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

[Cassius]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/white-supremacist-spared-jail-sentenced-24882280.amp

Upsetting omission of Elizabeth Gaskell, but otherwise pretty sound sentencing.

[Cassius]

That is the generally accepted route into leadership positions at the bulge bracket banks, yes.

[Cassius]

It seems the social care funding proposal is going down quite badly- well specifically the breaking of the manifesto commitment not to raise national insurance.

Some thoughts,

1.) I think voters will broadly support it- it’s not income tax, and I think the pandemic has probably softened Tory attitudes towards taxation. Besides the last rise like this in 2002 was very popular.

2.) it’s annoying how much of it is reduced to a Westminster row (with the typical ‘oh what will Labour do, as if that matters!) This means we’re ignoring key parts of the policy and just focusing on the funding. Which leads to…

3.) There’s still huge problems that will exist in social care;  staffing levels, the quality of care, the huge cuts to local governments and  the need for much longer periods of care- and of course the fact that 50% of care spending is on people with disbabilities.

I think the anguish over breaking a manifesto commitment is a little misplaced given that nobody trusts Boris Johnson or expects him to be a ‘man of his word’ anyway (plus that manifesto was released in very different circumstances). For what it’s worth I broadly support the policy - the vast majority won’t notice the rise in their pay packet, the only concern is as regards those on minimum wage for whom even losing £10 per month could mean the difference between making rent and not making it.

[Cassius]

It seems the social care funding proposal is going down quite badly- well specifically the breaking of the manifesto commitment not to raise national insurance.

Some thoughts,

1.) I think voters will broadly support it- it’s not income tax, and I think the pandemic has probably softened Tory attitudes towards taxation. Besides the last rise like this in 2002 was very popular.

2.) it’s annoying how much of it is reduced to a Westminster row (with the typical ‘oh what will Labour do, as if that matters!) This means we’re ignoring key parts of the policy and just focusing on the funding. Which leads to…

3.) There’s still huge problems that will exist in social care;  staffing levels, the quality of care, the huge cuts to local governments and  the need for much longer periods of care- and of course the fact that 50% of care spending is on people with disbabilities.

I think the anguish over breaking a manifesto commitment is a little misplaced given that nobody trusts Boris Johnson or expects him to be a ‘man of his word’ anyway (plus that manifesto was released in very different circumstances). For what it’s worth I broadly support the policy - the vast majority won’t notice the rise in their pay packet, the only concern is as regards those on minimum wage for whom even losing £10 per month could mean the difference between making rent and not making it.

Yes but as the ghost of Bush Snr could tell you, there is something neuralgic about right wingers and breaking "no increased/new taxes" pledges. BoJo being utterly untrustworthy on literally everything may not actually make much of a difference to that. Nor the actual proposals being widely popular.

The greedies in the press and on the backbenches will certainly moan about it, but I think if they’re faced with a choice between this and jacking capital gains and income tax they’ll take this every time.

[Cassius]

The government has almost entirely lost the confidence of the right-wing press, judging by the headlines this morning. If Labour were racking up 30 point poll leads then it would feel very like the mid-1990s.

I agree with you, but I’d argue that the conservative press had already lost patience with the government by the Summer of 2020. Apart from the respite afforded it by the success of the vaccine programme earlier this year, press coverage of the government and Johnson in particular has been almost uniformly negative since then.

[Cassius]

With all the discussion of Sunak’s ‘turn to rigour’, I’m a little surprised (in certain respects), that there hasn’t been any talk of selling off a portion of the gold reserve to retire some of the pandemic debt quickly (especially given that only a tiny proportion of the electorate would care about such a move). As far as I’m aware the BofE currently has gold assets worth about £200 billion, so selling off even half of that (a la Brown) would put a considerable dent in the pandemic debt burden. I suppose the issue here is that a) finance chappies and backbenchers would criticise the government for having gotten a bad deal since the price will no doubt continue to rise in the long term, and b) trying to replenish the gold reserve in future (given that gold rarely declines in price for long).

[Cassius]

Peter Manyum.

[Cassius]

I see the Foreign Secretary has been demoted to Deputy Prime Minister....

It’s an irrelevant post in and of itself, but I suspect it was given to Raab to avoid him walking out of the government.

[Cassius]

I see the Foreign Secretary has been demoted to Deputy Prime Minister....

It’s an irrelevant post in and of itself, but I suspect it was given to Raab to avoid him walking out of the government.

17 months and waiting...

Ah, now I get it.

[Cassius]

This year’s Lib Dem conference appears to be being held inside a broom cupboard.

[Cassius]

What is the British version of the Internal Revenue Service, the American taxman and is it reviled by the British commoners and taxpayers like how Americans hate paying taxes?

The U.S. Revolutionary War was created also because of King George's taxes.....

HM Revenue and Customs. Can't say it's reviled.

Not reviled… but not respected either.

[Cassius]

Well he is a Classicist, so he’s familiar with an economy based upon importing large numbers of foreigners to work in the fields and the salt mines (and brothels, don’t forget them).

[Cassius]

The Great Martyr to Banter has been found to have engaged in some banter himself.

[Cassius]

The comments are very ugly, but he has apologised forcefully and hasn't tried to justify or excuse himself - the general reaction from the Jewish community has been to accept this.

Note that he had previously made a point - including at the committee hearings the other day - of praising Matthew Hoggard for contacting him (privately and unprompted) to give what was apparently a  sincere apology so there isn't actually a hypocrisy issue here. There's only really a great problem if you wished to make him some sort of saint.

Quite, but the canonisation process was well underway for him, at least prior to these comments. Whilst I, personally, don’t have a lot of sympathy for him, I do at least appreciate the likes of Michael Vaughan being made to squirm after the way they put the boot into poor Ollie Robinson earlier this year. What goes around comes around.

[Cassius]

‘Victims’ don’t have to be perfect, but if they have a record of saying exactly the same damned kind of thing about others it rather renders their protestations hollow. Azeri Rafiq is a man who thought he wouldn’t get found out, whilst smearing others with the sh**t. Thing is, if you’ve spread sh**t the sh**t will stick to you. Why on earth we should take the little ing c**nt’s protestations seriously after this is another question altogether.

[Cassius]

Poor old Matty Hancock was in essence forced to hand in the towel over less than this.

Half a chance that Bo Jo will be out within hours, a full chance that the polls will show another significant shift towards Labour.

Really, you think he'll have to go because of this ?

He was genuinely awful - even pathetic - at PMQs today, if only he wasn't such a totally disreputable human being in every possible way you might even have felt a bit of sympathy for him.

But as if to show his sheer brass neck even now, Johnson is making an announcement on incoming Covid restrictions shortly. I wonder what most journalists will want to ask him about?

Do PMQ's even matter much ? I thought it was a political cliche that they don't matter.

Whilst, generally speaking, the electorate don’t tend to pay them much mind, they do matter to the MP’s in each party. To take an example, one of the key things that undermined the leadership of Iain Duncan-Smith (who led the Tories from 2001-2003 before being dumped mid term) were his woeful performances at the PMQ’s, in comparison to his predecessor and successor, both of whom, whilst they weren’t much more electorally successful, could at least, occasionally, get Blair on the ropes at PMQ’s. Turning in consistently bad PMQ’s performances is pretty embarrassing for those MP’s on your side of the bench, and that can combine with wider concerns to undermine a leadership.

[Cassius]

Who would run aside from Sunak, Truss, and Patel?

Of the cabinet ministers, Gove and Javid would probably run (and there are a few less well known faces in the cabinet like Kwarteng who might give it a go). From the backbench, Jeremy Hunt and Mark Harper (a Chief Whip during the Cameron years who ran last time and has been very active in the ‘Covid Recovery Group’) might make a go of it, whilst Caroline Nokes will probably enter the traditional “Conservative who hates Conservatives and gets fawned over by the media for it” lane.

[Cassius]

I think the chances of Johnson getting dislodged have, if anything, gone down in the last few days, as the scandals have been pushed off the front pages by ‘OMICRON REEEEEEE’. Whilst it’s true that a lot of Tory MP’s did rebel on vaccine passports, as has been noted above there was no real ideological consistency to those who did rebel (contrary to what is sometimes lazily assumed, plenty of people from the very Brexity right-wing of the party supported the measure, like Bill Cash), so there’s not really anything in this rebellion that provides a nucleus for a leadership challenge in the same way as, say, the rebellions against May’s Brexit deal did.

Of course, this could change if the party loses in tomorrow’s by-election, but as, I suspect, we’re now being put on track to go into a full lockdown some time in the new year, I really don’t see there being any good opportunities for MP’s to try and dislodge Johnson any time soon, and by the time that there are the wind will be well out of the sails of Partygate and all the other things that have dogged him for the last month.

[Cassius]

[Cassius]

Doubt anything will happen until after the local elections. We've got the recess now until January 4th (although parliament could be recalled earlier) and I doubt anyone will want to launch the party into a leadership challenge until this latest round of COVID bumf is dealt with, which might not be until February at the earliest. Potential candidates will also want time to prepare and set out their stalls, by which point we'll be heading into the local elections in May and I don't think anyone will fancy a change of PM before then, especially if it means Johnson can be lumbered with all of the blame for a bad result.

If the locals are bad for the party, then I can see a no-confidence vote being called (this will probably be the 'one more strike' that Gale alluded to) and Johnson losing, which means a fresh leadership election and a new Prime Minister by about July or August of 2022.

Of course, Johnson could be out sooner than that, if he's sunk by a scandal that forces him to resign (possible) or he could turn things around (seems increasingly unlikely, but it's always unwise to write him off). I think, realistically, if there is to be a change of leader the party has to get it done by the end of 2022/start of 2023. It's probably wise not to go too soon though, as if Johnson is in power until late 2022 then, maybe, that will finally see COVID put to bed so the next leader can focus on fresh challenges rather than being dogged by this issue.

[Cassius]

All this talk or Sunak and Patel being Tory leaders, do you think the white Tories and the Queen would want a nonwhite British premier?

We Tories are far too busy oppressing the poor and cooking up evil plans to sell the NHS to worry about American imports like race.

Sorry, race is global, mate. Race affects EVERY HUMAN on the planet. Didn't you pay attention to the England soccer team's kneeling this year?

[Cassius]

Sunak may be associated with the ‘treasury view’ of the public finances, but he’s still by far the best candidate to succeed Johnson. The rest of the senior cabinet ministers are hardly on what one might tentatively describe as the ‘economically populist’ wing of the party (if such a wing can even be said to exist), so I’m not sure if there’s much in the argument that Sunak is too far to the right on economic policy. Meanwhile, at the very least he isn’t a loose cannon (like Truss), voter repellent (Gove, Patel, Raab etc) or a non-entity (most of the rest of the cabinet) and generally speaking comes across as being on top of his brief and as a nice, decent family man (unlike Johnson). Given that whenever we change the PM we usually end up with someone very different to his or her predecessor, I think the latter factors augur well for Sunak to be the best replacement for Johnson.

[Cassius]

If true, the treasury must be salivating at the prospect of hundreds of lost deposits.

[Cassius]

Would the Green Party actually want Corbyn et al though?

[Cassius]

https://youtu.be/GLp7FGHoCIA

0.36 onwards.