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The Telegraph thinks Johnson can turn Tory fortunes round – politicalbetting.com
The Telegraph thinks Johnson can turn Tory fortunes round – politicalbetting.com
Why 2023 will be another ‘year of Boris Johnson’In the year ahead, the former prime minister is set to push his case for being the best-placed Tory to win the next election.By Ben Riley-Smith, POLITICAL EDITOR?@Telegraph? #paywall https://t.co/ZahG7ZRxBy
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Oh dear, oh dear.
Nah, they have their best case scenario right now - sensible government through an economic storm. With any luck they get a thrashing at the next GE rather than the extinction event which would have been likely under Truss and near certain under Johnson. How on earth, for example, would he have been able to deal with NHS pay claims when he promised Brexit would deliver the funds to spend on the NHS?
He was out of road when he was defenestrated. It hasn't been miraculously rebuilt since he left.
When would the challenge come? After the locals? Or the traditional Autumn putsch?
(That leaves @Northern_Al with a serious dilemma. Now the draw is ruled out, which side does he back to win?)
Edit - bloody hell, draw just ain't happening, @DavidL has predicted it too.
However I would say that Sunak is better placed to hold the bluewall seats in the South of England from the LDs than Johnson. Sunak might also do a bit better in London now than Johnson, especially in seats with a high Hindu population and in Scotland too Sunak would do a little better than Johnson.
Overall therefore not much difference. Johnson might also reduce leakage to RefUK but Sunak would reduce leakage to the LDs. Both however would do better than Truss would have had she remained Tory leader and PM when the Tories really were facing annihilation
If Sunak has any sense (and whist he has massive failings as a politician, he's clearly sensible), Johnson doesn't survive the Privileges Committee report.
Most of the electorate have.
Johnson is just another desperate fantasy at this point.
On the other hand, I fear Johnson more than any other leader. He's toxic but he would be the only one who could drag the tories to c. 200 MPs at the next election.
With cases in China now running in excess of 1m new cases a day the likelihood of further variants that have similar characteristics is very high. We may find ourselves, once again, back in an almost pre-vaccine world. So far the effect of this has been offset by reduced severity since Omicron but a variant that is more potent simply cannot be ruled out.
It seems to me that our government should be doing some careful analysis of what worked and what didn't in respect of preventative steps. The current inquiry seems to me, and I was speaking to someone involved in the Scottish branch of this yesterday, to be working on entirely the wrong time scale to address what might be fairly imminent problems.
That said: I am keeping tight on Boris as next PM.
2 years is a long time.
Do Rishi in 'When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang' as Shakespeare wrote. Snap election with a campaign based on Brexit Betrayal and Trussonomic Tax Cuts. Could work.
There is no way the Conservatives would survive the mauling in the media if they try to drag this out until the last possible minute. It will look so desperate and the electorate will send them the clear message in the polls. It would be political suicide.
The latest this will go will be autumn 2023 and even that is less likely than spring 2023 but I don't entirely rule out 2022.
Astonishing scenes as a Kabul university professor destroys his diplomas on live TV in Afghanistan —
“From today I don’t need these diplomas anymore because this country is no place for an education. If my sister & my mother can’t study, then I DON’T accept this education.”
https://twitter.com/NasimiShabnam/status/1607823196488888321
The Telegraph, as others have noted, has been off the wall lately. However, that doesn't preclude the occasional moment of lucidity. Like the piercing recognition of an otherwise cloudy dementia patient. And I'm not making light of that awful illness.
How on earth can you in one post call something "batshit crazy" and then just 12 minutes later criticise someone else for not being kind?
Hypocrite, thy name is Heathener.
I think what happens is the growing realisation that a sufficient majority of the country are moving on (and probably already have), so you're left sounding increasingly desperate and shrill, preaching to an ever decreasing circle of true believers.
Replace 2023 for 2024
And 2022 for 2023.
But the general tone on here is getting a macho and bit bear-pit so I will gracefully exit stage left, hopefully not pursued by the aforementioned.
Have a nice day everyone and DO be nice to one another. Stop before posting and ask yourself, 'is this really necessary?' and 'is this really kind?' If it isn't, then maybe amend it.
Love and peace to you all.
xx
New Zealand to win. Williamson will score a daddy hundred, Pakistan won't make 250 in their second innings. Just enough time for NZ to knock off the 100 needed.
Ciao ciao.
xx
Firstly, the Conservatives getting c. 200 seats at the next election is still a big defeat.
Secondly, let's think of it in betting terms. Sunak is the "cut your losses" candidate. Barring black swans, the Conservatives lose under his leadership, but survivably badly. They have a chance in 2029 and a reasonably good one in 2034. Think Alec Douglas-Home reimagined as a global finance bod with excellent Instagram.
Johnson and Truss are both "try to win back your losses by putting your house on an unlikely bet" candidates. You almost certainly end up far worse off, but there is a chance, a tiny chance, of a really memorable win in 2024.
That sort of gamble only makes sense if you aren't planning on being around for the 2029 election, which may be true for the Telegraph and a lot of its readership. But it ain't conservative.
https://twitter.com/jakluge/status/1607683259961573377
earliest, maybe even as late as December 2024 or January 2025.
He will want time for Hunt to reduce the deficit and get some tax cuts for average earners in before he calls the general election
Personally, I disagree with you. The days when Boris was the answer to any question that the Tory party might think to ask are long past and the Telegraph is, to quote a phrase, batshit crazy to think otherwise.
Dorries and the Telegraph are in denial if they think Johnson is the answer to the conservative woes
Sunak has achieved stability which is a good place to be in at present, and as he resists high public sector wage demands, and takes the flak, we are more likely to see a quicker reduction in inflation because he stands firm which is in everyone's interests
Furthermore he is the only conservative who may mitigate the 2024 result though I expect Starmer to become PM but sadly I do not see much changing even if he does
My eldest son and his wife are here from Vancouver and he holds dual Kiwi/UK,citizenship and he said that free movement between New Zealand and Australia applies but there is no entitlement to any benefits for those taking advantage of this free movement.
What a good idea for the UK
They are that desperate and there is now no one else
Hope that makes sense.
I meant what a good idea for free movement between UK and UK not Australia
(I'm sure the government would go for January 2025 if it weren't for Christmas getting in the way, so late autumn 2024 it is.)
This will really kick in around March, when Europe is through the winter and the effects of increasing LNG supply hitting full storage.
That’s providing that Xi doesn’t start WWIII - the Chinese supply chain disruptions due to COVID are baked in already.
Edit, anecdotally I have been astonished by the number of people I have heard of who have been ill with Covid over the Christmas period. To my knowledge they had all been vaccinated, often had Covid before and yet they were quite ill, if not requiring hospital treatment.
I’m starting to think hat where you go wrong is when you stamp on the rage pedal. You are over swinging with the bat. More technique, less brute force?
Actually, if people have had covid, it’s probably a good question as to whether further vaccination with the older vaccines does much, so I guess that’s the perspective.
However in terms of the U.K. we are in good shape.
[even with evidence from] Singapore and France [suggesting] that at least two of these variants [are less damaging than expected … — it appears that] COVID-19 vaccinations and prior infections can still reduce the risk for serious outcomes such as hospitalization and death, the researchers write [and the CDC concurs].
Oh, fffs.
Yours sincerely,
Con 19 voter
The fact some see tax cuts as the "answer" when the country continues to run a significant deficit and has to spend twice what it spends on defence just to manage the existing debt shows the disconnection between political rhetoric and economic reality.
In essence, we have spent the last 40 years or so aspiring for European public services on an American or Anglo-American style taxation regime. It's indicative of the debate that current tax rates are called "growth destroying" by some even though many other European countries seem able to grow on higher individual and corporate tax takes.
There's a valid argument about how Government has managed or mismanaged the money from tax receipts, asset sales etc but there's also a wider argument about attitudes to wealth and to the income disparities present.
We have updated our vaccines (both Pfiser and Moderna) but newer variants will keep emerging. Covid is proving to be a very mutable virus.
I should also be wary of thinking China as a reservoir for variants. While there is a lot of infection there, covid is everywhere in the world. Significant variants often arise in people who have lengthy infections, such as the immune compromised, and recently some of the treatments for these people have been sown to induce mutations, and probably should be withdrawn from use.
This is not about complacency, more about making sure people understand the situation. It’s not impossible that a new variant may arise that is much more serious, but Ebola could become a pandemic, or aliens might launch moon rocks at the Earth, or AI could set of nukes tomorrow.
Covid isn’t over, but at the moment, for the vast majority of Brits, it’s an embuggerance, not a life threatening disease.
That’s quite a big “metro”.
Yes we need to cut the deficit and for now that means tightening public spending and the tax rates Hunt announced but longer term we should be aiming for lower rax rates
Sunak has at least steadied the ship and taken the Tories back to 25 to 30%. Even if not yet matching the 30 to 35% the Conservatives were on under Boris before he resigned
1) initially cost a lot
2) upset the politicians
3) upset management
4) upset staff
5) upset the Unions
I think there may be a problem there
Life expectancy changes since COVID-19
200 seats is towards the upper end of the range I'm expecting the Conservatives to win at the next GE. 250 would be a roaring success and probably represents an upper limit.
Otoh, if things go badly 100 or less is definitely possible. The floor is probably 2.
Switzerland is more interesting, although it is very rich of course and so perhaps a lower tax take is higher in absolute terms.
Britain is at the lower end of peer economies in terms of tax take. The issue is perhaps who and what is taxed and how it is spent.
The NHS is under a lot of stress, and the next few months will not be fun. Something needs to change (maybe employing more staff from overseas). I think that there have likely been a lot of missed diagnoses in the last three years and those chickens are coming home to roost.
But it seems that it was the only way to get both the north-tyners and the south-tyners on board, and that is to be welcomed.
Boris was sacked. Nothing has changed to consider re-employing him as PM.
Do you really expect people to take your predictions seriously on this site?
Northumbria and County Durham should be separate areas but the local councillors in both places didn't want to lose their "power" so voted against retaining control with their own mayor.
The irony is that it's really just the North East Regional Assembly with Teesside separated out with limited powers.
Otoh I expect he has often engaged in tax avoidance. I have and so have most taxpayers.
I really don't have a problem with people exploiting the law as long as it applies equally to us all.
1) the “tax gap” was nearly entirely pensions and ISAs.
2) that he, the financial adviser, was legally obligated, in quite direct terms, to advise his clients to use both.