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

[Pericles]

It's a sign of the times that my reaction was 'well that's good but it could be higher.'

https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1482442842437992450
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1482442710984368130

Woah.

Worth remembering the 1997 vote was:

Labour: 43%
Conservative: 30%
Lib Dem: 17%

And that the 2019 election was largely the reverse (Con 43%, Lab 32%, LD 7%)

While Labour may possibly be at a high water mark right now (subject to a post-scandal correction, and a new PM’s honeymoon period), it’s incredible to think what a change of political fortune this polling represents.

Which of course is the big question mark that I as an outside observer have right now: When Johnson goes (he's gonna fall eventually, it's hard to survive long being underwater with your own base voters) and a successor cabinet comes in, will the situation return to respectable Tory leads, or will this be the turning point that Starmer needed to finally make his competent government pitch applicable and desirable? Its hard to imagine in the latter situation that the leads would remain this big, but it is imaginable that they persist and there becomes a "government in waiting" - Labour had poll leads for almost all of Major's five elected years as PM.

I think the new PM would get a poll lead for the first few months. After that, whether they fall behind like Gordon Brown did in 2007 or not depends on their own strengths and weaknesses and not much on how Boris did.

[Blair]

I think I have a hunch but why are so many members of Living Marxism now conservatives?

[Torrain]

Which of course is the big question mark that I as an outside observer have right now: When Johnson goes (he's gonna fall eventually, it's hard to survive long being underwater with your own base voters) and a successor cabinet comes in, will the situation return to respectable Tory leads, or will this be the turning point that Starmer needed to finally make his competent government pitch applicable and desirable? Its hard to imagine in the latter situation that the leads would remain this big, but it is imaginable that they persist and there becomes a "government in waiting" - Labour had poll leads for almost all of Major's five elected years as PM.

I think you're on the money with the Major comparison, and that the years surrounding the Thatcher-Major transition is probably a decent metaphor for the current situation, if Johnson is dethroned in the coming weeks. You have a Tory PM who's gone from being a proven vote winner to an outright political liability, with a number leadership candidates plotting in the corridors of Westminster.



As you can see from this polling average, Major's installation as PM in 1990 erased Labour's polling lead, but he failed to re-establish a clear Tory polling lead in the remainder of the parliamentary term. Aside from a several month period directly post-election, he'd trail Labour by ever-larger margins for the remainder of his premiership.

The only other two PMs to take over while their party was trailing by five or more points in the polls since were Gordon Brown and Johnson himself. (I'm discounting May because she was always leading in the polls, and inherited a healthly polling lead that she expanded and then collapsed - a totally different environment).

Brown (starting in 2007) initially followed a similar track to Major - briefly regaining the polling lead from the opposition, before he slumped permanently into second place. The polling average was notably unstable though, predicting everything from a close race to a Tory blowout (2008 financial crash says hi).

 

And finally, Johnson's 2019 appointment completely changed both the polling and political environment, taking the Tories from a virtual 4-way tie with Labour, the Lib Dems and the Brexit Party (it was a strange time - see the final UK EU Parliament election to get a sense of just how barmy), and lead to a steady rise that culminated with his December election result.



TLDR; There are a couple of different examples we can use to speculate about what political environment a Boris successor might inherit. But we should expect a brief but significant honeymoon period (likely accompanied by pledges to clear house, and the firing of unpopular ministers), followed by some uncertainty.

[YL]

I think I have a hunch but why are so many members of Living Marxism now conservatives?

They were already functionally on the Right (in a libertarian sort of way) 20 or more years ago.

[CumbrianLefty]

Worth remembering the 1997 vote was:

Labour: 43%
Conservative: 30%
Lib Dem: 17%

And that the 2019 election was largely the reverse (Con 43%, Lab 32%, LD 7%)

GB-wide shares (which have been used for most British opinion polling for 40 years or more) say that the 1997 result was 44/31/18, and the most recent GE 45/33/low teens.

[TheTide]

Lots of criticism about the pre-DoE funeral party. Does anyone doubt that the DoE himself would have approved of such a thing? Then again the DoE had a stronger sense of humour than most.

[Torrain]

A couple of observations this morning from Tony Diver, Telegraph political correspondent. He broke the story about the party on the eve of the DofE’s funeral, so he’s got at least some credibility as a source:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tony_Diver/status/1482837422375321605
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tony_Diver/status/1482840352109248513

[CumbrianLefty]

I think I have a hunch but why are so many members of Living Marxism now conservatives?

They were already functionally on the Right (in a libertarian sort of way) 20 or more years ago.

The formal disavowal of orthodox Marxism was in the mid-1990s I think.

Though the continuities are arguably at least as important as the differences - anybody who came across the RCP back in the 1980s will recall what a tightly knit and downright weird cult it was. They *all* said the same things, *all* the time.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1483121953166835714?s=20

[LAB-LIB]

Lots of criticism about the pre-DoE funeral party. Does anyone doubt that the DoE himself would have approved of such a thing? Then again the DoE had a stronger sense of humour than most.

Maybe not while his wife was all alone.

[Blair]

A couple of observations this morning from Tony Diver, Telegraph political correspondent. He broke the story about the party on the eve of the DofE’s funeral, so he’s got at least some credibility as a source:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tony_Diver/status/1482837422375321605
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tony_Diver/status/1482840352109248513

It doesn't make much sense as the letters can always be put in the post...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lots of criticism about the pre-DoE funeral party. Does anyone doubt that the DoE himself would have approved of such a thing? Then again the DoE had a stronger sense of humour than most.

He would have found the scandal extremely funny (it being exactly the kind of darkly inappropriate farcical situation that he was known to enjoy), but he would not have approved.

[Suburbia]

Johnson is a damn disgrace.

But it seems like all British institutions are failing and falling.

The British monarchy, the British premiership.....

It looks like the British colonizers have met their meter.

Colonizers fall too. They fall hard.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/world/europe/boris-johnson-prince-andrew-royals.html

[Blair]

He’s not very good is he?

https://mobile.twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1483341767869177856

[CumbrianLefty]

A reminder that he actually ran for leader last time.

[beesley]

Speaking of which, there was an interview in which Jeremy Hunt said he would take a lot of persuading to run for leader again. Which begs the question how many of the losing 2019 candidates would run in a potential leadership election. If you include the dropouts there are 10 (Johnson, Stewart and Gyimah couldn't run).

[Blair]

It is very strange how much of the coverage of the no-confidence vote focuses on the 2019 intake with the constant refrain that they owe the PM for getting them elected.

This is not actually true as there are quite a large number elected in safe seats. I can’t remember the exact figure but a fair number of these MPs would still have won even if the Conservatives got 25% nationally.

Besides if you’re in a marginal under 5K all you’ll be doing is looking at the PMs favourability numbers atm.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1483492018907234305

And another comes forward - the first 2019 MP to jump ship.

Notable that the MP in question, Christian Wakeford, represents Bury South, the 10th most marginal seat in the country (majority of 402).* Perhaps the first truly endangered MP to nail his colours to the mast.

I was literally about to make a post agreeing with Blair's point that marginal MPs have the least reason to support Boris, and then Wakeford makes the point for me...

Also given that Wakeford submitted last week, I have to wonder whether this meeting was truly a 'discussion' about the future, or just him flat-out lobbying against Boris. If Hunt, Sunak, Truss etc have recreated MPs to start whipping votes, surely this is what it would look like?

[Blair]

Wakeford was reported to have had rather choice words for Paterson & was on LBC last week as a critical voice of the PM- I know the ship has sailed but I don't really count Bury South as 'red wall'. It was a seat held from 1983-1997 by the Tories & had a very narrow majority in 2010.

But still this is significant- The rumour mill is spinning and getting very excited; ofc 24 hours ago we were told that it was calming down and Boris would be fine.

The age of the people saying that was obvious- they said it was fine because the 'Sundays' (the Sunday newspapers to non-UK posters) were not bad, when well the Sundays haven't exactly been driving political energy for about a decade or so. It's mostly just Westminster tittle tattle rather than serious leaks. But I digress...

[Blair]

I will say despite the obvious glaring holes in the British lobby and their ethics and so forth the last few weeks have been a demonstration of why Westminster is much more fun to observe in a political sense than the US congress- I honestly can't think of anything that comes even remotely close in the US congress.

Imagine if all we had was listening to Steve Baker talk outside his House Boat.

[beesley]

It is very strange how much of the coverage of the no-confidence vote focuses on the 2019 intake with the constant refrain that they owe the PM for getting them elected.

This is not actually true as there are quite a large number elected in safe seats. I can’t remember the exact figure but a fair number of these MPs would still have won even if the Conservatives got 25% nationally.

Besides if you’re in a marginal under 5K all you’ll be doing is looking at the PMs favourability numbers atm.

Most of the seats characterised as being won by Boris are red wall seats. I think I mentioned elsewhere (either here or on another social network) that I would argue the number of flipped seats that were *not* heading Tory/easy flips anyway and could still stay Tory (Great Grimsby) or Brexit/Corbyn/lucky flips that come across as more inevitable losses next time (Bury North, Stroud). So I'm not sure this line is really important in practice as the number of seats you can really attribute to Boris is quite small. But I can hardly make my argument out to be fully supported - it's all guesswork.

[beesley]

Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel - and they have been truly dark times.

[YL]

What do we think happens next if the letters come in, but Johnson fairly narrowly wins the confidence vote?  (Say about 200 to 160.)

[Continential]

https://twitter.com/electpoliticsuk/status/1483547353495842817?s=21
It has begun.

[Cassius]

What do we think happens next if the letters come in, but Johnson fairly narrowly wins the confidence vote?  (Say about 200 to 160.)

Plotters and leadership aspirants look like:



ie embarrassment and disaster