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

[Geoffrey Howe]

Dominic Cummings showed that at heart he is a ruthless totalitarian
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/05/26/dominic-cummings-showed-heart-ruthless-totalitarian/

The scientific advice was that lockdowns reduce deaths in the short term, but only by postponing them. Unless they were kept in place permanently (or at least until there is a vaccine), the epidemic would simply come back in a second wave that would probably be worse than the first, because it would coincide with the winter peak of pressure on the NHS.
Taking the data over a whole year, there is no correlation between lockdown policies and deaths.
[...]
There is a moral dimension to all of this, to which Cummings turns a tin ear. He criticises ministers for not following the Chinese example. He forgets that there were moral and not just pragmatic reasons for that. China is one of the most oppressive totalitarian states in the world. It treats people as mere instruments of state policy. We should have higher values.
[...]
The Cummings problem is his contempt for democracy and liberal values. He is at heart a ruthless totalitarian. What we needed, he told us, was a 'kind of dictator with kingly power,' who would 'push out the boundaries of legality.' 'This is war,' he said. 'Any rules - forget it.'

[Geoffrey Howe]

It is good to be wary of ex post facto legislation, though I hardly expect he had the details of the Recall of MPs Act 2015 in his mind when sending the text messages. Apparently the loophole exists in order to protect the confidentiality of the complainant during the recall process. (I don't know why this only applies to the IEP and not the Standards Committee.)

Btw, the prohibition on ex post facto laws in America only applies to criminal cases.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Is he Catholic? I heard on the radio that he was married at Westminster Cathedral.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Is he Catholic? I heard on the radio that he was married at Westminster Cathedral.

According to Wikipedia, Boris Johnson was baptized a Catholic, confirmed into the Church of England, and may have returned to being a Catholic as of 2020.

He's also said his faith "comes and goes" so take that as you will.

Carrie Symonds is a practising Catholic, and apparently Wilf has been baptised as a Catholic.

[Geoffrey Howe]

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

[Geoffrey Howe]

There comes a point where we’re going to have to say goodbye to all COVID restrictions. We can’t keep putting our head in the sand. I wonder whether it’ll end up like post-war rationing.

I can’t comment on these studies specifically, but it is extraordinary some of the data/assumptions which go into some of the scientists’ models. They deserve a lot more public scrutiny,

[Geoffrey Howe]

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.

But nor is/was a cult following of Boris Johnson. Cult worshippers tend not to be very logical; hence you have them supporting various authoritarian measures whilst decrying the loss of liberty during the pandemic.

[Geoffrey Howe]

There comes a point where we’re going to have to say goodbye to all COVID restrictions. We can’t keep putting our head in the sand. I wonder whether it’ll end up like post-war rationing.

I can’t comment on these studies specifically, but it is extraordinary some of the data/assumptions which go into some of the scientists’ models. They deserve a lot more public scrutiny,

Sorry, can you give some examples of some of these "extraordinary" data or assumptions?

I can dig out the specifics if you like, but off the top of my head Neil Ferguson to come up with 500,000 deaths assumed that no one vulnerable (mainly the old) would take any precautionary measures of their own and back in February/March they were using data from December when vaccination rates were very low.

[Geoffrey Howe]

There comes a point where we’re going to have to say goodbye to all COVID restrictions. We can’t keep putting our head in the sand. I wonder whether it’ll end up like post-war rationing.

I can’t comment on these studies specifically, but it is extraordinary some of the data/assumptions which go into some of the scientists’ models. They deserve a lot more public scrutiny,

Saying goodbye to all Covid restrictions is not gonna happen until the pandemic, in the strictest sense of the word, ends. Why is only Cummings flagging up the disastrous border policies that led to the Indian variant becoming widespread in the first place? I get that people want to see their families but we all have to make sacrifices, and a 10 day quarantine on entry like Taiwan and Australia enforced wouldn't have gone amiss. The UK doesnt have the excuse of "We're not an island so we can't control who comes in and out" that the EU deployed for its total mismanagement of travel. I travelled twice for work purposes and twice i could have got away scott free without any quarantine whatsoever, just a sh**tty QR code.

Point being : yet again the debate seems to be a black-white "FREEDOM, LEAVE US ALONE" vs an imaginary enemy, the Public Health Officials that somehow are hell bent on ruining armchair reactionaries who didnt get out much before 2020 anyway. When really the debate should be which measures are effective and allow us to resume normal life the quickest way possible.

That’s the root of the problem.

[Geoffrey Howe]

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.

But nor is/was a cult following of Boris Johnson. Cult worshippers tend not to be very logical; hence you have them supporting various authoritarian measures whilst decrying the loss of liberty during the pandemic.

Do you deny that there's a substantial part of the UK population with an irrational liking for Johnson (who they call "Boris", of course) which is very unresponsive to the repeated evidence of his many manifest flaws?  (It appears to be well represented in Hartlepool, for a start.)  Or are you just taking issue with the use of the word "cult"?

I do suggest reading The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer (freely available online).  There are plenty worse authoritarian movements than Johnsonian populism (Trumpism for a start) but it definitely has some of the characteristics.

I do think there is something of an apolitical liking of Boris for whatever reason, but I don’t think many people think he’s been a particularly good PM or some sort of saviour like the more deranged Trump supporters. I’ll admit this did exist before the pandemic and related to Brexit, but most of those people I do think are against lockdowns. Anecdotally, I know someone who is a staunch Tory Brexiteer who was a big fan of Boris back in 2019 (voted for him as party member) but is disillusioned over lockdowns and his leftward drift. He voted Laurence Fox for mayor of London.

As for Hartlepool, I suspect a lot of newly Tory voters there are aware of his flaws, but like his (perceived or real) communitarian stance and showering money on these places.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Also, I don't think he really cultivates a cult, beyond ruffling his hair and whatnot which doesn't really engender a "cult" following.
Certainly, the Fox voter isn't representative of the country, but he's the sort of person who greatly admired Boris previously. The sorts of people who like him aren't particularly committed, I think.

Interestingly - I don't know whether this matches up with your experience - I think he is representative of a very patriotic, but also individualistic Thatcherite working/lower-middle class. IIRC the hardcore of the Thatcherite base was the not particularly affluent but very aspirational type (her father, for example).

[Geoffrey Howe]

When did people on Vote UK start being opposed to lockdowns? It only really seemed to gain traction in September as far as I could tell.

[Geoffrey Howe]

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.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Food for thought.

https://twitter.com/FraserNelson/status/1400720403644006407

[Geoffrey Howe]

I’ve always thought lockdowns are a far bigger deal than masks (though they’re irritating too).

[Geoffrey Howe]

Nigel Farage voted for them, IIRC.

[Geoffrey Howe]

So in me thinking exactly how Labour could win parliament. I don’t see any possible way without getting pressed Unionist voters, somewhat similar to how PSOE got and maintains their government in Spain. Only that sort of maximizes the gains of the factional battle in Labour.

Is there any indication that Labour is trying to attract these voters in England, Wales, N. Ireland, and critically Scotland—where Labour’s possible electorate got eaten up by SNP and unionists went to the Tories? Would such a strategy be viable?

What do you mean by pressed Unionist voters in England and Wales? I understand Scotland, which is always going to be tricky so long as the constitution is the main issue. Labour don't run candidates in Northern Ireland, btw. I'm no expert on Spanish politics, so you'll have to explain the comparison.

As I understand it, PSOE gained national and regional seats by those against separatist parties in hopes that it wouldn’t break apart Spain.

Well for example, the Tories did very well in the bordering regions of England because they’re closest to  England economically and culturally, for them splitting is a bad bet. Can Labour continue to win unionist votes in Scotland? What about moderate unionists in England?

They're not going to win "unionists in England" (people who care a lot about keeping Scotland) because Labour's path to government almost certainly means coalition with the SNP.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Of course a lot of English Tories pay lip service to old-style Unionism, at best. They mostly don't care about Northern Ireland going even now, and Scotland and even Wales are going the same way.

Agreed. I am one of the few left (though I care more about Scotland than NI). It's one of the things which might keep me in the Tory camp despite Boris at the next election.

[Geoffrey Howe]

There is a growing feeling that Boris has used up all his political capital with backbenchers over lockdown.  One MP has pretty much said if lockdown is extended again he will send Brady a letter.  I *think* Brady has one or two letters already.  Basically Boris cannot afford to let the new date slip.

Good, Parliament needs to assert itself. There is a contingent of the public that probably supports a forever-lockdown; but after a point most will take it into their own hands. If I were in Chesham and Amersham I might protest vote for an anti-lockdown outfit because my patience is finished.

[Geoffrey Howe]

There is a growing feeling that Boris has used up all his political capital with backbenchers over lockdown.  One MP has pretty much said if lockdown is extended again he will send Brady a letter.  I *think* Brady has one or two letters already.  Basically Boris cannot afford to let the new date slip.

Good, Parliament needs to assert itself. There is a contingent of the public that probably supports a forever-lockdown; but after a point most will take it into their own hands. If I were in Chesham and Amersham I might protest vote for an anti-lockdown outfit because my patience is finished.

Given the increasingly loud whisperings about how it is going there, your "protest" vote could arguably be better given to the LibDems instead (and they have made a few lockdown sceptic noises recently)

Does that depend on which street I live on or what they suspect my views might already be?
In truth I would vote Tory because I have come very much to dislike the Lib Dems; plus the planning laws seem fairly sensible and the LDs are opposing them from an irritating NIMBY perspective (Dear friend...).
In Batley and Spen I might vote Labour simply from a Labour factional perspective (I don't want the Left to gain in power).

[Geoffrey Howe]

According to Boris, Matt Hancock is "totally f****** useless." Quelle surprise
PMQs was good today.

[Geoffrey Howe]

A lot of talk in today's Telegraph about needing to return to Tory values or stop being Labour-lite. I count at least four articles.

It was interesting this week to see Lord Frost intervene. The hero of the Brexit negotiations, now a Cabinet minister, said something with which, you would have thought, no conservative would disagree. Yet in current circumstances, it sounded almost subversive: “for the last year or so we have not really lived in a free society.” He said he did not “want to accept [such] levels of state involvement in our lives and in our economy.” As we emerge from the plague, “we must not lose our conviction that individual not collective rights are paramount, that living with risk is inevitable.”

His is a timely warning. In extreme situations, the state can be the only force powerful enough to coordinate the nation. Victory in war is the classic example. But in normal times, the opposite is the case. People themselves build up national prosperity and freedom. The state gets in the way of both.

If that were not true, North Korea would be mightier than the United States of America. It is in the interests of statists to make emergency permanent, because that keeps them in control. When people voted to “take back control” in the 2016 referendum, five years ago next week, they did not mean control by the state. The Government’s baby language of funny money helps pave the way for such control. Post-Covid, that should not be “the new normal”: the old normal was better.

Lord Frost is warning, in effect, that success in taking Labour voters should not mean taking Labour policies. Just because someone lives in Middlesbrough, it does not follow that he/she cannot benefit from lower taxes and lower regulation. Labour always uses the word “equality” as a way of holding people down. The better word this Government should deploy as Britain opens up is “opportunity”. It’s a free country, after all – or is that expression outdated?

[Geoffrey Howe]

Yes, but the electoral demand for such a Tory party is limited.

Perhaps but... remember how the last time Labour were in government and took the general line that if the price to be paid for maintaining a broad-and-loose electoral coalition (as it is no longer possible to have a broad-and-tight one) was the alienation of the social circles that most of its membership lived in?* And that this, well, this turned out to have some pretty much consequences for the party down the line? What sort of people comprise the membership of the Conservative Party and where do they live? If there's grumbling in the Torygraph then that's significant. Further wins over a demoralised Labour Party won't entirely abate that, much as the inability of the Tories back then to seriously get one over Labour didn't either. This is the sort of thing that's worth careful monitoring even if it appears to go nowhere at first.

_{*And the whole Iraq business aside (which, anyway, did not create the situation but inflamed it) this was, once again, a matter of not being pandered to even if, yes, objectively the government was pursuing policies that were beneficial to the sort of people in question. I don't mean this in a thoroughly dismissive way in either case: in a democracy we all wish to be pandered to. Why not? Aren't we supposed to be in charge?}

It's not just grumbling. On the fairly rare occasions that I have looked at the Torygraph they have opposed this or that government policy from the right. Today it's the entire thrust of the paper; as I said, at least four articles just at the top of the website.

[Geoffrey Howe]

It continues: in today's Torygraph:
Why would any true conservative vote for this soft-Left bunch of eco-extremist, Tory statists?

[Geoffrey Howe]

It continues: in today's Torygraph:
Why would any true conservative vote for this soft-Left bunch of eco-extremist, Tory statists?

Bit rich of Douglas Murray to criticise "Re-Alignement" tactics when he has basically made a career out of fiercely attacking left-liberal strawmen and promoting the Culture Wars so he can sell more books.

True. But he makes an important point: what is the purpose of voting Tory anymore? Conservatopia has been feeling this for a while I think. Now it's particularly acute for the "Cameroonians" that I know - the only areas where the Tories stayed on the right are anti-woke stuff, immigration and foreign aid (though with a lot of dissent for the last two). Most I know support immigration and foreign aid; they're against the woke stuff but they see it as irrelevant or, at best, a minor issue. (I do admit that those stances are probably quite popular.)


Oh, there's another similar article in the Torygraph:
Tory voters want return to fiscal discipline, says defeated Chesham candidate