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

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Chris Grayling has lost his bid to become the next chair of the Intelligience and Security Committee.

He was offered this plum job in exchange for keeping quiet & was rightly seen as a lackey for No.10 on a committee which is usually extremely non-political & vital in overseeing MI5 & MI6 (there's a fascinating comparison in oversight of the CIA & MI6)

He lost to the Conservative MP Julian Lewis, who is himself a character. But he is at least qualified & independently minded.

This is notable because the Russia report is expected to come out & because No.10 spent the last 3 months trying to find suitable backbenchers to put on here who they could trust would vote for Grayling; a serious blow for the Whips Office & No.10

And then in a characteristic display of petulance the Government has removed the whip from Julian Lewis.

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I think a by-election in this seat is a win-win for Labour actually. Lose the by-election, that's surely the final straw for Leonard and they can get someone slightly less sh!t with haste. Win the by-election... well then they've won, haven't they?

I don't think she'll actually resign though. There's nothing stopping a disgraced MP sitting out the parliament as an independent if they want.

Indeed.  (Speaking as a Sheffield Hallam resident.)

There's a tendency to overestimate the chances of a by-election when something like this happens.  Maybe she will go (the SNP definitely seem to have abandoned her) but she may well just hang on as an Independent and it's very unlikely the case reaches any of the thresholds for recall petitions.

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Given that it's my hometown seat in question, if she does step down I would expect the SNP to pick it up again. There's nothing more the SNP can do than remove the whip and they do take these things seriously.

Interested in the SNP nomination?

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Several new members of the House of Lords announced today, including one who was rejected by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, due to allegations about his behaviour a few years ago when he was Treasurer of the Conservative Party, only for de Pfeffel to override them.

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Funny we were discussing "Red Wall" Tory MPs - one of them has just "distinguished" themselves by suggesting anyone unhappy with compulsory flag worship should leave the country.

It may soon be time to remove the cordon sanitaire around the word "fascist" when discussing some of these people.

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Of course it isn't actually proper STV, it's "Supplementary Vote", a horrid bastardisation of STV/AV/IRV where you can only give two preferences and all but the top two are eliminated after the first count.

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It was generally expected (although like a lot of parliamentary rules it was probably a lot newer than people thought) that the Speakers should rotate between the two main parties- this rule was broken by Michael Martin winning in 2000, where the Labour Government supported George Young but the sizeable Government backbenches wanted one of their own & elected Martin- who was rather inept.

It was a very young "rule" indeed in 2000.  For many years until Betty Boothroyd's election in 1992 Speakers had been members of the governing party at the time of their election, and there were four consecutive ex-Tory Speakers from 1928 until 1965.  It is perhaps becoming a more established rule now, though Bercow was very detatched from his party by the time of his election and was Labour's choice.

I think Martin was a poor choice, but some of the stick he got ("Gorbals Mick") was pretty nasty stuff.

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Looking back at some constituency results, it seems fairly recent that the main parties do not contest the Speaker's seat. There were some close results; the Speaker usually did as well after becoming Speaker for that party in the seat as before.

The different parties have had different attitudes.  Bercow was actually the first ex-Tory speaker for some time not to have Labour opposition; they stood against Weatherill in 1987, Lloyd in 1974 and Hylton-Foster in 1964.  The Tories, though, have never put up a candidate against an ex-Labour Speaker, and indeed not since any Speaker since 1895.  (They were threatening to stand against Bercow if he stood again, though.)  Curiously the Liberals/SDP also stood against the ex-Tory speakers when Labour did, but not against the ex-Labour ones.

The Nationalist parties haven't stood down: the SNP stood against Martin in both 2001 and 2005, and Plaid also stood against George Thomas.

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It is sad to see the PM and his office fall so far below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves.

Dominic Cummings today.

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Unrelated to the substance of your post (sorry), how big is Mr Cummings' blog readership?

I imagine a bit more than it was six hours ago.

(But that probably wasn't very high.)

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I very much think that the flat story is the one most likely to cause damage here...

It tends to be the drip-drip of repeated stories that really does the damage, but I agree that one could be bad for him, depending on what actually happened and how much gets out.

As someone who has never got the appeal of Johnson, though, I'm not in the best position to judge what will get people who like him to change their minds.

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Edwin Poots will probably be the fundie wing's candidate.

If anyone doubts that he deserves that label, let's remember this gem from 2007 (talking to Matthew Parris):

Matthew, you're telling me that cosmic balls of dust gathered and there was an explosion. We've had lots of explosions in Northern Ireland and I've never seen anything come out of that that was good. And you look at this earth and you tell me that there was a big bang and all of a sudden all tat is good about this earth came out of it?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2007/12/are_religious_politicians_nutt.html

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Didn't see anyone point it out but only MLAs and MPs actually have a vote in the leadership election. Another rule which could potentially change states that the leader must be an MLA.

They would surely want an MLA as leader because the First Minister would need to be there.  The co-option system means it's easy enough to get someone into the Assembly, but double jobbing is banned, so anyone who's current an MP would have to resign their Westminster seat at the same time.

As well as Poots, Robinson and Donaldson, the Guardian mentions Sammy Wilson, MP for East Antrim, as a possible candidate.  I have an image of him as a bit of a backwoodsman...

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Steve Aiken has resigned as UUP leader.  He was seen as a liberal and he moved away from the idea of unionist pacts with the DUP and co-operation with the Tories in Great Britain.

For those who don't know the UUP was effectively the NI branch of the Conservatives until the Sunningdale Agreement severed the links between them.  Since then they have co-operated to varying degrees and briefly formed a disastrous alliance from 2009-2010.

Aiken basically moved away from having any links with the Tories while many Tories (particularly on the right) moved towards closer collaboration with the DUP, exacerbating the trend.

From my perspective I hope whoever is the new UUP leader will re-orientate to an ever closer union with us in the Conservative Party.

They tried that before and it didn’t go very well (though, to be fair, nothing they’ve tried since they lost their dominant position in Unionism has).  There isn’t much appetite for left-right politics in Northern Ireland.

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https://twitter.com/leonardocarella/status/1392208454853484551

Shows how strong the age polarisation has got in the last few years.

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Heavy Woollen crowd?

Heavy Woollen District Independents, a decidedly right wing Local Party For Local People who did rather well in the 2019 election there and arguably took enough votes from the Tories to stop them winning.

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Its also not a very volatile seat, going back to when it was created in 1983.

(Labour's swing when they won it in 1997 was a well below average 7%)

I think that had a fair amount to do with the popularity of Elizabeth Peacock.

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So far in the Cummings deposition Hancock is coming out very bad it seems. He really incarnates the careerist pipsqueak type of Tory I actually despise more than someone like Johnson who just assumes who he is and doesn't try to hide it.

Both barrels have been unloaded on Hancock but certain other people (most notably a certain North Yorkshire MP) seem to be getting away remarkably lightly.

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Rob Roberts, who wants to be this parliament's Jared O'Mara, has finally had the Tory whip withdrawn.  Roberts has been covered very extensively by Guido fwiw.

Perhaps there is a lottery at the beginning of each Parliament on who can be the biggest tosser. Don't know why it took so long but pleased to see.

Unfortunately it looks like the Tories will give him only a short suspension and will use a loophole to avoid a recall election.

Don't forget Damian Green and Keith Vaz for processes taking ages or going nowhere.  You would have thought that Parliament would have got the message that things need to change.

Now talk that said (it seems inadvertent not deliberate, another case of hasty ill-scrutinised legislation perhaps?) loophole may be closed - and retrospectively so that it would apply to Roberts.

To their credit some in the party do genuinely want to be rid of him - and take any possible byelection loss on the chin - but fellow Tory MPs were only yesterday falling over themselves to say what a great person he was. Genuinely unedifying.

Roberts made some friends amongst the 2019 intake early on I think.  As you say it's unedifying and he should really be resigning in disgrace.

The recall process overall definitely needs work.  Hopefully the Goldsmith plan to allow any MP to be recalled is revived.

It appears that the loophole is going to be closed and that it may be done retrospectively.  (I'm a little uneasy about that TBH, though I guess as in theory the Commons would just be able to expel him it probably doesn't matter very much.)  Rees-Mogg was suggesting that Roberts should resign.

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Marina Hyde on the Johnson cult:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/28/cult-britain-boris-johnson-prime-minister

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I'm fairly sure that anyone who worshipped Boris as part of some sort of cult is against lockdowns and consequently feels betrayed.

I don't think anti-lockdown sentiment is that widespread in the UK, especially among the sort of authoritarian followers most likely to form part of a cult of someone like Johnson.

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There comes a point where we’re going to have to say goodbye to all COVID restrictions. We can’t keep putting our head in the sand. I wonder whether it’ll end up like post-war rationing.

I can’t comment on these studies specifically, but it is extraordinary some of the data/assumptions which go into some of the scientists’ models. They deserve a lot more public scrutiny,

Sorry, can you give some examples of some of these "extraordinary" data or assumptions?

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I'm fairly sure that anyone who worshipped Boris as part of some sort of cult is against lockdowns and consequently feels betrayed.

I don't think anti-lockdown sentiment is that widespread in the UK, especially among the sort of authoritarian followers most likely to form part of a cult of someone like Johnson.

But nor is/was a cult following of Boris Johnson. Cult worshippers tend not to be very logical; hence you have them supporting various authoritarian measures whilst decrying the loss of liberty during the pandemic.

Do you deny that there's a substantial part of the UK population with an irrational liking for Johnson (who they call "Boris", of course) which is very unresponsive to the repeated evidence of his many manifest flaws?  (It appears to be well represented in Hartlepool, for a start.)  Or are you just taking issue with the use of the word "cult"?

I do suggest reading The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer (freely available online).  There are plenty worse authoritarian movements than Johnsonian populism (Trumpism for a start) but it definitely has some of the characteristics.

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Do you deny that there's a substantial part of the UK population with an irrational liking for Johnson (who they call "Boris", of course) which is very unresponsive to the repeated evidence of his many manifest flaws?  (It appears to be well represented in Hartlepool, for a start.)  Or are you just taking issue with the use of the word "cult"?

I do suggest reading The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer (freely available online).  There are plenty worse authoritarian movements than Johnsonian populism (Trumpism for a start) but it definitely has some of the characteristics.

I do think there is something of an apolitical liking of Boris for whatever reason, but I don’t think many people think he’s been a particularly good PM or some sort of saviour like the more deranged Trump supporters. I’ll admit this did exist before the pandemic and related to Brexit, but most of those people I do think are against lockdowns. Anecdotally, I know someone who is a staunch Tory Brexiteer who was a big fan of Boris back in 2019 (voted for him as party member) but is disillusioned over lockdowns and his leftward drift. He voted Laurence Fox for mayor of London.

Well, that he voted for Fox suggests that he is not very representative...

(Well, I suspect that he may be reasonably representative of a subgroup who are very politically engaged -- lockdown sceptics are seriously over-represented on the Vote UK forum -- but the sort of people I'm talking about aren't very politically engaged.)

As for Hartlepool, I suspect a lot of newly Tory voters there are aware of his flaws, but like his (perceived or real) communitarian stance and showering money on these places.

Look at the response he got when he went there.

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Gender critical, transphobic and homophobic comments are now a daily occurrence, alongside attacks on Stonewall and inclusive education.

Expect rollbacks.

There's definitely room for concern, especially about transphobia, but how representative are nasty people on Twitter?