politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Is Johnson really going to stick it out as PM till the next ge

In his column in the Times this morning about the rise of Rishi Sunak Times writer Iain Martin makes the following astute observation about Boris’s career plans:
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As mentioned (by yours truly) previous thread, there are some interesting similarities between Boris Johnson & Jeremy Corbyn
> both stormy petrels, loved by some sections of their party & public but loathed by others.
> both emerged as leader of their party due mostly to failings & shortcomings of others.
> each did much better at their first general election as party leader than forecast just months before.
> each began falling in the polls soon after their initial electoral success (relative in Corbyn's case, absolute for Johnson).
JC's trajectory we know - strait down & out into the dustbin of history. BJ's path is still before him, but at this stage, certainly does NOT look like the Yellow Brick Road.
Johnson seems to show signs of dyspnea, one of the more prevalent continuing symptoms.
https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1281333800312745986
He'll want to. He shouldn't.
F1: heavy rain still a possibility for qualifying. Something to bear in mind.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/rishinomics-centralisation-government-local-communities-rishi-sunak-britain-whitehall
Although I'm by no means convinced that GB is 'safe'. Even though the number of cases locally doesn't seem high.
On the night the GOP candidate was ahead by 40 points, indeed that's what Wikipedia lists but all the votes have not been counted this is 2018 mid terms all over again.
Whilst the Dem candidate won't win it is far closer than has been made out. This is what November is going to be like.
https://twitter.com/kkondik/status/1281389586757963781?s=19
In my opinion, our current govt is incompetent. That is why we have so many dead, an economy going down the plughole and an international reputation that is in tatters.
He now knows he can’t, and isn’t. He is buggering it up.
What more is there to do?
What finally brought the US into the war was the incredibly ill-advised Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; I suspect that PM Johnson is expecting for the equivalent assistance.
What that can or will be I suspect that neither he nor I have the slightest idea. January 21's trade going smoothly perhaps?
https://twitter.com/Motorsport/status/1281164198714716160
Besides, the fan-boys will be getting up soon and will be here to assure us that disaster is success, failure is achievement and that all is peachy
One other point though. This special election took place because the NY-27 Rep had been sent to prison. I think one of the main reasons why people were saying CA-25 shouldn't be representative for the GOP is because the previous incumbent had resigned in a scandal and so that contributed to the Republican win. So, IF a previous Rep being tainted by a scandal impacts a special election result, it should apply in this case as well. What's sauce for the goose.....
Which is a problem for the red team. FPT: No I'd be fine with Layla. She wouldn't be as good or as successful as Ed but she'd be ok.
As with the Leigh piece in the Grauniad there is a real problem for Labour where so many of their activists cannot comprehend why towns voted Tory, and their only response is disdain and sneering abuse. I am clearly verboten having been a Labour member activist official and councillor for 25 years. Kill the defector - which would be ok except that you have people who voted Labour for ever going Tory, this government so far has more than delivered for them, and the Labour response is abuse.
I get the sense that moat of the stick that Johnson gets - fair as it is - goes over the head of many normals as just politics. What delivers for them is what motivates them, and providing Johnson and Sunak don't screw up when switching the money hose off im not sure it matters if Johnson stays on or not. These places are perfectly capable of staying blue, especially with BJO type activists knocking on doors
The interesting thing from this one though is just how many Dems must have been postal voting to swing the on the night figure to the current total.
Dems will be voting by mail come November and hoo boy do the USA states have a lot of voting by mail problems (New York had a massive rejection rate)
I just can't get overly excited about having to wait for up to 4 years to collect my winnings. Also, if he's going to leave No.10 before the next GE, I strongly suspect it will be sooner rather than later, in which event much more attractive odds are available.
Were I a betting man, *cough*, I'd be tempted to go for 2021 at 5/1. A full year is a long time in politics.
As ever, DYOR.
1-star reviews on TripAdvisor, that will show that ... err ... local independent businessman ...
right.
I am irrelevant. Ex Labour now Tory voters are relevant.
You wouldn't call 5/1 10/2 or 20/4
van man Brexiteers will buy it. Legacy preserved!
Farage will start a new party claiming a sell out, but no one will care, people will laugh at him, Brexit will be done, and so will we!
The job of the LA in these circs is to maintain services as necessarily modified, and to work to provide local support as needed - especially perhaps to care home, and to help out government as required (may be some genuine criticism there).
As somebody with Type I Diabetes, but no active comorbidities, so not quite on the 2.5m "list", my local authority (Ashfield DC) were the first to contact me of any public body and offer support. And they kept all the services i interface with running throughout, from bins to planning.
Jenkins needs to identify exactly what he means rather than make a random gibbering noise, or take a long walk off a short plank.
I appreciate that YMMV.
It has been highly successful iirc.
You’re a curious mix of the eminently reasonable and the absurd, Max. This morning the latter seems to have the upper hand.
The fear for Labour shouldn't be, will the blue wall Tories remain loyal to their new party, which over time they won't, but what happens next. Will they stay at home, or will they be so angry they find new political friends in the vein of Tommy Robinson? Labour aren't even second on the list at the moment. Starmer has his work cut out.
I would not be surprised to see Boris standing down during 2021 and I would be very content to see Rishi take his place. I read a report that the conservative party feel very grateful to Boris for his success in achieving an 80 seat majority and they are reluctant to take action to remove him, but if the party or Boris do become widely unpopular they will not hesitate to remove him.
On a minor point Boris was much stronger at last week's PMQ's and Starmer was made to look wooden and by general acclaim Boris won that exchange
Predictably the media are having a go at HMG over yesterday's job loses trying to make the case that too little has been done to save these jobs. At the same time they continue to object to the pace the lockdown is being lifted when that is the only way to save jobs
"I can make you PM. And you will hate it..."
The nawsayers need to understand the pandemic has changed so much that most things will be very different for a long time and most people appreciate that and will adapt to the new new
That the news is out of Kazakhstan, via China, throws a cloud of doubt over it.
https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1281475776613933057
I too left Labour in 2019 having had longer period of membership than you (35 years), but unlike you I didn't spend my time openly and visibly campaigning for another party against them at a local level before I rejoined immediately after the GE. Not only did you do that, but you also then had no qualms about immediately joining the LDs (again?) on being rejected by your local CLP. Had you waited a bit and then reapplied after a decent interval in a year or so I suspect you would have been accepted. So it's hard not to reach a conclusion that your local CLP were vindicated by your subsequent actions, and even the members who encouraged you to come back will surely be feeling the same.
It's worth bearing in mind that your case is also wholly exceptional. I'm not aware of any membership applications having been rejected here and there have been well over 100 joiners into the CLP since December. There have been over 100,000 new members joining nationally, and according to YouGov only 11% of those were intending to vote for Long-Bailey.
And some of these stories are not profitable - up to now John Lewis Birmingham was rent free (they only paid rates) and even that wasn't enough for them to make a profit.
My understanding if it is that is the black death is quite treatable now with modern medicine. But something definitely seems to be happening there.
Prof Francois Balloux, an epidemiologist and director of the UCL Genetics Institute in London tells them: “To me, the most likely scenario for the Covid-19 epidemic is that there will be a winter wave in the northern hemisphere..."
I hadn't picked up on what was happening in Israel on the virus.
"On Sunday Israel’s head of public health, Dr Siegal Sadetzki, said the country was experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 after more than 977 cases were registered.
On Tuesday she resigned and was scathing of the government's response, saying it had opened up too early, against her advice."
"Health official: Trump rally ‘likely’ source of virus surge"
https://apnews.com/ad96548245e186382225818d8dc416eb
Which is quite a different thing than the bacterium yersinia pestis.
Which is why the government had to force it to use outside testing.
#istheUSAreallyafunctioniingdemocracy?
Personally I think he'll stay for a good long while. He's always wanted to be PM, and you don't give up a life dream easily.
I would also ignore anyone arguing that this bye election is evidence that Biden will outperform his polling.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2020-07-08/debates/993D9320-BD23-448B-ACAE-A93F0F6EDF21/Engagements
We could absolutely be looking at idiot American News Networks "calling" multiple states for Trump only to see the postal votes flip them weeks later.
The wider point is that the line above which businesses are profitable has shifted dramatically, certainly temporarily, and possibly for a longer time.
I'd also say local council politicians get a bad rap. Some are useless time servers who you wonder why they even stand for election, but many are deeply impressive people doing great community work, and I find they work cross party a lot better than Westminster to boot.
There are horror stories out there, but local government work is truly under appreciated.
And you can add the big charities and pressure groups as well.
One can detect it wasn't Starmer's finest hour as two days later, and the Tories here are still dining out on it. Don't be fooled, the biggest take away was Johnson refusing to retract his earlier care homes comments.
One can detect it wasn't Starmer's finest hour as two days later, and the Tories here are still dining out on it. Don't be fooled, the biggest take away was Johnson refusing to retract his earlier care homes comments.
This virus is a bugger and the savings that might have come from the deaths of 50k old folk with expensive co-morbidities are very likely to prove illusionary going forward. For me there has been too much, if understandable, focus on the deaths and not enough on the sequelae of a severe illness that has probably affected between 300k and 3m people in the UK.
How long are these effects going to be, both in general and in Boris's case? Despite @Nigelb's valiant efforts I am really not sure.
I do not think that it will not go back to where it was. Which in turn, means that another tranch of the high street is no longer viable.
I would also say that this has accelerated a process already in train.