but for some reason the RW press are suddenly calling him out on it constantly.
They want someone more right-wing and committed to austerity. They didn't have a problem with Cameron, even when he didn't manage to win a general election after 13 years of Labour rule.
what I don’t get is given that Johnson’s past is littered with speeches that he’s fluffed, why this one’s still a story 48hrs later?
Because after the Paterson shambles there's blood in the water, when you look strong a fluffed speech is a non-issue, when you look weak you can't afford to fluff anything.
Johnson's personnal appeal was a huge part of the Tories success in 2019, much as he seems to be floundering now, he's not going to be that easy to replace and 3 of the 4 leading contenders look unlikely to do well.
Hunt was a remainer, a cardinal sin for the very very Brexity membership.
Sunak looks competent and is currently the most popular with the wider country but will that hold up once people get hit with the NI rises in April? Also, when you've spent the last 5 years actively courting the racist-bellend vote don't be surprised if those same voters run straight back to the clutches of Nigel Farage when presented with Rishi.
Gove is like the anti-Johnson; clearly intelligent and competent but zero common touch or public appeal. Plus he's backstabbed half the party at one point or another so hardly well liked.
so.... Liz Truss, who's not disliked by the general pubic so much but I only suspect that's mainly because 90% of people haven't a clue who she is. Suspect she's the most likely to get in but that she'll crash and burn once the full glare of public scrutiny is on her.
Time will tell.
Hunt is not competent. Ask those who suffered when he was a minister.. neither is Gove. They only look vaguely competent alongside Truss and Raaaaaaaab
Who claimed that Hunt is competent?
The question was Johnson's likely replacement.
Competent or not depends what you're trying to achieve doesn't it.
Ernie
Several posters seem to think so
Really? I would be interested in knowing the basis for that claim. Obviously Cameron was well impressed with Hunt.
Although I suspect for some people an ability to use a comb is probably sufficient.
Rishi as PM, isn't another bout of Tax rises and austerity going be a little hard to bare for the electorate when the guy enforcing it has a net worth of over 200 mil?
Although I suspect for some people an ability to use a comb is probably sufficient.
Ernie, your continued admirable effort to try and divert criticism of Johnson, using every trick in the book, is fascinating.
Rishi as PM, isn’t another bout of Tax rises and austerity going be a little hard to bare for the electorate when the guy enforcing it has a net worth of over 200 mil?
He's raising NI disproportionally on the working poor early next year. He's just changed the health and care bill to make it so that those with very little assets don't get the same protection as the more well off if they need care. He's just slashed plans for infrastructure spending in the North of England. So it's already underway, with Sunak in charge of taxation and spending, yet the mud isn't sticking to him, which is interesting.
I agree Ernie
I find your deference to Johnson absolutely fascinating. The man is an incompetent lying philanderer. Why you defend him i find weird.
Tugging your forelock for a toff? i am surprised
Sunak will not get the tory leadership unless its a coronation. Remember that under their rules if there is more than one candidate it goes to a vote of the membership. too many ruthlessly ambitious people there to allow him that coronation so it will go to a vote of the membership and the racists will ensure he does not get the leadership
Sunak is very popular with the members.
So the polls say but voting for him as a leader - I would bet my house they would not if given a choice of him and say Hunt. the racism running thru the party and especially its activists make me confident that is so
All this aside - I am starting to think that Johnson actually wants to get fired!
Although I suspect for some people an ability to use a comb is probably sufficient.
Ernie, your continued admirable effort to try and divert criticism of Johnson, using every trick in the book, is fascinating.
You don't recall me describing Johnson as a narcissistic attention-seeking clown? How selective your memory is Kelvin.
And I have no idea why you think me drawing attention to Johnson's apparent inability to use a comb somehow constitutes diverting criticism away from him. That really is bizarre.
Johnson is a Tory prime minister, I never defend Tory governments.
However I am always determined that criticism is based on actual fact.
And the fact is that if Johnson is replaced he will almost certainly be replaced by someone more right-wing than him, and most certainly not more left-wing.
Johnson is not a true politician and consequently he is not a true Tory. He is a clown, a showman, who happens to have chosen politics/the Tory Party as a vehicle for his act. And like all showman he craves to be loved by his audience.
He didn't choose politics because he wanted to change the world, he chose politics because it offered him the limelight.
He has without doubt shifted the Tory Party more to left than any other time in the last 40 years. He has done that because without the handicap of ideological commitment he has been able to see the serious limitations of neo-liberalism, and he also accepts that the people he wants to love him are no longer prepared to swallow austerity.
Yet despite all this people who claim to be anti-Tory are so blinded by their hatred of Johnson that they are willing to accept a more right-wing Tory prime minister. For these alleged anti-Tories a more competent Tory prime minister is the primary objective, if they are more right-wing it is apparently a price worth paying.
For those who doubt the right-wing lurch that will take place post-Johnson just look at the recent comments in the right-wing press, the Tory Party kingmakers :
We can all now see why he was so desperate to protect Cummings. Without him, the lack of leadership and ability is glaringly obvious to all.
I would bet my house they would not if given a choice of him and say Hunt.
Bet something far smaller! I suspect we'll find out, and that will be exactly the choice they get given to make. And I wouldn't risk betting more than 2p on Sunak losing that. Could go either way.
He has without doubt shifted the Tory Party more to left than any other time in the last 40 years.
The pandemic caused a spell of support for people and businesses unlike any of recent decades. That's over. Wake up to what that means for the worse off in society, this lot of Conservatives are making sure the burden falls on then. Nothing "left" about the last budget, or any announcement since. Nothing "left" about Johnson. Or Sunak.
I think we underestimate just how toxic the accusation of being a 'Pro-EU' will be for Hunt, who campaigned for Remain in 2016. The lack of Brexit ideological purity is partly what did for May after all and the party has largely purged itself of anyone with moderate values on that matter since she left.
I actually think Sunak will play pretty well with the parliamentry party (Who are less bothered about race and just want a winner who'll cut taxes and regulations) and the wealthier parts of the country, but amongst the activist base and up in the red wall...
There's an an outside chance of a Sunak coronation to avoid the public spectacle of swathes of the membership going full BNP in order to reject him but my money's still on Truss or a random stalking horse that nobody's talking about yet.
how toxic the accusation of being a ‘Pro-EU’ will be for Hunt
It will be. But less so now that we are no longer EU members... Johnson "got Brexit done"... the selection criteria members use won't be quite the same as last time.
Good defense Ernie
However your postings on Johnson come over as deferential forelock tugging to me and I do not accept that Johnson pulled the party to the left - he has no ideology. He has not really pulled the party to the left - just spent money he had to and the covid support was very much directed to the richest
Nothing “left” about the last budget, or any announcement since.
Well if you can't see the last budget as significantly to the left of all other Tory budgets of the last 40 years you have outed yourself as a political illiterate.
And it puts you at odds with political commenters right across the board - from left to right.
Of course you could be right Kelvin and all those comment writers in the Guardian, Independent, FT, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, etc could be wrong. So you stick with it if that's what you really believe.
you have outed yourself as a political illiterate
Why thank you. High praise indeed.
Good defense Ernie
Thanks TJ but I'm not defending anything.
You say you would prefer Johnson replaced with Sunak/Gove/Hunt (I am assuming that you understand that the next leader of the Tory Party won't be a Labour Party member) I say that I would rather Johnson wasn't replaced.
You claim to hate the right-wing but you appear to prefer a lurch to the right under Hunt, a man who is totally associated with the failed policies of austerity.
And of course a lurch to the right in the Tory Party would almost certainly result in a lurch to the right in the Labour Party.
with Sunak in charge of taxation and spending, yet the mud isn’t sticking to him, which is interesting.
Yet despite all this people who claim to be anti-Tory are so blinded by their hatred of Johnson that they are willing to accept a more right-wing Tory prime minister
I think the electorate might still be in the honeymoon period with sunak, due the to the furlough scheme. He was seen very visibly to be spending (tax payers) money on things. Plus he's quite dishy and sleek compared to the average tory MP - he can string a scentence together.
I don't think it's dawned on a lot of people lower earners that the removal of the £20 per week universal credit and the the social care grab on older peoples houses is going to ablsoutley shaft them, and thier children and grandchildren.
Not to mention increasing their NI next year (while cutting the taxes the banks pay).
Good defense of your position I meant Ernie
You say you would prefer Johnson replaced with Sunak/Gove/Hunt
NOpe - never said that. I want him to struggle on losing more and more credibility and to lose the next election badly then get taken to court for his corruption. I want him publicly humiliated, ruined and disgraced
quite honestly I don't really care too much any more about the westminster parties. All cheeks of the same arse.
Currently we have a choice of Tory, tory enablers, tory lite or green and green have no chance of real power under our pseudo democracy at westminster
I want him publicly humiliated, ruined and disgraced
So it's really a personal grudge against someone.
Personally I couldn't possibly care less about Johnson. He is not important to me.
In contrast my ideal scenario would be for Johnson's new Tory direction/strategy not to be discredited, that would be a disaster which could signal the return of austerity.
Much better if the Tories and Labour were competing with each other to offer voters a credible social democratic agenda.
Back in the days before Thatcher both the Tory Party and the Labour Party were social democratic parties, the differences being that the Tories was a business friendly social democratic party whilst Labour was a worker friendly social democratic party.
I would be happy to embrace that situation once again. And before anyone says 'ah but this is 2021 stop living in the past' it should be remembered that reflects much of current European politics today. And as I understand it what they do in Europe is apparently the benchmark.
So it’s really a personal grudge against someone.
dunno if that is the right description but I loathe tories with every fibre of my being for the immense cruelty they have deliberately inflicted and the endless needless deaths
Its not personal to Johnson - I would wish that on any tory PM
Not sure I would describe the pre thatcher tories as "social democratic" but I know what you mean - they used to sit around where the CDU do in germany or not much further to the right than that compared to the far right racist party of hatred they have become.
If Johnson is discredited and loses th enext election then we get a labour government
But other than my loathing for tories I really have little interest any more with Westminster.
My ideal scenario is that Johnson struggles to hold on while discredited, Stays to the election while the tories squabble behind him, loses the election really badly destroying any credibility of the tories. they splinter and he is personally disgraced and ruined. Boom - happy TJ as thats the end of the tories for a while and Johnson for ever
Unlikely I know but one can hope
Not sure I would describe the pre thatcher tories as “social democratic” but I know what you mean
Well my definition of social democracy is a mixed economy and universal welfare state. The post-war consensus was very much based on that.
OK
thats not the definition I would use. I shall go and read up see what others think
Edit - I think you need a socialist stance to be social democratic. And that seems to be an accepted definition
thats not the definition I would use.
I think we also have quite different definitions of fascism TJ so that is not entirely surprising 😉
My impression was always that Ted Heath was to the left of Tony Blair.
Similar sort of place after his first term. Blair was always a tory in the wrong party. He was interested in power and wealth and thought joining the labour party was his best way to acheive that. Certainly the most right wing labour leader I remember
I can't remember the details now, but I seem to recall that in the 1970's Heath and Thatcher fought over the very soul of the Tory Party (Thatcher of course winning out and starting the slow erosion of the post-war consensus).
All this aside – I am starting to think that Johnson actually wants to get fired!
Perhaps that is correct - he'd be able to charge more on the after dinner speech circuit if he got fired. If he simply lost the election, it might damage the brand.
Unlikely I know but one can hope
Yup. I doubt his ego would allow him to go into a situation where he thinks the chances of losing are high and, unlike trump, he isnt completely deluded so would be able to assess that realistically.
thats the end of the tories for a while
Seemed like that when Blair was up against Hague, IBS & Howard. How times change!
Yep he thinks that if he gets fired he can hold a rally then get his loyal ****wits to storm parliament.
Jacob Cream Cracker stripped to the waist and wearing a top hat with some antlers attached to it.
Personally I couldn’t possibly care less about Johnson. He is not important to me.
> checks thread title <
Are you sure you’re posting in the right thread?
Unlikely I know but one can hope
It’s the hope that gets you.
If he simply lost the election, it might damage the brand.
Interesting point. Would he be worth more if ejected by his party, rather than having lost an election? I think you might be right.
he isnt completely deluded so would be able to assess that realistically
I often wonder if Gove really did “put the knife in” when Johnson was going up against the others to replace Cameron. Or if he knew he didn’t have the support to win at that point, so wanted to pull out of the race to avoid losing, and to do so without looking frit. Johnson and Gove have been very supportive of each other since.
Rich_s, if johnson moved to the after dinner circuit he would be so permanently pissed he would be dumped after his first couple of gigs - and that's before he starts get handsy with waiting staff and female guests.
Would be fun to watch - from a distance; pity the poor bastards who have to get close to him.
What a repugnant thought.
Fathers - lock up your daughters; johnson's in the house tonight...
Husbands - lock up your wives...
A sweating, fumbling, mumbling, groping lump, spouting random latin phrases, stinking of booze and BO...
'stinking of booze and BO…' and wee (apparently). I'd prefer him to carry on disgracing himself and his party. A smoother operator would enhance their chances of re-election. Austerity is not necessarily a vote loser. Look at the state of poverty in Cornwall and they continue to elect Tories. Same in France, everywhere you go you see businesses offering pain.
Personally I couldn’t possibly care less about Johnson. He is not important to me.
> checks thread title <
Are you sure you’re posting in the right thread?
So only people who feel Johnson as an individual is important to them should post on this thread?
Only people who have strong personal and emotional feelings about him should express an opinion?
Well I guess that does indeed probably reflect your attitude Kelvin.
Truss v Sunak
I think Truss will win, she is seen more as a party person than Sunak and more likely to do their bidding...
Sunaks personal PR campaign is not well received in his (my) constituency, no flyer or social media from Sunak mentions the Tory party or contains their logo. Rishi is not a "party" man Rishi is a "Rishi" man
His propaganda that drops through the door is all about "him" and what 'he" has done for the country. The word Conservative, Tory etc is absent and he had his arse kicked this year by Tory central office for the above approach.
I think he might have built up few enemies and is no longer the shoe in he thinks he is, also the Tory faithful round here thinks he a bit of "spender" and gives too much to the great unwashed.
