BREAKING: The Metropolitan Police will NOT investigate any of the Downing Street parties unless and until the Sue Gray inquiry finds evidence of criminality.
ie the Met are relying on an internal inquiry to decide for them whether a crime was committed.
Sounds wrong. But Sue would have to stop and wait for them, delaying from end of next week till who knows when?
I am very relieved the Met will not act before Sue Gray's report which is due in 10 days, but would have been kicked into the long grass and this political crisis seeing no ending
My guess is that the police saw no upside. Get involved and effectively stretch out/blur the issue, and potentially start yet another political fight of police vs politicians.
Everyone who went to Oxford between the late 80s and the early 2000s thinks that the police are completely corrupt and useless already... Why *really* make enemies of the next cabinet. Half of whom....
Are the police in Oxford especially bad? That Morse chap was pretty good wasn't he?
Maybe not Oxford specifically, but the same force was not well thought of even before that: I remember Thames Valley Police's idea of good PR was to invite Roger Graef to do a fly on the wall TV doc in the early 1980s. The result was catastrophic for their reputation, abvoe all their handling of a rape complainant.
There was a certain chap who pretty much lived in the Gloucester Arms throughout that period.
He sold soft(ish) drugs to half of Oxford. Or at least his friends did.
The police never arrested him or his friends. They arrested anyone else who tried setting up in the drug dealing business, though. Very efficient they were at that. Students sent down from the university every year.....
The one explanation was that after the death of Olivia Channing, having someone keep the Oxford *scene* nice and tidy was a good thing for everyone.
Absolutely not, though personally that would be grounds for expulsion from Tory Party membership for me given you already voted LD at the last general election and still wish to actively push a non Tory republican agenda.
I know several Tory Brexiteers who said I was absolutely right to vote Lib Dem in 2017 and 2019 because it was a Lib Dem/Labour marginal given who the Labour candidate and Labour leader were.
Anyhoo, I'm up for fizz with Liz, she knows.
Even Liz Truss has now said she backs the monarchy "And I began to understand more about why Britain is successful and part of our success is the constitutional monarchy that supports a free democracy." https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1534760/Liz-Truss-BBC-Republican-Monarchy-Queen-Nick-Robinson-VN Liz has atoned of her republican sins and drawn back towards the true Tory doctrine, repentance is fine, not continuing to push the sin.
So you’re already tacking toward the way the wind is blowing?
We’re on to you. All part of your plan to become democratically elected dictator of the UK?
My first priority, to ensure France honours the Treaty of Troyes.
That would spoil the most perfect insult in history. 1066 they invade our country and steal it. 1945 we invade theirs and give it back to them because we have no use for it.
Revenge, best served cold.
THAT IS FAKE NEWS.
The French have never invaded and stolen our country, the Normans did, but not the French.
Absolutely not, though personally that would be grounds for expulsion from Tory Party membership for me given you already voted LD at the last general election and still wish to actively push a non Tory republican agenda.
I know several Tory Brexiteers who said I was absolutely right to vote Lib Dem in 2017 and 2019 because it was a Lib Dem/Labour marginal given who the Labour candidate and Labour leader were.
Anyhoo, I'm up for fizz with Liz, she knows.
Even Liz Truss has now said she backs the monarchy "And I began to understand more about why Britain is successful and part of our success is the constitutional monarchy that supports a free democracy." https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1534760/Liz-Truss-BBC-Republican-Monarchy-Queen-Nick-Robinson-VN Liz has atoned of her republican sins and drawn back towards the true Tory doctrine, repentance is fine, not continuing to push the sin.
So you’re already tacking toward the way the wind is blowing?
When you’re benchmarking her against Johnson, effectively saying ‘at least she’s better than Johnson, thats pretty desperate stuff.
But we’re talking about her popularity in England. Her party doesn’t even put up candidates in England.
It’s pretty unusual for any foreign leader to be more popular than that country’s own head of government. Maybe Obama was more popular than Brown? Probably other, better examples. But still bloody unusual.
4th most popular in the UK on that list of 285 UK pols.
Yoons: proof were it needed that Sturgeon is an abject failure. WHY ISN’T SHE FIRST?!
If there were any way in which Nicola could take (and be persuaded to take) the job of UK PM, and be willing to bat for the entire country, I’d take her like a shot.
I believe in that case Leon may challenge you to a duel as his favoured option would be Salmond, the best pm that the UK never had.
I think I am getting hang of this now.
After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays.
My goodness he has a lot to Pontificate on tonight. I think he will start on Labour MPs taking half a million pounds from Chinese spy’s.
Surely they are aliens masquerading as Chinese?
It seems the Chinese 'spy' gave £5k to a party leader...
“I was trying to come up with a comparison to Boris’s ‘I thought it was a work event’ and all I can think of are those people who go into hospital with a bottle stuck up their bum and claim they slipped and fell onto it.”
That's the last time I take a doctor into my confidence.
It’s fine on PB as long as the bottle didn’t contain ghastly plebby supermarket wine.
Only if it isn't *interesting* wine. It's not unusual for supermarkets to get hold of some really good stuff.
Bit like the "own brand" single malts - sometimes hides a gem...
Lidl had some surprisingly good whisky about 3-4 years back. It had some stupid name like The Jizz of McGillicuddy of the Reeks but was excellent value for the quality.
That would be whiskey, and it's The McGillicuddy. Omit that and it sounds really silly.
Dr McGillicuddy’s Intense Mentholmint Liqueur?
How much did you consume Carnyx?
No, my dad did and he knew his whiskies. He was actually very surprised, and pleased, as he tended to ration himself on the more expensive SMWS bottles and they were good for in between.
“I was trying to come up with a comparison to Boris’s ‘I thought it was a work event’ and all I can think of are those people who go into hospital with a bottle stuck up their bum and claim they slipped and fell onto it.”
That's the last time I take a doctor into my confidence.
It’s fine on PB as long as the bottle didn’t contain ghastly plebby supermarket wine.
Only if it isn't *interesting* wine. It's not unusual for supermarkets to get hold of some really good stuff.
Bit like the "own brand" single malts - sometimes hides a gem...
Lidl had some surprisingly good whisky about 3-4 years back. It had some stupid name like The Jizz of McGillicuddy of the Reeks but was excellent value for the quality.
That would be whiskey, and it's The McGillicuddy. Omit that and it sounds really silly.
It sounds silly unless you get it right. 😐
And also sounds silly IF you get it right!
BTW (and FYI) to semi-superannuated Americans, the name "McGillicuddy" conjures up memories of the classic sitcom "I Love Lucy" because it was the maiden name of Lucille Ball's most memorable character.
We’re on to you. All part of your plan to become democratically elected dictator of the UK?
My first priority, to ensure France honours the Treaty of Troyes.
That would spoil the most perfect insult in history. 1066 they invade our country and steal it. 1945 we invade theirs and give it back to them because we have no use for it.
Revenge, best served cold.
THAT IS FAKE NEWS.
The French have never invaded and stolen our country, the Normans did, but not the French.
It is how I sleep soundly at night.
The French invaded just along the coast from here in 1545, but local legend has it that after one look at the locals they turned tail and sailed back to France.
When you’re benchmarking her against Johnson, effectively saying ‘at least she’s better than Johnson, thats pretty desperate stuff.
But we’re talking about her popularity in England. Her party doesn’t even put up candidates in England.
It’s pretty unusual for any foreign leader to be more popular than that country’s own head of government. Maybe Obama was more popular than Brown? Probably other, better examples. But still bloody unusual.
4th most popular in the UK on that list of 285 UK pols.
Yoons: proof were it needed that Sturgeon is an abject failure. WHY ISN’T SHE FIRST?!
If there were any way in which Nicola could take (and be persuaded to take) the job of UK PM, and be willing to bat for the entire country, I’d take her like a shot.
I believe in that case Leon may challenge you to a duel as his favoured option would be Salmond, the best pm that the UK never had.
I think I am getting hang of this now.
After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays.
My goodness he has a lot to Pontificate on tonight. I think he will start on Labour MPs taking half a million pounds from Chinese spy’s.
"After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays."
When you’re benchmarking her against Johnson, effectively saying ‘at least she’s better than Johnson, thats pretty desperate stuff.
But we’re talking about her popularity in England. Her party doesn’t even put up candidates in England.
It’s pretty unusual for any foreign leader to be more popular than that country’s own head of government. Maybe Obama was more popular than Brown? Probably other, better examples. But still bloody unusual.
4th most popular in the UK on that list of 285 UK pols.
Yoons: proof were it needed that Sturgeon is an abject failure. WHY ISN’T SHE FIRST?!
If there were any way in which Nicola could take (and be persuaded to take) the job of UK PM, and be willing to bat for the entire country, I’d take her like a shot.
I believe in that case Leon may challenge you to a duel as his favoured option would be Salmond, the best pm that the UK never had.
I think I am getting hang of this now.
After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays.
My goodness he has a lot to Pontificate on tonight. I think he will start on Labour MPs taking half a million pounds from Chinese spy’s.
Surely they are aliens masquerading as Chinese?
It seems the Chinese 'spy' gave £5k to a party leader...
Gosh..that would buy..... just under 6 rolls of wallpaper
When you’re benchmarking her against Johnson, effectively saying ‘at least she’s better than Johnson, thats pretty desperate stuff.
But we’re talking about her popularity in England. Her party doesn’t even put up candidates in England.
It’s pretty unusual for any foreign leader to be more popular than that country’s own head of government. Maybe Obama was more popular than Brown? Probably other, better examples. But still bloody unusual.
4th most popular in the UK on that list of 285 UK pols.
Yoons: proof were it needed that Sturgeon is an abject failure. WHY ISN’T SHE FIRST?!
If there were any way in which Nicola could take (and be persuaded to take) the job of UK PM, and be willing to bat for the entire country, I’d take her like a shot.
I believe in that case Leon may challenge you to a duel as his favoured option would be Salmond, the best pm that the UK never had.
I think I am getting hang of this now.
After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays.
My goodness he has a lot to Pontificate on tonight. I think he will start on Labour MPs taking half a million pounds from Chinese spy’s.
Surely they are aliens masquerading as Chinese?
Who knows where the evening takes us? Could be a real corker uncorked on here tonight. Yes I agree. Finishing up in the early hours with Leon only just discovering midwich cuckoos was based on real events.
Remember however the Tories had 0 Scottish seats in 1997 and only 1 seat even in 2015 when they won an overall UK majority.
The Scottish party is no more important to the Tory party than any other regional branch of it, it is the UK Tory party as a whole who will decide who its leader is, after all that is the whole point of the Union. The whole UK determines the UK government, not just Scots, Scots have their own parliament for much domestic policy post devolution but Westminster still remains the UK parliament
You carry on reaching out to those swing voters!
I notice his assertion the whole point of the Union of the Kingdoms is to support the Conservative Party. Just to avoid the need for any quic edits, he said" it is the UK Tory party as a whole who will decide who its leader is, after all that is the whole point of the Union."
Here is a deal: you stop kicking HYUFD and I'll stop kicking Malcolm? How long can we keep it up?
You flatter yourself you scumbag of scumbags. Why have you stopped F***ing off foreskin. The day you are able to kick me will be the day I become Pope. @Nigel_Foremain@Carnyx
Antacids are quite useful when one is suffering from severe indigestion! Can really upset the mood.
Foreskin? lol. This is the extent of the silly little mans "wit". I don't need to kick him really he does such a good job of it himself.😂😂😂😂😂😂
I heard a cheap circumcision is known as a hatchet job.
Can we really do jokes like that on here?
I had a job as a circumcisors assistant a few years back. The basic pay was poor but I got to keep half the tips.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Hello und wilkommen
The tory difficulty is more with their electorate than their in house loonies. Red wall think he's a c--- and aren't going to be interested in any replacement either, blue wall feel shafted over hunting, farming, green nonsense etc
PLEASE don't write free reign, you mean free rein. Letting the horse pull the cart wherever it pleases.
When you’re benchmarking her against Johnson, effectively saying ‘at least she’s better than Johnson, thats pretty desperate stuff.
But we’re talking about her popularity in England. Her party doesn’t even put up candidates in England.
It’s pretty unusual for any foreign leader to be more popular than that country’s own head of government. Maybe Obama was more popular than Brown? Probably other, better examples. But still bloody unusual.
4th most popular in the UK on that list of 285 UK pols.
Yoons: proof were it needed that Sturgeon is an abject failure. WHY ISN’T SHE FIRST?!
If there were any way in which Nicola could take (and be persuaded to take) the job of UK PM, and be willing to bat for the entire country, I’d take her like a shot.
I believe in that case Leon may challenge you to a duel as his favoured option would be Salmond, the best pm that the UK never had.
I think I am getting hang of this now.
After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays.
My goodness he has a lot to Pontificate on tonight. I think he will start on Labour MPs taking half a million pounds from Chinese spy’s.
Surely they are aliens masquerading as Chinese?
Who knows where the evening takes us? Could be a real corker uncorked on here tonight. Yes I agree. Finishing up in the early hours with Leon only just discovering midwich cuckoos was based on real events.
When you’re benchmarking her against Johnson, effectively saying ‘at least she’s better than Johnson, thats pretty desperate stuff.
But we’re talking about her popularity in England. Her party doesn’t even put up candidates in England.
It’s pretty unusual for any foreign leader to be more popular than that country’s own head of government. Maybe Obama was more popular than Brown? Probably other, better examples. But still bloody unusual.
4th most popular in the UK on that list of 285 UK pols.
Yoons: proof were it needed that Sturgeon is an abject failure. WHY ISN’T SHE FIRST?!
If there were any way in which Nicola could take (and be persuaded to take) the job of UK PM, and be willing to bat for the entire country, I’d take her like a shot.
I believe in that case Leon may challenge you to a duel as his favoured option would be Salmond, the best pm that the UK never had.
I think I am getting hang of this now.
After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays.
My goodness he has a lot to Pontificate on tonight. I think he will start on Labour MPs taking half a million pounds from Chinese spy’s.
Surely they are aliens masquerading as Chinese?
Who knows where the evening takes us? Could be a real corker uncorked on here tonight. Yes I agree. Finishing up in the early hours with Leon only just discovering midwich cuckoos was based on real events.
What if they were Chinese masquerading as aliens, masquerading as Chinese?
Remember however the Tories had 0 Scottish seats in 1997 and only 1 seat even in 2015 when they won an overall UK majority.
The Scottish party is no more important to the Tory party than any other regional branch of it, it is the UK Tory party as a whole who will decide who its leader is, after all that is the whole point of the Union. The whole UK determines the UK government, not just Scots, Scots have their own parliament for much domestic policy post devolution but Westminster still remains the UK parliament
You carry on reaching out to those swing voters!
I notice his assertion the whole point of the Union of the Kingdoms is to support the Conservative Party. Just to avoid the need for any quic edits, he said" it is the UK Tory party as a whole who will decide who its leader is, after all that is the whole point of the Union."
Here is a deal: you stop kicking HYUFD and I'll stop kicking Malcolm? How long can we keep it up?
You flatter yourself you scumbag of scumbags. Why have you stopped F***ing off foreskin. The day you are able to kick me will be the day I become Pope. @Nigel_Foremain@Carnyx
Antacids are quite useful when one is suffering from severe indigestion! Can really upset the mood.
Foreskin? lol. This is the extent of the silly little mans "wit". I don't need to kick him really he does such a good job of it himself.😂😂😂😂😂😂
I heard a cheap circumcision is known as a hatchet job.
Can we really do jokes like that on here?
I had a job as a circumcisors assistant a few years back. The basic pay was poor but I got to keep half the tips.
We’re on to you. All part of your plan to become democratically elected dictator of the UK?
My first priority, to ensure France honours the Treaty of Troyes.
That would spoil the most perfect insult in history. 1066 they invade our country and steal it. 1945 we invade theirs and give it back to them because we have no use for it.
Revenge, best served cold.
THAT IS FAKE NEWS.
The French have never invaded and stolen our country, the Normans did, but not the French.
It is how I sleep soundly at night.
The French invaded just along the coast from here in 1545, but local legend has it that after one look at the locals they turned tail and sailed back to France.
When you’re benchmarking her against Johnson, effectively saying ‘at least she’s better than Johnson, thats pretty desperate stuff.
But we’re talking about her popularity in England. Her party doesn’t even put up candidates in England.
It’s pretty unusual for any foreign leader to be more popular than that country’s own head of government. Maybe Obama was more popular than Brown? Probably other, better examples. But still bloody unusual.
4th most popular in the UK on that list of 285 UK pols.
Yoons: proof were it needed that Sturgeon is an abject failure. WHY ISN’T SHE FIRST?!
If there were any way in which Nicola could take (and be persuaded to take) the job of UK PM, and be willing to bat for the entire country, I’d take her like a shot.
I believe in that case Leon may challenge you to a duel as his favoured option would be Salmond, the best pm that the UK never had.
I think I am getting hang of this now.
After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays.
My goodness he has a lot to Pontificate on tonight. I think he will start on Labour MPs taking half a million pounds from Chinese spy’s.
Surely they are aliens masquerading as Chinese?
Who knows where the evening takes us? Could be a real corker uncorked on here tonight. Yes I agree. Finishing up in the early hours with Leon only just discovering midwich cuckoos was based on real events.
What if they were Chinese masquerading as aliens, masquerading as Chinese?
BREAKING: The Metropolitan Police will NOT investigate any of the Downing Street parties unless and until the Sue Gray inquiry finds evidence of criminality.
ie the Met are relying on an internal inquiry to decide for them whether a crime was committed.
Sounds wrong. But Sue would have to stop and wait for them, delaying from end of next week till who knows when?
I am very relieved the Met will not act before Sue Gray's report which is due in 10 days, but would have been kicked into the long grass and this political crisis seeing no ending
My guess is that the police saw no upside. Get involved and effectively stretch out/blur the issue, and potentially start yet another political fight of police vs politicians.
Everyone who went to Oxford between the late 80s and the early 2000s thinks that the police are completely corrupt and useless already... Why *really* make enemies of the next cabinet. Half of whom....
Are the police in Oxford especially bad? That Morse chap was pretty good wasn't he?
Maybe not Oxford specifically, but the same force was not well thought of even before that: I remember Thames Valley Police's idea of good PR was to invite Roger Graef to do a fly on the wall TV doc in the early 1980s. The result was catastrophic for their reputation, abvoe all their handling of a rape complainant.
There was a certain chap who pretty much lived in the Gloucester Arms throughout that period.
He sold soft(ish) drugs to half of Oxford. Or at least his friends did.
The police never arrested him or his friends. They arrested anyone else who tried setting up in the drug dealing business, though. Very efficient they were at that. Students sent down from the university every year.....
The one explanation was that after the death of Olivia Channing, having someone keep the Oxford *scene* nice and tidy was a good thing for everyone.
When you’re benchmarking her against Johnson, effectively saying ‘at least she’s better than Johnson, thats pretty desperate stuff.
But we’re talking about her popularity in England. Her party doesn’t even put up candidates in England.
It’s pretty unusual for any foreign leader to be more popular than that country’s own head of government. Maybe Obama was more popular than Brown? Probably other, better examples. But still bloody unusual.
4th most popular in the UK on that list of 285 UK pols.
Yoons: proof were it needed that Sturgeon is an abject failure. WHY ISN’T SHE FIRST?!
If there were any way in which Nicola could take (and be persuaded to take) the job of UK PM, and be willing to bat for the entire country, I’d take her like a shot.
I believe in that case Leon may challenge you to a duel as his favoured option would be Salmond, the best pm that the UK never had.
I think I am getting hang of this now.
After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays.
My goodness he has a lot to Pontificate on tonight. I think he will start on Labour MPs taking half a million pounds from Chinese spy’s.
Surely they are aliens masquerading as Chinese?
Who knows where the evening takes us? Could be a real corker uncorked on here tonight. Yes I agree. Finishing up in the early hours with Leon only just discovering midwich cuckoos was based on real events.
What if they were Chinese masquerading as aliens, masquerading as Chinese?
BREAKING: The Metropolitan Police will NOT investigate any of the Downing Street parties unless and until the Sue Gray inquiry finds evidence of criminality.
ie the Met are relying on an internal inquiry to decide for them whether a crime was committed.
Sounds wrong. But Sue would have to stop and wait for them, delaying from end of next week till who knows when?
I am very relieved the Met will not act before Sue Gray's report which is due in 10 days, but would have been kicked into the long grass and this political crisis seeing no ending
My guess is that the police saw no upside. Get involved and effectively stretch out/blur the issue, and potentially start yet another political fight of police vs politicians.
Everyone who went to Oxford between the late 80s and the early 2000s thinks that the police are completely corrupt and useless already... Why *really* make enemies of the next cabinet. Half of whom....
Are the police in Oxford especially bad? That Morse chap was pretty good wasn't he?
Maybe not Oxford specifically, but the same force was not well thought of even before that: I remember Thames Valley Police's idea of good PR was to invite Roger Graef to do a fly on the wall TV doc in the early 1980s. The result was catastrophic for their reputation, abvoe all their handling of a rape complainant.
There was a certain chap who pretty much lived in the Gloucester Arms throughout that period.
He sold soft(ish) drugs to half of Oxford. Or at least his friends did.
The police never arrested him or his friends. They arrested anyone else who tried setting up in the drug dealing business, though. Very efficient they were at that. Students sent down from the university every year.....
The one explanation was that after the death of Olivia Channing, having someone keep the Oxford *scene* nice and tidy was a good thing for everyone.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
Please, take him off our hands, as soon as is possibly convenient….
I see Cressida has washed her hands of the whole party gate affair by saying Met follows national guidelines on covid enforcement:
"'Throughout the pandemic the Met has followed the national 4 Es approach of enforcing the Coronavirus Regulations. Where live ongoing breaches of the restrictions were identified, officers engaged with those present, explained the current restrictions, encouraged people to adhere to them, and only as a last resort moved to enforcement." - quote from Mail
Tell that to the students fined £10k for a house party.
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
"I was duped by the Covid lab leak deniers That senior scientists saw evidence for theories that they trashed in public has shattered trust in science"
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
The Psychedelic Movement bloke is anything but, rt wing nutter under a false flag
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
Please, take him off our hands, as soon as is possibly convenient….
OK, well take Boris for his entertainment value - but ONLY if you return the favor!
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
A letter written by Boris Johnson's classics master when he was at Eton has resurfaced saying he 'believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception'.
The report, from Martin Hammond to Stanley Johnson in 1982, rapped the 17-year-old for thinking he should be free of the 'network of obligation that binds everyone'.
The classics schoolmaster also slammed him for being 'affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility'.
It comes as the PM's future hangs on a knife edge as ministers pleaded with Tories MPs to wait for a probe into No 10 parties before calling for him to quit.
I see Cressida has washed her hands of the whole party gate affair by saying Met follows national guidelines on covid enforcement:
"'Throughout the pandemic the Met has followed the national 4 Es approach of enforcing the Coronavirus Regulations. Where live ongoing breaches of the restrictions were identified, officers engaged with those present, explained the current restrictions, encouraged people to adhere to them, and only as a last resort moved to enforcement." - quote from Mail
Tell that to the students fined £10k for a house party.
Your example is consistent with the statement isn't it?
We’re on to you. All part of your plan to become democratically elected dictator of the UK?
My first priority, to ensure France honours the Treaty of Troyes.
That would spoil the most perfect insult in history. 1066 they invade our country and steal it. 1945 we invade theirs and give it back to them because we have no use for it.
Revenge, best served cold.
THAT IS FAKE NEWS.
The French have never invaded and stolen our country, the Normans did, but not the French.
It is how I sleep soundly at night.
Quite right. French speaking and under the French king, nominally, but we have to draw the line somewhere.
Trump doesn't want to debate a man he claims is senile? Hmmmm...
Presumably they'll fall back on the old chestnut about not wanting to argue with an idiot and getting beaten by their experience. But we can all see true reasons.
When you’re benchmarking her against Johnson, effectively saying ‘at least she’s better than Johnson, thats pretty desperate stuff.
But we’re talking about her popularity in England. Her party doesn’t even put up candidates in England.
It’s pretty unusual for any foreign leader to be more popular than that country’s own head of government. Maybe Obama was more popular than Brown? Probably other, better examples. But still bloody unusual.
4th most popular in the UK on that list of 285 UK pols.
Yoons: proof were it needed that Sturgeon is an abject failure. WHY ISN’T SHE FIRST?!
If there were any way in which Nicola could take (and be persuaded to take) the job of UK PM, and be willing to bat for the entire country, I’d take her like a shot.
I believe in that case Leon may challenge you to a duel as his favoured option would be Salmond, the best pm that the UK never had.
I think I am getting hang of this now.
After the Malmesbury Monoliths appear and pass through the posts like animals marching through tellytubby land, we all get drunk and await the arrival of Leon. Particularly on Thursdays.
My goodness he has a lot to Pontificate on tonight. I think he will start on Labour MPs taking half a million pounds from Chinese spy’s.
Surely they are aliens masquerading as Chinese?
Who knows where the evening takes us? Could be a real corker uncorked on here tonight. Yes I agree. Finishing up in the early hours with Leon only just discovering midwich cuckoos was based on real events.
What if they were Chinese masquerading as aliens, masquerading as Chinese?
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
Please, take him off our hands, as soon as is possibly convenient….
OK, well take Boris for his entertainment value - but ONLY if you return the favour!
We sent you all our religious nuts, centuries back, which has helped to make your country what it is (once you had rooted out the witches in their midst).
Who do you want to return in repayment for such largesse?
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
The Psychedelic Movement bloke is anything but, rt wing nutter under a false flag
A letter written by Boris Johnson's classics master when he was at Eton has resurfaced saying he 'believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception'.
The report, from Martin Hammond to Stanley Johnson in 1982, rapped the 17-year-old for thinking he should be free of the 'network of obligation that binds everyone'.
The classics schoolmaster also slammed him for being 'affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility'.
It comes as the PM's future hangs on a knife edge as ministers pleaded with Tories MPs to wait for a probe into No 10 parties before calling for him to quit.
This has resurfaced more times than an orca off Vancouver.
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
A letter written by Boris Johnson's classics master when he was at Eton has resurfaced saying he 'believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception'.
The report, from Martin Hammond to Stanley Johnson in 1982, rapped the 17-year-old for thinking he should be free of the 'network of obligation that binds everyone'.
The classics schoolmaster also slammed him for being 'affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility'.
It comes as the PM's future hangs on a knife edge as ministers pleaded with Tories MPs to wait for a probe into No 10 parties before calling for him to quit.
This has resurfaced more times than an orca off Vancouver.
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
The Psychedelic Movement bloke is anything but, rt wing nutter under a false flag
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
Note that the Official Monster Raving Loony Party is NOT fielding a candidate in Southend West.
Presumable out of respect for the tragic circumstances behind this byelection?
Something beyond the ken or character of the REAL nutbags?
IF yours truly had a vote there, think I'd either skip the by-election or spoil my ballot paper. Certainly would NOT vote for the Conservative, however worthy.
UNLESS perhaps she publicly denounced/renounced Boris Johnson. Which is (I think) doubtful.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
I'm tipping him to run for US President in the 2030s. (He won't care if he is eligible or not and that can only be tested post election anyway). Loadsamoney in that.
A letter written by Boris Johnson's classics master when he was at Eton has resurfaced saying he 'believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception'.
The report, from Martin Hammond to Stanley Johnson in 1982, rapped the 17-year-old for thinking he should be free of the 'network of obligation that binds everyone'.
The classics schoolmaster also slammed him for being 'affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility'.
It comes as the PM's future hangs on a knife edge as ministers pleaded with Tories MPs to wait for a probe into No 10 parties before calling for him to quit.
This has resurfaced more times than an orca off Vancouver.
It's just that it's so unerringly on the button, and so early in the trajectory of Rocket Boris.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
I see Cressida has washed her hands of the whole party gate affair by saying Met follows national guidelines on covid enforcement:
"'Throughout the pandemic the Met has followed the national 4 Es approach of enforcing the Coronavirus Regulations. Where live ongoing breaches of the restrictions were identified, officers engaged with those present, explained the current restrictions, encouraged people to adhere to them, and only as a last resort moved to enforcement." - quote from Mail
Tell that to the students fined £10k for a house party.
But I think that may be right. From what I've heard and read, the police only actually prosecuted people who got arsey and refused to stop whatever it was they were doing that broke the law. Immediate dispersals weren't pursued through the courts.
Anyway, on the more substantive point, I don't really want the Met to waste their time chasing down No. 10 for events in May 2020. I just want Boris and his chums to resign.
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
Please, take him off our hands, as soon as is possibly convenient….
OK, well take Boris for his entertainment value - but ONLY if you return the favour!
We sent you all our religious nuts, centuries back, which has helped to make your country what it is (once you had rooted out the witches in their midst).
Who do you want to return in repayment for such largesse?
Why, that great (grand)son of Scotland, of course: #45!
Of course THAT might just drive the venerable Jack W to forsake his Jacobite loyalties!
I see Cressida has washed her hands of the whole party gate affair by saying Met follows national guidelines on covid enforcement:
"'Throughout the pandemic the Met has followed the national 4 Es approach of enforcing the Coronavirus Regulations. Where live ongoing breaches of the restrictions were identified, officers engaged with those present, explained the current restrictions, encouraged people to adhere to them, and only as a last resort moved to enforcement." - quote from Mail
Tell that to the students fined £10k for a house party.
But I think that may be right. From what I've heard and read, the police only actually prosecuted people who got arsey and refused to stop whatever it was they were doing that broke the law. Immediate dispersals weren't pursued through the courts.
Anyway, on the more substantive point, I don't really want the Met to waste their time chasing down No. 10 for events in May 2020. I just want Boris and his chums to resign.
There would have been several police officers watching people arrive for the party and others monitoring the party of cctv!
Just watched Nadine Dorries on Ch4 and it was spectacular! She'd dialled up the Day-Glo blue on her Computer so she came out looking like a 1970 Abba tribute band!
"I was duped by the Covid lab leak deniers That senior scientists saw evidence for theories that they trashed in public has shattered trust in science"
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
Note that the Official Monster Raving Loony Party is NOT fielding a candidate in Southend West.
Presumable out of respect for the tragic circumstances behind this byelection?
Something beyond the ken or character of the REAL nutbags?
IF yours truly had a vote there, think I'd either skip the by-election or spoil my ballot paper. Certainly would NOT vote for the Conservative, however worthy.
UNLESS perhaps she publicly denounced/renounced Boris Johnson. Which is (I think) doubtful.
I tried to hunt out some kinds of social media footprint of the independent candidate and I think - treat this as unconfirmed, as it could be a different person - she may be a British based Russian activist lawyer, author of 'What Russians Really Think', knows Navalny and supports open immigration. Tbc.
Remember however the Tories had 0 Scottish seats in 1997 and only 1 seat even in 2015 when they won an overall UK majority.
The Scottish party is no more important to the Tory party than any other regional branch of it, it is the UK Tory party as a whole who will decide who its leader is, after all that is the whole point of the Union. The whole UK determines the UK government, not just Scots, Scots have their own parliament for much domestic policy post devolution but Westminster still remains the UK parliament
You carry on reaching out to those swing voters!
I notice his assertion the whole point of the Union of the Kingdoms is to support the Conservative Party. Just to avoid the need for any quic edits, he said" it is the UK Tory party as a whole who will decide who its leader is, after all that is the whole point of the Union."
Here is a deal: you stop kicking HYUFD and I'll stop kicking Malcolm? How long can we keep it up?
You flatter yourself you scumbag of scumbags. Why have you stopped F***ing off foreskin. The day you are able to kick me will be the day I become Pope. @Nigel_Foremain@Carnyx
Antacids are quite useful when one is suffering from severe indigestion! Can really upset the mood.
Foreskin? lol. This is the extent of the silly little mans "wit". I don't need to kick him really he does such a good job of it himself.😂😂😂😂😂😂
I heard a cheap circumcision is known as a hatchet job.
Can we really do jokes like that on here?
I had a job as a circumcisors assistant a few years back. The basic pay was poor but I got to keep half the tips.
I had a friend who did circumcisions and after 10 years made them into a wallet.
"That's not that impressive" I said.
He smiled. "But if you rub it, it turns into a suitcase..."
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
The Psychedelic Movement bloke is anything but, rt wing nutter under a false flag
Bumper season on Dartmoor btw. Indeed still is, I found some prize specimens on New Years Day.
Happy to hear it!
I'm higher and slightly further to the north atmo. The early December frosts seemed to have stopped the fruiting till next season. But, its always good excuse to go out and wonder across someone's field.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
I don't think the CRG are comparable with Momentum. The CRG is basically single issue - resisting new restrictions - and I think is drawn from across various shades of opinion within the party. It's also articulating a position which is fairly mainstream in the UK - a position which is, I would argue, increasingly being borne out my events. It would seem odd to take against that position now.
Thing on Alpha Men Assemble on C4 News, very QAnony vibe. Their fixation with what the the authorities and lockdown are supposedly doing to kids also strikes a strongly recognisable chord.
'If there aren't millions turning out for this we may as well go home, lay down and let the Communists take over!'
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
BREAKING: The Metropolitan Police will NOT investigate any of the Downing Street parties unless and until the Sue Gray inquiry finds evidence of criminality.
ie the Met are relying on an internal inquiry to decide for them whether a crime was committed.
Sounds wrong. But Sue would have to stop and wait for them, delaying from end of next week till who knows when?
I am very relieved the Met will not act before Sue Gray's report which is due in 10 days, but would have been kicked into the long grass and this political crisis seeing no ending
My guess is that the police saw no upside. Get involved and effectively stretch out/blur the issue, and potentially start yet another political fight of police vs politicians.
Everyone who went to Oxford between the late 80s and the early 2000s thinks that the police are completely corrupt and useless already... Why *really* make enemies of the next cabinet. Half of whom....
Are the police in Oxford especially bad? That Morse chap was pretty good wasn't he?
Maybe not Oxford specifically, but the same force was not well thought of even before that: I remember Thames Valley Police's idea of good PR was to invite Roger Graef to do a fly on the wall TV doc in the early 1980s. The result was catastrophic for their reputation, abvoe all their handling of a rape complainant.
Just watched Nadine Dorries on Ch4 and it was spectacular! She'd dialled up the Day-Glo blue on her Computer so she came out looking like a 1970 Abba tribute band!
She was so enthusiastic in her defence of Johnson, Mrs Foxy is convinced she is the new Edwina...
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The Gladiators and the Games never struck me as particularly civilised either. The Olympics appear at some sort of height of edification compared.
I've always thought that Magna Graecia, plus the Greek scholars who arrived in Italy after the fall of Constantinople and fed the Renaissance, have a strong connection with Italy's later civilisation.
As others have suggested, from the non-Conservative side of the aisle, I'm quite happy to see Boris Johnson booed and jeered to defeat over the next two years.
Every time he thinks he's making headway, somebody will bring something out of the archives to slap him back down and while the Conservative Parliamentary Party has a penchant for deposing failed leaders, it only does so when there's a clear and attractive alternative.
Sunak will have the option of leaving the ship or going down with it - ditto Truss and anyone else with leadership or Prime Ministerial aspirations. Opposition is going to be a new experience for many Conservatives and let's be honest, they weren't much good at it last time.
As @MarkH has intimated, the plates have shifted and the confidence of the "New Tories" from 2019 has been shattered. It's a reminder of one of the most valid adages in politics - it's easy to be hated, it's much harder to be ridiculed.
A single local by election today which is counting tomorrow so we can all have an early night (if that's what we do).
Thing on Alpha Men Assemble on C4 News, very QAnony vibe. Their fixation with what the the authorities and lockdown are supposedly doing to kids also strikes a strongly recognisable chord.
'If there aren't millions turning out for this we may as well go home, lay down and let the Communists take over!'
Yes, total Q Anon nonsense. Not sure what they are planning to protest, what with lockdown over.
I can see where Lilico is coming from. But with great respect I think he does not get the anger out there. PartyGate is not just a "flaw" it is a kick in the face for everyone who stuck to their rules.
"Boris Johnson’s personal morality is highly questionable, his personal organisation shambolic and his sense of probity dodgy on many an occasion. But on policy questions he frequently gets the big calls right (or at least much better than his opponents’ calls). It is decadent, indulgent thinking for us to assume that is of no value and we can obviously have a prime minister who combines personal virtue with policy excellence. Politics isn’t like that. It is messy and involves compromises and we are often forced to choose between that which is flawed and that which is worse."
Consequent upon something on BBC East I’ve just looked at the candidates nominated for Southend West. For those who have some info posted on Wikipedia, the words ‘far right fruitcakes and nut-jobs’ come to mind. There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
Note that the Official Monster Raving Loony Party is NOT fielding a candidate in Southend West.
Presumable out of respect for the tragic circumstances behind this byelection?
Something beyond the ken or character of the REAL nutbags?
IF yours truly had a vote there, think I'd either skip the by-election or spoil my ballot paper. Certainly would NOT vote for the Conservative, however worthy.
UNLESS perhaps she publicly denounced/renounced Boris Johnson. Which is (I think) doubtful.
I tried to hunt out some kinds of social media footprint of the independent candidate and I think - treat this as unconfirmed, as it could be a different person - she may be a British based Russian activist lawyer, author of 'What Russians Really Think', knows Navalny and supports open immigration. Tbc.
I shall ask family members who live in the constituency for copies of literature.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The Gladiators and the Games never struck me as particularly civilised either. The Olympics appear at some sort of height of edification compared.
The Mines of Laurion were a nasty place, but the scale of what happened at Rio Tinto is staggering. If you multiply the probable death rate by the number of years the mines were worked....
It's a pity the far right nutters couldn't elect just one of their number in Southend West to stand. (They could name them Il Duce, perhaps). The way it's going they'd have a chance.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
Leaving aside the politics. My biggest concern about 'party-gate' is the growing number of institutions at risk of getting burnt up in the storm - the reputation of the civil service, trust in the police, the integrity of the Union. Things which when lost are so hard to win back.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
Yeah. And at least the Spartans were genuinely fuck off hard.
I can see where Lilico is coming from. But with great respect I think he does not get the anger out there. PartyGate is not just a "flaw" it is a kick in the face for everyone who stuck to their rules.
"Boris Johnson’s personal morality is highly questionable, his personal organisation shambolic and his sense of probity dodgy on many an occasion. But on policy questions he frequently gets the big calls right (or at least much better than his opponents’ calls). It is decadent, indulgent thinking for us to assume that is of no value and we can obviously have a prime minister who combines personal virtue with policy excellence. Politics isn’t like that. It is messy and involves compromises and we are often forced to choose between that which is flawed and that which is worse."
His delights Were dolphinlike; they showed his back above The element they lived in. In his livery Walked crowns and crownets. Realms and islands were As plates dropped from his pocket.
Not. What are these big calls he got right?
The Spectator really is not even arsewipe material. I'm ashamed to say I am an on/off subscriber, I get sucked in by bottle of pimms offers. Expensive pimms.,
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
Yeah. And at least the Spartans were genuinely fuck off hard.
“300” is a Hollywood film (or a comic, depending on preference), not reality.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
Yeah. And at least the Spartans were genuinely fuck off hard.
Hence the name of the chocolate selection box in the seventies. Spartan, all hard centres.
I can see where Lilico is coming from. But with great respect I think he does not get the anger out there. PartyGate is not just a "flaw" it is a kick in the face for everyone who stuck to their rules.
"Boris Johnson’s personal morality is highly questionable, his personal organisation shambolic and his sense of probity dodgy on many an occasion. But on policy questions he frequently gets the big calls right (or at least much better than his opponents’ calls). It is decadent, indulgent thinking for us to assume that is of no value and we can obviously have a prime minister who combines personal virtue with policy excellence. Politics isn’t like that. It is messy and involves compromises and we are often forced to choose between that which is flawed and that which is worse."
His delights Were dolphinlike; they showed his back above The element they lived in. In his livery Walked crowns and crownets. Realms and islands were As plates dropped from his pocket.
Not. What are these big calls he got right?
The Spectator really is not even arsewipe material. I'm ashamed to say I am an on/off subscriber, I get sucked in by bottle of pimms offers. Expensive pimms.,
You'd need to polish the lot of just to abolish the recollection of the bollocks you just read. Easier just to buy a bottle of Pimm's.
EXCLUSIVE: Tory MP's £300,000 link to China 'spy' firm as he gets £700,000 for four extra jobs The cash for extra jobs scandal grows as it emerges wealthy backbencher Richard Fuller MP has four roles outside Parliament and advised a company that invests in surveillance kit, with Labour expressing human rights fears on the spy tech
PPE at Oxford 1981-84, where he was a contemporary of Boris and David Cameron sfaict. They all know each other. That's the remarkable thing.
Just as an aside, a number of train operators are reducing services next week ostensibly due to staff shortages caused by the coronavirus.
We'll get a better sense of the state of public transport usage next week. Last week's numbers showed tube usuage at 40-45% of pre-Covid and train numbers about the same but on Monday train numbers were back to 55% of pre-Covid.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
Yeah. And at least the Spartans were genuinely fuck off hard.
And gay. AIUI the idea was that gay ‘partners’ fought beside each other because neither would let the other down.
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
Yeah. And at least the Spartans were genuinely fuck off hard.
And balls-out psychotic, with the chance of an insanity defence
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
Yeah. And at least the Spartans were genuinely fuck off hard.
And gay. AIUI the idea was that gay ‘partners’ fought beside each other because neither would let the other down.
Helped with the interlocking phalanx too. An extra way to interlock...
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
Yeah. And at least the Spartans were genuinely fuck off hard.
And gay. AIUI the idea was that gay ‘partners’ fought beside each other because neither would let the other down.
Helped with the interlocking phalanx too. An extra way to interlock...
I sense a shifting of the the political tectonic plates. The next Tory leader must lance the boil of the ERG/Covid Recovery Group as Kinnock did with Momentum, although will probably face a similar fate. Since the CRG rebellion, the Rees-Moggs etc believe they have free reign, appealing to the c100,000 party members but increasingly alienating UK voters. As with Johnson, any new leader will be in thrall to the CRG unless they call a GE and remove the whip, so they can't stand, as Johnson did with Tory moderates. Johnson irretrievably lost any authority over his party with the CRG revolt against Plan B so was already a dead man walking. Even before 'party gate'. Previous PMs have been able to turn their tenure into filthy lucre. This option is no longer open to Johnson as he has already rewarded his acolytes and will have no traction as a columnist, expert meeting chair or lobbyist and will become. effectively homeless, on loss of office. Even as an after-dinner speaker to software salesmen, his appeal as the 'dim-sounding-but-actually-very-clever' speaker will fail if just one person suffered a bereavement during lockdown. Starmer must be hoping he'll cling on, with every PMQs 'he said this then, he said that then' which one is the truth? will resonate. Starmer has been collecting and collating receipts for 18 months now. His awkward squad, (Corbynite/Momentum) is easier to control. Without the whip, Corbyn faces a future of cultivating his allotment while collecting his pension. While his wife would advocate this course, his lifetime of 'tilting against windmills' will probably mean him setting up his own party. Without the party whip he cannot stand as an MP. Membership or support for such a new party would mean expulsion from Labour/removal of whip for Starmer's awkward squad. And then there is running a de facto 'progressive alliance' between Lib Dems and Labour where, as we have seen, there has already been an implicit pact in by-elections.
Welcome to PB!
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
I've tipped Boris to become a moosehead professor at one of your well-heeled universities. He can teach a 2-hour course on British politics, and another on Ancient Greece. Seven figures for a week's work, if that. Here is an extract from his Rome vs Greece debate against Prof Mary Beard:-
To be absolutely fair, the Romans were utter bastards.
What, you mean like compared to the bubonic plague?
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
The careers of Caesar and Pompey as a start? they made Colston look really small time.... Mass slaughter followed by mass slavery and a topping of theft....
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
The theory was everyone was enslaved I thought? Rather than the Kill all the men orders for Melos/Mytilene. The practical difference may have been trivial of course
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
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He sold soft(ish) drugs to half of Oxford. Or at least his friends did.
The police never arrested him or his friends. They arrested anyone else who tried setting up in the drug dealing business, though. Very efficient they were at that. Students sent down from the university every year.....
The one explanation was that after the death of Olivia Channing, having someone keep the Oxford *scene* nice and tidy was a good thing for everyone.
The French have never invaded and stolen our country, the Normans did, but not the French.
It is how I sleep soundly at night.
BTW (and FYI) to semi-superannuated Americans, the name "McGillicuddy" conjures up memories of the classic sitcom "I Love Lucy" because it was the maiden name of Lucille Ball's most memorable character.
You win One (1) Internet.
The tory difficulty is more with their electorate than their in house loonies. Red wall think he's a c--- and aren't going to be interested in any replacement either, blue wall feel shafted over hunting, farming, green nonsense etc
PLEASE don't write free reign, you mean free rein. Letting the horse pull the cart wherever it pleases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A62njA3H-4c&t=146s
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1481665695322681350?t=qW82798f5kv_7Nh6PglnGQ&s=19
On one of your points, think you're under-estimating Boris Johnson post-PM prospects. Certainly he would be a big draw in USA, as former premier AND as a Benny Hill impersonator. No BoJo fatigue over here! Heck, most of us barely know who he is. Certainly we have no real antipathy (or love) for him, just another Brit twit politico/talking head.
Am NOT talking chump change, but LOTS of greenback dollars, at least for a few years on (what used to be called) the rubber chicken circuit.
"'Throughout the pandemic the Met has followed the national 4 Es approach of enforcing the Coronavirus Regulations. Where live ongoing breaches of the restrictions were identified, officers engaged with those present, explained the current restrictions, encouraged people to adhere to them, and only as a last resort moved to enforcement." - quote from Mail
Tell that to the students fined £10k for a house party.
There’s also an unspecified Independent and a Psychedelic Movement candidate.
I’d have to think hard and get more information before I decided where to put my cross!
"I was duped by the Covid lab leak deniers
That senior scientists saw evidence for theories that they trashed in public has shattered trust in science"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/01/12/duped-covid-lab-leak-deniers/
Search for "Boris Have I Got News for You" or similar on Youtube.
A letter written by Boris Johnson's classics master when he was at Eton has resurfaced saying he 'believes it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception'.
The report, from Martin Hammond to Stanley Johnson in 1982, rapped the 17-year-old for thinking he should be free of the 'network of obligation that binds everyone'.
The classics schoolmaster also slammed him for being 'affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility'.
It comes as the PM's future hangs on a knife edge as ministers pleaded with Tories MPs to wait for a probe into No 10 parties before calling for him to quit.
What a cnut he is
Who do you want to return in repayment for such largesse?
Giving us mycophiles a bad name.
Boris Johnson: "The Romans were bastards"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0qchnptckA
Bumper season on Dartmoor btw. Indeed still is, I found some prize specimens on New Years Day.
Presumable out of respect for the tragic circumstances behind this byelection?
Something beyond the ken or character of the REAL nutbags?
IF yours truly had a vote there, think I'd either skip the by-election or spoil my ballot paper. Certainly would NOT vote for the Conservative, however worthy.
UNLESS perhaps she publicly denounced/renounced Boris Johnson. Which is (I think) doubtful.
@montie
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1h
I don’t see anything like the necessary momentum within the parliamentary Conservative Party to oust the PM.
===
The wounded albatross will still be around for the May locals imho.
Anyway, on the more substantive point, I don't really want the Met to waste their time chasing down No. 10 for events in May 2020. I just want Boris and his chums to resign.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uMPc89PFl0
He was terrific at the Witney by-election hustings a few years back… the crowd was eating out of his hand.
Of course THAT might just drive the venerable Jack W to forsake his Jacobite loyalties!
Bennerley viaduct across the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border has opened to walkers and cyclists today:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-59974752
A 47-mile stretch of the England Coastal Path has opened in Kent:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-stretch-of-the-england-coast-path-opens
Hurrah for both!
"That's not that impressive" I said.
He smiled. "But if you rub it, it turns into a suitcase..."
I'm higher and slightly further to the north atmo. The early December frosts seemed to have stopped the fruiting till next season. But, its always good excuse to go out and wonder across someone's field.
When they conquered people they conquered them, but I'm pushed to find an act of vindictive genocide anywhere near the one decreed by the hugely overrated C5th Athens for the Mytilenians and actually carried out on the Melians. And they managed to interact with the Jews without murderous antisemitism, which lots of people find quite tricky.
'If there aren't millions turning out for this we may as well go home, lay down and let the Communists take over!'
As for genocide - what do you call what happened to Carthage?
I've always thought that Magna Graecia, plus the Greek scholars who arrived in Italy after the fall of Constantinople and fed the Renaissance, have a strong connection with Italy's later civilisation.
As others have suggested, from the non-Conservative side of the aisle, I'm quite happy to see Boris Johnson booed and jeered to defeat over the next two years.
Every time he thinks he's making headway, somebody will bring something out of the archives to slap him back down and while the Conservative Parliamentary Party has a penchant for deposing failed leaders, it only does so when there's a clear and attractive alternative.
Sunak will have the option of leaving the ship or going down with it - ditto Truss and anyone else with leadership or Prime Ministerial aspirations. Opposition is going to be a new experience for many Conservatives and let's be honest, they weren't much good at it last time.
As @MarkH has intimated, the plates have shifted and the confidence of the "New Tories" from 2019 has been shattered. It's a reminder of one of the most valid adages in politics - it's easy to be hated, it's much harder to be ridiculed.
A single local by election today which is counting tomorrow so we can all have an early night (if that's what we do).
"Boris Johnson’s personal morality is highly questionable, his personal organisation shambolic and his sense of probity dodgy on many an occasion. But on policy questions he frequently gets the big calls right (or at least much better than his opponents’ calls). It is decadent, indulgent thinking for us to assume that is of no value and we can obviously have a prime minister who combines personal virtue with policy excellence. Politics isn’t like that. It is messy and involves compromises and we are often forced to choose between that which is flawed and that which is worse."
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/in-defence-of-boris-would-his-replacement-be-any-better-
The way it's going they'd have a chance.
I just get ranty and pissed off by lazy veneration of Athens because they built some swanky buildings with stolen money, and voluntarily sat through a lot of B Movie level shit by the likes of sodding Euripides, and so on, and people are still secretly impressed by Johnson quoting translations of boring Aeschylus. Looking for an ancient world analogue of bojo most people would look to Rome, but actually the best fit is genuinely Pericles, and not in a good way.
Leaving aside the politics. My biggest concern about 'party-gate' is the growing number of institutions at risk of getting burnt up in the storm - the reputation of the civil service, trust in the police, the integrity of the Union. Things which when lost are so hard to win back.
https://twitter.com/LukeTryl/status/1481674012816293896
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-mps-300000-link-china-25453267
The element they lived in. In his livery
Walked crowns and crownets. Realms and islands were
As plates dropped from his pocket.
Not. What are these big calls he got right?
The Spectator really is not even arsewipe material. I'm ashamed to say I am an on/off subscriber, I get sucked in by bottle of pimms offers. Expensive pimms.,
For an opposing view see, eg: https://acoup.blog/2019/09/20/collections-this-isnt-sparta-part-vi-spartan-battle/
Easier just to buy a bottle of Pimm's.
The cash for extra jobs scandal grows as it emerges wealthy backbencher Richard Fuller MP has four roles outside Parliament and advised a company that invests in surveillance kit, with Labour expressing human rights fears on the spy tech
PPE at Oxford 1981-84, where he was a contemporary of Boris and David Cameron sfaict. They all know each other. That's the remarkable thing.
Boris Johnson plans big shake-up of Downing Street team - https://@FTXft.com/3Gt90XA via @FT
We'll get a better sense of the state of public transport usage next week. Last week's numbers showed tube usuage at 40-45% of pre-Covid and train numbers about the same but on Monday train numbers were back to 55% of pre-Covid.
Click for LOLs