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

[Blair]

The problem for London is that you can’t expect people to understand a system used in an election with 30% turnout and where Labour actively say ‘it’s a two horse race’!

I’m being slightly vacuous but the races in London have always been relatively boring and haven’t really been changed by being STV.

[Blair]

Mike Gapes of all people is releasing a book about TIG....

[Blair]

It seems Mercer intended to resign tomorrow after the bill passed but made sure to tell everyone so the Government sacked him.

It's easy to forget but he actually refused to support the May Government on confidence motions back in 2019 (something that even the 22 Tory rebels didn't do)

He'll no doubt join the ranks of ex-forces Tory backbenches who complain... so one more voted for them in their various battles.

[Blair]

I would also for the record not be shocked if he resigned & called a by-election... he comes across as one of those. (See David Miliband, Tristam Hunt)

[Blair]

It was generally expected (although like a lot of parliamentary rules it was probably a lot newer than people thought) that the Speakers should rotate between the two main parties- this rule was broken by Michael Martin winning in 2000, where the Labour Government supported George Young but the sizeable Government backbenches wanted one of their own & elected Martin- who was rather inept.

Speaker elections tend to be very weird; the last one was made even weirder by the fact that it was done at the end of a hung parliament where a lot of MPs were not returning. The current Parliament would deliver a different vote & I actually expected that if Harman won she would have been deposed.

You also have to add in the fact that some MPs vote for their friends, others explicitly vote against others & some will just vote how the whips tell them.

Bryant was far the most qualified for the job, if qualified counts as being able to recount Erskine May from the chair or go back and forth with Rees-Mogg about the reformation. He understands Parliament & its history... which is surprising considering his early career (he was a Labour right winger who turned on Blair & was a loyal Brownite Minister... and had a rather low key but poor showing as a shadow minister)

[Blair]

Unrelated to the substance of your post (sorry), how big is Mr Cummings' blog readership?

Probably the only blog people still read.

I watched an old thick of it episode where they talked about political bloggers & it seemed extremely dated.

[Blair]

I very much think that the flat story is the one most likely to cause damage here...

[Blair]

I expect the Tories are rather glad that Parliament is shutting up shop tomorrow & that the local elections will give the bubble something to chase- although if the results are even average for Labour (hold Hartlepool, win one of the competitive metro mayors & pick up some council seats) I expect you'll see even more of a panic.

 

[Blair]

Possibly the worse political take I’ve seen...

https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1388091110157869056

[Blair]

Its very funny how much back and forth there's been all week over the polling; including the usual 'well YouGov is owned by the tories'.

There's still a failure to generally understand how different each polling company is & well mostly how poor our polling can be at times...

https://twitter.com/Survation/status/1388238075671859204?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%...

[Blair]

Wait are you saying I could text Boris Johnson personally after getting his number from a Google search?

...I’ll be right back.

EDIT: Damn, apparently they disconnected it after all this, but it was openly available for anyone for 15 years!

The best part is that this reveal came from Popbitch- which is a rather legendary gossip newsletter that has been running for about 20 years.

[Blair]

And now there is a bit of polling suggesting recent events are indeed having some impact.

Part of the problem of the forever war is that a lot of people (on all sides) see everything as a reflection of how Labour are doing; when the big polling shifts over the last two years have all largely come in reaction to the Government (the boost when Boris became PM, the boost around the first lockdown & the fall during both Barnard Castle & the Christmas that never was)

[Blair]

Does anybody have any estimate/idea/guesses of how much higher the % of people voting via postal votes is going to be in these locals?

I keep seeing people say ignore the polls because 'everyone' is on a postal vote... which seems to ignore the fact that I haven't seen any numbers & I only received mine towards the end of last week!

[Blair]

Curious for people's views on this; the seat should have been won in 2017 by Labour... but it's a region that swung heavily in 2019, Andy Street is a non-offensive incumbent and Liam Byrne is well Liam Byrne.

https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1389483686748254210

[Blair]

Going too far on "culture war" stuff will be a net vote loser.

Yes this feels extremely similar to the debate that Labour had over immigration in 2014- which ended up with a negligent lack of parliamentary oversight (see the hostile environment) & the Labour party pissing off a lot of its own activists while still falling well behind with voters who ranked it as their top issue. 

[Blair]

April 2023 hardly qualifies as an "early election", does it?

I know it's some way in the future but it's technically a year early as the next election is May 2024.

CL may have heard rumours of an even earlier election (Dec 21?) that I haven't though.

Chatter about mid-2022, apparently.

The last time a government went to the polls in a snap election *despite* having a very comfortable majority was when the Tories did it in 1923. They lost power, if only for a year.

My hunch is currently 2023 but these things ego sound cliche either come out of nowhere or get binned after months or years of chatter- if you said to someone in December 2020 they’d be pushing for an early election...

[Blair]

Have we heard from the various weird FBPE twitter people about this yet?

https://www.cityam.com/michel-barnier-calls-for-halt-to-immigration-across-europe/

[Blair]

The new Polling for Keir is getting close to the yikes category

[Blair]

The striking thing about the railways was that it's been the Conservative MPs who were making the most noise against the rip off charges, poor service and absolute sh**t show that is Southern Rail, South-Western Rail etc.

The previous franchising system was a house of cards & a racket, and this system still gives people who actually oppose nationalisation a way of saying it's still run by the private sector.

[Blair]

FWIW the Adam Smith institute kind of have to put up some sort of rear-guard against rail nationalisation of any form but it's worth pointing out that a lot has changed even since 2015- when those articles were written.

The fundamental reason why the Government did what it did last week was because the state has for the last 10 years been propping up expensive & poorly ran train services at huge cost to the treasury because the franchise system is so broken, and when it does break the Government have to take over running the service.

It's not about a single issue like would nationalisation lower train fares- it's about the Government wanting to be able to actually have some control over a private network that we spend billions supporting in the subsidy alone.

David Cameron claims he earnt more money as a lobbyist than as PM. A lot of these problems might be solved if we paid PMs anything near what they might earn if they weren't in politics.

This is because a lobbyist who is an ex-prime minister is going to earn a lot more than a former parliamentary bag carrier or a graduate- someone like Cameron is hired for a reason. No matter how well you pay them while they're in office they will eventually leave...  

It's also rather charitable to Johnson who called his £250,000 telegraph fee 'chicken-feed'; he is a man who has a problem with money because of his own personal choices.

[Blair]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/23/reform-electoral-system-or-keep-losing-to-tories-keir-starmer-warned

This is of interest not for the headline but for the fact that Best for Britain is now running push polling on this issue... they're formerly an ex-pro EU/PV's group & it does seem like a lot of the 'FBPE' movement seem to have latched onto this as the latest way of saving us- and of course insisting that  Keir would be 20 points ahead if he backed PR.

[Blair]

Marina Hyde on the Johnson cult:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/cult-britain-boris-johnson-prime-minister

Not everything she writes is good, but that penultimate paragraph ranks amongst the most cutting and coruscating that any member of the pundit class has dared to utter about (some of) their fellows.

Even more so considering we've had two elections in the last decade where polling arguably shaped the outcome of said election...

And the rather tongue in cheek line about the cult of Bojo is quite interesting; it really hasn't been spoken enough about in our politics. He is extremely polarising in a way that Cameron & May weren't- which lead people like me to become convinced he's hated by the whole country (he isn't)

[Blair]

Surprised she was still on it- although this is a bit like if Tom Watson quit the NEC in 2019. Her disagreeing with the leadership is a water is wet moment.

[Blair]

I'm fairly sure that anyone who worshipped Boris as part of some sort of cult is against lockdowns and consequently feels betrayed.

I don't think anti-lockdown sentiment is that widespread in the UK, especially among the sort of authoritarian followers most likely to form part of a cult of someone like Johnson.

Yeah it’s over-egged in political circles because of social media- the recent London mayoral election showed that it’s a rather fringe position.

[Blair]

Surprisingly, David Davis and Desmond Swayne too.

Somewhat amusing that DFID and the FCO have been merged/demerged nearly every time the party in charge switches.

Fundamentally, this is just an attempt to kill two birds with one stone: claim "financial responsibility" (even though the amount of money saved is minuscule) and get some nationalist support. I have mixed feelings on foreign aid.

I might be libelling him but David Davis seems to be rebelling purely to punch the Governments bruise over this.

Johnny Mercer and a few others on this list are people who would not be rebelling if they had a government post… And frankly at least five or 10 of them would be much better in the current cabinet.

In terms of aid spending its self these cuts are obviously awful on the ground but the real tragedy was abolishing DFID which was consistently ranked one of the best departments not only to work for but also in terms of its financial transparency and outcomes.

It also seems strange to oppose overseas aid spending without doing anything to sort out the MOD who have recently bought a tank which makes our soldiers violently ill if they sit in it.