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

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-59582426
Douglas Ross, Scottish Tory Leader and MP calls on Boris to possibly resign. Is this the first knife coming out or can it be disregarded given that he is mainly in Edinburgh rather than London ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I don't know if I want him to go; I'm concerned aboutwhat ghoul will follow him.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

And if the news couldn't get worse.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/tory-party-shaun-bailey-hq-december-allegra-stratton-boris-johnson-b970845.html

[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.

[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.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Approaching 1997 level figures in the latest poll.

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

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

SNIP

I would highly recommend the conservatives run a campaign on Trans and other social issues taking a strong conservative stance on all of them. I'm sure there's no way this can go wrong and backfire.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

As a former Director of Public Prosecutions, it would be hard to make a charge of tolerating extremism stick.

Yeah, Dan the Roman seems to have a very Americanised view of UK politics. Starmer's weakness was always going to be "man, he's uninspiring", not "man, he's a terrifying extremist".

And he's probably more likely to lose an election over a photo of him wearing beige slippers, reinforcing notions about his lack of political and personal resolve than shaking hands with a "radical LGBTQ+ activist", or whatever strawman the Mail comes up with that week.

Hmm how can he go about making his image seem less boring and dull ? take up extreme sports or something ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

As a former Director of Public Prosecutions, it would be hard to make a charge of tolerating extremism stick.

Yeah, Dan the Roman seems to have a very Americanised view of UK politics. Starmer's weakness was always going to be "man, he's uninspiring", not "man, he's a terrifying extremist".

And he's probably more likely to lose an election over a photo of him wearing beige slippers, reinforcing notions about his lack of political and personal resolve than shaking hands with a "radical LGBTQ+ activist", or whatever strawman the Mail comes up with that week.

Hmm how can he go about making his image seem less boring and dull ? take up extreme sports or something ?

Oh no, don't do that! That's how we end up with bad ideas like putting William Hague on a log flume...

I don't know, a nice photo-op of Starmer free climbing a cliff or bungee jumping might help remove the dullness factor if it seems natural.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is anyone else concerned by the ever increasing rise of blue ticks and other various media figures essentially grifting off being anti-COVID?

It seems to have got much worse in the recent week and months and has become well a way of life for various media figures.

What do you mean anti-covid ? like anti-covid restrictions or something else ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

There has to be some conservative MP who just wants to be remembered as prime minister and dammn everything else, who could run ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

There's no shortage of people who want it - half the cabinet are plotting as we speak. The issue is that the entire party has a sort of PTSD about being the one to wield the knife because of what doing that did to Heseltine's prospects.

Surely that can just be a random backbencher who can be promised a seat in the cabinet or peerage as a reward by one of the actual challengers?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

There's no shortage of people who want it - half the cabinet are plotting as we speak. The issue is that the entire party has a sort of PTSD about being the one to wield the knife because of what doing that did to Heseltine's prospects.

Surely that can just be a random backbencher who can be promised a seat in the cabinet or peerage as a reward by one of the actual challengers?

Well, that happened in the Thatcher case as well: a Mr Anthony Meyer put his name to depose her because the likes of Heseltine didn't want to jump the gun. Not that being a stalking horse particularly benefitted Meyer much: he was abandoned, had his longtime affair outed and immediately deselected.

His problem was not having demanded a specific payment from someone with sufficient security to ensure he received that payment.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

There's no shortage of people who want it - half the cabinet are plotting as we speak. The issue is that the entire party has a sort of PTSD about being the one to wield the knife because of what doing that did to Heseltine's prospects.

Surely that can just be a random backbencher who can be promised a seat in the cabinet or peerage as a reward by one of the actual challengers?

Well, that happened in the Thatcher case as well: a Mr Anthony Meyer put his name to depose her because the likes of Heseltine didn't want to jump the gun. Not that being a stalking horse particularly benefitted Meyer much: he was abandoned, had his longtime affair outed and immediately deselected.

His problem was not having demanded a specific payment from someone with sufficient security to ensure he received that payment.

Such is the life of a stalking horse, and why in practice it's a pretty stupid career plan, unless your life goal is appearing in one sentence in the history books.

Also the Tory party rules have changed somewhat to dissuade such kamikaze attacks on the leadership: I believe the Hague reforms mean you are automatically protected from a future VONC if you survive one, meaning you could just entrench an incumbent further.

If boris wanted to play 4d chess, might he not have his own allies send in the letters to start a vote of no-confidence gambling that the tories aren't quite ready to toss him out now so as to sure up his own postion temporairly buying time for him to recover in the polls before he can be dethroned.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Tony Blair has been given a knighthood.

We definitely live in the banter timeline.

I think maybe that was to defuse the speculation he was being refused one as a personal slight by the queen or something ?. Also can Bronz be threadbanned or something ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Sunak is rich enough that I think he's probably immune to most of the petty sleaze stuff that sticks best. Obscure contracting is easier to spin then stuff like this.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Tory MPs clearly taking it well...

https://twitter.com/ScottBentonMP/status/1483567164355493889

Again all politicans should be banned from twitter.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

This whole secret letter drama seems more reminiscent of a lazy tv show trope than a real politicaly signicant action.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://mobile.twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1484107937132032001

Seems like a storm in a teacup. Looks as though the coup has failed, although calling it a ‘coup’ is rather generous given the lack of organisation amongst the MPs who want Johnson out. Johnson’s people sticking the boot very hard into Wakeford and the rebels, which will probably discourage most others from putting their heads above the parapet. PM looks to be safe until May at least barring any new revelations.

This will help Labour, Boris has sunk to corbyn level unpopularity and is a real anchor around them. The longer he's at the helm the more it'll transfer from boris to the rest of the party.

Does speak to the votality of British politics that talks of a 1000 year tory reich were discussed a few months back.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Is it possible that islamphobia might the conservative party ? given how few muslims vote for them and how broad the sentiment is outside the community.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

At this point Will the tories even able to keep him until march

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Christ, Jacob Rees-Mogg is going to be party leader at some point in the near-ish future, isn't he?  If anyone thinks that's a totally ridiculous notion, I direct your attention to the current one.

The tories would be lucky to have more than 200 seats if he was their leader.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

   

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForUK/status/1486353871060586499?s=20

Why do even milequoast Labour party figures seem to be in love with the communist revolutionary aesthetic?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

BoJo < Lenin < Blair < Clinton < Obama < Lincoln

Say what you will about Bojo, at least he hasn't ordered his political opponents masscared and overthrown a democratic goverment.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Theresa May should make a triumphant return, sort of like Kevin Rudd did.

Yeah, cos that ended so well for him

He probably kept the party from losing in a landslide.

But nowadays he spends his time S**itposting on reddit and twitter so didn't quite work out for him.