UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero (user search)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 02:51:14 PM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Politics
  International General Discussion (Moderators: afleitch, Hash)
  UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero (search mode)
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6
Poll
Question: What should the title of this thread be
#1
BomaJority
 
#2
Tsar Boris Good Enough
 
#3
This Benighted Plot
 
#4
King Boris I
 
#5
The Right Honourable Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero
 
Show Pie Chart
Partisan results

Total Voters: 37

Author Topic: UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero  (Read 283653 times)
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« on: February 13, 2020, 07:05:33 AM »

Javid has just resigned, after Johnson demanded he sack all his advisers and replace them with No. 10 nominees.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2020, 06:14:43 AM »

Part of the issue is that Johnson's ratings were weaker than his underlying political position, because a significant section even amongst his voters considered him to be a bit of a clown, but still better than the alternatives. So taking a vaguely sensible line and being given an opportunity to appear statesmanlike had more potential upside for him than many other leaders.

Another part of the issue is that he gets very favourable press coverage anyway and that applied even more so in the early stages of the outbreak, where the rally round the flag effect probably affected journalists most of all. Given that there do still seem to be significant problems with testing and PPE availability and given that a lot of the measures he got plaudits for initially are fairly likely to unwind in quite a nasty way, it's an open question whether this will continue.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #2 on: April 08, 2020, 04:55:02 PM »

If Gove were even halfway trustworthy, he'd be the obvious choice, but if he wasn't self-isolating he'd probably have been caught sneaking into the hospital with a Do Not Resuscitate letter, so you can see why Johnson didn't pick him...
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2020, 05:44:04 AM »

Most of the press are currently talking about the lockdown having to continue for weeks longer, with a sense of evident disappointment about this. Meanwhile, the Welsh government have just extended the lockdown and made clear they see no sign of it being possible to end it any time soon, because they've actually been paying attention.

One of the issues is that before Johnson got hospitalised, a lot of journalists in the general Telegraph/Spectator orbit were still downplaying the virus (and if he wasn't PM, it's fairly clear Johnson would have been with them) and they're still more sceptical about the lockdown than most, although another issue is that, as Stephen Bush puts it:

Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #4 on: April 27, 2020, 03:20:21 AM »

Lenin had some useful insights, even if he also did some bad things.

Pretending he was no different to Stalin/Mao just shows up those who make such an ahistorical claim.

Come off it. This is just London Young Labour's committee making yet another attempt to demonstrate their loyalty to the crank faction, in the hope they can graduate to jobs with Unite and/or retweeting antisemites from the main Young Labour twitter account.

Lenin was brutal dictator and you can't give somebody bonus points for not being responsible for the Holodomor. He's still a figure that a democratic socialist party should have no truck with. I mean for Christ's sake, this is a man who called for support of the UK Labour Party "like the rope supports a hanged man." Approval of Lenin is just about the biggest tell there is that somebody does not have the best interests of the Labour Party at heart.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2020, 04:57:50 AM »

Again, it's London Young Labour. This is fundamentally a story about people's reactions to having too much time on their hands during lockdown, it doesn't tell you much about the party as a whole.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2020, 06:34:53 AM »

I've never understood the venerance of Sands in that community; the man was a terrorist who committed suicide because he was unhappy about wearing a uniform.

It's reasonably simple - he's one of the very few IRA prisoners known more for his actions in prison than the things that got him locked up in the first place.

Though I'd note that it's not like there's much reluctance about lauding the prisoners who are primarily known as killers either.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #7 on: May 07, 2020, 03:26:45 AM »

None of us here are saying that, but this sort of stuff makes it harder for Labour to get its message across.

Also, I'd argue that at least two countries have had worse responses. They're both former Soviet states.

It hasn't made its way into the news, it's just a minor Twitter spat. By the time the usual suspects in the press can get airtime for stories like this, it's highly likely that the current faction will no longer be in control of London Young Labour.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2020, 02:26:11 PM »

After a day spent trying to scrabble together a defence for Cummings, it's just been blown apart by news that he broke quarantine whilst in Durham, and then went back up there after he'd been back to London. This really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #9 on: May 24, 2020, 11:38:58 AM »

Johnson is currently doing the daily press conference himself, whereas ordinarily they're farmed out to a minor Cabinet minister. Defending Cummings to the hilt and insisting that any parent would understand. This seems to be a line deliberately designed to piss off anybody in the country who has had a medical emergency in the family in the past month.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #10 on: May 25, 2020, 12:28:39 PM »

Maybe this will look silly in 24 hours, but I don't think he has "closed this down".

It looks to have been enough to get the more monotonously partisan Tories to fall in line, but it's not going to convince anybody else. The question then becomes whether they're a majority of the parliamentary party and what people are and aren't willing to do when he keeps refusing to resign.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #11 on: May 26, 2020, 04:21:57 PM »

In a week of low bars Hancock has committed to look into the issue of everyone who was fined for travelling with children.

True banana republic sh**t to retrospectively change the law to allow a Government aide to get away without resigning.

Although he was then contradicted by a government source within half an hour. It's a mark of how chaotic things are that that isn't a bigger story.

Meanwhile, the Times have a YouGov poll saying the Tory lead has been cut to 6 points (from 15 points last time.) The headline figures haven't been announced, but if that's replicated then there is going to be some serious nervousness in the Cabinet.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #12 on: May 26, 2020, 04:37:51 PM »

Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #13 on: May 30, 2020, 04:11:46 PM »

In general, it's fair to say that people have been worrying more about R increasing as lockdown is relaxed, and less about why the number of cases remains stubbornly high. This is almost certainly a mistake.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #14 on: June 02, 2020, 10:45:44 AM »

In the continuing clownshow that is UK politics, MPs are back in Westminster today voting on whether to continue to allow MPs to participate remotely.

The historical practice was for MPs to vote by walking through one of two lobbies to be counted. These lobbies are far too narrow for social distancing to be practicable. As an interim measure, the government allowed online voting and participation in debates under lockdown, but they have declined to continue this. As the historical practice still isn't feasible, they hit upon a replacement method whereby MPs would queue in a socially distance manner through the Palace of Westminster (for the best part of a kilometre) then announce their vote in the Commons chamber, one by one. This is certainly dramatic, but it's extremely slow and means it's very difficult for MPs shielding due to health issues, with childcare responsibilities or representing areas a long way from Westminster to participate.

The first test of the new system was a vote on whether to use it or to junk it in favour of the online system, which had worked tolerably well. There were a lot of Tory rebels, but not enough to bring back online voting. So it looks like we're stuck with ridiculous queues for the foreseeable, at least until Coronavirus starts circulating in Westminster again and the system falls apart.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #15 on: June 03, 2020, 06:45:28 PM »

Meanwhile the Business Secretary is self-isolating after displaying coronavirus symptoms at the dispatch box.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #16 on: June 04, 2020, 03:08:16 AM »

Meanwhile the Business Secretary is self-isolating after displaying coronavirus symptoms at the dispatch box.

So does that mean that BoJo is gonna have to self-isolate for 2 weeks again? Because one can obviously still spread it through contact regardless of one's immunity.

Hard to tell. Initially Tory sources were reporting it wouldn't be a problem anyway, because everybody was more than 2 metres apart. Which a) isn't actually true and b) is not what the self-isolation guidelines say, but then again why would either of those 2 things be a surprise any more?
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #17 on: June 08, 2020, 09:01:21 AM »

While in government the Conservative Party is about as ruthless as it gets when it comes to retaining office by any means, and that absolutely means ditching (the brutality and willingness of it varies) any Prime Minister that is eventually percieved to be an electoral liability, regardless of how successful the PM in question has been, and certainly regardless of whether they won a landslide or not.

They did it to Thatcher after three victories when she became a liability, missed doing the same to Major by three votes (plus the alternatives were likely to do worse, not better), would have done it to Cameron had he not resigned (no matter how much some pretended to lament his resignation), and they only failed to do it to May much earlier out of a combination of A. plotter incompetence; B. May being so incredibly stubborn; C. a number of "lucky" coincidences preventing May from being ejected right after 2017.

Long story short, the moment Boris is percieved to be a permanent electoral liability - and he seems to be doing an excellent work in that area - they'll ditch him about three seconds with no remorse and no regret whatsoever. Whether they get away with it this time is probably going to depend on whether the Tory brand becomes tainted "Black Wednesday" style by the pandemic response, since from the looks of it they won't have an incompetent opposition to work with.

The bold attempt in the second paragraph notwithstanding, this take has not survived contact with the May government.

There is a very good chance that Johnson does not fight the 2024 election, but if that happens it's because he decides that he doesn't want to put in the hard work and/or is scared of the reputational damage from losing. If there's a party coup, it will do enough damage to the party that any replacement is going to be tarnished anyway.

The golden age of the men in grey suits is over. It worked with Thatcher because she had some idea of duty to the party. It didn't work with May, but she took the view that "l'état, c'est moi" and it won't work with Johnson because he has no sense of duty to anybody.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #18 on: June 08, 2020, 04:54:56 PM »

I always feel that Scottish Labour's biggest problem is that people like me within Laboru (born in London & visited Scotland a grand total of 9-10 times on holiday) naturally now feel the need to defer politically in how the operation is ran up there to people in Scottish Labour- yet the only people left in Scottish Labour are the die-hard fanatics who didn't quit out of frustration/ideological anger/insanity.

I say this as someone who voted for Ian Murray!

Actually thinking about Labour's approach up there feels much like how it does thinking about the Liberal Democrats approach to politics; the events are out of your control, there's a much bigger & more powerful party on your territory, your brand is ruined over a generational event, you have absolutely no bench or talent and you lack any actual importance in the political debate.

There's a lot to be said for this - I put Murray last precisely because he was the candidate of the Scottish party establishment and that's the last voice we need to hear more from.

I think the best thing for the Scottish Labour Party would be a sustained campaign of entryism to deselect a lot of the timeservers and get some fresh blood in. 2015 shouldn't have been a shock, because the Scottish party had been sclerotic for decades and its foundations were built on sand - we lost Glasgow East in a by-election in 2008 because we'd taken it for granted for decades, then people were surprised in 2015 to find that our voter ID there was so bad that (in the words of one staffer shipped up from London to Glasgow to the campaign) "there are parties that don't exist yet which have a better idea of where their vote is than Scottish Labour do."

I spent polling day 2012 getting the vote out in Aberdeen, which consisted entirely of going to sheltered housing towerblocks and checking the residents had sent their postal votes in. The local activists celebrated a surprisingly good result (2nd in votes, a narrow 1st in seats) like they'd won Enfield Southgate. If you gave me your average CLP in a hopeless rural English seat as a campaign team, we'd have won a majority with room to spare.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #19 on: June 13, 2020, 01:55:01 PM »

The protests in London to "protect the statues" went as well as expected.  A load of EDL and other far right goons went down to London, were kettled around Westminster, drunk a lot of beer, tried to fight with the police, there were arguments between All Lives Matter and White Lives Matter people where the former perhaps realised the people they were allied with were dodgy; there was a literal river of urine running from a hidden corner where everyone went to relieve themselves, the Tesco by Parliament was closed by police to stop them from buying all of the booze in the shop etc.

The Black Lives Matter counterprotesters stood behind police lines and laughed at what, quite frankly, was a pretty sad group of people.  Seems to be most of the far right goons you see at things like this plus some new people who broadly seem to have not quite realised they were getting themselves in for and who didn't like the fascists.

Not all of them. One of them, in a picture that's sure to make at least one front page tomorrow, went for a slash next to the memorial for the police officer who died protecting Parliament from a terrorist three years ago.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #20 on: June 16, 2020, 06:53:50 AM »

The bigger news today is that the footballer Marcus Rashford has been conducting a very successful campaign to pressure the government to continue provided free school meals to eligible pupils during the summer holidays.

The government is currently refusing to do so and flagging up other spending commitments it has made, which is odd given that it's a very popular campaign and the additional spending it would require is not very high. There's an Opposition day debate on the issue today. Most people expect the government to U-turn, but if so it's a mystery why they haven't done so already.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #21 on: June 16, 2020, 07:23:10 AM »

And they've now backed down. Does flag up the government's continuing inability to read the public mood in good time, though.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #22 on: June 19, 2020, 02:22:24 PM »

The SNP do not have Labour's best interests at heart. They care about Scottish independence. Where this is helped by supporting a Labour government in Westminster, they'll go along with it. Where there's a political advantage to not supporting Labour, they'll do that. We're not all one big happy family.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #23 on: June 21, 2020, 03:06:59 PM »

I think probably the fairest thing to say about it is that it's a genuinely cross-factional product - meaning it has enough in it for everybody to accept it, but that accordingly in pulls punches in multiple directions to avoid antagonising elements of the party.

Most takes I've seen on it from any faction have been either, "This proves what I was saying all along" or "This fails to denounce my opponents sufficiently", which gives you some idea of its likely utility. Though that's not necessarily the fault of the report, obviously.
Logged
EastAnglianLefty
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,566


« Reply #24 on: June 24, 2020, 03:25:06 PM »

I can't see Jenrick resigning. The Cabinet Secretary's investigation has been closed on the say-so of the PM and Johnson seems to be working on the basis that nobody resigns for anything.

Which is perhaps unsurprising when you consider he's been fired from two jobs for dishonesty.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6  
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.048 seconds with 11 queries.