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Is there a face-saving way Johnson can step aside? – politicalbetting.com
Is there a face-saving way Johnson can step aside? – politicalbetting.com
For someone who likes to be liked yesterday’s booing of Johnson, seen by tens of millions as he arrived at St Paul’s, must have been very difficult to stomach. I’m not a fan of the PM but it was hard not to feel for him as he walked up the Cathedral steps with the cameras on him yesterday,
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Or could we?
Johnson is eligible for an EU passport. He's notoriously lazy. We could claim it as some kind of victory, as could the EU. It would probably help with Boris's child support issues.
Could we, maybe, make it happen?
- Remainers could say "see, even Boris realises that we should be in the EU, and is just engaged in a 40 year plan"
- Leavers could say "we finally have our man on the inside, which will result in the eventual destruction of the EUSSR"
Citigroup faces $50m hit after flash-crash caused by London-based trader
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/06/03/citigroup-faces-50m-hit-fat-fingered-trader-added-extra-zero/ (£££)
I was taken aback by the booing. It was a royalist crowd and seemed spontaneous. Coming on top of 'that' opening Mumsnet question, it has been a bruising week for him.
Yesterday evening I was convinced it that it was over for him. We've all said that before about Boris though.
p.s. RCS - had lunch guests. It was a lovely time sitting out in the sun.
"Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable … think about these things."
Philippians 4:8.
Also intriguing that both Andrew and Welby were absented by covid.
Ed Costello told the Daily Telegraph: “I’ve come to the conclusion that he probably should resign, and if he had any sense he would resign before he was pushed.
“He needs to go before the next election, because some of what he has done will put off voters. He just hasn’t been wholly honest about what went on, and it would have been better if he ’fessed up and it would all have been over.”
Costello said recent tax rises were “silly” given the cost of living crisis and spiralling inflation, adding: “The tax rise is going to hit people at a time when they’re already being hit, and the cut in benefits was a foolish thing to do.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/03/boris-johnson-booed-st-pauls-platinum-jubilee-queen
That tie isn't aligned properly with the shirt.
He'd also be better off with a double breasted waistcoat.
Morning suits are meant to make the man look so elegant and classy (which is why I regularly wear them) but he doesn't look at all good in one.
… I’m not a fan of the PM but it was hard not to feel for him as he walked up the Cathedral steps with the cameras on him yesterday...
OGH is a generous soul.
Sorry to see HM isn't well enough for the Epsom Derby. To miss that, she really must be ill. Seems odd to have the Jubilee without her.
Other than perhaps an orange jumpsuit…
I used to love it back in the day when it was a real place with a properly edgy vibe. Then gentrification took over. The lambretta seats went, and in came all sorts of trendy eateries and shops selling fancy things at exorbitant prices.
Two of my young guests yesterday announced that they're leaving London next month for a provincial city. Now that they can predominantly work from home they no longer find London an attractive proposition. They'd rather be in a city where you can easily walk or cycle from one part to the other in a matter of minutes.
The Mail has a composite video if you scroll down a bit.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10881619/Boris-Johnson-wife-Carrie-arrive-St-Pauls-Queens-Platinum-Jubilee-service.html
Only a cynic would suggest the Mail played with the sound mixing.
I was being coy in case they read this!!!!
https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html
* “ Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
They've a lot to live up to. Series One was one of the funniest, most endearing, bitter-sweet, programmes I've watched in a long time.
And then, finally, there is the apparent attempt to capture “Waitrose woman” – another of those imagined market-research categories, like Mondeo Man, which can unlock a supposed electoral demographic. This group, real or not, apparently shops at expensive supermarkets, voted Remain, is small-c conservative, and doesn’t like Johnson. How does the Rwanda policy or the Protocol decision attract them? No-one has explained this discrepancy.
It’s not just Johnson. The confusion goes all the way down. Leading Tory MP Tobias Ellwood deserves considerable respect for breaking the omerta on Brexit this week. In an article for the House magazine, he dared to say the thing that no-one will mention: Britain is suffering for having left the European single market. Regulatory checks are holding up trade and driving up prices. They’re part of the reason why the Northern Ireland issue has become so acute.
His reward, it goes without saying, was instant dismissal and sneering condescension. Reporters and Tory MPs rejected it out of hand.
That was always going to be the way it played out once someone opened the window to let the air in. Everyone else would stand up and scream for him to shut it again. But Ellwood was doing something striking. He was daring to speak in terms of economic and political rationality in a party which has forsaken them.
A closer relationship with Europe is inevitable. It might be a new trade deal, or customs union membership, or single market membership, or even full EU membership. It might be a few years or a decade. But it is coming.
It is coming by virtue of trading gravity. They are big, they are right next to us, and eventually people will start asking what we can do to trade more easily with them. And once you start asking that question, you are entering the debate upon which the EU is founded.
Ellwood wasn’t just daring to suggest it. He was providing the first instance of a process which will one day need to take place: the Tory rapprochement with reality. There will be kickbacks and much gnashing and wailing. But reality will demand to be let in. It must, in the end, be faced up to, no matter how intense your dream-state.
Johnson’s splatter-against-the-walls personal defence strategy is just the start. As the party declines, it is going to keep exploring all sorts of contradictory and desperate gambits to reverse its misfortune.
It is about to experience an almighty hangover. For years now, Conservatives have given up on reality-based politics and committed exclusively to character-based politics. Now they are waking up after a hell of a bender. The pain hasn’t hit yet, but they just got that first stabbing jolt in their temple, and, with it, the knowledge that it’s going to be a horrible day.
But it is a lovely city.
I recognise that this seems patronising but it fills me with great hope. That decency matters to good people on both left and right fills me with hope for the future of this country.
One of them grew up there and spent the first 20 years of their life in it so knows it very well. A return to their roots. I think it's fairly easy to get around in minutes on foot or bike as long as you don't mind the steep climb up to Clifton etc.
The regeneration around the harbour is superb. Brilliant food to be had as well these days.
But as you say there is a great deal to enjoy there.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1532861520425766915
A lot of people seem to like it though.
As someone who has a similar shape to our PM, but also as someone who has been married (to the same lady) for considerably longer than he has managed, or will manage, (59 years, 51 weeks AToW), I am certain that I would have had, in similar circumstances, a very critical review of my appearance both before leaving home and before getting out of the car!
Export controls placed on supply of chips and hardware over Ukraine war dent economy’s prospects
https://www.ft.com/content/caf2cd3c-1f42-4e4a-b24b-c0ed803a6245
While it’s relatively mild compared to some other strains, it’s also mutating substantially faster than is usual in monkeypox viruses.
https://text.npr.org/1102945017
… This gap in detection may be because the symptoms of monkeypox in this outbreak can be much more subtle than in past cases.
As a result, health officials are asking health-care workers – and individuals who may have been exposed – to be on the lookout for signs of monkeypox, especially signs of a rash.
But what does that rash often look like? Turns out, it's not what medical textbooks show, says infectious disease doctor Donald Vinh at McGill University. Those images depict people with their trunk or hands covered with pus-filled blisters. What's happening in this outbreak can be much more subtle, Vinh and other doctors involved with the outbreak say.
In fact, some patients have only one or two small lesions that can easily be confused with lesions caused by several sexually transmitted diseases, such as herpes and syphilis.
"I think that's actually supercritical," Vinh says, "Because you can see how these patients can be missed. But they are still contagious and may propagate the disease."
Vinh has been helping to treat 5 people with monkeypox at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal. The outbreak in that city includes at least 50 cases, he says.
Just Thursday morning, a colleague called to discuss a patient, newly diagnosed with monkeypox, who had only one lesion…
Their economy really could collapse if hackers emptied those banks.
https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1532713862218362885?s=21&t=0BECkhca9suSkKeecq_bKw
It is going to be 45 minutes to London in a couple of years on HS2.
For salaried jobs in many industries, it is pretty much at London wages.
And the property prices.... very affordable, as in you can actually buy a nice house/flat in a nice area for the money that you earn in a professional job. You can have the 15 minute lifestyle if that is what you want.
Makes me wonder about all the criticism of house prices. There is no problem at all in large parts of the country. It really is concentrated in the south east, and for many people, the best answer is simply to move.
My own assessment of London before quitting it 10 years ago was that it is fine if you either have serious wealth or are building up a career in your twenties. But there is no point sticking around beyond that.
I can understand why Dorries, Rees Mogg and other fourth-raters stick by him - only he, for entirely venal, self-interested reasons, would put them in government - but how can anyone with an ounce of patriotism or any belief in democracy and the rule of law stand by when they could act to remove him from office?
I guess I’ve answered my own question!
Novel viruses have the capacity to surprise.
It points out that the much-hyped figure of 3.7% unemployment (a 40-year low) is misleading. The “inactivity rate” is 21%, scandalously high for a country with a worker shortage.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-filling-britains-vacancies-welfare-into-work-mg67dlmmz
I am not convinced that turning everywhere into a commuting town to London is the right regional policy for levelling up.
Some strange things happening in the NHS there too, or so my grapevine tells me. Lots of contracting out to private consortia who are gutting core services for staff.
https://www.ft.com/content/3e59b029-8790-4f67-8aca-2977b309464f
Incidentally, recalling the criticism of Michael Foot in his smart 'British warm', categorised in the right-wing Press as a donkey jacket, I assume we'll see editorials in the Mail etc calling attention to the PM's sartorial failings.
Edit: for the young Carnyx, that was a very early lesson in the vicious hatred by the right-wing media and their utterly subjective approach to things.
https://twitter.com/GongwerMichigan/status/1532828807517945858?t=oKWH-m4wUxbx-jRLF4fVLw&s=19
It was the GOP, again.
Tory MPs who want to see the back of him should therefore take the initiative themselves rather than wait for him to do so.
If they want him to go, they ought to encourage obvious contenders to emerge, probably sneakily from within cabinet. Hunt as current lead contender doesn't really inspire; why replace a Prime Minister who hides in fridges with one who hides behind trees?
Tugendhat is impressive but I think the prospective replacement is likely to be someone who is currently a member of the cabinet.
I have done some work for a few of these consortia over the years. In part because the money is good, £4000 for a weekend somewhere is pretty handy, on top of base salary, but also to see if some of the practices could be adapted to my day job.
On the whole not though. It was mostly just churning patients without any real effort to remodel care, and no continuity or long term plan. It reminded me of the good old days with the "Hello Nurse"*, a way of ticking the box to meet a management target for outpatient times, but without really addressing the underlying capacity problem. Such gaming of targets is everywhere now, with the connivance and complicity of the government. I am glad that my own Trust SMT has a more in depth and long term plan.
*https://www.bmj.com/content/315/7101/143.6
Royal fans jeer and boo at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he arrived along with his wife Carrie at London's St Paul's Cathedral for a Service of Thanksgiving for Queen Elizabeth’s #PlatinumJubilee https://reut.rs/3GJH8iS https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1532814376901545984/video/1
Thank you so much @maxfostercnn @cnn for having me at St Paul’s this morning.
Huge cheers for Sussexes.
The opposite for Boris Johnson. Loud boos. https://twitter.com/KateWilliamsme/status/1532715119230259206/photo/1
@NadineDorries The facts are, and I was there, the boos were very loud indeed. No escaping that. Reporters are there to report. Not make stuff up.
https://twitter.com/chrisshipitv/status/1532860646328520704
In the @NewStatesman by a German reporter covering the UK. https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/05/criticising-government-isnt-journalistic-bias-goes-job Bears on whether journalists in the US should be "pro-democracy." Via @froomkin.
When politicians can't talk about the biggest and most damaging policy decision of a generation, they have to talk about trivialities.
If people don't feel the need or desire to work then good on them. We are not put on this planet simply to line the pockets of capitalists through ceaseless toil!
On topic, the dignified way of walking would be for a tame doctor to tell him he had to retire for the sake of his health. Utterly dishonest, of course, but that's totes on-brand.
It doesn't speak well of the man.
I think a lot would have looked at Boris and thought “well he’s a lightweight showman but he’ll get us elected and we can do all the work and make the decisions by the scenes and he will just be a figurehead”.
With May they might have thought “she’s a dull administrator so whilst she’s doing the paperwork we can show our individuality and brio and get things done because she will be happy shuffling paper and being a good technocrat.”
Cameron “he’s young and posh, we can guide him and get him to do what we want from behind the scenes”.
IDS “he’s an idiot, we can do what we want”.
Howard “placeholder, young cardinals vote for old popes”.
Hague - similar to Cameron.
So I think a lot would look at Truss and think too headstrong, Hunt not able to be manipulated. Will probably go for a blank canvas they think they can put their own design on and as usual be unpleasantly surprised when that person doesn’t do things the way they thought.
I can't see to be able to reply to a comment - get the one character short in body complaint.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/employmentintheuk/april2022#:~:text=The UK employment rate was,December 2019 to February 2020).
I think he survives the VONC for the reason that each faction is uncertain of their chances and suspicious of their rivals. Johnson has nibbled them all, so that he can hold on.
The only "reality" is that Dunt can't accept he lost and is still living in a parallel universe where everything is going to be reversed and all will be right with the world again.
"Harry and Meghan get booed as they arrive at St Paul's Cathedral..."
https://twitter.com/Daily_Express/status/1532667058034552835?s=20&t=m3ojrBZ5HrLZdYRYlWdYkA
Nobody looks back on Anthony Eden now and says, "How sad that he had to resign due to ill-health, just as he was beginning his fightback after the whole Suez thing." They see it as it was - support had drained away after policy failings and misleading the House.
Him being booed yesterday was an irrelevance. After all what sort of half-wit goes to a Jubilee event and boos anyone.