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

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Probably throw some fairly serious investment at the North; his majority is reliant on some fairly marginal wins up there and if he doesn't want those seats to switch straight back in 2024, he'd be wise to send them some bacon.

Repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

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Most voters arguably care most about immigration rather than goods rules.

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Corbyn would be too far left even for the Democratic Party; he's more Omar or Kucinich than Sanders.

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Back in 1992, the polls were predicting a Labour minority government. For Major to get the highest number of votes for any party leader - Boris didn't quite match the 14 million tally - was a huge surprise.

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Could be Orbanism. Could be a sop to the ERG that Johnson will ignore. We'll see what legislation actually gets proposed in the Queen's Speech.

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The PM appoints the justices already, but from a pre-made list; he can only make two rejections and if he does, the third gets the position.

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Boris is already proving to be the best Tory PM since Thatcher

He's objectively the worst PM in modern history, let alone since Thatcher.

Callaghan was clearly worse and objectively so were Brown and May . He still is behind Thatcher and Blair no doubt but Major barely got anything done and Cameron undermined his own legacy.

What about Douglas-Home?

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Post WW2 is the general definition in the UK. We just call it "the war" in casual conversation.

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With no leverage in Westminster anymore, the DUP had to go back to Stormont.

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Even then, there is only a limited number of royals to go round for all the engagements. Anne isn't exactly enough young herself, Andrew is in disgrace, Edward isn't exactly hugely charismatic and a lot of the new generation are still children:

The current tree

You've also got the Queen's cousins down the line of George, Duke of Kent, but again, many of those are getting old.

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Trump threatens a lot of things, one finds. He rarely actually follows throw on them unless he knows there will be no real comeback.

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It won't go away as an issue - much as it didn't after the 1970s! - but there's a fundamental difference between 'not going away' and 'absolutely dominating'. The intelligent thing for those in favour of British membership of the EU to do now would be to scale back and let the argument make itself. Much as it did fifty years ago.

(The Treaty of) Rome wasn't built in a day[1]. I'd personally see what the future relationship looks like - I doubt a No Deal will happen - and then argue for a closer relationship. Ukraine would be a good intermediate step.

[1]I know it's now offically the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

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A Corbyn government would have ultimately done a lot of economic damage to the UK; do you think that those with the wealth would have accepted the result?

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It depends on what the trade deal looks like. Many people felt little direct impact of the EU on their daily lives except that a load of people with 'funny' accents started moving in.

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If Scotland were to become independent and join the EU, you'd need customs posts on the border with England.

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Remain's whole approach was awful and the current "you're racist, you're racist" approach done by many, which may be true, just has the effect of putting people's backs up.

The left in general needs to find a new approach.

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Terrorist attack in Streatham, London

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In terms of the EU trade deal, a lot of the public statements at the moment are probably rhetoric aimed at a domestic audience. Johnson would like to keep the ERG on side; they don't reveal their exact numbers, but there's probably enough of them to cause problems even with a majority of 85.

So he can't be seen to be caving to EU demands at this stage.

Nor can the EU be seen as giving the UK an easy ride lest it encourage other pro-leave groups to form.

Expect a lot of negotiation over what precisely a 'level playing field' means.

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Indeed. Anyway, the full rollout of Universal Credit has been delayed to September 2024. Assuming BoJo repeals the FTPA and decides to go for a 'traditional' May election in 2024, it's going to be an election issue.

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They're engaging in a massive 'I told you so'.

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And indeed his future as a free man.

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https://news.sky.com/story/labour-could-be-fined-up-to-15m-for-failing-to-protect-members-data-11931643

That would be over half a year of membership fees.

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A month or so ago we were hearing lots of chatter about how, under the direction of D. Cummings, the entire structure of Whitehall was going to change, that departments, even big departments, were to be variously merged, abolished and created. This is not that. This is just mere politics.

Even DFID hasn't gone, which would be an obvious target for the Tories.

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Yep, I suspect that the CBI and many of the bigger Tory donors will make their views very clear on this.

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Hundreds of people is not a major protest march in London.