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

[Zinneke]

Turns out the arrested MP's victim is male and oh, who'd have thunk it, the MP has voting consistently against gay rights. Tories are honestly the massive deviants and hypocrites they think the rest of society are, aren't they?

[Zinneke]

Honestly from what I can see BoJo is only still in place because he can act as a sponge for the coming economic hardship and they get rid of him just before the GE to run a clean candidate. They cannot seriously be thinking that with his approval ratings he can lead them into a GE. May also lasted because everyone wanted her to pick up all the dung thrown at the political class for Brexit.

[Zinneke]

https://www.politico.eu/article/tony-blairs-new-centrist-program-just-dont-call-it-a-party/

Blair and his attempt at a vaguely centrist-but-not-LibDem establishmenty party idea is like a turd that will not flush, is it?

[Zinneke]

So, weird observation. The Cabinet are out in force, defending Johnson to the hilt. Even quiet, low-key members like Alister Jack and Therese Coffey. Raab and Rees-Mogg have done prime time interviews on TV, and Dorries is doing exactly what you’d expect on Twitter.

But Priti Patel has been absolutely silent all day. Wonder whether she’s extracting some concession from Johnson, or is just keeping her powder dry.

Odds are we’ll get a statement of support shortly, but still - odd that the rest of the cabinet had a statement out by 11am, and she’s still laying low.

Waiting for her handlers orders

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1533909268860215298

This somehow makes sense- the 12 month wait basically means that resignations are the only way you can try and remove the PM. It’s why Theresa May saw a number in the last 7 months of her terms- people will suddenly find things to resign over.

I'm just curious why these government resignations aren't expected 'til tomorrow. You'd think that it'd make more sense to resign immediately & make the morning shows in order to put even more pressure on BoJo than has already been applied.

David Davis resigned at some ridiculous time (well after midnight) over the May deal.

Iirc he did that to outflank BoJo as they were playing a game of chicken over whether to stick with May or resign.

[Zinneke]

If the SNP does go ahead with it's "advisory referendum", then would the unionist response be to boycott it ?

Yes, of course.

I'm sure it will go every bit as well as the Catalan one did.

The Spanish government response was to beat up people putting pieces of paper in boxes. I imagine the police in Scotland are more civilized.

Can imagine a scenario where Johnson makes the most of it though by stripping Scotland of devolution.

[Zinneke]

what do we think of Boris getting a blowie during work hours by his then mistress now wife and offering her a job as chief of staff at the FCO during that period? In any other country it would have been the talk of the town.

[Zinneke]

Is sex in the office a sackable offence in the UK?

[Zinneke]

For all of you excited for Boris' hopefully imminent demise, just remember that one of the first things that the new PM will do will likely be the implementation of "true conservative policies" to please the base.

Hope you're all on board with that. I can't wait for a swing to the right.

The fact that you continue to see politics as a football match while your party expose themselves as corrupt sexual assaulters tell us all we need to know about the median Evangelical. By their own standards some of these Christians will burn in hell.

[Zinneke]

Zarqawi has done Truss like a kipper. She resigns know she looks foolish for backing Johnson just for the Chancellor gig.

Playing Liars Poker level stakes now

[Zinneke]

Zahawi what a slimeball trying to hatch on the Grey Suits brigade.

[Zinneke]

Zahawi what a slimeball trying to hatch on the Grey Suits brigade.

Zahawi Deserts.

This is a guy who ran a political polling company and couldn't see the writing on the wall yesterday evening.

I genuinely hate him and all these other Tory opportunists more than Johnson

[Zinneke]

Sacking Gove is such a chad move. Staying with a skeleton cabinet...I almost admire him. He has to go down in legend.

[Zinneke]

65 MPs is More than enough for a Cabinet. I’m on my third wine now and I’m we’ll and truly backing the Johnson low tax high spend Caudillismo over the psychopaths plotting against him. Go Boris!

[Zinneke]

Is GB News conservative/right-leaning? Kind of like the UK's Fox News or am I wrong?

Right wing but not necessarily pro-Johnson

[Zinneke]

I'm actually pretty shocked Boris is going down over what he is for. These sandals sound so minor in comparison to everything from the Trump Administration...a reminder other countries actually have some standards.

Different standards. No US President would have survived with Boris’s sex life. You guys are also insanely puritan.

[Zinneke]

So, where does Johnson rank compared to his two predecessors? I, for one, called both Cameron and May among the worst in British history, and I knew it wouldn't be long before he usurped them both for that title. Can the streak continue?

Cameron is still the absolute worst. His Brexit Referendum gambit to shut up the Eurosceptics within the Tory Party put the UK on its current path. That's not to say that there should not have been a referendum (because, clearly, Brexit had/has widespread support), but there should have been a **plan** in case leave won.

Cameron was not individually at fault for the Brexit mess - he led the Conservatives to a narrow victory on the strong and stable message and once that happened no Tory leader could have resisted the Brexiteer wing of the party that was baying for blood. May and Johnson have to own this political disaster alongside Baker and the other hardliners who never seem to get their hands stuck into governing.

[Zinneke]

So, where does Johnson rank compared to his two predecessors? I, for one, called both Cameron and May among the worst in British history, and I knew it wouldn't be long before he usurped them both for that title. Can the streak continue?

Cameron is still the absolute worst. His Brexit Referendum gambit to shut up the Eurosceptics within the Tory Party put the UK on its current path. That's not to say that there should not have been a referendum (because, clearly, Brexit had/has widespread support), but there should have been a **plan** in case leave won.

Cameron was not individually at fault for the Brexit mess - he led the Conservatives to a narrow victory on the strong and stable message and once that happened no Tory leader could have resisted the Brexiteer wing of the party that was baying for blood. May and Johnson have to own this political disaster alongside Baker and the other hardliners who never seem to get their hands stuck into governing.

He was responsible:

• He promised the referendum in 2013 to try to avoid facing a leadership challenge, with no intention to go through with it because he assumed the Lib Dems would force him to drop the pledge during coalition negotiations.
• He then won a majority by deliberately knee-capping the Lib Dems.
• He ran a tone deaf campaign, aimed at ensuring Tory voters voted Remain and that those who voted Leave didn't get too angry with him, whilst failing to realise that in a referendum you need to get 50% and so you have to try and win the support of non-Tory voters.
• When the result happened, he promptly ran away.

His successors handled things very badly, but it's Cameron's fault that it ever happened.

Let's just pose a counter-factual though : is there a single Tory leader who would have been able to act in a different manner than Cameron did? Any Tory moderate was hamstrung by the fact that the Brexity wing of the party, basically since Lisbon, wanted a referendum. You can't seriously blame Cameron for "knee capping" the LibDems : was he supposed to lose another election on purpose in order to force a second Con-LibDem coalition , which incidentally would almost certainly trigger a leadership election and a member of the hard Tory right taking over.

I'll accept he ran a catastrophic campaign for Remain with his deal from Brussels but is there a single Remainer politician who hit the right notes at that point? It is extremely hard to sell a positive vision of the Brussels bureaucracy. Its there, its useful but nobody outside anoraks and the new generations of Brits who were travelling abroad for studies, erasmus, etc (comparatively low compared to other EU countries) were deeply passionate about defending EU membership. So he went into the campaign gambling that people would vote according to their pocketbook and failed miserably. But I don't see how he should have stayed on, gone back to Brussels (in almost Tsipras-like manner) and tries to negotiate a project he didn't believe in. His position was totally untenable but that was due to a) having a 10 seat majority which is the best result any Tory could have hoped for from 2015 and b) the entire media circus around the EU, Brexit, Johnson in the background etc. I don't actually think Cameron is in any way a coward or a useless gambler. His Scottish referendum is to be admired (he could have gone down the populist route like the PP did in Spain) and his Brexit referendum was inevitable once he had a small majority. Really Cameron was a bad PM because of austerity, which was a massive macroeconomic miscalculation based on a message (popular with the British electorate) that the reasons for the 08 Financial Crisis and economic stagnation was public expenditure.

He is by no means worse than May, whose stubbornness and Hard Brexit turn + insane GE gamble cost Britain massively in negotiations and Johnson who was totally out of his depth. If you had Cameron at the helm during Covid crisis for example and Britain would have fared much better, compared to Johnson's lies and indecisiveness.

[Zinneke]

Honestly if I was a Conservative strategist I would rather have Nadine Dorries who does have a rather hilarious sense of humour as leader rather than someone like Braverman who is basically the Conservative Richard Burgon e.g someone on the ideological fringe who comes across as extremely stupid despite their law degree.

This implies a law degree is some sort of indicator of intelligence in most cases

[Zinneke]

https://mobile.twitter.com/robpowellnews/status/1547123763422035969

I've seen multiple pictures of Sunak brandishing a brief case in such manner.  Is this a tradition of some type?   

Yes when the Chancellor presents their budget.

[Zinneke]

Reading between the lines there it seems (as I suspected at the time) that they were seriously preparing for a Dismissal if it came to it. It is utterly extraordinary that we reached even that point - this is not a thing that is supposed to happen, ever.

Anyway for those who are not aware, one of the many peculiarities of this country is that the Eye is genuinely the best source for accurate and half-accurate briefings and gossip from the Palace and has been for decades. This is largely because the people who run the magazine went to the same Public Schools as all the senior flunkies and courtiers.

In what circumstances do you think they would have pulled the trigger?

Johnson calling for a snap election.