UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[YL]

This time it really does seem different.  Even the most pro-Boris people amongst my friends think that he should go.  Although predictably they put most of the blame on Carrie.

I think we need a new PM too but that's not news because I've never been a fan.

Do you think the people saying that if North Shropshire goes yellow that'll be the end of Johnson are right?

[Conservatopia]

This time it really does seem different.  Even the most pro-Boris people amongst my friends think that he should go.  Although predictably they put most of the blame on Carrie.

I think we need a new PM too but that's not news because I've never been a fan.

Do you think the people saying that if North Shropshire goes yellow that'll be the end of Johnson are right?

No, I think the Tories will lose by a comfortable margin but the result won't finish Boris.  It could be the catalyst however for MPs to start actively maneuvering against him in a more organised fashion.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Even a close result would be a moral defeat - even if the Conservative vote share drops beneath a certain point would be a moral defeat.

[Continential]

Who would run aside from Sunak, Truss, and Patel?

[Blair]

Who would run aside from Sunak, Truss, and Patel?

Javid is likely; although depending on when it is he'll be burning his stock as Health Secretary.

The Tory leadership rules also encourage no-hopers to run; every election over the last 20 years has seen people run who only get 5-6 votes from MPs (and who in turn endorse the front-runner)

[Cassius]

Who would run aside from Sunak, Truss, and Patel?

Of the cabinet ministers, Gove and Javid would probably run (and there are a few less well known faces in the cabinet like Kwarteng who might give it a go). From the backbench, Jeremy Hunt and Mark Harper (a Chief Whip during the Cameron years who ran last time and has been very active in the ‘Covid Recovery Group’) might make a go of it, whilst Caroline Nokes will probably enter the traditional “Conservative who hates Conservatives and gets fawned over by the media for it” lane.

[YL]

Even a close result would be a moral defeat - even if the Conservative vote share drops beneath a certain point would be a moral defeat.

At this point I think the Tories would take a one vote majority in North Shropshire.

(Except, that is, for the ones who want them to lose.  I'm not convinced that such people haven't been running certain aspects of their campaign.)

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/spectator/status/1468705345245786112?

Far worse than this though is that another greater wrong has occurred. The public have been mistakenly told that some people are above the law. No one is above the law. That is what the rule of law means. If public confidence in that is undermined then that is a very serious issue. People need to stop playing politics with the law.

Imagine having the cheek to right something like this.

[MABA 2020]

I'm quite surprised by how badly things have gone recently, remember when people thought he was gonna call an early election lol

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I'm quite surprised by how badly things have gone recently, remember when people thought he was gonna call an early election lol

Imagine if he had pulled a May and done this, with all this stuff being leaked out during the start of the campagin. The panick from the Tories would have been glorious.

[Torrain]

I'm quite surprised by how badly things have gone recently, remember when people thought he was gonna call an early election lol

Really? I’ve always thought Boris would run out the clock on this Parliament until 2024 (assuming he stays in charge that long, which now seems less likely). Tory odds of another majority this size have to be pretty slim, given they’ve essentially been in a polling slump since January.

Labour only overtook them in the past month, when the scandals came to a climax, but it’s been a steady decline from their peak popularity during the “everyone can have a vaccine soon and the pandemic is probably over” days.

[CumbrianLefty]

I'm quite surprised by how badly things have gone recently, remember when people thought he was gonna call an early election lol

Really? I’ve always thought Boris would run out the clock on this Parliament until 2024 (assuming he stays in charge that long, which now seems less likely). Tory odds of another majority this size have to be pretty slim, given they’ve essentially been in a polling slump since January.

Labour only overtook them in the past month, when the scandals came to a climax, but it’s been a steady decline from their peak popularity during the “everyone can have a vaccine soon and the pandemic is probably over” days.

Well that's not quite correct is it, a year ago they were basically level in the polls with Labour and the PM was starting to come in for a fair bit of criticism. Doing a deal with the EU originally, and then the vaccines, not just saved him but caused his popularity to soar again. When he went to Hartlepool just before the May byelection there, he was all but feted by many locals as a rock star (whilst the hapless defending Labour candidate was openly laughed at in the street)

In the middle of the year the Tories were regularly winning Labour seats in local by-elections - they lost 5 of the 6 they were defending yesterday (some by big margins)

So its a bit more sudden than that - maybe Batley and Spen really was the turning of the tide? For all that Starmer was mocked for claiming that at the time.....

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Approaching 1997 level figures in the latest poll.

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1469332156656889860?s=21

[Blair]

There’s another horrific Report today about the institutional failings of the Met police- this time about how poor their investigation was after four young gay men were killed.

A reminder that over the last year we have seen the Met police have been accused of institutional corruption over the cover up of the murder of a private investigator investigating police corruption along with the successful prosecution of a serving Metropolitan police officer for murder. A rotten organisation.

[Conservatopia]

Approaching 1997 level figures in the latest poll.

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1469332156656889860?s=21

"Any other Tory leader would be 20 points ahead."

[MABA 2020]

I'm quite surprised by how badly things have gone recently, remember when people thought he was gonna call an early election lol

Really? I’ve always thought Boris would run out the clock on this Parliament until 2024 (assuming he stays in charge that long, which now seems less likely). Tory odds of another majority this size have to be pretty slim, given they’ve essentially been in a polling slump since January.

Labour only overtook them in the past month, when the scandals came to a climax, but it’s been a steady decline from their peak popularity during the “everyone can have a vaccine soon and the pandemic is probably over” days.

Yes! I don't there was ever any possibility of Boris calling an early election for the reasons you laid out plus the the looming spectre of 2017, but people in the summer were predicting he would because the tories seemed safely ahead at the time with the vaccine bounce.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

I believe Theresa May's approval rating was around this level when she resigned in 2019.

[Blair]

An interesting question- do Prime Minister ever regain their popularity?

It seems that Blair, Brown, Cameron & May all relatively had a drop in the last two years of office which they never really recovered from.

[Torrain]

I believe Theresa May's approval rating was around this level when she resigned in 2019.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FGQVun0XoAMGNlI?format=jpg&name=large

The Conservative Party is rather skilled at self-preservation (how else do you get to be among the oldest two political parties in the world, alongside the Democrats). Between the mounting scandals and the polling collapse, I wonder whether we might finally be heading towards the Boris breaking point.

To horribly paraphrase another leader named Johnson: "If I've lost Ant and Dec, I've lost the country".

If any footage of Boris partying, or directly condoning it arises, it should be game over. On the other hand, if he can ride it out until Christmas, he might be able to reduce the pressure over the holiday, and cling on for a little longer.

[CumbrianLefty]

Find it hard to see him being pushed out in the next week, and if not its parliament in recess and he is surely safe until 2022 however bad the byelection result is.......but for how long?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There was once a time when a parliamentary recess could be used to cool this sort of internal trouble, but these days as well as the physical tearoom there are the virtual tearooms provided by electronic communications...

[Blair]

Find it hard to see him being pushed out in the next week, and if not its parliament in recess and he is surely safe until 2022 however bad the byelection result is.......but for how long?

I expect the locals will be the usual benchmark; I doubt Labour's poll lead will stay at this level for months.

Funnily enough some people in London Labour circles were worried as we're defending two rather high watermarks from 2014/2018 & other than Barnet & Wandsworth there aren't any obvious big gains that I can see.

[Blair]

Usual caveat with polling but honestly I think the actual impact of this will be the fervent whatsapping from Tory MPs.

https://twitter.com/michaelsavage/status/1469759064796246017?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoo...

[CumbrianLefty]

Find it hard to see him being pushed out in the next week, and if not its parliament in recess and he is surely safe until 2022 however bad the byelection result is.......but for how long?

I expect the locals will be the usual benchmark; I doubt Labour's poll lead will stay at this level for months.

Funnily enough some people in London Labour circles were worried as we're defending two rather high watermarks from 2014/2018 & other than Barnet & Wandsworth there aren't any obvious big gains that I can see.

True, though that also means it could get bigger

This past month has the feeling of a semi-permanent shift, at least until Johnson goes.

As far as polling is concerned, btw, a benchmark to look out for is an 11-point Labour lead - it would IIRC be their biggest since the 2015 GE if it happens.

[Blair]

For some non-UK posters this is important; the 2010-2015 polling was on reflection largely junk & the polling industry introduced a number of changes (some of which still failed to translate in 2017) UK polling is still not perfect but some context.

https://twitter.com/chriscurtis94/status/1469769380326252548