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Johnson’s premiership is on a knife edge – politicalbetting.com

Above is the front page of Monday’s Guardian with the UK political news that looks set to dominate the next few days. It appears we are very close to a VONC on Johnson and that could happen very quickly.
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There would be leaked polling showing somebody else doing better. There isn't any because nobody else would - and that is why he is safe IMHO
If he lost it Raab might not only be temporary leader but might run for the leadership longer term too as the candidate of the right and who Johnson loyalists could then move to. Provided he got to the final 2 with MPs, even if say Hunt or Sunak won the MPs ballot, Raab would then hope to win the leadership and the premiership in the membership vote
Another possibility is that Boris blames the rebels on the by-election defeats.
It's an odd gap in the data right now.
https://commonsbusiness.parliament.uk/document/57148/pdf
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Starting words shmarting words.
I'm not sure an immediate bounce is that relevant.
Removing leaders who have proved they can win general election majorities at a previous election rarely ends well for the party concerned
The fact is, parties who have been in for a while tend to become unpopular, stale, and light on policy ideas. They often try to refresh themselves by changing leader, and sometimes it works in a fashion as with Major in 1992 or Johnson in 2019. But you can't stay in office forever, and eventually you lose. It can be fairly hard to get back quickly when you lose, but eventually you do. It's just the pendulum, and you simply need to try to eke out wins where you can and not lose too badly when you lose.
She wouldn't have beaten Kinnock.....
You could go back to post war to see that removing a leader probably has no effect on subsequent election results. In fact, it may well help.
If you look at the Conservatives, and taking leaders who were removed against their will:
Eden 1957 - Con won in 1959 and lost in 1964.
Heath 1975 - Con won next four.
Thatcher 1990 - Con won 1992 and lost 1997.
Duncan-Smith 2003 - Con lost 2005 (but weren't in power at the time).
May 2019 - Con won 2019.
Seems to me, removing the leader guarantees a win at the next election. A leader who was forced out resulted in a win for the party at the next election. Duncan-Smith is the obvious exception, but the Conservatives weren't in power in 2003.
That really is clutching at straws. In other words "we won the next election after changing the PM but we shouldn't have changed as we went on to lose the next 3 after that." Do you really think that?
With Thatcher still in place, resolutely continuing to defend the poll tax, having scraped together just a handful more votes to see off the 1990 leadership challenge only to be left with a divided party, you would have lost in 1992 by historic proportions.
And had not Blair and Brown campaigned as the Chuckle brothers in 2005, with the still popular Brown rather than the Iraq-tainted Blair given the lead role in a not-at-all-subtle signal that there would be a change of leadership in the aftermath, Labour would probably not have won that one.
1) Get rid of boris
2) Become an actual party of the centre right instead of the mid left
3) Stop selecting idiots like HYUFD for elected positions
https://www.ft.com/content/c7480de9-323a-410b-889b-dd24bbee593d
There are risks in that too If they win Tiverton (which isn't implausible) then the vote would be off, maybe as far as until the next general election.
This way Brady could manage or influence the timing of any challenge, and I seem to recollect seeking confirmation that the letters are still valid is within the rules.
ETA Politics Home says there is no confirmation stage.
https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/how-does-the-confidence-vote
At least HYUFD didn’t call it “treason” this time.
On the other hand, if there were a obvious replacement, I suspect he’d be solidly behind them at this point, so he does have half a point.
Even if he is yet to accept that Boris is so far beyond damaged goods that even the alternative lacklustre talent on offer would be some kind of improvement.
In the past few days, I started sensing a certain change in the moods of comms I'm reading in various Russian sources while search for translation material….
https://twitter.com/mdmitri91/status/1533505067881533441
Tory MP Lee Anderson tells Camilla Tominey to make her own mind up on the booing of Boris Johnson at the Jubilee thanksgiving service as he couldn't hear any boos in footage filmed 'from a different angle'.
https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1533493265638506496
If this is the quality of Boris loyalists being sent out to spin on his behalf, then his days are numbered.
I don’t think Anderson is particularly likely to hold his seat, either. Nice guy.
… During the campaign he was criticised for staging a door knock. Prior to the staged visit, Anderson was recorded on his microphone instructing a man to "make out you know who I am, that you know I'm the candidate but not that you are a friend". The CEO of Full Fact, the fact-checking organisation stated that "Misleading campaign techniques from parties and candidates won't only harm those who are caught out, but could damage voter confidence in our political system". He was also criticised for calling for "nuisance tenants" in a council estate to be evicted into tents in a field and forced to pick vegetables. The Labour Party compared his idea to "forced labour camps".[11] Anderson was also one of three Conservative Party candidates investigated by the party over claims of antisemitism during the election campaign.[12] The investigation was opened on the grounds that he was an active member of a Facebook group in which other members supported Tommy Robinson and promoted George Soros conspiracy theories.[13][14] The results of the investigation were not made public but Anderson later attended online training sessions by the Antisemitism Policy Trust charity to improve his understanding of antisemitism. He apologised for being a member of the group and reported that he had left the group when the initial allegations were made…
(Wikipedia)
Don’t ‘over-interpret’ Boris Johnson being booed, says Grant Shapps
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/05/boris-johnson-booed-jubilee-grant-shapps
https://twitter.com/MirrorPolitics/status/1533332031672832002
Poland clearly takes the Russian threat very seriously - 500 is more than the current total deployed worldwide.
In comparison, the UK has 42 of the earlier M270 system.
POLAND is set to acquire 500 M142 HIMARS rocket launchers, the Minister of National Defence announced on Thursday, May 26.
https://euroweeklynews.com/2022/05/26/poland-to-acquire-500-m142-himars-rocket-launchers/
https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1533619320093388800
https://www.statnews.com/2022/06/05/with-the-right-molecular-signal-a-cancer-drug-works-in-every-patient/
AZN also reported some very good results for some breast cancers this weekend.
The prospects for treatment seem to be improving quite rapidly as better differential genetic diagnosis allows therapies targeted to particular variants of the disease.
Trouble is, these things get yo be pricey! Not expensive, bearing in mind the development costs and the overall benefit, but dose for dose 'expensive'.
Major was precisely loyal to a few close friends, and could talk from the cuff, but his political skills were otherwise limited to keeping his head down.
One of the things our health system does very well, even by the best international standards, is assess the cost benefit of treatments before approving them.
So it seems, but I'll believe there is such a vote when it's held.
I had a close friend who worked for Major at the time (as a minister before he got the top job), who used to describe him as utterly brilliant - the most impressive politician he had ever worked with. We used to take the piss out of him at the time for this apparently misplaced adulation - but my friend has generally good judgement and certainly he wasn’t surprised when Major came out on top.
Surely the only humane solution to the "everyone is trans" woke disaster is simply to ban female sport. Its what God would want...
Sir Graham Brady is expected to make a statement to camera around 8am confirming that the threshold of 54 letters has been met, I'm told.
https://twitter.com/los_fisher/status/1533690174990860288
I hope they’re right though.
1. Vote is called for Wednesday
2. A 48 hour blue on blue political frenzy. Heavyweight intellects like Dorries appear drunk on Channel 4 News to call those opposed traitors
3. Johnson wins the vote by 52% to 48%
4. An open-ended blue on blue political frenzy begins. Johnson reacts by purging his cabinet of lightweights and traitors. Promotes Dorries to Chancellor. Absolute loyalty the only consideration
5. "We all need to move on" is met with open laughter in news interviews as the pile on intensifies
6. Tories lose both by-elections
7. Patel holds a press conference where they announce they will bring back hanging. Complete with her smirking next to a noose.
8. Tory MPs find they are the ones being booed on the streets, not just the prime minister. Justice Secretary Lee Anderson - whilst being booed during the interview - says there is no booing and those saying there is are woke extremists
etc etc etc
I stand by my prediction made a while ago that there will be a VONC - and that Boris's premiership will cease this week.
It will be quite the week for domestic politics. Maybe Durham police could add to the chaos too....
Rebels will have their own numbers but they will be inflated numbers.
That would be damage the whole party because it would tarnish the whole Conservative brand with Boris's failings.
What would it take for you to evict him? Etc.
Geese and golden eggs spring to mind.
Such businesses are already struggling and will be desperate for any strike action to end swiftly, putting pressure on the Government to fling more money at the RMT.
Save Big Dog!!!
But the timing of tis strike, with a rail system that needs to attract people back to work, is awful.
And add in the way some of the RMT's leadership support pro-Russian separatists in the Ukrainian war, and the timing is really suspicious.
I want a strong, vibrant public transport system in the UK, with rail as a major component. The RMT want to destroy the system - in the same way manner their leaders' mates have destroyed eastern Ukraine.
There's no "party shows support and puts the matter behind them" option here because you know there will be a load more scandals coming to light by this time next year.
But it is a demonstration of what the backlash against social acceptance of transgender individuals might involve.
The truly perverse thing about the proposed law is that it allows any one to demand an invasive sex test of any girl involved in school or college sport - and protects that person from any legal consequences.
Keep yer eyes on Penny Mordaunt, she may go.
My point was simple - Boris wants to be loved. Thinks it is his divine right as world king. Why sit in humiliation having been ousted when you can flounce off to a donor's villa?
ETA the strike appears to be a continuation of the dispute over job cuts and pensions rather than wages.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/tube-strike-begins-today-with-passengers-warned-stations-will-be-closed/ar-AAY7nL4
I’m half crazy, claiming there was no boo
It won’t be an edifying contest
Unless Nad takes a breath test
But we’ll look beat losing a seat at a by-election made for two
Sorry. Best I can do on just one cup of coffee.
That anyone can propose such an abomination - never mind vote for it - shows just how sick they are as a society. I don't think Margaret Attwood wrote the Handmaid's Tale as a manual for a better America, but so many Americans seem to treat it that way.
Absolute beast of a letter. He doesn’t hold back.
I've topped up on her again this morning.
It passed 56-24 so lots of members didn't vote.
I have supported Boris Johnson for 15 years, for the London Mayoralty and for PM. Very sadly, I have written to him to say I can no longer do so, for the reasons set out below.
https://twitter.com/jesse_norman/status/1533699235417403393
Worth reading the letter.
The problem Johnson has now is he can keep arguing for a reset, or focusing on “getting the job done”
Yet I have absolutely no idea what his policy agenda is, and I simply don’t trust him. There’s the problem that the die hard Boris supporters refuse to confront. And to somehow equate Boris to Thatcher or Blair is ridiculous
Only if I were one of those probably unemployable by any likely successor would I hold back a letter at this point.
The argument that "it isn't time" doesn't hold much water - and it's the only one the Johnson spinners really have left.
Chris Mason R4 rebels saying vote is on.
It’s a very difficult problem, given the ageing infrastructure, but it’s not completely unsolvable.
She's quite close to Andrea Leadsom, last week's announcement was confirmation to the hardcore Brexiteers that the plan to oust Boris Johnson isn't a Remainer plot.