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A fine time ahead for Boris Johnson? – politicalbetting.com
A fine time ahead for Boris Johnson? – politicalbetting.com
Whilst few expected Boris Johnson to be the beau idéal of a Prime Minister it still feels like a shock having to write a piece about this betting market from Smarkets on Boris Johnson getting fined which says a lot about the state of his premiership.
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Fortunately for him, even if the Met Police fail to fell Johnson, the dire state of the economy ought to do the trick.
The problem for the Scottish Tories is that Johnson’s successor might be just as electorally toxic north of the border. For example, “sound money” might turn out to mean Thatcherism II, and that went down like a bucket of sick first time round.
Conor Burns, one of Johnson’s cheerleaders, tweeted: “He is delivering. @SteveBarclay is a talented and serious Minister and @Guto_Harri is a professional operator. Both great appointments.”
But elsewhere the appointments – made necessary by the resignation of five Johnson aides last week – caused almost universal bafflement.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/05/boris-johnsons-new-aides-are-greeted-with-bafflement
I have next to no faith that they will. They're almost as corrupt as No.10
So if that's what the rump of tory MPs are waiting for then I think it may be down to the British people to do to Johnson what his party seem incapable of.
I see the 70th anniversary of the the Queen's accession, and consequent run up to the 69th anniversary of the coronation is beginning to stir leader and feature writers.
Probably to the advantage of the PM. Something else to talk about.
Incidentally, we sometimes see pictures of him with a glass of beer in his hand, when we know he's teetotal; I realise it's 'publicity', but surely that's dishonest.
Personally, while I do, I have no problem with people who choose not to drink alcoholic drinks. It's a respectable lifestyle choice which is different to mine, that's all.
There is clearly something we are not being told.
Also rather instructive the way she seems to have taken to Camilla. Which I gather is typical of people who know her personally. One regiment she was honorary Colonel of thought the world of her because any time a soldier was injured she took the trouble to hand write them a note wishing them a speedy recovery, along with a bottle of good whisky.
Whether the Queen’s recent very public endorsements will be enough to overcome the lingering public hostility of Diana’s many admirers is a different question. The last thread suggests the answer is ‘no.’
She also now has the situation where her son's first marriage ended over twenty years ago and furthermore his former wife has been dead for almost 25 years.
While we by no means got to a similar situation by the same route, (our daughter died, of MND, and the marriage was, so far as we could tell, very happy) we have come to accept our son-in-law's new partner.
QE is now queen in name only. Charles has the reins of power.
That said, in one sense it’s a shame Charles isn’t King. Can you imagine how his next speech from the throne would begin?
‘My lords, honourable members, this session my government, whom I regret to say are a bunch of crooks, liars, drunks and thieving parasites, will continue to completely fail to address all the problems we face. Their programme is instead as follows…’
Would you care for a small wager on the point?
Although of course he did make the remark about Nicholas Witchell.
Whether he’s wise to do so is a horse of a different colour. But equally wisdom and restraint have never exactly been Charles’ hallmarks.
This all looks rather murky. Although I learned a nice new phrase from it - "access capitalism". So much easier on the ear than "corruption" don't you think?
The devastating verdict on the PM’s reputation is laid bare in an exclusive Deltapoll survey for The Sun on Sunday.
Mr Johnson is given a negative rating on the cost of living crisis, with eight in ten saying he is making a hash of it.
Two thirds of voters are opposed to his decision to increase National Insurance contributions — and more than eight in ten want him to cut VAT.
The PM is also marked down on immigration, crime, climate change, Russian aggression in Ukraine, preserving the UK — and even Brexit and the pandemic.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17558613/boris-johnson-partygate-poll-scandal/amp/
US official, based on govt estimate, if full invasion:
- significant civilian casualties expected: 25,000 to 50,000 civilians killed or wounded in the first few weeks
- 1 to 5 million refugees and internally displaced persons
https://twitter.com/richardengel/status/1490221015393316870?s=21
The Winter Olympics end on the 20th
It also seems an example where he cannot win: if he had spent the last five decades in silence, he would be accused of being empty and mindless. When he speaks out, he is opinionated.
In addition, he's been proven correct on many of the topics he has spoken out on, hasn't he? e.g. the environment (both green issues and the built environment).
The Chancellor is the favourite among one in three of all voters and nearly half of Tory voters — with all his rivals in single figures
That said “Don’t know” on 42% is well ahead of Rishi on 29%.
Admittedly, never met anyone who drinks it.....
I'm intrigued though. Nowhere have I suggested he would be wrong, on a factual level. In what way would the speech as I have drafted it be incorrect?
In any case, Camilla would always have been Queen. It is a courtesy title and what you call the wife of a King, it has no statutory basis (unlike Prince). Just as she is Princess of Wales but prefers not to be known as that.
- she was having an affair with another unnamed married Tory MP (unnamed, although the article isn't without potential clues) before she settled on Johnson;
- early in their relationship he tried to appoint her as his chief of staff, opposed by staff and ministers;
- for Johnson, Carrie was always just a fling and only turned serious when his wife finally walked away; you get the impression that Johnson only managed to function as a normal person because his wife used to organise his life;
- she vetoed his first choice of politician to run his leadership campaign;
- A friend describes their relationship as 'emotionally disruptive', another that it is 'toxic'
plus a load of Cummo-type material about how she interferes in everything, and some tittle-tattle about her life prior.
Not clear how this plays into the leadership - those against him will take it as another set of danger signals whereas supporters may try and deflect more blame onto her - when the focus ought to be on how it is his character flaws that underlie all of these problems.
All the regulars, and even the not so regulars, like me, said he'd never do it, but he did. Raised £10k IIRC.
And Abbott do something called Ghost Ship which is 0.5% and I find quite acceptable.
The Australian soap Neighbours, which launched the international careers of countless local stars including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Margot Robbie and Guy Pearce, has been axed in the UK in a move likely to sound the death knell for the iconic show.
The UK’s Channel 5 announced it would no longer air the program and unless it is picked up by another broadcaster the show will end its record-breaking 36-year run in August.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/06/neighbours-needs-good-friends-to-survive-after-uk-network-axes-iconic-soap
First time round Charles wasn’t allowed to marry Camilla so he settled on someone else.
Unless the other guy moved on….
As Mike Smithson has demonstrated, favourability ratings are an excellent guide.
Johnson doesn't recover from this. But the tory party may be stupid enough to leave him in place and do a collective reenactment of the Gadarene swine.
Kwasi Kwarteng disagrees with Sunak and Javid to back PM over Savile accusation.
"Entirely legitimate... perfectly reasonable... absolutely in scope..." he tells Trevor Phillips
https://twitter.com/Smyth_Chris/status/1490245934856482819
Perhaps Kwarteng might be positioning himself as the sane and competent loyalist?
Although I would have said Boris Johnson backers are not big on either quality.
In the end they all turn into despots, with no other priority than the grubby retention of power for its sake, with no care or consideration for the consequences. Happened remarkably quickly with him.
And I have to say, it does make me rethink prior opposition to PR, if this is what strong majorities do.
Michael Gove, a Scottish fresher in 1985, told Johnson’s biographer Andrew Gimson: “The first time I saw him was in the Union bar . . . He seemed like a kindly, Oxford character, but he was really there like a great basking shark waiting for freshers to swim towards him.” Gove told Gimson: “I was Boris’s stooge. I became a votary of the Boris cult.”
In an essay for The Oxford Myth (1988), a book edited by his sister Rachel, Johnson advised aspiring student politicians to assemble “a disciplined and deluded collection of stooges” to get out the vote. “Lonely girls from the women’s colleges” who “back their largely male candidates with a porky decisiveness” were particularly useful, he wrote. “For these young women, machine politics offers human friction and warmth.” Reading this, you realise why almost all Union presidents who become Tory politicians are men. (Thatcher’s domain was OUCA, where she was president in 1946.)
Johnson added: “The tragedy of the stooge is that . . . he wants so much to believe that his relationship with the candidate is special that he shuts out the truth. The terrible art of the candidate is to coddle the self-deception of the stooge.”
https://www.ft.com/content/85fc694c-9222-11e9-b7ea-60e35ef678d2
https://twitter.com/euanmccolm/status/1490251407051694084
Via @thesundaytimes https://twitter.com/paul__johnson/status/1490252879281676288/photo/1
The new Deltapoll in the Sun this morning has Raab now up to second favourite amongst the public for next Tory leader after Sunak, ahead of Truss, Patel, Hunt and Gove
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17558613/boris-johnson-partygate-poll-scandal/
Fair or otherwise it would leave him in the clear. And we could have the Gray report in full....
It’s actually a huge growth area for the brewers, but was quite the double-take when I first saw ‘Heineken’ and ‘Budweiser’ on sale in the local shop out here!
As for her thoughts on death and succession and something we're not being told, she's 95 and her 99 year old husband died, the thought is bound to come up. Especially as she has fewer engagements.
Most contain some residual alcohol, so not truly alcohol free, and it is one of the fastest growing sectors of the market, Alcohol free wine is undrinkable though.
Don’t Know: 42
Sunak: 29
Raab: 7
Truss: 5
Patel: 4
Hunt: 4
Give: 3
As Dr Johnson observed “ Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea."
(Much the same could be said of the Labour leader, to be fair.)
And possibly "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."
I didn't fact-check this.
I'm teetotal and love it.