Looks like the end. What the hell took them so long? It's not as though we've learnt anything about Boris this week that we didn't know last month, or last year, or in 2019 when he was chosen as leader.
Still, it's progress. Getting rid of him is the necessary first stage - but only the first stage - of putting things right.
Yes, back to opposition, probably for at least a decade if not more.
Last time the Tories toppled an election winning PM, Thatcher in 1990, they lost 3 out of 4 of the following general elections and it took them until Boris in 2019 to win a big majority again
Oh, I think it's very likely that the Conservatives will be very, very unpopular for a long time. But you're putting the blame in the wrong place. It's Boris who has wrecked the party, and it's going to take a very long time for it to be forgotten. As I wrote on the day he became leader:
The party is no longer recognisable as the pragmatic, business-friendly, economically-sound, reality-based party of government which I have supported for decades. It will justifiably get the electoral blame for the consequences of the disastrous course it has chosen, and will probably never be forgiven by younger voters.
The Tory Party is not just the political wing of the CBI and the City of London. It also has to reach working class and lower middle class voters to win, Thatcher managed to do so as did Boris
Apart from everything else, Boris is a clear and present danger to the Union. He is total anti-catnip to Scots, and the SNP use him as a recruiting tool, and they mentioned him by name when announcing "Sindyref" 2. One person who will be really praying he survives is Sturgeon
Surely you can see this? You're a unionist
Boris can just refuse an indyref2 still and nothing the SNP can do to change Scotland's status in the union without UK government consent. Legally and constitutionally therefore it does not matter how unpopular the PM is in Scotland if they have a majority at Westminster to refuse indyref2.
Only if they grant an indyref2 does the UK PM's popularity matter in Scotland
FPT: here's a nice brazil nut.
BTW you do realise there are Tory constituencies in Scotland, with actual live Tory MPs in them?
Even if the Tories won 0 seats in Scotland in 2019 they would still have had a majority of 68
If that meteor hadn't hit Yucatan 65myrs ago, you wouldn't be posting this stuff.
So the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Deputy PM, the Business Secretary and now the Education Secretary have now all confirmed their loyalty to the PM.
So far from being co ordinated across Cabinet it seems Sunak and Javid were outliers. To survive Johnson will now shift to rally the right and the ERG behind him, he will say this is a coup by Remainers to row back from Brexit and those on the left of the party who want to raise taxes and only he can stop them!
Does it not bother you that we have a Prime Minister who sees nothing wrong with financial corruption, perjury, sexual assault, or threats of violence? Even leaving aside the moral issues, do you think that this is going down well with the average voter?
ALSO: has any PM survived the resignation of a COTE? For more than a few weeks, anyway?
Nothing fundamental has changed. Johnson will reshuffle and carry on.
The cabinet won't get rid of him. Too many of them know their ministerial careers are over five minutes after a change of leadership. It will take a large majority of the backbenchers to conclude that Johnson is an electoral liability and force him out through a change of rules and another confidence vote. So long as they are split, dithering and wetting their knickers, he's perfectly safe.
I hear you, but I dunno. He seems mortally wounded to me. A bull in the corrida, with the energy for one last tilt at the cape
ALSO: has any PM survived the resignation of a COTE? For more than a few weeks, anyway?
Nothing fundamental has changed. Johnson will reshuffle and carry on.
The cabinet won't get rid of him. Too many of them know their ministerial careers are over five minutes after a change of leadership. It will take a large majority of the backbenchers to conclude that Johnson is an electoral liability and force him out through a change of rules and another confidence vote. So long as they are split, dithering and wetting their knickers, he's perfectly safe.
I hear you, but I dunno. He seems mortally wounded to me. A bull in the corrida, with the energy for one last tilt at the cape
How's the mood out in Macedonia?
Have they started dancing in the streets and blowing on car horns?
So the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Deputy PM, the Business Secretary and now the Education Secretary have now all confirmed their loyalty to the PM.
So far from being co ordinated across Cabinet it seems Sunak and Javid were outliers. To survive Johnson will now shift to rally the right and the ERG behind him, he will say this is a coup by Remainers to row back from Brexit and those on the left of the party who want to raise taxes and only he can stop them!
Andrew Bridgen has just said even arch former Johnson loyalists on the backbenchers want him gone and he will be by the summer recess
File that under "I won't believe it until I see it."
Michael Gove is key, I think. Maybe Boris can survive if he can persuade him to become CoE, but Gove hasn't been conspicuous with his support recently.
Wallace is right to stay as Her Majesty's defence minister, given the Ukraine situation. We really can't afford any discontinuity there.
Ben Wallace's motivation similar (but more honorable and less self-serving) to that of Jim .Mattis re: 45.
ALSO: has any PM survived the resignation of a COTE? For more than a few weeks, anyway?
Nothing fundamental has changed. Johnson will reshuffle and carry on.
The cabinet won't get rid of him. Too many of them know their ministerial careers are over five minutes after a change of leadership. It will take a large majority of the backbenchers to conclude that Johnson is an electoral liability and force him out through a change of rules and another confidence vote. So long as they are split, dithering and wetting their knickers, he's perfectly safe.
I hear you, but I dunno. He seems mortally wounded to me. A bull in the corrida, with the energy for one last tilt at the cape
How's the mood out in Macedonia?
Have they started dancing in the streets and blowing on car horns?
We're still celebrating the cricket, you dorkus of the porkus morkus
Iain Dale tells Andrew Marr that 1922 Committee Chair Sir Graham Brady will be 'taking a lot of soundings' this evening to decide whether or not to tell Boris Johnson 'the game is up.'
I’m hesitant to predict his imminent demise given I thought he was done for months ago.
A shame that there haven’t been a couple more cabinet ministers to be honest. I think the decline is terminal now, it’s just whether he hangs on until after the summer or is gone in the next week.
So the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Deputy PM, the Business Secretary and now the Education Secretary have now all confirmed their loyalty to the PM.
So far from being co ordinated across Cabinet it seems Sunak and Javid were outliers. To survive Johnson will now shift to rally the right and the ERG behind him, he will say this is a coup by Remainers to row back from Brexit and those on the left of the party who want to raise taxes and only he can stop them!
Andrew Bridgen has just said even arch former Johnson loyalists on the backbenchers want him gone and he will be by the summer recess
File that under "I won't believe it until I see it."
Boris is a goner. Good.
Come on Sunak. He and Boris lost my respect last Autumn, but my entirely disinterested wallet forgives you tonight.
In an incredibly tight field, my current front-runner for funniest thing to happen today is David Frost being so afraid of being left out of the news cycle he circulated a resignation letter from a Cabinet he's not actually in. https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1544381195873669121/photo/1
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 10m Told that this evening Tory associations are being contacted by CCHQ to ensure their membership lists are up to date. As I said earlier, things will move fast.
Johnson on Pincher: “I’m telling you exactly what happened. And I’m coming out to explain it. Because I’m fed up with people, if I may say so saying things on my behalf or trying to say.”
That’s going to endear him to all the ministers he sent out to repeat his lies on telly.
So the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Deputy PM, the Business Secretary and now the Education Secretary have now all confirmed their loyalty to the PM.
So far from being co ordinated across Cabinet it seems Sunak and Javid were outliers. To survive Johnson will now shift to rally the right and the ERG behind him, he will say this is a coup by Remainers to row back from Brexit and those on the left of the party who want to raise taxes and only he can stop them!
Does it not bother you that we have a Prime Minister who sees nothing wrong with financial corruption, perjury, sexual assault, or threats of violence? Even leaving aside the moral issues, do you think that this is going down well with the average voter?
Short of any more dramatic developments, it seems we're done on Ministerial resignations for the moment.
As some have said, nothing that has happened this evening stops Johnson from being Prime Minister - indeed, one might argue the greater damage is to the Conservative Party which looks divided, disunited and fractious and electorates don't often go for parties behaving with such chronic self-indulgence at a time of obvious economic hardship for many (not all though those not suffering hardship may find their luck and savings won't last forever and once we get into autumn even they may be wondering how it will end).
Contrary to some posters, Johnson limping on wounded is clearly marvellous for the Opposition parties who, pace the average carrion, will watch from afar as the great beast stumbles to his conclusion.
May survived Johnson's resignation but the loss of a Chancellor is more difficult - once again, as we see so often, the breakdown of the relationships in Downing Street is critical.
Until the 1922 Committee elections and a new anti-Johnson committee changing the rules, none of this will force Johnson out and he knows it - it's the job he spent 25 years seeking and he'll be dragged kicking and screaming from No.10 (I suspect) unlike May for whom it got too much. There are enough "loyalists" to maintain a functioning Government and short of 150 defections to a new centre-right party, the Commons arithmetic isn't any different.
The final question is the extent to which the toxicity of recent times is affecting the Conservative Party or whether it can and has been internalised within Boris Johnson - some will be hoping that by getting rid of the Johnson, the poison will also be removed - I'm far from convinced (it didn't work for the Party in the mid 90s).
I joked the other night the only solution might be to close down the current Conservative Party and start a new centre-right movement.
Sitting outside in my garden in a gentle breeze, with warm sun. Just deadheaded some roses. Had a nice meal outside (not having eaten all day). Washing is drying. Birds are singing and butterflies are flirting.
And just to add perfection, Boris Johnson is being brutally hammered to pieces live on my iPad.
Does Conservative Home represent the whole of the Tory party membership? From memory you (or someone else) claimed that it was utterly unrepresentative of the membership as a whole. Heck you need a computer to read it so that probably knocks 20% of the membership out by itself.
I note the resignations don't really address the reason their views have presumably changed, Boris's incompetence over Pincher.
They need to be pressed to be specific. It's fine, if infuriating, if it was that which changed their minds, but you need to explain the change in mind somehow.
I wouldn't trust that polling as far as I could throw it but you carry on holding on to it like a drowning man holds on to a lifebelt.
Once you get into a leadership election, all bets are off - obviously, the key will be any polling showing how the different contenders would fare in a possible GE against Labour. After all, that's what won it for Johnson in 2019.
Sitting outside in my garden in a gentle breeze, with warm sun. Just deadheaded some roses. Had a nice meal outside (not having eaten all day). Washing is drying. Birds are singing and butterflies are flirting.
And just to add perfection, Boris Johnson is being brutally hammered to pieces live on my iPad.
Does Conservative Home represent the whole of the Tory party membership? From memory you (or someone else) claimed that it was utterly unrepresentative of the membership as a whole. Heck you need a computer to read it so that probably knocks 20% of the membership out by itself.
Yougov figures of Tory members last month were similar, Sunak just 5th in terms of next Tory leader
MP for 21 years, former Chair of NI Select Committee and a junior minister from time to time. (Also wrote a novel about the Civil War starring a former military man turned MP. and regicide - coincidentally he is a former military man turned MP)
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 10m Told that this evening Tory associations are being contacted by CCHQ to ensure their membership lists are up to date. As I said earlier, things will move fast.
@NadineDorries · 2m I’m not sure anyone actually doubted this, however, I am 💯 behind @BorisJohnson the PM who consistently gets all the big decisions right.
MP for 21 years, former Chair of NI Select Committee and a junior minister from time to time. (Also wrote a novel about the Civil War starring a former military man turned MP. and regicide - coincidentally he is a former military man turned MP)
MP for 21 years, former Chair of NI Select Committee and a junior minister from time to time. (Also wrote a novel about the Civil War starring a former military man turned MP. and regicide - coincidentally he is a former military man turned MP)
I wouldn't trust that polling as far as I could throw it but you carry on holding on to it like a drowning man holds on to a lifebelt.
Once you get into a leadership election, all bets are off - obviously, the key will be any polling showing how the different contenders would fare in a possible GE against Labour. After all, that's what won it for Johnson in 2019.
To an extent but less so than 2019 as the Tories now have a majority they didn't then.
Tory members will be looking for some rightwing red meat as reward for the majority the party won in 2019
MP for 21 years, former Chair of NI Select Committee and a junior minister from time to time. (Also wrote a novel about the Civil War starring a former military man turned MP. and regicide - coincidentally he is a former military man turned MP)
Big beast he is not. Conventional loyalist, yes.
I bow to your superior knowledge
I cannot pretend to know things about random MPs. Just surprised to see a local MP in the news for once.
Does Conservative Home represent the whole of the Tory party membership? From memory you (or someone else) claimed that it was utterly unrepresentative of the membership as a whole. Heck you need a computer to read it so that probably knocks 20% of the membership out by itself.
Only 750 voted in the latest poll including myself and I am not a member
Does Conservative Home represent the whole of the Tory party membership? From memory you (or someone else) claimed that it was utterly unrepresentative of the membership as a whole. Heck you need a computer to read it so that probably knocks 20% of the membership out by itself.
Yougov figures of Tory members last month were similar, Sunak just 5th in terms of next Tory leader
Sitting outside in my garden in a gentle breeze, with warm sun. Just deadheaded some roses. Had a nice meal outside (not having eaten all day). Washing is drying. Birds are singing and butterflies are flirting.
And just to add perfection, Boris Johnson is being brutally hammered to pieces live on my iPad.
That’s a very niche porn site...
My computer misunderstood when I asked for hard core…
Chancellor of the Duchy of Wokeshire? Cabinet minister w/o portfolio but with grace & favor (bouncy) castle?
That's my dream job! Next to Governor of American Samoa.
Get me dual citizenship, TSE, so I can be your successor, and we'll forget all about my pending (dive) bar complaint re: your lamentable (non)performance re: West West Virginia claim against HMG.
Looks like the end. What the hell took them so long? It's not as though we've learnt anything about Boris this week that we didn't know last month, or last year, or in 2019 when he was chosen as leader.
Still, it's progress. Getting rid of him is the necessary first stage - but only the first stage - of putting things right.
Yes, back to opposition, probably for at least a decade if not more.
Last time the Tories toppled an election winning PM, Thatcher in 1990, they lost 3 out of 4 of the following general elections and it took them until Boris in 2019 to win a big majority again
Oh, I think it's very likely that the Conservatives will be very, very unpopular for a long time. But you're putting the blame in the wrong place. It's Boris who has wrecked the party, and it's going to take a very long time for it to be forgotten. As I wrote on the day he became leader:
The party is no longer recognisable as the pragmatic, business-friendly, economically-sound, reality-based party of government which I have supported for decades. It will justifiably get the electoral blame for the consequences of the disastrous course it has chosen, and will probably never be forgiven by younger voters.
The Tory Party is not just the political wing of the CBI and the City of London. It also has to reach working class and lower middle class voters to win, Thatcher managed to do so as did Boris
Apart from everything else, Boris is a clear and present danger to the Union. He is total anti-catnip to Scots, and the SNP use him as a recruiting tool, and they mentioned him by name when announcing "Sindyref" 2. One person who will be really praying he survives is Sturgeon
Surely you can see this? You're a unionist
Boris can just refuse an indyref2 still and nothing the SNP can do to change Scotland's status in the union without UK government consent. Legally and constitutionally therefore it does not matter how unpopular the PM is in Scotland if they have a majority at Westminster to refuse indyref2.
Only if they grant an indyref2 does the UK PM's popularity matter in Scotland
FPT: here's a nice brazil nut.
BTW you do realise there are Tory constituencies in Scotland, with actual live Tory MPs in them?
Even if the Tories won 0 seats in Scotland in 2019 they would still have had a majority of 68
And do you think that would have been anything other than catastrophic for the Union @HYUFD? I mean, for goodness sake.
Jacob Rees Mogg tells #C4News it is the PM who has a mandate from the people. Those who left he says are “eminently replaceable”.
Rees Mogg. 'Stalingrad is a triumph for the Fuhrer'. @Channel4News
Jacob Rees Mogg is the nastiest and stupidest human being ever to be an MP.
I cannot figure out if he believes what he says. He's loyal to Boris, I get it, I can even understand it, but he knows that is not how our country works.
Comments
He'd be head dinosaur!
Good luck to those staying loyal trying to stick it out
Which means, at the least, that he didn't vote against Boris in the VONC, but would now.
But what better proof that Sunak has shaken the whole table up than he is now fav?
“Have….”
Have they started dancing in the streets and blowing on car horns?
What is splitting the tories is the question of the country they want Britain to be in the post Brexit world. They are very deeply divided on that.
IF you look closely, that question is splitting the labour party, too.
Has anyone heard from Brady tonight?
@AndrewMarr9 | @IainDale https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1544380101651058689/video/1
A shame that there haven’t been a couple more cabinet ministers to be honest. I think the decline is terminal now, it’s just whether he hangs on until after the summer or is gone in the next week.
Come on Sunak. He and Boris lost my respect last Autumn, but my entirely disinterested wallet forgives you tonight.
Meanwhile PMQs might be fun tomorrow.
Truss beat Sunak 50% to 35%, Mordaunt beat Sunak 50% to 33% and Wallace beat Sunak 59% to 25% in Conhome's survey this week
https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/04/next-tory-leader-play-offs-sixth-rishi-sunak/
@DPJHodges
·
10m
Told that this evening Tory associations are being contacted by CCHQ to ensure their membership lists are up to date. As I said earlier, things will move fast.
Readies speech https://twitter.com/paul__johnson/status/1544383678591258625/photo/1
That’s going to endear him to all the ministers he sent out to repeat his lies on telly.
https://twitter.com/JasonGroves1/status/1544383423694897159
Some want a small state. Others spending.
The PM wants spending and tax cuts.
Short of any more dramatic developments, it seems we're done on Ministerial resignations for the moment.
As some have said, nothing that has happened this evening stops Johnson from being Prime Minister - indeed, one might argue the greater damage is to the Conservative Party which looks divided, disunited and fractious and electorates don't often go for parties behaving with such chronic self-indulgence at a time of obvious economic hardship for many (not all though those not suffering hardship may find their luck and savings won't last forever and once we get into autumn even they may be wondering how it will end).
Contrary to some posters, Johnson limping on wounded is clearly marvellous for the Opposition parties who, pace the average carrion, will watch from afar as the great beast stumbles to his conclusion.
May survived Johnson's resignation but the loss of a Chancellor is more difficult - once again, as we see so often, the breakdown of the relationships in Downing Street is critical.
Until the 1922 Committee elections and a new anti-Johnson committee changing the rules, none of this will force Johnson out and he knows it - it's the job he spent 25 years seeking and he'll be dragged kicking and screaming from No.10 (I suspect) unlike May for whom it got too much. There are enough "loyalists" to maintain a functioning Government and short of 150 defections to a new centre-right party, the Commons arithmetic isn't any different.
The final question is the extent to which the toxicity of recent times is affecting the Conservative Party or whether it can and has been internalised within Boris Johnson - some will be hoping that by getting rid of the Johnson, the poison will also be removed - I'm far from convinced (it didn't work for the Party in the mid 90s).
I joked the other night the only solution might be to close down the current Conservative Party and start a new centre-right movement.
God help us
@Pestonia
I'm hearing Ben Swain has pulled his team in for a discussion about the leadership.
And just to add perfection, Boris Johnson is being brutally hammered to pieces live on my iPad.
No i haven't heard of him either
They need to be pressed to be specific. It's fine, if infuriating, if it was that which changed their minds, but you need to explain the change in mind somehow.
Once you get into a leadership election, all bets are off - obviously, the key will be any polling showing how the different contenders would fare in a possible GE against Labour. After all, that's what won it for Johnson in 2019.
Wallace 12%
Truss 11%
Hunt 10%
Mordaunt 8%
Sunak 7%
Gove 7%
Patel 6%
Tugendhat 5%
Zahawi 5%
Raab 4%
Javid 3%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/06/06/snap-poll-conservative-members-want-mps-vote-keep-
Hold out for First Lord!
The wisest betting move i have made since the Holyrood elections exact SNp seat market.
Big beast he is not. Conventional loyalist, yes.
Rees Mogg. 'Stalingrad is a triumph for the Fuhrer'. @Channel4News
·
2m
I’m not sure anyone actually doubted this, however, I am 💯 behind @BorisJohnson the PM who consistently gets all the big decisions right.
well at least enjoy the tax cuts as we go to hell in a hand basket.
Tory members will be looking for some rightwing red meat as reward for the majority the party won in 2019
And that does include Oswald Mosley, who at least had a brain.
Your inability to see that polls change is your downfall.
That's my dream job! Next to Governor of American Samoa.
Get me dual citizenship, TSE, so I can be your successor, and we'll forget all about my pending (dive) bar complaint re: your lamentable (non)performance re: West West Virginia claim against HMG.
Javid resigned as CoTE in 2020 when ordered to replace his advisers.
Different circumstances, obviously.
Mogg will get a week.
They've moved a lot in past 12 months. Why would they magically freeze now?
https://twitter.com/mnrrntt/status/1544378181737742337?s=21&t=5acNbgWlUdTRJuqQVRbMuQ