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Boris Johnson isn’t under threat – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited October 2021 in General
imageBoris Johnson isn’t under threat – politicalbetting.com

Under Boris Johnson the Tory poll lead seems untouchable. Untroubled by queues for petrol, supply chain issues, inflation increases, regular scandals, foreign policy mishaps, the list of things which sunk previous governments but barely scratches this one goes on and on. Many people conclude, quite reasonably, that Johnson is central to this appeal and under him the Tories are strong favourites to win another majority at the next election.

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Comments

  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    You say he is not under threat.

    Has any Prime Minister ever had such a bad reaction to a conference speech as we saw this week?

    Has any Prime Minister ever delivered such a thin speech that was so much of nothing?

    Has any Prime Minister ever had such great expectation injudiciously built up by themselves to deliver on?

    Has any Prime Minister ever had absolutely no money to play with to deliver on expectation?

    Has any Prime Minister since the 70s had as big a crunch to deal with as the one coming?

    He’s also, as a marmite politician, not going to add many new converts on, those who currently dislike him really do, his support can only go down in the coming years. A Classic House of Cards, there one minute gone the next?
  • ClippPClippP Posts: 1,667
    I am not so sure that Quincel is right on this.

    It appears that the Johnson administration is busy removing every process and weakening every institution that could place a check on its decisions, as Ms Cyclefree explained the other day.

    This leaves the Conservative Party at liberty to receive "donations" from all kinds of foreign regimes and tax dodgers. Britain and British interests are being sold off or even given away to these foreigners.

    So I am not so sure how the British people will react when they realise that their heritage has been sold off by Johnson's Conservatives.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    So following a possible logic from that: I wonder how Starmer will be discredited in the future? ;)
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    ClippP said:

    I am not so sure that Quincel is right on this.

    It appears that the Johnson administration is busy removing every process and weakening every institution that could place a check on its decisions, as Ms Cyclefree explained the other day.

    This leaves the Conservative Party at liberty to receive "donations" from all kinds of foreign regimes and tax dodgers. Britain and British interests are being sold off or even given away to these foreigners.

    So I am not so sure how the British people will react when they realise that their heritage has been sold off by Johnson's Conservatives.

    Surely there can be no heritage left to sell off? You spent all those years telling us Thatcher had, er, already sold off our heritage?
  • SPotY news (or is it?) -- Emma Raducanu lost overnight.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/58852217
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    Boris's polling stays high because he told people that under him, there would be no attempts to evade the will of the people, no ever more ludicrous attempts to go for a second referendum or delay delay delay until the voters magically said "OK - lets forget about Brexit".

    People didn't expect a perfect Brexit. The Europhiles had spent decades sewing us into the fabric of the EEC --> EU such that it was MEANT to be impossible for us to leave. But the voters gave the Government a single, simple instruction: get us out the EU regardless. Starmer said, er, no. Boris said righto - and did.

    One of the candidates for PM next time has listened to the people and done as instructed. The other did everything he could, for years, to thwart them.

    Look no further for the reason Boris will win next time out.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    The GOP and it’s voters support Trump despite an insurrection. Boris has a similar relationship with Tories, However demonstrably rubbish and dangerous he is they love him all the more. Tories will turn their party inside out in his image, Fuck business is now the order of the day. The worse he is, the more they love him.

    A weird phenomenon that can’t end well.
  • Boris is unlikely to be slung out but I think if it looks possible, he will retire first in order to preserve his record, alluded to in the header, as a consistent winner.

    The unfavourable reaction to his conference speech suggests press and party are waking up to what some have been saying for years. Boris is not a typical Conservative in the mould of Major, Cameron and May, let alone Mrs Thatcher (whether he harks back to a pre-Thatcher era is moot). Worse, Boris won the 2019 election by hijacking the popular parts of Labour's 2017 near-miss. Until now, Boris's enthusiasm for the active state and public investment has been masked by Brexit and Covid. At conference, however, the party started to realise that rather than a plan, Boris has a distinctly un-Conservative wishlist and no discernible route to achieving it.

    So we have a party in thrall to Boris and his electoral appeal but not his politics. When the polls change, if the polls ever do change, that is, then Boris might well hand in his papers and retire to the reopened American lecture circuit.

    And going back to yesterday's thread, this might also increase the chances of Boris calling an early election.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...
    I didn't know "soft on" was a euphemism for "all in flavor of" before. Thanks @MarqueeMark !
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    edited October 2021

    SPotY news (or is it?) -- Emma Raducanu lost overnight.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/58852217

    It will make no difference whatsoever to SPoTY. That said, it is a reminder of how volatile the women’s game is. I think this means she won’t make the season ending WTA finals. But no one here will know she’s not there because they won’t know they’re happening.
  • OT got a text last night for a flu jab this morning.
  • tlg86 said:

    SPotY news (or is it?) -- Emma Raducanu lost overnight.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/58852217

    It will make no difference whatsoever to SPoTY. That said, it is a reminder of how volatile the women’s game is. I think this means she won’t make the season ending WTA finals. But no one here will know she’s not there because they won’t know they’re happening.
    Question is whether she drifts in the betting on the back of her overnight defeat.
  • ClippP said:

    I am not so sure that Quincel is right on this.

    It appears that the Johnson administration is busy removing every process and weakening every institution that could place a check on its decisions, as Ms Cyclefree explained the other day.

    This leaves the Conservative Party at liberty to receive "donations" from all kinds of foreign regimes and tax dodgers. Britain and British interests are being sold off or even given away to these foreigners.

    So I am not so sure how the British people will react when they realise that their heritage has been sold off by Johnson's Conservatives.

    Surely there can be no heritage left to sell off? You spent all those years telling us Thatcher had, er, already sold off our heritage?

    It is entirely predictable that right wing Tories who spent years lecturing us about liberty, sovereignty and democracy turn out to be four square behind a government that is making it harder to vote, removing the right to protest, systematically bypassing Parliament and putting itself beyond judicial scrutiny; while, at the same time, presiding over the greatest loss of individual and commercial freedom ever seen in the UK during peacetime. Whoever would have thought it?

  • Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770

    tlg86 said:

    SPotY news (or is it?) -- Emma Raducanu lost overnight.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/58852217

    It will make no difference whatsoever to SPoTY. That said, it is a reminder of how volatile the women’s game is. I think this means she won’t make the season ending WTA finals. But no one here will know she’s not there because they won’t know they’re happening.
    Question is whether she drifts in the betting on the back of her overnight defeat.
    If she does, it'll be marginal.

    Brit winning US Open = massive story.
    Brit losing a match at Indian Wells = wait, what's Indian Wells?
  • rcs1000 said:

    tlg86 said:

    SPotY news (or is it?) -- Emma Raducanu lost overnight.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/58852217

    It will make no difference whatsoever to SPoTY. That said, it is a reminder of how volatile the women’s game is. I think this means she won’t make the season ending WTA finals. But no one here will know she’s not there because they won’t know they’re happening.
    Question is whether she drifts in the betting on the back of her overnight defeat.
    If she does, it'll be marginal.

    Brit winning US Open = massive story.
    Brit losing a match at Indian Wells = wait, what's Indian Wells?
    One tick on Betfair so far, which is, as you say, marginal.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    Probably true, but then again they wouldn’t have voted for Corbyn, either.
  • Nigelb said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    Probably true, but then again they wouldn’t have voted for Corbyn, either.

    Absolutely. And the flag-waving racist will always beat the flag-burning one. What does stick in the throat a bit is the sheer hypocrisy you see on both sides that denies the racism of the one while deploring the racism of the other. It's almost as if racism isn't really that big a deal when your side does it.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    This is a very interesting new technique for separating rare earth elements from very low grade sources, and looks to be environmentally friendly, economic, and industrially scalable.
    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.1c00724#

    Could end over reliance on China.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    Nigelb said:

    This is a very interesting new technique for separating rare earth elements from very low grade sources, and looks to be environmentally friendly, economic, and industrially scalable.
    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.1c00724#

    Could end over reliance on China.

    To be fair, anyone who works in the mining industry is told "the first thing you need to know about rare earth elements is that they're not rare".
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good morning, everyone.

    F1: light rain in Istanbul. May or may not be there for qualifying.

    Hamilton has a 10 place grid penalty, and Sainz is at the back of the grid (engine stuff).
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    No, and that left me with nobody to vote for for the first time since I turned 18.
  • Boris Johnson will be discarded quicker than a used condom if he keeps on proposing stuff like this, he really is a leftie with his high tax agenda.

    Ministers will announce plans for levies on gas bills to fund low-carbon heating within the next fortnight despite rising prices, The Times has been told.

    The government will publish a new strategy with a carbon pricing scheme that could push gas bills significantly higher.

    The strategy, which will be published before the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow next month, commits the government to cutting the price of electricity, which is significantly higher than gas. It will seek to end “price distortions” by removing green levies from electricity bills over the next decade and imposing new charges on gas bills.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/energy-crisis-gas-levy-gets-green-light-as-factories-warn-of-closures-bfft8kv2w
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751

    Boris Johnson will be discarded quicker than a used condom if he keeps on proposing stuff like this, he really is a leftie with his high tax agenda.

    Ministers will announce plans for levies on gas bills to fund low-carbon heating within the next fortnight despite rising prices, The Times has been told.

    The government will publish a new strategy with a carbon pricing scheme that could push gas bills significantly higher.

    The strategy, which will be published before the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow next month, commits the government to cutting the price of electricity, which is significantly higher than gas. It will seek to end “price distortions” by removing green levies from electricity bills over the next decade and imposing new charges on gas bills.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/energy-crisis-gas-levy-gets-green-light-as-factories-warn-of-closures-bfft8kv2w

    I thought he preferred withdrawal to condoms?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited October 2021

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Speaking for myself I wouldn’t touch either of them with a 40 foot pole.

    Johnson is less bad than Corbyn in the same way Stalin wasn’t as bad as Mao.
  • Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Aside from the name-calling, what is it that you feared Corbyn might do and that Boris has not done?
  • Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    You voted for a racist who is now dismantling our Parliamentary democracy, having already delivered the greatest loss of individual freedoms that UK citizens have experienced in peacetime. If it makes you feel better to believe it would have been worse under Corbyn, so be it. For me, not voting was the only option given the choice at that time.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    rcs1000 said:

    Nigelb said:

    This is a very interesting new technique for separating rare earth elements from very low grade sources, and looks to be environmentally friendly, economic, and industrially scalable.
    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.1c00724#

    Could end over reliance on China.

    To be fair, anyone who works in the mining industry is told "the first thing you need to know about rare earth elements is that they're not rare".
    The current costs of extraction determine supply, though. And the US lacks plentiful high grade sources.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879
    edited October 2021
    ydoethur said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    No, and that left me with nobody to vote for for the first time since I turned 18.

    My first time was 2017. It was number two in 2019. Happily, I do have a choice next time - not that it will make much difference!

  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545
    Never speak ill of the dead. But in this case everyone genuinely seems to agree James Brokenshire was a decent politician and one of the good guys.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    Cambridge colleges accused of exploiting ‘gig economy’ tutors
    https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/09/cambridge-colleges-accused-exploiting-gig-economy-tutors
    … Postgraduate supervisors said that although they enjoyed teaching the supervisions and considered them valuable experience, they struggled with the high workload, low pay and contract insecurity.

    One supervisor said he relied on the work to top up his £12,000 stipend, but had all his hours cut suddenly. “PhD students are forced to live in Cambridge on very low wages, and as a necessity to make ends meet we take on teaching,” he said. “But I had no protection when I was told I would not be given any more [work].”

    Another supervisor said the need to gain teaching experience by delivering undergraduate supervisions had become a “vicious cycle” in the early stages of academic careers, since spending time teaching makes it hard to find time for research. “I wonder whether it’s worth staying in academia to get treated institutionally so badly,” he said.

    Mary Newbould, who has worked as a supervisor since finishing her PhD in 2007, said that despite being employed for an average of 25 hours of supervision a week during term time, which corresponded to a 75-hour working week including preparation, she typically earned about £10,000 a year, and had accrued no pension...
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Aside from the name-calling, what is it that you feared Corbyn might do and that Boris has not done?
    Given nuclear secrets to our enemies.
  • MaxPB said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    Yes, because the party that has got British Indians as Chancellor and Home secretary, British Pakistanis as Health Secretary and Education Secretary and A British Ghanaian as Business Secretary is a racist party. This is why no one in the country takes Labour seriously on racial issues. You see all of the above as an race traitors and not really Indian, Pakistani or Ghanaian.

    🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

    No, I see Boris Johnson as a racist because he routinely says racist things. I also note that Jeremy Corbyn had very prominent Jewish backers, Jewish friends and appointed Jews to senior positions.

  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Eagles, what an idiotic policy. Suits the fool.

    Mr. Doethur, on that, we disagree. If the Conservatives replaced the PM with someone who marched alongside swastika banners and pictures of Hitler and Himmler, I'd vote Labour.

    They won't, because fascism isn't treated nearly as softly as lunacy of the far left variety.

    Mr. JohnL, the PM spends far too much yet looks like a model of restraint compared to the madness of Corbyn (how many tens of billions did he want to throw at the WASPI whiners?). Not to mention how freedoms have been cracked down upon. It'd be significantly worse, as per some other countries, had the far left had its red hand on the tiller of the state.

    Mr. Observer, the vote to leave the EU came about in a referendum. I'm surprised you didn't notice that.

    The PM's a child who will say anything for a titter. A claim he's actually racist doesn't stack up against his Cabinet appointments.

    But if it makes you feel better to pretend a man who marched alongside banners glorifying genocidal far left tyrants is of the same ilk as a childish jester, so be it.

    The fun thing is, Johnson really is unworthy to be in the Cabinet. Yet still an order of magnitude better than Corbyn. The equivalent of the ex-Labour leader is a fascist, and while Johnson has a laundry list of character flaws, being a fascist is not one of them.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,257
    Nigelb said:

    This is a very interesting new technique for separating rare earth elements from very low grade sources, and looks to be environmentally friendly, economic, and industrially scalable.
    https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.1c00724#

    Could end over reliance on China.

    One of those statements that could take a very different meaning with a comma.
    Let's hope it doesn't end, over reliance on China!
  • MaxPB said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Aside from the name-calling, what is it that you feared Corbyn might do and that Boris has not done?
    Given nuclear secrets to our enemies.
    France is not our enemy. Do you mean Russia, the country whose spies tried to recruit one recent Prime Minister and which bankrolls the Conservative Party?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    Yes, because the party that has got British Indians as Chancellor and Home secretary, British Pakistanis as Health Secretary and Education Secretary and A British Ghanaian as Business Secretary is a racist party. This is why no one in the country takes Labour seriously on racial issues. You see all of the above as an race traitors and not really Indian, Pakistani or Ghanaian.

    🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

    No, I see Boris Johnson as a racist because he routinely says racist things. I also note that Jeremy Corbyn had very prominent Jewish backers, Jewish friends and appointed Jews to senior positions.

    Boris Johnson said stupid things, not racist things. Jeremy Corbyn supported Iran's campaign against Israel and Jews. There is no equivalence however hard you try and make one exist. You're projecting your own guilt at voting for an anti-Semite onto the rest of us.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    ydoethur said:

    Boris Johnson will be discarded quicker than a used condom if he keeps on proposing stuff like this, he really is a leftie with his high tax agenda.

    Ministers will announce plans for levies on gas bills to fund low-carbon heating within the next fortnight despite rising prices, The Times has been told.

    The government will publish a new strategy with a carbon pricing scheme that could push gas bills significantly higher.

    The strategy, which will be published before the Cop26 climate conference in Glasgow next month, commits the government to cutting the price of electricity, which is significantly higher than gas. It will seek to end “price distortions” by removing green levies from electricity bills over the next decade and imposing new charges on gas bills.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/energy-crisis-gas-levy-gets-green-light-as-factories-warn-of-closures-bfft8kv2w

    I thought he preferred withdrawal to condoms?
    I thought the evidence was for neither...
  • Newcastle are now at a level they won’t even consider Sunderland a derby game. Their main rivals are the likes of Liverpool, PSG, Man City, Real Madrid and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

    https://twitter.com/LouDC_/status/1446172355152207876
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    MaxPB said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Aside from the name-calling, what is it that you feared Corbyn might do and that Boris has not done?
    Given nuclear secrets to our enemies.
    France is not our enemy. Do you mean Russia, the country whose spies tried to recruit one recent Prime Minister and which bankrolls the Conservative Party?
    Iran.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081
    rpjs said:

    Thatcher was untouchable, until she wasn’t.

    If the Tory party is capable of defenestrating Thatcher when they decided it was in their interest to do so, they would certainly defenestrate Boris if circumstances dictate.

    The other difference is that, while Thatcher had her internal detractors (mostly dealt with in the early years), and by the end there were a few starting to mutter about her state of mind, she never had a large slice of her own MPs believing - indeed knowing, deep down - from the beginning, that she simply wasn’t up to the job.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    ydoethur said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Speaking for myself I wouldn’t touch either of them with a 40 foot pole.

    Johnson is less bad than Corbyn in the same way Stalin wasn’t as bad as Mao.
    I love the way you get your little boast in there.

    For the record, I wouldn't touch either with my 45 foot pole.
  • Mr. Eagles, what an idiotic policy. Suits the fool.

    Mr. Doethur, on that, we disagree. If the Conservatives replaced the PM with someone who marched alongside swastika banners and pictures of Hitler and Himmler, I'd vote Labour.

    They won't, because fascism isn't treated nearly as softly as lunacy of the far left variety.

    Mr. JohnL, the PM spends far too much yet looks like a model of restraint compared to the madness of Corbyn (how many tens of billions did he want to throw at the WASPI whiners?). Not to mention how freedoms have been cracked down upon. It'd be significantly worse, as per some other countries, had the far left had its red hand on the tiller of the state.

    Mr. Observer, the vote to leave the EU came about in a referendum. I'm surprised you didn't notice that.

    The PM's a child who will say anything for a titter. A claim he's actually racist doesn't stack up against his Cabinet appointments.

    But if it makes you feel better to pretend a man who marched alongside banners glorifying genocidal far left tyrants is of the same ilk as a childish jester, so be it.

    The fun thing is, Johnson really is unworthy to be in the Cabinet. Yet still an order of magnitude better than Corbyn. The equivalent of the ex-Labour leader is a fascist, and while Johnson has a laundry list of character flaws, being a fascist is not one of them.

    Making it harder to vote, removing the right to demonstrate, bypassing Parliament and putting the government beyond judicial scrutiny may not be fascist, but it is clearly anti-democratic. As I say, if you want to console yourself that a different kind of racist would have bene worse, so be it. For me, they are and were both the same.

  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    Newcastle are now at a level they won’t even consider Sunderland a derby game. Their main rivals are the likes of Liverpool, PSG, Man City, Real Madrid and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

    https://twitter.com/LouDC_/status/1446172355152207876

    Newcastle’s owners still aren’t as bad as the Yanks at Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    It is worrying the extent to which Russian money bankrolls the Tories. Surely Tories are privately uneasy about it. They can’t say anything in public.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    There's racism and racism, sadly. Not to condone any variety of it, but having, let us say, laughed at a couple of Bernard Mannings jokes in one's youth, say, is not in the same league as pursuing actively racist policies as potential prime minister. Johnson has said things in print which are thoughtless and offensive, but they wouldn't on their own stop me voting for him. Other things do, though.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,770
    tlg86 said:

    Newcastle are now at a level they won’t even consider Sunderland a derby game. Their main rivals are the likes of Liverpool, PSG, Man City, Real Madrid and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

    https://twitter.com/LouDC_/status/1446172355152207876

    Newcastle’s owners still aren’t as bad as the Yanks at Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal.
    The Yanks at Man U and Liverpool aren't any worse than the Saudis!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    ydoethur said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Speaking for myself I wouldn’t touch either of them with a 40 foot pole.

    Johnson is less bad than Corbyn in the same way Stalin wasn’t as bad as Mao.
    This might work for Starmer. He is wooden and verbose, uncomfortable in his skin and leading an unruly party, but he himself is hard to hate, no matter how much the Corbynistas try. Indeed their main objection seems to be the self fulfilling one that he is not popular enough to win.

    I won't be voting for him, not least because I think the LD will be the challengers in my seat, but while Starmer is uninspiring, he is not repellent.
  • tlg86 said:

    Newcastle are now at a level they won’t even consider Sunderland a derby game. Their main rivals are the likes of Liverpool, PSG, Man City, Real Madrid and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

    https://twitter.com/LouDC_/status/1446172355152207876

    Newcastle’s owners still aren’t as bad as the Yanks at Man Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal.
    Yeah because they routinely have journalists murdered or oversaw the starvation and deaths of over 250,000 in Yemen.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081

    Boris's polling stays high because he told people that under him, there would be no attempts to evade the will of the people, no ever more ludicrous attempts to go for a second referendum or delay delay delay until the voters magically said "OK - lets forget about Brexit".

    People didn't expect a perfect Brexit. The Europhiles had spent decades sewing us into the fabric of the EEC --> EU such that it was MEANT to be impossible for us to leave. But the voters gave the Government a single, simple instruction: get us out the EU regardless. Starmer said, er, no. Boris said righto - and did.

    One of the candidates for PM next time has listened to the people and done as instructed. The other did everything he could, for years, to thwart them.

    Look no further for the reason Boris will win next time out.

    Being the one who said he would drive us off a cliff, and then did, may not be such a good look, if that is how things transpire.
  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    Yes, because the party that has got British Indians as Chancellor and Home secretary, British Pakistanis as Health Secretary and Education Secretary and A British Ghanaian as Business Secretary is a racist party. This is why no one in the country takes Labour seriously on racial issues. You see all of the above as an race traitors and not really Indian, Pakistani or Ghanaian.

    🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

    No, I see Boris Johnson as a racist because he routinely says racist things. I also note that Jeremy Corbyn had very prominent Jewish backers, Jewish friends and appointed Jews to senior positions.

    Boris Johnson said stupid things, not racist things. Jeremy Corbyn supported Iran's campaign against Israel and Jews. There is no equivalence however hard you try and make one exist. You're projecting your own guilt at voting for an anti-Semite onto the rest of us.

    Except I never voted for him. Johnson believes that people are fair game for attack and ridicule based on their ethnic background. That is racism. But you don't mind because he has given you what you wanted in other areas - and he was never talking about you anyway.

  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Observer, of course. You're on the left and are concerned with being righteous. Evil Tories are always going to be more evil than kind-hearted Labour. It's a sign of how atrocious Corbyn was that you merely consider our feeble PM to be his equal rather than worse.

    However, you're categorically wrong. Johnson's flaws are enough to make him unworthy of high office, yet pale beside Corbyn's.

    Mr. Jonathan, that is a very fair point. Johnson's lack of morals and love of spending (both personally and politically) is a poisonous cocktail.
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    There's racism and racism, sadly. Not to condone any variety of it, but having, let us say, laughed at a couple of Bernard Mannings jokes in one's youth, say, is not in the same league as pursuing actively racist policies as potential prime minister. Johnson has said things in print which are thoughtless and offensive, but they wouldn't on their own stop me voting for him. Other things do, though.

    That's a very honest response.

  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880

    MaxPB said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Aside from the name-calling, what is it that you feared Corbyn might do and that Boris has not done?
    Given nuclear secrets to our enemies.
    France is not our enemy. Do you mean Russia, the country whose spies tried to recruit one recent Prime Minister and which bankrolls the Conservative Party?
    Johnson is also subsidising the Russian space program by $50m/month through OneWeb while spending £140m a year on the UK Space Command to contest... er... Russia in space.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    Header: I agree completely. Have been betting long on Johnson's exit date for months.

    What would happen if the CP win another majority but Johnson loses his own seat?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    There's racism and racism, sadly. Not to condone any variety of it, but having, let us say, laughed at a couple of Bernard Mannings jokes in one's youth, say, is not in the same league as pursuing actively racist policies as potential prime minister. Johnson has said things in print which are thoughtless and offensive, but they wouldn't on their own stop me voting for him. Other things do, though.

    That's a very honest response.

    I detect a hint of "brave" in "honest" there. I am prepared to believe you if you say you have never, ever laughed at a racist joke, but I am pretty confident that you know lots of people who have, whether you know it or not. That assumes you are 50+.
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 3,949
    Stocky said:

    Header: I agree completely. Have been betting long on Johnson's exit date for months.

    What would happen if the CP win another majority but Johnson loses his own seat?

    Some very odd newspaper front pages!

    (And this bet would still win, of course.)
  • Mr. Observer, of course. You're on the left and are concerned with being righteous. Evil Tories are always going to be more evil than kind-hearted Labour. It's a sign of how atrocious Corbyn was that you merely consider our feeble PM to be his equal rather than worse.

    However, you're categorically wrong. Johnson's flaws are enough to make him unworthy of high office, yet pale beside Corbyn's.

    Mr. Jonathan, that is a very fair point. Johnson's lack of morals and love of spending (both personally and politically) is a poisonous cocktail.

    It should not be left-wing to believe it is wrong to make it harder for people to vote, to ban public protest, to bypass parliament and to put the government above the law. But because people like you believe it is, Johnson can do it.

  • MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    Yes, because the party that has got British Indians as Chancellor and Home secretary, British Pakistanis as Health Secretary and Education Secretary and A British Ghanaian as Business Secretary is a racist party. This is why no one in the country takes Labour seriously on racial issues. You see all of the above as an race traitors and not really Indian, Pakistani or Ghanaian.

    🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

    No, I see Boris Johnson as a racist because he routinely says racist things. I also note that Jeremy Corbyn had very prominent Jewish backers, Jewish friends and appointed Jews to senior positions.

    Boris Johnson said stupid things, not racist things. Jeremy Corbyn supported Iran's campaign against Israel and Jews. There is no equivalence however hard you try and make one exist. You're projecting your own guilt at voting for an anti-Semite onto the rest of us.
    Boris Johnson absolutely said racist things. But not from a position of being a closet racist as Jezbollah is, but from a position of arrogance and stupidity.
  • Stocky said:

    Header: I agree completely. Have been betting long on Johnson's exit date for months.

    What would happen if the CP win another majority but Johnson loses his own seat?

    You don't need to be an MP to be PM.

    I suspect he'd ennoble himself and be PM from the Lords or someone will be forced to give up a very safe Tory seat like Mansfield to allow a by election to enable the PM to return to the House of Commons.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rcs1000 said:

    ydoethur said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Speaking for myself I wouldn’t touch either of them with a 40 foot pole.

    Johnson is less bad than Corbyn in the same way Stalin wasn’t as bad as Mao.
    I love the way you get your little boast in there.

    For the record, I wouldn't touch either with my 45 foot pole.
    I have always dreamed of having a 45 foot pole in place of this unwieldy monster.
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 2,973
    The EU - Poland issue is interesting.

    Wasn’t the argument that the EU wasn’t encroaching on sovereignty?

    I’d read an interesting article that essentially made the point the EU needed to be clear about its intentions going forward -a federal Europe- and build consensus from that point onwards. Seems to me the days of continual stealthy “ever closer union” are moving away from it..
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    Dura_Ace said:

    MaxPB said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Aside from the name-calling, what is it that you feared Corbyn might do and that Boris has not done?
    Given nuclear secrets to our enemies.
    France is not our enemy. Do you mean Russia, the country whose spies tried to recruit one recent Prime Minister and which bankrolls the Conservative Party?
    Johnson is also subsidising the Russian space program by $50m/month through OneWeb while spending £140m a year on the UK Space Command to contest... er... Russia in space.
    Except we’re only on the hook for a bit of that.
    India is now the largest shareholder.

    https://spacenews.com/south-koreas-hanwha-enlarges-space-focus-with-300-million-oneweb-investment/
    … Satellite broadband startup OneWeb has secured $300 million of strategic investment from Hanwha, the South Korean conglomerate with plans for its own megaconstellation.

    Hanwha bought an 8.8% stake in OneWeb through its defense division Hanwha Systems, which acquired British antenna startup Phasor Solutions last year as part of its growing space ambitions.

    U.K.-headquartered OneWeb expects regulatory approvals to complete the Hanwha transaction in the first half of 2022, bringing its total investment since emerging from bankruptcy protection in November to $2.7 billion.

    The startup has said it only needed $2.4 billion to fund its initial constellation of 648 satellites in low Earth orbit.

    It reached that in June, after Indian telecom company Bharti Global doubled its investment to $1 billion to secure what would have been a 38.6% stake before Hanwha’s announcement.

    The U.K. government, French satellite operator Eutelsat and Japanese internet giant Softbank were each in line for just under 20% after making their own investments. ..

  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Observer, if you weren't busy cherry-picking what you want to respond to you might have noticed that multiple times this thread (as well as consistently for years) I've said Boris Johnson is unworthy of holding high office. His opponent, however, was far left. In the same way I'd vote for Starmer if the alternative was an actual Nazi leading the Conservatives, voting against Corbyn entailed voting for someone unsuitable for high office but clearly less bad than the Labour leader.

    Mr. Eagles, while the Conservatives aren't as good at axing leaders as once they were (pussyfooting about over May was a mistake) they'd surely take the opportunity in such a case to toss the leader overboard, no?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    edited October 2021

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    Yes, because the party that has got British Indians as Chancellor and Home secretary, British Pakistanis as Health Secretary and Education Secretary and A British Ghanaian as Business Secretary is a racist party. This is why no one in the country takes Labour seriously on racial issues. You see all of the above as an race traitors and not really Indian, Pakistani or Ghanaian.

    🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

    No, I see Boris Johnson as a racist because he routinely says racist things. I also note that Jeremy Corbyn had very prominent Jewish backers, Jewish friends and appointed Jews to senior positions.

    Boris Johnson said stupid things, not racist things. Jeremy Corbyn supported Iran's campaign against Israel and Jews. There is no equivalence however hard you try and make one exist. You're projecting your own guilt at voting for an anti-Semite onto the rest of us.
    Boris Johnson absolutely said racist things. But not from a position of being a closet racist as Jezbollah is, but from a position of arrogance and stupidity.
    More importantly, Corbyn will not be leading the Labour Party at the next election, while Johnson will be (I agree with the header, albeit not tempted by the odds). This is not the last election, about Brexit and anti-semitism.

    This is a new election, and voters have short memories and attention spans, as well as having both buyers remorse and ingratitude. They cannot be won over by old arguments, but rather want to hear new things.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MaxPB said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Aside from the name-calling, what is it that you feared Corbyn might do and that Boris has not done?
    Given nuclear secrets to our enemies.
    France is not our enemy. Do you mean Russia, the country whose spies tried to recruit one recent Prime Minister and which bankrolls the Conservative Party?
    Johnson is also subsidising the Russian space program by $50m/month through OneWeb while spending £140m a year on the UK Space Command to contest... er... Russia in space.
    Except we’re only on the hook for a bit of that.
    India is now the largest shareholder.

    https://spacenews.com/south-koreas-hanwha-enlarges-space-focus-with-300-million-oneweb-investment/
    … Satellite broadband startup OneWeb has secured $300 million of strategic investment from Hanwha, the South Korean conglomerate with plans for its own megaconstellation.

    Hanwha bought an 8.8% stake in OneWeb through its defense division Hanwha Systems, which acquired British antenna startup Phasor Solutions last year as part of its growing space ambitions.

    U.K.-headquartered OneWeb expects regulatory approvals to complete the Hanwha transaction in the first half of 2022, bringing its total investment since emerging from bankruptcy protection in November to $2.7 billion.

    The startup has said it only needed $2.4 billion to fund its initial constellation of 648 satellites in low Earth orbit.

    It reached that in June, after Indian telecom company Bharti Global doubled its investment to $1 billion to secure what would have been a 38.6% stake before Hanwha’s announcement.

    The U.K. government, French satellite operator Eutelsat and Japanese internet giant Softbank were each in line for just under 20% after making their own investments. ..

    Did you see the research on using LEO satellites for positioning? With the full constellation it would be more accurate than anything planned.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Jonathan said:

    The problem I have about Boris is that his policy is to apply his personal recipe for success to the country, His personal bluff and blind ambition is now government policy. In the process we as a nation are now seen as untrustworthy, disheveled and profligate. I really object to the way he is destroying our reputation for decency. He can live his own life like that, but it’s rubbish to be tarnished his brush. I am surprised Tories go along with that.

    That's a very fair criticism. It's one of the many factors that piled up and made me quit the party.
  • The main, perhaps the only, thing Johnson understands is raw human power. How to get it and how to deploy it.

    Consider his approach to getting a significant controversial tax rise to fund the NHS, sorry social care, OK let's be honest, the NHS, through. All done in a week, zero ministerial resignations, it's probably a bad plan but They Salute With Both Hands Now.

    Or his approach to choosing a cabinet, where loyalty to King Boris is all.

    So he'll be blooming hard to depose. He's made sure of that.

    But, unlike other PMs, he's not really there to do things (Thatcher, Blair) or serve (Cameron, May). He's there to be King Boris and to be hailed. So what happens when "We hail King Boris" becomes "We hate King Boris"?

    We don't know, because it hasn't happened yet.

    But unless this time is different, it inevitably will, possibly quite soon if the money runs out.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    Yes, because the party that has got British Indians as Chancellor and Home secretary, British Pakistanis as Health Secretary and Education Secretary and A British Ghanaian as Business Secretary is a racist party. This is why no one in the country takes Labour seriously on racial issues. You see all of the above as an race traitors and not really Indian, Pakistani or Ghanaian.

    🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

    No, I see Boris Johnson as a racist because he routinely says racist things. I also note that Jeremy Corbyn had very prominent Jewish backers, Jewish friends and appointed Jews to senior positions.

    Boris Johnson said stupid things, not racist things. Jeremy Corbyn supported Iran's campaign against Israel and Jews. There is no equivalence however hard you try and make one exist. You're projecting your own guilt at voting for an anti-Semite onto the rest of us.
    Boris Johnson absolutely said racist things. But not from a position of being a closet racist as Jezbollah is, but from a position of arrogance and stupidity.
    More importantly, Corbyn will not be leading the Labour Party at the next election, while Johnson will be (I agree with the header, albeit not tempted by the odds). This is not the last election, about Brexit and anti-semitism.

    This is a new election, and voters have short memories and attention spans, as well as having both buyers remorse and ingratitude. They cannot be won over by old arguments, but rather want to hear new things.
    Boris will try to make the election about Brexit, He will argue that Brexit is not safe in Labour’s hands to rebuild the coalition that gave him a majority. He will do everything and anything to avoid defending his woeful record. That is why “Make Brexit Work” is an important theme for Labour. It ties Brexit, to Boris’s record.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    MaxPB said:

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MaxPB said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Aside from the name-calling, what is it that you feared Corbyn might do and that Boris has not done?
    Given nuclear secrets to our enemies.
    France is not our enemy. Do you mean Russia, the country whose spies tried to recruit one recent Prime Minister and which bankrolls the Conservative Party?
    Johnson is also subsidising the Russian space program by $50m/month through OneWeb while spending £140m a year on the UK Space Command to contest... er... Russia in space.
    Except we’re only on the hook for a bit of that.
    India is now the largest shareholder.

    https://spacenews.com/south-koreas-hanwha-enlarges-space-focus-with-300-million-oneweb-investment/
    … Satellite broadband startup OneWeb has secured $300 million of strategic investment from Hanwha, the South Korean conglomerate with plans for its own megaconstellation.

    Hanwha bought an 8.8% stake in OneWeb through its defense division Hanwha Systems, which acquired British antenna startup Phasor Solutions last year as part of its growing space ambitions.

    U.K.-headquartered OneWeb expects regulatory approvals to complete the Hanwha transaction in the first half of 2022, bringing its total investment since emerging from bankruptcy protection in November to $2.7 billion.

    The startup has said it only needed $2.4 billion to fund its initial constellation of 648 satellites in low Earth orbit.

    It reached that in June, after Indian telecom company Bharti Global doubled its investment to $1 billion to secure what would have been a 38.6% stake before Hanwha’s announcement.

    The U.K. government, French satellite operator Eutelsat and Japanese internet giant Softbank were each in line for just under 20% after making their own investments. ..

    Did you see the research on using LEO satellites for positioning? With the full constellation it would be more accurate than anything planned.
    Lots of interesting stuff going on, and while we’re very much in the second rank, we’re still a player.
    The OneWeb investment has turned out considerably better than originally feared, if only because most of the funding is coming from elsewhere.
  • On topic Boris is toast as soon as the public mood moves against him. We are in the opening days of the hot war after months of phoney war. There are still some people in denial about this - times have been good, "my shop isn't short" etc etc.

    But the war is undeniably here with ministers now saying that the effects aren't the Bad Thing we all feared but are actually a celebration as parts of industry and the society they support get bombed.

    The poll leads have been a head-scratcher to some. But people hold onto past beliefs and hopes (often against hope) long after its clear that times have changed. Its possible people will keep being deluded. But if they say "enough" Johnson will be gone faster than you can say discarded lovechild.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065

    The main, perhaps the only, thing Johnson understands is raw human power. How to get it and how to deploy it.

    Consider his approach to getting a significant controversial tax rise to fund the NHS, sorry social care, OK let's be honest, the NHS, through. All done in a week, zero ministerial resignations, it's probably a bad plan but They Salute With Both Hands Now.

    Or his approach to choosing a cabinet, where loyalty to King Boris is all.

    So he'll be blooming hard to depose. He's made sure of that.

    But, unlike other PMs, he's not really there to do things (Thatcher, Blair) or serve (Cameron, May). He's there to be King Boris and to be hailed. So what happens when "We hail King Boris" becomes "We hate King Boris"?

    We don't know, because it hasn't happened yet.

    But unless this time is different, it inevitably will, possibly quite soon if the money runs out.

    All political careers end in failure, but Johnson's fall will be quite spectacular. He hasn't a real hinterland of friends in the party, even his closest ally famously knifed him in his first attempt at the leadership. As such he will cling on as hard as he can, and when he goes, nearly his entire cabinet will go with him, and they know it.

    When he goes, it will be like a change in government, as when the Tories have regenerated before.

  • Jonathan said:

    It is worrying the extent to which Russian money bankrolls the Tories. Surely Tories are privately uneasy about it. They can’t say anything in public.

    If they are worried about it, then it is surprising how few of the Tory cheerleaders on here, ever express any concern.

    Even non loyalist Tories have claimed it is racist to be concerned about donations from Putin linked Lubov Chernukhin as she is a British citizen.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Dr. Foxy, I'm not so sure on the Cabinet point. But I agree on the hinterland aspect.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 38,517
    Nigelb said:

    MaxPB said:

    Nigelb said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    MaxPB said:

    Mr. Observer, that sentiment might make you feel better but pretending that the current fool in Number 10 was/is as morally repugnant as Corbyn is to rewrite history.

    Boris Johnson is a self-absorbed, short-termist, spendaholic buffoon. Corbyn is and was a far left lunatic. I'll take an idiot over a socialist/communist any day of the week.

    Aside from the name-calling, what is it that you feared Corbyn might do and that Boris has not done?
    Given nuclear secrets to our enemies.
    France is not our enemy. Do you mean Russia, the country whose spies tried to recruit one recent Prime Minister and which bankrolls the Conservative Party?
    Johnson is also subsidising the Russian space program by $50m/month through OneWeb while spending £140m a year on the UK Space Command to contest... er... Russia in space.
    Except we’re only on the hook for a bit of that.
    India is now the largest shareholder.

    https://spacenews.com/south-koreas-hanwha-enlarges-space-focus-with-300-million-oneweb-investment/
    … Satellite broadband startup OneWeb has secured $300 million of strategic investment from Hanwha, the South Korean conglomerate with plans for its own megaconstellation.

    Hanwha bought an 8.8% stake in OneWeb through its defense division Hanwha Systems, which acquired British antenna startup Phasor Solutions last year as part of its growing space ambitions.

    U.K.-headquartered OneWeb expects regulatory approvals to complete the Hanwha transaction in the first half of 2022, bringing its total investment since emerging from bankruptcy protection in November to $2.7 billion.

    The startup has said it only needed $2.4 billion to fund its initial constellation of 648 satellites in low Earth orbit.

    It reached that in June, after Indian telecom company Bharti Global doubled its investment to $1 billion to secure what would have been a 38.6% stake before Hanwha’s announcement.

    The U.K. government, French satellite operator Eutelsat and Japanese internet giant Softbank were each in line for just under 20% after making their own investments. ..

    Did you see the research on using LEO satellites for positioning? With the full constellation it would be more accurate than anything planned.
    Lots of interesting stuff going on, and while we’re very much in the second rank, we’re still a player.
    The OneWeb investment has turned out considerably better than originally feared, if only because most of the funding is coming from elsewhere.
    Some of us were saying that it was a good investment anyway. ;)

    Online, there seemed to be some shade thrown on the deal by Musk and SpaceX fans. Odd, that ...

    (There seem to be some so-called 'Team Space' people who are really Musk-only people. Anything not emanating from their hero's various orifices is to be denigrated. It's particularly funny when they slag off NASA, when NASA has helped SpaceX enormously over the years in various ways...)
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    On topic Boris is toast as soon as the public mood moves against him. We are in the opening days of the hot war after months of phoney war. There are still some people in denial about this - times have been good, "my shop isn't short" etc etc.

    But the war is undeniably here with ministers now saying that the effects aren't the Bad Thing we all feared but are actually a celebration as parts of industry and the society they support get bombed.

    The poll leads have been a head-scratcher to some. But people hold onto past beliefs and hopes (often against hope) long after its clear that times have changed. Its possible people will keep being deluded. But if they say "enough" Johnson will be gone faster than you can say discarded lovechild.

    Somehow we have to pull apart the myth of Boris brick by brick. Somehow we have to tie him to his record. The fact he is economic with nothing but the truth should provide opportunities. We can’t afford Boris.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Jonathan, the irony is that would be easier to do from the right, not the left.

    This mooted new tax on gas would be one such circumstance. Or the sugar tax. Or the desire to abolish internal combustion engines and go carbon neutral by 2035. Or the high spending (which was around even before the pandemic kicked in).

    But Labour mostly wants more tax and spending.

    If the Conservatives had a rival on the right, they'd be in deep trouble.
  • Foxy said:

    The main, perhaps the only, thing Johnson understands is raw human power. How to get it and how to deploy it.

    Consider his approach to getting a significant controversial tax rise to fund the NHS, sorry social care, OK let's be honest, the NHS, through. All done in a week, zero ministerial resignations, it's probably a bad plan but They Salute With Both Hands Now.

    Or his approach to choosing a cabinet, where loyalty to King Boris is all.

    So he'll be blooming hard to depose. He's made sure of that.

    But, unlike other PMs, he's not really there to do things (Thatcher, Blair) or serve (Cameron, May). He's there to be King Boris and to be hailed. So what happens when "We hail King Boris" becomes "We hate King Boris"?

    We don't know, because it hasn't happened yet.

    But unless this time is different, it inevitably will, possibly quite soon if the money runs out.

    All political careers end in failure, but Johnson's fall will be quite spectacular. He hasn't a real hinterland of friends in the party, even his closest ally famously knifed him in his first attempt at the leadership. As such he will cling on as hard as he can, and when he goes, nearly his entire cabinet will go with him, and they know it.

    When he goes, it will be like a change in government, as when the Tories have regenerated before.

    Pretty much, though part of BoJo's genius with power is to get rid of credible opponents.

    Any immediate post BoJo cabinet will distinctly flimsy, and everyone knows it.

    Which helps cement Johnson's strong but brittle grip on power.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,081

    Mr. Observer, if you weren't busy cherry-picking what you want to respond to you might have noticed that multiple times this thread (as well as consistently for years) I've said Boris Johnson is unworthy of holding high office. His opponent, however, was far left. In the same way I'd vote for Starmer if the alternative was an actual Nazi leading the Conservatives, voting against Corbyn entailed voting for someone unsuitable for high office but clearly less bad than the Labour leader.

    Mr. Eagles, while the Conservatives aren't as good at axing leaders as once they were (pussyfooting about over May was a mistake) they'd surely take the opportunity in such a case to toss the leader overboard, no?

    The problem is a system that forces people to make such invidious choices (and even then throws most votes away in the bin) rather than find and vote positively for the party or candidate you most support.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    Jonathan said:

    Foxy said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Good point although BoJo has only ever been tested when fighting Labour figures who subsequently have been discredited - Ken & Jezza

    Jezza was very much known to be, shall we say, soft on anti-Semitism when certain LibDems lent him their vote. No "I didn't know at the time" about that decision...

    No-one who genuinely cared about preventing racists taking positions of power and responsibility would have voted Tory in December 2019.

    Yes, because the party that has got British Indians as Chancellor and Home secretary, British Pakistanis as Health Secretary and Education Secretary and A British Ghanaian as Business Secretary is a racist party. This is why no one in the country takes Labour seriously on racial issues. You see all of the above as an race traitors and not really Indian, Pakistani or Ghanaian.

    🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

    No, I see Boris Johnson as a racist because he routinely says racist things. I also note that Jeremy Corbyn had very prominent Jewish backers, Jewish friends and appointed Jews to senior positions.

    Boris Johnson said stupid things, not racist things. Jeremy Corbyn supported Iran's campaign against Israel and Jews. There is no equivalence however hard you try and make one exist. You're projecting your own guilt at voting for an anti-Semite onto the rest of us.
    Boris Johnson absolutely said racist things. But not from a position of being a closet racist as Jezbollah is, but from a position of arrogance and stupidity.
    More importantly, Corbyn will not be leading the Labour Party at the next election, while Johnson will be (I agree with the header, albeit not tempted by the odds). This is not the last election, about Brexit and anti-semitism.

    This is a new election, and voters have short memories and attention spans, as well as having both buyers remorse and ingratitude. They cannot be won over by old arguments, but rather want to hear new things.
    Boris will try to make the election about Brexit, He will argue that Brexit is not safe in Labour’s hands to rebuild the coalition that gave him a majority. He will do everything and anything to avoid defending his woeful record. That is why “Make Brexit Work” is an important theme for Labour. It ties Brexit, to Boris’s record.
    Yes, though will trying to rerun a Brexit election work with a population that overwhelmingly thinks it has gone badly?



  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-58849933

    Developers here should be done for fraud. It is a simple con. Blaming covid delays when accepting money last month and failing to provide what you promise is a pathetic excuse.

    Nothing will happen to the developers, except big bonuses all around.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    Jonathan said:

    It is worrying the extent to which Russian money bankrolls the Tories. Surely Tories are privately uneasy about it. They can’t say anything in public.

    They must be hoping they don’t end in t’rouble.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    tlg86 said:

    SPotY news (or is it?) -- Emma Raducanu lost overnight.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/58852217

    It will make no difference whatsoever to SPoTY. That said, it is a reminder of how volatile the women’s game is. I think this means she won’t make the season ending WTA finals. But no one here will know she’s not there because they won’t know they’re happening.
    I’ll know, as I follow tennis, but you’re point is fair. Classic bandwagon to jump on when a Brit is winning.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Foxy said:

    The main, perhaps the only, thing Johnson understands is raw human power. How to get it and how to deploy it.

    Consider his approach to getting a significant controversial tax rise to fund the NHS, sorry social care, OK let's be honest, the NHS, through. All done in a week, zero ministerial resignations, it's probably a bad plan but They Salute With Both Hands Now.

    Or his approach to choosing a cabinet, where loyalty to King Boris is all.

    So he'll be blooming hard to depose. He's made sure of that.

    But, unlike other PMs, he's not really there to do things (Thatcher, Blair) or serve (Cameron, May). He's there to be King Boris and to be hailed. So what happens when "We hail King Boris" becomes "We hate King Boris"?

    We don't know, because it hasn't happened yet.

    But unless this time is different, it inevitably will, possibly quite soon if the money runs out.

    All political careers end in failure, but Johnson's fall will be quite spectacular. He hasn't a real hinterland of friends in the party, even his closest ally famously knifed him in his first attempt at the leadership. As such he will cling on as hard as he can, and when he goes, nearly his entire cabinet will go with him, and they know it.

    When he goes, it will be like a change in government, as when the Tories have regenerated before.

    Trump is proving unflushable. The GOP has not regenerated. Perhaps the same will happen to the Tory party this time. Either Boris’s ego will make him stick around (say to challenge Thatchers length in office or to not leave on a low) or the Tories will try to find another populist, or something more extreme like Truss.
  • Catching up with Question Time from Aldershot. Astonishing - an absolute pile-on both from right wing panelists like Nick Ferrari and from Tory and Brexit-voting members of the audience.

    As they keep pointing out, if the changes are the plan then why hasn't anything been done to prepare for it? If we now have a point-based migration system to decide who we let in why isn't it being used as billed to bring people in we need? If the government cares about shortages and the impact of rising prices and cuts to UC why does it deny they are a problem and do nothing?
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    Boris's polling stays high because he told people that under him, there would be no attempts to evade the will of the people, no ever more ludicrous attempts to go for a second referendum or delay delay delay until the voters magically said "OK - lets forget about Brexit".

    People didn't expect a perfect Brexit. The Europhiles had spent decades sewing us into the fabric of the EEC --> EU such that it was MEANT to be impossible for us to leave. But the voters gave the Government a single, simple instruction: get us out the EU regardless. Starmer said, er, no. Boris said righto - and did.

    One of the candidates for PM next time has listened to the people and done as instructed. The other did everything he could, for years, to thwart them.

    Look no further for the reason Boris will win next time out.

    Sadly I think you may have nailed it with that post. People talk about how useless Starmer is, but he isn't Corbyn. On top of which is the golden rule that Govt lose elections, oppositions don't win them and Boris has certainly had enough events for that rule to be confirmed and it isn't happening at all.

    I think Brexit has broken that rule.

    Whether remainers or leavers, whether accepting the result or not most are either pro Boris or anti Boris based on what he did on Brexit still.
  • Catching up with Question Time from Aldershot. Astonishing - an absolute pile-on both from right wing panelists like Nick Ferrari and from Tory and Brexit-voting members of the audience.

    As they keep pointing out, if the changes are the plan then why hasn't anything been done to prepare for it? If we now have a point-based migration system to decide who we let in why isn't it being used as billed to bring people in we need? If the government cares about shortages and the impact of rising prices and cuts to UC why does it deny they are a problem and do nothing?

    Denying there are problems is classic Boris, but not convinced it works if the whole government plays along. Empathy and understanding is needed even when solutions are not available or votes will be lost.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. B2, alas, that shouldn't be the case. It was because Labour MPs failed to understand their own leadership election system and put in someone wholly unsuitable, while the Conservatives, less forgivably (although with a less appalling candidate) also went for someone unworthy of high office because they saw him as a winner.

    If we had a better political class it would be different. But when you have a combination of near mindless 'brand loyalty' coupled with a terrible political media that focuses on trying to scalp individuals rather than scrutinise legislation it naturally puts off a lot of people who might otherwise be interested in serving their country.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 3,773
    I have mixed feelings about Johnson - on one hand I think he was possibly the only option to smash Corbyn at the time and in a way to get Brexit “done” needed a cheerleader, rabble rouser, fluffer to make it seem like a positive step and carry along doubters.

    I think him moving the party to the centre ground by dishing Labour on some areas is a good move and again probably needed that sort of Teflon populist front man to pull it off.

    Unfortunately now he’s “sold” the deal we desperately need someone serious to actually get things done and to attempt to make things work. The time for a salesman is passed and now we need an engineer to make the product properly.

    I would really love Boris to step down to spend more time with his future earnings and let someone take over who doesn’t want adulation and doesn’t see everything as a jolly lark - we’ve got away with it to an extent so far but I can’t see him delivering the harder yards well.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    kjh said:

    Boris's polling stays high because he told people that under him, there would be no attempts to evade the will of the people, no ever more ludicrous attempts to go for a second referendum or delay delay delay until the voters magically said "OK - lets forget about Brexit".

    People didn't expect a perfect Brexit. The Europhiles had spent decades sewing us into the fabric of the EEC --> EU such that it was MEANT to be impossible for us to leave. But the voters gave the Government a single, simple instruction: get us out the EU regardless. Starmer said, er, no. Boris said righto - and did.

    One of the candidates for PM next time has listened to the people and done as instructed. The other did everything he could, for years, to thwart them.

    Look no further for the reason Boris will win next time out.

    Sadly I think you may have nailed it with that post. People talk about how useless Starmer is, but he isn't Corbyn. On top of which is the golden rule that Govt lose elections, oppositions don't win them and Boris has certainly had enough events for that rule to be confirmed and it isn't happening at all.

    I think Brexit has broken that rule.

    Whether remainers or leavers, whether accepting the result or not most are either pro Boris or anti Boris based on what he did on Brexit still.
    In 1945 a Conservative voter was talking to his son, later an historian, about the National government in the 1930s. His son, a Labour voter, listed all the failures on rearmament, on unemployment, on social reform, on industrial development, and his father nodded agreement with all of them. Then he cut in, and “with a catch in his voice said, ‘But don’t forget, they gave us the tariff.’ There was a generation of Conservative history in his words.”

    Tariff reform from 1903 to 1932 was frequently compared to the travails of the Tories over Europe from 1989 to date (E. H. H. Green and Robert Blake spring to mind). I wonder if the outcome could be similar - that it shores up the base to the extent it’s very hard for any other party to win a majority for the next 30 years except under very exceptional circumstances.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,342
    edited October 2021
    Foxy said:

    The main, perhaps the only, thing Johnson understands is raw human power. How to get it and how to deploy it.

    Consider his approach to getting a significant controversial tax rise to fund the NHS, sorry social care, OK let's be honest, the NHS, through. All done in a week, zero ministerial resignations, it's probably a bad plan but They Salute With Both Hands Now.

    Or his approach to choosing a cabinet, where loyalty to King Boris is all.

    So he'll be blooming hard to depose. He's made sure of that.

    But, unlike other PMs, he's not really there to do things (Thatcher, Blair) or serve (Cameron, May). He's there to be King Boris and to be hailed. So what happens when "We hail King Boris" becomes "We hate King Boris"?

    We don't know, because it hasn't happened yet.

    But unless this time is different, it inevitably will, possibly quite soon if the money runs out.

    All political careers end in failure, but Johnson's fall will be quite spectacular. He hasn't a real hinterland of friends in the party, even his closest ally famously knifed him in his first attempt at the leadership. As such he will cling on as hard as he can, and when he goes, nearly his entire cabinet will go with him, and they know it.

    When he goes, it will be like a change in government, as when the Tories have regenerated before.

    All this is true. What is difficult is how to attach probabilities to the timing - which effectively is the only issue. Quincel's interesting article is headed: "BJ isn't under threat." Wrong, in the sense that PMs are always under threat, there being several people who would sell their grannies to take over his job not just tomorrow but today.

    Also wrong in the sense that the number of issues that don't have solutions, of which inflation, NHS, skill/labour shortage and climate disaster and energy are only five, is mounting.

    Two things can be said for Boris: he wants to go at his timing, no-one else's. And if he wants to stay he won't go quietly.

    if you want to back a horse that will give you a run, and if you conclude that he wants to do more than 5 years, then back Boris. The rest is guesswork. I put it at less than 33%, more than Quincel's 10%.

    PS Who do we want as PM if and when China/Taiwan gets violent?



This discussion has been closed.