And its even worse. So TM made her 50% by 12.15pm. Johnson hasn't even got to 25% (as his vote is out of 359, whereas May was out of 316).
He might win, but his authority will be completely shot.
I’m beginning to wonder if he might just lose this.
So am I.
I thought all these votes ended up with the leader 'winning' but basically forced to resign shortly afterwards because of the scale of the opposition within the party.
Only IDS actually lost a vote straight out the gate, and he wasn't PM at the time.
If Boris won't go after breaking the law, what chance of him going after winning a VONC? Pretty low I would expect. He will believe that he can turn it around.
I don't believe he has a choice. If he loses the vote tonight, he is automatically removed (he doesn't resign) as Party Leader and a leadership contest begins. Once its resolved, if he then doesn't resign as Prime Minister, the Monarch would just dismiss him (without him being there) and appoint the new leader.
No 'resigning' is needed. It's not voluntary. It can't be stopped.
Not sure about this. Here are the steps, (though it won't happen):
Boris is PM until he isn't. He was appointed as usual as leader of the winning party following a GE. Appointment and remaining are different things. He is entitled to remain PM until either he loses a GE, resigns, or loses a VONC in the Commons. If he lost the leadership of party but didn't have/didn't lose a VONC in the Commons (per impossibile) no-one can sack him.
And why should HM do the Commons dirty work for them?
Very interesting and I suppose it would be possible (Chamberlain/Churchill in the summer of 1940). In that instance, the Conservatives would be screwed unless HMQ can be persuaded to intervene (she can dismiss him). The only way then would be to ask Starmer to VONC the government. Unfortuantely, with the FTPA repealed, a successful VONC leads to a GE now, rather than 14 days to sort things out after dismissing the PM.
So yes, it could be that three years ago when the FTPA was a really bad idea, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Where have you got this idea that HMQ can be persuaded to intervene and that "she can dismiss him"? The constitutional convention is that she acts on his advice, and only on his advice. She isn't a referee. She does what the PM tells her to do.
So what would happen then? Conservatives VONC (internal) Johnson. A new leader is appointed but then Johnson refuses to resign as Prime Minister.
What does the Commons do (if anything)? What can they do? Appreciating they could make up something new as an out.....?
They VONC him. Easy. The new leader (permanent or temporary) of the Conservative party is then invited to the palace.
Boris will resign if he's voted out (He'll stick around till a leader is found). He's brazen, a win by 1 vote and he'll stay on - but not THAT brazen.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
"Stop Lying in Politics Ltd"??? Is this bloke a nutter?
Absolutely and totally nuts. BUT, the evidence he has gathered is not in dispute. The news footage of the PM telling everyone he nearly died is all out there, and the data from the hospital is an FOI release from their board.
As always, look past the messenger at the evidence they are presenting.
This kind of nonsense blunts actual valid criticisms. It's very Aesopian.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
That's an exceptionally generous assessment. Ukraine I'll grant you, but on the other two:
- Brexit was going to get 'done' by the simple effluxion of time, so it's hardly a major achievement that it happened. Inasmuch as he had any effect on how it was done, it was an unmitigated disaster, which is why the NI protocol is still a running sore, our customs checks are still not being done, our international trade is very badly hit, fishermen have been betrayed, relations with our key partners are soured, and most voters think it was a mistake.
- Vaccines: yes, that was very well done, but you forgot to mention the many tens of thousands of easily-avoidable deaths before they kicked in, most notably following the unforgiveable and completely obvious (at the time) cock-up of Christmas 2020.
Alastair Meeks on twitter predicts Johnson loses by 15-20
Its starting to feel like thats possible. May got the public pledges she needed by lunchtime. Its half three and BlowJob is up to 112, so only 2/3rds of what he needs.
And he's going to address the '22 shortly. Last time he did that was after Gray came out, and he was so tone deaf that the letters started going in off the back of it.
I'd take anything Nadine Dorries publicly says about what Jeremy Hunt said to her with a huge pinch of salt...
I wouldn't take anything from her without first handling it with heavy duty rubber gloves, and submitting it to rigorous chemical and biological examination.
Her tweet was very specific, including the timing. It’s reasonable to think she made a note of the conversation in a day book. If she’s making it up, she’s open to a libel suit. Wouldn’t that be fun! I think it’s fair to conclude she’s not making it up unless Hunt replies through lawyers.
Jeremy Hunt chaired the Select Committee on Health so will have said all sorts of things on the record that can be checked by anyone with the time and inclination. His new book Zero, from a brief glance, does talk about following Japan and South Korea, though I've not checked precisely where we should have followed them. In any case, surely the government did arrange quarantine hotels for incoming passengers, so it is not as if the idea was totally abhorrent.
"Nadine Dorries @NadineDorries 1/4 On afternoon of 23rd July 2020 when I was health minister you telephoned me to tell me that we had to handle the pandemic following the example set by the East/China. That people testing + should be removed from their homes and placed into isolation hotels for two weeks.
2/4You said yr wife’s family had experience of this during SARS. I said that British people would never tolerate being removed from their homes and loved ones at which point you demanded I show you the evidence for that. Your handling of the pandemic would have been a disaster.
3/4 Your pandemic preparation during six years as health secretary was found wanting and inadequate.Your duplicity right now in destabilising the party and country to serve your own personal ambition, more so.
4/4You told others that PM and Gov would swiftly collapse on back of Brexit and you would swoop in. You told me as much in Victoria St after GE. If you had been leader you’d have handed the keys of No10 to Corbyn. You’ve been wrong about almost everything, you are wrong again now"
What puzzles me is that Ms D has basically admitted that the Tories screwed the pooch on pandemic preparedness as a party of government.
Also, furthermore, Mr Hunt was only Sec of S for Health till 2018; so she has said by implication that the Johnson administration did nothing, or at least nothing sufficient, to remedy this.
Has Nadine Dorries just made one of the political blunders of the decade? Admitting that a Con Govt screwed up Covid big time?
A lot of people who lost loved ones/missed marriages, funerals, schooling etc are going to remember this one.
Most people know that under the opposition they'd have more missed marriages, funerals and schooling. SKS consistently called tory shifts towards normal reckless'
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
Ladies and Gentlemen, can I refer you all to the 1989 Conservative Leadership Election.
Sir Anthony Meyer got just 33 votes. More significantly, however, were the 27 people who abstained or spoilt their ballots.
This made it clear that a quarter of the PCP did not really support Mrs Thatcher.
How many will vote against Mr Johnson today? And how many will abstain?
The thing is though, weren't those MPs more or less united in why they did not support Mrs T...? the Heseltine tendency?
In this case, some MPs have almost polar opposite reasons for wanting Johnson out.
Not green enough/too green.
Not brexity enough/too brexity.
Not generous on spending/too generous on spending.
I don't think any are voting on the green issue or spending issue and only a small number on Brexit (most of those who would have, have gone, the remainers still there are not). They are voting against him because he lies and he lies and he lies and because of partygate and similar such stuff, or they are voting for him.
"Nadine Dorries @NadineDorries 1/4 On afternoon of 23rd July 2020 when I was health minister you telephoned me to tell me that we had to handle the pandemic following the example set by the East/China. That people testing + should be removed from their homes and placed into isolation hotels for two weeks.
2/4You said yr wife’s family had experience of this during SARS. I said that British people would never tolerate being removed from their homes and loved ones at which point you demanded I show you the evidence for that. Your handling of the pandemic would have been a disaster.
3/4 Your pandemic preparation during six years as health secretary was found wanting and inadequate.Your duplicity right now in destabilising the party and country to serve your own personal ambition, more so.
4/4You told others that PM and Gov would swiftly collapse on back of Brexit and you would swoop in. You told me as much in Victoria St after GE. If you had been leader you’d have handed the keys of No10 to Corbyn. You’ve been wrong about almost everything, you are wrong again now"
What puzzles me is that Ms D has basically admitted that the Tories screwed the pooch on pandemic preparedness as a party of government.
Also, furthermore, Mr Hunt was only Sec of S for Health till 2018; so she has said by implication that the Johnson administration did nothing, or at least nothing sufficient, to remedy this.
Don't be puzzled. This is a government of knaves and fools, reacting emotionally as they are being abandoned on the battlefield by their own troops.
It's all about malicious incompetence now.
When did “now” start? I honestly can’t remember when the Conservatives weren’t maliciously incompetent.
If Boris won't go after breaking the law, what chance of him going after winning a VONC? Pretty low I would expect. He will believe that he can turn it around.
I don't believe he has a choice. If he loses the vote tonight, he is automatically removed (he doesn't resign) as Party Leader and a leadership contest begins. Once its resolved, if he then doesn't resign as Prime Minister, the Monarch would just dismiss him (without him being there) and appoint the new leader.
No 'resigning' is needed. It's not voluntary. It can't be stopped.
Not sure about this. Here are the steps, (though it won't happen):
Boris is PM until he isn't. He was appointed as usual as leader of the winning party following a GE. Appointment and remaining are different things. He is entitled to remain PM until either he loses a GE, resigns, or loses a VONC in the Commons. If he lost the leadership of party but didn't have/didn't lose a VONC in the Commons (per impossibile) no-one can sack him.
And why should HM do the Commons dirty work for them?
Very interesting and I suppose it would be possible (Chamberlain/Churchill in the summer of 1940). In that instance, the Conservatives would be screwed unless HMQ can be persuaded to intervene (she can dismiss him). The only way then would be to ask Starmer to VONC the government. Unfortuantely, with the FTPA repealed, a successful VONC leads to a GE now, rather than 14 days to sort things out after dismissing the PM.
So yes, it could be that three years ago when the FTPA was a really bad idea, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Where have you got this idea that HMQ can be persuaded to intervene and that "she can dismiss him"? The constitutional convention is that she acts on his advice, and only on his advice. She isn't a referee. She does what the PM tells her to do.
So what would happen then? Conservatives VONC (internal) Johnson. A new leader is appointed but then Johnson refuses to resign as Prime Minister.
What does the Commons do (if anything)? What can they do? Appreciating they could make up something new as an out.....?
They VONC him. Easy. The new leader (permanent or temporary) of the Conservative party is then invited to the palace.
Yep. Johnson cannot remain in Downing Street once he has lost the confidence of the House. He is more likely to try the stunt of asking for a dissolution rather than just refusing to resign. I can see him asking Her Maj, telling her, "it would be the right thing to do to let the people themselves decide".
Hopefully she will refuse and send him packing. I doubt he has much capital left with the Palace after the Duke's funeral disgrace.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
The brexit he got done is like a string vest.
But he had no choice. Tosser MPs kept frustrating any other Brexit, because half of them secretly - or not so secretly - wanted to cancel it via a second vote. A treasonous and disastrous course of action
Boris saw that the only way to enact the will of the people (which we HAD to do) was to win a big election, thrash Corybn, get a large mandate, vote through the bloody thing. And lo, it came to pass. Thank god for that
You can of course say we should never have ended up in that invidious situation. But for that you can’t blame Boris, more like a string of idiot prime ministers before him, misjudging the mood of the British public, culminating with Cameron
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Re Dorries’ Twitter comments re Hunt, for as much as she gets stick for being as thick as pig shit, she has effectively put the detonator under any Hunt campaign to be leader. By coming out publicly and saying he did Jack to prepare for the pandemic, a Conservative party led by Hunt would be under constant scrutiny / attack for failing to do anything. And, no, it doesn’t matter whether you believe Dorries or not. The opposition would have a field day against a Hunt-led Conservative Party given what she tweeted.
Therefore, even if you do think BJ will go, I would be shortening Hunt.
Well, I've advised selling Hunt (among others) for some time. I can't see how he could possibly win a members' vote.
With that said - and even though I have a lot of personal affection for Ms Dorries - I am sceptical of the story as described.
Why?
Because Mr Hunt did not hesitate at any moment during the last three years to appear on World at One to give his views on how things would have been handled, had he been in charge. Yet he said nothing of these plans.
My guess, FWIW, is that he had a conversation with Ms Dorries, and that he mentioned the responses in the Far East, and that she is spinning that he advocated for these measures.
My (dim) recollection is that yes he did interfere in some way with the stockage of PPE. But I may be wrong.
The only people on tv defending Johnson seem to be tossers and idiots...JR Smug, Mad Nad, Stokey Moron Gullis, Supercilious Moylan, thick Raaaab. Where are his normal supporters? Oh, I forgot, he doesn't have any.....
Considering the magnitude of this evening, are Tory MPs really going to remove their leader, their PM, on the probability he will hurt their chances in 2 years?
Smarkets suggesting only an 18% chance that Boris loses, it feels like value to me. I don't see where he's getting the votes from and Tory MPs seem to want to just move on from it all. Has there been any significant ERG intervention in his favour? It will take Steve Baker saying "Boris must be kept to protect Brexit" for him to scrape home with a narrow victory and I haven't seen any such statement.
If Boris won't go after breaking the law, what chance of him going after winning a VONC? Pretty low I would expect. He will believe that he can turn it around.
I don't believe he has a choice. If he loses the vote tonight, he is automatically removed (he doesn't resign) as Party Leader and a leadership contest begins. Once its resolved, if he then doesn't resign as Prime Minister, the Monarch would just dismiss him (without him being there) and appoint the new leader.
No 'resigning' is needed. It's not voluntary. It can't be stopped.
Not sure about this. Here are the steps, (though it won't happen):
Boris is PM until he isn't. He was appointed as usual as leader of the winning party following a GE. Appointment and remaining are different things. He is entitled to remain PM until either he loses a GE, resigns, or loses a VONC in the Commons. If he lost the leadership of party but didn't have/didn't lose a VONC in the Commons (per impossibile) no-one can sack him.
And why should HM do the Commons dirty work for them?
Very interesting and I suppose it would be possible (Chamberlain/Churchill in the summer of 1940). In that instance, the Conservatives would be screwed unless HMQ can be persuaded to intervene (she can dismiss him). The only way then would be to ask Starmer to VONC the government. Unfortuantely, with the FTPA repealed, a successful VONC leads to a GE now, rather than 14 days to sort things out after dismissing the PM.
So yes, it could be that three years ago when the FTPA was a really bad idea, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Where have you got this idea that HMQ can be persuaded to intervene and that "she can dismiss him"? The constitutional convention is that she acts on his advice, and only on his advice. She isn't a referee. She does what the PM tells her to do.
So what would happen then? Conservatives VONC (internal) Johnson. A new leader is appointed but then Johnson refuses to resign as Prime Minister.
What does the Commons do (if anything)? What can they do? Appreciating they could make up something new as an out.....?
They VONC him. Easy. The new leader (permanent or temporary) of the Conservative party is then invited to the palace.
Yep. Johnson cannot remain in Downing Street once he has lost the confidence of the House. He is more likely to try the stunt of asking for a dissolution rather than just refusing to resign. I can see him asking Her Maj, telling her, "it would be the right thing to do to let the people themselves decide".
Hopefully she will refuse and send him packing. I doubt he has much capital left with the Palace after the Duke's funeral disgrace.
Plus I think he will be up against Chas n baldy to the extent he is really up against the monarch at all, possibly a more robust team
I think Alistair Meeks is correct. In fact, once it becomes clear that Boris won't win, there may be plenty of MP's rushing to abandon a sinking ship, and the margin of defeat may be even bigger.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Britain was ahead of the pack in Europe getting rid of restrictions and most of Europe (and a good chunk of the UK) thought we were being mad and reckless. Even today things are still very late 2020 in much of developed Asia. Don’t underestimate how much Britain moving on from covid when it did gave cover to many others to follow a few months later.
BREAKING: ConHome members' survey says the clown should GO, by 55%:41%
Yougov suggests different, though both Yougov and ConHome agree that Wallace is Conservative Party members favourite as next Tory leader if Johnson does go
If Boris won't go after breaking the law, what chance of him going after winning a VONC? Pretty low I would expect. He will believe that he can turn it around.
I don't believe he has a choice. If he loses the vote tonight, he is automatically removed (he doesn't resign) as Party Leader and a leadership contest begins. Once its resolved, if he then doesn't resign as Prime Minister, the Monarch would just dismiss him (without him being there) and appoint the new leader.
No 'resigning' is needed. It's not voluntary. It can't be stopped.
Not sure about this. Here are the steps, (though it won't happen):
Boris is PM until he isn't. He was appointed as usual as leader of the winning party following a GE. Appointment and remaining are different things. He is entitled to remain PM until either he loses a GE, resigns, or loses a VONC in the Commons. If he lost the leadership of party but didn't have/didn't lose a VONC in the Commons (per impossibile) no-one can sack him.
And why should HM do the Commons dirty work for them?
Very interesting and I suppose it would be possible (Chamberlain/Churchill in the summer of 1940). In that instance, the Conservatives would be screwed unless HMQ can be persuaded to intervene (she can dismiss him). The only way then would be to ask Starmer to VONC the government. Unfortuantely, with the FTPA repealed, a successful VONC leads to a GE now, rather than 14 days to sort things out after dismissing the PM.
So yes, it could be that three years ago when the FTPA was a really bad idea, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Where have you got this idea that HMQ can be persuaded to intervene and that "she can dismiss him"? The constitutional convention is that she acts on his advice, and only on his advice. She isn't a referee. She does what the PM tells her to do.
So what would happen then? Conservatives VONC (internal) Johnson. A new leader is appointed but then Johnson refuses to resign as Prime Minister.
What does the Commons do (if anything)? What can they do? Appreciating they could make up something new as an out.....?
They VONC him. Easy. The new leader (permanent or temporary) of the Conservative party is then invited to the palace.
Yep. Johnson cannot remain in Downing Street once he has lost the confidence of the House. He is more likely to try the stunt of asking for a dissolution rather than just refusing to resign. I can see him asking Her Maj, telling her, "it would be the right thing to do to let the people themselves decide".
Hopefully she will refuse and send him packing. I doubt he has much capital left with the Palace after the Duke's funeral disgrace.
He can’t go for a GE as he and his supporters have pointed out that this is not the time for a leadership challenge as there are very important things happening like Ukraine so they need to focus on running the country so a GE would be even more disruptive. And if there is one thing we know about Boris and Co they stand by what they say. Oh.
And its even worse. So TM made her 50% by 12.15pm. Johnson hasn't even got to 25% (as his vote is out of 359, whereas May was out of 316).
He might win, but his authority will be completely shot.
I’m beginning to wonder if he might just lose this.
So am I.
I thought all these votes ended up with the leader 'winning' but basically forced to resign shortly afterwards because of the scale of the opposition within the party.
Only IDS actually lost a vote straight out the gate, and he wasn't PM at the time.
Has a sitting PM *ever* lost a VONC?
Only one sitting prime minister has faced one of these new-fangled Tory VONCs, and Theresa May won it (sort of). Mrs Thatcher faced a leadership challenge, which is different. She also won (sort of). Before that, it was the fabled men in grey suits who would tell a sitting prime minister it is time for the whisky and pearl-handled revolver.
Ladies and Gentlemen, can I refer you all to the 1989 Conservative Leadership Election.
Sir Anthony Meyer got just 33 votes. More significantly, however, were the 27 people who abstained or spoilt their ballots.
This made it clear that a quarter of the PCP did not really support Mrs Thatcher.
How many will vote against Mr Johnson today? And how many will abstain?
The thing is though, weren't those MPs more or less united in why they did not support Mrs T...? the Heseltine tendency?
In this case, some MPs have almost polar opposite reasons for wanting Johnson out.
Not green enough/too green.
Not brexity enough/too brexity.
Not generous on spending/too generous on spending.
I don't think any are voting on the green issue or spending issue and only a small number on Brexit (most of those who would have, have gone, the remainers still there are not). They are voting against him because he lies and he lies and he lies and because of partygate and similar such stuff, or they are voting for him.
We will have to disagree there, then.
Johnson would have walked this if the economy was in good shape.
The fact is that rampant inflation means ordinary voters are getting poorer by the month. What's much worse is there is also no plan, promise or idea when things might start to stabilise and get better.
Not only is there no jam tomorrow, there's no jam ever. That's a desperate position for any MP in government.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
The brexit he got done is like a string vest.
But he had no choice. Tosser MPs kept frustrating any other Brexit, because half of them secretly - or not so secretly - wanted to cancel it via a second vote. A treasonous and disastrous course of action
Boris saw that the only way to enact the will of the people (which we HAD to do) was to win a big election, thrash Corybn, get a large mandate, vote through the bloody thing. And lo, it came to pass. Thank god for that
You can of course say we should never have ended up in that invidious situation. But for that you can’t blame Boris, more like a string of idiot prime ministers before him, misjudging the mood of the British public, culminating with Cameron
You're putting the cart before the horse there - Boris only won his election because he solemnly swore he had solved Brexit with the ultimate Deal, which just needed rubber stamping by the electorate. Had people realized it would turn out to be this sub-optimal they might well have voted Corbyn anyway.
If Boris won't go after breaking the law, what chance of him going after winning a VONC? Pretty low I would expect. He will believe that he can turn it around.
I don't believe he has a choice. If he loses the vote tonight, he is automatically removed (he doesn't resign) as Party Leader and a leadership contest begins. Once its resolved, if he then doesn't resign as Prime Minister, the Monarch would just dismiss him (without him being there) and appoint the new leader.
No 'resigning' is needed. It's not voluntary. It can't be stopped.
Not sure about this. Here are the steps, (though it won't happen):
Boris is PM until he isn't. He was appointed as usual as leader of the winning party following a GE. Appointment and remaining are different things. He is entitled to remain PM until either he loses a GE, resigns, or loses a VONC in the Commons. If he lost the leadership of party but didn't have/didn't lose a VONC in the Commons (per impossibile) no-one can sack him.
And why should HM do the Commons dirty work for them?
Very interesting and I suppose it would be possible (Chamberlain/Churchill in the summer of 1940). In that instance, the Conservatives would be screwed unless HMQ can be persuaded to intervene (she can dismiss him). The only way then would be to ask Starmer to VONC the government. Unfortuantely, with the FTPA repealed, a successful VONC leads to a GE now, rather than 14 days to sort things out after dismissing the PM.
So yes, it could be that three years ago when the FTPA was a really bad idea, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Where have you got this idea that HMQ can be persuaded to intervene and that "she can dismiss him"? The constitutional convention is that she acts on his advice, and only on his advice. She isn't a referee. She does what the PM tells her to do.
So what would happen then? Conservatives VONC (internal) Johnson. A new leader is appointed but then Johnson refuses to resign as Prime Minister.
What does the Commons do (if anything)? What can they do? Appreciating they could make up something new as an out.....?
They VONC him. Easy. The new leader (permanent or temporary) of the Conservative party is then invited to the palace.
So a VONC in Parliament DOESN'T lead to a General Election then? Jim Callaghan would like a word....... (And it begs the question, what DOES it lead to? Nothing? Why even have the process then?) (And therefore, WHAT IF, given you state that the Commons would VONC Johnson, the opposition parties then vote against the motion! With (say) 50 Conservative Johnson loyalests he wins the VONC in the House.... I mean... we all know SKS and Davey want him to stay)
"Nadine Dorries @NadineDorries 1/4 On afternoon of 23rd July 2020 when I was health minister you telephoned me to tell me that we had to handle the pandemic following the example set by the East/China. That people testing + should be removed from their homes and placed into isolation hotels for two weeks.
2/4You said yr wife’s family had experience of this during SARS. I said that British people would never tolerate being removed from their homes and loved ones at which point you demanded I show you the evidence for that. Your handling of the pandemic would have been a disaster.
3/4 Your pandemic preparation during six years as health secretary was found wanting and inadequate.Your duplicity right now in destabilising the party and country to serve your own personal ambition, more so.
4/4You told others that PM and Gov would swiftly collapse on back of Brexit and you would swoop in. You told me as much in Victoria St after GE. If you had been leader you’d have handed the keys of No10 to Corbyn. You’ve been wrong about almost everything, you are wrong again now"
What puzzles me is that Ms D has basically admitted that the Tories screwed the pooch on pandemic preparedness as a party of government.
Also, furthermore, Mr Hunt was only Sec of S for Health till 2018; so she has said by implication that the Johnson administration did nothing, or at least nothing sufficient, to remedy this.
Why would they have done anything, realistically?
The pandemic began within 6 months of the administration forming and in that time we had the Brexit dramas of the fag end of the Remain Parliament, negotiations and the General Election.
Pandemic preparedness would not remotely have been on the radar.
Pandemic preparedness should always be on the radar, just as a war should always be on the radar.
Right. But the point is that there was a perfectly viable pandemic preparedness plan, which Boris (panicked by the photos coming out of Italy) chucked in the bin under pressure from the media. The problem wasn't the planning, the problem was the panic.
Memory failing me here. What plan did Johnson chuck in the bin?
The plan was to slow the spread by shielding the vulnerable, with some social distancing, working from home etc. This was to build up herd immunity in those who would get over covid without issues.
Italy put the willies up everyone as it looked like health services would be overwhelmed, with people who might otherwise be saved, dying thought lack of a bed and anyone to treat them. That's why we locked down, as the original plan of a drawn out by flatter infection wave was abandoned as potentially catastrophic.
If Boris won't go after breaking the law, what chance of him going after winning a VONC? Pretty low I would expect. He will believe that he can turn it around.
I don't believe he has a choice. If he loses the vote tonight, he is automatically removed (he doesn't resign) as Party Leader and a leadership contest begins. Once its resolved, if he then doesn't resign as Prime Minister, the Monarch would just dismiss him (without him being there) and appoint the new leader.
No 'resigning' is needed. It's not voluntary. It can't be stopped.
Not sure about this. Here are the steps, (though it won't happen):
Boris is PM until he isn't. He was appointed as usual as leader of the winning party following a GE. Appointment and remaining are different things. He is entitled to remain PM until either he loses a GE, resigns, or loses a VONC in the Commons. If he lost the leadership of party but didn't have/didn't lose a VONC in the Commons (per impossibile) no-one can sack him.
And why should HM do the Commons dirty work for them?
Very interesting and I suppose it would be possible (Chamberlain/Churchill in the summer of 1940). In that instance, the Conservatives would be screwed unless HMQ can be persuaded to intervene (she can dismiss him). The only way then would be to ask Starmer to VONC the government. Unfortuantely, with the FTPA repealed, a successful VONC leads to a GE now, rather than 14 days to sort things out after dismissing the PM.
So yes, it could be that three years ago when the FTPA was a really bad idea, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Where have you got this idea that HMQ can be persuaded to intervene and that "she can dismiss him"? The constitutional convention is that she acts on his advice, and only on his advice. She isn't a referee. She does what the PM tells her to do.
So what would happen then? Conservatives VONC (internal) Johnson. A new leader is appointed but then Johnson refuses to resign as Prime Minister.
What does the Commons do (if anything)? What can they do? Appreciating they could make up something new as an out.....?
They VONC him. Easy. The new leader (permanent or temporary) of the Conservative party is then invited to the palace.
Stubbornness in refusing to resign as PM having lost the party leadership and a new leader being in place I guess could mean, in varying order:
(a) cabinet resignations (b) appointment of a cabinet in waiting by the new leader (c) BJ loss of the conservative whip (d) vonc of an independent mostly vacant now non-Tory government led by BoJo
i.e. if he stays on, the party is stripped away from him, so that when he is vonc'edhe is no longer leader of a Con government
Whether the mechanics are that, formally Con goes into HM loyal opposition temporarily against BJ in order to vonc him I'm not sure exactly how it would work, but I'm sure the mechanics are there to remove him, simply because of the numbers.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
"Stop Lying in Politics Ltd"??? Is this bloke a nutter?
Absolutely and totally nuts. BUT, the evidence he has gathered is not in dispute. The news footage of the PM telling everyone he nearly died is all out there, and the data from the hospital is an FOI release from their board.
As always, look past the messenger at the evidence they are presenting.
This kind of nonsense blunts actual valid criticisms. It's very Aesopian.
What nonsense. I have no interest in the opinion of a bloke running a crusading "truth" movement like this. But I am interested in what he has found. If it was his opinion then less so, but its a FOI statement by the Chief Operating Officer of the hospital.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 21m Nadine Dorries and JRM currently leading the charge at Westminster to rally support for Boris. Needs more senior cabinet support than that. Tory MPs noticing.
Re Dorries’ Twitter comments re Hunt, for as much as she gets stick for being as thick as pig shit, she has effectively put the detonator under any Hunt campaign to be leader. By coming out publicly and saying he did Jack to prepare for the pandemic, a Conservative party led by Hunt would be under constant scrutiny / attack for failing to do anything. And, no, it doesn’t matter whether you believe Dorries or not. The opposition would have a field day against a Hunt-led Conservative Party given what she tweeted.
Therefore, even if you do think BJ will go, I would be shortening Hunt.
Well, I've advised selling Hunt (among others) for some time. I can't see how he could possibly win a members' vote.
With that said - and even though I have a lot of personal affection for Ms Dorries - I am sceptical of the story as described.
Why?
Because Mr Hunt did not hesitate at any moment during the last three years to appear on World at One to give his views on how things would have been handled, had he been in charge. Yet he said nothing of these plans.
My guess, FWIW, is that he had a conversation with Ms Dorries, and that he mentioned the responses in the Far East, and that she is spinning that he advocated for these measures.
My (dim) recollection is that yes he did interfere in some way with the stockage of PPE. But I may be wrong.
Hunt buried the report on Exercise Cygnus (qv) which had recommended stockpiling PPE.
My message to all Conservative MPs ahead of tonight's vote: You - more than Boris Johnson - are on public trial today. The public has CORRECTLY decided that the PM doesn't tell the truth. They are waiting to see if that is something you accept or not. I very much hope not. https://twitter.com/montie/status/1533822613461549057
And its even worse. So TM made her 50% by 12.15pm. Johnson hasn't even got to 25% (as his vote is out of 359, whereas May was out of 316).
He might win, but his authority will be completely shot.
I’m beginning to wonder if he might just lose this.
So am I.
I thought all these votes ended up with the leader 'winning' but basically forced to resign shortly afterwards because of the scale of the opposition within the party.
Only IDS actually lost a vote straight out the gate, and he wasn't PM at the time.
Has a sitting PM *ever* lost a VONC?
An internal VONC (ie, a party VONC, not a Parliamentary one). I think the answer is no.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
The brexit he got done is like a string vest.
But he had no choice. Tosser MPs kept frustrating any other Brexit, because half of them secretly - or not so secretly - wanted to cancel it via a second vote. A treasonous and disastrous course of action
Boris saw that the only way to enact the will of the people (which we HAD to do) was to win a big election, thrash Corybn, get a large mandate, vote through the bloody thing. And lo, it came to pass. Thank god for that
You can of course say we should never have ended up in that invidious situation. But for that you can’t blame Boris, more like a string of idiot prime ministers before him, misjudging the mood of the British public, culminating with Cameron
I doubt that Brexit would have won in 2016 if Johnson (who probably has no strong views on the subject and supported Leave in order to further his own career) hadn't fronted the campaign. So I think you can definitely blame him for putting the country in the shitty position of having to implement a policy built on mutually inconsistent promises. He is the most destructive politician to have ever led this country, we will still be clearing up his mess ten years from now.
Considering the magnitude of this evening, are Tory MPs really going to remove their leader, their PM, on the probability he will hurt their chances in 2 years?
I can see some nervous Nellie's folding.
The reasoning of his backers is completely backwards -
A leadership election would take a couple of months. The speculation about who should lead the Tories to the next GE is completely demolished by it. Boris narrowly hanging on, it's at least another year of divisive speculation.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
That's an exceptionally generous assessment. Ukraine I'll grant you, but on the other two:
- Brexit was going to get 'done' by the simple effluxion of time, so it's hardly a major achievement that it happened. Inasmuch as he had any effect on how it was done, it was an unmitigated disaster, which is why the NI protocol is still a running sore, our customs checks are still not being done, our international trade is very badly hit, fishermen have been betrayed, relations with our key partners are soured, and most voters think it was a mistake.
- Vaccines: yes, that was very well done, but you forgot to mention the many tens of thousands of easily-avoidable deaths before they kicked in, most notably following the unforgiveable and completely obvious (at the time) cock-up of Christmas 2020.
The big call Boris did get right, and that is rarely mentioned, is to bin the austerity hawks.
Considering the magnitude of this evening, are Tory MPs really going to remove their leader, their PM, on the probability he will hurt their chances in 2 years?
I can see some nervous Nellie's folding.
It's not a probability it's as certain as anything short of death and taxes
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Hand 1: Boris succumbed to government by Chief Medical Officer, took away precious liberties and thereby set an horrific precedent; we likely haven't seen the last lockdown of our lives. When he finally gave in to his liberal tendencies it was too late and the damage had been done.
Hand 2: Most of the rest of the planet likewise engaged in lockdowns and Boris opened as often and soon as he could.
As for vaccines I don't think we differ, now, from much of the EU but someone will have the stats to show otherwise.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
The brexit he got done is like a string vest.
But he had no choice. Tosser MPs kept frustrating any other Brexit, because half of them secretly - or not so secretly - wanted to cancel it via a second vote. A treasonous and disastrous course of action
Boris saw that the only way to enact the will of the people (which we HAD to do) was to win a big election, thrash Corybn, get a large mandate, vote through the bloody thing. And lo, it came to pass. Thank god for that
You can of course say we should never have ended up in that invidious situation. But for that you can’t blame Boris, more like a string of idiot prime ministers before him, misjudging the mood of the British public, culminating with Cameron
You're putting the cart before the horse there - Boris only won his election because he solemnly swore he had solved Brexit with the ultimate Deal, which just needed rubber stamping by the electorate. Had people realized it would turn out to be this sub-optimal they might well have voted Corbyn anyway.
Nah. The fact you think that is why the next Labour Gvt won’t last more than a term or two. Remainers still don’t get why leavers voted as they did or understand how much they hate the idea of a return to the mid-nineties to 2016 type consensus.
If Boris won't go after breaking the law, what chance of him going after winning a VONC? Pretty low I would expect. He will believe that he can turn it around.
I don't believe he has a choice. If he loses the vote tonight, he is automatically removed (he doesn't resign) as Party Leader and a leadership contest begins. Once its resolved, if he then doesn't resign as Prime Minister, the Monarch would just dismiss him (without him being there) and appoint the new leader.
No 'resigning' is needed. It's not voluntary. It can't be stopped.
Not sure about this. Here are the steps, (though it won't happen):
Boris is PM until he isn't. He was appointed as usual as leader of the winning party following a GE. Appointment and remaining are different things. He is entitled to remain PM until either he loses a GE, resigns, or loses a VONC in the Commons. If he lost the leadership of party but didn't have/didn't lose a VONC in the Commons (per impossibile) no-one can sack him.
And why should HM do the Commons dirty work for them?
Very interesting and I suppose it would be possible (Chamberlain/Churchill in the summer of 1940). In that instance, the Conservatives would be screwed unless HMQ can be persuaded to intervene (she can dismiss him). The only way then would be to ask Starmer to VONC the government. Unfortuantely, with the FTPA repealed, a successful VONC leads to a GE now, rather than 14 days to sort things out after dismissing the PM.
So yes, it could be that three years ago when the FTPA was a really bad idea, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Where have you got this idea that HMQ can be persuaded to intervene and that "she can dismiss him"? The constitutional convention is that she acts on his advice, and only on his advice. She isn't a referee. She does what the PM tells her to do.
So what would happen then? Conservatives VONC (internal) Johnson. A new leader is appointed but then Johnson refuses to resign as Prime Minister.
What does the Commons do (if anything)? What can they do? Appreciating they could make up something new as an out.....?
They VONC him. Easy. The new leader (permanent or temporary) of the Conservative party is then invited to the palace.
Stubbornness in refusing to resign as PM having lost the party leadership and a new leader being in place I guess could mean, in varying order:
(a) cabinet resignations (b) appointment of a cabinet in waiting by the new leader (c) BJ loss of the conservative whip (d) vonc of an independent mostly vacant now non-Tory government led by BoJo
i.e. if he stays on, the party is stripped away from him, so that when he is vonc'edhe is no longer leader of a Con government
Whether the mechanics are that, formally Con goes into HM loyal opposition temporarily against BJ in order to vonc him I'm not sure exactly how it would work, but I'm sure the mechanics are there to remove him, simply because of the numbers.
Interim is an entirely separate question.
Nah its very straight forward and is #4 on your list.
There is a VONC in the Tory Government and Johnson is out. But then, since the Tories still actually have a stonking majority in Parliament, whoever they choose to be the new leader also becomes PM. It is a no brainer for Tory MPs to support a VONC as it costs them nothing and there is no need for or risk of a GE.
All those talking about some sort of constitutional crisis are overegging it big time.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
The brexit he got done is like a string vest.
But he had no choice. Tosser MPs kept frustrating any other Brexit, because half of them secretly - or not so secretly - wanted to cancel it via a second vote. A treasonous and disastrous course of action
Boris saw that the only way to enact the will of the people (which we HAD to do) was to win a big election, thrash Corybn, get a large mandate, vote through the bloody thing. And lo, it came to pass. Thank god for that
You can of course say we should never have ended up in that invidious situation. But for that you can’t blame Boris, more like a string of idiot prime ministers before him, misjudging the mood of the British public, culminating with Cameron
I doubt that Brexit would have won in 2016 if Johnson (who probably has no strong views on the subject and supported Leave in order to further his own career) hadn't fronted the campaign. So I think you can definitely blame him for putting the country in the shitty position of having to implement a policy built on mutually inconsistent promises. He is the most destructive politician to have ever led this country, we will still be clearing up his mess ten years from now.
As I’ve said before, if you hate Brexit, you’re gonna hate Boris. So there’s little point in our arguing in that instance, as we so widely disagree
Also, you’re wrong on his supposedly unprincipled support for Brexit. I have it on very good authority that he meant it. He was genuinely torn (hence the two columns, to clear his mind) and in the end, he decided it had to be Leave. Of course, this benefited his career, but that was a happy by-product, not the purpose
BREAKING: ConHome members' survey says the clown should GO, by 55%:41%
Yougov suggests different, though both Yougov and ConHome agree that Wallace is Conservative Party members favourite as next Tory leader if Johnson does go
The favourite list is not an endorsement of anybody
The first task is to ensure Boris is sent packing, then let's see who emerge as candidates and then listen to their hustings when genuine favourites will appear
A stand off between Johnson raging about "the people's votes" and "traitors" and the Queen over an early GE would mean I need to order more popcorn than is available on the whole planet.
Nadine Dorries really has become the Conservative rebels most effective campaigning agent, one of Boris Johnson's biggest errors was not clearing out under performing cheer leading Ministers like Dorries a while ago while leaving far too many more talented and politically astute media performers sitting on the back benches.
This will be completely out of the blue from the perspective of team Peppa. Reasonably likely they haven't wargamed all the scenarios, especially when there is a vote this quickly and he loses.
We know he needs to be loved. We know its all about him. We believe he has trouble at mill. So the idea that having being brutally humiliated like this he is happy to sit there alone in Downing Street like a leper for months whilst the party launches a leadership election / the purge feels possible but really uncomfortable.
If he takes the Chiltern Hundreds in the morning, Raab will be PM.
The clown to lose coming in to 4.8 on Betfair. There's probably value in it as a trading bet, as odds are likely to narrow as the deadline approaches even if he eventually wins.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Britain was ahead of the pack in Europe getting rid of restrictions and most of Europe (and a good chunk of the UK) thought we were being mad and reckless. Even today things are still very late 2020 in much of developed Asia. Don’t underestimate how much Britain moving on from covid when it did gave cover to many others to follow a few months later.
We were ahead of the pack, but only just. We were - what - a few weeks behind Denmark, but less than a month ahead of France and Germany. (Pretty much everyone in Europe got rid of the remaining mask mandates in April of this year.)
Under Johnson, we also had some of the worst restrictions in the developed world about meeting with friends outdoors.
Now might Hunt have been worse. Yep, he might have been. But that's a might.
But I would suggest that Johnson's inaction around the start of the pandemic allowed a couple of "doubles" that meant that we had to keep the mask mandates significanlty longer than should have been the case.
I think Alistair Meeks is correct. In fact, once it becomes clear that Boris won't win, there may be plenty of MP's rushing to abandon a sinking ship, and the margin of defeat may be even bigger.
Yes, if Boris can't get public support above 150 by voting time I don't see how he doesn't lose big time. It could end up being a rout with only 100-120 in favour.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
The brexit he got done is like a string vest.
But he had no choice. Tosser MPs kept frustrating any other Brexit, because half of them secretly - or not so secretly - wanted to cancel it via a second vote. A treasonous and disastrous course of action
Boris saw that the only way to enact the will of the people (which we HAD to do) was to win a big election, thrash Corybn, get a large mandate, vote through the bloody thing. And lo, it came to pass. Thank god for that
You can of course say we should never have ended up in that invidious situation. But for that you can’t blame Boris, more like a string of idiot prime ministers before him, misjudging the mood of the British public, culminating with Cameron
I doubt that Brexit would have won in 2016 if Johnson (who probably has no strong views on the subject and supported Leave in order to further his own career) hadn't fronted the campaign. So I think you can definitely blame him for putting the country in the shitty position of having to implement a policy built on mutually inconsistent promises. He is the most destructive politician to have ever led this country, we will still be clearing up his mess ten years from now.
As I’ve said before, if you hate Brexit, you’re gonna hate Boris. So there’s little point in our arguing in that instance, as we so widely disagree
Fair enough, although disagreement is usually a fairly useful starting point if you want to have an argument with someone.
Tim Montgomerie 🇬🇧 @montie · 6m My message to all Conservative MPs ahead of tonight's vote: You - more than Boris Johnson - are on public trial today. The public has CORRECTLY decided that the PM doesn't tell the truth. They are waiting to see if that is something you accept or not. I very much hope not.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Britain was ahead of the pack in Europe getting rid of restrictions and most of Europe (and a good chunk of the UK) thought we were being mad and reckless. Even today things are still very late 2020 in much of developed Asia. Don’t underestimate how much Britain moving on from covid when it did gave cover to many others to follow a few months later.
We were ahead of the pack, but only just. We were - what - a few weeks behind Denmark, but less than a month ahead of France and Germany. (Pretty much everyone in Europe got rid of the remaining mask mandates in April of this year.)
Under Johnson, we also had some of the worst restrictions in the developed world about meeting with friends outdoors.
Now might Hunt have been worse. Yep, he might have been. But that's a might.
But I would suggest that Johnson's inaction around the start of the pandemic allowed a couple of "doubles" that meant that we had to keep the mask mandates significanlty longer than should have been the case.
Indoor mask mandates lifted dates:
February 4 - Denmark March 14 - France April 1 - UK April 4 - Germany
I'm not sure you can claim we were ahead of the pack at removing restrictions.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Britain was ahead of the pack in Europe getting rid of restrictions and most of Europe (and a good chunk of the UK) thought we were being mad and reckless. Even today things are still very late 2020 in much of developed Asia. Don’t underestimate how much Britain moving on from covid when it did gave cover to many others to follow a few months later.
We were ahead of the pack, but only just. We were - what - a few weeks behind Denmark, but less than a month ahead of France and Germany. (Pretty much everyone in Europe got rid of the remaining mask mandates in April of this year.)
Under Johnson, we also had some of the worst restrictions in the developed world about meeting with friends outdoors.
Now might Hunt have been worse. Yep, he might have been. But that's a might.
But I would suggest that Johnson's inaction around the start of the pandemic allowed a couple of "doubles" that meant that we had to keep the mask mandates significanlty longer than should have been the case.
Not to mention the fiascos of the Christmas that never was and the primary schools that were sent back for a single day....
Re Dorries’ Twitter comments re Hunt, for as much as she gets stick for being as thick as pig shit, she has effectively put the detonator under any Hunt campaign to be leader. By coming out publicly and saying he did Jack to prepare for the pandemic, a Conservative party led by Hunt would be under constant scrutiny / attack for failing to do anything. And, no, it doesn’t matter whether you believe Dorries or not. The opposition would have a field day against a Hunt-led Conservative Party given what she tweeted.
Therefore, even if you do think BJ will go, I would be shortening Hunt.
Well, I've advised selling Hunt (among others) for some time. I can't see how he could possibly win a members' vote.
With that said - and even though I have a lot of personal affection for Ms Dorries - I am sceptical of the story as described.
Why?
Because Mr Hunt did not hesitate at any moment during the last three years to appear on World at One to give his views on how things would have been handled, had he been in charge. Yet he said nothing of these plans.
My guess, FWIW, is that he had a conversation with Ms Dorries, and that he mentioned the responses in the Far East, and that she is spinning that he advocated for these measures.
My (dim) recollection is that yes he did interfere in some way with the stockage of PPE. But I may be wrong.
Hunt buried the report on Exercise Cygnus (qv) which had recommended stockpiling PPE.
Stockpiling PPE is tricky. It does usually have an expiry date (e.g. nitrile gloves don't last forever in a box). You need a plan to keep it moving in and out. And somewhere to store it. And it costs. And you probably needed it once in a hundred years.
If Boris won't go after breaking the law, what chance of him going after winning a VONC? Pretty low I would expect. He will believe that he can turn it around.
I don't believe he has a choice. If he loses the vote tonight, he is automatically removed (he doesn't resign) as Party Leader and a leadership contest begins. Once its resolved, if he then doesn't resign as Prime Minister, the Monarch would just dismiss him (without him being there) and appoint the new leader.
No 'resigning' is needed. It's not voluntary. It can't be stopped.
Not sure about this. Here are the steps, (though it won't happen):
Boris is PM until he isn't. He was appointed as usual as leader of the winning party following a GE. Appointment and remaining are different things. He is entitled to remain PM until either he loses a GE, resigns, or loses a VONC in the Commons. If he lost the leadership of party but didn't have/didn't lose a VONC in the Commons (per impossibile) no-one can sack him.
And why should HM do the Commons dirty work for them?
Very interesting and I suppose it would be possible (Chamberlain/Churchill in the summer of 1940). In that instance, the Conservatives would be screwed unless HMQ can be persuaded to intervene (she can dismiss him). The only way then would be to ask Starmer to VONC the government. Unfortuantely, with the FTPA repealed, a successful VONC leads to a GE now, rather than 14 days to sort things out after dismissing the PM.
So yes, it could be that three years ago when the FTPA was a really bad idea, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Where have you got this idea that HMQ can be persuaded to intervene and that "she can dismiss him"? The constitutional convention is that she acts on his advice, and only on his advice. She isn't a referee. She does what the PM tells her to do.
So what would happen then? Conservatives VONC (internal) Johnson. A new leader is appointed but then Johnson refuses to resign as Prime Minister.
What does the Commons do (if anything)? What can they do? Appreciating they could make up something new as an out.....?
They VONC him. Easy. The new leader (permanent or temporary) of the Conservative party is then invited to the palace.
So a VONC in Parliament DOESN'T lead to a General Election then? Jim Callaghan would like a word....... (And it begs the question, what DOES it lead to? Nothing? Why even have the process then?) (And therefore, WHAT IF, given you state that the Commons would VONC Johnson, the opposition parties then vote against the motion! With (say) 50 Conservative Johnson loyalests he wins the VONC in the House.... I mean... we all know SKS and Davey want him to stay)
A VONC in Parliament leads to the PM going. The PM can then recommend to the Crown that someone else can command a majority in the Commons and that person is then asked to be PM. The outgoing PM should only ask for a dissolution if that is not the case. In the highly unlikely event that Johnson played silly buggers and said no-one can command a majority in the House when in fact someone could, the Queen('s advisers) would ignore the outgoing PM's position. (This would be messy, but in keeping with the constitution.)
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
The brexit he got done is like a string vest.
But he had no choice. Tosser MPs kept frustrating any other Brexit, because half of them secretly - or not so secretly - wanted to cancel it via a second vote. A treasonous and disastrous course of action
Boris saw that the only way to enact the will of the people (which we HAD to do) was to win a big election, thrash Corybn, get a large mandate, vote through the bloody thing. And lo, it came to pass. Thank god for that
You can of course say we should never have ended up in that invidious situation. But for that you can’t blame Boris, more like a string of idiot prime ministers before him, misjudging the mood of the British public, culminating with Cameron
You're putting the cart before the horse there - Boris only won his election because he solemnly swore he had solved Brexit with the ultimate Deal, which just needed rubber stamping by the electorate. Had people realized it would turn out to be this sub-optimal they might well have voted Corbyn anyway.
Nah. The fact you think that is why the next Labour Gvt won’t last more than a term or two. Remainers still don’t get why leavers voted as they did or understand how much they hate the idea of a return to the mid-nineties to 2016 type consensus.
We understand. He said he would get Brexit done and he got it done. And the country was ready for that to happen (it hadn't been in 2017).
We are just astounded at how people continued to support him when he then bogged up what could have been a sensible Brexit deal and, lest we forget, did something that no British PM would ever accept. He lied, misunderstood and was lazy about it all.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
"Stop Lying in Politics Ltd"??? Is this bloke a nutter?
Absolutely and totally nuts. BUT, the evidence he has gathered is not in dispute. The news footage of the PM telling everyone he nearly died is all out there, and the data from the hospital is an FOI release from their board.
As always, look past the messenger at the evidence they are presenting.
This kind of nonsense blunts actual valid criticisms. It's very Aesopian.
LOad of bollox he was never even close by a country mile, it was pure windbaggery.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
That's an exceptionally generous assessment. Ukraine I'll grant you,
Ukraine he was an effective voice for a policy that had been in place for eight years initiated under and continued by his two predecessors……
To an extent, yes, but that doesn't alter the fact that in the lead-up to the invasion Britain was foremost in giving Ukraine practical help.
We’ve been training the Ukrainian Army since 2014. That’s a significant element of why they’ve been running rings round the Russians. Since the invasion started other countries (notably the US & Poland, absolutely, and the Baltic states relatively) have been giving them more kit than us. Because of the work started 8 years ago they’ve known how to use it effectively - but Johnson hasn’t been much more than an effective front man for a well established UK Govt policy tracing to Cameron and May.
If anyones fingetprints are on this it’s theirs & Wallace’s.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
That's an exceptionally generous assessment. Ukraine I'll grant you, but on the other two:
- Brexit was going to get 'done' by the simple effluxion of time, so it's hardly a major achievement that it happened. Inasmuch as he had any effect on how it was done, it was an unmitigated disaster, which is why the NI protocol is still a running sore, our customs checks are still not being done, our international trade is very badly hit, fishermen have been betrayed, relations with our key partners are soured, and most voters think it was a mistake.
- Vaccines: yes, that was very well done, but you forgot to mention the many tens of thousands of easily-avoidable deaths before they kicked in, most notably following the unforgiveable and completely obvious (at the time) cock-up of Christmas 2020.
The big call Boris did get right, and that is rarely mentioned, is to bin the austerity hawks.
Trying to buy popularity is hardly evidence of making a right call, and if a rational PM with the interests of the country at heart did think it a good idea to splurge out zillions, the choices of what to splurge it on made wouldn't be those this government made.
If Boris won't go after breaking the law, what chance of him going after winning a VONC? Pretty low I would expect. He will believe that he can turn it around.
I don't believe he has a choice. If he loses the vote tonight, he is automatically removed (he doesn't resign) as Party Leader and a leadership contest begins. Once its resolved, if he then doesn't resign as Prime Minister, the Monarch would just dismiss him (without him being there) and appoint the new leader.
No 'resigning' is needed. It's not voluntary. It can't be stopped.
Not sure about this. Here are the steps, (though it won't happen):
Boris is PM until he isn't. He was appointed as usual as leader of the winning party following a GE. Appointment and remaining are different things. He is entitled to remain PM until either he loses a GE, resigns, or loses a VONC in the Commons. If he lost the leadership of party but didn't have/didn't lose a VONC in the Commons (per impossibile) no-one can sack him.
And why should HM do the Commons dirty work for them?
Very interesting and I suppose it would be possible (Chamberlain/Churchill in the summer of 1940). In that instance, the Conservatives would be screwed unless HMQ can be persuaded to intervene (she can dismiss him). The only way then would be to ask Starmer to VONC the government. Unfortuantely, with the FTPA repealed, a successful VONC leads to a GE now, rather than 14 days to sort things out after dismissing the PM.
So yes, it could be that three years ago when the FTPA was a really bad idea, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Where have you got this idea that HMQ can be persuaded to intervene and that "she can dismiss him"? The constitutional convention is that she acts on his advice, and only on his advice. She isn't a referee. She does what the PM tells her to do.
So what would happen then? Conservatives VONC (internal) Johnson. A new leader is appointed but then Johnson refuses to resign as Prime Minister.
What does the Commons do (if anything)? What can they do? Appreciating they could make up something new as an out.....?
They VONC him. Easy. The new leader (permanent or temporary) of the Conservative party is then invited to the palace.
Stubbornness in refusing to resign as PM having lost the party leadership and a new leader being in place I guess could mean, in varying order:
(a) cabinet resignations (b) appointment of a cabinet in waiting by the new leader (c) BJ loss of the conservative whip (d) vonc of an independent mostly vacant now non-Tory government led by BoJo
i.e. if he stays on, the party is stripped away from him, so that when he is vonc'edhe is no longer leader of a Con government
Whether the mechanics are that, formally Con goes into HM loyal opposition temporarily against BJ in order to vonc him I'm not sure exactly how it would work, but I'm sure the mechanics are there to remove him, simply because of the numbers.
Interim is an entirely separate question.
Nah its very straight forward and is #4 on your list.
There is a VONC in the Tory Government and Johnson is out. But then, since the Tories still actually have a stonking majority in Parliament, whoever they choose to be the new leader also becomes PM. It is a no brainer for Tory MPs to support a VONC as it costs them nothing and there is no need for or risk of a GE.
All those talking about some sort of constitutional crisis are overegging it big time.
Formally who is entitled to bring a VoNC and have it heard now. Iirc, under FTPA, it is LOTO, but if that has stripped out during repeal, perhaps it is as simple as new Conservative leader VOC'ing old Conservative leader all from the government benches.
Whatever, anything weird in the interrim would be mere process, as the end result is the same - and I'm.with you on that.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
That's an exceptionally generous assessment. Ukraine I'll grant you, but on the other two:
- Brexit was going to get 'done' by the simple effluxion of time, so it's hardly a major achievement that it happened. Inasmuch as he had any effect on how it was done, it was an unmitigated disaster, which is why the NI protocol is still a running sore, our customs checks are still not being done, our international trade is very badly hit, fishermen have been betrayed, relations with our key partners are soured, and most voters think it was a mistake.
- Vaccines: yes, that was very well done, but you forgot to mention the many tens of thousands of easily-avoidable deaths before they kicked in, most notably following the unforgiveable and completely obvious (at the time) cock-up of Christmas 2020.
While I'm happy to credit him for his Ukraine stance, bear in mind that it was the continuation of a policy of training and equipping (though that to a much lesser extent) Ukraine's armed forces going back for several years. It was entirely right the right thing - but it wasn't a particularly hard call. And the policy hardly depends on his remaining in office.
Sorting out the Brexit kerfuffles might well benefit from a new PM, almost irrespective of their Brexit position.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Britain was ahead of the pack in Europe getting rid of restrictions and most of Europe (and a good chunk of the UK) thought we were being mad and reckless. Even today things are still very late 2020 in much of developed Asia. Don’t underestimate how much Britain moving on from covid when it did gave cover to many others to follow a few months later.
We were ahead of the pack, but only just. We were - what - a few weeks behind Denmark, but less than a month ahead of France and Germany. (Pretty much everyone in Europe got rid of the remaining mask mandates in April of this year.)
Under Johnson, we also had some of the worst restrictions in the developed world about meeting with friends outdoors.
Now might Hunt have been worse. Yep, he might have been. But that's a might.
But I would suggest that Johnson's inaction around the start of the pandemic allowed a couple of "doubles" that meant that we had to keep the mask mandates significanlty longer than should have been the case.
Indoor mask mandates lifted dates:
February 4 - Denmark March 14 - France April 1 - UK April 4 - Germany
I'm not sure you can claim we were ahead of the pack at removing restrictions.
Hmm, that doesn't take into account the July 2021 unlockdown which other countries didn't have and the non-measures for Omicron. The government also stared down a lot of the dickhead scientists on their own committees and took accusations of being in favour of people dying when they did it too. On COVID the government, IMO, has got a very good record wrt unlockdown, one of the best globally.
Nah its very straight forward and is #4 on your list.
There is a VONC in the Tory Government and Johnson is out. But then, since the Tories still actually have a stonking majority in Parliament, whoever they choose to be the new leader also becomes PM. It is a no brainer for Tory MPs to support a VONC as it costs them nothing and there is no need for or risk of a GE.
All those talking about some sort of constitutional crisis are overegging it big time.
I do agree, and I'm just playing games here, but why would this VONC not lead to a General Election, but the same VONC in March 1979 would?
I mean, we know its because its being used as a mechanism to get Johnson out, but the opposition parties must feel pretty pissed off that they're being asked to VONC the government of the day, only to be told (after its won) that, "Nawh. Piss off. We didn't mean it like it was worded. We DO have confidence in the government... just not Johnson's one. Tell the ghost of Jim Callaghan he's an effing bell end! He didn't need to resign, or call a GE. What a larf!".
Someone above said they couldn't see the Queen being dragged in..... so why drag in the Labour party?
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
"Stop Lying in Politics Ltd"??? Is this bloke a nutter?
Absolutely and totally nuts. BUT, the evidence he has gathered is not in dispute. The news footage of the PM telling everyone he nearly died is all out there, and the data from the hospital is an FOI release from their board.
As always, look past the messenger at the evidence they are presenting.
This kind of nonsense blunts actual valid criticisms. It's very Aesopian.
What nonsense. I have no interest in the opinion of a bloke running a crusading "truth" movement like this. But I am interested in what he has found. If it was his opinion then less so, but its a FOI statement by the Chief Operating Officer of the hospital.
Why on earth does it matter if it's not literally true that the NHS saved his life? As I said before, that's standard boilerplate genuflection before the national religion.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
He made the big calls - Brexit (get it done), vaccines and Ukraine - right.
But he has also run a chaotic administration, and is either very lazy or a liar.
The brexit he got done is like a string vest.
But he had no choice. Tosser MPs kept frustrating any other Brexit, because half of them secretly - or not so secretly - wanted to cancel it via a second vote. A treasonous and disastrous course of action
Boris saw that the only way to enact the will of the people (which we HAD to do) was to win a big election, thrash Corybn, get a large mandate, vote through the bloody thing. And lo, it came to pass. Thank god for that
You can of course say we should never have ended up in that invidious situation. But for that you can’t blame Boris, more like a string of idiot prime ministers before him, misjudging the mood of the British public, culminating with Cameron
You're putting the cart before the horse there - Boris only won his election because he solemnly swore he had solved Brexit with the ultimate Deal, which just needed rubber stamping by the electorate. Had people realized it would turn out to be this sub-optimal they might well have voted Corbyn anyway.
Nah. The fact you think that is why the next Labour Gvt won’t last more than a term or two. Remainers still don’t get why leavers voted as they did or understand how much they hate the idea of a return to the mid-nineties to 2016 type consensus.
We understand. He said he would get Brexit done and he got it done. And the country was ready for that to happen (it hadn't been in 2017).
We are just astounded at how people continued to support him when he then bogged up what could have been a sensible Brexit deal and, lest we forget, did something that no British PM would ever accept. He lied, misunderstood and was lazy about it all.
Oh we get it.
I do think this site overestimates how much the public cares about lying. I think they assume all politicians lie and are ok with it while the results work for them. They turn when the results do, irrespective of the lying. Party-gate has annoyed them on the “fairness” point of one rule for one, and one for another, not because of any lying.
MOE stuff at the front, and surely at least half of those will not stand and we do not know how to redistribute their support. With no clear front-runner, there is no reason for rivals to stay their supporters' hands.
To the extent anyone wants to back Raab as stand-in PM, this poll probably makes this more likely by discouraging him from running.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Britain was ahead of the pack in Europe getting rid of restrictions and most of Europe (and a good chunk of the UK) thought we were being mad and reckless. Even today things are still very late 2020 in much of developed Asia. Don’t underestimate how much Britain moving on from covid when it did gave cover to many others to follow a few months later.
We were ahead of the pack, but only just. We were - what - a few weeks behind Denmark, but less than a month ahead of France and Germany. (Pretty much everyone in Europe got rid of the remaining mask mandates in April of this year.)
Under Johnson, we also had some of the worst restrictions in the developed world about meeting with friends outdoors.
Now might Hunt have been worse. Yep, he might have been. But that's a might.
But I would suggest that Johnson's inaction around the start of the pandemic allowed a couple of "doubles" that meant that we had to keep the mask mandates significanlty longer than should have been the case.
Indoor mask mandates lifted dates:
February 4 - Denmark March 14 - France April 1 - UK April 4 - Germany
I'm not sure you can claim we were ahead of the pack at removing restrictions.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Britain was ahead of the pack in Europe getting rid of restrictions and most of Europe (and a good chunk of the UK) thought we were being mad and reckless. Even today things are still very late 2020 in much of developed Asia. Don’t underestimate how much Britain moving on from covid when it did gave cover to many others to follow a few months later.
We were ahead of the pack, but only just. We were - what - a few weeks behind Denmark, but less than a month ahead of France and Germany. (Pretty much everyone in Europe got rid of the remaining mask mandates in April of this year.)
Under Johnson, we also had some of the worst restrictions in the developed world about meeting with friends outdoors.
Now might Hunt have been worse. Yep, he might have been. But that's a might.
But I would suggest that Johnson's inaction around the start of the pandemic allowed a couple of "doubles" that meant that we had to keep the mask mandates significanlty longer than should have been the case.
The opening up that counted was July 2021, not this spring. Thats the one the UK was pilloried for, but it was the right call.
Anyone mentioned #deathgate yet? Shockingly the PM lied (I know...) about his experience with Covid. "I nearly died" and "doctors were preparing how to communicate a 'Death of Stalin' scenario is now proven not to be true.
Yet another load of Boris bullshit. "I nearly died" does sound like a classic exaggeration, especially from him. Not according to the hospital you didn't, who have responded to an FOI requests (with ICO instruction to do so) confirming that no such plans exist, and that the stages of a patient being considered at risk of death were not met with the PM.
I mean he was taken to ICU? Anyone in ICU must be pretty seriously unwell?
I have heard it from someone in that hospital that it was indeed a serious case.
In many respects we should respect privacy - health is one such I think. In his case he was an obese man in his fifties at the time that covid, besides taking the over 80's, showed a liking for obese men in their fifties too. I can believe he was seriously ill, and that might feel to him that he nearly died.
He's still a shit.
He has a very interesting record in such a brief time as PM (if he loses). Impartial historians will judge his record nowhere near as harshly as today’s commentariat do, often confusing his record with his character. Doesn’t mean of course that it’s not high time for a reset. He’s done his job, time for whatever’s next.
An interesting counterfactual is what would have happened without the pandemic. It seems reasonably likely that there would have been some big public blowup over something during the two years where in real history piolitics was more-or-less suspended, so perhaps by now he would have been long gone anyway.
Perhaps. But more likely he’d have hosed the north with cash instead of having to blow it on furlough and the like. What is more interesting is how things would be if we had a different PM during the pandemic. Hunt or Starmer say.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
No EU country or US state currently has an indoor mask mandate.
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
Britain was ahead of the pack in Europe getting rid of restrictions and most of Europe (and a good chunk of the UK) thought we were being mad and reckless. Even today things are still very late 2020 in much of developed Asia. Don’t underestimate how much Britain moving on from covid when it did gave cover to many others to follow a few months later.
We were ahead of the pack, but only just. We were - what - a few weeks behind Denmark, but less than a month ahead of France and Germany. (Pretty much everyone in Europe got rid of the remaining mask mandates in April of this year.)
Under Johnson, we also had some of the worst restrictions in the developed world about meeting with friends outdoors.
Now might Hunt have been worse. Yep, he might have been. But that's a might.
But I would suggest that Johnson's inaction around the start of the pandemic allowed a couple of "doubles" that meant that we had to keep the mask mandates significanlty longer than should have been the case.
Indoor mask mandates lifted dates:
February 4 - Denmark March 14 - France April 1 - UK April 4 - Germany
I'm not sure you can claim we were ahead of the pack at removing restrictions.
Comments
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1533813768009957377?s=20&t=twQlvMcF797_38txKGIdvQ
- Brexit was going to get 'done' by the simple effluxion of time, so it's hardly a major achievement that it happened. Inasmuch as he had any effect on how it was done, it was an unmitigated disaster, which is why the NI protocol is still a running sore, our customs checks are still not being done, our international trade is very badly hit, fishermen have been betrayed, relations with our key partners are soured, and most voters think it was a mistake.
- Vaccines: yes, that was very well done, but you forgot to mention the many tens of thousands of easily-avoidable deaths before they kicked in, most notably following the unforgiveable and completely obvious (at the time) cock-up of Christmas 2020.
And he's going to address the '22 shortly. Last time he did that was after Gray came out, and he was so tone deaf that the letters started going in off the back of it.
I think there’s a good chance we’d still have an indoor mask mandate. I also think we’d have weaker international sanctions on Russia and no guarantee that the Biden Admin would have been as confident in pushing as much heavy arms to Ukraine as they have done. In many ways I think we were fortunate to have him in place for those two key moments, even despite the chaos, fiscal incontinence and integrity issues. All the same, time to go.
Hopefully she will refuse and send him packing. I doubt he has much capital left with the Palace after the Duke's funeral disgrace.
Boris saw that the only way to enact the will of the people (which we HAD to do) was to win a big election, thrash Corybn, get a large mandate, vote through the bloody thing. And lo, it came to pass. Thank god for that
You can of course say we should never have ended up in that invidious situation. But for that you can’t blame Boris, more like a string of idiot prime ministers before him, misjudging the mood of the British public, culminating with Cameron
So while I think you can argue he would have been slower to remove them, I think it's pushing it to claim that Britain would be out on a limb as the only place in the developed world to still have a mask mandate.
I can see some nervous Nellie's folding.
Hope he's right though.
Johnson would have walked this if the economy was in good shape.
The fact is that rampant inflation means ordinary voters are getting poorer by the month. What's much worse is there is also no plan, promise or idea when things might start to stabilise and get better.
Not only is there no jam tomorrow, there's no jam ever. That's a desperate position for any MP in government.
Jim Callaghan would like a word.......
(And it begs the question, what DOES it lead to? Nothing? Why even have the process then?)
(And therefore, WHAT IF, given you state that the Commons would VONC Johnson, the opposition parties then vote against the motion! With (say) 50 Conservative Johnson loyalests he wins the VONC in the House.... I mean... we all know SKS and Davey want him to stay)
Italy put the willies up everyone as it looked like health services would be overwhelmed, with people who might otherwise be saved, dying thought lack of a bed and anyone to treat them. That's why we locked down, as the original plan of a drawn out by flatter infection wave was abandoned as potentially catastrophic.
(a) cabinet resignations
(b) appointment of a cabinet in waiting by the new leader
(c) BJ loss of the conservative whip
(d) vonc of an independent mostly vacant now non-Tory government led by BoJo
i.e. if he stays on, the party is stripped away from him, so that when he is vonc'edhe is no longer leader of a Con government
Whether the mechanics are that, formally Con goes into HM loyal opposition temporarily against BJ in order to vonc him I'm not sure exactly how it would work, but I'm sure the mechanics are there to remove him, simply because of the numbers.
Interim is an entirely separate question.
https://twitter.com/montie/status/1533822613461549057
https://twitter.com/rafaelbehr/status/1533822841946361858
A leadership election would take a couple of months. The speculation about who should lead the Tories to the next GE is completely demolished by it.
Boris narrowly hanging on, it's at least another year of divisive speculation.
*innocent face*
Hand 2: Most of the rest of the planet likewise engaged in lockdowns and Boris opened as often and soon as he could.
As for vaccines I don't think we differ, now, from much of the EU but someone will have the stats to show otherwise.
Full figures:
Wallace 12%
Truss 11%
Hunt 10%
Mordaunt 8%
Gove 7%
Sunak 7%
Patel 6%
Zahawi 5%
Tugendhat 5%
Raab 4%
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1533813354455785473?s=20&t=EGpA8wfcZlW2Ifw4mT6gbw
Apparently it has to be a “sterile environment”
Outrage among the lobby
https://twitter.com/kateferguson4/status/1533823379177889793
There is a VONC in the Tory Government and Johnson is out. But then, since the Tories still actually have a stonking majority in Parliament, whoever they choose to be the new leader also becomes PM. It is a no brainer for Tory MPs to support a VONC as it costs them nothing and there is no need for or risk of a GE.
All those talking about some sort of constitutional crisis are overegging it big time.
Also, you’re wrong on his supposedly unprincipled support for Brexit. I have it on very good authority that he meant it. He was genuinely torn (hence the two columns, to clear his mind) and in the end, he decided it had to be Leave. Of course, this benefited his career, but that was a happy by-product, not the purpose
The first task is to ensure Boris is sent packing, then let's see who emerge as candidates and then listen to their hustings when genuine favourites will appear
Brady is.. a fair umpire in these matters.
This will be completely out of the blue from the perspective of team Peppa. Reasonably likely they haven't wargamed all the scenarios, especially when there is a vote this quickly and he loses.
We know he needs to be loved. We know its all about him. We believe he has trouble at mill. So the idea that having being brutally humiliated like this he is happy to sit there alone in Downing Street like a leper for months whilst the party launches a leadership election / the purge feels possible but really uncomfortable.
If he takes the Chiltern Hundreds in the morning, Raab will be PM.
(And have backed accordingly.)
Under Johnson, we also had some of the worst restrictions in the developed world about meeting with friends outdoors.
Now might Hunt have been worse. Yep, he might have been. But that's a might.
But I would suggest that Johnson's inaction around the start of the pandemic allowed a couple of "doubles" that meant that we had to keep the mask mandates significanlty longer than should have been the case.
@montie
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6m
My message to all Conservative MPs ahead of tonight's vote: You - more than Boris Johnson - are on public trial today. The public has CORRECTLY decided that the PM doesn't tell the truth. They are waiting to see if that is something you accept or not. I very much hope not.
I like her. Don't like her politics. But she's never got on her knees and kissed the Big Dog arse.
February 4 - Denmark
March 14 - France
April 1 - UK
April 4 - Germany
I'm not sure you can claim we were ahead of the pack at removing restrictions.
I can see why it was not done.
This is part of the Lascelles Principles. This principle is broadly viewed as re-applying since the FTPA was repealed. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9267/CBP-9267.pdf discusses.
We are just astounded at how people continued to support him when he then bogged up what could have been a sensible Brexit deal and, lest we forget, did something that no British PM would ever accept. He lied, misunderstood and was lazy about it all.
Oh we get it.
If anyones fingetprints are on this it’s theirs & Wallace’s.
Whatever, anything weird in the interrim would be mere process, as the end result is the same - and I'm.with you on that.
It was entirely right the right thing - but it wasn't a particularly hard call. And the policy hardly depends on his remaining in office.
Sorting out the Brexit kerfuffles might well benefit from a new PM, almost irrespective of their Brexit position.
I mean, we know its because its being used as a mechanism to get Johnson out, but the opposition parties must feel pretty pissed off that they're being asked to VONC the government of the day, only to be told (after its won) that, "Nawh. Piss off. We didn't mean it like it was worded. We DO have confidence in the government... just not Johnson's one. Tell the ghost of Jim Callaghan he's an effing bell end! He didn't need to resign, or call a GE. What a larf!".
Someone above said they couldn't see the Queen being dragged in..... so why drag in the Labour party?
To the extent anyone wants to back Raab as stand-in PM, this poll probably makes this more likely by discouraging him from running.