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The betting reflects a bit more confidence that Johnson will survive – politicalbetting.com

With no move yet against the PM the 2022 exit gamble on the betting markets has edged down a bit and now stands at a 65% chance. It was nearly 80%.
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1 Blaming Sunak for blocking triggering Article 16 and wanting to stick with NI rise despite cost of living crisis
2 Accusing Truss of wasting taxpayers money on private jet flights to, from and around Australia
Far from the jolly, affable clown he likes to portray. Some dark karma being created.
Brutal.
Politics is a contact sport.
He has that. They, I suspect, do not.
Having ended all Covid restrictions and maybe even cancelling the NI rise, Boris is back to his old populist, cake for all, self
Tell me when will you be mine
Quantas, Quantas Quantas Quantas!!
One might wonder why the Embassy staff in Canberra were cut to the point that they needed fly ins by Ms "any deal is better than no deal" Truss.
Cost to taxpayer a cool half million"
"Sunak is a plastic Brexiteer not a true believer"
Proper hatchet job stuff
Only way the LDs and SNP could ever get more seats than the Tories is if RefUK overtook the Tories as the main party of the right and split the rightwing vote, as happened to the Canadian Tories in 1993 when the populist right Reform Party beat them in the popular vote and on seats
Companies won't pay for drivers to do nothing for random days. It's not just the unnecessary wage costs; it plays havoc with your schedules.
Not the government cares about loss of trade. It just cares there should be no reportable, visible queues.
He is a journalist. He knows other journalists. Who drink with journalists. Even travel ones.
Not exactly scotched by Boris at PMQs was it.
Mutual destruction game here at play surely a high risk strategy is it not.
I don't get it I thought Boris was pretty safe now.
Total, life-long, ardent Brexiteer.
Yeh.
He'll take the entire Tory Party with him if necessary.
Happy days.
He is not a rational man
Britain Trump
As someone said earlier more likely to come over all David Miliband
1. Report is published, and fairly damaging.
2. Boris expresses deep regret and a fresh look at policy too, starting with cancelling the NI rise
3. Tory MPs say well, OK, he's making an effort, maybe give him another chance.
4. Sunak resigns - indefensible financial policy coupled with party outrage.
5. Tory MPs say oooh, well, in that case...
6. VONC happens, and narrowly passes.
Edit if they do row back on the NI increase they can't really do the same for health spending. They will have to borrow it.
I think this is a huge scandal. Perish the thought that any of the people involved were/are donating to a political party.
5a. Cummings drops the big one. Photo of Johnson on the job with a stepmum in the garden of No 10 or some such.
Sunak is a true Brexit believer, and has been for a long time.
Problem is it is getting more and more ridiculous an assertion, as the hardcore remainers are gone, and the lukewarm remainers are on board. It's not very credible to label any internal critic as insufficiently Brexity anymore.
Do you guys have any idea how smug getting wordle in 2 tries feels ?
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19/latestinsights
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/antibodies
Jeremy Hunt is not a front-runner because he is no longer in the Cabinet. The Saj did honourably resign (or decline) the Chancellorship yet he is not a front-runner.
We’re now in a rather different situation, with a severely weakened PM.
If you’re only looking at it in leadership terms, then it’s not obvious that remaining in while the PM stitches him up over NI does anything for Sunak either.
So waiting is for him probably no safer than rolling the dice now.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/27/protests-flare-across-poland-after-death-of-young-mother-denied-an-abortion
… On 21 December the heartbeat of one of the twins stopped and, according to Agnieszka’s family, the doctors refused to remove it, quoting the current abortion legislation. They waited several days until the second foetus also died. A further two days passed before the pregnancy was terminated on 31 December, according to the family.
A priest was then summoned by hospital staff to perform a funeral for the twins, the family said.
The family say that the doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy earlier, citing Poland’s abortion legislation. “Her husband begged the doctors to save his wife, even at the cost of the pregnancy,” Agnieszka’s twin sister, Wioletta Paciepnik, said on Tuesday...
If they hadn't inflated the housing market they would also have however much they lost to pay for the Stamp Duty holiday.
It would be far better spent on reducing energy bills, as that would impact inflation if done properly.
LOL - More tourists Cumming to Barnard Castle.
https://news.sky.com/story/barnard-castle-site-made-famous-by-dominic-cummings-among-hidden-gems-britons-rediscovered-during-pandemic-12526760
The first piece I saw on that was a piece of misleading drivel in the Independent.
eg the basis for the £500k claim is 'from a source in the charter industry', which the Indy turns into 'the cost to the taxpayer'. Instead of doing some journalism and finding out what the actual cost was - quite accessible via FOI.
I was going to put in a complaint to the independent regulator, but for some reason the Indy has chosen not to have one.
If inflation is reduced by preventing energy price rises for what is a short-term energy crisis, it will undermine the need for more interest rate rises.
I think Raab has also used this charter jet Airbus 321 to visit Singapore and Indonesia as well, without comeback.
https://inews.co.uk/news/boris-johnson-brexit-coronavirus-raf-plane-jet-travel-voyager-zz336-1104200
So there’s clearly somebody manoeuvring in the background.
If there were more than 30 or 40 government people on the plane, the cost is probably a wash compared to commercial biz class flights, if there were any journalists or non-government staff on the plane, they will have been billed which reduces the cost to government further.
There were also security and logistics considerations, Covid protocols around commercial flights, and the background of the ongoing situation in Ukraine.
It’s one of these stories that makes for a great headline, but doesn’t really stand up once you start digging. But for those ploting against Ms Truss, the headline will be enough.
I suspect our PM has done his greased piglet trick again; Sue Gray's report is in the long grass and we've moved on to a 'will he, won't he' about NI contributions.
Have to admit this whole thing about the dogs being taken out of Afghanistan story does seem quite convenient for BJ. It takes the focus off the Downing Street parties, you’ve got other ministers backing his view and it’s also a topic that most people are not likely to get excited about (if anything, I suspect, a fair few people in this country would have preferred the dogs to come out than the people).
Every single Tory MP deserves to forfeit their seats for not having got rid of him already. There’s not even the excuse that he’s doing well as Prime Minister.
‘Public servants should spend taxpayers’ money with the care they would give to their own. This would be reflected in changes such as travelling by economy rather than business class’
- Liz Truss, 2007
As others have said it is brutal politics but you don't get to be PM by being nice. Who could have imagined that the long serving and excellent Ken Clarke would end his career as not a Tory? Why is someone as capable as Hunt, compared with most of his cabinet, still on the back benches? Who was quite happy to have remainers arguing that it was "only" £200m rather than £350m a week that went to Brussels net? Boris is not the nice man he pretends to be and a bad enemy to have. But that is why he is PM and likely, in my view, to remain so for some time to come.
I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Hope you’re feeling a bit better this morning.
When Jeremy Hunt was Foreign Secretary in May's Government, he sat in the row before me in the BACK of an ANA flight from Tokyo.
We are watching Johnson's rerun of the Court of Louis XIV. It will end, metaphorically speaking, in the same way. The question is when?
It is a bizarre situation for someone whose personal appeal was so key to the election victory just two years ago, but he can’t afford to make a single extra enemy. His MPs have his fate in their hands.
Backbenchers speak even more bluntly to those arranging the “save Boris” operation. They demand changes to the No 10 team and say that these should come straight after the publication of Sue Gray’s report into the Downing Street parties. They are adamant they will brook no delay to this. If things don’t start to move, they warn that they will conclude Johnson isn’t serious about changing.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-is-a-hostage-with-no-hope-of-escape-n82dg9qq6