I indicated earlier I expected Rabb to stay in. He should get a few transfers from Leadsom and McVey voters and possibly supportive surplus from Boris to take him over the next threshold. After the next stage he's gone.
With regard to the ConservativeHome monthly surveys - is this sample representative of the whole membership?
I recall Mike Smithson saying a while ago that these syrveys cannot entirely be relied upon as a true guide?
No. Users of the site volunteer to take the survey, and there is now a basic check to make sure they are members. But it is self-selected, and all the evidence is that ConHome readers aren't a representative sample. All the more remarkable that Rory came second.
Trust me, it's not far wrong!
Boris would start with a hefty lead, if the vote were tomorrow.
For sure, but then any sample of Tory members would show the same, representative or not. Nevertheless ConHome has been way more out there in terms of no deal since the beginning, contrary to proper polls of Tory voters and members. Only HY thinks that the ConHome surveys are accurate.
Just looked at the Conservative Home site. Most of the comments re: carbon neutral by 2050 are incredibly depressing. These dinosaurs deserve to be extinct but shouldn't take the rest of us plus their children and grandchildren with them. Trouble is they will likely be replaced by Farage's lot who are no better.
I suspect its mostly the same lot!
What's depressing is how easily an issue like that can become subject to tribal politics. If it were positioned as a way to spite the left for their consumption habits you'd get a different response.
Pauline Latham, erstwhile McVey backer, says she is leaning towards Javid. Shows transfers are not always easy to assume.
That Standard cartoon that everyone not voting for Boris is against Boris may actually be close to the money
Maybe. She mentioned that, while leaning Javid, there were 3 definite nots. Rory, Raab and Boris! Which is not the conventional view of how Esther's group might break.
Despite that, he still comes across to me as being lazy. Johnson has a natural and wonderful ability to string sentences together, and has able researchers. That makes writing a book easier - especially if writing is something you love.
But his time as London Mayor or as FS. He was neither particularly competent or energetic. Or even on top of his brief.
There is the famous story of how he writes his £250k a year column, which was revealed when the Daily Telegraph editor asked why he kept emailing them in from different email addresses every week (and please stop doing it).
Apparently, he turns up somebodies house for Sunday lunch, and while dinner is being prepped he bangs out his column on their computer in an hour or so.
He is clearly a talented writer, but that doesn't mean he isn't also ill prepared / lazy.
Johnson is a very one dimensional writer. His great talent is to write the same piece over and over again, and get paid well for doing so. That is undeniably a very good skill for a journalist to have. I am not sure it makes him PM material.
Not even journalism really. Comment or even polemic. His stunts at actual journalism as in, you know, listening to people and writing down what they say accurately as quotes and all that, got into one or two difficulties I believe.
A number of posters may well have heard Max Hastings assessment of Boris on Any Questions. Basically he said he was a brilliant editor of the Spectator but as a politician '...he thinks he's Churchill but in fact he's Steve Coogan.'
I suspect Hastings was thinking Alan Partridge, but you get the drift anyway. Hastings is no socialist, and not afraid to call it how it is. And he would know Boris better than most.
I think you are right - Labour would offer a Referendum in a pre-Brexit GE. Corbyn is no lover of the EU but the threat of a LD/Green mop-up of the Remainer vote is too much for him to risk. I think he cares about having the power to implement his domestic policies, more than he cares about Brexit.
Yes. Him and McDonnell. Lifelong socialist outsiders. Now, unexpectedly, with a chance to be PM and Chancellor. Pushing 70, the both of them, and surely aware that this is their one and only shot. Will do what it takes. Will do what maximizes their chance of winning. Might not be enough, but they will not be leaving anything on the bench and that includes the referendum commitment. It will be starting.
History will look kindly on May in one respect. She obviously has kept Boris out of No.10 for a couple of years.
In my view Cameron and May were the two worst post-war PMs this country has had. But I think they're going to look like beacons of competence in comparison to what's around the corner.
In a wild moment I have topped up further on Rory.
As everything in politics has become so unpredictable and weird, why not him coming out of nowhere and emerging as the Stop Boris candidate who goes to the membership, just as Boris implodes?
A woman who prioritised buying food for her children over her rent was not "intentionally homeless". It was "reasonable" for her to do so.
To me this is the sort of decision that Lord Sumption has been having a go at in his Reith lectures. This isn't law, its politics. And our judges are not best placed to make political decisions.
Someone on Twitter asked Tories, what post-Brexit policies would you prioritise? And my priorities in no particular order are:
- Leave the ECHR - Reintroduction of grammar schools - Restoration of the death penalty - Abolish the Foreign Aid budget - Restore the Lords to pre-1999 state
I always think that the most popular and transformative policies of those that a Tory government could introduce would be grammars and the death penalty.
That almost certainly leads to yet another hung Parliament. At least 70, probably nearer 80, non Labour or Tories, and that is without the LDs.
I agree that is the most likely outcome. A minority Labour government supported by LDs and SNP with a mandate to ask the public again on Brexit and cancel it.
Funnily enough, although I think Labour would probably win most seats as per above I would give the Tories under Johnson more chance of winning an outright majority. Cannot see Corbyn doing that. Johnson, at a pinch, I can.
However, what I think is most likely is that Johnson does NOT go for an election. Instead he extends and tries to get the WA through in 2020 - cosmetically amended and re-branded to look like a 'win'.
And if he manages it, for all that I think he is unfit to be PM, I will have to take my hat off to him. It will be a substantial political achievement.
A woman who prioritised buying food for her children over her rent was not "intentionally homeless". It was "reasonable" for her to do so.
To me this is the sort of decision that Lord Sumption has been having a go at in his Reith lectures. This isn't law, its politics. And our judges are not best placed to make political decisions.
Why, David?
The Council wanted to treat her as "Intentionally Homeless". She disagreed. The Court found in her favour.
A woman who prioritised buying food for her children over her rent was not "intentionally homeless". It was "reasonable" for her to do so.
To me this is the sort of decision that Lord Sumption has been having a go at in his Reith lectures. This isn't law, its politics. And our judges are not best placed to make political decisions.
Why, David?
The Council wanted to treat her as "Intentionally Homeless". She disagreed. The Court found in her favour.
Sounds like a matter for the Courts to me.
Quite. If the law expects a mother to let her children starve then, to paraphrase our next Prime Minister, Fuck the law. Sounds like a good decision to me.
Investigating historical child abuse is a waste of money . Just another of the comments he has made .
What was the context of that comment?
If it was in relation to the supposed Westminster peado ring then history has shown him to be right given the accuser is currently on trial for being a fantasist who made it all up...
And perhaps his view was that resources are best deployed on investigating, prosecuting and jailing perpetrators who are still alive. Once those cases are concluded then the police - who no longer have limitless resources - can focus on the dead ones who have no opportunity to defend themselves if innocent or not.
We shouldn’t have policing on the basis of what the tabloid media thinks makes the best headlines and sells the most papers.
He is quite likely to some get transfers from hard Brexiters who voted for McVey and possibly Leadsom so why not? The first round votes for the top 6 bar Boris are all pretty close.
We're all in deep shit … What I don't understand is what happened to the notion that while the members were lunatics the MPs could be relied on to take a sane view of the candidates? Rory is manifestly the best candidate, and the only one who actually has a chance of delivering Brexit - and yet he managed only 19 votes.
The members are more level-headed than the MP's are.
I think you are right - Labour would offer a Referendum in a pre-Brexit GE. Corbyn is no lover of the EU but the threat of a LD/Green mop-up of the Remainer vote is too much for him to risk. I think he cares about having the power to implement his domestic policies, more than he cares about Brexit.
Yes. Him and McDonnell. Lifelong socialist outsiders. Now, unexpectedly, with a chance to be PM and Chancellor. Pushing 70, the both of them, and surely aware that this is their one and only shot. Will do what it takes. Will do what maximizes their chance of winning. Might not be enough, but they will not be leaving anything on the bench and that includes the referendum commitment. It will be starting.
Comments
(This is for Dem nomination.)
Which is not the conventional view of how Esther's group might break.
I suspect Hastings was thinking Alan Partridge, but you get the drift anyway. Hastings is no socialist, and not afraid to call it how it is. And he would know Boris better than most.
As everything in politics has become so unpredictable and weird, why not him coming out of nowhere and emerging as the Stop Boris candidate who goes to the membership, just as Boris implodes?
A woman who prioritised buying food for her children over her rent was not "intentionally homeless". It was "reasonable" for her to do so.
To me this is the sort of decision that Lord Sumption has been having a go at in his Reith lectures. This isn't law, its politics. And our judges are not best placed to make political decisions.
Someone on Twitter asked Tories, what post-Brexit policies would you prioritise? And my priorities in no particular order are:
- Leave the ECHR
- Reintroduction of grammar schools
- Restoration of the death penalty
- Abolish the Foreign Aid budget
- Restore the Lords to pre-1999 state
I always think that the most popular and transformative policies of those that a Tory government could introduce would be grammars and the death penalty.
Funnily enough, although I think Labour would probably win most seats as per above I would give the Tories under Johnson more chance of winning an outright majority. Cannot see Corbyn doing that. Johnson, at a pinch, I can.
However, what I think is most likely is that Johnson does NOT go for an election. Instead he extends and tries to get the WA through in 2020 - cosmetically amended and re-branded to look like a 'win'.
And if he manages it, for all that I think he is unfit to be PM, I will have to take my hat off to him. It will be a substantial political achievement.
The Council wanted to treat her as "Intentionally Homeless". She disagreed. The Court found in her favour.
Sounds like a matter for the Courts to me.
We shouldn’t have policing on the basis of what the tabloid media thinks makes the best headlines and sells the most papers.