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Can we now Rule out a Johnson comeback? – politicalbetting.com
Can we now Rule out a Johnson comeback? – politicalbetting.com
One of the big issues that Sunak has had to face over the past weeks and months is that former Prime Minister Boris Johnson might be planning a comeback. Any such move of course would involve Rishi losing his job.
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Ditto with the US Republican Party.
100 odd Tory MPs nominated him last autumn.
WLab: 53% (+4)
WCon: 19% (-1)
PC: 12% (-2)
Ref: 8% (-1)
WLD: 4% (-1)
Grn: 3% (nc)
(YouGov, 17-23 Feb; Changes +/- 7 Feb)
The May locals won't be pretty for Sunak but I think he'll survive them.
We could rule it out from the day he resigned.
Eabhal said:
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I think the "safe space" line was perfectly, and deliberately, designed to wind you up. Probably Driver who came up with it.
Will backfire though. Going to end up with a whole bunch of televised hustings.
Nothing to do with Driver, he is not bright enough for that. It was in official SNP stuff. It will indeed be bad for Murrells and their sockpuppet.
You underestimate me big time by thinking that a dumb ass like Driver could wind me up as well.
It is when the report on Johnson reports and Sunak whips the party to vote to suspend Boris Johnson.
The likes of Dorries and the rest of the 100 Boris backers will try and oust Sunak and install Boris Johnson.
Can we have a new thread now ?
Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon to be party leaders at the next UK GE.
Not sure how I would price that.
I cannot see the MSP for Gilead lasting long if she becomes leader.
Mike had it best.
Apart from vry vocal support of Nadine Dorries
Though he forgot Dudders.
That's very different from the proposition that it rules out a leadership threat before the next election.
Will BoJo become PM again? Enormously probably not. Even if Rishi were run over by the proverbial Westminster bus tonight (he'd limbo under it, wouldn't he?) there would be another MP stitchup, becuase there isn't time to waste on another circus. And that's before the whole privileges committee thing.
Will chatter about BoJo's ambitions continue to destabilise the Conservative Party? Possibly. But Prime BoJo would have had the front page of the Telegraph this morning, denouncing the deal before he had read it. Making the weather. Getting his retaliation in first. And he didn't.
Without the shepherd, the sheep have divided. Even JRM seems set to swallow the deal, even if is as palatable as the castor oil Nanny no doubt fed him. There are holdouts decrying the Windsor deal as a sellout, but they are at the unattractive nutter end of Brexitdom, and Boris doesn't want to lead them.
And Boris, terrible human being that he is, has always had a grasp of group power dynamics. And what his protege Rishi has done to him.
Not bad for the little guy.
https://twitter.com/DeanMThomson/status/1630650110534189056?s=20
This deal was coming either way, because the NI Protocol Bill meant there was no alternative.
Wales
WLab 47%
WCon 17%
PC 15%
Ref 12%
Grn 5%
WLD 4%
Scotland
SNP 42%
SLab 24%
SCon 14%
Grn 9%
SLD 7%
Ref 1%
England
Lab 48%
Con 25%
LD 9%
Ref 9%
Grn 7%
English regions:
London
Lab 58%
Con 12%
Grn 11%
LD 9%
Ref 8%
South
Lab 39%
Con 31%
LD 13%
Ref 9%
Grn 7%
Midlands
Lab 48%
Con 26%
Ref 10%
LD 9%
Grn 5%
North
Lab 55%
Con 22%
Ref 9%
Grn 6%
LD 5%
(YouGov / The Times Survey Results
Sample Size: 2003 adults in GB Fieldwork: 21st - 22nd February 2023)
If you want real comedy, don't muse on the fate of Boris Johnson when you can have the Deltapoll sub samples if you want entertainment.
The Conservatives on here are already using the headline numbers as their latest comfort blanket but a look at the figures behind the headline numbers tells a very different story.
The 65+ vote splits Conservative 42%, Labour 26%, Liberal Democrat 16% (!) and Reform 10%. This is the group the Conservatives won by 47 points in 2019 so a 16 point represents a mere 15.5% swing (compared with more than 30% on Redfield & Wilton).
The geographical split is even more ridiculous - in London, R&W have Labour ahead 53-24 but Deltapoll has the Conservatives and Labour tied on 41 while in Scotland R&W have the SNP on 34%, Labour on 28% and the Conservatives on 21% while Deltapoll has the SNP on 33%, the Conservatives on 32% and Labour on 28%.
The ludicrous over-inflating of the Conservative VI in London and Scotland impacts when you have such a small overall sample (barely 1,000 compared to R&W who sample 2,000) so I would happily consign Deltapoll to the bin but no doubt some Conservative supporters will continue to plug it - understandable given it's the best poll for their party - the trouble is, it's nonsense.
Redfield & Wilton also have their latest Blue Wall polling tonight - the latest numbers show Labour on 41%, Conservatives on 32% and LDs on 18% in the forty two designated "Blue Wall" seats which aren't all Con-LD marginals but include Con-Lab marginals in the south.
That's a 19% swing from Conservative to Labour in the Blue Wall and a 5.5% swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat. 55% of Labour and 67% of LD voters are prepared to vote tactically. Starmer and Sunak are tied at 38% in the choice of best Prime Minister while Ed Davey continues to struggle to make any impact.
As for the 42 seats, it's unlikely on these numbers the Conservatives would hold any of them. Poole is the 266th most marginal Conservative seat - it would fall on the straight line numbers before any kind of tactical voting. This again confirms the Conservatives are currently looking at a rump of just under 100 MPs after the next election rather than the 180 "suggested" by Deltapoll.
Sunak is there until the general election and after the Tories are defeated in that election they will be wanting to move on to the next generation.
I've read you (as our host, but beneath the line) describe Sunak as a "nob", and criticise me for being too Leavey, and I've had @Luckyguy1983 lose his shit and critique me for being "wet" as I wasn't willing to stay part of the Trussite praetorian guard. And now you fire missiles at each other. Despite the fact we're all aligned to the same party and probably have more in common than any in the opposition parties.
Conservatives are never happier than when attacking one another.
It's the reason we're in the state we're in.
Whilst some might doubt my PB Tory status but nobody can question JohnO's loyalty and dedication to the party.
Genuine admiration for Big Dog?
A (surely incorrect) theory that his magnetism will save their seats?
Fear of the activists?
Something else?
Proposals can have been made earlier, and I can easily believe work was going on well before Sunak was PM, but surely it is actions that count? Either he didn't want to make it work, or he couldn't get the other side to accept it, either way he didn't manage it.
Did he give May credit for getting 95% of the way there before he cut his own agreements with the EU to get over the line? The woe is me defence is not going to cut it.
There are leaders of men.
And there is
T H E D R A K E
1) The escalations by Boris tilted the leverage back in the UK's favour
2) Boris would never have been able to make this deal due to lack of trust from said escalations and his own shortcomings
Not exactly a call to the barricades.
NB: Political parties are also largely responsible for the at best pointless, and at worse malign, ego-feat that is local Government. I can forgive them for that.
Boris Coming Back is and always was another rather overexcited PB Not Happening Event.
1) Bad defeat in 2024 leading to Rishi stepping down.
2) A successor being unable to turn things round and a second Labour GE victory looking likely.
3) At this point it is easy to imagine attention turning to BJ and, if he's out of the Commons at the time, him returning triumphantly in a by-election.
By the time we get to say late 2027/2028 I suspect his peccadilloes will have been largely forgotten and his reputation "for making the big calls" may have been burnished.
This is not a prediction, but I consider a plausible scenario.
Otherwise it'd just be "That thing you think will happen probably won't for a long time, then it will, then things will reverse eventually"
So the best we can do is judge whether it a supposition is reasonable, and likely. Boris being unable to make a long term deal falls into that category, not least because his political base in Parliament appears to be the people who would be most opposed to any sort of deal.
@GoodwinMJ
Britain outside the EU was supposed to be a low-tax, low-regulation, low-immigration country, but instead it’s turned into a high-tax, high-regulation, high-immigration country. A few thoughts on the many challenges facing
@RishiSunak"
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1630136065246855168
What JohnO doesn't do is attack other Conservatives, of course he'll have his own views in private and I've found them to be remarkably fair and nuanced.
D
R
A
K
E
SNP Leadership Election Endorsements, state of play at 8pm on 28th of February. 3 candidates, meaning 106 endorsements available.
Candidate: Backers (MSPs/MPs)
Yousaf: 34 (22/12)
Forbes: 9 (7/2)
Regan: 1 (0/1)
None Yet: 57 (28/29)
None: 5 (4/1)
https://ballotbox.scot/scottish-parliament/snp-leadership-election-2023
They are quite right. In the British single market.
It hasn't changed one iota NI's position in accessing the EU single market, except to disapply much of its regulation and extend the sovereignty of the British government to it.
It's a funny line for them to take but I don't make the rules.
However, that also is due to the paucity of governing talent on the Right of their Party. They've the skills to get the prize. But none have the ability to craft a coherent narrative when they get it.
Nor implement it.
My fair and nuauced view of Boris Johnson is that he is an a-grade helmet. What’s yours?
Maybe others will be the same?
Why do you give this clown the time of day? You seem to follow him around.
(Has there been a telly show where the host is generally disliked and the fun is watching different guests abuse him each week? Sort of the I'm A Celeb dynamic, but studio bound and with no redemption arc?)
So sick of having to choose between Gillette and Wilkinson Sword.
"Not saying what he did was right, but the process has to be fair, I swear that is the only reason we are voting this down".
Though it is worth remembering just how big a knob Paterson was, and that he'd almost certainly still be an MP even if he'd faced a recall petition election.
Whether that plays a part in how the membership votes is, of course, another matter.
Notably, Ian Blackford, who represents the same patch of the Highlands as Kate, has declared for Humza.
I wonder if this will influence SNP members?
As we have repeatedly seen, and very recently too, leaders who lack the support of their parliamentary colleagues invariably come to grief sooner or later.
Though it was pretty obvious Merton disliked Deayton anyway (I used to watch a lot of old episodes when there loads on Youtube), and was often derisive of him in a way quite different to his banter with Hislop.
It’s a hard one.
The difference with May is that May was negotiating a completely different deal. Under May's deal Britain would have been in the backstop, still subject to EU rules, still subject to the single market, still subject to the customs union, but without a say in either, and without a unilateral exit. May's deal is absolutely nothing like the one Frost negotiated.
Look at what Boris was proposing eight months ago via the Protocol Bill and please name any substantial differences between that and what Rishi has negotiated? The name has changed, because the PM changed, but the substance is the same.
And the substance of the way Rishi negotiated was exactly the same too. Boris said give us this deal or we'll implement the Protocol Bill while Rishi said give us this deal and we won't implement the Protocol Bill. Logic dictates that's the exact same thing, a rose by any other name.
It is the same reason someone born in Belfast can have British citizenship and Irish citizenship, but someone born in Bristol can't.
What part of that is confusing.
It's the only way.
Yes. He had his chance - if he really did have the nominations after La Truss fell. Now he's yesterday's man.
Deayton, after some comment by Merton, slightly patronising: It's always a good idea to analyse what you're doing.
Merton, doing a double take: Well, if you're a brain surgeon it is. Don't analyse what you're doing, for god's sake. It'll come down to 'reading out loud'.
So just becuase you didn't see low tax and low regulation messages doesn't mean that Prof Goodwin didn't.
Needs to be a bit more subtle to work.
Cut them out, and if the only reason they were a party member was to have a vote for Leader are they that much of an asset? Members didn't used to care about it.
In that instance, Boris is 'l'inevitable'. Clearly it cannot be Truss. It won't be a 'boring but safe caretaker' like May, because Sunak is meant to be the boring but safe caretaker, so his failure would represent the failure of that approach. I don't think it will be third time lucky Penny. It's still too soon for Kemi. That leaves Boris and his mandate as really the only possible front man for whatever coalition removes Sunak.
The first few years of the guest presenters post-Deayton were pretty decent, but when they failed to settle on a permanent presenter the show very quickly sank for me.
I find it hard to believe it's still going in a way, Hislop and Merton seemed to be phoning it in about a decade ago.