Christ. Look at the photo. The candidate is the only person in the room under 70.
We are living through the final days of the Conservative Party.
No, there are plenty of 50 and 60 year olds there and 1 or 2 at the back look about 30 to 40.
This is also Totnes, ie retirement central
Look!! There are some 60 year olds. The Party has another 15 years at least.
As I said earlier the Tories have not won under 30s since 1983, however they have still won 5 elections since as voters get more conservative as they get older, indeed Labour have not won over 65s since 1997.
People will still get older decades from now and we will still have pensioners and they will still vote Tory (assuming the Tories deliver Brexit of course)
I don't think they will. There is a massive sea-change coming amongst the millennials and X-Gen. Their values are a millions miles away from Boris/May Toryism.
That is absolute crap.
25% of 18 to 24s voted Leave and 40% of 25 to 34s, the same as voted for Cameron's Tories and the LDs in 2010 and more than voted for Cameron's Tories and the LDs in 2015
Most 18 - 24 did not bother to vote.
Which only reinforces the Tories position as most pensioners do vote
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
Boris is offering jobs like dodgy tickets touts with fake tickets for the same handful seats.
It looks like various wannabe cabinet ministers are briefing the STimes that they have been promised X,Y,Z. Trying to bounce Boris and his kitchen cabinet.
Pathetic.
Which in itself is telling. They wouldn't dare do such a thing if they didn't know full well that he is in the weakest position of an incoming PM for many a year. Usually, attempting to manipulate the new big cheese is a one way express ticket to the back benches.
Except Boris will do the biggest reshuffle since Macmillan's night of the Long Knives, out goes Hammond, Stewart, Gauke, Stride, Fox, Smith, Bradley, Wright, Clark, Hinds, Liddington, Lewis, most likely Grayling too, in comes Cleverly, McVey, Patel, IDS, Raab, Jo Johnson, Fallon, Kwarteng, Rees-Mogg, Goldsmith, Williamson, Conor Burns, McVey, Jake Berry and John Whittingdale, Braverman and Mercer and maybe Davis
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
I hope he has hidden depths, for all our sakes. Otherwise it's his variable belief in specific policies and charisma which is all we have to help us. I truly hope he will surprise on the upside. A quick win would go a long way to sway many doubters, but people never do anything by half measures, and if he is not the reincarnation of Thatcher and Churchill he will struggle.
"Boris Johnson is considering plans to put the southern half of High Speed 2 on ice amid mounting concerns about the costs of the scheme.
The Tory leadership contender, who is expected to enter Downing Street on Wednesday, has been studying proposals to begin building the railway line in the North, rather than London, as part of a set of policy changes designed to demonstrate a focus on "left behind" regions and towns." (£)
Sorry Alistair but you are far too generous to Mrs May.
She was the female Gordon Brown.
In hindsight she was even worse than Brown. She lacked his intellectual gravitas.
She didn’t run up £150Bn of deficit in one year though.
She was not leading the world in dealing with the global financial crisis.
Neither was Brown. He ensured we were in the worst of positions to deal with the crisis when it came.
And the Bankers and Financiers had manged to get themselves into an almost God like status through media manipulation so that no politician or media pundit dared to criticise their casino systems. Even the sainted "Call me Dave" had wanted to increase deregulation in 2005/6 and campaigned alongside his pal Gideon.
Boris is offering jobs like dodgy tickets touts with fake tickets for the same handful seats.
It looks like various wannabe cabinet ministers are briefing the STimes that they have been promised X,Y,Z. Trying to bounce Boris and his kitchen cabinet.
Pathetic.
Which in itself is telling. They wouldn't dare do such a thing if they didn't know full well that he is in the weakest position of an incoming PM for many a year. Usually, attempting to manipulate the new big cheese is a one way express ticket to the back benches.
Except Boris will do the biggest reshuffle since Macmillan's night of the Long Knives, out goes Hammond, Stewart, Gauke, Stride, Fox, Smith, Bradley, Wright, Clark, Hinds, Liddington, Lewis, most likely Grayling too, in comes Cleverly, McVey, Patel, IDS, Raab, Jo Johnson, Fallon, Kwarteng, Rees-Mogg, Goldsmith, Williamson, Conor Burns, McVey, Jake Berry and John Whittingdale, Braverman and Mercer and maybe Davis
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
He has already been Mayor of London, he is used to the spotlight.
Boris will be the biggest presence we have had on the world stage as PM since Thatcher and Blair
Morning Consult is tracking Trump approval/disapproval on a state-by-state basis.
There are some surprisingly strong results in there for Trump, like Virginia and Delaware from the Blue column looking like possible pickups and, with Arizona and Nevada looking like 50/50 shots.
More worrying for him is the "rust belt" and Iowa. Wisconsin, which he edged in 2016, is showing -16. Michigan, another close win, is -15. Iowa, which he won comfortably is -12.
This could be a key resource looking at next year's election.
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
I feel in the end most of our politicians, certainly in the upper echelons, try their best but are inadequate to the task before them. May faced that in particularly acute fashion and made some major errors to boot, but while I doubt people will be pining for her to come back, there are a couple of the paths before us that would make a historical assessment of her time more sympathetic. We will be fortunate to not go down one of those paths.
Stopped reading at that. Labour MPs are always furious about something. Or rather 'furious'. It's hard to know what they are actually worked up about and what they are acting worked up about.
A fair reminder that for all the flaws in the UK position, let us not pretend that the EU position has not been based on politics as much as any principles at stake, and thus they have hardly been immune from needlessly being difficult, even if our own confused approach is clearly more to blame. How incredibly frustrating if they were to offer olive branches now, but it would be better than the alternative.
Will the 50th Moon celebrations make many Americans pause and think where is my country going?
Everything was going so well until the November 2000 election which was decided by 537 votes in Florida. That was arguably when the divisions in American society started to go out of control. Until then everything had been getting better for most people for many decades, and everyone assumed it would continue.
Boris is offering jobs like dodgy tickets touts with fake tickets for the same handful seats.
It looks like various wannabe cabinet ministers are briefing the STimes that they have been promised X,Y,Z. Trying to bounce Boris and his kitchen cabinet.
Pathetic.
Which in itself is telling. They wouldn't dare do such a thing if they didn't know full well that he is in the weakest position of an incoming PM for many a year. Usually, attempting to manipulate the new big cheese is a one way express ticket to the back benches.
If the big cheese is new and sweet then a lea way time would be acceptable, with an old rotten to the core, maybe not so.
Morning Consult is tracking Trump approval/disapproval on a state-by-state basis.
There are some surprisingly strong results in there for Trump, like Virginia and Delaware from the Blue column looking like possible pickups and, with Arizona and Nevada looking like 50/50 shots.
More worrying for him is the "rust belt" and Iowa. Wisconsin, which he edged in 2016, is showing -16. Michigan, another close win, is -15. Iowa, which he won comfortably is -12.
This could be a key resource looking at next year's election.
Trump +24% net approval in Alabama, +18% in Mississippi and +19% in West Virginia but -29% in California and -24% in New York and -26% in Massachusetts, the US divide in one
Morning Consult is tracking Trump approval/disapproval on a state-by-state basis.
There are some surprisingly strong results in there for Trump, like Virginia and Delaware from the Blue column looking like possible pickups and, with Arizona and Nevada looking like 50/50 shots.
More worrying for him is the "rust belt" and Iowa. Wisconsin, which he edged in 2016, is showing -16. Michigan, another close win, is -15. Iowa, which he won comfortably is -12.
This could be a key resource looking at next year's election.
Trump +24% net approval in Alabama, +18% in Mississippi and +19% in West Virginia but -29% in California and -24% in New York and -26% in Massachussets, the US divide in one
Florida and Ohio are the important ones IMO. Just about to take a look at the data.
Morning Consult is tracking Trump approval/disapproval on a state-by-state basis.
There are some surprisingly strong results in there for Trump, like Virginia and Delaware from the Blue column looking like possible pickups and, with Arizona and Nevada looking like 50/50 shots.
More worrying for him is the "rust belt" and Iowa. Wisconsin, which he edged in 2016, is showing -16. Michigan, another close win, is -15. Iowa, which he won comfortably is -12.
This could be a key resource looking at next year's election.
Trump +24% net approval in Alabama, +18% in Mississippi and +19% in West Virginia but -29% in California and -24% in New York and -26% in Massachussets, the US divide in one
Florida and Ohio are the important ones IMO. Just about to take a look at the data.
Florida is having a lot of problems with corruption and pollution from industry. There is a growing backlash against the Republican administration. Ohio, I haven't been following.
Morning Consult is tracking Trump approval/disapproval on a state-by-state basis.
There are some surprisingly strong results in there for Trump, like Virginia and Delaware from the Blue column looking like possible pickups and, with Arizona and Nevada looking like 50/50 shots.
More worrying for him is the "rust belt" and Iowa. Wisconsin, which he edged in 2016, is showing -16. Michigan, another close win, is -15. Iowa, which he won comfortably is -12.
This could be a key resource looking at next year's election.
Trump +24% net approval in Alabama, +18% in Mississippi and +19% in West Virginia but -29% in California and -24% in New York and -26% in Massachussets, the US divide in one
Florida and Ohio are the important ones IMO. Just about to take a look at the data.
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
He has already been Mayor of London, he is used to the spotlight.
You are being deliberately obtuse. The two roles are not equivalent, so it is not a question of public spotlight but the nature of the job as well, which is vastly different in scope. He may well be better able to cope with it than people fear, but let's not pretend that being in the public eye as mayor of London is the same as being PM in focus, pressure or requirement.
The truth is we can never really know if someone will do well in the job. A LOTO may win with no ministerial experience to speak of, but do great. Someone may have years in senior cabinet positions and do terribly. Partly the circumstances, including parliamentary mathematics dictating tactics, will be key, but someone's past experience while relevant as what else do we have to go on, is not going to be determinative.
Frankly, that works in Boris's favour. Having been the mayor 7 years ago and briefly Foreign secretary is not oodles of greatness to fall back on, but he can argue that he is the man we need for the present moment and he is better suited for PM than other positions. Judging how well he will do as PM purely on his past record doesn't make him look as bad as some prospective PMs, but it is not exactly setting the world on fire either.
Christ. Look at the photo. The candidate is the only person in the room under 70.
We are living through the final days of the Conservative Party.
And yet they don't seem to have a problem finding young to youngish candidates.
'If you are a Conservative at 20 you have no heart and if you are not a Conservative after 40 you have no head' as Churchill supposedly said and still holds true today
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
He has already been Mayor of London, he is used to the spotlight.
You are being deliberately obtuse. The two roles are not equivalent, so it is not a question of public spotlight but the nature of the job as well, which is vastly different in scope. He may well be better able to cope with it than people fear, but let's not pretend that being in the public eye as mayor of London is the same as being PM in focus, pressure or requirement.
The truth is we can never really know if someone will do well in the job. A LOTO may win with no ministerial experience to speak of, but do great. Someone may have years in senior cabinet positions and do terribly. Partly the circumstances, including parliamentary mathematics dictating tactics, will be key, but someone's past experience while relevant as what else do we have to go on, is not going to be determinative.
Frankly, that works in Boris's favour. Having been the mayor 7 years ago and briefly Foreign secretary is not oodles of greatness to fall back on, but he can argue that he is the man we need for the present moment and he is better suited for PM than other positions. Judging how well he will do as PM purely on his past record doesn't make him look as bad as some prospective PMs, but it is not exactly setting the world on fire either.
Have a pleasant night.
Maybe and it is difficult to predict how his premiership will go but one thing is for certain, going to a Boris rally will be a lot more fun than going to a May rally was when we do get to the election campaign and I suspect will have a far bigger crowd
Morning Consult is tracking Trump approval/disapproval on a state-by-state basis.
There are some surprisingly strong results in there for Trump, like Virginia and Delaware from the Blue column looking like possible pickups and, with Arizona and Nevada looking like 50/50 shots.
More worrying for him is the "rust belt" and Iowa. Wisconsin, which he edged in 2016, is showing -16. Michigan, another close win, is -15. Iowa, which he won comfortably is -12.
This could be a key resource looking at next year's election.
Trump +24% net approval in Alabama, +18% in Mississippi and +19% in West Virginia but -29% in California and -24% in New York and -26% in Massachussets, the US divide in one
Florida and Ohio are the important ones IMO. Just about to take a look at the data.
Mmm. +4 in Texas ain't great. But the standout for me is Georgia. Zero. It has been trending Democratic for a while, and if that were to go...
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
He has already been Mayor of London, he is used to the spotlight.
You are being deliberately obtuse. The two roles are not equivalent, so it is not a question of public spotlight but the nature of the job as well, which is vastly different in scope. He may well be better able to cope with it than people fear, but let's not pretend that being in the public eye as mayor of London is the same as being PM in focus, pressure or requirement.
The truth is we can never really know if someone will do well in the job. A LOTO may win with no ministerial experience to speak of, but do great. Someone may have years in senior cabinet positions and do terribly. Partly the circumstances, including parliamentary mathematics dictating tactics, will be key, but someone's past experience while relevant as what else do we have to go on, is not going to be determinative.
Frankly, that works in Boris's favour. Having been the mayor 7 years ago and briefly Foreign secretary is not oodles of greatness to fall back on, but he can argue that he is the man we need for the present moment and he is better suited for PM than other positions. Judging how well he will do as PM purely on his past record doesn't make him look as bad as some prospective PMs, but it is not exactly setting the world on fire either.
Have a pleasant night.
Maybe and it is difficult to predict how his premiership will go but one thing is for certain, going to a Boris rally will be a lot more fun than going to a May rally was when we do get to the election campaign and I suspect will have a far bigger crowd
Christ. Look at the photo. The candidate is the only person in the room under 70.
We are living through the final days of the Conservative Party.
And yet they don't seem to have a problem finding young to youngish candidates.
'If you are a Conservative at 20 you have no heart and if you are not a Conservative after 40 you have no head' as Churchill supposedly said and still holds true today
And if you are a Conservative at 60 you are brain-dead!
What ever your views on his politics, John McDonnell does the work. Didn't bat an eye when asked about Gloria from Ashfield. Totally on top of his brief.
I was in London on Saturday - and was expecting my day to be disrupted by the Anti Boris/Pro Europe march. And it really didn't register at all - even though the route took it right by the windows of the venue where I was singing.
It didn't require any road closures or make that much impact.
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
He has already been Mayor of London, he is used to the spotlight.
You are being deliberately obtuse. The two roles are not equivalent, so it is not a question of public spotlight but the nature of the job as well, which is vastly different in scope. He may well be better able to cope with it than people fear, but let's not pretend that being in the public eye as mayor of London is the same as being PM in focus, pressure or requirement.
The truth is we can never really know if someone will do well in the job. A LOTO may win with no ministerial experience to speak of, but do great. Someone may have years in senior cabinet positions and do terribly. Partly the circumstances, including parliamentary mathematics dictating tactics, will be key, but someone's past experience while relevant as what else do we have to go on, is not going to be determinative.
Frankly, that works in Boris's favour. Having been the mayor 7 years ago and briefly Foreign secretary is not oodles of greatness to fall back on, but he can argue that he is the man we need for the present moment and he is better suited for PM than other positions. Judging how well he will do as PM purely on his past record doesn't make him look as bad as some prospective PMs, but it is not exactly setting the world on fire either.
Have a pleasant night.
Maybe and it is difficult to predict how his premiership will go but one thing is for certain, going to a Boris rally will be a lot more fun than going to a May rally was when we do get to the election campaign and I suspect will have a far bigger crowd
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
He has already been Mayor of London, he is used to the spotlight.
You are being deliberately obtuse. The two roles are not equivalent, so it is not a question of public spotlight but the nature of the job as well, which is vastly different in scope. He may well be better able to cope with it than people fear, but let's not pretend that being in the public eye as mayor of London is the same as being PM in focus, pressure or requirement.
The truth is we can never really know if someone will do well in the job. A LOTO may win with no ministerial experience to speak of, but do great. Someone may have years in senior cabinet positions and do terribly. Partly the circumstances, including parliamentary mathematics dictating tactics, will be key, but someone's past experience while relevant as what else do we have to go on, is not going to be determinative.
Frankly, that works in Boris's favour. Having been the mayor 7 years ago and briefly Foreign secretary is not oodles of greatness to fall back on, but he can argue that he is the man we need for the present moment and he is better suited for PM than other positions. Judging how well he will do as PM purely on his past record doesn't make him look as bad as some prospective PMs, but it is not exactly setting the world on fire either.
Have a pleasant night.
Maybe and it is difficult to predict how his premiership will go but one thing is for certain, going to a Boris rally will be a lot more fun than going to a May rally was when we do get to the election campaign and I suspect will have a far bigger crowd
I was in London on Saturday - and was expecting my day to be disrupted by the Anti Boris/Pro Europe march. And it really didn't register at all - even though the route took it right by the windows of the venue where I was singing.
It didn't require any road closures or make that much impact.
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
He has already been Mayor of London, he is used to the spotlight.
You are being deliberately obtuse. The two roles are not equivalent, so it is not a question of public spotlight but the nature of the job as well, which is vastly different in scope. He may well be better able to cope with it than people fear, but let's not pretend that being in the public eye as mayor of London is the same as being PM in focus, pressure or requirement.
The truth is we can never really know if someone will do well in the job. A LOTO may win with no ministerial experience to speak of, but do great. Someone may have years in senior cabinet positions and do terribly. Partly the circumstances, including parliamentary mathematics dictating tactics, will be key, but someone's past experience while relevant as what else do we have to go on, is not going to be determinative.
Frankly, that works in Boris's favour. Having been the mayor 7 years ago and briefly Foreign secretary is not oodles of greatness to fall back on, but he can argue that he is the man we need for the present moment and he is better suited for PM than other positions. Judging how well he will do as PM purely on his past record doesn't make him look as bad as some prospective PMs, but it is not exactly setting the world on fire either.
Have a pleasant night.
Maybe and it is difficult to predict how his premiership will go but one thing is for certain, going to a Boris rally will be a lot more fun than going to a May rally was when we do get to the election campaign and I suspect will have a far bigger crowd
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
He has already been Mayor of London, he is used to the spotlight.
You are being deliberately obtuse. The two roles are not equivalent, so it is not a question of public spotlight but the nature of the job as well, which is vastly different in scope. He may well be better able to cope with it than people fear, but let's not pretend that being in the public eye as mayor of London is the same as being PM in focus, pressure or requirement.
The truth is we can never really know if someone will do well in the job. A LOTO may win with no ministerial experience to speak of, but do great. Someone may have years in senior cabinet positions and do terribly. Partly the circumstances, including parliamentary mathematics dictating tactics, will be key, but someone's past experience while relevant as what else do we have to go on, is not going to be determinative.
Frankly, that works in Boris's favour. Having been the mayor 7 years ago and briefly Foreign secretary is not oodles of greatness to fall back on, but he can argue that he is the man we need for the present moment and he is better suited for PM than other positions. Judging how well he will do as PM purely on his past record doesn't make him look as bad as some prospective PMs, but it is not exactly setting the world on fire either.
Have a pleasant night.
Maybe and it is difficult to predict how his premiership will go but one thing is for certain, going to a Boris rally will be a lot more fun than going to a May rally was when we do get to the election campaign and I suspect will have a far bigger crowd
Great article Alistair, well considered. I agree about the need for a consensual approach and nodded about the practicialities of Royal Commission. Compromise seems a dirty word unfortunately, even the Lib Dems scarred by the coalition are not interested. I think a messy end to this Parliament with a big clearout in a Gen Election is needed (not that it will probably happen).
On the Vanilla site, you can only read the title and first few sentences of an article (link for the full thing, of course). The opening paragraph by itself does rather sum things up.
May was not up to the job. I don't expect Boris will be either. He may do better than May if he's able to delegate the actual thinking/work to other people, but if it's down to his own abilities he'll fail worse. He lacks diligence which, for all her other weaknesses, was not something doubted of May. She may have lacked charisma, intelligence, and the ability to think more than six seconds into the future ('no deal is better than a bad deal') but nobody ever accused her of not working hard.
Christ. Look at the photo. The candidate is the only person in the room under 70.
We are living through the final days of the Conservative Party.
And yet they don't seem to have a problem finding young to youngish candidates.
'If you are a Conservative at 20 you have no heart and if you are not a Conservative after 40 you have no head' as Churchill supposedly said and still holds true today
A friend and I agreed this week that we've moved left as we got older - the weaknesses and unfairness of free markets unconstrained as far as they are today have become steadily more apparent over the years.
And would you really, hand on heart, say that someone with a good brain would say that Conservative Government has been successful in the last few years? Too much of the Conservative appeal (just like Labour in 2010) is "vote for us because we're not the other lot". But eventually all parties need time in Opposition to sort out what the'yre actually for. What, apart from an ill-defined Brexit and some nice environmental policies, is the current Government for?
Boris is offering jobs like dodgy tickets touts with fake tickets for the same handful seats.
It looks like various wannabe cabinet ministers are briefing the STimes that they have been promised X,Y,Z. Trying to bounce Boris and his kitchen cabinet.
Pathetic.
Which in itself is telling. They wouldn't dare do such a thing if they didn't know full well that he is in the weakest position of an incoming PM for many a year. Usually, attempting to manipulate the new big cheese is a one way express ticket to the back benches.
Except Boris will do the biggest reshuffle since Macmillan's night of the Long Knives, out goes Hammond, Stewart, Gauke, Stride, Fox, Smith, Bradley, Wright, Clark, Hinds, Liddington, Lewis, most likely Grayling too, in comes Cleverly, McVey, Patel, IDS, Raab, Jo Johnson, Fallon, Kwarteng, Rees-Mogg, Goldsmith, Williamson, Conor Burns, McVey, Jake Berry and John Whittingdale, Braverman and Mercer and maybe Davis
Will he be able to fill all the junior govt posts or will allies have to double up as he doesnt have enough support and is over promoting his mates?
The Brexit elite is drunk on hubris. They may get away with their perpetual lying, but only if Johnson and the Tories remain in power for the foreseeable future. It’s possible, I suppose.
Boris is offering jobs like dodgy tickets touts with fake tickets for the same handful seats.
It looks like various wannabe cabinet ministers are briefing the STimes that they have been promised X,Y,Z. Trying to bounce Boris and his kitchen cabinet.
Pathetic.
Which in itself is telling. They wouldn't dare do such a thing if they didn't know full well that he is in the weakest position of an incoming PM for many a year. Usually, attempting to manipulate the new big cheese is a one way express ticket to the back benches.
Except Boris will do the biggest reshuffle since Macmillan's night of the Long Knives, out goes Hammond, Stewart, Gauke, Stride, Fox, Smith, Bradley, Wright, Clark, Hinds, Liddington, Lewis, most likely Grayling too, in comes Cleverly, McVey, Patel, IDS, Raab, Jo Johnson, Fallon, Kwarteng, Rees-Mogg, Goldsmith, Williamson, Conor Burns, McVey, Jake Berry and John Whittingdale, Braverman and Mercer and maybe Davis
Christ. Look at the photo. The candidate is the only person in the room under 70.
We are living through the final days of the Conservative Party.
No, there are plenty of 50 and 60 year olds there and 1 or 2 at the back look about 30 to 40.
This is also Totnes, ie retirement central
Look!! There are some 60 year olds. The Party has another 15 years at least.
As I said earlier the Tories have not won under 30s since 1983, however they have still won 5 elections since as voters get more conservative as they get older, indeed Labour have not won over 65s since 1997.
People will still get older decades from now and we will still have pensioners and they will still vote Tory (assuming the Tories deliver Brexit of course)
The clue is in the name. When people build up assets they like to conserve them, hence the support for the conservative party.
Were people in their 20s/30s/40s in any number still to build up assets they would switch to a party with conservative aims. They dont any more thanks mainly to QE and govt props on housing.
Further, the conservative party has stopped being conservative, it is a party of revolution, destruction and division. There is no reason to assume voters will switch to that as they get older.
Good Morning Campers .... Two interesting posts jumped out of PB world overnight :
Firstly the B&R by-election poll showing the yellow peril poised for another round of sandal throwing and mutual beard tugging and hugging in the wee small hours of August 2nd.
Although one should add the rider that @HYUFD advises us that a 15 point deficit is a triumph for the Tories with the distinct likelihood of new PM Boris high wiring to the rescue and gobbling up all the BREXIT voters for a Tory HOLD ..... Titter ....
Secondly the @rcs1000 referenced morning consult monthly data set on the state by state Trump approval rating. My initial take from these results are twofold :
1. The demographic trends away from the GOP continues apace - Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas and Georgia.
2. The rust belt states trending badly for Trump - Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Iowa also -12 and New Hampshire that Trump only very narrowly lost in 2016 is -22.
The current hubris of the Brexit elite reminds me very much of the far left’s hubris post-GE 2017. They think they can get away with anything. We’ll see.
I feel sorry for Theresa May. I genuinely think she was trying her best at a near impossible task, which was made even harder by the fact that she palpably wasn’t equipped for the top job. Sadly she will go down as one of the poorer prime ministers in history. She is undoubtedly a hard working, duty-driven public servant (her tin ear on occasions down to, I think, poor advisors and a willingness to be guided) and I take little delight in seeing her fail so spectacularly.
The top job exposes a politician like no other. As Boris will find out. He is about to be x-rayed.
He has already been Mayor of London, he is used to the spotlight.
You are being deliberately obtuse. The two roles are not equivalent, so it is not a question of public spotlight but the nature of the job as well, which is vastly different in scope. He may well be better able to cope with it than people fear, but let's not pretend that being in the public eye as mayor of London is the same as being PM in focus, pressure or requirement.
The truth is we can never really know if someone will do well in the job. A LOTO may win with no ministerial experience to speak of, but do great. Someone may have years in senior cabinet positions and do terribly. Partly the circumstances, including parliamentary mathematics dictating tactics, will be key, but someone's past experience while relevant as what else do we have to go on, is not going to be determinative.
Frankly, that works in Boris's favour. Having been the mayor 7 years ago and briefly Foreign secretary is not oodles of greatness to fall back on, but he can argue that he is the man we need for the present moment and he is better suited for PM than other positions. Judging how well he will do as PM purely on his past record doesn't make him look as bad as some prospective PMs, but it is not exactly setting the world on fire either.
Have a pleasant night.
Maybe and it is difficult to predict how his premiership will go but one thing is for certain, going to a Boris rally will be a lot more fun than going to a May rally was when we do get to the election campaign and I suspect will have a far bigger crowd
The discussion was about being effective in the role of Prime Minister.
Since when was being fun to watch a relevant criterion?
Christ. Look at the photo. The candidate is the only person in the room under 70.
We are living through the final days of the Conservative Party.
No, there are plenty of 50 and 60 year olds there and 1 or 2 at the back look about 30 to 40.
This is also Totnes, ie retirement central
Look!! There are some 60 year olds. The Party has another 15 years at least.
As I said earlier the Tories have not won under 30s since 1983, however they have still won 5 elections since as voters get more conservative as they get older, indeed Labour have not won over 65s since 1997.
People will still get older decades from now and we will still have pensioners and they will still vote Tory (assuming the Tories deliver Brexit of course)
The clue is in the name. When people build up assets they like to conserve them, hence the support for the conservative party.
Were people in their 20s/30s/40s in any number still to build up assets they would switch to a party with conservative aims. They dont any more thanks mainly to QE and govt props on housing.
Further, the conservative party has stopped being conservative, it is a party of revolution, destruction and division. There is no reason to assume voters will switch to that as they get older.
Yep - the Tories are no longer the Conservatives. They have decided to pitch their tent on a space that is inward-looking, culturally and socially illiberal, protectionist and English nationalist; while the medium to long term trends are taking public opinion the other way. Jeremy Corbyn will not be Labour leader forever.
I would say a more accurate description is not people become more Conservative, rather they become more small c conservative when they get older.
I think that's generally true. In fact it's a subset of a more general phenomenon - most people now would say their vote is up for grabs, though they retain a certain attachment to past votes and they'll give the party consideration. Fanatical loyalty to a party doesn't make sense if the party keeps changing.
Conversely, of course, having been in a party for a while doesn't mean it's your personal property. If it decides to change with membership support, that's not an outrage, it's just a thing, and you can decide whether you like it, tolerate it or move on, but it's not reasonable to claim that the membership is therefore evil. They just don't agree with you any more.
That said, it's reasonable to give the party some leeway so you don't keep changing like Chuka, of course - I've had times when I just tolerated Labour's policies or felt we'd run out of steam (2010) and times like now when I liked them. And of course there's a problem that if you leave a party then you weaken the challenge to whatever it is you don't like. If you don't see a credible alternative that you trust more, then waiting it out is reasonable - there are other things in life in the meantime.
Boris is offering jobs like dodgy tickets touts with fake tickets for the same handful seats.
It looks like various wannabe cabinet ministers are briefing the STimes that they have been promised X,Y,Z. Trying to bounce Boris and his kitchen cabinet.
Pathetic.
Which in itself is telling. They wouldn't dare do such a thing if they didn't know full well that he is in the weakest position of an incoming PM for many a year. Usually, attempting to manipulate the new big cheese is a one way express ticket to the back benches.
Except Boris will do the biggest reshuffle since Macmillan's night of the Long Knives, out goes Hammond, Stewart, Gauke, Stride, Fox, Smith, Bradley, Wright, Clark, Hinds, Liddington, Lewis, most likely Grayling too, in comes Cleverly, McVey, Patel, IDS, Raab, Jo Johnson, Fallon, Kwarteng, Rees-Mogg, Goldsmith, Williamson, Conor Burns, McVey, Jake Berry and John Whittingdale, Braverman and Mercer and maybe Davis
An increase of five?
What a bunch of tossers the dregs of the conservative party
Good Morning Campers .... Two interesting posts jumped out of PB world overnight :
Firstly the B&R by-election poll showing the yellow peril poised for another round of sandal throwing and mutual beard tugging and hugging in the wee small hours of August 2nd.
Although one should add the rider that @HYUFD advises us that a 15 point deficit is a triumph for the Tories with the distinct likelihood of new PM Boris high wiring to the rescue and gobbling up all the BREXIT voters for a Tory HOLD ..... Titter ....
Secondly the @rcs1000 referenced morning consult monthly data set on the state by state Trump approval rating. My initial take from these results are twofold :
1. The demographic trends away from the GOP continues apace - Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas and Georgia.
2. The rust belt states trending badly for Trump - Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Iowa also -12 and New Hampshire that Trump only very narrowly lost in 2016 is -22.
But I cannot help wondering if one of those constituents has edited Pennycook's Wikipedia page: Since the Grenfell fire disaster, he has worked as an unpaid spokesman for Galliard, a property manager in his constituency with unsafe cladding on 11 tower blocks.
Christ. Look at the photo. The candidate is the only person in the room under 70.
We are living through the final days of the Conservative Party.
No,
Look!! There are some 60 year olds
People will still get older decades from now and we will still rse)
The clue is in the name. When people build up assets they like to conserve them, hence the support for the conservative party.
Were people in their 20s/30s/40s in any number still to build up assets they would switch to a party with conservative aims. They dont any more thanks mainly to QE and govt props on housing.
Further, the conservative party has stopped being conservative, it is a party of revolution, destruction and division. There is no reason to assume voters will switch to that as they get older.
Yep - the Tories are no longer the Conservatives. They have decided to pitch their tent on a space that is inward-looking, culturally and socially illiberal, protectionist and English nationalist; while the medium to long term trends are taking public opinion the other way. Jeremy Corbyn will not be Labour leader forever.
HY steering the discussion toward the known phenomenon of people tending less radical as they grow older misses the four key points here.
Firstly, the age groups from which the Tories draw members and voters is rising, and rising a lot faster than life expectancy. The working age Tory member is becoming a rarity, when once they were run by the middle aged.
Secondly, the age at which people acquire the trappings that tend to make them conservative, such as their own home, stability of employment and some pension security, is also rising. And assets that were once widely distributed among the middle aged, like houses and good pensions, are now more concentrated onto smaller groups, such as the new landlord class.
Thirdly, despite the changes of time, the most formative period for political opinions remains the late teenage, and cohorts of people with very negative experiences of the Tories are now rising through the demography.
Finally, as a point in time the referendum and the doubling down of the debate subsequently has frozen most people’s opinions on the EU, with the slow shift in opinion not much more than the slow turnover of the young and old. Someone who voted Remain aged 38 still sees themself as a Remainer at age 41; the Brexit fiasco has arrested the tendency for anti-Europeanism to increase with age (which also related to overlooked generational differences in viewpoint, anyway).
Christ. Look at the photo. The candidate is the only person in the room under 70.
We are living through the final days of the Conservative Party.
No, there are plenty of 50 and 60 year olds there and 1 or 2 at the back look about 30 to 40.
This is also Totnes, ie retirement central
Look!! There are some 60 year olds. The Party has another 15 years at least.
As I said earlier the Tories have not won under 30s since 1983, however they have still won 5 elections since as voters get more conservative as they get older, indeed Labour have not won over 65s since 1997.
People will still get older decades from now and we will still have pensioners and they will still vote Tory (assuming the Tories deliver Brexit of course)
Inevitably they'll start resigning as soon as Boris's vague patriotic optimism makes contact with reality so it might be best to assign three or four guys to each department to make sure there's someone left to run it.
Sorry Alistair but you are far too generous to Mrs May.
She was the female Gordon Brown.
In hindsight she was even worse than Brown. She lacked his intellectual gravitas.
She didn’t run up £150Bn of deficit in one year though.
She was not leading the world in dealing with the global financial crisis.
Neither was Brown. He ensured we were in the worst of positions to deal with the crisis when it came.
Gordon Brown saved the world, or at least led the international response. He really did.
Strange, but true. It may have been the only good thing about his Premiership, but it was a biggy.
I've always been struck by the mirror image with Blair, who was generally a good PM with one big catastrophe to his name, Iraq.
Its not true. Brown was spending far too much money and relying on the city dividend. When that failed we were stuffed.. He had no idea about guarding the nations finances. Like every Labour Govt it end in tears, but that one ended in rivers of tears for everyone,.
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Christ. Look at the photo. The candidate is the only person in the room under 70.
We are living through the final days of the Conservative Party.
No, there are plenty of 50 and 60 year olds there and 1 or 2 at the back look about 30 to 40.
This is also Totnes, ie retirement central
Look!! There are some 60 year olds. The Party has another 15 years at least.
As I said earlier the Tories have not won under 30s since 1983, however they have still won 5 elections since as voters get more conservative as they get older, indeed Labour have not won over 65s since 1997.
People will still get older decades from now and we will still have pensioners and they will still vote Tory (assuming the Tories deliver Brexit of course)
You’re counting 2010 and 2017 as “wins” there...
Which party had PM and Chancellor of the Exchequer after 2010 and 2017?
Sorry Alistair but you are far too generous to Mrs May.
She was the female Gordon Brown.
In hindsight she was even worse than Brown. She lacked his intellectual gravitas.
She didn’t run up £150Bn of deficit in one year though.
She was not leading the world in dealing with the global financial crisis.
Neither was Brown. He ensured we were in the worst of positions to deal with the crisis when it came.
Gordon Brown saved the world, or at least led the international response. He really did.
Strange, but true. It may have been the only good thing about his Premiership, but it was a biggy.
I've always been struck by the mirror image with Blair, who was generally a good PM with one big catastrophe to his name, Iraq.
Its not true. Brown was spending far too much money and relying on the city dividend. When that failed we were stuffed.. He had no idea about guarding the nations finances. Like every Labour Govt it end in tears, but that one ended in rivers of tears for everyone,.
The two analyses are not mutually contradictory. That Brown’s Chancellorship contributed to a lesser or greater extent to the mess that was created, does not preclude the claim that he played a major role in the country surviving it.
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
Obvious possibility is renegotiate a completely different deal, ready for approval by Oct 31 even if not leaving on that date.
The other good option for him is battle with parliament over no deal, hoping and expecting to lose, so he can say he did everything but the nasty liberal diehard metropolitan avocado eating London elite were to blame (not forgetting Boris shares all those characteristics bar possibly avocados and certainly diehard, he will switch to anything good for Boris).
Sorry Alistair but you are far too generous to Mrs May.
She was the female Gordon Brown.
In hindsight she was even worse than Brown. She lacked his intellectual gravitas.
She didn’t run up £150Bn of deficit in one year though.
She was not leading the world in dealing with the global financial crisis.
Neither was Brown. He ensured we were in the worst of positions to deal with the crisis when it came.
Gordon Brown saved the world, or at least led the international response. He really did.
Strange, but true. It may have been the only good thing about his Premiership, but it was a biggy.
I've always been struck by the mirror image with Blair, who was generally a good PM with one big catastrophe to his name, Iraq.
Its not true. Brown was spending far too much money and relying on the city dividend. When that failed we were stuffed.. He had no idea about guarding the nations finances. Like every Labour Govt it end in tears, but that one ended in rivers of tears for everyone,.
First, you are talking about the years before the crisis which are irrelevant to Brown having led the international response to the crisis.
Second, what you claim is wrong anyway. By international or by historical comparison, pre-crisis spending was not excessive or even remarkable. This is no doubt why the Conservative Opposition felt able to commit to matching Labour's spending plans. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6975536.stm
Good Morning Campers .... Two interesting posts jumped out of PB world overnight :
Firstly the B&R by-election poll showing the yellow peril poised for another round of sandal throwing and mutual beard tugging and hugging in the wee small hours of August 2nd.
Although one should add the rider that @HYUFD advises us that a 15 point deficit is a triumph for the Tories with the distinct likelihood of new PM Boris high wiring to the rescue and gobbling up all the BREXIT voters for a Tory HOLD ..... Titter ....
Secondly the @rcs1000 referenced morning consult monthly data set on the state by state Trump approval rating. My initial take from these results are twofold :
1. The demographic trends away from the GOP continues apace - Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas and Georgia.
2. The rust belt states trending badly for Trump - Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Iowa also -12 and New Hampshire that Trump only very narrowly lost in 2016 is -22.
They all loved the Trump tax cuts but by now they've realised it's all gone to squillionaires, not them.
Likely so. Another hit that Trump is suffering from is heathcare.
Mostly the morning consult numbers are broadly where you'd expect them to be, albeit with a couple of outliers. I noted New Hampshire at -22 but probably double what I'd expect and also Virginia at -4 - probably more like -10/12.
I don't blame May for Brexit turning out to be the mess I confidently expected it to be. Who, realistically, of the present lot would have done a better job?
Engrave Hostile Environment on May's heart, I think. When she could have done the right thing she chose to do the wrong thing.
I would say a more accurate description is not people become more Conservative, rather they become more small c conservative when they get older.
I think that's generally true. In fact it's a subset of a more general phenomenon - most people now would say their vote is up for grabs, though they retain a certain attachment to past votes and they'll give the party consideration. Fanatical loyalty to a party doesn't make sense if the party keeps changing.
Conversely, of course, having been in a party for a while doesn't mean it's your personal property. If it decides to change with membership support, that's not an outrage, it's just a thing, and you can decide whether you like it, tolerate it or move on, but it's not reasonable to claim that the membership is therefore evil. They just don't agree with you any more.
That said, it's reasonable to give the party some leeway so you don't keep changing like Chuka, of course - I've had times when I just tolerated Labour's policies or felt we'd run out of steam (2010) and times like now when I liked them. And of course there's a problem that if you leave a party then you weaken the challenge to whatever it is you don't like. If you don't see a credible alternative that you trust more, then waiting it out is reasonable - there are other things in life in the meantime.
Which itself is a consequence of the class struggle that drove British politics and led to voting allegiance being seen as part of one’s position in the world often inherited from father and grandfather has withered away with the rise of the consumer society, and subsequently the fast moving choices of the Internet age.
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
Good post, Mr D. Wins his long-wanted prize then finds his victory is hollow.
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
Good post, Mr D. Wins his long-wanted prize then finds his victory is hollow.
Like Brown, he has along lusted for the job, but not for any reason other than ambition.
Sorry Alistair but you are far too generous to Mrs May.
She was the female Gordon Brown.
In hindsight she was even worse than Brown. She lacked his intellectual gravitas.
She didn’t run up £150Bn of deficit in one year though.
She was not leading the world in dealing with the global financial crisis.
Neither was Brown. He ensured we were in the worst of positions to deal with the crisis when it came.
Gordon Brown saved the world, or at least led the international response. He really did.
Strange, but true. It may have been the only good thing about his Premiership, but it was a biggy.
I've always been struck by the mirror image with Blair, who was generally a good PM with one big catastrophe to his name, Iraq.
Its not true. Brown was spending far too much money and relying on the city dividend. When that failed we were stuffed.. He had no idea about guarding the nations finances. Like every Labour Govt it end in tears, but that one ended in rivers of tears for everyone,.
First, you are talking about the years before the crisis which are irrelevant to Brown having led the international response to the crisis.
Second, what you claim is wrong anyway. By international or by historical comparison, pre-crisis spending was not excessive or even remarkable. This is no doubt why the Conservative Opposition felt able to commit to matching Labour's spending plans. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6975536.stm
It is remarkable how similar Tory and Labour spending plans actually are come election times given the language, rhetoric and indeed sincere belief amongst party members that one party is small state and the other big state. Normally they are arguing whether state spending as share of GDP should be 1% higher or not, sometimes they are perfectly aligned.
Sorry Alistair but you are far too generous to Mrs May.
She was the female Gordon Brown.
In hindsight she was even worse than Brown. She lacked his intellectual gravitas.
She didn’t run up £150Bn of deficit in one year though.
She was not leading the world in dealing with the global financial crisis.
Neither was Brown. He ensured we were in the worst of positions to deal with the crisis when it came.
Gordon Brown saved the world, or at least led the international response. He really did.
Strange, but true. It may have been the only good thing about his Premiership, but it was a biggy.
I've always been struck by the mirror image with Blair, who was generally a good PM with one big catastrophe to his name, Iraq.
Its not true. Brown was spending far too much money and relying on the city dividend. When that failed we were stuffed.. He had no idea about guarding the nations finances. Like every Labour Govt it end in tears, but that one ended in rivers of tears for everyone,.
First, you are talking about the years before the crisis which are irrelevant to Brown having led the international response to the crisis.
Second, what you claim is wrong anyway. By international or by historical comparison, pre-crisis spending was not excessive or even remarkable. This is no doubt why the Conservative Opposition felt able to commit to matching Labour's spending plans. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6975536.stm
Gordon, give it a rest. You convince nobody, no matter how many times you trot it out...
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
Good post, Mr D. Wins his long-wanted prize then finds his victory is hollow.
Well, yes it is and Morris puts it in his own characteristically straightforward style. Boris is in a fix, and it is exactly the same fix May was in and which cannot be got round.
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
Boris can drop Theresa May's red lines on FoM. This might tempt the EU to at least agree to change the cover photo on the WA. More importantly, he can massively extend the transition period, with the cover story that 10 years (say) will mean a technical solution can be developed for the Irish border, so the hated backstop will never be introduced.
This has attractions for the EU, Ireland, the DUP, Brexiteers and the ERG, and also Remainers, since it is soft Brexit or even BINO for the duration.
So we can leave on October 31st; everyone except Nigel Farage is happy; Boris is the best Prime Minister since the war and his statue is erected on the fourth plinth.
Morning Consult is tracking Trump approval/disapproval on a state-by-state basis.
There are some surprisingly strong results in there for Trump, like Virginia and Delaware from the Blue column looking like possible pickups and, with Arizona and Nevada looking like 50/50 shots.
More worrying for him is the "rust belt" and Iowa. Wisconsin, which he edged in 2016, is showing -16. Michigan, another close win, is -15. Iowa, which he won comfortably is -12.
This could be a key resource looking at next year's election.
Trump +24% net approval in Alabama, +18% in Mississippi and +19% in West Virginia but -29% in California and -24% in New York and -26% in Massachusetts, the US divide in one
The old racist States supporting an old racist President. A real shame that one man can bring such opprobrium to a country of that size. This place is full of Americans at the moment but I can't see one with a peaked cap round the wrong way without picturing a chanting racist.
@MikeSmithson has been referencing a possible "Torquoise Alliance" - Yellow Peril and Green Party electoral pact in upcoming elections and "Sophie Ridge On Sunday" on Sky News at 9:00am will assess the prospects for a general election.
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
Boris can drop Theresa May's red lines on FoM. This might tempt the EU to at least agree to change the cover photo on the WA. More importantly, he can massively extend the transition period, with the cover story that 10 years (say) will mean a technical solution can be developed for the Irish border, so the hated backstop will never be introduced.
This has attractions for the EU, Ireland, the DUP, Brexiteers and the ERG, and also Remainers, since it is soft Brexit or even BINO for the duration.
So we can leave on October 31st; everyone except Nigel Farage is happy; Boris is the best Prime Minister since the war and his statue is erected on the fourth plinth.
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
Good summary. The alternatives so unappealing I can see another extension coming along, on the grounds that Boris just knows he can get a great deal, but with no EU Commission In place they can’t do it on their own deadline, which was always a EU date, not our choice or idea etc etc
Sorry Alistair but you are far too generous to Mrs May.
She was the female Gordon Brown.
In hindsight she was even worse than Brown. She lacked his intellectual gravitas.
She didn’t run up £150Bn of deficit in one year though.
She was not leading the world in dealing with the global financial crisis.
Neither was Brown. He ensured we were in the worst of positions to deal with the crisis when it came.
Gordon Brown saved the world, or at least led the international response. He really did.
Strange, but true. It may have been the only good thing about his Premiership, but it was a biggy.
I've always been struck by the mirror image with Blair, who was generally a good PM with one big catastrophe to his name, Iraq.
Its not true. Brown was spending far too much money and relying on the city dividend. When that failed we were stuffed.. He had no idea about guarding the nations finances. Like every Labour Govt it end in tears, but that one ended in rivers of tears for everyone,.
First, you are talking about the years before the crisis which are irrelevant to Brown having led the international response to the crisis.
Second, what you claim is wrong anyway. By international or by historical comparison, pre-crisis spending was not excessive or even remarkable. This is no doubt why the Conservative Opposition felt able to commit to matching Labour's spending plans. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6975536.stm
Gordon, give it a rest. You convince nobody, no matter how many times you trot it out...
Too many pb Tories are still trotting out CCHQ's 2010 election attack lines. Even George Osborne has now conceded Brown did the right things.
Good Morning Campers .... Two interesting posts jumped out of PB world overnight :
Firstly the B&R by-election poll showing the yellow peril poised for another round of sandal throwing and mutual beard tugging and hugging in the wee small hours of August 2nd.
Although one should add the rider that @HYUFD advises us that a 15 point deficit is a triumph for the Tories with the distinct likelihood of new PM Boris high wiring to the rescue and gobbling up all the BREXIT voters for a Tory HOLD ..... Titter ....
Secondly the @rcs1000 referenced morning consult monthly data set on the state by state Trump approval rating. My initial take from these results are twofold :
1. The demographic trends away from the GOP continues apace - Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas and Georgia.
2. The rust belt states trending badly for Trump - Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Iowa also -12 and New Hampshire that Trump only very narrowly lost in 2016 is -22.
The two analyses are not mutually contradictory. That Brown’s Chancellorship contributed to a lesser or greater extent to the mess that was created, does not preclude the claim that he played a major role in the country surviving it.
Yup. He was the best Prime Minister of my lifetime, and also the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Sorry Alistair but you are far too generous to Mrs May.
She was the female Gordon Brown.
In hindsight she was even worse than Brown. She lacked his intellectual gravitas.
She didn’t run up £150Bn of deficit in one year though.
She was not leading the world in dealing with the global financial crisis.
Neither was Brown. He ensured we were in the worst of positions to deal with the crisis when it came.
Gordon Brown saved the world, or at least led the international response. He really did.
Strange, but true. It may have been the only good thing about his Premiership, but it was a biggy.
I've always been struck by the mirror image with Blair, who was generally a good PM with one big catastrophe to his name, Iraq.
Its not true. Brown was spending far too much money and relying on the city dividend. When that failed we were stuffed.. He had no idea about guarding the nations finances. Like every Labour Govt it end in tears, but that one ended in rivers of tears for everyone,.
The two analyses are not mutually contradictory. That Brown’s Chancellorship contributed to a lesser or greater extent to the mess that was created, does not preclude the claim that he played a major role in the country surviving it.
That's right. From being a prudent Chancellor he became a 'political' PM, increasing spending for political purposes when fiscal prudence was necessary. But the scale of the overspending was minute relative to the Tsunami of bad debt that was exposed when the crisis unfolded.
It is absurd to blame him for making more than a minor contribution to that crisis. It is indisputable that he was a major player in resolving it.
Boris is offering jobs like dodgy tickets touts with fake tickets for the same handful seats.
It looks like various wannabe cabinet ministers are briefing the STimes that they have been promised X,Y,Z. Trying to bounce Boris and his kitchen cabinet.
Pathetic.
Which in itself is telling. They wouldn't dare do such a thing if they didn't know full well that he is in the weakest position of an incoming PM for many a year. Usually, attempting to manipulate the new big cheese is a one way express ticket to the back benches.
Except Boris will do the biggest reshuffle since Macmillan's night of the Long Knives, out goes Hammond, Stewart, Gauke, Stride, Fox, Smith, Bradley, Wright, Clark, Hinds, Liddington, Lewis, most likely Grayling too, in comes Cleverly, McVey, Patel, IDS, Raab, Jo Johnson, Fallon, Kwarteng, Rees-Mogg, Goldsmith, Williamson, Conor Burns, McVey, Jake Berry and John Whittingdale, Braverman and Mercer and maybe Davis
An increase of five?
What a bunch of tossers the dregs of the conservative party
That's yet another problem for the Tories: "is there no beginning to their talents?"
Theresa May was sincere - for which she got quite a lot of respect in the country at large- but equally she was no fun and lacked critical people and strategic skills.
In the HYFUD world of deluded Torydom, Boris will replace the few remaining grown ups with these shop soiled white hopes which he believes will rescue the party from obliteration in one Brexit appeasing bound.
Um, not quite.
In the country at large, Boris is already wilting under a chorus of derision. JRM and Gove are widely loathed, IDS and DD seen as stupid and useless, Raab and Williamson nasty and lightweight, Fallon a crusty old sex pest, McVey a screechy media bitch and so on... These are genuinely already some of the most disliked people in the UK today.
Still at least Boris can spread the blame when his government utterly implodes in about three months.
Mr. Punter, the problem is it isn't just a 'Boris' fix.
It affects us all. And MPs have a critical role to play, a responsibility they've abdicated by opposing everything. Their words are against no deal but their actions actively make no deal more probable.
Boris is a coward. But as PM he cannot hide from making a decision. So what does a craven fool do when he has to make a choice?
I do wonder if a referendum is more likely than many suspect. It hands the responsibility over to others (the electorate). Boris can return to campaigning rather than governing, spouting speeches rather than making decisions. If he wins, he'll crow about it. If he loses, he'll feign (poorly) being a statesman and accepting the democratic decision of the electorate.
It's also something that's probably in his power to grant. MPs who want to leave but oppose no deal and pro-Remain MPs could both support a second referendum.
The alternatives are winning another crack at the deal (unlikely, I think), straight revocation (even more unlikely), or leaving with no deal (entirely within Boris' power to achieve, but if he's wetting the bed at the thought of it, this seems unlikely). Another election would see him lose ground to BP for having softened his departure stance, whilst those whose votes are dictated by being pro-EU can flock to the Lib Dems, weakening the Conservatives (Labour might also go backwards).
Is there another option I've failed to consider? If that's a comprehensive list, then a second referendum might be the favourite.
Let's imagine Boris is scared off a no deal, and ends up winning the contest to be PM (both eminently possible).
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
Good post, Mr D. Wins his long-wanted prize then finds his victory is hollow.
Like Brown, he has along lusted for the job, but not for any reason other than ambition.
As discussed above, that, generally speaking, didn't turn out well Either for himself or his party. Although Mr B himself seems now to be in a better place than for many years!
Comments
The Tory leadership contender, who is expected to enter Downing Street on Wednesday, has been studying proposals to begin building the railway line in the North, rather than London, as part of a set of policy changes designed to demonstrate a focus on "left behind" regions and towns." (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/07/20/southern-half-high-speed-2-track-sidelined-boris-johnson-cost/
Boris will be the biggest presence we have had on the world stage as PM since Thatcher and Blair
Morning Consult is tracking Trump approval/disapproval on a state-by-state basis.
There are some surprisingly strong results in there for Trump, like Virginia and Delaware from the Blue column looking like possible pickups and, with Arizona and Nevada looking like 50/50 shots.
More worrying for him is the "rust belt" and Iowa. Wisconsin, which he edged in 2016, is showing -16. Michigan, another close win, is -15. Iowa, which he won comfortably is -12.
This could be a key resource looking at next year's election.
but -29% in California and -24% in New York and -26% in Massachusetts, the US divide in one
The truth is we can never really know if someone will do well in the job. A LOTO may win with no ministerial experience to speak of, but do great. Someone may have years in senior cabinet positions and do terribly. Partly the circumstances, including parliamentary mathematics dictating tactics, will be key, but someone's past experience while relevant as what else do we have to go on, is not going to be determinative.
Frankly, that works in Boris's favour. Having been the mayor 7 years ago and briefly Foreign secretary is not oodles of greatness to fall back on, but he can argue that he is the man we need for the present moment and he is better suited for PM than other positions. Judging how well he will do as PM purely on his past record doesn't make him look as bad as some prospective PMs, but it is not exactly setting the world on fire either.
Have a pleasant night.
Why is it that those so angry at other sides are always the most virulent in insisting they hate division?
1. There was no FTA that rendered it unnecessary
&
2. A technical solution was not found
You need no FTA and no technical solution.
https://twitter.com/DerbyChrisW/status/1152668197063208961/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed&ref_url=http://politicalbetting.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/7795/politicalbetting-com-blog-archive-diss-may-the-manifest-inadequacy-of-the-outgoing-prime-minist/p1
"Journalist, 19, behind Trump scoop comes forward to reveal his motivation, and his fears he’s being targeted by security services"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7268519/STEVEN-EDGINTON-19-journalist-exposed-memos-UKs-man-Washington.html
The contrast with Jezza is telling.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/labour-mp-gloria-de-piero-18450519
It didn't require any road closures or make that much impact.
Have they all just given up?
On the Vanilla site, you can only read the title and first few sentences of an article (link for the full thing, of course). The opening paragraph by itself does rather sum things up.
May was not up to the job. I don't expect Boris will be either. He may do better than May if he's able to delegate the actual thinking/work to other people, but if it's down to his own abilities he'll fail worse. He lacks diligence which, for all her other weaknesses, was not something doubted of May. She may have lacked charisma, intelligence, and the ability to think more than six seconds into the future ('no deal is better than a bad deal') but nobody ever accused her of not working hard.
And would you really, hand on heart, say that someone with a good brain would say that Conservative Government has been successful in the last few years? Too much of the Conservative appeal (just like Labour in 2010) is "vote for us because we're not the other lot". But eventually all parties need time in Opposition to sort out what the'yre actually for. What, apart from an ill-defined Brexit and some nice environmental policies, is the current Government for?
https://twitter.com/peterjukes/status/1152705909296181248?s=21
“A ‘shocking’ letter written by the ‘impartial’ US ambassador.... expressing what has been said by many in Washington and the U.K...”
As somebody pointed out, this ‘“story” reads like it’s been edited by about 6 different people.
Were people in their 20s/30s/40s in any number still to build up assets they would switch to a party with conservative aims. They dont any more thanks mainly to QE and govt props on housing.
Further, the conservative party has stopped being conservative, it is a party of revolution, destruction and division. There is no reason to assume voters will switch to that as they get older.
Firstly the B&R by-election poll showing the yellow peril poised for another round of sandal throwing and mutual beard tugging and hugging in the wee small hours of August 2nd.
Although one should add the rider that @HYUFD advises us that a 15 point deficit is a triumph for the Tories with the distinct likelihood of new PM Boris high wiring to the rescue and gobbling up all the BREXIT voters for a Tory HOLD ..... Titter ....
Secondly the @rcs1000 referenced morning consult monthly data set on the state by state Trump approval rating. My initial take from these results are twofold :
1. The demographic trends away from the GOP continues apace - Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Texas and Georgia.
2. The rust belt states trending badly for Trump - Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Iowa also -12 and New Hampshire that Trump only very narrowly lost in 2016 is -22.
https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump/
Since when was being fun to watch a relevant criterion?
Saga is now a political party?
I bet the Tories make even BXP activists seem young.
Conversely, of course, having been in a party for a while doesn't mean it's your personal property. If it decides to change with membership support, that's not an outrage, it's just a thing, and you can decide whether you like it, tolerate it or move on, but it's not reasonable to claim that the membership is therefore evil. They just don't agree with you any more.
That said, it's reasonable to give the party some leeway so you don't keep changing like Chuka, of course - I've had times when I just tolerated Labour's policies or felt we'd run out of steam (2010) and times like now when I liked them. And of course there's a problem that if you leave a party then you weaken the challenge to whatever it is you don't like. If you don't see a credible alternative that you trust more, then waiting it out is reasonable - there are other things in life in the meantime.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/20/residents-grenfell-cladding-tower-block-threatened-developer/
But I cannot help wondering if one of those constituents has edited Pennycook's Wikipedia page: Since the Grenfell fire disaster, he has worked as an unpaid spokesman for Galliard, a property manager in his constituency with unsafe cladding on 11 tower blocks.
Firstly, the age groups from which the Tories draw members and voters is rising, and rising a lot faster than life expectancy. The working age Tory member is becoming a rarity, when once they were run by the middle aged.
Secondly, the age at which people acquire the trappings that tend to make them conservative, such as their own home, stability of employment and some pension security, is also rising. And assets that were once widely distributed among the middle aged, like houses and good pensions, are now more concentrated onto smaller groups, such as the new landlord class.
Thirdly, despite the changes of time, the most formative period for political opinions remains the late teenage, and cohorts of people with very negative experiences of the Tories are now rising through the demography.
Finally, as a point in time the referendum and the doubling down of the debate subsequently has frozen most people’s opinions on the EU, with the slow shift in opinion not much more than the slow turnover of the young and old. Someone who voted Remain aged 38 still sees themself as a Remainer at age 41; the Brexit fiasco has arrested the tendency for anti-Europeanism to increase with age (which also related to overlooked generational differences in viewpoint, anyway).
I've always been struck by the mirror image with Blair, who was generally a good PM with one big catastrophe to his name, Iraq.
What's he do?
Could try and get the deal with cosmetic differences through (it's not Theresa May's Terrible Deal, it's Boris Johnson's Lisbon Deal. Totally different. Look, they even changed the font).
Does that get Remainers/Labour to back it?
Probably not.
So then what? Leave with no deal? Referendum 2, choice being between the Deal and Remain? Potentially. But a gutsy move for a man who chose to hide under a table in Afghanistan rather than resign over a runway (though he'd have more to lose/gain in this scenario than the past).
General Election? What for? Unless he can win significantly, and a pre-departure GE having attempted to get the deal through again, would lose Boris his apparent advantage of being tough on leaving, with BP gobbling up votes aplenty. I imagine the Lib Dems would do very well but it wouldn't help the Conservatives.
Straight revocation? Can't see it.
The other good option for him is battle with parliament over no deal, hoping and expecting to lose, so he can say he did everything but the nasty liberal diehard metropolitan avocado eating London elite were to blame (not forgetting Boris shares all those characteristics bar possibly avocados and certainly diehard, he will switch to anything good for Boris).
Second, what you claim is wrong anyway. By international or by historical comparison, pre-crisis spending was not excessive or even remarkable. This is no doubt why the Conservative Opposition felt able to commit to matching Labour's spending plans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6975536.stm
Mostly the morning consult numbers are broadly where you'd expect them to be, albeit with a couple of outliers. I noted New Hampshire at -22 but probably double what I'd expect and also Virginia at -4 - probably more like -10/12.
Engrave Hostile Environment on May's heart, I think. When she could have done the right thing she chose to do the wrong thing.
He's got a long, long way for someone starting out apparently so unsupported. Either he's very bright, and lucky or........
This has attractions for the EU, Ireland, the DUP, Brexiteers and the ERG, and also Remainers, since it is soft Brexit or even BINO for the duration.
So we can leave on October 31st; everyone except Nigel Farage is happy; Boris is the best Prime Minister since the war and his statue is erected on the fourth plinth.
It is absurd to blame him for making more than a minor contribution to that crisis. It is indisputable that he was a major player in resolving it.
Theresa May was sincere - for which she got quite a lot of respect in the country at large- but equally she was no fun and lacked critical people and strategic skills.
In the HYFUD world of deluded Torydom, Boris will replace the few remaining grown ups with these shop soiled white hopes which he believes will rescue the party from obliteration in one Brexit appeasing bound.
Um, not quite.
In the country at large, Boris is already wilting under a chorus of derision. JRM and Gove are widely loathed, IDS and DD seen as stupid and useless, Raab and Williamson nasty and lightweight, Fallon a crusty old sex pest, McVey a screechy media bitch and so on... These are genuinely already some of the most disliked people in the UK today.
Still at least Boris can spread the blame when his government utterly implodes in about three months.
It affects us all. And MPs have a critical role to play, a responsibility they've abdicated by opposing everything. Their words are against no deal but their actions actively make no deal more probable.
Boris is a coward. But as PM he cannot hide from making a decision. So what does a craven fool do when he has to make a choice?
I do wonder if a referendum is more likely than many suspect. It hands the responsibility over to others (the electorate). Boris can return to campaigning rather than governing, spouting speeches rather than making decisions. If he wins, he'll crow about it. If he loses, he'll feign (poorly) being a statesman and accepting the democratic decision of the electorate.
It's also something that's probably in his power to grant. MPs who want to leave but oppose no deal and pro-Remain MPs could both support a second referendum.
The alternatives are winning another crack at the deal (unlikely, I think), straight revocation (even more unlikely), or leaving with no deal (entirely within Boris' power to achieve, but if he's wetting the bed at the thought of it, this seems unlikely). Another election would see him lose ground to BP for having softened his departure stance, whilst those whose votes are dictated by being pro-EU can flock to the Lib Dems, weakening the Conservatives (Labour might also go backwards).
Is there another option I've failed to consider? If that's a comprehensive list, then a second referendum might be the favourite.