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In the betting the Johnson recovery continues – politicalbetting.com
In the betting the Johnson recovery continues – politicalbetting.com
My only worry about betting on a Johnson exit in 2024 or later is that he might just call a general election next year. This would make sense and fits with the pattern of previous PMs who did not have to operate within the confines of the Fixed Term Parliament Act. Getting rid of that legacy from the coalition is not far off and choosing the date would be entirely in Johnson’s own hands.
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Checks date. No, not April 1st. Mike seems to be serious with this header. 🤔
Then how does Boris survive the fact he was groomed by Lebedev? the most serious lapse of Boris Johnson’s judgement yet - a hundred times worse than Partygate. Parked for now by Conservative MPs obviously, even Ross has withdrawn his letter “removing Boris now only benefits Putin” apparently, but once the Ukraine war is in a new phase, hard to see how Boris explains this away to MPs. In the meantime, the opposition parties are going to have a field day. They’ve been hollowing Boris out with party spoons, they’ve just been handed an ermine wrapped Davey Crockett.
“Are you aware your good friend had a campaign to infiltrate the establishment?”
“How many visits to villa and castle in Italy? How much of free flights, accommodation and private cars? Is there any such thing as a free lunch?”
“At the time of these free flights, visits to villa and castles, were you aware your friend suggested MI6 killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria and Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms? Everyone else seemed aware.”
“At what point did you decide to recommend your friend a peerage, and for what reasons?”
“When you were told no, blocked on national security grounds, what did you do next?”
Because he’s shameless and his backbenchers are spineless.
Glorious misty morning.
https://twitter.com/general_ben/status/1502641428295565313?s=21
Ben Hodges (formerly NATO general)
“ Clausewitz describes the "culminating point" as when an attacking force hits strong resistance, runs out of energy, and can no longer continue. Russia is running out of manpower, asking Syria to send troops. Sanctions are working. Russia may culminate in 10-14 days if we press.”
Getting away with shit now normalises getting away more easily with shit in the future. As we saw with Trump. Stuff that shocked his party at the start of his administration was just normal behaviour to be defended by the end of it.
The ‘oh, but after the war’ tendency are to a greater or lesser extent fooling themselves.
But who knows what happens if we withdraw all help from Ukraine, and Russia rolls over them and gets a nice, compliant pro-Russian government in Kiev?
In my mind it's quite simple: it is right versus wrong, good versus evil. The evil is easy to identify: Putin and his cronies. They are the ones who have invaded another country; they are the ones who are killing innocent civilians. They are the ones threatening smaller democracies with invasion. They are the ones who are threatening the world with chemical weapons, or nuclear oblivion.
Those on the side of evil talk about how it is our fault, how we caused this mess, rather than concentrate their ire on the evil.
We have to be on the side of good. And that means supporting Ukraine.
In the case of China, there would be no official announcement. It would simply be that the voice of the CCP would change after some internal shuffling, as the men in grey suits recognize that Xi lost the plot and backed the wrong horse.
With Russia, I think a heart attack might befall Putin.
I suggest t's not so much about 'early' or 'late' it's about '4 years' or '5 years'. The examples Mike cites are 4 year terms.
But if this Parliament runs its 'full' course it will STILL only be 4 years and 5 months. There is no 5 year option. If Johnson goes in 2023 the Parliament will only be 3 years and x months.
Furthermore, the conditions for an early General Election are all wrong. In 1983 and 1987 Maggie was up against weak opposition with victory assured. Blair likewise. There is simply NO comparison with the situation now.
Economically and fiscally the situation now is dire and the only comparison that has any merit is, as TSE mentioned in the previous thread, 1992 when John Major went for 5 years ... and WON.
In the light of the latter it's disappointing that Mike neglected to mention 1992.
And then there's the Theresa May early debacle which has scarred the Conservative Party. She, like Johnson, was a ditherer which made it all the more surprising that she took the plunge.
Oh and he no longer has Dominic Cummings who was the master strategist.
So, no, the chances of him going for a GE in 2023 are extremely slim.
If anyone loses their jobs as a result of this it'll be Biden and Boris.
There does appear to be a glimmer of hope on the horizon though. Reports of dozens of Russian vehicles taken out overnight, Putin asking China for help (which I’m not sure Xi will go for) is another sign that he is quickly running out of men and materiel.
It becomes more and more apparent that the Russians totally misjudged the conflict - it really does appear that they expected to be welcomed in Ukraine, and not met with resistance. They don’t have the logistics capability to resupply themselves, and the Ukranian intelligence has allowed them to take out strategic assets such as fuel trucks and command centres.
I guess the next few days brings whatever is planned in Kiev, but right now there is little advance being made towards the capital. It’s a big city, full of tall buildings, with a population prepared to fight back one street at a time.
Russia is suffering 10x what the West is. Their industry is being hammered, and their young men are dying in Ukraine.
Now, it's possible that Putin hangs on by ever increasing the police state in Russia. But it's also possible that the Russian army can take no more.
Afghanistan took down the Soviet Union, and Russia may already have lost almost as many men in Ukraine (15,000 in Afghanistan).
The time to think about the causes of this is after the mess is over - and I think many of their arguments are bogus anyway, purposeful distractions away from evil.
Online, it can be much worse, with people literally equating Ukrainians to Nazis, when the truth is quite the opposite: Putin is the fascist.
I'm normally a shades-of-grey person (not fifty...). The truth lies somewhere in the middle in an argument. But this is a rare exception: the evil is obvious and easy to identify.
When the wind blows, the big trees look a lot more secure, barely budging as the wind buffets them.
The next day, it is the reeds which are still standing.
He will certainly have to go before the next election. Never mind the text, some of the pictures were lethal. Labour and the LibDems would only have to keep reprinting them in leaflet after leaflet to torpedo the Tory campaign below the water line. The Tories simply cannot go into battle with him as leader. This is not the USA, and he is not Trump. The voters won't back him blind, whatever success he may have in the war or esewhere.
So if he's toast, when does he actually pop out of the toaster?
His MPs clearly think 'not now - the war you know.' They can maybe get away with that a bit but it's not a great look. Then there's the locals. 'Wait for them' is another excuse for inaction. What then? 'Takes a while to change a leader, and he was a winner'. Not sure that will suffice for very long.
Regrdless of the odds, I would say some time this year seems most likely by a long way, but he could get lucky with the war if that drags on. So maybe Mike is right, and at the odds 2023 looks decent enough value for the momnet.
The reality is that Putin is pulverising Ukraine and slowly grinding out the country. I don't think he will care if the war drags on. He has already achieved part of his aim of crushing Ukraine and he has shown that NATO is powerless outside its own borders.
p.s. your comment about Boris is constitutionally incorrect unless you mean it in the sense that everyone dies. Unlike the US there is no constitutional reason why Johnson shouldn't be PM for 20 years.
The scoundrel!
RIP
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60731686
We have to back Ukraine in every way we possibly can, because the alternative is terrible. For those used to living in a democracy, a future where we are enslaved by Russia or China is not one that is worth living for.
The reason why the causes are pertinent is that they are also so relevant to both the present and the future.
We were powerless to stop Putin because we are powerless to stop Putin and we will be powerless to stop Putin. We are so frit of him, of the nuclear threat, that we're not prepared to stand up and defend Ukraine with the only language Putin will pay attention to: military force.
Biden is a wet blanket. His ghastly withdrawal from Afghanistan, aided and abetted by Johnson, greenlit Putin's invasion of Ukraine and has shown Putin that NATO is not going to stand up and defend them.
And, yes, Putin and his invasion are utterly evil.
Mr. Punter, Conservative MPs have proven talented at gutless procrastination. I'll believe that's ended when it's ended.
Thank you for disabusing me of my naivety.
If the war ends relatively soon I can see in the “thank you” speeches that Boris will get a lot of praise from Ukraine for things we know the UK have done and maybe things we don’t know the UK have done.
If Boris can see a window where he’s “had a good war” but down the road he sees economic nightmare, partygate rearing its head again then surely he would be wise to walk out at that point where he is not doing so like a naughty schoolboy.
It would also restore his future earning power as he would have his side of the war to talk about rather than just about which suitcase is best for the optimum amount of booze depending on the numbers at your party…..
How does Putin win from here?
Russia's entire economy is dependent on the rest of the world buying his oil and gas. The Ukrainians will kill his soldiers whether he succeeds in occupying the whole of the country or not.
All Putin has succeeded in doing is accelerating the move to renewables in the developed world, proving Western weapons work better than Russian ones, and killing great numbers of his own people.
That's one angle to it. There is another: that he is pulverising Russia as much as he is Ukraine, albeit in a different way. Thousands of young Russian men will not be coming back from the war. Thousands more will be maimed and injured. Tens of thousands of the brightest youngsters are fleeing Russia - all in a country with a significant demographic issue. The economy is going to be a smoking ruin. Its military is being shown up as a paper tiger, a literal laughing stock. And the Russian military is a great source of pride to the Russian people.
I can't see Putin taking over the entirety of Ukraine using conventional forces now; he may not even take Kiev or Odessa.
This war has been humiliating for Russia, and it will take the country decades to recover, both economically and in terms of reputation. Putin (and his crones) are not the people to do that - if they were, they would have chosen that harder path twenty years ago.
Virtually none of the Tory posters on here who weren't already critics of the PM when he was first elected will engage with issues of standards, whether about lying, finances, cronyism or security risks.
The responses are a mix of "all politicians are thieving nasty liars regardless", "what about Corbyn", "other things are more important", or "if he helps bring a blue win then anything goes".
He is staying on until he loses an election or it is blatantly clear he will lose the next one.
Uncertainties remain of course. Nukes are always possible, though unilkey in my view. Chemical weapons may come too, though again I think probably not. Just how and when it all ends I don't know, but it will one day, and when it does I expect Russia to be a substantially reduced force in world affairs.
Well done Vlad. Thank you Ukraine.
He's achieved quite a lot.
Just not necessarily to his own advantage.
The numbers of deaths are awful but miniscule. c 5000 soldiers dead out of a population of 145,000,000. It's very grim but not going to give Putin a sleepless night.
On Russian economy I am no expert but I fear that trade links with India, China, Africa and the Middle East will mitigate against many of our sanctions.
I agree with you about accelerating the west's move to renewables, or at least I hope you're right. It would be a fantastic outcome of this awful war. If we can all start to go off grid with our homes, which we can, it would be amazing.
(Chris, that's how you debate not by being Ad hominem and rude. Don't demean this site.)
'History suggests that the willingness of people to die for their homeland in about 100x greatest than their willingness to throw lives away for some concept like, oh I don't know, Greater Russia.'
That echoes my Dad's words perfectly. He didn't want to be there (North Africa in his case) and nor did his mates but they fought to the death because they had nowhere to go if they lost. He always repeated this manta whenever wars broke out around the world, and he was almost invariably right.
"Russians are doing these things."
"Remember that we guaranteed we would not expand NATO eastwards, and Ukraine is filled with Nazis. Besides, we 'poked' them into it."
It is classic maskirovka, performed by either knowing or unknowing fools.
The Russian government is not the victims in this. They are the aggressor, the bully.
The victims are the Ukrainian people and, to a lesser extent, the Russian people.
If we see what is happening as akin to rape, then these people are saying that Ukraine should not have been wearing such a short skirt.
The fact is, we stood by and let him invade and pulverise an entire nation. Slowly and inexorably that is what he is doing. Biden and NATO refused to pitch in because they were too scared of Putin's nuclear threats. Perhaps justifiably, but we've let him get away with it.
We all want this to be another Afghanistan. I fear we are deluding ourselves.
On topic, surely Boris will go in Autumn 2023 if and only if he is confident of winning well. After all, that's why Maggie and Blair went for elections after four years and Major and Brown didn't.
Given the wider economic forecasts, that seems brave... Does "these economic problems, which started somewhere else" ever work?
@sajidjavid says he is 'comfortable' with Lebedev keeping his peerage after reports MI6 has had concerns about the Russian oligarch since 2013.
https://trib.al/QTC8as2
📺 Sky 501 https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1503273542875500552/video/1
It's true Jeremy kept some bad company, and showed some shocking judgement but he didn't actually *do* a great deal to benefit the Russians. Putting one of them in the House of Lords wants some topping.
We like to think that the 90s were halcyon days with Russian-Western cooperation and reasonable Russian behaviour now but forget that Yeltsin shelled his own Parliament (killing dozens of legislators), kicked off the brutal war in Chechnya and handed over power to one of his trusted lieutenants as his anointed successor: Vladimir Putin.
Sure, we might get a slightly less insane Russian nationalist, one who hasn't quite clearly lost the plot, but it's not going to be Garry Kasparov.
Those are horrendous losses.
There's no way for Putin to win if the west stays united, but there are ways for us all to lose.
The aims of the right chime with those of Putin, in as much as they both get hard for a strong, nationalist agenda, a return of Empire, of power, of prestige perceived to have been lost. Not collaboration with a weak, Woke, green EU. Fellow travellers on the anti-climate change bandwagon, for whom the profit available from digging up and burning fossil fuels is more important than the long-term health of the planet.
The right can’t face up to this yet. Perhaps with time they will do.
I suspect they won't though. I have to say that 20 years of political betting has taught me that when it comes to dates, it's generally best to back the later ones.
Generally.
Some of you may dislike the comparison of Putin with Johnson but this is deeply disturbing. I genuinely fear for our democracy because a lot of people get taken in by it.
I’m normally shades of grey like you, and the west has its faults. Many of them. Not here.
At that point, the rest of the world wakes up and gets involved, and we really do have WWIII. Hopefully Putin gets handed the whisky and revolver before we get that far down the road.
So perhaps you should be a little more precise in your language and say "you".
It would be a little more honest, no?
I spoke to friends in Kharkiv, the brutality of the invaders is utterly shocking and amounts to wholesale murder of the civilian population. Meanwhile, despite a lot of talk, the Ukrainian army is not getting the flow of weapons it needs, and as you have seen on the news, the casualties amongst the defenders has risen quite sharply. Under the circumstances, the performance of the Ukrainians is simply heroic.
As far as the wider strategic implications of this weekend are concerned, the fact that Russia has asked for military assistance from China now seems to be an established fact, however the Chinese use of the word "pragmatic" must be a pretty bad sign for Putin´s hopes of engaging China in his own military mess. More likely is China offering its good offices to establish a ceasefire. The timing is important, since it is critical to get the spring harvest, without which China, like the rest fo the world will see high food price inflation.
Inside Russia there is now growing concern, even if the reality of the situation is still not widely understood. The regime continues to rely on Stalinist tactics, but one Russian expert here suggested that if the Russians do go for a ceasefire soon, his bet was that Putin would be gone very quickly. The increasing intensity of the Russian attacks perhaps reflects the growing crisis for the regime,
There is something of a news blackout from Belarus, we hear rumours that Lukashenka is in considerable trouble.
So in sum, it is touch and go. A Finn said to me that the Winter War of 1939-40 lasted three months, one week and six days and he thought that the "Spring War" might be quicker. If it leads to the defeat of the Putinist forces then the sigh of relief here will be audible in Stornoway.
If Ukraine manage a victory of sorts over Russia, then it won't surprise me at all if Boris says "I'm off in time for my successor to be crowned at the party conference". He will bask in the glow of being worshipped in Ukraine and having generally been seen to have done a good job in that war and on Covid. Downing Street parties will be a forgotten footnote - although his bad calls on being chummy with dodgy Russians less so.
But he can go and make his millions on the talking circuit sooner rather than later, having departed on his own terms. I think he'd take that from where he was a month ago.
I think we in the west have been trying to convince ourselves that we're doing as much as we possibly can (we aren't), that we're united (we aren't) and that there's nothing further we can do without risking nuclear war (not true).
The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.
He’s lucky. Covid overwrote any perceived Brexit issues. Russia overwrites any blowback from Covid/partygate absent anything new.
What I am worried about is what we have to live through next to overwrite the long term impact of this war….
*I learnt my lesson betting against him getting on the ballot in the first place because I felt Tory MPs wouldn’t wear it.
But having failed once, the next attempt will be harder.
He is far too narcissistic to allow himself to go through that degradation.
On topic, that was one or arguments in my youth around 'doing one's National Service'.
It was when, in the coffee bars, the question was asked, 'what are we doing this for' that the arguments raged.
It MAY be enough if the Conservatives mess thinkgs up badly enough, but at the moment, I'm not sure.
When we look back on the 21st century, it will be one of those "how the hell did they let that happen?" reflections.
So, you have not only somewhat lesser logistical challenges but a very rapid attrition rate. At best the Russians are sustaining casualties, including kit, wounded and surrendered, of around 1% of their force a day. They either win soon or they lose. There is still a window of opportunity for them but it is closing.
Putin should have stuck with the old tactics of plausible deniability and fake institutions that fooled people and useful idiots could get behind. It could have run on and on for decades, generations even.
I think if we believe in democracy it's really important that we continue to debate in as friendly a way as possible, even when profoundly disagreeing with someone's perspective or suggestion. I've noticed an increasing amount of anger and abuse on here. That's a shame because this is a decent site and the only one I frequent. When someone is rude to me I tend to disappear as I have better things to do than be insulted by someone from the comfort of their chair whom I've never met.
So keep playing the ball, folks. Not the man or woman.
You started here with some views on Covid cases and hospitalisations in Israel which turned out not to be - how to put this - entirely accurate. Then moved on to a story about BA pilots, which turned out to be... ah yes... not entirely accurate.
And now you're onto "oh yes, I'm on your side, one of *you*, and I know it's hard to accept, but it would be better for all of us if the Ukrainians just accepted the inevitable and laid down their arms... after all, what chance do they stand?"
It is a little tricky to take you seriously, and for that I apologise.
The newspapers were particularly vicious about Neil Kinnock: basically for being a ginger-headed, highly emotional, Welshman. Sheffield didn't exactly help him in that regard. 'Would the last person to leave Britain please turn out the light', pictures of Kinnock as a turnip etc. etc. It was the Sun Wot Won It, and all that.
I'm really not sure Sir Keir Starmer will get treatment of that sort. Johnson may try and slur him but he's of a very different stature.
'The reality is that we are ignoring Zelensky's pleas for a No Fly Zone and we're letting an entire country get pulverised.'
No serious commentator is suggesting a NFZ. The reason is obvious, and has been stated on this forum clearly and frequently.
Instead he went for invasion. And succeeded in uniting the decadent West.
The arrests seem to be connected to literally billions that were spent by the FSB on recruiting against in the Ukrainian government, military, security services, universities etc, to help with the coup that was meant to give Russia control of Ukraine. instead they bought “dead souls” and stole the money.
https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1503092712593137666?s=21
WRT Big Dog, the election, and his purported departure for *reasons*, there is much talk about the supposed political / moral calculations of Tory backbenchers.
Can I propose an alternative hypothesis - many of them have no morals.
There is little point in appealing to the basic morality or decency or political standards of some Tory MPs because they don't have any. To be clear there are some truly awful MPs of all parties but the Tories do particularly well in attracting the moral vacuum types.
So its a little pointless waiting for them to "do the right thing" because they don't know what that is. As a very early post in his thread (@ydoethur?) pointed out it was going to be this thing then that thing then the other thing that sunk him and would have sunk anyone else. If they knew the right thing he would already have gone.
On covid I've been mostly right. No idea what you're talking about BA pilots: don't know any and don't recall ever having mentioned them in my life. I don't fly with BA (I go Qatar) and I don't have any contacts with BA.
I think the only big mistake I've made since joining, and it's a huge one, was assuming that Putin wasn't mad enough to invade. Based that on him having insufficient troops in place to guarantee victory and because we always over-estimate Russian military equipment. So I was right about the reason but misjudged the man. But, then, how do you legislate for someone who has gone full tonto?
Twitter is a useful tool when used in combination by the malevolent, those with an agenda - and the downright gullible.
As others have pointed out, it could actually be come to be regarded as a case study in the failure of dictatorship as a form of government. It is a bit early to conclude the whole thing will be a failure though, time will tell and things aren't exactly looking great in Ukraine.
Conversely this site is at its absolute worst when someone is a stick-in-the-mud, refusing to shift position, to acknowledge that someone else might actually have a point, and always thinking they are right.
Have a nice day.
When OTAN jets hit a air defence emplacement inside the boundaries of Russia, how does Putin react?
You weren't here in 2016. Or 2017. Or 2014. Or 2019. Or 2020. In fact, it's pretty much always been like this...
I'd argue PB is a rather decorous place compared to the Internet in general, especially as politics is being discussed. It's also more informative than most places.
The markets are very odd at the moment: London was fine on Friday when the US sank. Unusual.