Note - We don't have interim PMs, we have full fat PMs, no acting Presidents like those treasonous colonials in America.
If he flounces we already have a DPM. Someone needs to explain to me how the Private Secretary to The Queen doesn't call in Raaaaab in that circumstance and instead calls the rejected former PM?
Same reason Nick Clegg wouldn't have become PM if David Cameron fell under a bus.
The PM needs to command a majority of the Commons, I don't think Raab will get that.
Entirely different. Clegg wasn't in the majority party. Raab is. How does the Private Secretary judge who in the cabinet is able to carry the house?
It feels like it is all over for the PM now, one way or another. But it is worth pausing to consider what a dramatic fall from grace it is. In political terms, it is only 5 minutes since he won his party a large majority. It is unprecedented, certainly in modern times. https://twitter.com/tombradby/status/1544681661366943744
He won the Tories their biggest majority since Thatcher in 1987 in 2019 and they will now likely have to wait another 30 years to match it
The first part is true. The second part is a pessimistic opinion, but if true it will be because of Boris. It is Boris (and those not acting against him) that have caused it. Under any other leader the Tories might well lose because of sheer longevity of the Tory govt, but might come back in 5 years. Boris may put them in the wilderness as you say, but it is Boris' fault.
And those, like HYUFD who were blinkered enough to think he was worth keeping.
Boris won't flounce. He's stay as acting PM during the leadership election, hoping to *just* pass Theresa May's tenure.
He needs to resign in the next few hours and set out a timetable for the new leader to take over if he wants that, otherwise Raab takes over tomorrow evening and he becomes PM until a new leader is chosen.
How do they reconcile their different constituencies?
And how the hell do they persuade us to trust all these MPs and a new leader and Cabinet who up until recently were telling us to support the PM?
Yes. No one else has the sheer chutzpah and bull to keep the coalition together. Penny is pretty though. So that ought to be enough, apparently.
I have one wish. That all those Tory MPs and supporters who cheered Boris on and supported him and inflicted him on us and told off those of us who warned from the start what a useless dangerous and unfit person he was now shut up for a considerable period and reflect on their appalling judgment and try and learn some lessons and not expect to be praised for - finally - doing something that should have been done some time ago by anyone with a shred of decency and intelligence.
We bloody told you so.
We bloody told Labour so about Corbyn too.
Perhaps the political parties could try finding someone with some basic integrity, humility and common-sense for a change instead of these arrogant uncivilised and malicious oafs they keep inflicting on us.
There was no appalling judgement.
Boris was the right person for the circumstances. We needed someone who could get us out of the quagmire of Article 50 and to get Brexit done. Boris was the only appropriate person to do that.
If Boris is bad, then what does it say about the likes of Corbyn, Grieve, May, Hunt, Starmer and Swinson etc that Boris was the best person leftover for the job?
The good thing about British politics though, unlike American politics, is that our leaders are not Presidents and are not elected dictators. Just as they can be put into power, they can also be removed from it. The circumstances that existed in 2019 that made Boris appropriate are done and dusted, they're no longer there. Boris's advantages have gone, his disadvantages are magnified, and so he's outlasted his welcome.
Its time for him to go. Just because the alternatives in 2019 were worse, doesn't mean that he's good enough for 2022. The circumstances have moved on and he has to go.
You exemplify perfectly the sort of person who still does not get it.
He was not the right person.
He got Brexit "done" (not that it is) by lying. And those lies have poisoned and are continuing to poison the Tory party and British politics generally. Until that poison is drained and those lies confronted and truth spoken politics - and the Tory party - in particular will continue to circle the drain and disappear down it.
I get it, but I disagree with you. By 2016 and 2019 all major politicians had lied on the subject of Europe. Too many politicians think their own white lies are OK if it furthers their agenda and Boris may be unique int the volume of them, but not the telling of them. Blair, Brown, Cameron, Clegg, Corbyn, Starmer, Grieve etc all told outright lies on the subject of Europe.
That is one reason why people voted for Brexit, because they were fed up of the lies, and then politicians opposed to Brexit lied their way into trying to frustrate how people had voted - so Boris was the right person regrettably to resolve that dilemma - like the famous saying of Nixon to China.
However, we aren't in 2019 anymore. Nixon's gone to China, Brexit is done, there is no reason to keep Nixon on now. Dealing with the poison is the priority now. Time to put the lies behind us, get rid of Boris, and try to rebuild.
We are still lying to ourselves about Europe only now we're lying to ourselves about Brexit. Only when we confront those lies can we find a way forward. This is not about reversing the decision in any sense. It has been made. But we cannot find a sensible way forward until we realise that we are deluding ourselves about what Brexit means for us. We need to be honest about what it means. Then we can try and find a way forward.
I do not see that honesty yet - either in the Tories or, frankly, in Labour. So I think the European question will continue to gnaw away at our politics with baleful consequences for us all.
Labour I believe (albeit I haven't seen the person I usually ask about such things for a while) that talking about Brexit is merely going to open up wounds and lose them potential votes. Best to ignore it at the next election and focus on other matters
But they can't. Brexit and how it has been implemented affects our economy ever single day. All those other matters are affected by it. We are not earning our living. We have to earn our living if we want all the things that political parties promise us. How do we earn our living is the big question right now because only when we get that even half-way right will we be able to deal with the cost of living and everything else. Brexit affects that question.
A political party which ignores that is just being cowardly. And it is not being honest with voters.
Honesty with voters - even if that involves giving them a tough message is needed now more than ever. IMO.
It’s political whack-a-mole. Would be quite funny if there wasn’t a country that needed running.
On a day to day basis the country is run by IT geeks, and women and men who understand sewage, water, electricity distribution, gas, petrol, payment systems, food production, distribution logistics and rubbish collection. And how the NHS sort of works.
Just be thankful that neither politicians nor Whitehall chaps have the faintest idea how any of them actually work. I sing a little song of thanks daily to all of the above.
How do they reconcile their different constituencies?
And how the hell do they persuade us to trust all these MPs and a new leader and Cabinet who up until recently were telling us to support the PM?
Yes. No one else has the sheer chutzpah and bull to keep the coalition together. Penny is pretty though. So that ought to be enough, apparently.
I have one wish. That all those Tory MPs and supporters who cheered Boris on and supported him and inflicted him on us and told off those of us who warned from the start what a useless dangerous and unfit person he was now shut up for a considerable period and reflect on their appalling judgment and try and learn some lessons and not expect to be praised for - finally - doing something that should have been done some time ago by anyone with a shred of decency and intelligence.
We bloody told you so.
We bloody told Labour so about Corbyn too.
Perhaps the political parties could try finding someone with some basic integrity, humility and common-sense for a change instead of these arrogant uncivilised and malicious oafs they keep inflicting on us.
There was no appalling judgement.
Boris was the right person for the circumstances. We needed someone who could get us out of the quagmire of Article 50 and to get Brexit done. Boris was the only appropriate person to do that.
If Boris is bad, then what does it say about the likes of Corbyn, Grieve, May, Hunt, Starmer and Swinson etc that Boris was the best person leftover for the job?
The good thing about British politics though, unlike American politics, is that our leaders are not Presidents and are not elected dictators. Just as they can be put into power, they can also be removed from it. The circumstances that existed in 2019 that made Boris appropriate are done and dusted, they're no longer there. Boris's advantages have gone, his disadvantages are magnified, and so he's outlasted his welcome.
Its time for him to go. Just because the alternatives in 2019 were worse, doesn't mean that he's good enough for 2022. The circumstances have moved on and he has to go.
He always was completely inappropriate. You are just clutching at your Brexit straw. People like you are the reason the country is in this fucked up mess. Sorry to spoil your day, Barty, but you have no judgement. Anyone who ever thought a lying philandering lazy fat incompetent oaf like Johnson was suitable for our highest position in the land has no judgement, or at the very kindest assessment has a massive blind spot. There were other people who could have pretended to believe in Brexit who would have stood a chance of delivering it. Even Gove was a better prospect; a complete tosser but at least he is competent.
Talking of f8cked up messes, checked out the mighty euro in the currency markets recently?
If you are suggesting I was ever in favour of us joining the Euro you are laughably off beam.
What I am suggesting , respectfully, is that things are just as bad inside the EU as they are out of it and possibly much worse.
The weakest EU economies are preventing the ECB from using interest rates to control inflation, and goodness knows where prices could get to there this winter as a result.
Possibly, but my objection to Brexit was that it was damaging and pointless. I have been proved right, just as I have been proved right on my judgement of Boris Johnson. As a right of centre person, I think I was probably in a minority of one holding the latter view on here at one time. I definitely am not correct on all things, but on those two, I will continue to say I told you so, and enjoy it.
Maybe, but I think all the same that events may make a closer relationship with the EU in the near future a difficult sell.
Senior Tories now telling me they expect one of Boris Johnson's inner circle, possibly Canzini, to tell him it's time to stop. PM isn't quite there psychologically, they think, but needs a hand on the shoulder from someone who he trusts. https://twitter.com/IsabelHardman/status/1544672872530153476
Boris's epitaph will be that he got all the big calls right.
But treated every other call with utter contempt.
OPatz was a big call. And he fucked it up.
Pincher was a big call. And it ended him.
I'll give Johnson appointing Kate Bingham as a call he got right...
The Kate Bingham who said we wouldn't want to vaccinate the whole adult population because the risk of side effects was too great?
If that was one of his good calls, I'd hate to consider the bad ones!
Did she specifically say that? And when? Often population effects only become clear after much wider use (as in the AZ clotting problem) as 1 in 10,000 odds don't show up in trial data that well.
Yes, of course she said that.
And why one wouldn't want to vaccinate against a disease with around 1% infection fatality rate, because of side effects that didn't show up in a trial of 30-40,000 people is still a complete mystery to me. God knows what a mess we'd still be in now if her advice then had been followed.
It has been a pleasure to serve as one of Boris Johnsons's consistent critics over the last couple of years, but in all conscience I can no longer maintain track of all his various misdemeanours and lies anymore so must also tender my resignation today.
Boris's epitaph will be that he got all the big calls right.
But treated every other call with utter contempt.
OPatz was a big call. And he fucked it up.
Pincher was a big call. And it ended him.
I'll give Johnson appointing Kate Bingham as a call he got right...
The Kate Bingham who said we wouldn't want to vaccinate the whole adult population because the risk of side effects was too great?
If that was one of his good calls, I'd hate to consider the bad ones!
Did she specifically say that? And when? Often population effects only become clear after much wider use (as in the AZ clotting problem) as 1 in 10,000 odds don't show up in trial data that well.
Yes, of course she said that.
And why one wouldn't want to vaccinate against a disease with around 1% infection fatality rate, because of side effects that didn't show up in a trial of 30-40,000 people is still a complete mystery to me. God knows what a mess we'd still be in now if her advice then had been followed.
How do they reconcile their different constituencies?
And how the hell do they persuade us to trust all these MPs and a new leader and Cabinet who up until recently were telling us to support the PM?
Yes. No one else has the sheer chutzpah and bull to keep the coalition together. Penny is pretty though. So that ought to be enough, apparently.
I have one wish. That all those Tory MPs and supporters who cheered Boris on and supported him and inflicted him on us and told off those of us who warned from the start what a useless dangerous and unfit person he was now shut up for a considerable period and reflect on their appalling judgment and try and learn some lessons and not expect to be praised for - finally - doing something that should have been done some time ago by anyone with a shred of decency and intelligence.
We bloody told you so.
We bloody told Labour so about Corbyn too.
Perhaps the political parties could try finding someone with some basic integrity, humility and common-sense for a change instead of these arrogant uncivilised and malicious oafs they keep inflicting on us.
Alternatively, run the candidates past a pb.com panel.
"No....next....no....next...are you out of your tiny minds?....."
Please, oh please, could I be on that panel?
Damn it, your the Chair!
Oh good.
Hours of fun!
I've updated some of my AML worksheets and here's one question you will like.
A client has given you hundreds of thousands of pounds in suitcases which you accept, are you
1) The Prince of Wales
2) Committing an AML violation
3) Both
You forgot option 4) - a total fucking idiot with such poor judgment that you shouldn't be allowed to cross the street unaided.
Your final option then becomes All of the Above.
I'll update the worksheet right now.
5) You are Dimitry Rogozin. For some people, being handed a suitcase of cash is a life changing moment. For you - it’s a Tuesday.
Maybe it's just me but do we need all these junior Ministers no-one has ever heard of. What the fuck have they been doing all this time? What is the point of them?
Aren't they the political equivalent of all those middle managers firms suddenly realised they didn't need during Covid and WFH?
Nah, with all respect to the excellent Cyclefree, that's a cheap shot. There is a huge amount of Government activity that someone needs to do which the junior Ministers keep on the road. It simply isn't practical for the Secretary of State to monitor whether, to take a random example, the current regulations on turbines in the North Sea reflect the latest research or there is a compelling case for revising them. The test of Ministers isn't whether they get reported in the broadsheets (let alone the tabloids) and whether we have heard of them.
How do they reconcile their different constituencies?
And how the hell do they persuade us to trust all these MPs and a new leader and Cabinet who up until recently were telling us to support the PM?
Yes. No one else has the sheer chutzpah and bull to keep the coalition together. Penny is pretty though. So that ought to be enough, apparently.
I have one wish. That all those Tory MPs and supporters who cheered Boris on and supported him and inflicted him on us and told off those of us who warned from the start what a useless dangerous and unfit person he was now shut up for a considerable period and reflect on their appalling judgment and try and learn some lessons and not expect to be praised for - finally - doing something that should have been done some time ago by anyone with a shred of decency and intelligence.
We bloody told you so.
We bloody told Labour so about Corbyn too.
Perhaps the political parties could try finding someone with some basic integrity, humility and common-sense for a change instead of these arrogant uncivilised and malicious oafs they keep inflicting on us.
There was no appalling judgement.
Boris was the right person for the circumstances. We needed someone who could get us out of the quagmire of Article 50 and to get Brexit done. Boris was the only appropriate person to do that.
If Boris is bad, then what does it say about the likes of Corbyn, Grieve, May, Hunt, Starmer and Swinson etc that Boris was the best person leftover for the job?
The good thing about British politics though, unlike American politics, is that our leaders are not Presidents and are not elected dictators. Just as they can be put into power, they can also be removed from it. The circumstances that existed in 2019 that made Boris appropriate are done and dusted, they're no longer there. Boris's advantages have gone, his disadvantages are magnified, and so he's outlasted his welcome.
Its time for him to go. Just because the alternatives in 2019 were worse, doesn't mean that he's good enough for 2022. The circumstances have moved on and he has to go.
You exemplify perfectly the sort of person who still does not get it.
He was not the right person.
He got Brexit "done" (not that it is) by lying. And those lies have poisoned and are continuing to poison the Tory party and British politics generally. Until that poison is drained and those lies confronted and truth spoken politics - and the Tory party - in particular will continue to circle the drain and disappear down it.
I get it, but I disagree with you. By 2016 and 2019 all major politicians had lied on the subject of Europe. Too many politicians think their own white lies are OK if it furthers their agenda and Boris may be unique int the volume of them, but not the telling of them. Blair, Brown, Cameron, Clegg, Corbyn, Starmer, Grieve etc all told outright lies on the subject of Europe.
That is one reason why people voted for Brexit, because they were fed up of the lies, and then politicians opposed to Brexit lied their way into trying to frustrate how people had voted - so Boris was the right person regrettably to resolve that dilemma - like the famous saying of Nixon to China.
However, we aren't in 2019 anymore. Nixon's gone to China, Brexit is done, there is no reason to keep Nixon on now. Dealing with the poison is the priority now. Time to put the lies behind us, get rid of Boris, and try to rebuild.
We are still lying to ourselves about Europe only now we're lying to ourselves about Brexit. Only when we confront those lies can we find a way forward. This is not about reversing the decision in any sense. It has been made. But we cannot find a sensible way forward until we realise that we are deluding ourselves about what Brexit means for us. We need to be honest about what it means. Then we can try and find a way forward.
I do not see that honesty yet - either in the Tories or, frankly, in Labour. So I think the European question will continue to gnaw away at our politics with baleful consequences for us all.
Labour I believe (albeit I haven't seen the person I usually ask about such things for a while) that talking about Brexit is merely going to open up wounds and lose them potential votes. Best to ignore it at the next election and focus on other matters
But they can't. Brexit and how it has been implemented affects our economy ever single day. All those other matters are affected by it. We are not earning our living. We have to earn our living if we want all the things that political parties promise us. How do we earn our living is the big question right now because only when we get that even half-way right will we be able to deal with the cost of living and everything else. Brexit affects that question.
A political party which ignores that is just being cowardly. And it is not being honest with voters.
Honesty with voters - even if that involves giving them a tough message is needed now more than ever. IMO.
And probably gives the Tories enough votes to win 15-25 more seats than they would otherwise do so.
Sometimes the only sane option is to keep quiet even if it's not the absolutely correct thing to do...
Boris won't flounce. He's stay as acting PM during the leadership election, hoping to *just* pass Theresa May's tenure.
He needs to resign in the next few hours and set out a timetable for the new leader to take over if he wants that, otherwise Raab takes over tomorrow evening and he becomes PM until a new leader is chosen.
I think he'll make an announcement either this evening or tomorrow morning.
It's over and he know's it's over IMO but we'll see.
It has been a pleasure to serve as one of Boris Johnsons's consistent critics over the last couple of years, but in all conscience I can no longer maintain track of all his various misdemeanours and lies anymore so must also tender my resignation today.
Love his signature, As someone commented, it looks like an unfinished cock and balls!
Assuming all this finishes Boris (he's still PM as I write so wait and see, the earth is not yet scorched, and HM the Queen not yet been dragged into the politics of party to call an election) the extraordinary thing to any normal person is that it is not Brexit fails, Covid, Ukraine, Inflation, maximal taxation, unrepayable debt that finishes him, but a series of actions every one of which is avoidable by the exercise of ordinary self interest even if you had no personal standards.
Usually the utterly amoral have a strong sense of other people's values even if they despise them. And a strong sense of how to appear moral when necessary. Odd.
How do they reconcile their different constituencies?
And how the hell do they persuade us to trust all these MPs and a new leader and Cabinet who up until recently were telling us to support the PM?
Yes. No one else has the sheer chutzpah and bull to keep the coalition together. Penny is pretty though. So that ought to be enough, apparently.
I have one wish. That all those Tory MPs and supporters who cheered Boris on and supported him and inflicted him on us and told off those of us who warned from the start what a useless dangerous and unfit person he was now shut up for a considerable period and reflect on their appalling judgment and try and learn some lessons and not expect to be praised for - finally - doing something that should have been done some time ago by anyone with a shred of decency and intelligence.
We bloody told you so.
We bloody told Labour so about Corbyn too.
Perhaps the political parties could try finding someone with some basic integrity, humility and common-sense for a change instead of these arrogant uncivilised and malicious oafs they keep inflicting on us.
There was no appalling judgement.
Boris was the right person for the circumstances. We needed someone who could get us out of the quagmire of Article 50 and to get Brexit done. Boris was the only appropriate person to do that.
If Boris is bad, then what does it say about the likes of Corbyn, Grieve, May, Hunt, Starmer and Swinson etc that Boris was the best person leftover for the job?
The good thing about British politics though, unlike American politics, is that our leaders are not Presidents and are not elected dictators. Just as they can be put into power, they can also be removed from it. The circumstances that existed in 2019 that made Boris appropriate are done and dusted, they're no longer there. Boris's advantages have gone, his disadvantages are magnified, and so he's outlasted his welcome.
Its time for him to go. Just because the alternatives in 2019 were worse, doesn't mean that he's good enough for 2022. The circumstances have moved on and he has to go.
He always was completely inappropriate. You are just clutching at your Brexit straw. People like you are the reason the country is in this fucked up mess. Sorry to spoil your day, Barty, but you have no judgement. Anyone who ever thought a lying philandering lazy fat incompetent oaf like Johnson was suitable for our highest position in the land has no judgement, or at the very kindest assessment has a massive blind spot. There were other people who could have pretended to believe in Brexit who would have stood a chance of delivering it. Even Gove was a better prospect; a complete tosser but at least he is competent.
Talking of f8cked up messes, checked out the mighty euro in the currency markets recently?
If you are suggesting I was ever in favour of us joining the Euro you are laughably off beam.
What I am suggesting , respectfully, is that things are just as bad inside the EU as they are out of it and possibly much worse.
The weakest EU economies are preventing the ECB from using interest rates to control inflation, and goodness knows where prices could get to there this winter as a result.
Possibly, but my objection to Brexit was that it was damaging and pointless. I have been proved right, just as I have been proved right on my judgement of Boris Johnson. As a right of centre person, I think I was probably in a minority of one holding the latter view on here at one time. I definitely am not correct on all things, but on those two, I will continue to say I told you so, and enjoy it.
Maybe, but I think all the same that events may make a closer relationship with the EU in the near future a difficult sell.
It is inevitable. Not membership, but alignment similar to Switzerland.
This committee is utterly surreal. A prime minister in his final hours promising to hold meetings he will never get to hold about policies he will never get to implement. It’s bonkers. https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1544687453889495040
Yes and no. It's a side show but stuff goes on the record as having been asked about, and the taking forward of many of these lines will be in one of the red boxes for the new PM.
Note - We don't have interim PMs, we have full fat PMs, no acting Presidents like those treasonous colonials in America.
If he flounces we already have a DPM. Someone needs to explain to me how the Private Secretary to The Queen doesn't call in Raaaaab in that circumstance and instead calls the rejected former PM?
Same reason Nick Clegg wouldn't have become PM if David Cameron fell under a bus.
The PM needs to command a majority of the Commons, I don't think Raab will get that.
And it’s just about believable for May to say “I don’t want to stay”. Same would be true for a short Cameron ministry from the Lords.
I will confess I do have a sliver of sympathy for Boris Johnson.
For his entire life he has wanted to be PM and look at him now.
But my sympathy is outweighed by the LOLS.
I think it is right to have sympathy for people - even those you fundamentally disagree with or consider 'bad' people when something nasty happens to them which is out of their control. But in this case everything that is happening to Johnson is completely self inflicted and he has it in his power to end it at any time.
I have no sympathy.
Nor much for those who are remaining loyal to him. They will find they should have brought longer spoons.
Boris's epitaph will be that he got all the big calls right.
But treated every other call with utter contempt.
OPatz was a big call. And he fucked it up.
Pincher was a big call. And it ended him.
I'll give Johnson appointing Kate Bingham as a call he got right...
The Kate Bingham who said we wouldn't want to vaccinate the whole adult population because the risk of side effects was too great?
If that was one of his good calls, I'd hate to consider the bad ones!
Did she specifically say that? And when? Often population effects only become clear after much wider use (as in the AZ clotting problem) as 1 in 10,000 odds don't show up in trial data that well.
Yes, of course she said that.
And why one wouldn't want to vaccinate against a disease with around 1% infection fatality rate, because of side effects that didn't show up in a trial of 30-40,000 people is still a complete mystery to me. God knows what a mess we'd still be in now if her advice then had been followed.
You got a quote?
It had quite a lot of publicity at the time. But feel free to disbelieve it if you like.
i checked the map, and I am 90% sure I can see the highest peaks of the “Accursed Mountains” on the Albanian border. They are about 60 miles away
That's 100km not 100 miles (which is 160km)...
As I said before. “100 miles” was an oratorical flourish, I had no true idea
But I can see a long way
The Accursed Mountains do look quite ominous
Ah, now all bets are off if there are mountains in the background.
Where's the furthest you can see in the UK? There's a few views across the Irish Sea which must be 100 miles. I reckon you can see Northern Ireland from the top of Scafell Pike on a clear day, not that I've ever had a clear day at the top of Scafell Pike. Few such places have restaurants though, even mediocre ones.
"not that I've ever had a clear day at the top of Scafell Pike." The one time I was on Scafell Pike, I could not see further than the front of our car.
At what stage does the actual business of government cease to function? There must be hundreds of cancelled meetings and postponed decisions already?
I do wonder at what point he finds he cannot fill the posts that have been vacated. There were not that many backbenchers who supported him last time around and there will be even fewer now. If he does try to hang on it will be interesting to see how many ministerial posts remain vacant.
Anyone know if the vaccine rollout was the best in the world and if we currently have the best economy in the G7?
Two claims I heard made today and neither were questioned.
We certainly have a world beating reenactment of Custer’s last stand with our blonde tousle haired hero bravely fighting to the end with troopers Mogg and Dories as the arrows of outrageous fortune rain down on them.
As the end comes Boris Custer wonders if Carrie will mourn his little big horn.
Gettysburg surely ... civil war innit.
This one's just started, though. Boris an early casualty.
Assuming all this finishes Boris (he's still PM as I write so wait and see, the earth is not yet scorched, and HM the Queen not yet been dragged into the politics of party to call an election) the extraordinary thing to any normal person is that it is not Brexit fails, Covid, Ukraine, Inflation, maximal taxation, unrepayable debt that finishes him, but a series of actions every one of which is avoidable by the exercise of ordinary self interest even if you had no personal standards.
Usually the utterly amoral have a strong sense of other people's values even if they despise them. And a strong sense of how to appear moral when necessary. Odd.
That's part of the psychopath/sociopath distinction. It's the former who have that ability in spades. Sociopaths aren't amoral. They simply don't care.
i checked the map, and I am 90% sure I can see the highest peaks of the “Accursed Mountains” on the Albanian border. They are about 60 miles away
That's 100km not 100 miles (which is 160km)...
As I said before. “100 miles” was an oratorical flourish, I had no true idea
But I can see a long way
The Accursed Mountains do look quite ominous
Ah, now all bets are off if there are mountains in the background.
Where's the furthest you can see in the UK? There's a few views across the Irish Sea which must be 100 miles. I reckon you can see Northern Ireland from the top of Scafell Pike on a clear day, not that I've ever had a clear day at the top of Scafell Pike. Few such places have restaurants though, even mediocre ones.
"not that I've ever had a clear day at the top of Scafell Pike." The one time I was on Scafell Pike, I could not see further than the front of our car.
I will confess I do have a sliver of sympathy for Boris Johnson.
For his entire life he has wanted to be PM and look at him now.
The vast majority of Prime Ministerial careers end badly either through being booted out by their party or being booted out by the electorate (or occasionally losing referendums )
At what stage does the actual business of government cease to function? There must be hundreds of cancelled meetings and postponed decisions already?
I do wonder at what point he finds he cannot fill the posts that have been vacated. There were not that many backbenchers who supported him last time around and there will be even fewer now. If he does try to hang on it will be interesting to see how many ministerial posts remain vacant.
My thoughts too. There cannot be many Boris Johnson sycophants left on the backbenches as most of them he has put in the cabinet.
At what stage does the actual business of government cease to function? There must be hundreds of cancelled meetings and postponed decisions already?
I do wonder at what point he finds he cannot fill the posts that have been vacated. There were not that many backbenchers who supported him last time around and there will be even fewer now. If he does try to hang on it will be interesting to see how many ministerial posts remain vacant.
Boris Corbyn will simply follow his twin brother Jeremy's playbook and appoint one loyalist numpty to multiple cabinet posts.
Boris won't flounce. He's stay as acting PM during the leadership election, hoping to *just* pass Theresa May's tenure.
He needs to resign in the next few hours and set out a timetable for the new leader to take over if he wants that, otherwise Raab takes over tomorrow evening and he becomes PM until a new leader is chosen.
Boris's epitaph will be that he got all the big calls right.
But treated every other call with utter contempt.
OPatz was a big call. And he fucked it up.
Pincher was a big call. And it ended him.
I'll give Johnson appointing Kate Bingham as a call he got right...
The Kate Bingham who said we wouldn't want to vaccinate the whole adult population because the risk of side effects was too great?
If that was one of his good calls, I'd hate to consider the bad ones!
Did she specifically say that? And when? Often population effects only become clear after much wider use (as in the AZ clotting problem) as 1 in 10,000 odds don't show up in trial data that well.
Yes, of course she said that.
And why one wouldn't want to vaccinate against a disease with around 1% infection fatality rate, because of side effects that didn't show up in a trial of 30-40,000 people is still a complete mystery to me. God knows what a mess we'd still be in now if her advice then had been followed.
You got a quote?
It had quite a lot of publicity at the time. But feel free to disbelieve it if you like.
Not disbelieving, looking for context. As ever with covid, we know more with time. Early on it seemed that covid presented little threat to younger people, and I would argue that is generally true, albeit there will always be exceptions. So saying that it might be sensible not to vaccinate the under 40's because of the possibility that side effects might be worse than the disease for the U40's is not unreasonable. We have also seen that the vaccines have not been great at suppressing spread, so the argument for vaccinating everyone to crush the spread is not as strong as it would be if spread was suppressed by 99%. The overall IFR may be 1%, it won't be for those under 40 and certainly not for those under 18.
At what stage does the actual business of government cease to function? There must be hundreds of cancelled meetings and postponed decisions already?
I do wonder at what point he finds he cannot fill the posts that have been vacated. There were not that many backbenchers who supported him last time around and there will be even fewer now. If he does try to hang on it will be interesting to see how many ministerial posts remain vacant.
Most preferred Conservative leader if Boris Johnson were to stand down:
Don't know 38% Rishi Sunak 14% Dominic Raab 6% Jeremy Hunt 6% Liz Truss 4% Ben Wallace 4% Priti Patel 4% Sajid Javid 4% Michael Gove 3% Nadhim Zahawi 2% Penny Mordaunt 2% Tom Tugendhat 2% Someone else 11% https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1544690888416296961/photo/1
A problem. 'Don't know' a clear, and justified leader, and would do a good job. The only candidates with a name but not tainted by being in this lousy government (until 3 minutes ago in some cases) are Hunt and Tugendhat. In a sane world Hunt canters home 39 lengths ahead. In the actual world Priti Patel actually has supporters.
It’s amusing to me how many of those sticking the knife into Johnson today, have shall we say, less than impeccable records when it comes to their own sexual conduct.
Boris won't flounce. He's stay as acting PM during the leadership election, hoping to *just* pass Theresa May's tenure.
He needs to resign in the next few hours and set out a timetable for the new leader to take over if he wants that, otherwise Raab takes over tomorrow evening and he becomes PM until a new leader is chosen.
At what stage does the actual business of government cease to function? There must be hundreds of cancelled meetings and postponed decisions already?
This is the thing - are there now enough MP's in the 'loyal' pool to actually replace these junior Ministers, regardless of competency? If not, can the Government function?
Comments
Absolutely sensational. https://twitter.com/JakubKrupa/status/1544683857286512646/photo/1
https://twitter.com/craig4monty/status/1544688168162713601
Where is HY anyway?
A political party which ignores that is just being cowardly. And it is not being honest with voters.
Honesty with voters - even if that involves giving them a tough message is needed now more than ever. IMO.
Just be thankful that neither politicians nor Whitehall chaps have the faintest idea how any of them actually work. I sing a little song of thanks daily to all of the above.
Sometimes the only sane option is to keep quiet even if it's not the absolutely correct thing to do...
I fear for Graham Brady's letter opening hand. And back as he picks them up.
He tells @Telegraph that 1922 committee chair Sir Graham Brady has "instruments of torture" ready to help persuade the PM to go.
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1544690586552344578
Don't know 38%
Rishi Sunak 14%
Dominic Raab 6%
Jeremy Hunt 6%
Liz Truss 4%
Ben Wallace 4%
Priti Patel 4%
Sajid Javid 4%
Michael Gove 3%
Nadhim Zahawi 2%
Penny Mordaunt 2%
Tom Tugendhat 2%
Someone else 11% https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1544690888416296961/photo/1
It's over and he know's it's over IMO but we'll see.
Come on guys, let's get over the 30.
Usually the utterly amoral have a strong sense of other people's values even if they despise them. And a strong sense of how to appear moral when necessary. Odd.
There must be hundreds of cancelled meetings and postponed decisions already?
Imagine is he channelled that drive into his work and discipline around him, he could have been a formidable PM.
I have no sympathy.
Nor much for those who are remaining loyal to him. They will find they should have brought longer spoons.
https://twitter.com/ChrisMasonBBC/status/1544692835164868614
Boris an early casualty.
It's the former who have that ability in spades.
Sociopaths aren't amoral. They simply don't care.
If either, the PM fits the latter much better.
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-sociopath-380184
Cabinet ministers privately saying it's all over but that they're staying in government out of a sense of duty
Duty not to PM, but to ensuring that there is still a government left to actually run the country
They think it will be done in the next 24-48 hours
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1544691452504117249
https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1544692382523858946
@jessicaelgot
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1h
It’s over - whips telling MPs they don’t have anyone to fill posts
Although this Saturday is one of the two days a year I have to pretend to be a devout Muslim.
The vast majority of Prime Ministerial careers end badly either through being booted out by their party or being booted out by the electorate (or occasionally losing referendums
31 now
Not unless he is going to undertake all functions of government himself. And he's too lazy for that....