Options
Saying no to Boris Johnson – politicalbetting.com
Saying no to Boris Johnson – politicalbetting.com
EXC: Tory MPs tell Boris Johnson: We don’t want you back Senior figures say there's no “appetite” among the party’s 121 MPs as they believe the ex-PM was unpopular with floating voters and the political landscape had changedhttps://t.co/uguBrAKgLI
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Meanwhile as MoreinCommon found actual swing voters still like Boris, it found the Conservatives retaking the lead on 26% with Boris back, Reform down to 23% and Labour stuck on 22%
There needs to be a fundamental reassessment of what we want government to do. Whole functions need to be eliminated for it to be affordable long term.
Given a large university a lot of the space is being converted into (expensive) student housing but that isn’t so much an option in Scotland due to how Scotland funds its university’s system
On the other, look at how much trouble Boris was prepared to cause to become leader last time. He's in a weaker position this time (out of Parliament and more discredited), but if he wants it, he can still make life unpleasant for anyone in his way.
I don’t think Starmer reading from some briefing note is the kind of opportunity that you think.
As i have been lamenting for far too long now our politics is no longer serious or being conducted by serious people. If you are going to be run by clowns perhaps it would be an idea to choose a funny one.
Good morning, everyone.
F1: Undercutters Ep22, with a brief post-mortem of the woeful Monaco (yet still better than last year) and a happier look ahead to Spain. And then a less happy look ahead to next year when we say goodbye to Barcelona and hello to a highly dubious Madrid track that has a 10 year contract. Also, there are some splendid graphs in the transcript.
Undercutters Ep22 is now up, Monaco post-mortem and #SpainGP preview:
Podbean: https://undercutters.podbean.com/e/f1-2025-spanish-grand-prix-predictions/
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f1-2025-spanish-grand-prix-predictions/id1786574257?i=1000710051314
Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/bcfe213b-55fb-408a-a823-dc6693ee9f78/episodes/0bac5278-ca41-4c96-8ddc-d87ce1361064/undercutters---f1-podcast-f1-2025-spanish-grand-prix-predictions
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7dEYNrTSAQJPyU8AmiemiG
Transcript: https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/05/f1-2025-spanish-grand-prix-predictions.html
On-topic: foolishly going for Boris Johnson over Jeremy Hunt is what has put the Conservatives in such a dire situation. They had the choice between an adult and a clown.
We could decide to pay for the functions that we want.
Secondly the Tory MPs who Iain Martin cites aren't defecting, they will resign as MPs triggering by-elections.
Much hushed banal observations from pols about the unfortunate events in Liverpool as is standard nowadays, including tributes to the ‘amazing bravery’ from our police and emergency services. I’ve no doubt that these guys display this quality day in, day out, but was there anything over and beyond shown yesterday?
But fundamentally a £150bn annual deficit in decent economic times is simply unaffordable. Taxes have to go up and spending down.
The country has changed and moved on, he hasn't.
You never give up in your devotion to Johnson but sadly for you he remains toxic
He is not coming back
And please provide the link to the more in common poll
All top often it’s a half arsed approach of announcing something good and then forgetting about it.
For example why not invest in training more doctors and nurses rather than importing staff and their dependents. Of course importing staff is cheaper for the NHS because they don’t bear the cost of the extra capacity in other services that is needed (or the reduction in quality of services when capacity isn’t expanded).
But your mindset appears to be that everything the government does and has ever done is necessary and important. I would challenge that.
That is not my definition of underfunded.
The unnamed MPs would of course 'stick around' and drain the public purse of their salary. 'Made it known' lol
The issue horrifies me so much i will mention it to Iain Martin off the record
Joke party.
The inheritance we are handing down to our grandchildren is frankly shameful and it has to be addressed
Perhaps the cops intervening between an enraged mob and the object of their attention might have required a bit of extra fortitude.
The focus should be on the service provided, not the interests of the staff. We need results for our money.
https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/media/j5jhk22f/more-in-common-post-election-briefing-4.pdf
And before you shout I will go Lib Dem then you are utterly wrong
I will continue to vote conservative, but here in Llandudno if Plaid stand a better chance of beating Labour, then I will vote for Plaid
Something we have in common
Like you I did think when I heard the praise that it was a bit wanky but having listened to eyewitnesses asked about it it seems deserved.
The senior coppers managing the event so poorly that a car managed to get inside the cordon when there were hundreds of thousands of people still to disperse, not so much. Suspect the 'robust traffic management plan' will come under some scrutiny, but the police normally investigate themselves and discover that everything is fine, so big fat early retirement pensions for them.
The pound shop wannabes at Reform councils will be failures as well.
They'll be plenty of talk - from vested interests on both sides - but very little action.
Tim Montgomerie (now Reform, no idea if he has any official position within it) was making two interesting points on R4 Today this morning.
The first was as above about left and right.
The second was that Reform's costings and promises WRT public finances don't add up. Obvs everyone knows that (apart from Reform voters), but TM saying it is interesting. He added that they will add up in due course.
Worth a listen. It was TM and Andrew Fisher, between 7.45am and 8am this morning.
Boris Johnson lied about putting a known sexual predator in a position of authority then got others to lie about it, when the cabinet found out they were furious.
Lest we forget a month earlier Boris Johnson assured the party he had changed and wouldn't lie any more during the vote of confidence.
Theres probably over 20% for the Tories with Boris and perhaps over 25% which could see recovery or even
Largest party with labour declining.
But thats also not something totally unachievable to others (Cleverly or Jenrick or Hunt or even a revived Kemi in bizarro world)
I get the political argument for reversing the WFA changes but they’re pretty naive if they think this will be the start. The MPs will come back for more. And who is this policy change going to win back anyway? Surely it’s too late now. Fundamentally I still think the original policy was right.
The 2 child limit, who is this change designed to win over? It’s curious that Farage is proposing also to scrap it but I just can’t think instinctively this is the right policy to win back anyone either.
HL has said investor confidence in the UK has risen after April which is encouraging but will the strong growth in Q1 really be sustained? I worry that the champagne is being popped without much evidence of a long term trend.
Labour runs the risk of doing the same as Biden, where the economy is strong on the numbers but working people feel nothing has changed. That is where Farage will be in a strong position.
There was some good news about Albania being willing to take failed asylum seekers but how does one become a failed asylum seeker? Shouldn’t be we processing people offshore instead of sending failed ones there? Maybe it’s just the start but it just didn’t feel like a convincing enough idea for me. We need an offshore processing centre and fast.
Still many years to go and that but Farage is starting to give me the Boris Johnson feeling, that he’s winning over working class voters who aren’t going to go back to Labour. And Labour is thinking they will never vote for him. Feels a bit like 2019 all over again.
Labour has the levers. But I’m more sceptical than I was that they know which to pull.
Talking in the abstract is easy. You’ve identified one thing the Govt could do and noted it would cost more, so you’ve not exactly delivered on your agenda of cutting costs. What specific costs would you cut?
So still a massive increase. Both numerically and in real terms. Still we will probably learn the hard way. So be it.
But Gallowgate is right, it won’t happen, as voters don’t want it and the politicians don’t have the courage to take the decisions needed. Just look at some, like the SNP and Lib Dem’s still wanting WASPE women to get an undeserved handout. On GMB this morning the Labour guy was asked where is the 5 billion coming from for abolishing two child cap and WFA cancellation, no answer.
We hear these things ‘save money’ but it’s all intangeable and never materialises.
If he three line whips the vote it could be the end of at least Starmer, Reeves and Kendall. If he u turns or waters down then nothing will have credibility going forwards
Living on benefits without working is allowed as a permanent way of life.
No tinkering without basically sorting those two will help. As in due course Reform will discover.
Discussing tinkering is displacement activity. The media and mainstream politics is in collusion to keep it that way.
Just want another 20% on top of the large rise last September.
Glad we’re so flush with cash.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c771dgm8vrpo
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2025/05/26/richmond-club-all-out-two-north-london-xi-nightmare/ (£££)
Who leads?
The Nutcracker meets socialist realism.
IIRC a single parent doing less than 16 hours work per week would qualify as a 'working household'.
Instead they've pissed off the most vocal special interest groups and are now making a mess of a reverse-ferret.
The recent death of Grigorovich at 98 is a reminder that under socialist realism and its grim successors real ballet of stellar quality survived. And survives. Floreat Bolshoi.
Telegraph
We are spending record amounts at the top line
We are absurdly and inefficiently organised
We have catastrophic cash shortages at the point of delivery
You are looking at top line spending and saying "we need to cut". Meanwhile health, education, local government crumble into ruin.
We need to transform the way we spend. That will mean a brief increase followed by a big drop in operational costs. The example above being our perverse approach to staffing. We say that we can't afford to train or pay teachers or medical staff. Then when presented with a catastrophic crisis we spend *more* on emergency provision to fill the hole.
We will need to keep paying to fill the hole *and* to pay for staff training for a brief period. Then with sufficient staff to actually operate we can remove much of the waste from emergency provision costs.
They can't be popular and do what they think needs doing (that's it's own argument)
They can't do the things and carry the party/country
Labour are totally the wrong party for this.
Bloody voters.
Edit - Labour are as wrong for right now as May was for Brexit
League secretary will be annoyed
Apart from in a caretaker capacity, how often has a political party removed a leader and then, at some point in the future, re-instated that former leader as the new leader?
I can't recall the Conservatives ever having done it - at least since Peel.
Arthur Henderson was Labour leader on three separate occasions but teo of those were in the early days of the Party before WW1 and the third was, I believe, as a caretaker, after MacDonald and before Lansbury. Vince Cable was only caretaker leader after Sir Menzies Campbell stepped down.
Parties don't bring back leaders - it's not the same as a football club rehiring a former manager though that doesn't often end well.
The only question proponents of a Johnson return need to ask is why?
His pre-election promises not to cut winter fuel allowance or increase national insurance won't immediately be broken then, will they?
My general impression is that schools don't have enough staff and resources to function even with 0 SEND kids. In reality we're much better at diagnosing things like Autism which was largely ignored previously which requires more resources not less.
If we actually resourced schools properly with a generous provision of teaching and support staff, could we remove some of the specialist / emergency SEND spending which all seems to be delivered on a postcode lottery basis?
Probably no to all these.
So Boris, as you go crashing down, may be worth a try.
Especially if we dramatically cut class sizes.
But that won't happen. It would be expensive in the short term, whatever the substantial longer term gains, and no politician is willing to spend upfront to make big money later (exhibit A - HS2).
I have no doubt at all that some free-market people will demand that we just pull the spending on in-work support without addressing the cost of living issue. Which never actually explains how people are expected to survive...
So 'more resource' is the question, not the answer.
Macdonald had several stints as Chairman of the Labour Party but that was under rather different rules.
Before that I'm thinking it was Earl Grey in 1829.