I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
The problem with Hunt is that he would have got the two big unlockdown decisions wrong. We wouldn't have fully unlocked in July and we would currently be in a Netherlands style lockdown trying to contain Omicron. He would have got the earlier pandemic decisions more correct than the government, but there's also a worry that he'd have signed us up to the EU purchase schemes which worked out very poorly for the first 6 months of the vaccination programme.
Hunt is the blank sheet of paper for anti-Brexit Tories. A closer look at what he did and didn't achieve shows he's a bit rubbish and depending on one's perspective his support for remain may or may not be an electoral asset for the leadership.
The players here are Rishi, Liz and someone from the CRG/ERG if neither of those two can come to a deal with them for support. I think Rishi specifically will work very hard to get the ERG/CRG on board and cut a deal with Hunt while Liz Truss will struggle with the Hunt wing of the party and isn't fully trusted by the ERG not to water down Brexit.
Even with the majority of MPs lining up behind Rishi I think a final two of Rishi vs Liz will be too close to call. Hunt won't get close to the final two this time.
If the clown is forced to go early - as looks increasingly likely - I think the MPs will keep it away from the members. The public argument of the ongoing pandemic crisis and the private argument that they can't let Tory members f**k up again will be persuasive.
The same applies if the pandemic is still ongoing in May, or we're perceived to be heading into economic crisis.
The question therefore is who MPs will choose.
If it's up to MPs then Rishi has it, I think.
Nope, Rishi is not a natural RW backer and his decision to cut back on rail infrastructure will be used to hammer him in those seats. Take a look at the MP base and where it comes from. Radically different from 2019.
How can we know this - at present he’s CotE - he’s probably looked at the plans and said “that’s bollocks and a waste of money so snip”. As CotE it’s not his remit to say what he would do instead. If however he became PM then he might say “yes I cut the plans for HS123456 etc because they are bollocks - I think we should be doing this x y z thing up north with the money which would be better use rather than just pumping it all on a rail plan”.
Boris is PM and wanted to do things a certain way and so the contenders have limited scope to do it differently and in Sunak’s case he really has one lever - he can’t sit in No 11 and shout about his own manifesto.
So I honestly think so much of what we think of contenders based on what they have done in their cabinet roles is pretty moot until they have to stand there and project their own visions.
I thought that meant Church of England for a moment.
is the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer older than the nationalisation of the English Church in 15xx?
I expect it is. Did King Alfred have one?
Medieval Chancellors were often Roman Catholic priests and bishops yes
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
The problem with Hunt is that he would have got the two big unlockdown decisions wrong. We wouldn't have fully unlocked in July and we would currently be in a Netherlands style lockdown trying to contain Omicron. He would have got the earlier pandemic decisions more correct than the government, but there's also a worry that he'd have signed us up to the EU purchase schemes which worked out very poorly for the first 6 months of the vaccination programme.
Hunt is the blank sheet of paper for anti-Brexit Tories. A closer look at what he did and didn't achieve shows he's a bit rubbish and depending on one's perspective his support for remain may or may not be an electoral asset for the leadership.
The players here are Rishi, Liz and someone from the CRG/ERG if neither of those two can come to a deal with them for support. I think Rishi specifically will work very hard to get the ERG/CRG on board and cut a deal with Hunt while Liz Truss will struggle with the Hunt wing of the party and isn't fully trusted by the ERG not to water down Brexit.
Even with the majority of MPs lining up behind Rishi I think a final two of Rishi vs Liz will be too close to call. Hunt won't get close to the final two this time.
If the clown is forced to go early - as looks increasingly likely - I think the MPs will keep it away from the members. The public argument of the ongoing pandemic crisis and the private argument that they can't let Tory members f**k up again will be persuasive.
The same applies if the pandemic is still ongoing in May, or we're perceived to be heading into economic crisis.
The question therefore is who MPs will choose.
If it's up to MPs then Rishi has it, I think.
Nope, Rishi is not a natural RW backer and his decision to cut back on rail infrastructure will be used to hammer him in those seats. Take a look at the MP base and where it comes from. Radically different from 2019.
Competence will be the key driver in the next selection. That plus not Boris will get the Tories back into the high 30s with the public which is enough to hold onto a working majority. Liz Truss suffers from a credibility gap for the top job.
That might be true but he probably loses those 2019 RW MPs their seats whilst preserving the Tories' traditional constituencies. He's a publicly-school educated, Oxford PPE graduate who worked at a hedge fund and is married to the daughter of a billionare. And his policies (bar furlough) have not been RW friendly.
Again, why would those MPs vote for a candidate who will probably lose them their seats?
As for competence, that is possible but BJ's not out over competence (in the bigger picture, the UK has done very well as you flagged). We are shifting towards cultural values driving votes and Rishi doesn't fit well with where the Tories are positioning themselves.
There is another point, which I hesitate to raise, but I'm sure others have thought about, too. And that is the unknown percentage who simply will not vote for, and will go out of their way to vote against, someone not white. Now. It isn't right and shouldn't happen, but, it will. In a close election it might make all the difference.
Personally, I think - for the MPs themselves - that will be a very small percentage. What might be a larger percentage are those MPs who are thinking about how their constituents will act.
TBH, I think the other factors are more important plus, as we discussed this morning, his height, for which there is a fair bit of evidence to suggest it plays a part
Yes. I did mean constituents. And. As I said it is unknown anyway. The height thing is a totally ludicrous metric btw. But there's nowt as queer as folk I guess.
Agree re height but, as said, the evidence is there. It's more the other factors with Rishi.
I think Sunak is a very worthy fav. Morduant is my speculative pick if it's not him.
Speaking of speculative, my tip/bet on MICHELLE OBAMA for POTUS24 at 100 is on the roll! Into 40 now.
Can we imagine? ... Yes We Can.
You can imagine all you want, the way things are going, it is looking more like it will be Hillary Clinton.
Are there really so few potential candidates that we are having to retread for first ladies? It didn't exactly work out well last time that gambit was tried.
Well, yes. There is a very good chance 2024 could be a rematch of 2016. There is an increasing view that Biden won't run again and Harris is not up to it. The other candidates are not seen as viable. HRC has also making more noises about the Democrats needing to be centrist - likely to appeal if the Dems get hammered in November.
For Trump, the dynamics are a little bit different. Most of the 'rising stars' on the Republican side are young enough to wait 4 years (DeSantis, Scott, Cruz if you want to include him). Far better to not p1ss Trump off, let him run again and hope for the VP pick, which puts you in pole position for 2028.
There is not a 'very good chance' at all – that is ludicrous. What price would you give this 'very good chance'?
Take a look at what has been happening with Hillary over the past few weeks.
Price at the moment, I would probably give 8/1.
So an 11% chance then?
The betting price and the chance of it happening are not the same given the nomination is away, she is old and she has age issues.
But, if you want a probably of it happening right now, I would say conservatively around 25%. If the Democrats get hammered in November, that rises. She is positioning herself as the candidate to push the Democrats back to the centre and there is no other possible candidate who is coming out with that at the moment, in part because they are locked into the messaging of the Democrats' agenda because they hold various official posts.
I don't understand how that's supposed to win her the primary. The only reason the Dems would nominate a candidate who said that Joe Biden was too left-wing would be if they thought it was going to win them the election and keep out Trump. But when it comes to a candidate who can sell the message "I can beat Donald Trump", Hillary Clinton is literally the *worst person in the world*.
True but there are signs a good bit of the Democrat establishment is getting behind her and her message will be that "I told you so" about Trump. Biden's polling ratings are awful (he's down to just over 30% approval in Quinnipac) and, when you get the NYT and WSJ both suggesting in different ways that Harris shouldn't be the 2024 pick, it's a sign the establishment has given up on her.
PS don't mention Buttigeig - he will get crushed. Did nothing as Mayor and, as one commentator put it, he is only seen as a candidate because he is gay - he has no other features that would recommend him for the job.
I reckon Trump-Gabbard could be the ticket, he's losing the conspiracy wing over vaccines and it's not like 2016 when he needed a VP to placate the GOP mainstream.
Hunt is my local MP, as I've mentioned. He's quiet, intelligent and politically clever - keeps one step ahead of reactions to whatever is happening. Charisma no, but competence yes.
By the way, anyone with nothing better to do should be able to see me being interviewed at 12.20ish on Gbnews.uk (subject: animal sentience bill).
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
I hope you're right - it's just 'wrong' to have this man as PM - but I'm finding it hard to be confident he's going. It will be an amazing fall if it happens. Just 2 years after winning the best Con majority since Thatcher, only a few months since Hartlepool and looking stronger than ever, and with the pandemic that's been the only domestic story for so long on its way out, he gets the chop. It would be quite a thing. And it's when I look at it this way, the impressionistic big picture rather than the febrile daily developments, that I veer towards him surviving.
I think belief in him is like belief in Father Christmas - not something you return to
The story arc is exactly as predicted by his enemies like Max Hastings from the start - you realise that the bumbling is an act, and the man is a shit who shafts you.
I think Sunak is a very worthy fav. Morduant is my speculative pick if it's not him.
Speaking of speculative, my tip/bet on MICHELLE OBAMA for POTUS24 at 100 is on the roll! Into 40 now.
Can we imagine? ... Yes We Can.
You can imagine all you want, the way things are going, it is looking more like it will be Hillary Clinton.
Are there really so few potential candidates that we are having to retread for first ladies? It didn't exactly work out well last time that gambit was tried.
Well, yes. There is a very good chance 2024 could be a rematch of 2016. There is an increasing view that Biden won't run again and Harris is not up to it. The other candidates are not seen as viable. HRC has also making more noises about the Democrats needing to be centrist - likely to appeal if the Dems get hammered in November.
For Trump, the dynamics are a little bit different. Most of the 'rising stars' on the Republican side are young enough to wait 4 years (DeSantis, Scott, Cruz if you want to include him). Far better to not p1ss Trump off, let him run again and hope for the VP pick, which puts you in pole position for 2028.
There is not a 'very good chance' at all – that is ludicrous. What price would you give this 'very good chance'?
Take a look at what has been happening with Hillary over the past few weeks.
Price at the moment, I would probably give 8/1.
So an 11% chance then?
The betting price and the chance of it happening are not the same given the nomination is away, she is old and she has age issues.
But, if you want a probably of it happening right now, I would say conservatively around 25%. If the Democrats get hammered in November, that rises. She is positioning herself as the candidate to push the Democrats back to the centre and there is no other possible candidate who is coming out with that at the moment, in part because they are locked into the messaging of the Democrats' agenda because they hold various official posts.
I don't understand how that's supposed to win her the primary. The only reason the Dems would nominate a candidate who said that Joe Biden was too left-wing would be if they thought it was going to win them the election and keep out Trump. But when it comes to a candidate who can sell the message "I can beat Donald Trump", Hillary Clinton is literally the *worst person in the world*.
True but there are signs a good bit of the Democrat establishment is getting behind her and her message will be that "I told you so" about Trump. Biden's polling ratings are awful (he's down to just over 30% approval in Quinnipac) and, when you get the NYT and WSJ both suggesting in different ways that Harris shouldn't be the 2024 pick, it's a sign the establishment has given up on her.
PS don't mention Buttigeig - he will get crushed. Did nothing as Mayor and, as one commentator put it, he is only seen as a candidate because he is gay - he has no other features that would recommend him for the job.
Not saying you're wrong but what are the signs that the Dem establishment is getting behind her? If you're thinking of the editorial in the Wall Street Journal, that's not where the the Dem establishment lives.
I reckon Trump-Gabbard could be the ticket, he's losing the conspiracy wing over vaccines and it's not like 2016 when he needed a VP to placate the GOP mainstream.
An anti vaxxer could get a third of the GOP primary vote in 2024 but Trump would likely still win the nomination again if he ran
I reckon Trump-Gabbard could be the ticket, he's losing the conspiracy wing over vaccines and it's not like 2016 when he needed a VP to placate the GOP mainstream.
I like Gabbard, she 's come across as smart and with it. Also loved her takedown of Harris.
The issue with her as VP is that it might put other candidates' noses out of joint as she would then be in pole position for 2028.
Major was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1990, hardly nowhere
Just spotted this, so thought I would respond. I guess I am quite a bit older than you so remember it well. It was "out of no-where" because it was always assumed it would be Heseltine or Hurd (remember him;he with the icecream on his head?). The grey man slipped in up the middle unobserved. Maybe The Saj is going to do the same type of trick?
I also remember it well and I think you're exaggerating the extent to which it was a surprise. After Thatcher didn't get the numbers to end it in round one, she was persuaded the best way to stop Heseltine was to step aside and make it a loyalist vs rebel fight. The leading loyalist initially, on balance, looked like Hurd - but Major was not "nowhere", and always a very serious contender albeit narrowly third in the betting at the start. Indeed, it fairly quickly became clear Hurd was rather old and getting limited traction.
Ironically, given who's become PM since, Hurd's Eton education was very much held against him at the time.
Indeed, when I was chairman of Warwick University Conservatives we had Lord Hurd to speak and he was excellent. Only inverse snobbery stopped him. He probably would have enjoyed being PM more than Major too
Almost makes you nostalgic for the days when Old Etonians were effectively barred from Number 10.
It was the Fettes educated Blair winning in 1997 that made it possible for the Eton educated Cameron and Boris to become PM.
Fettes being the Eton of Scotland
Er, point of order. Fettes isn't anything like so mediaeval or Establishment. Much more of a mainstream [edit] Public School in the Arnoldian sense.
Quite so. It is much less exclusive. My quite ordinary friend got his son into Fettes' final years no bother without going on a waiting list. In fact it was easier than Edinburgh's fee-paying Merchant Company schools, and not much different in price.
Nonetheless Blair was the first public school educated PM since Home.
He enabled the Tories to pick a public school educated leader in Cameron again after the state grammar educated Heath, Thatcher, Major and Howard and state comprehensive educated Hague and state secondary modern educated IDS
Whilst it's all very interesting that Blair was the first public school educated PM since Home, and Cameron the first public school educated Tory leader since Home, I think you're leaping to the conclusion that Blair enabled the Tories to elect Cameron.
Neither Tory MPs nor Tory members have ever shown themselves to be notably prejudiced against privately educated people - far from it. It just isn't true that, but for Blair, Cameron would have been unelectable as Tory leader. David Davis did make a little hay by having a more compelling back-story, but was beaten by a better candidate. Would he have made a bit more hay if he'd been able to suggest an ex-public school pupil was unelectable (which of course he couldn't do as the PM at the time was one)? Maybe, But he didn't lose narrowly - he was pretty soundly beaten.
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
The problem with Hunt is that he would have got the two big unlockdown decisions wrong. We wouldn't have fully unlocked in July and we would currently be in a Netherlands style lockdown trying to contain Omicron. He would have got the earlier pandemic decisions more correct than the government, but there's also a worry that he'd have signed us up to the EU purchase schemes which worked out very poorly for the first 6 months of the vaccination programme.
Hunt is the blank sheet of paper for anti-Brexit Tories. A closer look at what he did and didn't achieve shows he's a bit rubbish and depending on one's perspective his support for remain may or may not be an electoral asset for the leadership.
The players here are Rishi, Liz and someone from the CRG/ERG if neither of those two can come to a deal with them for support. I think Rishi specifically will work very hard to get the ERG/CRG on board and cut a deal with Hunt while Liz Truss will struggle with the Hunt wing of the party and isn't fully trusted by the ERG not to water down Brexit.
Even with the majority of MPs lining up behind Rishi I think a final two of Rishi vs Liz will be too close to call. Hunt won't get close to the final two this time.
If the clown is forced to go early - as looks increasingly likely - I think the MPs will keep it away from the members. The public argument of the ongoing pandemic crisis and the private argument that they can't let Tory members f**k up again will be persuasive.
The same applies if the pandemic is still ongoing in May, or we're perceived to be heading into economic crisis.
The question therefore is who MPs will choose.
If it's up to MPs then Rishi has it, I think.
Nope, Rishi is not a natural RW backer and his decision to cut back on rail infrastructure will be used to hammer him in those seats. Take a look at the MP base and where it comes from. Radically different from 2019.
Competence will be the key driver in the next selection. That plus not Boris will get the Tories back into the high 30s with the public which is enough to hold onto a working majority. Liz Truss suffers from a credibility gap for the top job.
That might be true but he probably loses those 2019 RW MPs their seats whilst preserving the Tories' traditional constituencies. He's a publicly-school educated, Oxford PPE graduate who worked at a hedge fund and is married to the daughter of a billionare. And his policies (bar furlough) have not been RW friendly.
Again, why would those MPs vote for a candidate who will probably lose them their seats?
As for competence, that is possible but BJ's not out over competence (in the bigger picture, the UK has done very well as you flagged). We are shifting towards cultural values driving votes and Rishi doesn't fit well with where the Tories are positioning themselves.
There is another point, which I hesitate to raise, but I'm sure others have thought about, too. And that is the unknown percentage who simply will not vote for, and will go out of their way to vote against, someone not white. Now. It isn't right and shouldn't happen, but, it will. In a close election it might make all the difference.
I'd say that is such a small minority it is effectively balanced by those who will be motivated to vote for someone who is non-white.
You would? OK maybe. I was thinking of some of my relatives. It certainly wouldn't be balanced there.
Well, I don't know. I'm generalising from people I know, I suppose - who might not be letting on their true feelings. But I honestly don't think it's a factor apart from a tiny minority of cases, and there are probably also votes which will swing the other way. Barack Obama did ok, and the USA is much more riven by racial issues than the UK. My belief is that if someone looks and behaves British - which Rishi very much does - British people barely notice the colour of his skin. There is probably more prejudice against someone dressed, for example, in traditional Pakistani dress - but I'd argue that cultural prejudice is a bigger thing than racial prejudice. I wonder if there are any Muslim votes to be lost by having a Hindu leader?
Smarkets appear to be offering 87/1 on Hillary being nominee... presumably @MrEd has put his house on it?
Haha, not quite. But take a look at what is being said in the States at the moment. Hillary is getting pushed. If the Democrats want to break with the wokeness wing, she is actually not a bad candidate to do so.
I reckon Trump-Gabbard could be the ticket, he's losing the conspiracy wing over vaccines and it's not like 2016 when he needed a VP to placate the GOP mainstream.
I like Gabbard, she 's come across as smart and with it. Also loved her takedown of Harris.
The issue with her as VP is that it might put other candidates' noses out of joint as she would then be in pole position for 2028.
I don't think Trump would care about the straightness of other candidates' noses.
As an aside, Basil II was not tall. Still one of the Eastern Roman Empire's most powerful leaders, though.
I was mildly surprised Civ VI went for him over Alexius or John Comnenus, or Justinian the Great, though. Thought the aftermath of the Battle of Kleidion might have put them off.
"What should worry the Tories now is that the Johnsonian advantage in the marginal seats is now in tatters. Voters are angry everywhere, but they’re especially so in the marginals that matter. That’s what makes this situation far more worrisome for the Tories than the national polls would imply. In the seats that Labour lost in 2019, the Labour lead is larger than in the national polls. Similarly, Johnson’s favourability numbers are now worse in the marginals than the country at large."
What worries me is that not many voters seem to be shifting to Labour. Tories staying home makes the polls look good, but in practice, won't Tory supporting papers find some tax bombshell headline and get people motivated to vote again?
Tory supporting papers have a fraction of the circulations they once had
Not needed now anyway. Message can be sent out through adverts on social media from temporary astroturf groups.
Since 1979, no one has been elected as PM, without the backing of the Murdoch Empire, until that happens, I am fairly sure, that the Sun in particular, carries a lot of influence
Boris has to go, but it does raise questions about Whitehall's civil service drinks and party culture which is bound to see some civil servants in hot water but will it also see a change to employment rules relating to alcohol consumption
That would be a shame. Part of the attraction of working in the civil service is presumably the sociability of it. The problem wasn't that there was drinking going on - I have worked in places with drinking cultures in the past which have been perfectly functional. The problem was that there socialising going on at the same time as people were being told not to socialise.
Yes, the toxicity arises out of he fact that at the same time people were all being required to make very real sacrifices. But those sacrifices went far beyond just being told not to socialise, and we can all contrast our experiences and personal sacrifices with the boozy party culture going on amongst the hypocrites at No 10.
For my part, while I supported the lockdowns in general, it did rankle that I was prevented even from hitting a golf ball around my local course even on my own for five months in total over the three successive lockdowns, a punitive and unnecessary restriction which made things far harder to cope with. In the light of these subsequent revelations my anger at that is through the scale now. But that is still fairly mundane in the scale of things, and goodness knows what someone who was deprived of the chance to say goodbye to their nearest and dearest must now be thinking.
Mr. 100, I wonder how much of that was caused by releasing the game on so many different platforms at once.
A shame, though I care far less for sci-fi dystopia than fantasy so, even though I really liked The Witcher 3, I didn't pre-order Cyberpunk.
Mr. kle4, well, it worked for Boris Johnson.
Witcher had brilliant writing and varied, meaningful quests. In Cyberpunk, with the notable exception of a couple of standout quests, everything started feeling very samey very quickly. A beautifully rendered but ultimately empty city, full of repetitive tasks.
As William Gibson said, Cyberpunk was just "GTA skinned-over with a generic 80s retro-future."
I think Sunak is a very worthy fav. Morduant is my speculative pick if it's not him.
Speaking of speculative, my tip/bet on MICHELLE OBAMA for POTUS24 at 100 is on the roll! Into 40 now.
Can we imagine? ... Yes We Can.
You can imagine all you want, the way things are going, it is looking more like it will be Hillary Clinton.
Are there really so few potential candidates that we are having to retread for first ladies? It didn't exactly work out well last time that gambit was tried.
Well, yes. There is a very good chance 2024 could be a rematch of 2016. There is an increasing view that Biden won't run again and Harris is not up to it. The other candidates are not seen as viable. HRC has also making more noises about the Democrats needing to be centrist - likely to appeal if the Dems get hammered in November.
For Trump, the dynamics are a little bit different. Most of the 'rising stars' on the Republican side are young enough to wait 4 years (DeSantis, Scott, Cruz if you want to include him). Far better to not p1ss Trump off, let him run again and hope for the VP pick, which puts you in pole position for 2028.
There is not a 'very good chance' at all – that is ludicrous. What price would you give this 'very good chance'?
Take a look at what has been happening with Hillary over the past few weeks.
Price at the moment, I would probably give 8/1.
So an 11% chance then?
The betting price and the chance of it happening are not the same given the nomination is away, she is old and she has age issues.
But, if you want a probably of it happening right now, I would say conservatively around 25%. If the Democrats get hammered in November, that rises. She is positioning herself as the candidate to push the Democrats back to the centre and there is no other possible candidate who is coming out with that at the moment, in part because they are locked into the messaging of the Democrats' agenda because they hold various official posts.
I don't understand how that's supposed to win her the primary. The only reason the Dems would nominate a candidate who said that Joe Biden was too left-wing would be if they thought it was going to win them the election and keep out Trump. But when it comes to a candidate who can sell the message "I can beat Donald Trump", Hillary Clinton is literally the *worst person in the world*.
True but there are signs a good bit of the Democrat establishment is getting behind her and her message will be that "I told you so" about Trump. Biden's polling ratings are awful (he's down to just over 30% approval in Quinnipac) and, when you get the NYT and WSJ both suggesting in different ways that Harris shouldn't be the 2024 pick, it's a sign the establishment has given up on her.
PS don't mention Buttigeig - he will get crushed. Did nothing as Mayor and, as one commentator put it, he is only seen as a candidate because he is gay - he has no other features that would recommend him for the job.
Not saying you're wrong but what are the signs that the Dem establishment is getting behind her? If you're thinking of the editorial in the Wall Street Journal, that's not where the the Dem establishment lives.
The WSJ aren't but the two who wrote the op-ed are very much in that world:
"Mr. Schoen is founder and partner in Schoen Cooperman Research, a polling and consulting firm whose past clients include Bill Clinton and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr. Stein is a former New York City Council president, Manhattan borough president and state assemblyman."
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
The problem with Hunt is that he would have got the two big unlockdown decisions wrong. We wouldn't have fully unlocked in July and we would currently be in a Netherlands style lockdown trying to contain Omicron. He would have got the earlier pandemic decisions more correct than the government, but there's also a worry that he'd have signed us up to the EU purchase schemes which worked out very poorly for the first 6 months of the vaccination programme.
Hunt is the blank sheet of paper for anti-Brexit Tories. A closer look at what he did and didn't achieve shows he's a bit rubbish and depending on one's perspective his support for remain may or may not be an electoral asset for the leadership.
The players here are Rishi, Liz and someone from the CRG/ERG if neither of those two can come to a deal with them for support. I think Rishi specifically will work very hard to get the ERG/CRG on board and cut a deal with Hunt while Liz Truss will struggle with the Hunt wing of the party and isn't fully trusted by the ERG not to water down Brexit.
Even with the majority of MPs lining up behind Rishi I think a final two of Rishi vs Liz will be too close to call. Hunt won't get close to the final two this time.
If the clown is forced to go early - as looks increasingly likely - I think the MPs will keep it away from the members. The public argument of the ongoing pandemic crisis and the private argument that they can't let Tory members f**k up again will be persuasive.
The same applies if the pandemic is still ongoing in May, or we're perceived to be heading into economic crisis.
The question therefore is who MPs will choose.
If it's up to MPs then Rishi has it, I think.
Nope, Rishi is not a natural RW backer and his decision to cut back on rail infrastructure will be used to hammer him in those seats. Take a look at the MP base and where it comes from. Radically different from 2019.
Competence will be the key driver in the next selection. That plus not Boris will get the Tories back into the high 30s with the public which is enough to hold onto a working majority. Liz Truss suffers from a credibility gap for the top job.
That might be true but he probably loses those 2019 RW MPs their seats whilst preserving the Tories' traditional constituencies. He's a publicly-school educated, Oxford PPE graduate who worked at a hedge fund and is married to the daughter of a billionare. And his policies (bar furlough) have not been RW friendly.
Again, why would those MPs vote for a candidate who will probably lose them their seats?
As for competence, that is possible but BJ's not out over competence (in the bigger picture, the UK has done very well as you flagged). We are shifting towards cultural values driving votes and Rishi doesn't fit well with where the Tories are positioning themselves.
There is another point, which I hesitate to raise, but I'm sure others have thought about, too. And that is the unknown percentage who simply will not vote for, and will go out of their way to vote against, someone not white. Now. It isn't right and shouldn't happen, but, it will. In a close election it might make all the difference.
I'd say that is such a small minority it is effectively balanced by those who will be motivated to vote for someone who is non-white.
You would? OK maybe. I was thinking of some of my relatives. It certainly wouldn't be balanced there.
Well, I don't know. I'm generalising from people I know, I suppose - who might not be letting on their true feelings. But I honestly don't think it's a factor apart from a tiny minority of cases, and there are probably also votes which will swing the other way. Barack Obama did ok, and the USA is much more riven by racial issues than the UK. My belief is that if someone looks and behaves British - which Rishi very much does - British people barely notice the colour of his skin. There is probably more prejudice against someone dressed, for example, in traditional Pakistani dress - but I'd argue that cultural prejudice is a bigger thing than racial prejudice. I wonder if there are any Muslim votes to be lost by having a Hindu leader?
Possibly. But the Muslim vote is still pretty solid Labour anyways. Perhaps, by bringing over more Hindus, who aren't such a relative monolith, that may be a net plus?
PS. I feel a bit uncomfortable even discussing this. But I do think it will be an issue, if not a major one, if some of my elderly relatives and their friends are owt to go by.
I reckon Trump-Gabbard could be the ticket, he's losing the conspiracy wing over vaccines and it's not like 2016 when he needed a VP to placate the GOP mainstream.
I like Gabbard, she 's come across as smart and with it. Also loved her takedown of Harris.
The issue with her as VP is that it might put other candidates' noses out of joint as she would then be in pole position for 2028.
I don't think Trump would care about the straightness of other candidates' noses.
No, but it gives them more of a reason to come out and fight him. He is not invulnerable. DeSantis is appealing to much of his base.
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
I hope you're right - it's just 'wrong' to have this man as PM - but I'm finding it hard to be confident he's going. It will be an amazing fall if it happens. Just 2 years after winning the best Con majority since Thatcher, only a few months since Hartlepool and looking stronger than ever, and with the pandemic that's been the only domestic story for so long on its way out, he gets the chop. It would be quite a thing. And it's when I look at it this way, the impressionistic big picture rather than the febrile daily developments, that I veer towards him surviving.
I was borderline between hoping he stays in order to inflict maximum damage on the Tory brand, and hoping he goes soon to avoid inflicting too much damage on the UK brand. I am in the latter camp now. Britain just looks a bit embarrassing this week, particularly with the Prince Andrew story breaking at the same time. We really don't want to start looking like an incompetent laughing stock of a country because that puts off foreign investors for years. Once the brand is damaged it's damaged for a long time.
Getting a new more sensible PM in place is more important now than electoral advantage for the opposition. Particularly as we get close to a showdown with Russia. A better relationship with the EU and US can't come soon enough.
Things are getting so strange, though, don't people think? Djokovic is kicked out of Oz by an Immigration Minister called Hawke. Downing St parties breaking all the Covid rules are thrown by a man called Slack. I've never been a buyer of the avant garde theory that the world we think we see is actually a simulation being run for the amusement of a higher being but I'm starting to wonder.
You missed the bit about the world no1 tennis player being a suspected antivaxxer named Novak. I am surprised The Sun hasn't had a headline "No-vax Novak has no visa "
If I was able to write the script Boris would announce that following Sue Grays report he accepts full responsibility and will stand down as soon as the conservative party has elected his successor
This is about the only action that could give him a little bit of understanding
"What should worry the Tories now is that the Johnsonian advantage in the marginal seats is now in tatters. Voters are angry everywhere, but they’re especially so in the marginals that matter. That’s what makes this situation far more worrisome for the Tories than the national polls would imply. In the seats that Labour lost in 2019, the Labour lead is larger than in the national polls. Similarly, Johnson’s favourability numbers are now worse in the marginals than the country at large."
What worries me is that not many voters seem to be shifting to Labour. Tories staying home makes the polls look good, but in practice, won't Tory supporting papers find some tax bombshell headline and get people motivated to vote again?
Tory supporting papers have a fraction of the circulations they once had
Not needed now anyway. Message can be sent out through adverts on social media from temporary astroturf groups.
Since 1979, no one has been elected as PM, without the backing of the Murdoch Empire, until that happens, I am fairly sure, that the Sun in particular, carries a lot of influence
The Sun maybe made a difference in 1992 but it follows public opinion rather than leads it. New Labour had a big lead well before the Sun backed Blair
In many ways Hunt and Sunak are cut from the same cloth.
Both public school, Oxford PPE, independently wealthy with successful careers pre politics. Neither as far as we know have any personal scandals or interesting relationship situations going on or to be dug up.
Neither have so far really presented or needed to present any sort of vision for their brand of govt.
The key differences are as far as I can see that Hunt is more part of the old guard - beneficial as less tainted by Boris, maybe appears more matured, associated in some minds with Cameron govt which is looking better as time passes but bad in that he has a track record in govt that parts of can be used against him whilst also making people ask “what did he actually do if any interest or value”.
Sunak is more of the new guard - beneficial as younger more dynamic style, good communicator with social media etc, aspirational even, Indian heritage, more down with the youth maybe but bad in that even though he’s holding the second most powerful role he might be seen as inexperienced by virtue of relative youth and also clearly a major part of the Boris govt.
If both were to stand I think ultimately a lot would ride on their “vision” for what they want to do. I also think there will be an element that Tory MPs will look at Hunt and look at Starmer and find them rather too similar and uninspiring - like a pair of boring wooden bookends and Sunak might have that bit of stardust necessary to cut through and refresh the party image.
This of course could all be rubbish!
Heightism is the last permissible prejudice and Hunt is about twice as tall as Sunak.
I know Sunak is short (in height), but I thought Hunt was also quite short - I'd have had him at about 5' 10'' at most. Turns out he's 6' 2''. Isn't the internet weird? Imagine if I'd told you 40 years ago that you could, if you so chose, break off briefly from work to speculate about the height of the third-favourite in a battle for the leadership of the conservative party which has not yet been announced, and not only find it within 15 seconds of the question occurring to you but find out in such a way that confirms other people have been asking the same question in various forms.
Heightism is insidious. 5'10" is not really "quite short". It is around or just over average height.
So I understand. But does this average include old men who have shrunk? Because it seems quite short to me. I am six foot, and of the cohort of friends I have from school who I still hang around with - 10 of us - I am the shortest. I can't think of any of my male friends who are shorter than 5' 10''.
Random selection. I knew guy at Uni, over six foot tall, who lived with 6 or 7 other gents, all north of six foot four, so he was the small one. Yet for the population at large he was above average height (and by population I mean gents of his age, for clarity).
Boris has to go, but it does raise questions about Whitehall's civil service drinks and party culture which is bound to see some civil servants in hot water but will it also see a change to employment rules relating to alcohol consumption
That would be a shame. Part of the attraction of working in the civil service is presumably the sociability of it. The problem wasn't that there was drinking going on - I have worked in places with drinking cultures in the past which have been perfectly functional. The problem was that there socialising going on at the same time as people were being told not to socialise.
Yes, the toxicity arises out of he fact that at the same time people were all being required to make very real sacrifices. But those sacrifices went far beyond just being told not to socialise, and we can all contrast our experiences and personal sacrifices with the boozy party culture going on amongst the hypocrites at No 10.
For my part, while I supported the lockdowns in general, it did rankle that I was prevented even from hitting a golf ball around my local course even on my own for five months in total over the three successive lockdowns, a punitive and unnecessary restriction which made things far harder to cope with. In the light of these subsequent revelations my anger at that is through the scale now. But that is still fairly mundane in the scale of things, and goodness knows what someone who was deprived of the chance to say goodbye to their nearest and dearest must now be thinking.
I think the parties have for once united the libertarians and puritans in anger. That's why the story is so powerful. That's why hypocrisy stories are always so powerful.
For those who thought the lockdown rules were state overreach and would have loved to be partying and getting out and about, these reports just rub in the unfairness of it all. For those who disapprove of any kind of fun and would like us locked down indefinitely, there is moral outrage at the decadence.
Twitter is full of equally contemptuous comments from both ends of the spectrum.
I think Sunak is a very worthy fav. Morduant is my speculative pick if it's not him.
Speaking of speculative, my tip/bet on MICHELLE OBAMA for POTUS24 at 100 is on the roll! Into 40 now.
Can we imagine? ... Yes We Can.
You can imagine all you want, the way things are going, it is looking more like it will be Hillary Clinton.
Are there really so few potential candidates that we are having to retread for first ladies? It didn't exactly work out well last time that gambit was tried.
Well, yes. There is a very good chance 2024 could be a rematch of 2016. There is an increasing view that Biden won't run again and Harris is not up to it. The other candidates are not seen as viable. HRC has also making more noises about the Democrats needing to be centrist - likely to appeal if the Dems get hammered in November.
For Trump, the dynamics are a little bit different. Most of the 'rising stars' on the Republican side are young enough to wait 4 years (DeSantis, Scott, Cruz if you want to include him). Far better to not p1ss Trump off, let him run again and hope for the VP pick, which puts you in pole position for 2028.
There is not a 'very good chance' at all – that is ludicrous. What price would you give this 'very good chance'?
Take a look at what has been happening with Hillary over the past few weeks.
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
I hope you're right - it's just 'wrong' to have this man as PM - but I'm finding it hard to be confident he's going. It will be an amazing fall if it happens. Just 2 years after winning the best Con majority since Thatcher, only a few months since Hartlepool and looking stronger than ever, and with the pandemic that's been the only domestic story for so long on its way out, he gets the chop. It would be quite a thing. And it's when I look at it this way, the impressionistic big picture rather than the febrile daily developments, that I veer towards him surviving.
But the big picture is that he no longer has a purpose. Why did he get elected (either to the Conservative leadership or as PM)? To deliver Brexit and to defeat Corbyn. We can argue about the relative importance of each, but most of us agree it was these two. Boris was best placed to Get Brexit Done, Boris was the man to beat Corbyn. You may not like it, but it's far from obvious there was someone better to do either. Brexit is now delivered. You can argue about whether it was the right sort of Brexit - but the question is not now whether or not we Brexit, it's what the future looks like. It's picking over detail, for years. Is this anything that anyone, even Boris's firmest backers, think Boris is the ideal choice for? Similarly, Corbyn is now defeated.
So what we are left with is levelling up. I give Boris some credit for this, in a high-level big-picture type way - but levelling up after the 2019 election is now a long slog of detail. Again, not obvious that Boris is the best man for the job. Oh, and the war on woke. But whatever Boris says about this it's becoming less and less clear he actually intends to do anything. If war on woke is your priority, is Boris the man to fight it? Possibly as a journalist. Probably not as a politican. Plus all the other issues which have sprang up in the past two years - covid recovery, Russia, China, energy. Issues for Boris? Possibly not.
If the answer to all of these questions was still Boris, partygate wouldn't bring him down. Unpopularity didn't bring Thatcher down (until it did) because her backers still believed in her. But I don't see any more that anyone still needs Boris.
"What should worry the Tories now is that the Johnsonian advantage in the marginal seats is now in tatters. Voters are angry everywhere, but they’re especially so in the marginals that matter. That’s what makes this situation far more worrisome for the Tories than the national polls would imply. In the seats that Labour lost in 2019, the Labour lead is larger than in the national polls. Similarly, Johnson’s favourability numbers are now worse in the marginals than the country at large."
What worries me is that not many voters seem to be shifting to Labour. Tories staying home makes the polls look good, but in practice, won't Tory supporting papers find some tax bombshell headline and get people motivated to vote again?
Tory supporting papers have a fraction of the circulations they once had
Not needed now anyway. Message can be sent out through adverts on social media from temporary astroturf groups.
Since 1979, no one has been elected as PM, without the backing of the Murdoch Empire, until that happens, I am fairly sure, that the Sun in particular, carries a lot of influence
Smarkets appear to be offering 87/1 on Hillary being nominee... presumably @MrEd has put his house on it?
Haha, not quite. But take a look at what is being said in the States at the moment. Hillary is getting pushed. If the Democrats want to break with the wokeness wing, she is actually not a bad candidate to do so.
As I say, you are welcome to take Smarkets to the absolute cleaners.
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
I hope you're right - it's just 'wrong' to have this man as PM - but I'm finding it hard to be confident he's going. It will be an amazing fall if it happens. Just 2 years after winning the best Con majority since Thatcher, only a few months since Hartlepool and looking stronger than ever, and with the pandemic that's been the only domestic story for so long on its way out, he gets the chop. It would be quite a thing. And it's when I look at it this way, the impressionistic big picture rather than the febrile daily developments, that I veer towards him surviving.
I think belief in him is like belief in Father Christmas - not something you return to
The story arc is exactly as predicted by his enemies like Max Hastings from the start - you realise that the bumbling is an act, and the man is a shit who shafts you.
Well I've never had it so maybe I'm failing to empathize enough with those who did and might now be seeing the light having found their stockings empty - not even a tangerine in there.
Certainly your 4/1 bet on a 22 exit is looking handsome and clean-shaven.
I think Sunak is a very worthy fav. Morduant is my speculative pick if it's not him.
Speaking of speculative, my tip/bet on MICHELLE OBAMA for POTUS24 at 100 is on the roll! Into 40 now.
Can we imagine? ... Yes We Can.
You can imagine all you want, the way things are going, it is looking more like it will be Hillary Clinton.
Are there really so few potential candidates that we are having to retread for first ladies? It didn't exactly work out well last time that gambit was tried.
Well, yes. There is a very good chance 2024 could be a rematch of 2016. There is an increasing view that Biden won't run again and Harris is not up to it. The other candidates are not seen as viable. HRC has also making more noises about the Democrats needing to be centrist - likely to appeal if the Dems get hammered in November.
For Trump, the dynamics are a little bit different. Most of the 'rising stars' on the Republican side are young enough to wait 4 years (DeSantis, Scott, Cruz if you want to include him). Far better to not p1ss Trump off, let him run again and hope for the VP pick, which puts you in pole position for 2028.
There is not a 'very good chance' at all – that is ludicrous. What price would you give this 'very good chance'?
Take a look at what has been happening with Hillary over the past few weeks.
Price at the moment, I would probably give 8/1.
So an 11% chance then?
The betting price and the chance of it happening are not the same given the nomination is away, she is old and she has age issues.
But, if you want a probably of it happening right now, I would say conservatively around 25%. If the Democrats get hammered in November, that rises. She is positioning herself as the candidate to push the Democrats back to the centre and there is no other possible candidate who is coming out with that at the moment, in part because they are locked into the messaging of the Democrats' agenda because they hold various official posts.
I don't understand how that's supposed to win her the primary. The only reason the Dems would nominate a candidate who said that Joe Biden was too left-wing would be if they thought it was going to win them the election and keep out Trump. But when it comes to a candidate who can sell the message "I can beat Donald Trump", Hillary Clinton is literally the *worst person in the world*.
True but there are signs a good bit of the Democrat establishment is getting behind her and her message will be that "I told you so" about Trump. Biden's polling ratings are awful (he's down to just over 30% approval in Quinnipac) and, when you get the NYT and WSJ both suggesting in different ways that Harris shouldn't be the 2024 pick, it's a sign the establishment has given up on her.
PS don't mention Buttigeig - he will get crushed. Did nothing as Mayor and, as one commentator put it, he is only seen as a candidate because he is gay - he has no other features that would recommend him for the job.
Not saying you're wrong but what are the signs that the Dem establishment is getting behind her? If you're thinking of the editorial in the Wall Street Journal, that's not where the the Dem establishment lives.
The WSJ aren't but the two who wrote the op-ed are very much in that world:
"Mr. Schoen is founder and partner in Schoen Cooperman Research, a polling and consulting firm whose past clients include Bill Clinton and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr. Stein is a former New York City Council president, Manhattan borough president and state assemblyman."
This kind of makes my point for me, the connected and well-funded machine that held the presidency for two terms decides to get their name back into contention and all they can find to push it is a minor figure from local politics and somebody who helped separate Bloomberg from his money in his laughably doomed primary run. This is not showing support from the Democratic Establishment. This is showing a complete lack of support from the Democratic Establishment.
Boris has to go, but it does raise questions about Whitehall's civil service drinks and party culture which is bound to see some civil servants in hot water but will it also see a change to employment rules relating to alcohol consumption
That would be a shame. Part of the attraction of working in the civil service is presumably the sociability of it. The problem wasn't that there was drinking going on - I have worked in places with drinking cultures in the past which have been perfectly functional. The problem was that there socialising going on at the same time as people were being told not to socialise.
Yes, the toxicity arises out of he fact that at the same time people were all being required to make very real sacrifices. But those sacrifices went far beyond just being told not to socialise, and we can all contrast our experiences and personal sacrifices with the boozy party culture going on amongst the hypocrites at No 10.
For my part, while I supported the lockdowns in general, it did rankle that I was prevented even from hitting a golf ball around my local course even on my own for five months in total over the three successive lockdowns, a punitive and unnecessary restriction which made things far harder to cope with. In the light of these subsequent revelations my anger at that is through the scale now. But that is still fairly mundane in the scale of things, and goodness knows what someone who was deprived of the chance to say goodbye to their nearest and dearest must now be thinking.
I think the parties have for once united the libertarians and puritans in anger. That's why the story is so powerful. That's why hypocrisy stories are always so powerful.
For those who thought the lockdown rules were state overreach and would have loved to be partying and getting out and about, these reports just rub in the unfairness of it all. For those who disapprove of any kind of fun and would like us locked down indefinitely, there is moral outrage at the decadence.
Twitter is full of equally contemptuous comments from both ends of the spectrum.
Its not just the ends though. There are all those people in the middle - the vast majority of population - who may or may not have agreed with the lockdowns but didn't feel that strongly about them one way or the other from a philosophical point of view but who abided by them because those were the rules and who suffered all the sacrifices and consequences as a result. They are the ones that Johnson and his crowd of undesirables have really pissed off because they believed they were doing what was right and now see that the powers that be were taking the piss out of them.
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
I hope you're right - it's just 'wrong' to have this man as PM - but I'm finding it hard to be confident he's going. It will be an amazing fall if it happens. Just 2 years after winning the best Con majority since Thatcher, only a few months since Hartlepool and looking stronger than ever, and with the pandemic that's been the only domestic story for so long on its way out, he gets the chop. It would be quite a thing. And it's when I look at it this way, the impressionistic big picture rather than the febrile daily developments, that I veer towards him surviving.
But the big picture is that he no longer has a purpose. Why did he get elected (either to the Conservative leadership or as PM)? To deliver Brexit and to defeat Corbyn. We can argue about the relative importance of each, but most of us agree it was these two. Boris was best placed to Get Brexit Done, Boris was the man to beat Corbyn. You may not like it, but it's far from obvious there was someone better to do either. Brexit is now delivered. You can argue about whether it was the right sort of Brexit - but the question is not now whether or not we Brexit, it's what the future looks like. It's picking over detail, for years. Is this anything that anyone, even Boris's firmest backers, think Boris is the ideal choice for? Similarly, Corbyn is now defeated.
So what we are left with is levelling up. I give Boris some credit for this, in a high-level big-picture type way - but levelling up after the 2019 election is now a long slog of detail. Again, not obvious that Boris is the best man for the job. Oh, and the war on woke. But whatever Boris says about this it's becoming less and less clear he actually intends to do anything. If war on woke is your priority, is Boris the man to fight it? Possibly as a journalist. Probably not as a politican. Plus all the other issues which have sprang up in the past two years - covid recovery, Russia, China, energy. Issues for Boris? Possibly not.
If the answer to all of these questions was still Boris, partygate wouldn't bring him down. Unpopularity didn't bring Thatcher down (until it did) because her backers still believed in her. But I don't see any more that anyone still needs Boris.
He is about as discarded and wanted as an old tissue in a teenage boy's bedroom
At the beginning of the pandemic my monthly direct debit for gas and electricity for our flat was £62. Next month it will be over £130, and I suspect it will rise again when the price cap does so.
Putting the politics to one side, from a purely economic point of view, is this really the time to take money out of the economy with a tax increase?
You can believe that the NI increase is the perfect tax increase that is absolutely required to fund the NHS and social care, and still think that this April is a terrible time to implement it, at the same time as fiscal drag also takes money out of the economy.
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
I hope you're right - it's just 'wrong' to have this man as PM - but I'm finding it hard to be confident he's going. It will be an amazing fall if it happens. Just 2 years after winning the best Con majority since Thatcher, only a few months since Hartlepool and looking stronger than ever, and with the pandemic that's been the only domestic story for so long on its way out, he gets the chop. It would be quite a thing. And it's when I look at it this way, the impressionistic big picture rather than the febrile daily developments, that I veer towards him surviving.
I think he'll go very soon. He is utterly toxic, more so even than Thatcher was in the days leading up to her demise, and the longer this farce lasts, the more the Conservative Party as a whole will be damaged by prolonging it. On Thatcher, I overestimated her resilience and it was a surprise at the time when the Conservatives moved so decisively to depose her. Nowadays it doesn't even require a rival candidate to put their head above the parapet.
Who gives a shit how tall Rishi Sunak is? What an absolutely ludicrous discussion.
Voters
If so, things have changed since Victorian times. Both Disraeli and Gladstone were unusually short, as this sketch illustrates.
Though in those days, most voters wouldn't have seen the actual heights of their leaders.
The key thing about Rishi's dinkiness is that he (or his image consultant) clearly gives a shit about it, hence the bizzaro group photos doing their best to break the laws of perspective;
I reckon Trump-Gabbard could be the ticket, he's losing the conspiracy wing over vaccines and it's not like 2016 when he needed a VP to placate the GOP mainstream.
I like Gabbard, she 's come across as smart and with it. Also loved her takedown of Harris.
The issue with her as VP is that it might put other candidates' noses out of joint as she would then be in pole position for 2028.
Hang on, when I asked you if there was any *Dem* candidate you'd support against Trump you said her.
Now turns out she's morphed into a hard right Republican and is being tipped as Trump's running mate!
"Arguing politics with MrEd" - it's like wrestling with smoke inside a hall of mirrors.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Who gives a shit how tall Rishi Sunak is? What an absolutely ludicrous discussion.
Voters
If so, things have changed since Victorian times. Both Disraeli and Gladstone were unusually short, as this sketch illustrates.
Though in those days, most voters wouldn't have seen the actual heights of their leaders.
The key thing about Rishi's dinkiness is that he (or his image consultant) clearly gives a shit about it, hence the bizzaro group photos doing their best to break the laws of perspective;
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
I hope you're right - it's just 'wrong' to have this man as PM - but I'm finding it hard to be confident he's going. It will be an amazing fall if it happens. Just 2 years after winning the best Con majority since Thatcher, only a few months since Hartlepool and looking stronger than ever, and with the pandemic that's been the only domestic story for so long on its way out, he gets the chop. It would be quite a thing. And it's when I look at it this way, the impressionistic big picture rather than the febrile daily developments, that I veer towards him surviving.
But the big picture is that he no longer has a purpose. Why did he get elected (either to the Conservative leadership or as PM)? To deliver Brexit and to defeat Corbyn. We can argue about the relative importance of each, but most of us agree it was these two. Boris was best placed to Get Brexit Done, Boris was the man to beat Corbyn. You may not like it, but it's far from obvious there was someone better to do either. Brexit is now delivered. You can argue about whether it was the right sort of Brexit - but the question is not now whether or not we Brexit, it's what the future looks like. It's picking over detail, for years. Is this anything that anyone, even Boris's firmest backers, think Boris is the ideal choice for? Similarly, Corbyn is now defeated.
So what we are left with is levelling up. I give Boris some credit for this, in a high-level big-picture type way - but levelling up after the 2019 election is now a long slog of detail. Again, not obvious that Boris is the best man for the job. Oh, and the war on woke. But whatever Boris says about this it's becoming less and less clear he actually intends to do anything. If war on woke is your priority, is Boris the man to fight it? Possibly as a journalist. Probably not as a politican. Plus all the other issues which have sprang up in the past two years - covid recovery, Russia, China, energy. Issues for Boris? Possibly not.
If the answer to all of these questions was still Boris, partygate wouldn't bring him down. Unpopularity didn't bring Thatcher down (until it did) because her backers still believed in her. But I don't see any more that anyone still needs Boris.
Makes sense. Johnson's achievements according to Liz Truss' justification are:
1. Got Brexit done; 2. One of the fastest growing economies; 3 Boosters.
To which:
1. Past tense, even if you think it's a special achievement; 2. Dodgy statistic. Unlikely to be one that people hold onto as the cost of living squeeze bites; 3. Hopefully not needed after Omicron fades.
Who gives a shit how tall Rishi Sunak is? What an absolutely ludicrous discussion.
Voters
If so, things have changed since Victorian times. Both Disraeli and Gladstone were unusually short, as this sketch illustrates.
Though in those days, most voters wouldn't have seen the actual heights of their leaders.
The key thing about Rishi's dinkiness is that he (or his image consultant) clearly gives a shit about it, hence the bizzaro group photos doing their best to break the laws of perspective;
It only underlines my point. In the 19th century, Disraeli and Gladstone could be depicted accurately. Now there are all kinds of manipulation to make tiny people appear larger.
I reckon Trump-Gabbard could be the ticket, he's losing the conspiracy wing over vaccines and it's not like 2016 when he needed a VP to placate the GOP mainstream.
I like Gabbard, she 's come across as smart and with it. Also loved her takedown of Harris.
The issue with her as VP is that it might put other candidates' noses out of joint as she would then be in pole position for 2028.
Hang on, when I asked you if there was any *Dem* candidate you'd support against Trump you said her.
Now turns out she's morphed into a hard right Republican and is being tipped as Trump's running mate!
"Arguing politics with MrEd" - it's like wrestling with smoke inside a hall of mirrors.
I've always viewed her as a Democrat - she stood for the nomination in the 2016 election. Also remember I said I would have considered Sanders and Gabbard was definitely on that wing.
I'm not taking into account what she has done since - I have heard her interviewed, described as a Democrat but haven't seen any of the stuff in that article.
Mind you, if we are getting slightly personal, your description sounds like arguing with you over when someone can be described as committing an offence - you're not exactly consistent yourself when it comes to principles...
I think Sunak is a very worthy fav. Morduant is my speculative pick if it's not him.
Speaking of speculative, my tip/bet on MICHELLE OBAMA for POTUS24 at 100 is on the roll! Into 40 now.
Can we imagine? ... Yes We Can.
You can imagine all you want, the way things are going, it is looking more like it will be Hillary Clinton.
Are there really so few potential candidates that we are having to retread for first ladies? It didn't exactly work out well last time that gambit was tried.
Well, yes. There is a very good chance 2024 could be a rematch of 2016. There is an increasing view that Biden won't run again and Harris is not up to it. The other candidates are not seen as viable. HRC has also making more noises about the Democrats needing to be centrist - likely to appeal if the Dems get hammered in November.
For Trump, the dynamics are a little bit different. Most of the 'rising stars' on the Republican side are young enough to wait 4 years (DeSantis, Scott, Cruz if you want to include him). Far better to not p1ss Trump off, let him run again and hope for the VP pick, which puts you in pole position for 2028.
There is not a 'very good chance' at all – that is ludicrous. What price would you give this 'very good chance'?
Take a look at what has been happening with Hillary over the past few weeks.
Price at the moment, I would probably give 8/1.
So an 11% chance then?
The betting price and the chance of it happening are not the same given the nomination is away, she is old and she has age issues.
But, if you want a probably of it happening right now, I would say conservatively around 25%. If the Democrats get hammered in November, that rises. She is positioning herself as the candidate to push the Democrats back to the centre and there is no other possible candidate who is coming out with that at the moment, in part because they are locked into the messaging of the Democrats' agenda because they hold various official posts.
I don't understand how that's supposed to win her the primary. The only reason the Dems would nominate a candidate who said that Joe Biden was too left-wing would be if they thought it was going to win them the election and keep out Trump. But when it comes to a candidate who can sell the message "I can beat Donald Trump", Hillary Clinton is literally the *worst person in the world*.
True but there are signs a good bit of the Democrat establishment is getting behind her and her message will be that "I told you so" about Trump. Biden's polling ratings are awful (he's down to just over 30% approval in Quinnipac) and, when you get the NYT and WSJ both suggesting in different ways that Harris shouldn't be the 2024 pick, it's a sign the establishment has given up on her.
PS don't mention Buttigeig - he will get crushed. Did nothing as Mayor and, as one commentator put it, he is only seen as a candidate because he is gay - he has no other features that would recommend him for the job.
Not saying you're wrong but what are the signs that the Dem establishment is getting behind her? If you're thinking of the editorial in the Wall Street Journal, that's not where the the Dem establishment lives.
The WSJ aren't but the two who wrote the op-ed are very much in that world:
"Mr. Schoen is founder and partner in Schoen Cooperman Research, a polling and consulting firm whose past clients include Bill Clinton and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr. Stein is a former New York City Council president, Manhattan borough president and state assemblyman."
This kind of makes my point for me, the connected and well-funded machine that held the presidency for two terms decides to get their name back into contention and all they can find to push it is a minor figure from local politics and somebody who helped separate Bloomberg from his money in his laughably doomed primary run. This is not showing support from the Democratic Establishment. This is showing a complete lack of support from the Democratic Establishment.
It's worse than that, much worse:
"Before we go any further, it's worth noting that neither Schoen nor Stein have sterling credentials as Democrats. Schoen worked for former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg while Stein endorsed none other than Donald Trump in the 2016 election against, wait for it, Hillary Clinton."
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people". Djokovic clearly thinks he is so important that he can behave by a different set of rules to others and so does Johnson.
Are we past the days of having peers as PMs, in the sense of it being even legally possible? Though Lord Home got himself a safe seat as a MP pdq if I recall the recent discussion here. I'm sure someone could be persuaded to apply to the Chiltern Hundreds if need be, in a nice safe seat.
Nothing that legally says the PM cannot be in the Lords - although I imagine that there would be no such thing as a safe seat for a by-election these days, if a party tried to force one in such circumstances.
Halifax turned down PMship in 1940 on account of being a Lord
Is that so? I'd always assumed Labour wouldn't support him.
I read a couple of articles that had it as his for taking, but bottled it. He didn’t fancy being a war leader. Didn’t think we could win. Didn’t want to fight. The recent film of Churchill portrayed it like this? Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
Labour wanted Halifax and that was the general consensus of the Commons. The King wanted Halifax and was a bit upset when Halifax raised the objection of being a peer and so not able to operate effectively in the House.
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people". Djokovic clearly thinks he is so important that he can behave by a different set of rules to others and so does Johnson.
He clearly lied on his visa application. And now almost every border guard in the world knows he lied on his visa application. He's not going to have a fun time travelling...
I think Sunak is a very worthy fav. Morduant is my speculative pick if it's not him.
Speaking of speculative, my tip/bet on MICHELLE OBAMA for POTUS24 at 100 is on the roll! Into 40 now.
Can we imagine? ... Yes We Can.
You can imagine all you want, the way things are going, it is looking more like it will be Hillary Clinton.
Are there really so few potential candidates that we are having to retread for first ladies? It didn't exactly work out well last time that gambit was tried.
Well, yes. There is a very good chance 2024 could be a rematch of 2016. There is an increasing view that Biden won't run again and Harris is not up to it. The other candidates are not seen as viable. HRC has also making more noises about the Democrats needing to be centrist - likely to appeal if the Dems get hammered in November.
For Trump, the dynamics are a little bit different. Most of the 'rising stars' on the Republican side are young enough to wait 4 years (DeSantis, Scott, Cruz if you want to include him). Far better to not p1ss Trump off, let him run again and hope for the VP pick, which puts you in pole position for 2028.
There is not a 'very good chance' at all – that is ludicrous. What price would you give this 'very good chance'?
Take a look at what has been happening with Hillary over the past few weeks.
What the PM's spokesman did say however was that "No10" has written to Buckingham Palace to apologise for the event that took place during period of national mourning. BUT sounds like officials wrote the letter not the PM himself.
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
I hope you're right - it's just 'wrong' to have this man as PM - but I'm finding it hard to be confident he's going. It will be an amazing fall if it happens. Just 2 years after winning the best Con majority since Thatcher, only a few months since Hartlepool and looking stronger than ever, and with the pandemic that's been the only domestic story for so long on its way out, he gets the chop. It would be quite a thing. And it's when I look at it this way, the impressionistic big picture rather than the febrile daily developments, that I veer towards him surviving.
I think he'll go very soon. He is utterly toxic, more so even than Thatcher was in the days leading up to her demise, and the longer this farce lasts, the more the Conservative Party as a whole will be damaged by prolonging it. On Thatcher, I overestimated her resilience and it was a surprise at the time when the Conservatives moved so decisively to depose her. Nowadays it doesn't even require a rival candidate to put their head above the parapet.
Piss ups while the Queen mourns should be the final nail.
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people".
What has Rishi done to deserve this continual propaganda about his height?
Very interesting. Wychavon is one of the most competently run Conservative local authorities. If I were a Tory local councillor I would be worried looking at that.
I thought the Tories were mad to pick Johnson over Hunt - the difference in quality between the two is huge. Their 2019 red wall victory says I was wrong, but recent events, where Johnson's (lack of) character has at last cut through with voters, suggest otherwise. Hunt would be a sensible choice I think. The Tories' dilemma is the red wall where Johnson had a unique (and to me mystifying) attractiveness that has now disappeared. Not obvious that any of his potential successors could match it. I increasingly think Johnson will go soon. I looked again at the photo of HMQ grieving her husband alone and found myself welling up. I think a lot of folk will have a similar reaction. A line has been crossed now, there's no way back.
I hope you're right - it's just 'wrong' to have this man as PM - but I'm finding it hard to be confident he's going. It will be an amazing fall if it happens. Just 2 years after winning the best Con majority since Thatcher, only a few months since Hartlepool and looking stronger than ever, and with the pandemic that's been the only domestic story for so long on its way out, he gets the chop. It would be quite a thing. And it's when I look at it this way, the impressionistic big picture rather than the febrile daily developments, that I veer towards him surviving.
But the big picture is that he no longer has a purpose. Why did he get elected (either to the Conservative leadership or as PM)? To deliver Brexit and to defeat Corbyn. We can argue about the relative importance of each, but most of us agree it was these two. Boris was best placed to Get Brexit Done, Boris was the man to beat Corbyn. You may not like it, but it's far from obvious there was someone better to do either. Brexit is now delivered. You can argue about whether it was the right sort of Brexit - but the question is not now whether or not we Brexit, it's what the future looks like. It's picking over detail, for years. Is this anything that anyone, even Boris's firmest backers, think Boris is the ideal choice for? Similarly, Corbyn is now defeated.
So what we are left with is levelling up. I give Boris some credit for this, in a high-level big-picture type way - but levelling up after the 2019 election is now a long slog of detail. Again, not obvious that Boris is the best man for the job. Oh, and the war on woke. But whatever Boris says about this it's becoming less and less clear he actually intends to do anything. If war on woke is your priority, is Boris the man to fight it? Possibly as a journalist. Probably not as a politican. Plus all the other issues which have sprang up in the past two years - covid recovery, Russia, China, energy. Issues for Boris? Possibly not.
If the answer to all of these questions was still Boris, partygate wouldn't bring him down. Unpopularity didn't bring Thatcher down (until it did) because her backers still believed in her. But I don't see any more that anyone still needs Boris.
You missed out the middle of the DUD slogan. Unite the Party. He did that for a while. Now he's doing the opposite.
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people". Djokovic clearly thinks he is so important that he can behave by a different set of rules to others and so does Johnson.
He clearly lied on his visa application. And now almost every border guard in the world knows he lied on his visa application. He's not going to have a fun time travelling...
Who gives a shit how tall Rishi Sunak is? What an absolutely ludicrous discussion.
Voters
If so, things have changed since Victorian times. Both Disraeli and Gladstone were unusually short, as this sketch illustrates.
Though in those days, most voters wouldn't have seen the actual heights of their leaders.
The key thing about Rishi's dinkiness is that he (or his image consultant) clearly gives a shit about it, hence the bizzaro group photos doing their best to break the laws of perspective;
It does demonstrate the thought that Sunak puts into his work, and that he is good with numbers. The 2:1 ratio red box to complete the picture is perfect.
Downing Street apologises to the Queen over the parties
He cannot survive this
It is excruciating
Your chaps picked a man with no shame, he won't be leaving voluntarily, and it seems none of the cabinet are willing to play Brutus as they know it will wreck their own careers to do so. So as absurd as it is, he may well survive.
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people".
What has Rishi done to deserve this continual propaganda about his height?
Downing Street apologises to the Queen over the parties
He cannot survive this
It is excruciating
Your chaps picked a man with no shame, he won't be leaving voluntarily, and it seems none of the cabinet are willing to play Brutus as they know it will wreck their own careers to do so. So as absurd as it is, he may well survive.
I don't see how he ever recovers from allowing his own staff to get lashed till 2am whilst the Queen was mourning alone.
A Govt minister in the Lords explicitly denied this interpretation.
On 7 January, in response to a question from Baroness Jones, Lord True said: “No 10 Downing Street is a Crown property. Regulations under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 which relate to the activities of people, apply regardless of whether those activities took place on Crown property or not.” Lord True is minister of state at the Cabinet Office, the department which has responsibility for No 10’s operations.
That seems to contradict the act itself, otherwise the referenced provisions wouldn't exist.
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people".
What has Rishi done to deserve this continual propaganda about his height?
Very little so far as I can see.
He's a potential decent candidate, do mud requires to be slung in case he wins.
Downing Street apologises to the Queen over the parties
He cannot survive this
It is excruciating
Your chaps picked a man with no shame, he won't be leaving voluntarily, and it seems none of the cabinet are willing to play Brutus as they know it will wreck their own careers to do so. So as absurd as it is, he may well survive.
I don't see how he ever recovers from allowing his own staff to get lashed till 2am whilst the Queen was mourning alone.
It is virtually treason.
He may not recover. But that is different to surviving.
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people".
What has Rishi done to deserve this continual propaganda about his height?
What the PM's spokesman did say however was that "No10" has written to Buckingham Palace to apologise for the event that took place during period of national mourning. BUT sounds like officials wrote the letter not the PM himself.
I don't feel much sympathy for the 'just following orders' crew like this and the Labour tweet nurse, who acted in fundamentally cruel manner because they were told to.
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people". Djokovic clearly thinks he is so important that he can behave by a different set of rules to others and so does Johnson.
He clearly lied on his visa application. And now almost every border guard in the world knows he lied on his visa application. He's not going to have a fun time travelling...
What was the lie on his visa application.
We don't have any proof that he lied on his visa application of course. I must say he was very fortunate indeed to have got Covid which potentially provided his exemption just in time for the tournament and the attendance at all those meetings after that date was clearly an oversight. When he got the two lines on his LFT he must have been the only person in the world to say: "wow that IS lucky". He is also extremely fortunate to have an army of credible and honest people taking his side, such as Mum and Dad and various people in Serbia. Additionally he has a few international figures. One of those people is a fine upstanding individual called Nigel Farage. I am not sure whether Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin have weighed in yet, but I guess there is still time.
What the PM's spokesman did say however was that "No10" has written to Buckingham Palace to apologise for the event that took place during period of national mourning. BUT sounds like officials wrote the letter not the PM himself.
What the PM's spokesman did say however was that "No10" has written to Buckingham Palace to apologise for the event that took place during period of national mourning. BUT sounds like officials wrote the letter not the PM himself.
One of the most distasteful elements (for me) of both the No10 party story and the Djokovic story is the arrogance. Both smack of "rules are for little people". Djokovic clearly thinks he is so important that he can behave by a different set of rules to others and so does Johnson.
He clearly lied on his visa application. And now almost every border guard in the world knows he lied on his visa application. He's not going to have a fun time travelling...
What was the lie on his visa application.
There were er.... technical issues... with his PCR test evidence.
Comments
A shame, though I care far less for sci-fi dystopia than fantasy so, even though I really liked The Witcher 3, I didn't pre-order Cyberpunk.
Mr. kle4, well, it worked for Boris Johnson.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/582985-buttigieg-has-high-name-recognition-favorability-rating-among-biden
Buttigieg won the Iowa caucuses even in 2020
I reckon Trump-Gabbard could be the ticket, he's losing the conspiracy wing over vaccines and it's not like 2016 when he needed a VP to placate the GOP mainstream.
By the way, anyone with nothing better to do should be able to see me being interviewed at 12.20ish on Gbnews.uk (subject: animal sentience bill).
The story arc is exactly as predicted by his enemies like Max Hastings from the start - you realise that the bumbling is an act, and the man is a shit who shafts you.
The issue with her as VP is that it might put other candidates' noses out of joint as she would then be in pole position for 2028.
Neither Tory MPs nor Tory members have ever shown themselves to be notably prejudiced against privately educated people - far from it. It just isn't true that, but for Blair, Cameron would have been unelectable as Tory leader. David Davis did make a little hay by having a more compelling back-story, but was beaten by a better candidate. Would he have made a bit more hay if he'd been able to suggest an ex-public school pupil was unelectable (which of course he couldn't do as the PM at the time was one)? Maybe, But he didn't lose narrowly - he was pretty soundly beaten.
My belief is that if someone looks and behaves British - which Rishi very much does - British people barely notice the colour of his skin. There is probably more prejudice against someone dressed, for example, in traditional Pakistani dress - but I'd argue that cultural prejudice is a bigger thing than racial prejudice.
I wonder if there are any Muslim votes to be lost by having a Hindu leader?
I was mildly surprised Civ VI went for him over Alexius or John Comnenus, or Justinian the Great, though. Thought the aftermath of the Battle of Kleidion might have put them off.
For my part, while I supported the lockdowns in general, it did rankle that I was prevented even from hitting a golf ball around my local course even on my own for five months in total over the three successive lockdowns, a punitive and unnecessary restriction which made things far harder to cope with. In the light of these subsequent revelations my anger at that is through the scale now. But that is still fairly mundane in the scale of things, and goodness knows what someone who was deprived of the chance to say goodbye to their nearest and dearest must now be thinking.
The Senate often 'confirmed' the new emperor. But a republic it was not.
As William Gibson said, Cyberpunk was just "GTA skinned-over with a generic 80s retro-future."
"Mr. Schoen is founder and partner in Schoen Cooperman Research, a polling and consulting firm whose past clients include Bill Clinton and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr. Stein is a former New York City Council president, Manhattan borough president and state assemblyman."
PS. I feel a bit uncomfortable even discussing this. But I do think it will be an issue, if not a major one, if some of my elderly relatives and their friends are owt to go by.
Getting a new more sensible PM in place is more important now than electoral advantage for the opposition. Particularly as we get close to a showdown with Russia. A better relationship with the EU and US can't come soon enough.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/us/politics/sinema-voting-rights-bill.html
This is about the only action that could give him a little bit of understanding
However, I am not holding my breath
For those who thought the lockdown rules were state overreach and would have loved to be partying and getting out and about, these reports just rub in the unfairness of it all. For those who disapprove of any kind of fun and would like us locked down indefinitely, there is moral outrage at the decadence.
Twitter is full of equally contemptuous comments from both ends of the spectrum.
Will the Murdochs be happy that their Deputy Editor was at the very epicentre of a major story and didn't reveal it?
Not going to happen.
Why did he get elected (either to the Conservative leadership or as PM)? To deliver Brexit and to defeat Corbyn. We can argue about the relative importance of each, but most of us agree it was these two. Boris was best placed to Get Brexit Done, Boris was the man to beat Corbyn. You may not like it, but it's far from obvious there was someone better to do either.
Brexit is now delivered. You can argue about whether it was the right sort of Brexit - but the question is not now whether or not we Brexit, it's what the future looks like. It's picking over detail, for years. Is this anything that anyone, even Boris's firmest backers, think Boris is the ideal choice for?
Similarly, Corbyn is now defeated.
So what we are left with is levelling up. I give Boris some credit for this, in a high-level big-picture type way - but levelling up after the 2019 election is now a long slog of detail. Again, not obvious that Boris is the best man for the job.
Oh, and the war on woke. But whatever Boris says about this it's becoming less and less clear he actually intends to do anything. If war on woke is your priority, is Boris the man to fight it? Possibly as a journalist. Probably not as a politican.
Plus all the other issues which have sprang up in the past two years - covid recovery, Russia, China, energy. Issues for Boris? Possibly not.
If the answer to all of these questions was still Boris, partygate wouldn't bring him down. Unpopularity didn't bring Thatcher down (until it did) because her backers still believed in her. But I don't see any more that anyone still needs Boris.
(I know, I know, insert ARPANET history here.)
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/02/19/in-politics-height-matters
I suspect a lot of it is subconscious.
Free money.
Certainly your 4/1 bet on a 22 exit is looking handsome and clean-shaven.
Putting the politics to one side, from a purely economic point of view, is this really the time to take money out of the economy with a tax increase?
You can believe that the NI increase is the perfect tax increase that is absolutely required to fund the NHS and social care, and still think that this April is a terrible time to implement it, at the same time as fiscal drag also takes money out of the economy.
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1481961611531374600?t=g44HjK3T2PxCEQ5NbVqhXw&s=19
The key thing about Rishi's dinkiness is that he (or his image consultant) clearly gives a shit about it, hence the bizzaro group photos doing their best to break the laws of perspective;
Now turns out she's morphed into a hard right Republican and is being tipped as Trump's running mate!
"Arguing politics with MrEd" - it's like wrestling with smoke inside a hall of mirrors.
Is this revisionist history? It’s been revised and is more accurate?
He cannot survive this
It is excruciating
1. Got Brexit done;
2. One of the fastest growing economies;
3 Boosters.
To which:
1. Past tense, even if you think it's a special achievement;
2. Dodgy statistic. Unlikely to be one that people hold onto as the cost of living squeeze bites;
3. Hopefully not needed after Omicron fades.
I'm not taking into account what she has done since - I have heard her interviewed, described as a Democrat but haven't seen any of the stuff in that article.
Mind you, if we are getting slightly personal, your description sounds like arguing with you over when someone can be described as committing an offence - you're not exactly consistent yourself when it comes to principles...
"Before we go any further, it's worth noting that neither Schoen nor Stein have sterling credentials as Democrats. Schoen worked for former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg while Stein endorsed none other than Donald Trump in the 2016 election against, wait for it, Hillary Clinton."
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/12/politics/hillary-clinton-2024-presidential-election/index.html
https://twitter.com/john_lichfield/status/1481962729900584967?s=20
BUT sounds like officials wrote the letter not the PM himself.
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1481963283892490242?s=20
I fear it will not be.
Now he's doing the opposite.
No Presidents under 1.8m since Carter. So the pool has been restricted to about 10% of the US population for 40+ years.
Paul Brand
@PaulBrandITV
·
8m
BREAKING: Downing Street has apologised to the Queen for parties held on the eve of her husband’s funeral.
It does not get much more painful than that.
Paul Brand
@PaulBrandITV
·
7m
This also seems to be yet another admission that parties did indeed take place. Will
@metpoliceuk investigate this time?
It is virtually treason.
That seems to contradict the act itself, otherwise the referenced provisions wouldn't exist.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/06/13/rishi-sunak-looks-like-a-homunculus-this-may-stymie-his-leadership-ambitions/
@LBC
'I feel like an idiot.'
This funeral officer who stopped family from attending cremations broke down in tears wishing he was 'more lenient' as the government partied away.
https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1481962500811853827
DannyErgo
@batesabsergo
·
4h
Replying to
@maitlis
and
@MatthewdAncona
Perhaps it’s time for the British Public to accept and live with 10 Downing Street parties and that they are not going away