We should not have been surprised. Johnson has never had much desire to be held accountable. Not as London Mayor. Nor as Foreign Secretary. Even when he misspoke (to put it at its most charitable) over Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, his response was petulant and grudging. He went out of his way to avoid scrutiny at the start of his campaign to become Tory leader. This is not a politician who enjoys debate and argument, willing to test his ideas, face challenge. This is not someone who understands in his bones that an idea, a policy, an argument, is strengthened by being rigorously tested. This is not someone who understands that successful leadership can only be done through consent (at least in a free country), that persuasion is better than command, at least if you want your achievements to last.
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They are only interested in being seen to win.
LD average of thelast 5 polls before Swinson became leader = 18%
LD average of the last 5 polls up to today = 17.2%
During the same period Labour's average has risen from 25.2% all the way up to, er... 23.8% Ooops!
Full of braggadocio, but running a mile from any situation where he can be held to account.
Where’s your backstop alternative Boris?
Where’s the backstop negotiation?
https://twitter.com/PolhomeEditor/status/1167089010784837633
https://twitter.com/number10staffer/status/1167095940236423169
F1: reckoned to be sunny and relatively hot on race day (warm rather than hot for qualifying).
With tiny stakes I've backed (Ladbrokes, with boost) Verstappen for a podium at 2.8, Verstappen win qualifying at 9 (each way, fifth the odds top three, for a lower stake), and Albon to be fastest in first practice (fifth the odds top three) at 14.
Just dinky sums. Ferrari should enjoy the straight sections but there's a bit of a risk of Mercedes overheating.
Admittedly, Christopher Wormald's English is bad (which was embarrassing/amusing when he was drawing up new 'rigorous' education qualifications and making grammatical errors in them) but not as bad as this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Douglas-Home
If correct, the chance of Mercedes overheating is zero. It might make Verstappen's opting for an excess of the softer tyres a good call, of course.
We could be entering a situation where the government cannot pass stuff, it’s getting shredded on daily basis, yet still can’t call an election. How can that be an improvement on where we were before? What exactly was broke they were trying to fix?
Who came up with it? Who voted for it? Who can we blame 😡
The text is: So the PM could be expelled from Parliament. But the wording here is quite vague. Also, as I see it, being suspended from Parliament does not mean that he would cease to be PM.
A possible albeit unlikely strategy would be for Johnson to ignore Parliament, get the UK out of the EU, await the VoNC, expecting there to be a GE afterwards, while he is still Leader of the Conservatives. After Brexit the chances of a GoNsomething reduce dramatically.
I'd take the May's Deal part but ffs 5 years of this clown? No way.
In any event, how would BoJo get a deal through his own party even with a HoC majority, given the ERG headbangers?
“I think it’s outrageous to consider proroguing Parliament. We are not Stuart kings.”
1. Kill No Deal
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2. Seek a 2nd Referendum
3. Seek a GE and win enough seats to hold the balance of power.
Priority 1. is way out in front.
We will see what happens in Shetland, but elsewhere, the local results have been very solid indeed.
https://www.politicalpartydb.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/UK_CONSERVATIVE_PARTY_CONSTITUTION_2009.pdf
Rule 10There shall be a Leader of the Party (referred to in this Constitution as “the Leader”) drawn from those elected to Parliament, who shall be elected by the Party Members and Scottish Party Members in accordance with the provisions of Schedule 2.
The government can request election, and they'd probably get it. They may not be able to play silly buggers with the timing, for example to deliberately prevent parliament from having its say on No Deal, but aside from the merits of No Deal and this particular case, blocking cynical executive shenanigans is obviously a good thing.
Alternatively maybe someone else can form a government that *won't* be shredded on a daily basis. I doubt it, but who knows. In which case, great.
Rees Mogg and Mark Spencer could be similarly charged with contempt.
It would change the calculations for a VONC...
https://twitter.com/HayleyMortimer/status/1167082804980658176
I never liked him.
But all we get is a remainiac rant.
It's not a tangled web at all.
The current parliamentary session has lasted 2 years (longest in hundreds of years.) With a new PM and Government there is a need for a Queen's speech so that all their fantastic policy ideas can be legislated for. The QS will be 14 Oct.
It is indefensible, and Cyclefree has well enumerated a large number of lies told in an attempt to justify it.
That you can't be bothered to engage with the substance says rather more about you.
Maybe we should have this kind of shitstorm every day to meet our climate change targets?
Or would the hot air exacerbate the greenhouse effect?
Johnson could call an election - he needs a 2/3rds majority but May got that quite easily in 2017, and he'd very likely do so today if he wanted to.
Equally, if the numbers were there, Corbyn could require a VONC and do it that way (but they probably aren't quite, and it may play into Johnson's hands by allowing him to ensure Parliament isn't sitting at all until past 31st October, so Corbyn isn't doing it).
So the mechanisms are there for an election, but they are not being used out of choice, not through the operation of the FTPA.
And I'd certainly defend the FTPA as preventing opportunistic dissolution. That's not today's situation but, as I say, it is political choice not the FTPA that means an election hasn't been called.
Simples.
As a group they have been a disgrace but particularly the hardcore remainer element.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/459285-trump-administration-proposes-weaker-methane-regulations
A newly proposed Trump administration rule would allow for weaker monitoring of methane, a major greenhouse gas contributing to global warming...
https://freethinkecon.wordpress.com/2019/08/29/burke-and-being-against-the-coercive-authority-of-such-instructions/
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1167101536427749378
Considering it has spent 3 years prevaricating and playing games then I find it hard to believe that these few days are suddenly crucial.
Especially given that they've just come back from a 6 week summer holiday that obviously took priority.
It is an unfortunate truth that, much like the remainers driven insane on here, our elected representatives seem to have taken leave of not only their senses but also any gauge of proportion and reality.
Do some homework. You only have to scroll up.
Which is why we are heading for no deal...and also why remainers will own it.
Or not - as the case may be
And this entire issue is because no-one wants to own / be blamed for the end result.
Circus and Physical Performance?
Sexual Health?
Parapsychology?
Right now, even some people who should naturally be on the Conservative/Leave side are dubious of Johnson's tactics.
If it becomes a choice between a slightly dodgy PM and Communists occupying infrastructure, that will change as rapidly as the Lib Dem view on tough policing in London 2011.
That man has some reach.
1) We leave with no deal and the world doesn’t end. In fact, after a few weeks no one can tell the difference; or
2) You win (more likely, actually) and through one instrument or another Brexit is stopped. And then the global recession comes, and the EU goes around doing unpopular things. The county hasn’t turned pro-EU, the Remain numbers include many who are just scared because they been frightened.
You won’t currently believe scenario one is possible, but you should reflect on why some of us draw that conclusion. We can’t all be stupid. You must see the risk of option two.
Leave supporting politicians have behaved badly and failed to grasp the chance of a sensible EFTA compromise; but so has your lot and so has the EU (they’ve gone so far on NU EFTA can’t work).
Everyone has failed here, and none of us know what happens next. Don’t assume waiving the EU flag and whistling Ode to Joy will see you loved by a suddenly pro-EU majority though.
You have yet to engage with any of its arguments, other than to throw a few random epithets - which one might construe as a rant.
Someone to totally destroy the Scottish Tories.