If Boris is still leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party hold the majority of seats in the House of Commons then by definition Boris commands the majority of the House. He's not having difficulty getting legislation through the Commons so his government is still functioning. Can the Queen really get involved in the morass of Conservative Party internal politics by doing the PCP's dirty work for them?
He may be leader, but it is not entirely clear he should remain PM. That is in the Queen’s gift. And she has reasonable doubt that he is able to command support from the House.
Come on Boris, just for the bants, fire those Cabinet Ministers in grey suits and replace them with Carrie Johnson, Lord Lebedev, Dilyn the dog, Stanley Johnson, the Russian violinist, the Canadian hairdresser, and Darius Guppy.
You forgotten Jennifer Whatshername
Ms Arcuri will shortly be Secretary of State for Friends with Benefits.
I think we should.base the constitution on letters to Viz, Daily Star, Express and Hexham Courant. We could randomly draw one for advice at times of constitutional crisis.
If we based our entire system of government on Viz Top Tips the country would be improved beyond recognition.
I think we should.base the constitution on letters to Viz, Daily Star, Express and Hexham Courant. We could randomly draw one for advice at times of constitutional crisis.
If we based our entire system of government on Viz Top Tips the country would be improved beyond recognition.
A very close run election for the second vacancy. Proper STV in action!!!
The successful candidates were Lord Remnant and Lord Wrottesley. Lord Remnant's statement:
Live in London and Hampshire, and am a lifelong Conservative. Worked within Government as Chairman of Shareholder Executive, director of UKFI (responsible for Government’s shareholdings in the banks) and director of Northern Rock. Currently, a non-executive director of Prudential and Severn Trent, and was recently Deputy Chair of The Takeover Panel. With reducing business interests, would commit enthusiastically to the Lords. Other interests: countryside matters.
Lord Wrottesley's statement: I took my seat 25 years ago, but relative youth meant not offering myself for election. An Olympian, Chaired British Bobsleigh and Skeleton, now Chairing Ice Hockey UK, sit on the Finance committee of the International Ice Hockey Federation, and the board of GB's best ever performing Winter Sport, British Skeleton. A stint in Finance in the noughties, closet tree hugger, as reflected in my business interests. More broadly interested in the environment, defence, housing.
OK, so correct me if I am wrong, but the Sovereign asks the PM whether he/she or anyone else can form a majority. The Tory Party would *simply* need to coalesce around a unity candidate who could. None of them will want a GE.
BREAKING The 1922 committee executive has met and decided not to change the rules to allow a second no confidence vote in Boris Johnson. Instead 1922 executive elections will be held on Monday 2pm to 4pm. All 18 places on the executive will be up for grabs. Proxy votes allowed. https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1544715690237726723
BoZo won't resign, and they can't make him...
Well well, that is a development.
The Men in Grey Suits think they can get his resignation.....
Meh - lets assume a stack of them say "we quit if you don't" and then do so. He will send out Rees-Mogg and Dorries and Clarke to say how wonderful he is. And appoint David Duguid and Matt Vickers to Cabinet.
Excuse me. Matt Vickers is my best friend (not that one, another one of the same name). Funnily enough he posted as a joke on Facebook earlier today that he had also quit. I said I was awaiting the call from No 10 to replace him.
OK, so correct me if I am wrong, but the Sovereign asks the PM whether he/she or anyone else can form a majority. The Tory Party would *simply* need to coalesce around a unity candidate who could. None of them will want a GE.
I suspect that coalescing around a unity candidate would be extremely difficult though. I also suspect Boris knows this.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced he is - at least partly - staging this all as theatre for the purposes of the memoir sales. He is not stupid, he does like drama, he knows how to tell a story, he understands publishing
The book would end drably if he just meekly resigned after a mild ticking off from Ben Wallace. The book, the story, the life, the whole mythos of Boris Johnson requires that he is assassinated with much shedding of blood and screams in dark alleys. That’s the only way Caesar could fall, ditto Boris
That’s ONE reason he is dragging this out, with every dramatic hour that passes with him still in place, he adds another £20k to the advance he will get
Which Caesar, though?
He’s a mix isn’t he? A dash of Julius, a hint of Tiberius, distant echoes of Heliogabulus, not much Augustus
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
More like (the concubine part of) Gibbon's famous praise of Emperor Gordian:
“Twenty-two acknowledged concubines and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than for ostentation.”
A letter to the Times from 1950 A sentence drunkenly written on the label of a bottle of Dow’s port, possibly by William Bagehot Seven husky words spoken by the dying King Charles II to Nell Gwynne Nineteen pages of impenetrable code known only to Alan Turing A portent in the sky over Whitstable! A diary believed lost during World War 2 A sturdy hymn
A letter to the Times from 1950 A sentence drunkenly written on the label of a bottle of Dow’s port, possibly by William Bagehot Seven husky words spoken by the dying King Charles II to Nell Gwynne Nineteen pages of impenetrable code known only to Alan Turing A portent in the sky over Whitstable! A diary believed lost during World War 2 A sturdy hymn
The scorecard of a 1904 first-class match between MCC and Yorkshire.
A letter to the Times from 1950 A sentence drunkenly written on the label of a bottle of Dow’s port, possibly by William Bagehot Seven husky words spoken by the dying King Charles II to Nell Gwynne Nineteen pages of impenetrable code known only to Alan Turing A portent in the sky over Whitstable! A diary believed lost during World War 2 A sturdy hymn
OK, so correct me if I am wrong, but the Sovereign asks the PM whether he/she or anyone else can form a majority. The Tory Party would *simply* need to coalesce around a unity candidate who could. None of them will want a GE.
Also, do the opposition really want one now? Could be high risk and they may soon be leaderless too?
A letter to the Times from 1950 A sentence drunkenly written on the label of a bottle of Dow’s port, possibly by William Bagehot Seven husky words spoken by the dying King Charles II to Nell Gwynne Nineteen pages of impenetrable code known only to Alan Turing A portent in the sky over Whitstable! A diary believed lost during World War 2 A sturdy hymn
As it should be! Evolution, not some dusty document drafted up by a bunch of old white bores.
A letter to the Times from 1950 A sentence drunkenly written on the label of a bottle of Dow’s port, possibly by William Bagehot Seven husky words spoken by the dying King Charles II to Nell Gwynne Nineteen pages of impenetrable code known only to Alan Turing A portent in the sky over Whitstable! A diary believed lost during World War 2 A sturdy hymn
And the laws of cricket.
The missing piece is written in invisible ink on the back of one of the receipts for Pitt The Younger’s port purchases.
I think we should.base the constitution on letters to Viz, Daily Star, Express and Hexham Courant. We could randomly draw one for advice at times of constitutional crisis.
If we based our entire system of government on Viz Top Tips the country would be improved beyond recognition.
Complete with Brady on the next page.
And Bertie Blunt's Parrot as Prime Minister.
*looks up*. Definitely tactful of you not to give the title in full, especially today.
Newly released: a letter from Boris Johnson rejecting Nicola Sturgeon's request for a transfer of power to hold an independence referendum. Apparently amid everything else today, he's had time to "carefully consider" her arguments, and he "cannot agree that now is the time"... https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1544722471047274498/photo/1
It doesn’t matter whether the Tory Party are unified over a proper successor.
They (and in reality, a representative body of senior figures, ie the men in grey suits) only need to be unified over someone who can do the job in a caretaking capacity.
In other words, step forward PM Sir Graham Brady or Dame Theresa May.
If ever there was a case for a written constitution then Boris Johnson has made it through his complete disregard for convention
If ever there's a case for an unwritten constitution then Boris Johnson being removed within 24 hours, despite the written rules saying he was safe, shows precisely why it is worth keeping. 👍
I sort of agree, except the rule saying he was safe was an internal Tory party rule,not a part of the constitution. Until certain Tory members make them one and the same.
LOL! That's a clever reference to that that dolt Rudy Giuliani mistakenly calling a Potus crisis press conference at the Four Seasons garden centre, thinking it was the Four Seasons hotel.
Rees Mogg has, i'm told, caught the time tunnel back to 1878.
No he hasn't - given his flaky understanding of constitutional conventions, which he often invents on the fly, I think he is from a steampunk alternative universe.
Rees Mogg has, i'm told, caught the time tunnel back to 1878.
No he hasn't - given his flaky understanding of constitutional conventions, which he often invents on the fly, I think he is from a steampunk alternative universe.
I think we should.base the constitution on letters to Viz, Daily Star, Express and Hexham Courant. We could randomly draw one for advice at times of constitutional crisis.
If we based our entire system of government on Viz Top Tips the country would be improved beyond recognition.
Top Tips for governing.....
Student Grant Shapps doing Graham Brady Old Lady's bidding and trying to rid us of the Fat Slug.
Penny Morders and Her Double Entendres waiting in the wings.
LOL! That's a clever reference to that that dolt Rudy Giuliani mistakenly calling a Potus crisis press conference at the Four Seasons garden centre, thinking it was the Four Seasons hotel.
Hey, I'm the guy who (I'm assuming) gave Scott the idea! (A thread or so ago.)
Senior Tory MPs not happy with PM threat to call an early election a saying it would embarrass the Queen
“It would be deemed to be inappropriate [constitutionally] to put the sovereign in a position where she has to make a controversial decision”, says one
Boris should act swiftly and sack Zahawi for disloyalty. He's been a fucking useless Chancellor anyway, so no big loss.
I fear HYFUD has hacked your account Al!
Bloody hell you're right, I've just realised that my satire could genuinely have been HYUFD. Except he wouldn't have used the f****** word, of course, so I'm safe.
All this is a great proof of concept of our democracy and unwritten constitution. The reason why we’re better than Russia is we can humiliate and defenestrate our leaders to casually.
Senior Tory MPs not happy with PM threat to call an early election a saying it would embarrass the Queen
“It would be deemed to be inappropriate [constitutionally] to put the sovereign in a position where she has to make a controversial decision”, says one
These same Tory MPs cheered when he embarrassed the Queen with the 2019 prorogation.
I am so hoping that Boris provides the theatre of refusing to go. It would be a fitting ending to the level of drama he has caused over the past 2½ years.
Boris should act swiftly and sack Zahawi for disloyalty. He's been a fucking useless Chancellor anyway, so no big loss.
I fear HYFUD has hacked your account Al!
Speaking of which, he’s been unnervingly quiet in recent hours
Be gentle with HYUFD today, I remember how devastated I was when Dave announced his retirement.
It felt like a gut punch and a kick in the balls.
As a pedant I feel the need to point out that if you’ve just been punched in the gut you are likely to have doubled over and so it’s very hard to then kick you in the balls.
If anyone wants some light relief (and I'm sure no one does because there's plenty going on right now) I find the live feed from Tattersalls to be very entertaining.
It's a real problem isn't it. Theresa May stayed on longer than she probably should have done, it was always said of Gordon Brown that he'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of Downing St. Jeremy Corbyn was no confidenced by most of his MPs but refused to go.
If he does refuse to go, which I think is quite possible, then he could be about to inflict on the Conservative Party every bit as much damage as Black Wednesday.
Speaking as someone not averse to a bit of personal storification, I wonder if Boris has one eye on that memoir advance
The more spectacularly chaotic and bizarre he makes his departure, the more publishers will clamour to buy his tell-all autobiography - and the more they will pay
This week will make the perfect ending - to volume one
Why would anyone part with good money to read it, it will just be one lie after another. You wouldn't be able to believe a word he says. If he does do one I hope booksellers have the good grace to put it in the fiction section.
Whether fact or fiction, Boris is hopeless at long-form anyway. As far as I can tell his greater “works” are pretty much unreadable.
Picked up the Churchill "book" from a $1 bargain bin. Was overcharged by at least two bucks.
A very close run election for the second vacancy. Proper STV in action!!!
The successful candidates were Lord Remnant and Lord Wrottesley. Lord Remnant's statement:
Live in London and Hampshire, and am a lifelong Conservative. Worked within Government as Chairman of Shareholder Executive, director of UKFI (responsible for Government’s shareholdings in the banks) and director of Northern Rock. Currently, a non-executive director of Prudential and Severn Trent, and was recently Deputy Chair of The Takeover Panel. With reducing business interests, would commit enthusiastically to the Lords. Other interests: countryside matters.
Lord Wrottesley's statement: I took my seat 25 years ago, but relative youth meant not offering myself for election. An Olympian, Chaired British Bobsleigh and Skeleton, now Chairing Ice Hockey UK, sit on the Finance committee of the International Ice Hockey Federation, and the board of GB's best ever performing Winter Sport, British Skeleton. A stint in Finance in the noughties, closet tree hugger, as reflected in my business interests. More broadly interested in the environment, defence, housing.
No way, he’s really called “Lord Remnant”? That’s a hell of a case of nominative determinism.
All this is a great proof of concept of our democracy and unwritten constitution. The reason why we’re better than Russia is we can humiliate and defenestrate our leaders to casually.
Precisely, our unwritten constitution is our greatest strength and also why we're better than America too.
In America it is much harder to humiliate and defenestrate poor leaders so casually.
If anyone wants some light relief (and I'm sure no one does because there's plenty going on right now) I find the live feed from Tattersalls to be very entertaining.
If he does refuse to go, which I think is quite possible, then he could be about to inflict on the Conservative Party every bit as much damage as Black Wednesday.
Not necessarily, if it’s the Tory Party that’s seen to extract him. “We we taken hostage for 2.5 years Guv”.
If he does refuse to go, which I think is quite possible, then he could be about to inflict on the Conservative Party every bit as much damage as Black Wednesday.
Comments
https://twitter.com/fourfoot/status/1544712457217769474
And she has reasonable doubt that he is able to command support from the House.
https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1544721477320249344
He might be the best Chancellor ever, per day.
https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/lords-information-office/2022/hereditary-peers-by-election-result-brabazon-swinfen.pdf
A very close run election for the second vacancy. Proper STV in action!!!
The successful candidates were Lord Remnant and Lord Wrottesley.
Lord Remnant's statement:
Live in London and Hampshire, and am a lifelong Conservative. Worked within Government as Chairman of Shareholder Executive, director of UKFI (responsible for Government’s shareholdings in the banks) and director of Northern Rock.
Currently, a non-executive director of Prudential and Severn Trent, and was recently Deputy Chair of The Takeover Panel. With reducing business interests, would commit enthusiastically to the Lords.
Other interests: countryside matters.
Lord Wrottesley's statement:
I took my seat 25 years ago, but relative youth meant not offering myself for election.
An Olympian, Chaired British Bobsleigh and Skeleton, now Chairing Ice Hockey UK, sit on the Finance committee of the International Ice Hockey Federation, and the board of GB's best ever performing Winter Sport, British Skeleton.
A stint in Finance in the noughties, closet tree hugger, as reflected in my business interests. More broadly interested in the environment, defence, housing.
“Twenty-two acknowledged concubines and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than for ostentation.”
'Shes not in' 'shes gone to Auntie Brendas'
https://twitter.com/IanMartin/status/1544718414895370242
this could get lively
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1544722318055931906
Caretaker PM!!
Just imagine if she is there for the delegation. Imagine being brought back to reality by Mad Nads.
Hiding in a Parliamentary fridge
Question. Is Mrs Johnson in Downing Street...?
https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/7343489/Leave-Britney-Alone
They (and in reality, a representative body of senior figures, ie the men in grey suits) only need to be unified over someone who can do the job in a caretaking capacity.
In other words, step forward PM Sir Graham Brady or Dame Theresa May.
Before everyone else does of course.
Hopefully
Penny Morders and Her Double Entendres waiting in the wings.
“It would be deemed to be inappropriate [constitutionally] to put the sovereign in a position where she has to make a controversial decision”, says one
https://twitter.com/Smyth_Chris/status/1544723611214290944
These same Tory MPs cheered when he embarrassed the Queen with the 2019 prorogation.
It felt like a gut punch and a kick in the balls.
Britney Spears - Oops!...I Did It Again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CduA0TULnow
First thing she does is go walking for the weekend.
Michael Fabricant just told Radio 4 he wont be running for PM if Johnson goes
https://twitter.com/nadinebh_/status/1544723345895292934
I doubt Churchill would ever behave as poorly as Johnson currently is. And old Winston did have his moments...
http://db.tattersalls.com:8080/4DCGI/Sale/Live?site=NMT
In America it is much harder to humiliate and defenestrate poor leaders so casually.