Is it a good idea to give 180,000 of the most leaden footed people in the country the job of choosing our next Prime Minister? Self selected as well. It's well beyond bonkers
In Germany I am the sentimental Anglophile who insists on going on about the importance of the UK. In Britain I am the rude German cow who can’t stop criticizing. Well. Doing my best, sorry if that’s annoying.
Who is she? Twitter does seem to be jam packed with people who assume they are important, but then I guess deciding to post on there and chasing readers means that is a prerequisite.
Anyway the very stong sentiment I've got from my short trip here is that if the tories want to keep seats like Hartlepool it has to be Johnson. No ifs, buts or maybes.
They actively hate Sunak and have no idea who Penny Dreadful is.
Also, I have never known so many people eager to discuss politics with a relative stranger. There's something happening here and what it is ain't exactly clear. I suspect the tories are Cretaceous dinosaurs and there is a big fuck off asteroid heading for CCHQthe Gulf of Mexico.
If the integrity of an online vote cannot be guaranteed it has to be either abandoned or replaced with mail voting.
God please no, Morris! We need a result next week.
Let them launch a civil action in the courts if they want to.
Quite - or give them the option to vote by pigeon instead!
Even if it went to the courts I couldn't see it succeeding. The members have been given a vote and those without an email address have been given the opportunity to provide one in time to vote.
I would have thought some sort of legal challenge would be almost inevitable though. Which throws even more chaos and uncertainty on the selection of the next PM. It is a farce.
I see TSE blaming the 1922 committee and Brady for this but I was under the impression they have no control over the electoral process outside of the MPs voting. It is the constitution of the Tory Party that has to be changed to exclude the membership and make it MP only voting and that is not within his power. TO be honest given what he is faced with I am not sure he could do much different to what he has done.
I concur with MarqueeMark below. People expect there would be some fee for membership. What the public were/are less convinced about is signing up to the paraphernalia of statehood in my view.
The point is I think compromise and nuance here is a sign of strength. If Hard Brexiteers defend the no compromise route then they will put off the bulk of people who want a decent relationship, not be in the EU political union and just want to get on with other big issues. I think most people push back against no compromise positions (a little like people got more passionate in their Brexit views as the People's Vote campaign was pushing). Of course some think compromise and nuance = slippery slope; but I do not think that needs to be the case if we (a) are not in a political union of the EU and (b) if the bespoke relationship, forged over years is communicated and sold clearly for the benefits it has.
I think this is my first post since the Leeds Leadership hustings. At that time I said the Conservative Party needed to be pragmatic, empathetic and forward looking. I was sceptical it was in evidence with Liz Truss and as such I vote for Rishi Sunak. Unsurprisingly I think he is the most appropriate and strongest choice for the party now.
In terms of the EU, I campaigned and voted Leave in the referendum. I had long hoped sufficient reform from within the EU towards a more flexible model of concentric circles of membership would emerge quicker than it was and when Cameron failed to get anything meaningful in his negotiation I made the decision that reforming our relationship from outside offered an alternate route, even if it would be structurally more radical.
Overall I still think leaving will prove to be the pathway to that more mature, mutually beneficial relationship with the EU arrives. Nevertheless I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge I had not considered the awful way all sides - UK and EU actors - behaved post-referendum in failing to work through the next steps more cautiously, compromise and not go zero sum. Here the Conservative Party did not have its finest hour to say the least and today there is still too much ideological unwillingness to see nuance and compromise.
For me the EU (at the bureaucratic level at least) sees itself as a state being built. This means that there is not always a willingness to see that some members won't want ever closer union. Perhaps this is no surprise: bureaucracies often like to justify their roles through more and more activity and as with membership of any state, there isn't really a half in/ half out position - you are either part of the state or you are not. On the flip side, if the hard Brexiteers do not recognise that their zero sum approach will risk alienating those who want good UK-EU relations, then they will find the country will be more likely to return to the EU (potentially without all the opt-outs) out of frustration and exhaustion. Not compromising and thinking you are always right is tiring. If the public feel the status quo is too conflictual, the hard Brexiteers should not be surprised the public look elsewhere and that alternative offering may well be rejoin, as the bespoke relationship hasn't been sold and explained well enough.
And that bespoke relationship? Ultimately a relationship, more associate in status, economically-based, but without the free movement of people as currently formed is one that could, over many years be forged. It would, I think make a sufficient number of actors on all sides sufficiently content and allow us all to focus on big structural things such as inter-generational fairness, the future of work, climate change.
I think this is the ultimate direction of travel. However the closer relationship will be a subordinate one for the UK, less comfortable than participating in decisions that affect you.
The EU and UK actors behaved in the way I expected them to. There is a reasonable case to be made for Brexit around accepting various losses of freedom, prosperity, influence and coherence as a nation as a price worth paying, so we can be masters of our own ship. Unfortunately no-one made that reasonable case, presumably because the referendum would be lost. So this Brexit, rather than a hypothetical other Brexit, went ahead on seriously false premises. Sooner or later we will have to work through them.
Random totally useless fact. Today Trent Alexander-Arnold will become the first EPL player to play a game by a river which shares his first name since Don Hutchinson for Everton at Sheff Wed in 1999.
Definitely screwed either way. This may make some MPs and members choose Johnson as the 'Hail Mary' pass. I think they would be wrong to do so because the risk of extinction is greater under him, but you can kind of understand them doing it.
Given a fair wind, I thought the Tories could hope for 200/250 at the next GE under Sunak but it looks unlikely now. The political storms in the Party still rage and there won't be calm for some while yet. Maybe 150 is the best they can hope for.
Under Boris I'd put the figure about the same but with a much greater risk of complete wipe-out. There is also a real risk that the GE would come soon, so no time to sort the mess out.
I see Johnson is now 2/1 with Betfair. Looks about right but somehow I have this feeling that behind the scenes there will be moves made to ensure he doesn't make it. Maybe the Party Elders can buy him off. He likes money. Maybe he's just come back to ask them ho much they'll give him to return to the beach.
I actually think if Rishi ejects the 30 most rebellious fools on day 1, unites the rest of the party and leads a stable government for 2 years they'll be ok, what they don't need is the same 60-70 Boris supporters going at it every time something happens. Under Boris it becomes an extinction level event.
They'd be close to losing their majority, wouldn't they, Max?
An early GE would be an extinction event, or close to it.
It would take them down to 327 MPs plus whatever legislative support from the 30 that have been ejected. The remaining 327 would suddenly be very United behind the PM. It would also deal with the mentalist members who would hopefully fuck off after realising they aren't wanted in the party.
Starting early next month, the committee will hold public evidence sessions as often as three times a week. Partygate will be front and centre once again
Boris 2.0 might not last long.
I thought he was planning to can the committee, Owen Patterson style, until that was scuppered by his first defenestration. If Johnson makes it back to PM, the only way he stays is to go full-frontal Trump.
He has enough enemies on the Tory benches to scupper any attempt to can the Privileges Committee investigation
@FF43 thanks for the post. I think the ability for member states to influence EU direction has, over time, reduced as QMV has been reduced. Of course there will be some loss of ability to influence EU decision-making. I think people accept, just as we say, cannot have a say in USA legislation and policy (which influences us); we cannot have as much a say in EU policy if we are not a member. But we equally gain flexibility in other areas. Over time that may become even more obvious as policy decisions are made. I also do not believe the only options are EU/EFTA-EEA or nothing. If both sides show a willingness to forge, over many years a bespoke relationship then that would emerge. Geopolitics, economics and such will dictate that necessity. But it will take decades and more importantly that is fine...that is how good, working relationships are forged.
Is it a good idea to give 180,000 of the most leaden footed people in the country the job of choosing our next Prime Minister? Self selected as well. It's well beyond bonkers
No
This is a parliamentary democracy. It's working exactly as it should. We don't vote for a PM, we vote for our local MP. There are conventions in place that mean the manisfesto MPs campaign on can be legislated on; deviations from this are difficult to get through parliament.
The concern was that Truss's crazy economic agenda had no mandate from the people. Well, in the end, she lost her job after 40ish days after she went against a manisfesto promise on fracking and undermined the core selling point of the Tory party - fiscal sustainability and economic competence. The system worked.
The argument people here and amongst my friends have been making is just so lazy. If our PMs had a personal mandate, we'd be just as fucked as the US. Johnson would still be PM - "the people v the MPs", completely unaccountable for all his nonsense. In fact, in Truss and Johnson, British democracy has had a good few months.
There is even a way to get to General Election or Starmer becomes PM - the current government loses the confidence of the House. This has acted perfectly as a deterrent to the Tory party and they are changing their leader accordingly. If Boris gets in again, it might even be the case that he loses this confidence as the Tories go into civil war.
We just have to hope that the King is well advised. (I concede this may be a weakness in my argument...)
Definitely screwed either way. This may make some MPs and members choose Johnson as the 'Hail Mary' pass. I think they would be wrong to do so because the risk of extinction is greater under him, but you can kind of understand them doing it.
Given a fair wind, I thought the Tories could hope for 200/250 at the next GE under Sunak but it looks unlikely now. The political storms in the Party still rage and there won't be calm for some while yet. Maybe 150 is the best they can hope for.
Under Boris I'd put the figure about the same but with a much greater risk of complete wipe-out. There is also a real risk that the GE would come soon, so no time to sort the mess out.
I see Johnson is now 2/1 with Betfair. Looks about right but somehow I have this feeling that behind the scenes there will be moves made to ensure he doesn't make it. Maybe the Party Elders can buy him off. He likes money. Maybe he's just come back to ask them ho much they'll give him to return to the beach.
I actually think if Rishi ejects the 30 most rebellious fools on day 1, unites the rest of the party and leads a stable government for 2 years they'll be ok, what they don't need is the same 60-70 Boris supporters going at it every time something happens. Under Boris it becomes an extinction level event.
They'd be close to losing their majority, wouldn't they, Max?
An early GE would be an extinction event, or close to it.
It would take them down to 327 MPs plus whatever legislative support from the 30 that have been ejected. The remaining 327 would suddenly be very United behind the PM. It would also deal with the mentalist members who would hopefully fuck off after realising they aren't wanted in the party.
Under FPTP it doesn't work. Even Starmer hasn't expelled all Corbynite MPs and even Corbyn has only been suspended as a Labour MP he has had his Labour Party membership restored
Boris is on 50-60 and theres something like 140-160 who haven't expressed a preference?
The BBC has him on 45, with about 45% of the Tory MPs declared.
It seems far from clear he can get to 100.
And kle4's figure of 50-60 with 140-160 undeclared would translate to only 50-60 supporting with 55-61% declared. Not clearly on course for 100, even if all the rest declare rather than watching to see how it goes.
If Johnson gets to say, 90 nominations, and only Sunak makes the threshold, there's going to be some very disgruntled members. And a substantial internal opposition in Parliament.*
*Of course. There'll be that anyways.
But are they really going to be that disgruntled, if they can see that Sunak has twice as much support among MPs as Johnson?
Exactly. The biggest mistakes with Truss were having a leader not supported by the mass of MPs, and having a leader who didn't have the confidence of the markets. Johnson solves neither.
Pity no betfair market on "will there be an online vote of the venerables?" - anything like evens for "No" and I'd lumperooni. I really can't see it. Terrible optics, a practical farce, absurdly risky on every level. It's an absolute Plan Z.
Definitely screwed either way. This may make some MPs and members choose Johnson as the 'Hail Mary' pass. I think they would be wrong to do so because the risk of extinction is greater under him, but you can kind of understand them doing it.
Given a fair wind, I thought the Tories could hope for 200/250 at the next GE under Sunak but it looks unlikely now. The political storms in the Party still rage and there won't be calm for some while yet. Maybe 150 is the best they can hope for.
Under Boris I'd put the figure about the same but with a much greater risk of complete wipe-out. There is also a real risk that the GE would come soon, so no time to sort the mess out.
I see Johnson is now 2/1 with Betfair. Looks about right but somehow I have this feeling that behind the scenes there will be moves made to ensure he doesn't make it. Maybe the Party Elders can buy him off. He likes money. Maybe he's just come back to ask them ho much they'll give him to return to the beach.
I actually think if Rishi ejects the 30 most rebellious fools on day 1, unites the rest of the party and leads a stable government for 2 years they'll be ok, what they don't need is the same 60-70 Boris supporters going at it every time something happens. Under Boris it becomes an extinction level event.
They'd be close to losing their majority, wouldn't they, Max?
An early GE would be an extinction event, or close to it.
It would take them down to 327 MPs plus whatever legislative support from the 30 that have been ejected. The remaining 327 would suddenly be very United behind the PM. It would also deal with the mentalist members who would hopefully fuck off after realising they aren't wanted in the party.
Under FPTP it doesn't work. Even Starmer hasn't expelled all Corbynite MPs and even Corbyn has only been suspended as a Labour MP he has had his Labour Party membership restored
Boris managed it with the EU lovers in 2019. I'm sure Rishi could do it too.
I think this is my first post since the Leeds Leadership hustings. At that time I said the Conservative Party needed to be pragmatic, empathetic and forward looking. I was sceptical it was in evidence with Liz Truss and as such I vote for Rishi Sunak. Unsurprisingly I think he is the most appropriate and strongest choice for the party now.
In terms of the EU, I campaigned and voted Leave in the referendum. I had long hoped sufficient reform from within the EU towards a more flexible model of concentric circles of membership would emerge quicker than it was and when Cameron failed to get anything meaningful in his negotiation I made the decision that reforming our relationship from outside offered an alternate route, even if it would be structurally more radical.
Overall I still think leaving will prove to be the pathway to that more mature, mutually beneficial relationship with the EU arrives. Nevertheless I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge I had not considered the awful way all sides - UK and EU actors - behaved post-referendum in failing to work through the next steps more cautiously, compromise and not go zero sum. Here the Conservative Party did not have its finest hour to say the least and today there is still too much ideological unwillingness to see nuance and compromise.
For me the EU (at the bureaucratic level at least) sees itself as a state being built. This means that there is not always a willingness to see that some members won't want ever closer union. Perhaps this is no surprise: bureaucracies often like to justify their roles through more and more activity and as with membership of any state, there isn't really a half in/ half out position - you are either part of the state or you are not. On the flip side, if the hard Brexiteers do not recognise that their zero sum approach will risk alienating those who want good UK-EU relations, then they will find the country will be more likely to return to the EU (potentially without all the opt-outs) out of frustration and exhaustion. Not compromising and thinking you are always right is tiring. If the public feel the status quo is too conflictual, the hard Brexiteers should not be surprised the public look elsewhere and that alternative offering may well be rejoin, as the bespoke relationship hasn't been sold and explained well enough.
And that bespoke relationship? Ultimately a relationship, more associate in status, economically-based, but without the free movement of people as currently formed is one that could, over many years be forged. It would, I think make a sufficient number of actors on all sides sufficiently content and allow us all to focus on big structural things such as inter-generational fairness, the future of work, climate change.
There are two sets of loons. One side won and one side lost and each had their own set of anti-democrats who will never accept a democratic decision. They will always accept a democratic decision - but only if it suits their own opinions.
Had Remain won, the anti-democrats on the Leave side would be blaming Remaining in Europe for everything bad that happens in the future. We currently have the opposite situation.
But there is an added element with some people. An element of nastiness that reflects an arrogance from them. "My opinion is worth more than yours because I have superior judgement. Therefore I need to ensure it happens."
Acceptance doesn't mean agreeing with, but it does mean accepting other people's opinions should prevail. In a similar vein, activists will never acceot democracy. It is merely a blip in rational decision-making. As an example, XR will never accept that a government is working hard enough to implement green policies because it removes their raison d'etre.
I admire Ursula, but I think she's making the best of a bad job. Complete European unification is a dream but it's time has not yet come. It may do in the future. Time will tell.
Kevin Schofield @KevinASchofield · 4m Spoke to one depressed Tory MP yesterday who said Boris Johnson will "walk it" if he gets through a vote by the members.
They said: "I’ve spoken to Rishi’s campaign and begged them to reach out to Penny - the only chance we’ve got to stop Boris is that coalition."
The Guardian blog says "Polling by Opinium suggests that Sunak will beat Mordaunt and Johnson in a leadership contest, and that Mordaunt will also beat Johnson.". Is there a link to this apparently very important finding?
Nah, that was polling UK electorate. The member polling shows Boris in pole position, but not by as much as anticipated. I don't think he'd walk it and the question over the ~20k members who are ineligible still looms for Boris. I'd wager that the break for him 90:10 having spoken to loads of them for renewals in the past.
Even so the reason I hear most often for bringing Johnson back is that he is a "vote winning-machine". If those figures are correct they need to change "is" to "was"
Take that away from him and what's left? A lazy, lying, mendacious oaf.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 39m Momentum obviously swinging wildly. And it could shift again. But it’s clear there is a growing consensus across the Tory Party this morning that Boris is not a viable option at this time.
Fingers crossed 🤞
It did smell like the Boris campaign was trying to bounce him quickly onto the ticket. They were quite successful and dominated the early ‘campaign’ . It will be interesting to see if his arrival back from Carribean butlins gives him another shove. If not, that story might be over.
Would be ironic if that early impetus dried up, purely because the idle one was on a Carribean beach instead of doing what he's paid to do. A couple of barnstorming, blustering word salads of boosterist bollocks on Friday could have swayed the hard of thinking in Westminster.
Coming back from his third foreign holiday this summer, when politics has been in turmoil, there's been a 3-line confidence vote (supposedly), and his constituents' casework lies unresolved, is such a bad look.
Kevin Schofield @KevinASchofield · 4m Spoke to one depressed Tory MP yesterday who said Boris Johnson will "walk it" if he gets through a vote by the members.
They said: "I’ve spoken to Rishi’s campaign and begged them to reach out to Penny - the only chance we’ve got to stop Boris is that coalition."
Could Penny withdraw before Monday and throw her weight behind Sunak ?
For what purpose? To try to stop Boris getting 100 nominations? If some Mordaunt supporters went across to him, it might have the opposite effect. To impress the members?
I get your point . It’s better for her to stay in .
So we've cracked why she is there at all. Deal with Rishi, backs him on Monday, once it's too late for any backers to switch nominations
They are overall appalling results for institutions that are well funded historically (highest ever tax take).Public services and decisions and emphasis have been terrible for a number of years - passport office , police (woke politics may be to blame for a lot including lower morale amongst officers) , nhs etc . The answer is not more funding (that just makes them more arrogant and bloated) but fundamental change towards customer service
If the integrity of an online vote cannot be guaranteed it has to be either abandoned or replaced with mail voting.
God please no, Morris! We need a result next week.
Let them launch a civil action in the courts if they want to.
Quite - or give them the option to vote by pigeon instead!
Even if it went to the courts I couldn't see it succeeding. The members have been given a vote and those without an email address have been given the opportunity to provide one in time to vote.
I would have thought some sort of legal challenge would be almost inevitable though. Which throws even more chaos and uncertainty on the selection of the next PM. It is a farce.
I see TSE blaming the 1922 committee and Brady for this but I was under the impression they have no control over the electoral process outside of the MPs voting. It is the constitution of the Tory Party that has to be changed to exclude the membership and make it MP only voting and that is not within his power. TO be honest given what he is faced with I am not sure he could do much different to what he has done.
I agree that there was no real choice. I think the case would be won on the fact that those without an email address were given an opportunity to provide one and the party made reasonable efforts to remedy the problem by trying to phone them. Hopefully it doesn't get anywhere the membership!
Definitely screwed either way. This may make some MPs and members choose Johnson as the 'Hail Mary' pass. I think they would be wrong to do so because the risk of extinction is greater under him, but you can kind of understand them doing it.
Given a fair wind, I thought the Tories could hope for 200/250 at the next GE under Sunak but it looks unlikely now. The political storms in the Party still rage and there won't be calm for some while yet. Maybe 150 is the best they can hope for.
Under Boris I'd put the figure about the same but with a much greater risk of complete wipe-out. There is also a real risk that the GE would come soon, so no time to sort the mess out.
I see Johnson is now 2/1 with Betfair. Looks about right but somehow I have this feeling that behind the scenes there will be moves made to ensure he doesn't make it. Maybe the Party Elders can buy him off. He likes money. Maybe he's just come back to ask them ho much they'll give him to return to the beach.
I actually think if Rishi ejects the 30 most rebellious fools on day 1, unites the rest of the party and leads a stable government for 2 years they'll be ok, what they don't need is the same 60-70 Boris supporters going at it every time something happens. Under Boris it becomes an extinction level event.
They'd be close to losing their majority, wouldn't they, Max?
An early GE would be an extinction event, or close to it.
It would take them down to 327 MPs plus whatever legislative support from the 30 that have been ejected. The remaining 327 would suddenly be very United behind the PM. It would also deal with the mentalist members who would hopefully fuck off after realising they aren't wanted in the party.
Under FPTP it doesn't work. Even Starmer hasn't expelled all Corbynite MPs and even Corbyn has only been suspended as a Labour MP he has had his Labour Party membership restored
Boris managed it with the EU lovers in 2019. I'm sure Rishi could do it too.
Only as they voted against Brexit.
If they voted against Sunak government legislation that is a different matter
If the integrity of an online vote cannot be guaranteed it has to be either abandoned or replaced with mail voting.
God please no, Morris! We need a result next week.
Let them launch a civil action in the courts if they want to.
Quite - or give them the option to vote by pigeon instead!
Even if it went to the courts I couldn't see it succeeding. The members have been given a vote and those without an email address have been given the opportunity to provide one in time to vote.
I would have thought some sort of legal challenge would be almost inevitable though. Which throws even more chaos and uncertainty on the selection of the next PM. It is a farce.
I see TSE blaming the 1922 committee and Brady for this but I was under the impression they have no control over the electoral process outside of the MPs voting. It is the constitution of the Tory Party that has to be changed to exclude the membership and make it MP only voting and that is not within his power. TO be honest given what he is faced with I am not sure he could do much different to what he has done.
Kevin Schofield @KevinASchofield · 4m Spoke to one depressed Tory MP yesterday who said Boris Johnson will "walk it" if he gets through a vote by the members.
They said: "I’ve spoken to Rishi’s campaign and begged them to reach out to Penny - the only chance we’ve got to stop Boris is that coalition."
Could Penny withdraw before Monday and throw her weight behind Sunak ?
For what purpose? To try to stop Boris getting 100 nominations? If some Mordaunt supporters went across to him, it might have the opposite effect. To impress the members?
I get your point . It’s better for her to stay in .
So we've cracked why she is there at all. Deal with Rishi, backs him on Monday, once it's too late for any backers to switch nominations
Yup, and she gets Foreign Secretary out of it (IMHO)
Definitely screwed either way. This may make some MPs and members choose Johnson as the 'Hail Mary' pass. I think they would be wrong to do so because the risk of extinction is greater under him, but you can kind of understand them doing it.
Given a fair wind, I thought the Tories could hope for 200/250 at the next GE under Sunak but it looks unlikely now. The political storms in the Party still rage and there won't be calm for some while yet. Maybe 150 is the best they can hope for.
Under Boris I'd put the figure about the same but with a much greater risk of complete wipe-out. There is also a real risk that the GE would come soon, so no time to sort the mess out.
I see Johnson is now 2/1 with Betfair. Looks about right but somehow I have this feeling that behind the scenes there will be moves made to ensure he doesn't make it. Maybe the Party Elders can buy him off. He likes money. Maybe he's just come back to ask them ho much they'll give him to return to the beach.
I actually think if Rishi ejects the 30 most rebellious fools on day 1, unites the rest of the party and leads a stable government for 2 years they'll be ok, what they don't need is the same 60-70 Boris supporters going at it every time something happens. Under Boris it becomes an extinction level event.
They'd be close to losing their majority, wouldn't they, Max?
An early GE would be an extinction event, or close to it.
It would take them down to 327 MPs plus whatever legislative support from the 30 that have been ejected. The remaining 327 would suddenly be very United behind the PM. It would also deal with the mentalist members who would hopefully fuck off after realising they aren't wanted in the party.
Under FPTP it doesn't work. Even Starmer hasn't expelled all Corbynite MPs and even Corbyn has only been suspended as a Labour MP he has had his Labour Party membership restored
Boris managed it with the EU lovers in 2019. I'm sure Rishi could do it too.
Did your parents never teach you that two wrongs don’t make a right?
I think this is my first post since the Leeds Leadership hustings. At that time I said the Conservative Party needed to be pragmatic, empathetic and forward looking. I was sceptical it was in evidence with Liz Truss and as such I vote for Rishi Sunak. Unsurprisingly I think he is the most appropriate and strongest choice for the party now.
In terms of the EU, I campaigned and voted Leave in the referendum. I had long hoped sufficient reform from within the EU towards a more flexible model of concentric circles of membership would emerge quicker than it was and when Cameron failed to get anything meaningful in his negotiation I made the decision that reforming our relationship from outside offered an alternate route, even if it would be structurally more radical.
Overall I still think leaving will prove to be the pathway to that more mature, mutually beneficial relationship with the EU arrives. Nevertheless I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge I had not considered the awful way all sides - UK and EU actors - behaved post-referendum in failing to work through the next steps more cautiously, compromise and not go zero sum. Here the Conservative Party did not have its finest hour to say the least and today there is still too much ideological unwillingness to see nuance and compromise.
For me the EU (at the bureaucratic level at least) sees itself as a state being built. This means that there is not always a willingness to see that some members won't want ever closer union. Perhaps this is no surprise: bureaucracies often like to justify their roles through more and more activity and as with membership of any state, there isn't really a half in/ half out position - you are either part of the state or you are not. On the flip side, if the hard Brexiteers do not recognise that their zero sum approach will risk alienating those who want good UK-EU relations, then they will find the country will be more likely to return to the EU (potentially without all the opt-outs) out of frustration and exhaustion. Not compromising and thinking you are always right is tiring. If the public feel the status quo is too conflictual, the hard Brexiteers should not be surprised the public look elsewhere and that alternative offering may well be rejoin, as the bespoke relationship hasn't been sold and explained well enough.
And that bespoke relationship? Ultimately a relationship, more associate in status, economically-based, but without the free movement of people as currently formed is one that could, over many years be forged. It would, I think make a sufficient number of actors on all sides sufficiently content and allow us all to focus on big structural things such as inter-generational fairness, the future of work, climate change.
It's a measured and serious post and I suspect echos the views of many moderate Tory Leavers.
But... I think you are still looking for EU 'membership benefits' without paying the fees or applying the rules. That's not the way it works.
After the Brexit result the best and only serious option for the medium term (25-50 years+) always was, and remains EEA/EFTA. No other result could recognise the result in 2016 and avoid undue damage. At the time it may have seemed possible to do a unique cakeist deal with the EU, but they said no, as they were entitled to.
Definitely screwed either way. This may make some MPs and members choose Johnson as the 'Hail Mary' pass. I think they would be wrong to do so because the risk of extinction is greater under him, but you can kind of understand them doing it.
Given a fair wind, I thought the Tories could hope for 200/250 at the next GE under Sunak but it looks unlikely now. The political storms in the Party still rage and there won't be calm for some while yet. Maybe 150 is the best they can hope for.
Under Boris I'd put the figure about the same but with a much greater risk of complete wipe-out. There is also a real risk that the GE would come soon, so no time to sort the mess out.
I see Johnson is now 2/1 with Betfair. Looks about right but somehow I have this feeling that behind the scenes there will be moves made to ensure he doesn't make it. Maybe the Party Elders can buy him off. He likes money. Maybe he's just come back to ask them ho much they'll give him to return to the beach.
I actually think if Rishi ejects the 30 most rebellious fools on day 1, unites the rest of the party and leads a stable government for 2 years they'll be ok, what they don't need is the same 60-70 Boris supporters going at it every time something happens. Under Boris it becomes an extinction level event.
They'd be close to losing their majority, wouldn't they, Max?
An early GE would be an extinction event, or close to it.
It would take them down to 327 MPs plus whatever legislative support from the 30 that have been ejected. The remaining 327 would suddenly be very United behind the PM. It would also deal with the mentalist members who would hopefully fuck off after realising they aren't wanted in the party.
Under FPTP it doesn't work. Even Starmer hasn't expelled all Corbynite MPs and even Corbyn has only been suspended as a Labour MP he has had his Labour Party membership restored
Boris managed it with the EU lovers in 2019. I'm sure Rishi could do it too.
Only as they voted against Brexit.
If they voted against Sunak government legislation that is a different matter
The triple lock will be the flashpoint or NI on pension income if the triple lock is retained.
Is it a good idea to give 180,000 of the most leaden footed people in the country the job of choosing our next Prime Minister? Self selected as well. It's well beyond bonkers
No
This is a parliamentary democracy. It's working exactly as it should. We don't vote for a PM, we vote for our local MP. There are conventions in place that mean the manisfesto MPs campaign on can be legislated on; deviations from this are difficult to get through parliament.
The concern was that Truss's crazy economic agenda had no mandate from the people. Well, in the end, she lost her job after 40ish days after she went against a manisfesto promise on fracking and undermined the core selling point of the Tory party - fiscal sustainability and economic competence. The system worked.
The argument people here and amongst my friends have been making is just so lazy. If our PMs had a personal mandate, we'd be just as fucked as the US. Johnson would still be PM - "the people v the MPs", completely unaccountable for all his nonsense. In fact, in Truss and Johnson, British democracy has had a good few months.
There is even a way to get to General Election or Starmer becomes PM - the current government loses the confidence of the House. This has acted perfectly as a deterrent to the Tory party and they are changing their leader accordingly. If Boris gets in again, it might even be the case that he loses this confidence as the Tories go into civil war.
We just have to hope that the King is well advised. (I concede this may be a weakness in my argument...)
Here's a suggestion off the top of my head. I've no idea if it's total guff, unworkable, or filled with unintended consequences (probably).
The confidence of the House in the government should be regularly tested as standard. Beginning of each new week of Parliament sitting. No need for the Opposition to call for it, etc: it should just be burnt into the traditions and operating processes as standard. No parliamentary business is moved until the confidence is confirmed. It's a 15 minute division at the start of business for the week. No drama.
That way, if you've got a government in total chaos and people resigning left right and centre this will concentrate minds in a way I'm not sure we currently have. Yes, the Leader of the Opposition can call one, but I'm not sure that's the point. Confidence could be determined in a factual way not a political way (or at least, both could be an option)
Under that system Conservative MPs could quite reasonably say "it's all a mess and everything's totally fucked at the moment but we have a process in place to change the leader and thus the PM, so I can quite clearly state I have confidence in the government given that".
But they should be made to explicitly OWN that decision. My problem is at the moment I reckon a reasonable proportion of Con MPs don't have that confidence and would struggle to give it even with the knowledge of a leadership election in place, but the government doesn't fall on no real reason other than noone's formally asked the question.
I think this is my first post since the Leeds Leadership hustings. At that time I said the Conservative Party needed to be pragmatic, empathetic and forward looking. I was sceptical it was in evidence with Liz Truss and as such I vote for Rishi Sunak. Unsurprisingly I think he is the most appropriate and strongest choice for the party now.
In terms of the EU, I campaigned and voted Leave in the referendum. I had long hoped sufficient reform from within the EU towards a more flexible model of concentric circles of membership would emerge quicker than it was and when Cameron failed to get anything meaningful in his negotiation I made the decision that reforming our relationship from outside offered an alternate route, even if it would be structurally more radical.
Overall I still think leaving will prove to be the pathway to that more mature, mutually beneficial relationship with the EU arrives. Nevertheless I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge I had not considered the awful way all sides - UK and EU actors - behaved post-referendum in failing to work through the next steps more cautiously, compromise and not go zero sum. Here the Conservative Party did not have its finest hour to say the least and today there is still too much ideological unwillingness to see nuance and compromise.
For me the EU (at the bureaucratic level at least) sees itself as a state being built. This means that there is not always a willingness to see that some members won't want ever closer union. Perhaps this is no surprise: bureaucracies often like to justify their roles through more and more activity and as with membership of any state, there isn't really a half in/ half out position - you are either part of the state or you are not. On the flip side, if the hard Brexiteers do not recognise that their zero sum approach will risk alienating those who want good UK-EU relations, then they will find the country will be more likely to return to the EU (potentially without all the opt-outs) out of frustration and exhaustion. Not compromising and thinking you are always right is tiring. If the public feel the status quo is too conflictual, the hard Brexiteers should not be surprised the public look elsewhere and that alternative offering may well be rejoin, as the bespoke relationship hasn't been sold and explained well enough.
And that bespoke relationship? Ultimately a relationship, more associate in status, economically-based, but without the free movement of people as currently formed is one that could, over many years be forged. It would, I think make a sufficient number of actors on all sides sufficiently content and allow us all to focus on big structural things such as inter-generational fairness, the future of work, climate change.
I think this is the ultimate direction of travel. However the closer relationship will be a subordinate one for the UK, less comfortable than participating in decisions that affect you.
The EU and UK actors behaved in the way I expected them to. There is a reasonable case to be made for Brexit around accepting various losses of freedom, prosperity, influence and coherence as a nation as a price worth paying, so we can be masters of our own ship. Unfortunately no-one made that reasonable case, presumably because the referendum would be lost. So this Brexit, rather than a hypothetical other Brexit, went ahead on seriously false premises. Sooner or later we will have to work through them.
The problem is that the Brexit campaign elided divergent long term policy objectives.
Farage and Banks were not fishing in the same waters as Cummings and Bojo.
We are now seeing the logical consequence of these contradictions playing out in the Conservative party.
Being sympathetic to these challenges, it has hindered the very necessary process of reconciling the 50% of the population who did not want Brexit.
Your (very reasonable) proposal should have been made in 2017, of course.
Is it a good idea to give 180,000 of the most leaden footed people in the country the job of choosing our next Prime Minister? Self selected as well. It's well beyond bonkers
No
This is a parliamentary democracy. It's working exactly as it should. We don't vote for a PM, we vote for our local MP. There are conventions in place that mean the manisfesto MPs campaign on can be legislated on; deviations from this are difficult to get through parliament.
The concern was that Truss's crazy economic agenda had no mandate from the people. Well, in the end, she lost her job after 40ish days after she went against a manisfesto promise on fracking and undermined the core selling point of the Tory party - fiscal sustainability and economic competence. The system worked.
The argument people here and amongst my friends have been making is just so lazy. If our PMs had a personal mandate, we'd be just as fucked as the US. Johnson would still be PM - "the people v the MPs", completely unaccountable for all his nonsense. In fact, in Truss and Johnson, British democracy has had a good few months.
There is even a way to get to General Election or Starmer becomes PM - the current government loses the confidence of the House. This has acted perfectly as a deterrent to the Tory party and they are changing their leader accordingly. If Boris gets in again, it might even be the case that he loses this confidence as the Tories go into civil war.
We just have to hope that the King is well advised. (I concede this may be a weakness in my argument...)
Even Presidents can be impeached and forced to resign see Nixon or Rousseff if sufficient support for that in the legislature.
The King will simply appoint whichever leader the Tories choose as PM. If Starmer calls a VONC and Tory rebels vote down the government so the VONC succeeds the King will then dissolve Parliament and call a general election.
Kevin Schofield @KevinASchofield · 4m Spoke to one depressed Tory MP yesterday who said Boris Johnson will "walk it" if he gets through a vote by the members.
They said: "I’ve spoken to Rishi’s campaign and begged them to reach out to Penny - the only chance we’ve got to stop Boris is that coalition."
Could Penny withdraw before Monday and throw her weight behind Sunak ?
For what purpose? To try to stop Boris getting 100 nominations? If some Mordaunt supporters went across to him, it might have the opposite effect. To impress the members?
I get your point . It’s better for her to stay in .
So we've cracked why she is there at all. Deal with Rishi, backs him on Monday, once it's too late for any backers to switch nominations
Yup, and she gets Foreign Secretary out of it (IMHO)
Still leaves the problem of what to do with Boris - sadly the easiest option of suspending him from the party for missing the three line whip on Wednesday doesn't work because of the other people who abstained that vote.
What Sunak will need to do is ensure the standards committee gives Bozo a long enough suspension that the recall petition works.
Definitely screwed either way. This may make some MPs and members choose Johnson as the 'Hail Mary' pass. I think they would be wrong to do so because the risk of extinction is greater under him, but you can kind of understand them doing it.
Given a fair wind, I thought the Tories could hope for 200/250 at the next GE under Sunak but it looks unlikely now. The political storms in the Party still rage and there won't be calm for some while yet. Maybe 150 is the best they can hope for.
Under Boris I'd put the figure about the same but with a much greater risk of complete wipe-out. There is also a real risk that the GE would come soon, so no time to sort the mess out.
I see Johnson is now 2/1 with Betfair. Looks about right but somehow I have this feeling that behind the scenes there will be moves made to ensure he doesn't make it. Maybe the Party Elders can buy him off. He likes money. Maybe he's just come back to ask them how much they'll give him to return to the beach.
I would not be surprised if you were correct. Yet more "interesting times" ahead....
I doubt anyone will challenge Truss as the worst PM of all time but who was the greatest politician never to become PM?
Hugh Gaitskell? Rab Butler? Dennis Healey?
Roy Jenkins. Postwar anyway
And good morning one and all!
John Smith? Remember him?
Ken Clarke nust be a good shout.
So many people seem to have a blind spot for Ken Clarke because he wasn’t sacked at the Treasury and he agrees with them on europe. He:
- Had a tin ear for industrial relations and never met a group of staff he didn’t force out on strike.
- Put in place the ludicrous internal market in the NHS and instituted many of the issues it struggles with today.
- Make very harmful cuts to Capital spending as Chancellor as was therefore directly responsible for the state of schools and hospitals by 1997.
- Not only accepted but actively encouraged harmful cuts to the MOJ.
If not for his views on the EU, which create the blind spot for him, he’s been seen as an unreformed Thatcherite.
He is certainly more right wing than me, and not a centrist. I like him because he is willing and able to effectively deliver pragmatic bad news, even at the expense of his party and career. He is also willing and able to work effectively with people with quite different ideological backgrounds. Not Europe or his ideologies but his character and actions.
I doubt anyone will challenge Truss as the worst PM of all time but who was the greatest politician never to become PM?
Hugh Gaitskell? Rab Butler? Dennis Healey?
Roy Jenkins. Postwar anyway
And good morning one and all!
John Smith? Remember him?
Ken Clarke nust be a good shout.
So many people seem to have a blind spot for Ken Clarke because he wasn’t sacked at the Treasury and he agrees with them on europe. He:
- Had a tin ear for industrial relations and never met a group of staff he didn’t force out on strike.
- Put in place the ludicrous internal market in the NHS and instituted many of the issues it struggles with today.
- Make very harmful cuts to Capital spending as Chancellor as was therefore directly responsible for the state of schools and hospitals by 1997.
- Not only accepted but actively encouraged harmful cuts to the MOJ.
If not for his views on the EU, which create the blind spot for him, he’s been seen as an unreformed Thatcherite.
He is certainly more right wing than me, and not a centrist. I like him because he is willing and able to effectively deliver pragmatic bad news, even at the expense of his party and career. He is also willing and able to work effectively with people with quite different ideological backgrounds. Not Europe or his ideologies but his character and actions.
Healey in 1983 or Clarke in 2005 could both have potentially got hung parliaments at least
Aren't you supposed to go on holiday when Parliament is not sitting? Shows his real colours when he thought he didn't need to give a damn.
Johnson will pretend to be contrite till the moment he's reelected then it will be right back to square one, grift, lies, laziness and incompetence. Anyone who falls for it is an idiot.
Everyone focuses on his mendacity, corruption and incompetence, but in some ways it is the Oaf’s unsurpassed laziness which is so infuriating. He is permanently stuck in juvenile 15-year old behaviour. Can’t be arsed doing the work and trying to glide his way through life.
I think this is my first post since the Leeds Leadership hustings. At that time I said the Conservative Party needed to be pragmatic, empathetic and forward looking. I was sceptical it was in evidence with Liz Truss and as such I vote for Rishi Sunak. Unsurprisingly I think he is the most appropriate and strongest choice for the party now.
In terms of the EU, I campaigned and voted Leave in the referendum. I had long hoped sufficient reform from within the EU towards a more flexible model of concentric circles of membership would emerge quicker than it was and when Cameron failed to get anything meaningful in his negotiation I made the decision that reforming our relationship from outside offered an alternate route, even if it would be structurally more radical.
Overall I still think leaving will prove to be the pathway to that more mature, mutually beneficial relationship with the EU arrives. Nevertheless I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge I had not considered the awful way all sides - UK and EU actors - behaved post-referendum in failing to work through the next steps more cautiously, compromise and not go zero sum. Here the Conservative Party did not have its finest hour to say the least and today there is still too much ideological unwillingness to see nuance and compromise.
For me the EU (at the bureaucratic level at least) sees itself as a state being built. This means that there is not always a willingness to see that some members won't want ever closer union. Perhaps this is no surprise: bureaucracies often like to justify their roles through more and more activity and as with membership of any state, there isn't really a half in/ half out position - you are either part of the state or you are not. On the flip side, if the hard Brexiteers do not recognise that their zero sum approach will risk alienating those who want good UK-EU relations, then they will find the country will be more likely to return to the EU (potentially without all the opt-outs) out of frustration and exhaustion. Not compromising and thinking you are always right is tiring. If the public feel the status quo is too conflictual, the hard Brexiteers should not be surprised the public look elsewhere and that alternative offering may well be rejoin, as the bespoke relationship hasn't been sold and explained well enough.
And that bespoke relationship? Ultimately a relationship, more associate in status, economically-based, but without the free movement of people as currently formed is one that could, over many years be forged. It would, I think make a sufficient number of actors on all sides sufficiently content and allow us all to focus on big structural things such as inter-generational fairness, the future of work, climate change.
The trouble is that the Brexit project was not driven by these fine and judicious sentiments.
I doubt anyone will challenge Truss as the worst PM of all time but who was the greatest politician never to become PM?
Hugh Gaitskell? Rab Butler? Dennis Healey?
Roy Jenkins. Postwar anyway
And good morning one and all!
John Smith? Remember him?
Ken Clarke nust be a good shout.
So many people seem to have a blind spot for Ken Clarke because he wasn’t sacked at the Treasury and he agrees with them on europe. He:
- Had a tin ear for industrial relations and never met a group of staff he didn’t force out on strike.
- Put in place the ludicrous internal market in the NHS and instituted many of the issues it struggles with today.
- Make very harmful cuts to Capital spending as Chancellor as was therefore directly responsible for the state of schools and hospitals by 1997.
- Not only accepted but actively encouraged harmful cuts to the MOJ.
If not for his views on the EU, which create the blind spot for him, he’s been seen as an unreformed Thatcherite.
He is certainly more right wing than me, and not a centrist. I like him because he is willing and able to effectively deliver pragmatic bad news, even at the expense of his party and career. He is also willing and able to work effectively with people with quite different ideological backgrounds. Not Europe or his ideologies but his character and actions.
Healey in 1983 or Clarke in 2005 could both have potentially got hung parliaments at least
My understanding is that Healey was unacceptable to the Left and Clarke to the Right of their repective parties. Is that correct?
I think this is my first post since the Leeds Leadership hustings. At that time I said the Conservative Party needed to be pragmatic, empathetic and forward looking. I was sceptical it was in evidence with Liz Truss and as such I vote for Rishi Sunak. Unsurprisingly I think he is the most appropriate and strongest choice for the party now.
In terms of the EU, I campaigned and voted Leave in the referendum. I had long hoped sufficient reform from within the EU towards a more flexible model of concentric circles of membership would emerge quicker than it was and when Cameron failed to get anything meaningful in his negotiation I made the decision that reforming our relationship from outside offered an alternate route, even if it would be structurally more radical.
Overall I still think leaving will prove to be the pathway to that more mature, mutually beneficial relationship with the EU arrives. Nevertheless I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge I had not considered the awful way all sides - UK and EU actors - behaved post-referendum in failing to work through the next steps more cautiously, compromise and not go zero sum. Here the Conservative Party did not have its finest hour to say the least and today there is still too much ideological unwillingness to see nuance and compromise.
For me the EU (at the bureaucratic level at least) sees itself as a state being built. This means that there is not always a willingness to see that some members won't want ever closer union. Perhaps this is no surprise: bureaucracies often like to justify their roles through more and more activity and as with membership of any state, there isn't really a half in/ half out position - you are either part of the state or you are not. On the flip side, if the hard Brexiteers do not recognise that their zero sum approach will risk alienating those who want good UK-EU relations, then they will find the country will be more likely to return to the EU (potentially without all the opt-outs) out of frustration and exhaustion. Not compromising and thinking you are always right is tiring. If the public feel the status quo is too conflictual, the hard Brexiteers should not be surprised the public look elsewhere and that alternative offering may well be rejoin, as the bespoke relationship hasn't been sold and explained well enough.
And that bespoke relationship? Ultimately a relationship, more associate in status, economically-based, but without the free movement of people as currently formed is one that could, over many years be forged. It would, I think make a sufficient number of actors on all sides sufficiently content and allow us all to focus on big structural things such as inter-generational fairness, the future of work, climate change.
It's a measured and serious post and I suspect echos the views of many moderate Tory Leavers.
But... I think you are still looking for EU 'membership benefits' without paying the fees or applying the rules. That's not the way it works.
Hmmm.
I don't see how a bald "that's not the way it works" is a statement that has a place in a realistic conversation. In such a conversation the acceptance of some need to adjust "the way it works" is a basic before you can start. There's also a fair bit of obfuscation about what are 'membership benefits', and what is attempted use of various random things as levers.
Currently the EU is Balkanised along 'old establishment' / 'the rest' lines, and those members who don't follow the bureaucracy line don't get a look in. Witness, for example, the establishment reactions to the Conference for the Future of Europe when some countries made proposals that differed from the preferred line. That can't stand.
Also witness, for example, the desperation of some to get centralising 'reforms' in before more new members join.
For me, the thing that needs reform is the EU vision of itself, to address current disfunction. I'm sure it will evolve, but that will take time.
This is a parliamentary democracy. It's working exactly as it should. We don't vote for a PM, we vote for our local MP.
That's fine. The issue here is that MPs don't pick the PM (which they should).
Random citizens paid £25 and pick the PM
That is not democratic in any sense
If the Conservative Party want to let their members decide their leader when they are in opposition I have no problem with that - the electorate can then endorse or repudiate that decision at the next General Election.
When in government, the only people who should get a say are the MPs - they are the ones with the mandate from the electorate, not Tory Party members.
I think this is my first post since the Leeds Leadership hustings. At that time I said the Conservative Party needed to be pragmatic, empathetic and forward looking. I was sceptical it was in evidence with Liz Truss and as such I vote for Rishi Sunak. Unsurprisingly I think he is the most appropriate and strongest choice for the party now.
In terms of the EU, I campaigned and voted Leave in the referendum. I had long hoped sufficient reform from within the EU towards a more flexible model of concentric circles of membership would emerge quicker than it was and when Cameron failed to get anything meaningful in his negotiation I made the decision that reforming our relationship from outside offered an alternate route, even if it would be structurally more radical.
Overall I still think leaving will prove to be the pathway to that more mature, mutually beneficial relationship with the EU arrives. Nevertheless I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge I had not considered the awful way all sides - UK and EU actors - behaved post-referendum in failing to work through the next steps more cautiously, compromise and not go zero sum. Here the Conservative Party did not have its finest hour to say the least and today there is still too much ideological unwillingness to see nuance and compromise.
For me the EU (at the bureaucratic level at least) sees itself as a state being built. This means that there is not always a willingness to see that some members won't want ever closer union. Perhaps this is no surprise: bureaucracies often like to justify their roles through more and more activity and as with membership of any state, there isn't really a half in/ half out position - you are either part of the state or you are not. On the flip side, if the hard Brexiteers do not recognise that their zero sum approach will risk alienating those who want good UK-EU relations, then they will find the country will be more likely to return to the EU (potentially without all the opt-outs) out of frustration and exhaustion. Not compromising and thinking you are always right is tiring. If the public feel the status quo is too conflictual, the hard Brexiteers should not be surprised the public look elsewhere and that alternative offering may well be rejoin, as the bespoke relationship hasn't been sold and explained well enough.
And that bespoke relationship? Ultimately a relationship, more associate in status, economically-based, but without the free movement of people as currently formed is one that could, over many years be forged. It would, I think make a sufficient number of actors on all sides sufficiently content and allow us all to focus on big structural things such as inter-generational fairness, the future of work, climate change.
I think this is the ultimate direction of travel. However the closer relationship will be a subordinate one for the UK, less comfortable than participating in decisions that affect you.
The EU and UK actors behaved in the way I expected them to. There is a reasonable case to be made for Brexit around accepting various losses of freedom, prosperity, influence and coherence as a nation as a price worth paying, so we can be masters of our own ship. Unfortunately no-one made that reasonable case, presumably because the referendum would be lost. So this Brexit, rather than a hypothetical other Brexit, went ahead on seriously false premises. Sooner or later we will have to work through them.
The problem is that the Brexit campaign elided divergent long term policy objectives.
Farage and Banks were not fishing in the same waters as Cummings and Bojo.
We are now seeing the logical consequence of these contradictions playing out in the Conservative party.
Being sympathetic to these challenges, it has hindered the very necessary process of reconciling the 50% of the population who did not want Brexit.
Your (very reasonable) proposal should have been made in 2017, of course.
Yep. The Truss experiment was the free-market Brexiters' attempt to seize the crown from the little-England Brexiters who delivered the majority. And it's failed, likely marginalising their so-called Singapore vision for a long time.
Kevin Schofield @KevinASchofield · 4m Spoke to one depressed Tory MP yesterday who said Boris Johnson will "walk it" if he gets through a vote by the members.
They said: "I’ve spoken to Rishi’s campaign and begged them to reach out to Penny - the only chance we’ve got to stop Boris is that coalition."
Could Penny withdraw before Monday and throw her weight behind Sunak ?
For what purpose? To try to stop Boris getting 100 nominations? If some Mordaunt supporters went across to him, it might have the opposite effect. To impress the members?
I get your point . It’s better for her to stay in .
So we've cracked why she is there at all. Deal with Rishi, backs him on Monday, once it's too late for any backers to switch nominations
Yup, and she gets Foreign Secretary out of it (IMHO)
Still leaves the problem of what to do with Boris - sadly the easiest option of suspending him from the party for missing the three line whip on Wednesday doesn't work because of the other people who abstained that vote.
What Sunak will need to do is ensure the standards committee gives Bozo a long enough suspension that the recall petition works.
If Johnson is clever and plays ball with the plan, maybe there's some sinecure they can offer him; one that suits him by being more profile than work. If he's less clever they just leave him sitting in Ted Heath's old spot.
I doubt anyone will challenge Truss as the worst PM of all time but who was the greatest politician never to become PM?
Hugh Gaitskell? Rab Butler? Dennis Healey?
Roy Jenkins. Postwar anyway
And good morning one and all!
John Smith? Remember him?
Ken Clarke nust be a good shout.
So many people seem to have a blind spot for Ken Clarke because he wasn’t sacked at the Treasury and he agrees with them on europe. He:
- Had a tin ear for industrial relations and never met a group of staff he didn’t force out on strike.
- Put in place the ludicrous internal market in the NHS and instituted many of the issues it struggles with today.
- Make very harmful cuts to Capital spending as Chancellor as was therefore directly responsible for the state of schools and hospitals by 1997.
- Not only accepted but actively encouraged harmful cuts to the MOJ.
If not for his views on the EU, which create the blind spot for him, he’s been seen as an unreformed Thatcherite.
He is certainly more right wing than me, and not a centrist. I like him because he is willing and able to effectively deliver pragmatic bad news, even at the expense of his party and career. He is also willing and able to work effectively with people with quite different ideological backgrounds. Not Europe or his ideologies but his character and actions.
Healey in 1983 or Clarke in 2005 could both have potentially got hung parliaments at least
My understanding is that Healey was unacceptable to the Left and Clarke to the Right of their repective parties. Is that correct?
Yes but both were popular with the public.
There would have been no SDP in 1983 had Healey not Foot been Labour leader.
Ken Clarke would also have got anti Iraq War LD tactical votes in 2005 unlike Howard
In all of the Boris "can he, can't he?" stuff, we are losing track of one big thing. If Rishi wins, the UK is about to have a Prime Minister of Indian heritage.
Stand back a moment - and think how massive that is.
If you want to show the world how far the country of Empire has come, there is no greater symbol. Imagine telling the memsahib a hundred years ago that our political figurehead would be one of...."them".
As important as Rishi would be in restoring the economy of the UK, he would also be an important player in the geopolitical game. Who better to ease Modi's India away from Russia and China than a G7 leader who has his roots in India? His role on the world stage may be far more important in the time he has in Number 10 than our current domestic navel gazing would suggest.
Good lord! He obviously has been taking advantage of an all you can eat buffet.
She must get fed up with him ranting about how it all could have been so different.
With him that obese she doesn’t have to worry about him inserting his intromittent part into other females. It would take all night trying to find the bloody thing in among the lard.
It's just occurred to me that Rishi Sunak has a very strong card to play in a General Election: "I was right to warn about Liz Truss's economic policies, and I'm right to warn about Labour's."
In all of the Boris "can he, can't he?" stuff, we are losing track of one big thing. If Rishi wins, the UK is about to have a Prime Minister of Indian heritage.
Stand back a moment - and think how massive that is.
If you want to show the world how far the country of Empire has come, there is no greater symbol. Imagine telling the memsahib a hundred years ago that our political figurehead would be one of...."them".
As important as Rishi would be in restoring the economy of the UK, he would also be an important player in the geopolitical game. Who better to ease Modi's India away from Russia and China than a G7 leader who has his roots in India? His role on the world stage may be far more important in the time he has in Number 10 than our current domestic navel gazing would suggest.
Yeah, amid all their dysfunction the Tories do deserve a lot of credit on this. They have moved faster than Labour or their European counterparts.
Meanwhile, the gap between the amount of people who think Brexit was "wrong", in hindsight, and the amount who think it was "right" just keeps getting bigger and bigger
Keir Starmer finds himself on the wrong side. Again.
Thinking Brexit was a mistake and wanting to spend huge amounts of time and energy on negotiating the UK’s re-entry are two very different things. My guess is that most people are far keener on a much better relationship with the EU than they are about rejoining, which is exactly where Starmer is. There is certainly space to go further, though, as whoever ends up leading the Tories cannot begin to accept the Brexit deal Johnson negotiated was awful.
The obvious solution, which you'll probably struggle with due to your hyper-partisan nature, is to bolster the EPC and create a European economic arrangement outside the structures of the EU more akin to EEA-EFTA but without full free movement.
It might take 5-10 years to get there.
I always delight in your total lack of self-knowledge on here. But I do agree that the way forward is to stop seeing Brexit in terms of ideology. It’s one of the many reasons why we desperately need a change of government.
I am far smarter and cleverer than you, and know a lot more stuff.
The EPC would have been laughed at the room by the likes of you several years ago. Now, it is here.
You're an idiot.
There are many people on PB far smarter than me. You’re not one of them. If you were, you would not give me a second thought. We are anonymous posters on an internet message board.
Well said.
Anyone who posts “I am far smarter and cleverer than you” on an obscure blog thread is clearly suffering from profound personal issues.
Anyone who professes a personal dislike of the English, whilst heading down to Henley - the most English of English places - to enjoy a sausage and brown sauce is clearly suffering from profound personal issues.
Blatant Tory mendacity is not confined to The Oaf.
I bought the Times today - like to circle between Times, FT and Guardian on Saturdays - and it’s full on stop Boris. I knew Murdoch was on side with Rishi but this is quite spectacular. Not seen the Sun but I assume similar.
I expect Dacre has much more influence among the Tory membership than Murdoch though.
Anyway the very stong sentiment I've got from my short trip here is that if the tories want to keep seats like Hartlepool it has to be Johnson. No ifs, buts or maybes.
They actively hate Sunak and have no idea who Penny Dreadful is.
Also, I have never known so many people eager to discuss politics with a relative stranger. There's something happening here and what it is ain't exactly clear. I suspect the tories are Cretaceous dinosaurs and there is a big fuck off asteroid heading for the Gulf of Mexico.
Something is happening here and I DO know what it is (Mr Ace). It's a fair chunk of the white working class projecting their urges onto a Big Daddy figure who in their eyes gets them, tells it like it is, and is refreshingly different to normal politicians who are "all the same". Johnson isn't a dead ringer for rancid right wing populists such as Trump or Bolso or (insert any of a dozen) but there is some essential similarity.
Interesting that bankers and police come off a lot better than vicars ... nay, actually startling.
Depends on how people are interpretating the question. Trust on what? On there being a God?
The question was trust in 'religious institutions'. Too broad to be meaningful. Most of the world's population are lifelong members of exactly one such 'religious institution' but that doesn't mean that a middle class elderly lady Methodist on the coffee rota trusts ISIS or Al- Qaida. Or even the local RCs.
Some rumour that Sunak won’t run if Johnson reaches 100 .
Doesn’t this help Johnson or is it some double bluff ? And wouldn’t this suggest Sunak isn’t confident of winning with the membership.
He's barely landed back in the country and he's already got the crazy rumour mill running....
Clever if it is Sunak perhaps? Means the 100 MPs who nominate Johnson will totally own the disaster that comes next rather than being able to blame members. Assuming Mordaunt doesn't get 100.
Harry Taylor @HarryTaylr Sky News reporter Mark Stone, who is on the flight with Boris Johnson back from the Dominican Republic to Gatwick, said that Johnson was booed by passengers as he boarded.
@FF43 thanks for the post. I think the ability for member states to influence EU direction has, over time, reduced as QMV has been reduced. Of course there will be some loss of ability to influence EU decision-making. I think people accept, just as we say, cannot have a say in USA legislation and policy (which influences us); we cannot have as much a say in EU policy if we are not a member. But we equally gain flexibility in other areas. Over time that may become even more obvious as policy decisions are made. I also do not believe the only options are EU/EFTA-EEA or nothing. If both sides show a willingness to forge, over many years a bespoke relationship then that would emerge. Geopolitics, economics and such will dictate that necessity. But it will take decades and more importantly that is fine...that is how good, working relationships are forged.
I agree flexibility, or agility, is a Brexit upside. The EU takes forever to make decisions. QMV is a last resort; the EU Commission will always try to get consensus first with a lot of horse trading - you compromise on the things you don't mind too much about to get the things you really want. This is a major reason why those decisions take so long. Outside the EU, the UK will be outside the horse-trading system. Simply having a vote gives you influence you lose when you don't have it. In the To-Be world the UK doesn't have to accept everything offered by the EU but in practice the EU will be providing the menu choices and the UK will have less of what it wants than it did before.
Personally I think Brexit is a mistake for the UK given how it sees its place in the world, but in life in most cases you learn to live with your mistakes. I agree with you that we need to move on. But we do need to set realistic expectations. We will have to compromise and it's not going to be great.
Conservative Party Leadership 'Contest' I put 'contest' in quotes because I don't think this is an actual contest- I think this is stage-managed, and could be seen as the return of the 'men in grey suits' who used to arrange these things. I think that Monday evening, Rishi Sunak will be the only validly nominated candidate and will therefore be announced as the new leader without involving the membership. Why do I think this? Well, the nomination bar has been set very high – nominally to ensure a quick contest, but it also stops no-hopers like Braverman or Patel, or untested possibles like Badenoch, from getting involved. At most, if it was very evenly balanced, there could be three candidates to choose from. But the rules also say that there is no need for a member vote if there is only one candidate. And there's has been a lot of very specific talk about this being decided by Friday _at_the_latest_. There are three clear candidates – Sunak, Mordaunt and Johnson. While Mordaunt is popular with some elements of the Conservative party, she is untested at top level, and would be a bit of a risk. I think she is there to draw off some of the Sunak-haters who would otherwise gravitate to Johnson. I think she knows her role, and I would expect to see her as Foreign Secretary under Sunak. She's not Chancellor material, and Home Secretary is a poisoned chalice you give to a potential rival, not someone who is part of the plan. I would expect a result something like this: Mordaunt on 60. Respectable, not humiliated, but clearly well away from being able to claim she almost made it. Johnson on 75. Again, not humiliated, and ahead of Mordaunt to salve his wounded pride, but still far enough away that his supporters would have to quiet down. Sunak on 200+. Solid endorsement by the parliamentary party, clearly absolutely no need for members to worry their little heads about anything. New PM sorted, back to business. Just got to sort out what the principles of the party are, and deal with energy, mortgages, food and wages. Good luck, Rishi.
Comments
I see TSE blaming the 1922 committee and Brady for this but I was under the impression they have no control over the electoral process outside of the MPs voting. It is the constitution of the Tory Party that has to be changed to exclude the membership and make it MP only voting and that is not within his power. TO be honest given what he is faced with I am not sure he could do much different to what he has done.
I concur with MarqueeMark below. People expect there would be some fee for membership. What the public were/are less convinced about is signing up to the paraphernalia of statehood in my view.
The point is I think compromise and nuance here is a sign of strength. If Hard Brexiteers defend the no compromise route then they will put off the bulk of people who want a decent relationship, not be in the EU political union and just want to get on with other big issues. I think most people push back against no compromise positions (a little like people got more passionate in their Brexit views as the People's Vote campaign was pushing). Of course some think compromise and nuance = slippery slope; but I do not think that needs to be the case if we (a) are not in a political union of the EU and (b) if the bespoke relationship, forged over years is communicated and sold clearly for the benefits it has.
The EU and UK actors behaved in the way I expected them to. There is a reasonable case to be made for Brexit around accepting various losses of freedom, prosperity, influence and coherence as a nation as a price worth paying, so we can be masters of our own ship. Unfortunately no-one made that reasonable case, presumably because the referendum would be lost. So this Brexit, rather than a hypothetical other Brexit, went ahead on seriously false premises. Sooner or later we will have to work through them.
On a scale from 0 (no trust) to 3 (complete trust), how much trust do Britons have in each one of the following institutions? (16 Oct.)
Complete trust:
Military (33%), NHS (22%)
No trust:
The UK Gov't (45%) https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1583745061401276416/photo/1
Today Trent Alexander-Arnold will become the first EPL player to play a game by a river which shares his first name since Don Hutchinson for Everton at Sheff Wed in 1999.
If we were asking the Conservative party membership to vote on Instagram or TikTok, sure.
Whether being in or out of the EU is a good or bad idea, THEY LIED TO WIN THE VOTE.
There must be a reckoning.
Please don’t do it. The country is in a mess, partly thanks to you. It’s time for a serious leader ready to put in the hours, read the brief, and do the job, not a pantomime villain. Hasta la Vista is a great Coldplay track, not a national recovery strategy.
https://twitter.com/PeterWestmacott/status/1583744774942908416
https://twitter.com/pippacrerar/status/1583725974730182657
The concern was that Truss's crazy economic agenda had no mandate from the people. Well, in the end, she lost her job after 40ish days after she went against a manisfesto promise on fracking and undermined the core selling point of the Tory party - fiscal sustainability and economic competence. The system worked.
The argument people here and amongst my friends have been making is just so lazy. If our PMs had a personal mandate, we'd be just as fucked as the US. Johnson would still be PM - "the people v the MPs", completely unaccountable for all his nonsense. In fact, in Truss and Johnson, British democracy has had a good few months.
There is even a way to get to General Election or Starmer becomes PM - the current government loses the confidence of the House. This has acted perfectly as a deterrent to the Tory party and they are changing their leader accordingly. If Boris gets in again, it might even be the case that he loses this confidence as the Tories go into civil war.
We just have to hope that the King is well advised. (I concede this may be a weakness in my argument...)
- Had a tin ear for industrial relations and never met a group of staff he didn’t force out on strike.
- Put in place the ludicrous internal market in the NHS and instituted many of the issues it struggles with today.
- Make very harmful cuts to Capital spending as Chancellor as was therefore directly responsible for the state of schools and hospitals by 1997.
- Not only accepted but actively encouraged harmful cuts to the MOJ.
If not for his views on the EU, which create the blind spot for him, he’s been seen as an unreformed Thatcherite.
Excellent post.
Well put.
There are two sets of loons. One side won and one side lost and each had their own set of anti-democrats who will never accept a democratic decision. They will always accept a democratic decision - but only if it suits their own opinions.
Had Remain won, the anti-democrats on the Leave side would be blaming Remaining in Europe for everything bad that happens in the future. We currently have the opposite situation.
But there is an added element with some people. An element of nastiness that reflects an arrogance from them. "My opinion is worth more than yours because I have superior judgement. Therefore I need to ensure it happens."
Acceptance doesn't mean agreeing with, but it does mean accepting other people's opinions should prevail. In a similar vein, activists will never acceot democracy. It is merely a blip in rational decision-making. As an example, XR will never accept that a government is working hard enough to implement green policies because it removes their raison d'etre.
I admire Ursula, but I think she's making the best of a bad job. Complete European unification is a dream but it's time has not yet come. It may do in the future. Time will tell.
Seems aimed at firing up Boris's Irrationaility Drive.
Random citizens paid £25 and pick the PM
That is not democratic in any sense
Take that away from him and what's left? A lazy, lying, mendacious oaf.
I'm sure we all remember this, but Foot's magician's watch speech seems to me apposite for Johnson.
https://twitter.com/SpinningHugo/status/1583744704415698944?s=20
It's the fact that they are about as far away from average as is possible.
Hell, we still chew the fat on the Punic Wars over here....
If they voted against Sunak government legislation that is a different matter
The confidence of the House in the government should be regularly tested as standard. Beginning of each new week of Parliament sitting. No need for the Opposition to call for it, etc: it should just be burnt into the traditions and operating processes as standard. No parliamentary business is moved until the confidence is confirmed. It's a 15 minute division at the start of business for the week. No drama.
That way, if you've got a government in total chaos and people resigning left right and centre this will concentrate minds in a way I'm not sure we currently have. Yes, the Leader of the Opposition can call one, but I'm not sure that's the point. Confidence could be determined in a factual way not a political way (or at least, both could be an option)
Under that system Conservative MPs could quite reasonably say "it's all a mess and everything's totally fucked at the moment but we have a process in place to change the leader and thus the PM, so I can quite clearly state I have confidence in the government given that".
But they should be made to explicitly OWN that decision. My problem is at the moment I reckon a reasonable proportion of Con MPs don't have that confidence and would struggle to give it even with the knowledge of a leadership election in place, but the government doesn't fall on no real reason other than noone's formally asked the question.
Like I say maybe total guff on my part
Farage and Banks were not fishing in the same waters as Cummings and Bojo.
We are now seeing the logical consequence of these contradictions playing out in the Conservative party.
Being sympathetic to these challenges, it has hindered the very necessary process of reconciling the 50% of the population who did not want Brexit.
Your (very reasonable) proposal should have been made in 2017, of course.
The King will simply appoint whichever leader the Tories choose as PM. If Starmer calls a VONC and Tory rebels vote down the government so the VONC succeeds the King will then dissolve Parliament and call a general election.
Simples
https://www.statista.com/statistics/506315/sending-and-receiving-emails-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-by-age-group/
What Sunak will need to do is ensure the standards committee gives Bozo a long enough suspension that the recall petition works.
Strong "kid loudly saying they've done no revision so they have an excuse when they fail the exam" vibes.
Though this may just be another dose of copium.
I don't see how a bald "that's not the way it works" is a statement that has a place in a realistic conversation. In such a conversation the acceptance of some need to adjust "the way it works" is a basic before you can start. There's also a fair bit of obfuscation about what are 'membership benefits', and what is attempted use of various random things as levers.
Currently the EU is Balkanised along 'old establishment' / 'the rest' lines, and those members who don't follow the bureaucracy line don't get a look in. Witness, for example, the establishment reactions to the Conference for the Future of Europe when some countries made proposals that differed from the preferred line. That can't stand.
Also witness, for example, the desperation of some to get centralising 'reforms' in before more new members join.
For me, the thing that needs reform is the EU vision of itself, to address current disfunction. I'm sure it will evolve, but that will take time.
When in government, the only people who should get a say are the MPs - they are the ones with the mandate from the electorate, not Tory Party members.
There would have been no SDP in 1983 had Healey not Foot been Labour leader.
Ken Clarke would also have got anti Iraq War LD tactical votes in 2005 unlike Howard
Doesn’t this help Johnson or is it some double bluff ? And wouldn’t this suggest Sunak isn’t confident of winning with the membership.
@dansoncj
Early drama: Hu Jintao seen being led out soon after reporters are led into the main hall
https://twitter.com/dansoncj/status/1583663702896967680
Still expect him to get 30 of the 151 undeclared.
But scraping 100 when Rishi may be close to double that ain't a good luck.
Could still pull out at the last minute. Not something he is noted for.
Stand back a moment - and think how massive that is.
If you want to show the world how far the country of Empire has come, there is no greater symbol. Imagine telling the memsahib a hundred years ago that our political figurehead would be one of...."them".
As important as Rishi would be in restoring the economy of the UK, he would also be an important player in the geopolitical game. Who better to ease Modi's India away from Russia and China than a G7 leader who has his roots in India? His role on the world stage may be far more important in the time he has in Number 10 than our current domestic navel gazing would suggest.
There's clearly a large majority of MPs who have had enough of looking ridiculous and who just want to marginalise the nutters and bypass the members.
Voting intention, Leave-2016 voters (Survation, 19 Oct):
Lab 40
Con 38
LD 7
RefUK 4
Grn 3
SNP 2
UKIP 1.5
PC 1
Oth 3
https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1583754818933620736
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1583070997195853824
I expect Dacre has much more influence among the Tory membership than Murdoch though.
Bringing back Boris could only serve the Conservative party's interest, former cabinet minister Malcolm Rifkind tells @CharlotteIvers on #TimesRadio
https://youtu.be/ShRyrN8pWRg
May be for some they joined before they had email; may be others want to reduce the amount of spam they get; etc
@BethRigby
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2m
Here we go: Former Home Sec and long term Johnson ally Priti Patel comes out in support for Boris Johnson
@HarryTaylr
Sky News reporter Mark Stone, who is on the flight with Boris Johnson back from the Dominican Republic to Gatwick, said that Johnson was booed by passengers as he boarded.
Personally I think Brexit is a mistake for the UK given how it sees its place in the world, but in life in most cases you learn to live with your mistakes. I agree with you that we need to move on. But we do need to set realistic expectations. We will have to compromise and it's not going to be great.
I put 'contest' in quotes because I don't think this is an actual contest- I think this is stage-managed, and could be seen as the return of the 'men in grey suits' who used to arrange these things. I think that Monday evening, Rishi Sunak will be the only validly nominated candidate and will therefore be announced as the new leader without involving the membership.
Why do I think this? Well, the nomination bar has been set very high – nominally to ensure a quick contest, but it also stops no-hopers like Braverman or Patel, or untested possibles like Badenoch, from getting involved. At most, if it was very evenly balanced, there could be three candidates to choose from. But the rules also say that there is no need for a member vote if there is only one candidate. And there's has been a lot of very specific talk about this being decided by Friday _at_the_latest_.
There are three clear candidates – Sunak, Mordaunt and Johnson. While Mordaunt is popular with some elements of the Conservative party, she is untested at top level, and would be a bit of a risk. I think she is there to draw off some of the Sunak-haters who would otherwise gravitate to Johnson. I think she knows her role, and I would expect to see her as Foreign Secretary under Sunak. She's not Chancellor material, and Home Secretary is a poisoned chalice you give to a potential rival, not someone who is part of the plan.
I would expect a result something like this:
Mordaunt on 60. Respectable, not humiliated, but clearly well away from being able to claim she almost made it.
Johnson on 75. Again, not humiliated, and ahead of Mordaunt to salve his wounded pride, but still far enough away that his supporters would have to quiet down.
Sunak on 200+. Solid endorsement by the parliamentary party, clearly absolutely no need for members to worry their little heads about anything. New PM sorted, back to business. Just got to sort out what the principles of the party are, and deal with energy, mortgages, food and wages. Good luck, Rishi.
I also wonder if there's an element of him thinking "if I'm essentially favourite again and get overlooked again, what do I do after that?".