocks, and closed economies, it feels like a mix of the 1920s/30s and the 1970s
Which means serious inflation? We shall see
So far almost every economist has underestimated the strength and tenacity of this inflationary surge
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
You do write some utter guff (using questionable statistics to back your wild assertions) about the politics of Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has just done what he needed to do to regain DUP voters lost to TUV as Johnson did what he needed to do to regain Tory voters lost to the Brexit Party in 2019
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Partygate will be meh for many.
No, it really won't.
What almost all of us in this country went through was visceral, emotionally scarring, mentally damaging, physically draining. Not since the second world war has there been anything like it.
And all the while our dear leader was pissing around behind our backs.
We're very very angry.
It's lethal poison.
Yet Labour lost significant votes in all 3 Council By elections yesterday, and the tories gained significantly in Leicester despite everyone being very very angry. Apparently other local issues are much more important than what gets 90% of news coverage every day for the past 2 months
Well observed.
I would question whether Erdington really is a foregone conclusion for labour or indeed anybody, and whether the polls are telling us the whole story.
Labour will face a determined challenge from the left, and Reform will try hard to get tory votes on the right. I think its a fascinating by-election.
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
You do write some utter guff (using questionable statistics to back your wild assertions) about the politics of Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has just done what he needed to do to regain DUP voters lost to TUV as Johnson did what he needed to do to regain Tory voters lpst to the Brexit Party in 2019
As you know, I regularly travel to Northern Ireland and the politics baffles me. I do talk to people from both sides of the divide and although they tell me their relationship with the ballot box is complicated they are not stupid.
Most people in Northern Ireland seem to just want to get on with their lives. The vast majority think Poots and Donaldson are chancers. I hear stories about how they work that I wouldn't repeat on here. That is not to say moderate Unionists won't vote for them, but at the same time they understand their game.
If Johnson and Lewis think dicking about with Northern Ireland without a get away plan is clever, they are even more stupid than I took them for.
Moderate Unionists vote UUP or Alliance not DUP on the whole. Nationalists vote SF or SDLP and would not touch the DUP with a bargepole.
Hardline Unionists are the DUP core vote, so as I said Donaldson has done what he needed to do to get even harder line Unionists who have gone TUV over the NIP back voting DUP again
You are still writing b*******!
A tip: you don't understand the complexities beyond your statistics, and you are genuinely winding up Mr Foremain.
... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
However, I agree that it looks awful, but I stick with the thought that he doesn't jump; he has to be pushed. And unless he is, and pushed hard, he'll stay.
And I recommend, in this context, Andrew Murrison's piece in the Guardian.
Carrie has had a reasonably free ride because it isn't polite to call someone 'Lady Macbeth' anymore. However anyone who knows the play will know that it's a toss up who is worse Lady M or Big M himself! I think the Scottish play is an almost perfect match for those two. As for the three witches....take your pick
"By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes." Shakespear is full of great lines but for me that is right up there. By the end of the play MacBeth has gone well beyond his wife.
Rishi ..................'Is this a dagger I see before me?'
"You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, to cry, ‘Hold, hold!’"
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
A tank of petrol cost me £50 last year. I spent nearly £80 filling up last night.
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
Boris is the Liar in Chief. But the entire Tory party - with a few rare exceptions - are now lying about pretty much everything every time they come on air.
The idea that there are all these honest replacements waiting to take over if only Boris were to leave is just so much whistling in the dark by Tories and their supporters, some of them on here.
Their hands are "stepped in" blood quite as far as everyone else, if we want to continue with the Macbeth theme.
Yebbut...
The voters want someone to take the fall for Partygate, and then move on.
That "someone" obviously has to be Boris. He owns it. No-one else.
They will give a fair wind to his successor, "honest", or not.
I would imagine that The Fall of Boris will be irresistible to TV drama-makers. But who would play the leads?
Presumably, Benedict Cumberbatch would revive his peerless Dom.
Boris, and Carrie, now there's two roles...
A perfect role for Benny Hill were he still with us
I suppose Michael Crawford and Michelle Dotrice are unavailable, but would have been a perfect match in their breakout roles.... Though not sure where Larry the cat would have done a whoopsie if Boris doesn¨t wear a beret...
(The issue is that 80 Irish establishment high-ups - Senators etc - went to a banquet in the middle of lockdown. They dealt with the "50 person gathering" rule by erecting a screen down the middle of the room, so £xxxx a day lawyers were arguing about how big a gap in the screen made it one space).
That's what will happen if we end up with a Big Boris trial.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
A tank of petrol cost me £50 last year. I spent nearly £80 filling up last night.
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
Then again, in late 2019 you'd have been paying ~125p/l compared with ~145p/l now - sure, an increase, but I think you're instead comparing it with a period when fuel demand was artifically suppressed by the government.
Indy: Cummings is correct. She [Mirza], like him, has come to the conclusion that Johnson is now beyond help, not up to the job, and it’s in everyone’s interest that she says so publicly. So, in a more circumspect fashion, has Rishi Sunak.
Johnson had a lot to thank the woman he liked to call “Dr Mirza” for. She was his gaslighter-in-chief on race. Yet on the one occasion she asked him to say sorry for something, he would not listen to her, apparently to the point of watching her resign over it. For those who think him loyal to his friends it is an appalling reflection of his selfish, stubborn, nasty personality. He’s really not as cuddly as he makes out, and relies on his own judgement. He must be getting lonely, though.
Mirza has really cut through to the fence-sitting MPs, I was told last night.
I'm not surprised. She does come across as one of the few honest brokers in this whole sordid business
The author of the whole cynical, outrage-driven "war on woke" strategy is an honest broker?
Some people really do believe the current-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-awesome thing.
Hence Dom becoming the toast of some interesting people.
At the height of the AUUKUS row, a poster or 2 on PB tried on, like a dress, liking Putin as a Proper Statesman.
I would imagine that The Fall of Boris will be irresistible to TV drama-makers. But who would play the leads?
Presumably, Benedict Cumberbatch would revive his peerless Dom.
Boris, and Carrie, now there's two roles...
Jason Momoa to play Boris Johnson and Emilia Clarke to play Carrie.
Nailed on.
That influencer/presenter Oobah Butler to play Boris. I'm not sophisticated enough to upload pictures on here but seriously look him up. He'd need some ageing makeup but he could easily be one of Boris's children
Good call. I didn't know the name, but I remember the "fake restaurant" thing.
Also, on my Google autocomplete, the top suggestion for "oobah butler" is "oobah butler boris johnson"...
He actually looks even more like him these days (attempting a picture).
... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
However, I agree that it looks awful, but I stick with the thought that he doesn't jump; he has to be pushed. And unless he is, and pushed hard, he'll stay.
And I recommend, in this context, Andrew Murrison's piece in the Guardian.
Little point me writing to my MP about Johnson I see, for it is Murrison.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
A tank of petrol cost me £50 last year. I spent nearly £80 filling up last night.
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
Then again, in late 2019 you'd have been paying ~125p/l compared with ~145p/l now - sure, an increase, but I think you're instead comparing it with a period when fuel demand was artifically suppressed by the government.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
A tank of petrol cost me £50 last year. I spent nearly £80 filling up last night.
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
Have you been hacked?
Nope, I think this was always going to be his reaction to money disappearing with inflation. If you want scary check this from Martin Lewis
I remember Electricity being 14p per KWh less than 18 months ago.
Anyway. Share my pain. After a hard morning of work I have repaired to the swimming pool, looking forward to a chilled cocktail or two
Every single bar in the country is shut. Ditto off licenses. Independence Day must be observed with Ceylonese sobriety
Leon, in the spirit of ongoing conciliation tell us your top 5 travel suggestions right now? Weigh up everything, including the fact that many of us find the Passenger Locator Form a pain in the arse and the various restrictions etc. etc.
What are your top 5 getaways, all things considered?
... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
However, I agree that it looks awful, but I stick with the thought that he doesn't jump; he has to be pushed. And unless he is, and pushed hard, he'll stay.
And I recommend, in this context, Andrew Murrison's piece in the Guardian.
Carrie has had a reasonably free ride because it isn't polite to call someone 'Lady Macbeth' anymore. However anyone who knows the play will know that it's a toss up who is worse Lady M or Big M himself! I think the Scottish play is an almost perfect match for those two. As for the three witches....take your pick
Johnson is more Yorick - the fool of infinite jest - than the defamed Scottish monarch.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
Two big challenges for Sunak.
One is that he might end up being Johnson with better control of his trousers. He's just as willing to be utterly dishonest;
That Sunak article in the Sun is pretty extraordinary. He cites a "colder than usual winter" meaning we've "used up more of our gas stores". But the Tories shut down three quarters of the UK's gas storage in 2017, and so far this winter has been one of the mildest on record.
FWIW I think the current crisis is somewhat overdone. We have a lot of electricity capacity coming on stream, and elec demand falls by 15% in the summer. And gas demand falls by more. And half of UK customers are on fixed price deals still.
So whilst prices will stay mainly linked to world prices, it will come in slowly, and the amount we need will reduce - which will reduce the total.
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Johnson is no grotesque interloper: his behaviour and attitudes are emblematic of the British establishment. If our ruling institutions have a shared culture, it’s entitlement and shamelessness, a conviction that wrongdoing should meet consequences only if you are poor and powerless.
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Owen must be weeping at how Starmer's star has risen
Indy: Cummings is correct. She [Mirza], like him, has come to the conclusion that Johnson is now beyond help, not up to the job, and it’s in everyone’s interest that she says so publicly. So, in a more circumspect fashion, has Rishi Sunak.
Johnson had a lot to thank the woman he liked to call “Dr Mirza” for. She was his gaslighter-in-chief on race. Yet on the one occasion she asked him to say sorry for something, he would not listen to her, apparently to the point of watching her resign over it. For those who think him loyal to his friends it is an appalling reflection of his selfish, stubborn, nasty personality. He’s really not as cuddly as he makes out, and relies on his own judgement. He must be getting lonely, though.
Mirza has really cut through to the fence-sitting MPs, I was told last night.
I'm not surprised. She does come across as one of the few honest brokers in this whole sordid business
Honest? I know that there is this rush to canonise everyone who resigns as some sort of saint just because on this one occasion they say something the hearer agrees with. But really. She's been his principal adviser for 14 years, apparently essential to him. So she's been a large part of creating and sustaining the problem he is. Let's not forget her responsibility for that.
She has also been described as his key policy advisor. And what might those amazing policies be, then? Because it's hard to think of any which have amounted to anything more than bluster.
Really? Starmer should have no difficulty unpicking the untruths set out by Sunak in his latest Sun article - the claim that our gas supplies are so low because of the terrible winter we've been having when the reality is the opposite. It has not been a bad winter and it was this government's decision to shut down three-quarters of the country's gas storage in 2017 which has made energy supplies more difficult than they might otherwise be.
Two easily disproved lies by PB's now favourite Tory - Sunak.
I hope Starmer goes for him.
The only way he could get any sort of redemption is if he came to the despatch box and said " I resign. I'd like everyone to know that Brexit is a load of bollocks which I always knew it to be. I did it to enable me to become Prime Minister knowing it would damage the country. I'm very sorry. I will be retiring with my wife to a small bungalow iin Hartlepool decorated by Lulu Lyttle."
... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
However, I agree that it looks awful, but I stick with the thought that he doesn't jump; he has to be pushed. And unless he is, and pushed hard, he'll stay.
And I recommend, in this context, Andrew Murrison's piece in the Guardian.
Little point me writing to my MP about Johnson I see, for it is Murrison.
Me too
I wrote to mine last night. He is listed by Mr Meeks as "Cool".
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
You do write some utter guff (using questionable statistics to back your wild assertions) about the politics of Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has just done what he needed to do to regain DUP voters lost to TUV as Johnson did what he needed to do to regain Tory voters lpst to the Brexit Party in 2019
As you know, I regularly travel to Northern Ireland and the politics baffles me. I do talk to people from both sides of the divide and although they tell me their relationship with the ballot box is complicated they are not stupid.
Most people in Northern Ireland seem to just want to get on with their lives. The vast majority think Poots and Donaldson are chancers. I hear stories about how they work that I wouldn't repeat on here. That is not to say moderate Unionists won't vote for them, but at the same time they understand their game.
If Johnson and Lewis think dicking about with Northern Ireland without a get away plan is clever, they are even more stupid than I took them for.
Moderate Unionists vote UUP or Alliance not DUP on the whole. Nationalists vote SF or SDLP and would not touch the DUP with a bargepole.
Hardline Unionists are the DUP core vote, so as I said Donaldson has done what he needed to do to get even harder line Unionists who have gone TUV over the NIP back voting DUP again
You should lay off NI commentary because the more you do the more obvious it is you know very little about it. Class, religion, demographics, rural v urban - all very different to England. Go and live there for a good few years (as I did) before even risking a suspicion of how the land lies. Although I did enjoy your independent Antrim segway.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
A tank of petrol cost me £50 last year. I spent nearly £80 filling up last night.
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
Then again, in late 2019 you'd have been paying ~125p/l compared with ~145p/l now - sure, an increase, but I think you're instead comparing it with a period when fuel demand was artifically suppressed by the government.
I remember in late-Spring of 2020 after we'd been in lockdown for a while I finally needed to fill the car up with petrol. I remember paying 99p/litre at Asda. I realise that it was pushed lower due to low demand back then. Still, it is almost a 50% increase in less than 2 years.
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Johnson is no grotesque interloper: his behaviour and attitudes are emblematic of the British establishment. If our ruling institutions have a shared culture, it’s entitlement and shamelessness, a conviction that wrongdoing should meet consequences only if you are poor and powerless.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
A tank of petrol cost me £50 last year. I spent nearly £80 filling up last night.
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
Then again, in late 2019 you'd have been paying ~125p/l compared with ~145p/l now - sure, an increase, but I think you're instead comparing it with a period when fuel demand was artifically suppressed by the government.
Fair point. However it's still a 20% price rise combined with a tax rise too.
If as I was advocating there'd been a tax cut and rising wages there'd be more disposable income and some inflation to combat the structural problems in the economy of debt and house price to earnings ratios would be no bad thing.
But the government have burnt that bridge by raising taxes. So we have prices increasing, but take home pay falling due to tax rises. That is a death spiral and the government deserves nothing but contempt for increasing taxes in these circumstances.
It effectively shows my doubts when 'levelling up' so often means 'become more like London'.
The data research firm CACI provided me with profiles of central Ashington and Edmonton Green. In many ways, they look alike. Household income is, if anything, higher in central Ashington, while private tenants in my old neighbourhood spend almost triple their counterparts in the north-east on rent. Overall, the Londoners, my Londoners, make do with half the disposable income of those in Ashington. The one big difference is that residents of Ashington are older and 98% white, whereas Edmonton has families from Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Somalia and south Asia. Whether from the north or the south, economically these people are in the same boat – which makes it vital for the Tories to harp on about their cultural differences. Rich remainers, citizens of nowhere … you know the rest.
There's another big difference...
Tenure: Edmonton Green | Ashington
Owned: 29.7% | 55.8% Owned: Owned outright: 10.7% | 27.9% Owned: Owned with a mortgage or loan: 19.0% | 27.9%
Shared ownership (part owned and part rented): 2.3% | 0.1%
Social rented: 43.1% | 14.5% Social rented: Rented from council (Local Authority): 23.3% | 2.6% Social rented: Other: 19.8% | 11.9%
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Johnson is no grotesque interloper: his behaviour and attitudes are emblematic of the British establishment. If our ruling institutions have a shared culture, it’s entitlement and shamelessness, a conviction that wrongdoing should meet consequences only if you are poor and powerless.
In some ways he's not wrong. The problem is that it is universal - we have a new upper 10,000 and they are worse than the previous lot. In the Goode Olde Days* the equivalent of Cressida Dick or the people involved in Rotherham wouldn't still be in post. After their (the old version) screwups, they actually lost their jobs in permeant ways.
We have replaced the Squirearchy with the Professionals**, who are eternally Learning Lessons.
*Which weren't good. **Who don't even appear to be as competent as CI5. They certainly aren't very Expert - in every field they seem to be utterly clueless as to real Best Practise in the real world.
I would imagine that The Fall of Boris will be irresistible to TV drama-makers. But who would play the leads?
Presumably, Benedict Cumberbatch would revive his peerless Dom.
Boris, and Carrie, now there's two roles...
Jason Momoa to play Boris Johnson and Emilia Clarke to play Carrie.
Nailed on.
That influencer/presenter Oobah Butler to play Boris. I'm not sophisticated enough to upload pictures on here but seriously look him up. He'd need some ageing makeup but he could easily be one of Boris's children
Good call. I didn't know the name, but I remember the "fake restaurant" thing.
Also, on my Google autocomplete, the top suggestion for "oobah butler" is "oobah butler boris johnson"...
He actually looks even more like him these days (attempting a picture).
A bit too good looking for Boris Johnson. He would also need to "Supersize me" for about a year and even then still wear a fat suit.
FWIW I think that we will reach the 54 (did it just go up) today, that the VONC will be over the next 3-4 days and that Boris will lose. The wheels are coming off and spiraling into chaos. The centre cannot hold.
This is nuts. Sunak will be extremely damaged by the looming inflation crisis. He should move now.
Stewart Wood @StewartWood If you wanted to be the next Conservative Prime Minister, you would want Boris Johnson to own as much of the mushrooming cost of living crisis as possible. Plus the probable electoral nightmare of May’s local elections. All of which suggests months of zombie government by default
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
You do write some utter guff (using questionable statistics to back your wild assertions) about the politics of Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has just done what he needed to do to regain DUP voters lost to TUV as Johnson did what he needed to do to regain Tory voters lpst to the Brexit Party in 2019
As you know, I regularly travel to Northern Ireland and the politics baffles me. I do talk to people from both sides of the divide and although they tell me their relationship with the ballot box is complicated they are not stupid.
Most people in Northern Ireland seem to just want to get on with their lives. The vast majority think Poots and Donaldson are chancers. I hear stories about how they work that I wouldn't repeat on here. That is not to say moderate Unionists won't vote for them, but at the same time they understand their game.
If Johnson and Lewis think dicking about with Northern Ireland without a get away plan is clever, they are even more stupid than I took them for.
Moderate Unionists vote UUP or Alliance not DUP on the whole. Nationalists vote SF or SDLP and would not touch the DUP with a bargepole.
Hardline Unionists are the DUP core vote, so as I said Donaldson has done what he needed to do to get even harder line Unionists who have gone TUV over the NIP back voting DUP again
You should lay off NI commentary because the more you do the more obvious it is you know very little about it. Class, religion, demographics, rural v urban - all very different to England. Go and live there for a good few years (as I did) before even risking a suspicion of how the land lies. Although I did enjoy your independent Antrim segway.
I went to NI 2 years ago. Including seeing posters supporting the paras and full of Union Jacks outside in North Antrim. While also going to Fermanagh which was closer to Ireland. I have studied it at university too.
So don't patronise me. Donaldson is doing what he needs to get the hardline loyalist vote back behind him as I correctly said
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
A tank of petrol cost me £50 last year. I spent nearly £80 filling up last night.
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
Then again, in late 2019 you'd have been paying ~125p/l compared with ~145p/l now - sure, an increase, but I think you're instead comparing it with a period when fuel demand was artifically suppressed by the government.
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
You do write some utter guff (using questionable statistics to back your wild assertions) about the politics of Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has just done what he needed to do to regain DUP voters lost to TUV as Johnson did what he needed to do to regain Tory voters lpst to the Brexit Party in 2019
As you know, I regularly travel to Northern Ireland and the politics baffles me. I do talk to people from both sides of the divide and although they tell me their relationship with the ballot box is complicated they are not stupid.
Most people in Northern Ireland seem to just want to get on with their lives. The vast majority think Poots and Donaldson are chancers. I hear stories about how they work that I wouldn't repeat on here. That is not to say moderate Unionists won't vote for them, but at the same time they understand their game.
If Johnson and Lewis think dicking about with Northern Ireland without a get away plan is clever, they are even more stupid than I took them for.
Moderate Unionists vote UUP or Alliance not DUP on the whole. Nationalists vote SF or SDLP and would not touch the DUP with a bargepole.
Hardline Unionists are the DUP core vote, so as I said Donaldson has done what he needed to do to get even harder line Unionists who have gone TUV over the NIP back voting DUP again
You should lay off NI commentary because the more you do the more obvious it is you know very little about it. Class, religion, demographics, rural v urban - all very different to England. Go and live there for a good few years (as I did) before even risking a suspicion of how the land lies. Although I did enjoy your independent Antrim segway.
Well said. It made me a bit cross yesterday to say the least. I don't think I have ever been more cross about anything anyone has ever written on here before.
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
You do write some utter guff (using questionable statistics to back your wild assertions) about the politics of Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has just done what he needed to do to regain DUP voters lost to TUV as Johnson did what he needed to do to regain Tory voters lpst to the Brexit Party in 2019
As you know, I regularly travel to Northern Ireland and the politics baffles me. I do talk to people from both sides of the divide and although they tell me their relationship with the ballot box is complicated they are not stupid.
Most people in Northern Ireland seem to just want to get on with their lives. The vast majority think Poots and Donaldson are chancers. I hear stories about how they work that I wouldn't repeat on here. That is not to say moderate Unionists won't vote for them, but at the same time they understand their game.
If Johnson and Lewis think dicking about with Northern Ireland without a get away plan is clever, they are even more stupid than I took them for.
Moderate Unionists vote UUP or Alliance not DUP on the whole. Nationalists vote SF or SDLP and would not touch the DUP with a bargepole.
Hardline Unionists are the DUP core vote, so as I said Donaldson has done what he needed to do to get even harder line Unionists who have gone TUV over the NIP back voting DUP again
You should lay off NI commentary because the more you do the more obvious it is you know very little about it. Class, religion, demographics, rural v urban - all very different to England. Go and live there for a good few years (as I did) before even risking a suspicion of how the land lies. Although I did enjoy your independent Antrim segway.
I went to NI 2 years ago. Including seeing posters supporting the paras and full of Union Jacks outside in North Antrim. While also going to Fermanagh which was closer to Ireland. I have studied it a university too.
So don't you patronise me. Donaldson is doing what he needs to get the hardline loyalist vote back behind him as I said
So a quick visit and a university course that you aren't providing any actual detail about.
Again your problem is a very simple one, you don't understand the limit of your knowledge so are happy to work on incomplete information as if it is complete.
... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
In a way that's the point I'm making. Probably I should have said he's sacked all his advisers except his wife.
Bizarrely - and shamefully - announcing his divorce is one thing that would actually go down well with a lot of Tory members, judging from some of the comments you see from them
Definitely a lot of misogyny around but it's also because she's perceived as the one behind his left-wing green policies, amongst a load of other alleged character defects.
Johnson has managed to piss off the whole party. Not even Theresa May managed that.
Johnson has been consistently in the Green wing of the Conservative party for a number of years - even before Cameron was leader, IIRC
I don't know how anyone can apply the word consistent to Johnson on anything. He flits and flies at the merest whim.
Some of his policies appear green one week and others hard right the next. He's an assortment of populist demagogy and downright lies.
On the green agenda stuff he has been pushing the policies fairly steadily - faster end to ICE, more wind power etc
This is a continuation of various previous government policies, but there has been no slackening of the pace on this. If anything an acceleration.
I saw some convincing commentary that feet are being dragged on replacing the larger Green renovation schemes (the smaller one funded by the green levy has been very successful). These have been a series of disasters since 2010.
This is because of the Conservatives being cowards about taking the Owner Occupied bull by the horns and making OO people pay their way, and the Treasury not being put back in its toybox sufficiently.
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Johnson is no grotesque interloper: his behaviour and attitudes are emblematic of the British establishment. If our ruling institutions have a shared culture, it’s entitlement and shamelessness, a conviction that wrongdoing should meet consequences only if you are poor and powerless.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
A tank of petrol cost me £50 last year. I spent nearly £80 filling up last night.
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
Then again, in late 2019 you'd have been paying ~125p/l compared with ~145p/l now - sure, an increase, but I think you're instead comparing it with a period when fuel demand was artifically suppressed by the government.
I remember in late-Spring of 2020 after we'd been in lockdown for a while I finally needed to fill the car up with petrol. I remember paying 99p/litre at Asda. I realise that it was pushed lower due to low demand back then. Still, it is almost a 50% increase in less than 2 years.
However, that's an artificial measurement from a downward spike.
... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
In a way that's the point I'm making. Probably I should have said he's sacked all his advisers except his wife.
Bizarrely - and shamefully - announcing his divorce is one thing that would actually go down well with a lot of Tory members, judging from some of the comments you see from them
Definitely a lot of misogyny around but it's also because she's perceived as the one behind his left-wing green policies, amongst a load of other alleged character defects.
Johnson has managed to piss off the whole party. Not even Theresa May managed that.
Johnson has been consistently in the Green wing of the Conservative party for a number of years - even before Cameron was leader, IIRC
I don't know how anyone can apply the word consistent to Johnson on anything. He flits and flies at the merest whim.
Some of his policies appear green one week and others hard right the next. He's an assortment of populist demagogy and downright lies.
On the green agenda stuff he has been pushing the policies fairly steadily - faster end to ICE, more wind power etc
This is a continuation of various previous government policies, but there has been no slackening of the pace on this. If anything an acceleration.
I saw some convincing commentary that feet are being dragged on replacing the larger Green renovation schemes (the smaller one funded by the green levy has been very successful). These have been a series of disasters since 2010.
This is because of the Conservatives being cowards about taking the Owner Occupied bull by the horns and making OO people pay their way, and the Treasury not being put back in its toybox sufficiently.
If OO people have to pay their own way, landlords also need to pay their own way and that opens up a whole set of problems.
This is nuts. Sunak will be extremely damaged by the looming inflation crisis. He should move now.
Stewart Wood @StewartWood If you wanted to be the next Conservative Prime Minister, you would want Boris Johnson to own as much of the mushrooming cost of living crisis as possible. Plus the probable electoral nightmare of May’s local elections. All of which suggests months of zombie government by default
I feel like either I'm very dumb or a lot of commentators are as I just dont get this idea that a new leader would avoid blowback for things being crappy by waiting a few months, or that they would be incapable of pushing some blame in their predecessor if they acted now.
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
You do write some utter guff (using questionable statistics to back your wild assertions) about the politics of Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has just done what he needed to do to regain DUP voters lost to TUV as Johnson did what he needed to do to regain Tory voters lpst to the Brexit Party in 2019
As you know, I regularly travel to Northern Ireland and the politics baffles me. I do talk to people from both sides of the divide and although they tell me their relationship with the ballot box is complicated they are not stupid.
Most people in Northern Ireland seem to just want to get on with their lives. The vast majority think Poots and Donaldson are chancers. I hear stories about how they work that I wouldn't repeat on here. That is not to say moderate Unionists won't vote for them, but at the same time they understand their game.
If Johnson and Lewis think dicking about with Northern Ireland without a get away plan is clever, they are even more stupid than I took them for.
Moderate Unionists vote UUP or Alliance not DUP on the whole. Nationalists vote SF or SDLP and would not touch the DUP with a bargepole.
Hardline Unionists are the DUP core vote, so as I said Donaldson has done what he needed to do to get even harder line Unionists who have gone TUV over the NIP back voting DUP again
You should lay off NI commentary because the more you do the more obvious it is you know very little about it. Class, religion, demographics, rural v urban - all very different to England. Go and live there for a good few years (as I did) before even risking a suspicion of how the land lies. Although I did enjoy your independent Antrim segway.
I went to NI 2 years ago. Including seeing posters supporting the paras and full of Union Jacks outside in North Antrim. While also going to Fermanagh which was closer to Ireland. I have studied it at university too.
So don't patronise me. Donaldson is doing what he needs to get the hardline loyalist vote back behind him as I correctly said
Except there is plenty to patronise you about, particularly on this subject. Strongly advise you take the advice offered.
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Johnson is no grotesque interloper: his behaviour and attitudes are emblematic of the British establishment. If our ruling institutions have a shared culture, it’s entitlement and shamelessness, a conviction that wrongdoing should meet consequences only if you are poor and powerless.
OJ is half right. The British establishment is very much as he depicts, but the British establishment is overwhelmingly centre left leaning, Remainy, and moderately woke. Oddly OJ draws attention only to Tory exemplars.
... Has he not done exactly what he said he'd do in the House? He's got rid of the people who were 'badly' advising him ...
If that was the strategy with the other three, the way in which it was done couldn't have backfired more disastrously. Surely the press should have been well and truly briefed about what was about to happen before the resignations went in. With Mirza announcing her resignation on a point of principle first, it gave the impression that Johnson's entire staff were walking out in protest at his behaviour. Probably a lot of people without too much interest in politics will still be left with that impression.
But I suppose if you sack all your advisers you're not likely to benefit from the best advice about how to go about it.
He hasn't sacked all his advisers; Carrie's still there.
In a way that's the point I'm making. Probably I should have said he's sacked all his advisers except his wife.
Bizarrely - and shamefully - announcing his divorce is one thing that would actually go down well with a lot of Tory members, judging from some of the comments you see from them
Definitely a lot of misogyny around but it's also because she's perceived as the one behind his left-wing green policies, amongst a load of other alleged character defects.
Johnson has managed to piss off the whole party. Not even Theresa May managed that.
Yes, but the problem isn't in having a wife with views - it's in having a leader without any, who is therefore weak and impressionable and willing to 'buy' ideas from others if they are pitched as being in his personal self-interest.
Sinn Féin 33% (+9) Fine Gael 21% (nc) Fianna Fáil 15% (-7) Greens 6 (-1) Social Democrats 5 (+2) Labour 4 (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 2 (-1) Aontú 2 (nc) others/independents 12 (-2)
(Red C/Business Post; 30 January 2022; 1,001; change from GE 2020)
When do we get one in Norn? How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight? It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.
- “When do we get one in Norn?”
The last one was just a couple of weeks ago:
‘Disaster for DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson as Sinn Fein extends lead to eight points’ - DUP chief the least popular leader in NI by a considerable margin
- “How popular is the idea of DUP picking a fight with everyone in sight?”
The Ulster Unionists hate everybody, including, and especially, themselves.
- “It used to be said that Irish didn't know what they wanted, and were willing to fight for it; looks very much as though that should be applied to the DUP.”
So, the DUP are quintessentially Irish? Ho ho. That’s you off their ‘Jesus was a Protestant’ Christmas card list.
76% of DUP voters and 98% of TUV voters wanted the DUP to collapse Stormont before the elections until the NIP protocol was scrapped.
In that poll you link to the combined DUP and TUV vote is 29% ahead of SF on 25%. If this unites the hardline loyalist vote behind the DUP it could put the DUP in front again
You do write some utter guff (using questionable statistics to back your wild assertions) about the politics of Northern Ireland.
Donaldson has just done what he needed to do to regain DUP voters lost to TUV as Johnson did what he needed to do to regain Tory voters lpst to the Brexit Party in 2019
As you know, I regularly travel to Northern Ireland and the politics baffles me. I do talk to people from both sides of the divide and although they tell me their relationship with the ballot box is complicated they are not stupid.
Most people in Northern Ireland seem to just want to get on with their lives. The vast majority think Poots and Donaldson are chancers. I hear stories about how they work that I wouldn't repeat on here. That is not to say moderate Unionists won't vote for them, but at the same time they understand their game.
If Johnson and Lewis think dicking about with Northern Ireland without a get away plan is clever, they are even more stupid than I took them for.
Moderate Unionists vote UUP or Alliance not DUP on the whole. Nationalists vote SF or SDLP and would not touch the DUP with a bargepole.
Hardline Unionists are the DUP core vote, so as I said Donaldson has done what he needed to do to get even harder line Unionists who have gone TUV over the NIP back voting DUP again
You should lay off NI commentary because the more you do the more obvious it is you know very little about it. Class, religion, demographics, rural v urban - all very different to England. Go and live there for a good few years (as I did) before even risking a suspicion of how the land lies. Although I did enjoy your independent Antrim segway.
I went to NI 2 years ago. Including seeing posters supporting the paras and full of Union Jacks outside in North Antrim. While also going to Fermanagh which was closer to Ireland. I have studied it a university too.
So don't you patronise me. Donaldson is doing what he needs to get the hardline loyalist vote back behind him as I said
So a quick visit and a university course that you aren't providing any actual detail about.
Again your problem is a very simple one, you don't understand the limit of your knowledge so are happy to work on incomplete information as if it is complete.
No, the polling evidence also supports what I say.
As I posted the vast majority of DUP voters and almost all TUV voters want the DUP to withdraw from the Stormont Executive until the NIP is scrapped.
It is me looking at the facts and recognising the anger of hardline loyalists at the NIP. Donaldson is therefore spot on in taking the action he did to stem leakage to TUV and try and regain top spot from SF.
You are just blinded by your indifference to the majority of the Unionist population in NI
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Johnson is no grotesque interloper: his behaviour and attitudes are emblematic of the British establishment. If our ruling institutions have a shared culture, it’s entitlement and shamelessness, a conviction that wrongdoing should meet consequences only if you are poor and powerless.
OJ is half right. The British establishment is very much as he depicts, but the British establishment is overwhelmingly centre left leaning, Remainy, and moderately woke. Oddly OJ draws attention only to Tory exemplars.
"The Establishment" is anything that those who feel they are not part of it want it to be.
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Owen must be weeping at how Starmer's star has risen
It is an all-too-common trait among too many who regarded Corbyn as the messiah. Basically they are willing Starmer to fail, gunning for him at every opportunity and as a consequence just consigning themselves to derision.
In the meantime, I am increasingly impressed with how not only Starmer but also the key players on the Labour front bench are stepping up to the mark. The opposition front bench under Starmer was initially a disappointment but since he rejigged it they seem to have got their collective act together.
I never realised Southend could be so Psychedelic. Perhaps more interesting than it looks, like some of those other newly fashionable seaside towns such as Margate.
The guy comes across as a lone nutter in the media write-ups of the campaign, but he was the only nutter who wasn't pushing an exclusively far right platform. He probably picked up a few votes from centre-left people who still felt it worthwhile (or their duty) to vote and weren't among the nearly 1,100 who wrote something rude about Johnson on their ballot.
On the VONC vote, surely the result last night persuades MPs not to stick the knife in now? Low turnout but 86% of the vote and, regardless of how you look at it, nearly 13,000 people voted for the Conservatives despite all the problems. Agreed, a lot will be postal vote but the point still holds.
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
If it gets to a VONC and Bozo wins the Tories are completely and utterly f***ed for generations.
Every none Tory on this site will be hoping you are right although annoyed about the damage that will be done meanwhile.
What a load of rubbish. Even now under Boris most polls have Labour less than 10% ahead. If he narrowly survives a VONC for now that would reflect that, though could be reassessed after the local elections.
Even if Starmer became PM if he was crap and his government unpopular the Tories would soon be back in the lead in the polls. Whatever happens to Boris
I did predict and bet on the over 80% band, though got turnout wrong at over 30%. So up on the contest modestly at the princely sum of £3.50.
The By-election in Evington (Leicester) is interesting, and shows the continuing problems of the Labour Party in the Leicester East Constituency following the Claudia Webbe fiasco. She was an unpopular imposition under Corbyn. It is in this constituency in nearby Humberstone that the city elected a Conservative councilor last year. He hasn't made much impact, turning up at 29% of expected attendances.
Evington is the poshest bit of the constituency, being mostly detached and semi detached housing around the Leicester General Hospital, and the best state schools in the city. It is mixed ethnically, mostly middle class. The sort of place where Sunak might be popular.
To keep perspective though, the LP has 52 of 54 Council seats, held this one, and the rest of the constituency is much more inner city working class of all ethnicities. Leicester East will stay Labour at the GE, unless the local Labour party does something seriously fratricidal.
On Alastair Meeks' count, hostile is up to 43... but friendly is up to 100. Still seems momentum is with Boris Johnson.
I suspect there is a lag in AM's data that may mean the friendlies are currently higher than they actually are. Were I a Tory MP I would be avoiding people at the weekend as you know what the conversations are going to be like.
I imagine we will see a slow but steady trickle of letters through until Monday when I would expect some sort of announcement.
Mps already know what their constituents think. It is now surely all about timing and positioning.
Another day breaks. Another day of Tory parliamentary majority wasted. And another day closer to the next election. There’s no refund on time, not that you would know it from the inaction of these gutless Tory MPs.
Two years is a long time in politics but I think the Conservatives may have already cooked their goose for 2024. Yesterday felt an awful lot like Black Wednesday. If you look at the polls from 1992 through 1994 when Blair took over, the damage to the Cons had already been done.
But at the moment I do have a begrudging respect for Rishi Sunak and I fear him. He's very capable and competent. I also liked his calm after the storm demeanour yesterday. Undoubtedly PM material but I think it's now or never.
Liz Truss would be my golden ticket.
No it didn't.
The Labour leads are still nothing like 1994 and absolutely nothing like the over 20% leads they had once Blair took over.
The Tories have also just won the Southern West by election with an increased voteshare on 2019. If the Tories were heading for a landslide defeat they would not have got 86% of the vote last night, no Labour and LD candidate or not
The site is, in my view, overpricing Partygate as an issue, and underpricing cost of living the same way.
If Johnson survives Partygate the call will be the storm is over, whereas in fact the storm for Johnson and all the tories will be just beginning.
Absolutely agree with this. Partygate will be meh for many. Meanwhile, I think the national expectation (whether justified or not) was for the good times to roll/roaring twenties post-pandemic.
That is manifestly not going to be the case with grim reality dominating the newswires now.
On the VONC vote, surely the result last night persuades MPs not to stick the knife in now? Low turnout but 86% of the vote and, regardless of how you look at it, nearly 13,000 people voted for the Conservatives despite all the problems. Agreed, a lot will be postal vote but the point still holds.
There are no tanks in the city, we are on the verge of a glorious victory
Quite a muscly Owen Jones piece here imo. His main point is we shouldn't be suckered by the Tory Party into thinking if Boris Johnson goes all is fine.
Owen must be weeping at how Starmer's star has risen
It is an all-too-common trait among too many who regarded Corbyn as the messiah. Basically they are willing Starmer to fail, gunning for him at every opportunity and as a consequence just consigning themselves to derision.
In the meantime, I am increasingly impressed with how not only Starmer but also the key players on the Labour front bench are stepping up to the mark. The opposition front bench under Starmer was initially a disappointment but since he rejigged it they seem to have got their collective act together.
I am right of centre but I have always rated Starmer. If he becomes PM, he will become the first PM in a very long time to have done a "proper job" outside of politics, and one that he has risen right to the very top in. He is a very smart cookie.
Reasons why Boris doesn't want to go now No 1 to 60million
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
I still think Boris wins a VONC 55% to 45% or so for now
If it gets to a VONC and Bozo wins the Tories are completely and utterly f***ed for generations.
Every none Tory on this site will be hoping you are right although annoyed about the damage that will be done meanwhile.
What a load of rubbish. Even now under Boris most polls have Labour less than 10% ahead. If he narrowly survives a VONC for now that would reflect that, though could be reassessed after the local elections.
Even if Starmer became PM and was crap the Tories would swiftly be back in the lead in the polls.
In May a lot of people see £50 disappear in extra fuel costs and £20 or so disappear in NI payments.
That £70 is the equivalent to a monthly night out so discretionary spending is going to take a massive hit.
It's 10% now, just wait a few months and watch as OAPs and others start to struggle to pay for things. I can see the Tories rapidly hitting the low 20s in polling especially if Boris is in place.
FWIW I think that we will reach the 54 (did it just go up) today, that the VONC will be over the next 3-4 days and that Boris will lose. The wheels are coming off and spiraling into chaos. The centre cannot hold.
I have been wrong before, of course.
Made the point last night but the interesting thing re the Tories so far is the dog that is not barking namely the ERG / anti-lockdown / pro-Red Wall grouping (bar one or two).
My guess is that faction is looking at either the potential successors - Sunak and Truss - and thinking that both would be worse for them than Johnson, especially when it comes to Brexit. Therefore, they will stick with BJ and take the view that it is better to have a PM dependent on their support than a new entrant who would reduce their influence and, more likely, focus on a "softer" agenda.
This is nuts. Sunak will be extremely damaged by the looming inflation crisis. He should move now.
Stewart Wood @StewartWood If you wanted to be the next Conservative Prime Minister, you would want Boris Johnson to own as much of the mushrooming cost of living crisis as possible. Plus the probable electoral nightmare of May’s local elections. All of which suggests months of zombie government by default
I always think that those who think they are being clever by arguing that there is a "right" time to take over are delusional. The right time is always now. Once there you can set the agenda, the mood, the tone. Yes, you will have problems but problems are also opportunities and, let's face it, the bar is pretty low right now. Avoiding calling the LOTO soft on peodophiles is not too difficult a start.
On the VONC vote, surely the result last night persuades MPs not to stick the knife in now? Low turnout but 86% of the vote and, regardless of how you look at it, nearly 13,000 people voted for the Conservatives despite all the problems. Agreed, a lot will be postal vote but the point still holds.
It really doesn't. A by election like this is a no win situation - you cannot claim it means anything if you win because all the major parties stood aside. So only if they did shockingly badly could it matter.
They didn't do shockingly badly, so that's something, but basing a perception of what they should do about their leader because of a highly unusual by election with a very strong push of 'it's what sir david would have wanted' would be most unwise - the strength or weakness of the party are unaffected.
On the VONC vote, surely the result last night persuades MPs not to stick the knife in now? Low turnout but 86% of the vote and, regardless of how you look at it, nearly 13,000 people voted for the Conservatives despite all the problems. Agreed, a lot will be postal vote but the point still holds.
Difficult to know for sure that they are voting for the Conservatives because they support the Boris-led regime or because they are heartened that there are finally enough rumblings of discontent about Boris that an end is in sight.
I think anyone seeking to draw too many conclusions from an uncontested by-election in a safe Tory seat is on a fools errand.
Anyway. Share my pain. After a hard morning of work I have repaired to the swimming pool, looking forward to a chilled cocktail or two
Every single bar in the country is shut. Ditto off licenses. Independence Day must be observed with Ceylonese sobriety
Leon, in the spirit of ongoing conciliation tell us your top 5 travel suggestions right now? Weigh up everything, including the fact that many of us find the Passenger Locator Form a pain in the arse and the various restrictions etc. etc.
What are your top 5 getaways, all things considered?
“All things considered” is doing a lot of work there!
It entirely depends what you want. From skiing to scuba
I wanted hot sun, nice people, tropical beaches, excellent value, safe cities, natural beauty and minimal covid faff. I got all that - plus unexpectedly amazing food - in Sri Lanka. So I advise everyone to come here, if your main motivation is fleeing the horrors of the british winter without going bankrupt
On the VONC vote, surely the result last night persuades MPs not to stick the knife in now? Low turnout but 86% of the vote and, regardless of how you look at it, nearly 13,000 people voted for the Conservatives despite all the problems. Agreed, a lot will be postal vote but the point still holds.
There are no tanks in the city, we are on the verge of a glorious victory
Let me put it another way: if you are looking at the Southend result, what is the big anti-Boris message that is coming from the result?
I never realised Southend could be so Psychedelic. Perhaps more interesting than it looks, like some of those other newly fashionable seaside towns such as Margate.
The guy comes across as a lone nutter in the media write-ups of the campaign, but he was the only nutter who wasn't pushing an exclusively far right platform. He probably picked up a few votes from centre-left people who still felt it worthwhile (or their duty) to vote and weren't among the nearly 1,100 who wrote something rude about Johnson on their ballot.
I see though that his main platform seems to be a well-regulated cannabis market, from looking here :
This is nuts. Sunak will be extremely damaged by the looming inflation crisis. He should move now.
Stewart Wood @StewartWood If you wanted to be the next Conservative Prime Minister, you would want Boris Johnson to own as much of the mushrooming cost of living crisis as possible. Plus the probable electoral nightmare of May’s local elections. All of which suggests months of zombie government by default
I always think that those who think they are being clever by arguing that there is a "right" time to take over are delusional. The right time is always now. Once there you can set the agenda, the mood, the tone. Yes, you will have problems but problems are also opportunities and, let's face it, the bar is pretty low right now. Avoiding calling the LOTO soft on peodophiles is not too difficult a start.
Completely agree. It is always possible that amongst the unknown unknowns there could be something very benign and pleasant around the corner. Most politicians know this, or at least hope so. The old adage of "if not now then when?" always applies.
This is nuts. Sunak will be extremely damaged by the looming inflation crisis. He should move now.
Stewart Wood @StewartWood If you wanted to be the next Conservative Prime Minister, you would want Boris Johnson to own as much of the mushrooming cost of living crisis as possible. Plus the probable electoral nightmare of May’s local elections. All of which suggests months of zombie government by default
I always think that those who think they are being clever by arguing that there is a "right" time to take over are delusional. The right time is always now. Once there you can set the agenda, the mood, the tone. Yes, you will have problems but problems are also opportunities and, let's face it, the bar is pretty low right now. Avoiding calling the LOTO soft on peodophiles is not too difficult a start.
It also immediately suggests those holding off are lacking in confidence of their ability. Too frit to move until externals help.
On the VONC vote, surely the result last night persuades MPs not to stick the knife in now? Low turnout but 86% of the vote and, regardless of how you look at it, nearly 13,000 people voted for the Conservatives despite all the problems. Agreed, a lot will be postal vote but the point still holds.
Difficult to know for sure that they are voting for the Conservatives because they support the Boris-led regime or because they are heartened that there are finally enough rumblings of discontent about Boris that an end is in sight.
I think anyone seeking to draw too many conclusions from an uncontested by-election in a safe Tory seat is on a fools errand.
I think anyone trying to draw any conclusions from an uncontested by-election in a safe Tory seat where the previous MP was liked and murdered is on a fools errand.
It's utterly pointless because I can't work out if I would have voted Tory (because there should be no reward for murder), spoilt my vote or not bothered. All 3 options are equally possible.
Comments
This is a continuation of various previous government policies, but there has been no slackening of the pace on this. If anything an acceleration.
Hardline Unionists are the DUP core vote, so as I said Donaldson has done what he needed to do to get even harder line Unionists who have gone TUV over the NIP back voting DUP again
And the Chancellor and PMs response to this is to put up National Insurance so reducing take-home pay.
The government deserve to lose and lose handsomely. Since they deserve to lose anyway, a house price crash to reverse the housing inflation of the past couple of decades would be the icing on the cake and perfectly timed.
...Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er...
Others being London's greater inequality and congestion and the way it seems to come to a stop with any disruption.
Good call. I didn't know the name, but I remember the "fake restaurant" thing.
Also, on my Google autocomplete, the top suggestion for "oobah butler" is "oobah butler boris johnson"...
I saw through the magician's sleight of hand and once that's happened you can't undo it. Max Hastings nailed it, of course but so did some others.
I don't hate all Conservatives per se or by default. I felt rather sorry for Theresa May because she was dealt a rotten hand and there's still an awful lot of misogyny on the tory benches. As someone close to the scene whispered to me, 'if her deal had been presented by a man it probably would have gone through.'
And I quite liked David Cameron.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/10/06/do-pandemics-normally-lead-to-rising-inflation
But the combo of circs now is highly unusual. An energy crunch, a populist move against migration (driving up labour costs), geopolitical instability, the rise of autocracies, a sudden halt and pull back in globalisation, plus continuing covid shocks, and closed economies, it feels like a mix of the 1920s/30s and the 1970s
Which means serious inflation? We shall see
So far almost every economist has underestimated the strength and tenacity of this inflationary surge
I would question whether Erdington really is a foregone conclusion for labour or indeed anybody, and whether the polls are telling us the whole story.
Labour will face a determined challenge from the left, and Reform will try hard to get tory votes on the right. I think its a fascinating by-election.
https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/1489536983730900994
https://youtu.be/QqFbW0CIXDs
A tip: you don't understand the complexities beyond your statistics, and you are genuinely winding up Mr Foremain.
The voters want someone to take the fall for Partygate, and then move on.
That "someone" obviously has to be Boris. He owns it. No-one else.
They will give a fair wind to his successor, "honest", or not.
I had a delightful few minutes reading up about what happens when a serious prosecution happens over loakdown laws. I give you: Connemara Golfgate.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/miriam-lord-and-just-like-that-golfgate-is-brought-to-a-swift-and-sudden-end-1.4793220
(The issue is that 80 Irish establishment high-ups - Senators etc - went to a banquet in the middle of lockdown. They dealt with the "50 person gathering" rule by erecting a screen down the middle of the room, so £xxxx a day lawyers were arguing about how big a gap in the screen made it one space).
That's what will happen if we end up with a Big Boris trial.
Every single bar in the country is shut. Ditto off licenses. Independence Day must be observed with Ceylonese sobriety
Boris wants another 4-6 months to get past Brown and May - and he needs to avoid a VONC otherwise he isn't going to get there.
https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time
Hence Dom becoming the toast of some interesting people.
At the height of the AUUKUS row, a poster or 2 on PB tried on, like a dress, liking Putin as a Proper Statesman.
Too much trolling makes me suspicious ...
I remember Electricity being 14p per KWh less than 18 months ago.
What are your top 5 getaways, all things considered?
FWIW I think the current crisis is somewhat overdone. We have a lot of electricity capacity coming on stream, and elec demand falls by 15% in the summer. And gas demand falls by more. And half of UK customers are on fixed price deals still.
So whilst prices will stay mainly linked to world prices, it will come in slowly, and the amount we need will reduce - which will reduce the total.
Johnson is no grotesque interloper: his behaviour and attitudes are emblematic of the British establishment. If our ruling institutions have a shared culture, it’s entitlement and shamelessness, a conviction that wrongdoing should meet consequences only if you are poor and powerless.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/03/boris-johnson-hypocrisy-lies-british-establishment?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1643877526
The Reason Putin Would Risk War
He is threatening to invade Ukraine because he wants democracy to fail
https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1489425920427540481
If as I was advocating there'd been a tax cut and rising wages there'd be more disposable income and some inflation to combat the structural problems in the economy of debt and house price to earnings ratios would be no bad thing.
But the government have burnt that bridge by raising taxes. So we have prices increasing, but take home pay falling due to tax rises. That is a death spiral and the government deserves nothing but contempt for increasing taxes in these circumstances.
Then the VONC can happen straight away on Mon/Tues and no time over a weekend for Johnson to bash the phones threatening people or whatever.
1 - The swing is between social rented and owner occupied.
2 - Surprised to see Private Rented that low in London. Though Enfield is suburban.
And it looks like the Proportional Property Tax will be an excellent political move for the Conservatives.
Personally I would take Councils out of managing housing altogether, as it is a clear serious conflict of interest.
We have replaced the Squirearchy with the Professionals**, who are eternally Learning Lessons.
*Which weren't good.
**Who don't even appear to be as competent as CI5. They certainly aren't very Expert - in every field they seem to be utterly clueless as to real Best Practise in the real world.
I have been wrong before, of course.
Stewart Wood
@StewartWood
If you wanted to be the next Conservative Prime Minister, you would want Boris Johnson to own as much of the mushrooming cost of living crisis as possible. Plus the probable electoral nightmare of May’s local elections. All of which suggests months of zombie government by default
https://twitter.com/StewartWood/status/1489516577427013634
So don't patronise me. Donaldson is doing what he needs to get the hardline loyalist vote back behind him as I correctly said
Again your problem is a very simple one, you don't understand the limit of your knowledge so are happy to work on incomplete information as if it is complete.
This is because of the Conservatives being cowards about taking the Owner Occupied bull by the horns and making OO people pay their way, and the Treasury not being put back in its toybox sufficiently.
After all Labour is led by the epitome of the 'gentleman in Whitehall knows best' mentality.
Every none Tory on this site will be hoping you are right although annoyed about the damage that will be done meanwhile.
https://twitter.com/GlasgowGuy2015/status/1489381413426241542
(SNP proposal to cut the bottom off classroom doors to aid ventilation)
More here: https://www.scotsman.com/health/fmqs-nicola-sturgeon-defends-proposal-to-chop-bottom-off-school-doors-for-ventilation-3553576
As I posted the vast majority of DUP voters and almost all TUV voters want the DUP to withdraw from the Stormont Executive until the NIP is scrapped.
https://twitter.com/LucidTalk/status/1486638991688577025?s=20&t=DsOg8Kr_lvXGHnlvbmhyKg
https://twitter.com/LucidTalk/status/1486305570902745097?s=20&t=DsOg8Kr_lvXGHnlvbmhyKg
It is me looking at the facts and recognising the anger of hardline loyalists at the NIP. Donaldson is therefore spot on in taking the action he did to stem leakage to TUV and try and regain top spot from SF.
You are just blinded by your indifference to the majority of the Unionist population in NI
In the meantime, I am increasingly impressed with how not only Starmer but also the key players on the Labour front bench are stepping up to the mark. The opposition front bench under Starmer was initially a disappointment but since he rejigged it they seem to have got their collective act together.
Yet another Shock ! Horror ! story with no useful context - eg how much of worldwide methane emissions does this relate to?
If we clear half of these up how much does it reduce global methane emissions by?
Even if Starmer became PM if he was crap and his government unpopular the Tories would soon be back in the lead in the polls. Whatever happens to Boris
I did predict and bet on the over 80% band, though got turnout wrong at over 30%. So up on the contest modestly at the princely sum of £3.50.
The By-election in Evington (Leicester) is interesting, and shows the continuing problems of the Labour Party in the Leicester East Constituency following the Claudia Webbe fiasco. She was an unpopular imposition under Corbyn. It is in this constituency in nearby Humberstone that the city elected a Conservative councilor last year. He hasn't made much impact, turning up at 29% of expected attendances.
Evington is the poshest bit of the constituency, being mostly detached and semi detached housing around the Leicester General Hospital, and the best state schools in the city. It is mixed ethnically, mostly middle class. The sort of place where Sunak might be popular.
To keep perspective though, the LP has 52 of 54 Council seats, held this one, and the rest of the constituency is much more inner city working class of all ethnicities. Leicester East will stay Labour at the GE, unless the local Labour party does something seriously fratricidal.
That £70 is the equivalent to a monthly night out so discretionary spending is going to take a massive hit.
It's 10% now, just wait a few months and watch as OAPs and others start to struggle to pay for things. I can see the Tories rapidly hitting the low 20s in polling especially if Boris is in place.
My guess is that faction is looking at either the potential successors - Sunak and Truss - and thinking that both would be worse for them than Johnson, especially when it comes to Brexit. Therefore, they will stick with BJ and take the view that it is better to have a PM dependent on their support than a new entrant who would reduce their influence and, more likely, focus on a "softer" agenda.
They didn't do shockingly badly, so that's something, but basing a perception of what they should do about their leader because of a highly unusual by election with a very strong push of 'it's what sir david would have wanted' would be most unwise - the strength or weakness of the party are unaffected.
I think anyone seeking to draw too many conclusions from an uncontested by-election in a safe Tory seat is on a fools errand.
It entirely depends what you want. From skiing to scuba
I wanted hot sun, nice people, tropical beaches, excellent value, safe cities, natural beauty and minimal covid faff. I got all that - plus unexpectedly amazing food - in Sri Lanka. So I advise everyone to come here, if your main motivation is fleeing the horrors of the british winter without going bankrupt
here :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-essex-60119898
..which is already quite mainstream and routine politics in many parts of the U.S and Canada nowadays, rather than Old Blighty.
It's utterly pointless because I can't work out if I would have voted Tory (because there should be no reward for murder), spoilt my vote or not bothered. All 3 options are equally possible.