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

[YL]

There isn't much of an ideological or factional pattern to Johnson's group of critics. Some are grandee wets like May and others are hardcore ERGers like Bridgen. Essentially, BJ is the type who pisses all sorts of people off.

I think this is a reflection of how ideologically light Johnson himself is.

[YL]

This evening the Telegraph are reporting that they have evidence Johnson was present at the November 13th, 2020 event at the Downing Street flat.

Particularly brazen not just because Boris and Carrie were boozily celebrating Cummings' departure, but because it occurred as Tier 3 restrictions were reintroduced in London, preventing socialising outside small 'social bubbles', as part of the national lockdown.

It's one of the events under Met investigation, and the very existence of the gathering was being denied by both Mr and Mrs Johnson until this week.

The mind boggles at how they thought this would never come out. I guess they just thought they were above accountability for it. It's just exhausting.

Well for fourteen months it didn't come out.  Thanks UK media.

[YL]

I saw this good news the other day-excess deaths 5,000 lower than normal. It is a relief that Omicron is so much milder. It looks like the official Covid death toll may now be overestimating the death toll, unlike in the rest of the pandemic, and recording people who just happened to have Covid and were not killed by it. The decision to get rid of legal isolation requirements feels extreme, but it probably needs to happen eventually especially since Omicron is so transmissible so is there really going to be a better time for it?

Yeah - it’s pretty good news on the excess mortality stats.

Not sure what the national consensus is on total removal of lockdown rules is. At work, people are pretty skeptical, and there’s a local consensus that it’s just Johnson trying to shore up his support among the right of the party (anti-mask ’freedom lovers’ like Desmond Swain etc) - most of my colleagues fall into the ‘lefty academic’ stereotype though, so I may be in a slight echo chamber.

What polling I've seen has suggested people are generally on the sceptical side.  This has been true throughout the pandemic; there's generally been a lot of support for restrictions.  But the "libertarian" right are well represented in the parliamentary party and in the Tory press, which I imagine has something to do with this.

Personally my biggest concern would be that if isolation is no longer required then that might cause people to be going to work when they shouldn't, either because of financial reasons or because of bullying management.  But the way to deal with this isn't to keep isolation compulsory, but to sort out sick pay rights and the like.

[YL]

Any thoughts on the informal Lib-Lab pact that Starmer seems to be forming, according to today’s Financial Times?

Personally, I think it’s a pretty solid strategy, and probably necessary if Labour are going to have any sort of chance in 2024. Making up a 130 seat deficit would be a historic achievement, so you need every seat you can get - letting the Lib Dems have a clear run at Tory seats they can’t win seems like a no brainer.

Beyond cutting the number of Tory seats though - if Labour were to become the largest party but end up a dozen seats short, it’s a decent strategy to have a ideologically-compatible party who is large enough to make up the gap, and whom you are already in good relations. (or at least friendly enough to work out electoral pacts - which sounds like the first draft of what could become coalition discussions?).

I haven't read the (paywalled) article, but outside a handful of constituencies, mostly in London, it's just common sense.  Most Tory held constituencies which are Lib Dem targets are hopeless for Labour and there's very little to be gained by running serious campaigns in them; furthermore, as you say, in a hung parliament scenario it's better for Labour if they're held by Lib Dems than by Tories.  Let the Lib Dems have their bar charts...

(I suppose that as someone who has voted for both parties -- and Greens sometimes in local elections -- my politics are such that I'm likely to be fairly receptive to this idea anyway.  But I think you'd have to really hate the Lib Dems to think that Labour should campaign seriously in Cheltenham or Cheadle or Chesham & Amersham.)

[YL]

Winchester is a good example of where a pact might have helped.  In 2019 Labour lost their deposit and won only 2.7k votes, but the Tory beat the LD with a majority of 985.

The thing is that that rump of Labour voters will mostly have been aware of the situation and decided to vote Labour anyway.  It's not at all clear that such people will vote Lib Dem even if there is no Labour candidate.

Also an explicit pact may drive some Tory/Lib Dem floating voters into the Tory camp.

[YL]

In another trend its interesting that many of the covid deniers in UK politics have now moved onto to parroting Russian propaganda- unsure if this is because they're idiots, because they want attention or because they've had their brains melted.

I'm not really sure who you're talking about here -- there really aren't many people anywhere near the mainstream of UK politics who are pro Putin right now -- but I imagine the answer is that the sort of places they get their "news" from push both of those positions.

[YL]

I do hope this allows for some sort of shift in the conversation and narrative. There is something genuinely disturbing about the political and journalistic class on 'this issue' and it's resulting monomania which has deep and lasting consequences for all of us.

Guess which minority Johnson was joking about last night?

[YL]

David Warburton, Tory MP for Somerton & Vroom, has had the Tory whip suspended:
https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1510301596609130498

A very Tory sounding scandal, this one...

[YL]

To no great surprise, it looks like Ukraine is going to be used as an excuse to not move against Johnson now.

[YL]

Does anybody else know/ have suspicions of the identities of the accused MPs? I think I know who the Tory one is.

Did you get it right?

[YL]

Dangerous watching for Tory MPs

[YL]

I don't really have much knowledge about British politics, so apologies--but what does a scenario where Labour has to rely on the SNP and/or Plaid to stay in government look like in practice? Would they form a formal coalition?

I think it's very unlikely that Labour would form a formal coalition with the SNP, and Plaid would have too few seats to make much difference.  How stable a Labour minority which was dependent on the SNP to stay in power would be I don't know, but it could well be suggested to the SNP that bringing Labour down and allowing the Tories back might be very toxic to much of their Central Belt base.

Formal coalition would be more likely with the Lib Dems, but even there it's not at all clear that they'd go for it.

[YL]

It seems like the name of the MP in the latest story is coming out now.

[YL]

It's city status competition time!  We have 39 applicants, five of which aren't actually in the UK, and some are really really tiny.

England: Alcester, Warwickshire [1]; Blackburn; Bolsover [2]; Boston, Lincolnshire; Bournemouth; Colchester; Crawley; Crewe; Doncaster; Dorchester, Dorset; Dudley; Goole [3]; Guildford; Marazion, Cornwall [4]; Medway [5]; Middlesbrough; Milton Keynes; Newport and Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight; Northampton; Reading; Warrington; Warwick

Wales: Wrexham

Northern Ireland: Ballymena; Bangor, Co. Down; Coleraine

Scotland: Dumfries; Dunfermline; Elgin [6]; Greenock; Livingston; Oban; St. Andrews; South Ayrshire [7]

Isle of Man: Douglas; Peel

Falkland Islands: Stanley

Cayman Islands: George Town

Gibraltar: Gibraltar

[1] I wonder how many people know where this is and how to pronounce it.
[2] Do they want a reward for electing a Tory MP or something?
[3] LOL
[4] Even smaller than St Davids, presumably just trying for a bit of publicity
[5] They'd probably have a better chance if they just applied for Rochester to get it back.
[6] Used to be a city, and thinks it still is.
[7] WTF?  Did they mean to apply for Ayr?

And we have winners!

Colchester
Doncaster
Milton Keynes
Wrexham
Bangor, Co Down (Bangor in Gwynedd is already a city)
Dunfermline
Douglas (IoM)
Stanley (Falklands)

[YL]

Wouldn't every single town in the UK become a city at some point in the future, assuming this countinues ?

It is already getting a bit silly TBH, especially in Northern Ireland, where city status is going to glorified Belfast suburbs, and Wales, which only had one applicant.  Aberystwyth could make a case and Brecon is both a cathedral town and old county town and though small would make a less ridiculous "city" than a couple which already have the status, but neither tried.

[YL]

There's a story in today's Mirror than an unnamed "top Tory MP" was spiking colleagues' drinks with date rape drugs.

https://twitter.com/MirrorPolitics/status/1528109121878237184

[YL]

Classic squirming government minister interview:

https://twitter.com/PeterStefanovi2/status/1528284321240457218

[YL]

Steve Brine MP has released a statement confirming he has submitted a letter to the 1922 committee in the wake of Sue Gray’s report.

He’s the 8th MP since the report to call for Johnson to go.

Fun fact: this statement was released on his personal website on May 25th, but because he hasn’t spoken to the media or crossposted the news to social media, politics journalists only found the statement now, 3 days later.

The full statement can be found here: https://www.stevebrine.com/news/statement-after-sue-gray-report-published

It says he sent in the letter "some time ago actually".

I suspect that the number of letters is now quite close to the threshold and it may well be reached if both Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton are lost.  (Losing Wakefield is probably "priced in" TBH, but losing both would concentrate minds a bit more.)  But only one person really knows where we are.

[YL]

Another one - Elliot Colburn, who's seat is uber-marginal with the Lib Dems (under 650 votes), has put his letter in.

I have to wonder whether going home for constituency surgeries over the weekend may have provided the motivation to get him over the line...

Source: https://twitter.com/TomLarkinSky/status/1531270078674751489

Another "some time ago" one.  I wonder whether many new letters are actually being written, as opposed to people who'd already written them going public.

[YL]

Leadsom comes out against the PM and pretty much says it’s game over.

Significant as she was the one who put her name to the effort to save Paterson and she has clearly wanted to return to Government for some time- also a noted Brexiteer and Boris Backer.

She is however not a complete headbanger- she was one of the strongest voices for reforming Parliaments attitude to harassment.

Her letter does suggest she is now in the anti-Johnson camp ("unacceptable failings of leadership that cannot be tolerated") but it doesn't actually call for him to go nor does it say she's written to Brady...

[YL]

There are actually a few in Labour-facing seats; of those listed as "Yes" on Election Maps UK's tracker I'd note the following in addition to Stevenson:

Aaron Bell (Newcastle under Lyme)
Julian Sturdy (York Outer)
Steve Baker (Wycombe)
Tim Loughton (East Worthing & Shoreham)
Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East)

The last four might not be thought of as traditional Lab/Con marginals, but they're all red on Election Maps UK's current "nowcast" map, and that isn't exactly a landslide scenario.

[YL]

Yeah, the Lascelles Principles only stop a dissolution if there's an alternative PM available, so I think they only stop a Johnson General Election gambit once the Conservative Party actually has a new leader.  I don't think that was the scenario being floated; rather the idea is that Johnson, after losing or nearly losing a Tory VONC, comes out with some "the MPs have spoken, but let's now ask The People" line and goes to the country.  Alternatively, he does it to pre-empt the Tory VONC.  In either of those scenarios I think the Queen agrees to the dissolution.

[YL]

Yeah, the Lascelles Principles only stop a dissolution if there's an alternative PM available, so I think they only stop a Johnson General Election gambit once the Conservative Party actually has a new leader.  I don't think that was the scenario being floated; rather the idea is that Johnson, after losing or nearly losing a Tory VONC, comes out with some "the MPs have spoken, but let's now ask The People" line and goes to the country.  Alternatively, he does it to pre-empt the Tory VONC.  In either of those scenarios I think the Queen agrees to the dissolution.

That can't be right, surely? It would be obvious that there would be an alternative who can win the confidence of Parliament-the winner of the leadership election. I don't see why the identity of the individual would need to be known if it's a fact that they will exist.

I think knowing the identity of the individual is pretty key to knowing if they would be able to command the confidence of parliament, like let's say the PM reject's boris's call for a snap election. Are you going to trust Boris to be caretaker prime-minister while the conservative leadership contest happens ?

That's basically my thinking, yes.  Plus one consequence of having a hereditary head of state is that it's hard for them to do anything particularly controversial, and not granting a dissolution to an elected PM who hasn't yet lost confidence of Parliament is definitely in the "controversial" category.

I don't really think Johnson will do this, but he's unpredictable enough that it's not completely impossible.

[YL]

Besides, a leadership change in late 2023 wouldn't be such a disaster for the Tories. Plenty of politicians have won elections having only been the party leader for a few months. Boris did, after all.  Even if he was unusually high-profile, having less time for the new leader to rack up their own baggage could be an advantage.

Indeed I think an election in a new leader's honeymoon period is one of the better scenarios for the Tories.

[YL]

Any predictions about the margin?

My gut says Johnson survives the vote, but is permanently damaged by a close race, and large rebellious contingent. Removing him isn’t out of the question, but still feels like an uphill effort, given how many MPs are on the ministerial payroll, owe their seats to him from 2019, or both. 

That's my best guess too: close, but I think he's more likely than not to hold on.  Though some people who won in 2019 may be thinking of what happens in 2024 if he's still leader.