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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » For everyone’s sake, Mrs May shouldn’t demote Boris but engineer a job swap between her Foreign Secretary and the editor of the Evening Standard
SUNDAY TIMES POLITICAL LEAD May ‘plots to demote Boris’ by @ShippersUnbound #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/G2Sx86cP47
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https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/916770692644986880
(but I'd use stronger language about Osborne)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4959102/Implosion-plotters.html
The real disease is the view towards Europe within the party - a disease that has reduced party leaders in the past. Of course, that was when leavers were the bastards ...
Leavers like Owen Paterson are also trying to force Mrs May out.
This isn’t a Leave v Remain thing.
Denial isn’t a river in Egypt. He’s gone, and the way he's conducted himself has ensured he’s not coming back.
Compare and contrast TCO’s behaviour with that of Michael Gove, who did a year of penance as a supportive backbencher and now has a key position in the Cabinet and is a good outside chance for next PM.
Compare also with David Cameron, who quietly went his own way and has said very little in public since.
Osborne could have been a backbench champion for the Northern Powerhuose, a project that would would have delivered huge positive change to that part of the country - but instead he takes the money, moves to London and behaves like a petulant 46 year old schoolboy.
Boris Johnson should be replaced, however.
F1: missed most of the race. Mild pestilence kept me awake which then meant I overslept, missed the start, and then had to get up to walk the hound. Seen the bullet points, but I'll have to catch the highlights, if I feel like it.
On-topic: could be wrong but I think Caligula was actually taking the piss. He didn't make Incitatus consul, he was just mocking senators.
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/916917829072490496
Doesn’t mean that he isn’t one of the most hated men in the country though.
Just because they are the 'enemy' in politics, does not automatically mean they are wrong on everything.
The biggest risk they face is Labour coming out against Brexit. That will give a lot of people a reason to vote for Labour who have never done so before.
I'm bemused by those so-called Conservatives slagging off Osborne (and hence achieving exactly what Osborne wants) for being in some way unfaithful to the party, when that party's leader treated him poorly, and whilst also thinking that Davis, IDS et al's flounces and past disloyal behaviour was absolutely fine.
If remainers within the Conservative party are being 'disloyal', then the hardcore fanatical Europhobic Conservatives are just getting the medicine they dished out for a couple of decades. You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh.
"The biggest risk they face is Labour coming out against Brexit. That will give a lot of people a reason to vote for Labour who have never done so before."
And vice versa, the vast majority of Labour voters are decent people who believe in democracy, they won't be taken for fools.
Brexit is tearing apart the Tories, and it is not wise to interrupt an enemy while they are making a mistake.
I don't think that Labour could win on a 'stay in' vote. They might be able to win on a 'go back in' vote if Brexit is as disastrous as we are all now expecting, but that wouldn't be an easy sell in the north and I very much doubt if Corbyn, still less Macdonnnell would ever make it.
It's the domestic narratives that will decide the next election. The problem for the Tories is that after four years of Brexit naval gazing they will have no good story to tell on that. The problem for Labour is that they also have no story to tell as they are still obsessing over points of dogma rather than working out coherent policy. That's how their recent conference ended up announcing that they would both abolish PFI in the NHS and extend it.
As a country if we get the politicians we deserve, it really does say something unpleasant about us that we have this shower.
How about a new post - Minister for Domestic Affairs? He can screw up there to his heart's content.
I'll get my coat...
https://twitter.com/rachshabi/status/916773289007206401
Anthony Joshua shouldn’t be the 4/9 and 2/5 prices that’s driving everyone else down.
https://www.oddschecker.com/awards/sports-personality-of-the-year/winner
But I see no reason why Osborne would want to save May when he probably thinks many in the Cabinet would do a better job than her.
They will need a policy when they take power, but do not need to form one yet. Things are too changeable. They can afford to wait until the next election.
Of course all stories are spun into 'save her premiership' even ones that might, on their own merits be 'good ideas'.....
Neither of these will be particularly useful at the moment. Brexit leaves the Tories little room for manoeuvre on the strategy front - they have to somehow get a deal that appeases the frothing fantasists in her party while not wrecking the economy and the country. That may be impossible, but if it is achievable it dictates all political and economic strategy and leaves a very narrow path. That would leave Osborne with little that he was able to do, other than on the attack front. Which brings us to the opposition, Corbyn's die is cast, for good or ill. The one thing he could do is beef up the Tories' economic attack operation, but that's something that was glaringly obvious anyway and is hampered by the fact that Brexit has made the Tories own spending plans moot.
Short of him helping the Tories' doing the sensible thing and digging themselves out of the Brexit mess before it's too late, there's little he can bring to the table. Nor would he probably want too, unless given the opportunity to do so. Which ain't gonna happen as it would split the party.
Mind you, the Tories do not seem to feel obliged to stick to any of their "winning" manifesto.
Mr. Observer, billions are only available to throw at the EU
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-41541063
If we take the TSE metric of over 50% as a win, then he won one election by the grace of another party imploding. This was out of two. He also lost the only referendum in which he was heavily involved. That's not really the profile of a 'winner'.
Osborne' key problem is that he can't appear to deal with his changed status. As Chancellor in the coalition, he was forever leaking to his mates in the Telegraph how he was the real deputy Prime Minister and Hague and Clegg were just there for show. Then came 2015 and suddenly he was Deputy to Cameron and heir apparent de jure and de facto, everything he had dreamed of. Then came the referendum, he came up with Project Fear - and it all blew up in his face.
It's his behaviour since then that suggests May was right about him. If he had accepted that he screwed up, reminded himself that at 46 he was still younger than any twentieth century PM other than Blair, got his head down and worked on major projects from the backbenches - the northern powerhouse perhaps, or sitting on the board of Shelter and learning about real people's lives and problems, while offering passive support to May, he would now almost certainly be the Prime Minister. Because he hasn't the humility to accept his failings, he's just run a nasty, personal and less than scrupulously honest campaign against someone who beat him to the prize and then had the nerve to tell him some home truths. In doing so, he may be damaging May but he is destroying himself. He is busily filling that second grave you dig before heading off to take revenge with the corpse of his political career and reputation and he doesn't even appear to realise it.
Such a person would not make a good PM, and he shouldn't be returned to the Cabinet. He had his chance, and he didn't so much blow it as throw it into the path of an oncoming hurricane while firing RPGs at it for good measure.
Didn't he used to be somebody?
Was he the only politician booed at the Olympics?
Nobody, whether May or her successor, should want someone near the levers of power who could read the public mood so badly.
Meanwhile, seems the EU commission are in serious talks with the Labour Party officials as they want assurances that an imminent Labour Government won't tear up any agreements already made:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-negotiators-talks-labour-theresa-may-government-collapse-jeremy-corbyn-michel-barnier-a7987806.html
It may be that fragmentation of nations is a side-effect of increased globalisation. Perhaps people with local loyalty and identity still feel that strongly, but wider identity of nationhood is slipping away (at least when there's a significant local sense of belonging).
Paranoid whips being a little overzealous, perhaps?
I'm not convinced they even realised it happened until the express picked it up.
They offered a sort of 'Schrodinger's Brexit' policy, allowing gullible and uninformed student Remainer types to believe they were massively anti-Brexit, while simultaneously emphasising the 'we're definitely leaving so, you can come back to us now' message to all the WWC Lab-UKIP-Lab Leaver switchers in the Midlands and North.
I know an ardent Remainer who firmly believes Corbyn is 'one of them', and who voted for Kate Hoey in Vauxhall without even the slightest sense of incongruity...
(Oh, and I'm largely an Osborne fan, but this article is a pile of fanciful ocelot poo.)
The thing is that parties are currently so polarised there isn't a lot of room for switching between them at this time. Meanwhile because each party is so hated by the other side moving to a minor party that better matches your views feels like something of a luxury. So it's unlikely we'll see much movement in the polls for the moment. If a 15 point gap opens up that would be surprising and might bring about the end of May, but more likely we'll bumble about with MoE for a bit.
The 2017 Conservative campaign was simply atrocious, and stupid. And entirely preventable. Getting caught out by an ambush is understandable, except when you're the one springing it.
I don't think it matters whether Osborne is popular - what matters is clearly TM ran a horrible election campaign. Osborne, despite a woeful economic track record, won in 2015 by focusing on the economy. That result looks even more impressive with hindsight.
There are probably others in Conservatives who could play a similar role and wth less baggage, but clearly TM would benefit from his advice.
Their behaviour does nothing to repair the battered reputation of politics. It is not what our country wants or needs – nor does it serve it well. Politics is not a game. Government even less so. Their conduct has undermined their own party, their own Prime Minister, and their own Government. It is profoundly unbecoming and it must stop.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4959158/A-blistering-intervention-SIR-JOHN-MAJOR.html#ixzz4utyi8UsQ
Who could Sir John mean?
However, Labour had a far weaker hand in 1992 than May in 2017. Corbyn was officially on their side, for a start.
But 2015 really very impressive - sitting government, missing economic forecasts, no wage growth, gains seats and wins majority.
TM will need the same in the face of similar or greater adverse conditions I suspect.
Tories casting around for a saviour, and a scapegoat, but not getting either is how it looks to me.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/david-smith-economic-outlook-still-clueless-on-brexit-and-its-taking-a-toll-8x5shg0l9?shareToken=376b18d01dce1114f0233d713c545788