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

[YL]

Why can't the parliament do vote of no confidence?

Then there's an election, right?

Not necessarily if there's an alternative PM available.

[YL]

https://twitter.com/ChrisMasonBBC/status/1544778322973949953

[YL]

Brandon Lewis has actually resigned this time, the fourth Cabinet minister to do so.  As have junior ministers Damien Hinds and Helen Whately.

[YL]

Zahawi has openly called on Johnson to resign.

[YL]

Johnson's resigned.  Caroline Johnson, that is, as Vice Chair of the Conservative Party.

[YL]

The BBC says it's over. He will resign but stay on as caretaker until autumn.

Long enough to beat May's term in office, I guess.

[YL]

Rebecca Pow, Environment Minister, has resigned. They are still coming.

Looks like this is a delayed announcement rather than saying she's unwilling to serve in a caretaker government still under Johnson.

[YL]

The Daily Mail is taking things well, I see.

[YL]

By way of comparison, in polls taken on 23 November 1990 the Tories actually took the lead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_1992_United_Kingdom_general_election#1990

[YL]

The Daily Mail is taking things well, I see.

They’ve literally copy-pasted the Express’s famous headline from the day Thatcher resigned - hell of a comparison to make, given the circumstances.

Today they've gone with "Red Wall Backlash at Tory Traitors"...

Actually I thought they might have had a rant at Durham Police, but that story appears to be missing from their front page entirely.

[YL]

Away from the Tory clown car, it looks like we're in for a nasty heatwave, with the UK record temperature likely to be broken on Monday or Tuesday with 40C forecast to be recorded for the first time; in fact I wouldn't be surprised if the record (38.7C in Cambridge just three years ago) is broken on Monday and the new record is then beaten on Tuesday.

[YL]

And the latest Private Eye says the palace saw that possibility coming and had prepared for it - by all accounts HM wasn't amused about him fibbing to her over prorogation in 2019.

Do you by any chance have a link to (or pic of) that Private Eye account? Would love to read!

I presume this is what's being referred to:
https://twitter.com/GerryHassan/status/1547226056565952514

[YL]

The Commons has expressed confidence in HM Government by a vote of 349-238.

The interesting thing here is probably the disparity in attendance. Only 9 Tories off the map (if they’re the only ones voting Aye), but around 40 opposition MPs AWOL. Guess the whipping teams had different priorities in different parties. Understandable given the heat, and the poor health of a number of our more elderly parliamentarians - although the Tories two oldest MPs pitched up to debate, so it can’t be too bad in the Palace of Westminster.

Also, curious to see what the DUP did - did they carry on the old tradition of voting with the government, as during Confidence and Supply (which would suggest more Tory abstentions)?
Did Johnson’s approach to the NI Protocol piss them off enough that they voted against? Or did they just abstain? Only one of their MPs spoke in the debate, and it was just a plea for civility (which, I know, DUP - it’s ironic).

The DUP voted for confidence (well six of them did, the other two abstaining).

[YL]

So, about Boris Johnson's meeting with former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev at a party near Perugia hosted by Alexander's son Evgeny [1], owner of the Evening Standard, in 2018, when Johnson was Foreign Secretary:

https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1551890281313837057

I guess the obvious interpretation of "as far as I am aware" here is that Johnson has very little memory of the event due to copious alcohol consumption at it, which would be consistent with his reported condition at Perugia airport the following day.

See also David Allen Green's take.

[1] Also known, thanks to Johnson, as Lord Lebedev, of Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and of Siberia in the Russian Federation.

[YL]

We really do have a nasty, vile undercurrent at times. Something that Americans may not get to see very often. I love this country but,  me, some stuff makes me weep.

If they want to see it, they just need to look at some of our newspapers.

[YL]

Not being a ‘boomer’ I don’t have a Times subscription, but do share the article where the Times blamed the possibility of Winter blackouts on wokeness and transgender people.

I'm not convinced it matters (in terms of public opinion) what any news service with a subscription model has to say about anything. Some politicians might give too much credence to them, but that's more of a problem with said politicians than with the news services in question.

I used to believe this - not least because of the way their actual dead tree sales are on an inexorable downward trend (you rarely see anybody younger than about 50 actually buying or reading a paper) But the sheer scale - and effectiveness - of the job they did on Corbyn's Labour in 2019 has made me reconsider that, unfortunately. They still have the broadcast news channels totally under their thumb, and their often both lurid and totally dishonest headlines still scream out at people from supermarkets and petrol station forecourts - and just those *do* influence many people.

Thinking back, this was always a no brainer. Why would megalomaniac plutocrats still invest so much in such apparently doomed causes, otherwise?

They know how public opinion is moulded and manipulated.

Of course papers being mostly read by the over 50s could be related to the ridiculous age polarisation in the UK.

I think the other point is that it’s not clear how much effect the Murdoch press, with its subscription model, has compared to the Mail with its freely available and  regrettably widely read web presence.

[YL]

Given that the current Opinium methodology is geared towards stability and is as much a projection as a snapshot in time, that’s a surprisingly large Labour lead.

Indeed once you adjust for the differing methodologies the messages of the Opinium and the most recent YouGov (the Lab 43 Con 28 one) are similar.

I wonder how much of a honeymoon in the polls Truss will actually get?

[YL]

Yes, overall his downfall remains highly satisfying.

However, it would be even better if at some point the voters of Uxbridge & South Ruislip get the opportunity to put the icing on the cake and take it.