This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Unless Sunak is personally compromised, he isn't stepping down or leaving before the election. I can't even explain a rationale for a challenger beyond desperation to appear in the "List of Prime Ministers" Wikipedia page - if you hate sunak, you simply wait for the grenade to go off, not take it from him and swallow it.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Wasn’t Sunak supposed to be the “competent” and low-drama Tory PM in contrast to his immediate predecessors?

I suppose the party’s fate at the next election is sealed regardless…

[CumbrianLefty]

Unless Sunak is personally compromised, he isn't stepping down or leaving before the election. I can't even explain a rationale for a challenger beyond desperation to appear in the "List of Prime Ministers" Wikipedia page - if you hate sunak, you simply wait for the grenade to go off, not take it from him and swallow it.

Though if it *does* happen yet again before the next GE, at least the "lucky" recipient will know they aren't likely to go down in the record books as "shortest ever serving PM in the UK" any more.

[Torrain]

Three Tory MPs announced their retirement at the next election during the mad weekend where Johnson, Dorries and Adams resigned:

Will Quince is the member for Colchester (Tory majority of 9.4k). His seat was Lib Dem until 2015, but seems to have developed into a Tory-Lab marginal, which has (with the exception of 2019), come down to a tight 5k majority for the Tories ever since they first one it. Quince is an odd duck - he's rolled from one ministerial post to another, resigning in the anti-Johnson wave of June 6th, only to accept a new appointment the next day. He was sent to the Health Department under Truss, and has stayed there under Sunak.

Royston Smith is the member for Southampton Itchen (Tory majority of 4.5k). Itchen is a seat with a large student population (I'd know, trust me) and covers a large part of the city. It came down to a mere 31 vote majority in 2017, so this one looks pretty dire for the Tories under current polling. Beesley could probably give you all a better run-down than I could. Smith himself is a pretty strident Leave advocate, and has made a number of clumsy comments to constituents and the media at large.

Bill Cash is the member for Stone (Tory majority of 19.9k). Ardent brexiteer, one of the original Maastricht rebels, and the oldest MP (83), I honestly expected him to be a 'lifer' at this point. More could be said about his role in the ERG's "star chamber" of lawyers, his meandering approach to speechcraft, and his prominence during the Brexit debates. But that's probably a job for someone else.

[TheTide]

A lot of MPs who have been at least semi-important players at various points over the past three decades or more are either standing down or are more likely than not to no longer be MPs after the next general election. In addition to Cash there is Harman, Corbyn, Abbott, Beckett, Hodge, Bradshaw, Cruddas, Brady, Hancock, Javid, Raab, Blackford, Lucas...Hunt and Shapps are at a big risk if theres any kind of Tory defeat. I'm probably missing some names.

[CumbrianLefty]

So the - utterly devastating - BoJo report by MPs recommended a *90 day* suspension. Wow.

[TheTide]

So the - utterly devastating - BoJo report by MPs recommended a *90 day* suspension. Wow.

He'd have been suspended for three William Henry Harrison presidencies or two Liz Truss premierships.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

LOL Boris Johnson

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So, apparently, it is a very bad idea to flagrantly lie to a committee that is investigating you for lying.

[TheTide]

Come on, everyone knows that e.g. Bernard Jenkin is a raving leftie Remoaner stitch up artist.

[CumbrianLefty]

Well at least we now know why he quit as an MP as soon as he was shown its findings.Though this will also inevitably raise questions over Sunak waving through most of his resignation honours list.

[Pericles]

Boris must have had a reverse Midas touch to so completely alienate the committee, even the Tory MPs must be furious at him.

[CumbrianLefty]

BoJo describes the report as "rubbish" and "deranged".

And he still has his obedient simps, including on the Tory backbenches.

[Torrain]

It’s been a long three and a half years - definitely wouldn’t have called Jenrick outliving Johnson in government.

[Torrain]

Lucy Allan is standing down as MP for Telford (Conservative majority of 10.9k) at the next election. While she won a healthy majority at the last election, her previous two wins in 2017 and 2015 were uber-marginal, at 720 and 730 votes respectively. Was comfortably Labour during the Blair years, and stayed Labour by just over 900 votes in 2010.

Allan’s statement is very much calibrated to stress she’s not running *in Telford*, so sounds like she might be about to try the chicken run to somewhere safer.

Not much to say about Allan’s career. Brief staff bullying scandal, a lot of talk about her libertarian instincts (which informed her approach to COVID) and one time she posted an edited video of Starmer that implied he had chosen not to prosecute grooming gangs. 

Until/unless she’s selected somewhere else, she represents the 40th sitting Tory (with the whip) to retire at the next election.

[EastAnglianLefty]

She can try elsewhere, but it's hard to see what she has to offer that would appeal to other associations. South Shropshire (currently known as Ludlow) will be an open seat but I doubt she'll have a shot at that. Maybe she could try for North Shropshire and hope for a swingback?

[Pericles]

She can try elsewhere, but it's hard to see what she has to offer that would appeal to other associations. South Shropshire (currently known as Ludlow) will be an open seat but I doubt she'll have a shot at that. Maybe she could try for North Shropshire and hope for a swingback?

It was such a safe seat before the by-election that it could plausibly be like Christchurch in 1997-the seat had the biggest by election swing against the government in modern history but it was regained by the Tories despite the landslide.

[CumbrianLefty]

Not much to say about Allan’s career. Brief staff bullying scandal, a lot of talk about her libertarian instincts (which informed her approach to COVID) and one time she posted an edited video of Starmer that implied he had chosen not to prosecute grooming gangs. 

She also doctored an email sent to her, so that it looked like she had received a death threat.

[Torrain]

Eddie Hughes, incumbent MP for Walsall North, has been selected for Tamworth at the next election (he's one of those who's been searching for a safer seat).

Which begs the question - if the incumbent member for Tamworth, currently under investigation by the Standards Committee, where to be suspended and a by-election triggered, would the local association pick a new candidate?

And if the new Tory candidate won the by-election, would they then face-off against Hughes in a *third* selection process for 2024?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is rather amusing given all the stuff about how he was so honourable to stand down after the division of his constituency and so on. Hahaha.

[Oryxslayer]

Eddie Hughes, incumbent MP for Walsall North, has been selected for Tamworth at the next election (he's one of those who's been searching for a safer seat).

Which begs the question - if the incumbent member for Tamworth, currently under investigation by the Standards Committee, where to be suspended and a by-election triggered, would the local association pick a new candidate?

And if the new Tory candidate won the by-election, would they then face-off against Hughes in a *third* selection process for 2024?

And is Tamworth really so safe after the locals?

[Torrain]

And is Tamworth really so safe after the locals?

I mean, nowhere’s *truly* safe for the Tories in this environment, given even seats like North Shropshire can be lost.

But yeah, the locals showed some particularly dire results for the Tories in areas represented by scandal-hit MPs (see the results in Andrew Bridgen’s patch for another example). Tamworth fits nicely into that column. Would have been interested to see what that council would look like if the whole, rather than only part, had been up for election this year…

[CumbrianLefty]

Now looks like at least three Tory seats up for re-election on July 20th.

[Torrain]

Steve Brine is standing down at the next election.

His constituency of Winchester has a majority of only 985 vote over the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems, of course, won this after a very rare re-run in 1997 (with the LD majority jumping from *2 votes* to 20,000 between general election and by-election), and held it until 2010.

Brine himself was one of those who lost the whip in 2019, but reconciled with Johnson in time for the general election - then went on to be a prominent anti-Johnson rebel last summer. He’s currently in a bit of trouble over lobbying from the healthcare industry, which, given his chairmanship of the Health and Social Care committee, hasn’t been received well. I believe he’s still under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

[JimJamUK]

Normal day on GB News:

https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1672312068047773698?s=61&t=I1DE8_cg7...