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I reckon the whips/party chairman told him to piss off for a bit while Truss got bedded in, to stop him stirring it, and presumably some donor footed the bill.
Bloody hell!
Some absolute nutter on LBC right now. Johnson is going to save the country, it's the 2nd coming.
whilst being too young to have voted for Wilson, I was an admirer of his back then. I’d happily swap him for Starmer.
Well said! Wilson wasn't particularly left-wing as prime minister but what he achieved in such a short time and with such tiny parliamentary majorities is frankly staggering.
I occasionally hear people claim that Tony Blair is according to them the greatest Labour PM ever. Presumably that is solely down to electoral success because when Wilson's record as PM is compared to Blair's 10 year premiership, with eye-watering majorities, it appears even more remarkable.
All that possibility resulted in very little. Blair's most famous legacy is probably committing the UK to wars. Apart from all the huge reforms Wilson was responsible for he also thankfully resisted US pressure to involve Britian in the Vietnam War.
Some absolute nutter on LBC right now. Johnson is going to save the country, it’s the 2nd coming.
Was it Loadsamoney?
[ need to watch the Saturday Night Live special from last night ]
But, he remembers the war, is a huge admirer of what Churchill did in the war.
So was my dad. He walked with Churchill's coffin as a member of the Queen's Colour Squadron at his state funeral. He never got to see Johnson become PM, but I can assure you my mother sees absolutely **** all of Churchill in Johnson, and no one else should be dumb enough for fall for that nonsense either. Johnson is no Churchill.
whilst being too young to have voted for Wilson, I was an admirer of his back then. I’d happily swap him for Starmer.
Wilson? He's dead. Perhaps deal with what we have in front of us now. Seems an easy choice to me.
I occasionally hear people claim that Tony Blair is according to them the greatest Labour PM ever.
That must be very occasionally. And we've only had two in my memory.. Anyway, he's not going to be PM again. Perhaps deal with what we have in front of us now. Seems an easy choice to me.
Btw it’s interesting to note that you are on first name terms with Johnson. Are you sure that you are not a secret admirer/Tory
My mate Al, good fun for a pint down the club,although never gets a round in but not so good for running a country 🙂
So either every covid death in the UK is down to Johnson’s incompetence, ie there would not have been one single covid death if someone else had been PM.
Google disagrees.
Pro rated for population size, New Zealand managed less than the third significant figure of what Boris achieved.
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[url= https://imgbb.com/ ]image hosting[/url]
Btw it’s interesting to note that you are on first name terms with Johnson. Are you sure that you are not a secret admirer/Tory?😉
Ohh that's low.
Google disagrees.
So you want to use 'google' figures rather than the World Health Organisation's figures?
Okay we can do that WHO's figure was 192,682. Your google figure claims 208,000.
You said:
Boris’ incompetence killed 200,000.
So according to you if the Tories had had another more competent PM, despite the fact that many senior Tories including members of his own cabinet were more concerned with costs and loss of profit than Johnson, there would only have been 8,000 deaths from covid in the UK, 200,000 died from Johnson's incompetence.
Is it really feasible to claim that only 8k would have died from covid in the UK had another Tory been in charge?
And you have ignored my question when I asked you how many do you think died as a result of austerity in reference to your "I’ll take austerity" claim.
What do you think of Glasgow University's claim of 300,000 extra deaths as a result of austerity?
Ohh that’s low.
You careless forgot to remove my winky when you copied and pasted my comment, it kinda undermines your outrage 😉
So much energy wasted defending Johnson with pedantry. Why? What has he "delivered" for you?
As we’re reminiscing about Churchill, my Nan remembered his time as Home Secretary well, despite being a little girl. She witnessed the soldiers he sent to wish the Tonypandy riots
And yet, my father for example is 84, too young to have voted for Churchill. But, he remembers the war, is a huge admirer of what Churchill did in the war.
Seven years old in 1945? When Atlee won the election for labour, first chance people got to vote for a pm after the war. And Churchill campaigned on 'the fight starts now'.
(Churchill's popularity has become somewhat exaggerated.)
Tune!
The “blame” lyrics are great.
Blaming everyone in the hospitals
Blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel
Blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal
Didn’t know there was new Orbital coming… thanks.
So much energy wasted defending Johnson with pedantry. Why? What has he “delivered” for you?
Oh the intellectually lazy, how they struggle with anything beyond black or white.
Claiming that Truss is a worse prime minister than Johnson was (a claim millions would agree with) isn't "defending" Johnson, it is pointing out that another PM else is worse.
Expressing an opinion that leading leadership contenders Sunak and Truss would not have handled the pandemic any better, in fact imo almost certainly a lot worse, is not "defending" Johnson, it is criticising Sunak and Truss for being worse.
I do not for a moment doubt that if Gordon Brown had been prime minister, for example, he would have handled the pandemic far far better than Johnson. If I haven't mentioned it earlier it is because there is no point, not because I don't think someone else could have done a better job.
My opinion of the Tory Party is extremely low, my opinion of Johnson is also extremely low, as I repeatedly attack his narcissistic personality. However it is precisely this showman need to be loved which imo makes him more tolerable than many of the 8 recent contenders for his job. It was clear from the start that Truss had no interest in being popular or being liked, she simply didn't care.
If you feel that the Tory Party has plenty of alternatives to Johnson who are more competent and caring and less right-wing than Johnson then that's up to you, but I don't agree. For me Johnson has easily been preferable to Thatcher, Major, and Cameron, three very right-wing and callous Tory prime ministers who had a highly detrimental effect on the UK as they dismantled the postwar social democratic consensus.
Johnson imo is the best Tory PM since Ted Heath, but nowhere near as acceptable as Heath and even more so Macmillan. I appreciate that many feel that Thatcher, Major, and Cameron, were better, I don't agree.
And btw there is nothing 'pedantic' about pointing out the Cameron era austerity deaths when someone says "I'll take austerity", nor what the total covid deaths actually are.
Oh the intellectually lazy, how they struggle with anything beyond black or white.
You put so much effort into defending Johnson. Have been doing so endlessly on this forum for the last three years, no matter how low he sinks. No point denying it. But why? Why can he depend on you standing up for him no matter what he does? What has he done for you?
FFS change the record.
That’s what I’m asking of you. Or if you can’t change the record, explain why you have kept playing it, even after all we’ve seen of Johnson since he became leader the first time. Why expend so much time and effort on this forum defending him?
Can someone explain to me how Johnson has been on holiday for 2 months?
There was a 3 line whip the other night, how come he didn’t have attend?
Does he get some special leave after losing the leadership? Was he told to take step down by the whips or something?
Someone was explainig that on LBC the other day, basically the party will choose a constituency for them to run in, preferably fairly local to them and an easy win purely on the basis of them being groomed for PM. So no real constituency work done, basically a name on a bit of paper to say that they're the MP.
I have to question why they would allow a serial rule breaker, a PM who lied to the Queen, a constant embarrasment and someone who is still under investigation by the Common Privelages Committee for misleading parliament the chance to be PM again? I get that the old dears and racist conservative base like him, but do they really think he can win a General Election again?
Apparently he has 100 votes
being reported that he has >100 backers now (albeit only 49 declared) so can be on the paper on Monday if he chooses to. The fact he's flown back to the UK makes me think he's considering it seriously.
Could be very bad and very good. If he stands and makes the top 2 then the pensioner members will vote him back in, almost certain.
But I can't see how the PCP can unite behind him. 60-odd ministers resigned, countless others wrote letters to 1922, reversing that is surely beyond reasonable..... it would surely split the party and make a GE more likely as they fail to do any business as the infighting goes on.
explain why you have kept playing it, even after all we’ve seen of Johnson since he became leader the first time.
You don't think things have got worse since Johnson resigned, are you for real? Well I saw the other day that you posted, quote, "the polls are broken" so I guess that you might be struggling with the reality of the situation.
A reality which was totally predictable. Long before Johnson resigned I said on here any alternative to Johnson was likely to be even more right-wing and callous than he is. It really wasn't hard to predict, even without a crystal ball.
So anyway how about you explain your bizarre faith in the Tory Party which leads you to believe that any Tory other Johnson is better?
You celebrated when Johnson was forced resign despite the fact that it could only mean that he would be replaced by another Tory. How about you explain how that panned out?
You spend so much time and effort attacking Johnson claiming that another Tory prime minister would be so much better how about you explain what you think is so great about these other Tories.
The next PM will probably be Rishi Sunak, I expect his policies as PM to be significantly to the right of Johnson. His austerity programme might well please the markets but will cause untold human misery to millions struggling during an unprecedented cost of living and healthcare crises, the markets simply don't care.
How about you explain why this will represent a significant improvement on Johnson's premiership? What, according to you, is so great about Rishi Sunak?
The only way the Tories can guarantee the ability to resist an early general election is if Johnson is reinstalled as PM, a point made by Ben Wallace the other day when he talked of leaning towards Johnson because he had a mandate.
I cannot see how the Tories can have 3 prime ministers with 3 different sets of economic policies during the duration of one parliament without being forced, if only by public opinion, to go to the country and seek a mandate.
For that reason only I am leaning towards hoping that Sunak or Mordaunt become the next PM, not Johnson.
I do hope the Tories apply their customary competence to making their voting site Ddos resistant.
If johnson decides to stand and is voted in that, to me, means he will either kill the Privileges Committee enquiry through the whips' office or believes he will be cleared.
Either of those options is risky for him.
My thinking FWIW - there will not be a sunak-johnson 'dream ticket'; johnson will decide there is too much potential downside for him to stand; talk of him having secured 100+ backers is nothing more than talk designed to engineer support for him; his polarising effect will further damage the tory party and his 'legacy'; he will leave a formal announcement as late as possible; he will present his decision - stand or not - as being in the best interests of the country (and party).
Seven years old in 1945? When Atlee won the election for labour, first chance people got to vote for a pm after the war. And Churchill campaigned on ‘the fight starts now’.
(Churchill’s popularity has become somewhat exaggerated.)
Lest I be mistaken. I was not acknowledging any personal admiration for Churchill. I was just questioning the claim, that anyone voting in the forthcoming election for Tory leader, could not remember Churchill.
According to Peston it is now reasonably possible that Rishi Sunak could be declared Prime Minister on Monday.
https://www.itv.com/news/2022-10-22/how-sunak-could-be-crowned-pm-on-monday
I guess his assessment that Johnson can only win if it goes to the membership is probably correct. With that in mind I can imagine some of Penny Mordaunt's potential supporters switching to Sunak to avoid it going to the membership.
According to Peston it is now reasonably possible that Rishi Sunak could be declared Prime Minister on Monday.
What happens with Sir Boris in the case of him losing?
Does he **** off on holiday / to the after-dinner speaking circuit again or does he once again become a good and dutiful* backbencher representing Uxbridge & South Ruislip?
*it's sarcasm...
I reckon he will be waiting in the wings for Sunak to lose the next general election.
He will then step forward into the limelight to rapturous applause and offer himself as the Tory Party's saviour to his adoring audience.
His ego demands it.
You don’t think things have got worse since Johnson resigned, are you for real?
I have never said that, have I? Pretty sure I and others have already gone on at too much length about why we Johnson is so much to blame for the sorry state of his party that led to Truss as PM. That his party is now utterly unsuitable for government, no matter how they shuffle around the MPs in the ministerial roles, is down to him. This slide for his party and our country is down to him. Anyway, keep defending Johnson. Looks like you could get plenty of opportunity if the Tory members give him another shot at the top job again. It's going to get even messier whatever, now that he's made this leadership contest all about him. Ego before all else.
I can imagine some of Penny Mordaunt’s potential supporters switching to Sunak to avoid it going to the membership
It doesn't matter if Mardaunt and Sunak supporting MPs join together... if Johnson can get his 100 MPs... and refuses to stand aside for the good of [ insert anything other than his name here ] ...then the members get a vote. If it's Sunak and Johnson that are put to the party members... well... division is guaranteed, a Johnson win far from ruled out. If it doesn't go to members... the betrayal narrative grows. If he'd just stayed out of the way... they might have found a way to sort this... there's no good resolution for them now.
Why would he cut short his jolly and come back if not to inflate his already overinflated ego to be our country’s saviour ? 🙄🙄🙄🙄
Watching people on TV this morning saying ok so he “ misbehaved” ? Really is that what you call it ? As for the slimy back stabbing , self serving toady MPs who want him back they seriously need to have a word with themselves 😡😡😡😡I did hear that if he gets to run the shit show again he would be in a position to make the outstanding investigation “ go away “ Give me strength !
Anyway, keep defending Johnson.
How about you stop repeating the same bollocks and actually explain why you were celebrating the Tory Party's removal of Johnson when the alternative was very clearly more right-wing than him?
It would appear that you don't mind right-wing as long as they are competent. Many Tory MPs and Tory supporters would agree with you.
Looks like you could get plenty of opportunity if the Tory members give him another shot at the top job again.
It actually looks like it might be you who could get plenty of opportunity to tell everyone why you think Rishi Sunak makes such a great Tory prime minister. I look forward to you defending his right-wing thatcherite economic policies.
If you had actually read the Peston link whose reference you were commenting on you would have seen that Peston was suggesting that Sunak might reach 179 nominations by Monday - more than half of all Tory MPs.
The Chairman of the 1922 Committee, Graham Brady, has made it clear that if one leadership candidate wins an overwhelming number of MPs votes on Monday then the other candidates will be expected to drop out, and it is therefore quite possible that the new PM will be declared on Monday.
You might disagree with Peston's assessment and believe that Johnson will likely refuse to step aside but I suspect that Peston has his finger on the Tory Party's pulse better than you have.
But we will see what actually happens soon enough.
Ernie, i really think you should step away from the forum for a while 😁
Anyway, Richard Holden MP who was a key figure in Johnson's first leadership campaign says the 100 MPs claimed to support Johnson this time round "don't exist"
How about you stop repeating the same bollocks and actually explain why you were celebrating the Tory Party’s removal of Johnson when the alternative was very clearly more right-wing than him?
Because he is utterly unfit to be PM. Fullstop. He's shown us that. Doesn't mean I want Sunak, or Truss, or any other members of the team he surrounded himself with filling his shoes. That they supported him in government while he lied and laughed in our faces means for me that they shouldn't be in the role as PM either. We need rid of the lot of them.
Graham Brady, has made it clear that if one leadership candidate wins an overwhelming number of MPs votes on Monday then the other candidates will be expected to drop out
Sounds like that's relying on the honour of whoever the other candidates are. If it's Johnson, and he has those 100+ MPs supporting him (let's hope he doesn't)... why would he step back? Whether he does or doesn't, what happens to all these MPs saying that either it must be him... or that it should be anyone but him? The party keeps fighting... their chance to unite is blown... all so that Johnson can feel wanted. There's no good option for them now... he's made sure of that. They'll be no party unity. Roll on the election...
Doesn’t mean I want Sunak, or Truss, or any other members of the team
Yes it does because that is what the alternative is.
If it was up to me I would rather that Gordon Brown took over as PM, but that isn't option. The option is Johnson, Patel, Sunak, Truss, Braverman, etc
Even someone like Ben Wallace has no realistic of becoming PM, and not least because he won't stand.
You have to accept how things are and what the realistic choices are, not what you might wish for.
What "I want", is for Johnson to become PM again for the briefest of time, against the wishes of the vast majority of his MPs, and for the fallout of the following month or so to remove the Conservatives' working majority, forcing a General Election to happen before the end of the year... and I want him taking them into that election and facing a huge electoral failure that eclipses the success he had in 2019. That's how I want him remembered... many in his party know full well he is unfit to govern, and have said so, but want him back because he is a "winner"... I want them looking back next year and accepting he is both unfit to govern AND a loser. The public have seen what he is like as PM... they won't be giving him another win. Will there be 100+ MPs shortsighted enough to deliver that...? Doubt it... but then they let Truss go to a vote of the membership, and that was as obviously insane move..! We'll see Monday.
Kelvin, Ernie, I generally appreciate your contributions to these threads, but not when you are tearing chunks out of each other for little to no reason. Could you both consider maybe just not rising to each other's bait in the future? It'd make everything so much nicer here.
Fair. I'll shut up.
Yup, I certainly find the whole process tedious. Although I do actually avoid raising to the bait probably more than you might imagine. I generally tend to avoid reading Kelvin's post and at best scan them.
But yeah childish taunting about "defending Boris" and other such bollocks should perhaps be ignored more diligently. Point taken.
Wife and I have (for now) jokingly decided that if Boris gets back in we'll sell up and move to Scotland. I don't think she realises I'm seriously up for that.
An ernie kelvin truce?
I'll give it 24 hours.
Wife and I have (for now) jokingly decided that if Boris gets back in we’ll sell up and move to Scotland. I don’t think she realises I’m seriously up for that.
Similar conversation has occurred here too!
Point taken
Not without getting a jibe in though eh? 🙄
My wife also declared we are emigrating if Boris gets back in. I'm hoping he has it snatched away at the last minute but am resigned to another couple of years of chaos and stupidity.
MrsRNP and I have (for now) jokingly decided that if Boris gets back in we’ll sell up and move to Scotland anywhere except this dog shit strewn right wing dump. I don’t think she realises I’m seriously up for that.
We didn’t wait for “the second coming” of Johnstone before selling up and moving to Scotland - took that decision in December 2019 after the General Election. Up here Johnson is the preferred candidate as it’s more likely to result in Indy.
That's why we would be heading there - Johnson in Scotland's more than likely out...
If it was up to me I would rather that Gordon Brown took over as PM
I know what you mean. Last decent PM we had, got the economy growing again after the banking meltdown (check, it’s true) and a genuinely honest and decent guy according to those I know who met or worked with him. Shouldn’t have stuck to his assessment when he noted that woman was saying racist things.
We didn’t rate him at the time, but look at those since.
Gordon Brown's fate rested upon his failure to call an early election whilst his stock was high. We are all probably worse off owing to his hesitancy but history does tend to pivot around such moments.
We can each trace the origins of this s*** storm of one particular event or actor, Thatcher, Blair Cameron or whoever but I don't think it's very helpful. The truth is that the politics of the past decade has been shaped far more by reality TV than by the actions of previous leaders.
Boris comes in to lead the party and calls and immediate election with a promise to step down after the win. ( before the outcome of the investigation)
Apparently Johnson and Sunak are meeting now. So we'll find out what kind of stitch-up they are inflicting on the rest of us in due course.
What I don't get is what Johnson can offer Sunak, and vice versa. Both of them would only accept being PM. Neither of them would want another, inferior role at this point.
We would all have been very much worse off if Brown and Darling had not acted decisively in 2008/9.
I find it inconceivable - without being able to prove it - that the tories at the time could have come anywhere close to the level of economic and societal support which labour delivered at the time.
Not to mention their influence on the US Fed at the time.
Despite his short tenure, I think history is starting to look quite favourably on Gordon Brown.
Inky, my exact point.
Brown was a PM who said...the stit storm has hit us; we can mitigate the effects but it will still hurt - understand that doing nothing will be massively more painful.
IMO that demonstrated a high level of honesty and integrity.
He was from perfect but...cometh the hour, cometh the man
If johnson is that 'man' we're truly stuffed.
I find it inconceivable – without being able to prove it – that the tories at the time could have come anywhere close to the level of economic and societal support which labour delivered at the time.
Well there is some evidence to how the Tories would have acted had they been in government at the time by looking at how they behaved in previous severe economic crisis.
In the great recession of the early 1980s Thatcher poured petrol on the fire by slashing spending on everything but unemployment and doubling it to over 3 million.
In the recession of the early 1990s which saw the greatest collapse of the housing market in UK history John Major sat back and did nothing as the "market adjusted" leaving millions either homeless or prisoners of negative equity.
I was never a fan of Gordon Brown, for me he was the brains behind New Labour and Tony Blair was the poster boy with the mouth.
However imo there is no doubt that his, and Darling's, handling of the greatest global financial crisis since the 1930s was enormously successful and they deserve full credit for that.
So successful in fact in helping people keep their jobs and homes that many people failed to appreciate just how serious the situation was.
Although Gordon Brown lost the following general election, in part due to the lies told by the Tories and LibDems, the Tories themselves also failed to win and had to rely on the LibDems to prop up their right-wing austerity agenda.
Bearing in mind that Labour had been in government for 13 years by then and the electorate always eventually tires of the ruling party, and the official opposition party was unable to win a majority, that isn't too shabby by any means.
Blinkin’ Nora.
This has turned into the closest thing to a Gordon Brown love-in I can imagine. Like or loathe the methods he stood for, he was competent, honest and caring ad a PM.
Make GB great again.
PS - just spotted in my earlier post, it should have read that he should have stuck to his assessment of the racist comments - they were.
Yes, people finally (12 years too late) realising Gordon Brown was (at least as politicians go) a decent honest man who could calmly do the right thing.
If he'd been in charge st rhe start of 2020 I may suggest we'd have both had fewer than the 250,000 deaths( QUARTER OF A MILLION DEAD) related to covid, and maybe the economy not as stuffed fullnof debt by it.
Now in 2022 we'd absolutely not have the £ more volatile and devalued than the Turkish Lira or the mahoosive pension scheme losses of the past few weeks.
(Think about that - BT pension lost £11 BILLION in the past 2-3 weeks. If that scheme goes tits up, its the tax payer that has to step in to fill the gap. And the same with many more.
MoreCashThanDash
Full Member
Wife and I have (for now) jokingly decided that if Boris gets back in we’ll sell up and move to Scotland. I don’t think she realises I’m seriously up for that.
Similar conversation has occurred here too!
We also had this conversation over tea tonight. Suspect that I was being more serious about it than Zoe... Apart from my Scots dad meaning I do have roots up there, I'm really feeling pretty angry (and I'm normally very chill) about the prospect that anyone would even consider BJ coming back as PM as anything other than a REALLY stupid joke of a suggestion.
This country (well, a small but weirdly important part of me) is starting to sicken me more and more. Even though I'm a 'child of Thatcher' I feel more pessimistic about the state of things right now than I have at any other point in my life so far.
I hope johnson gets in, the government collapses again in a couple of months and Charles does what he gets paid to live in all them castles for and dissolves parliament, then the electorate decimate the tories and a center left coalition get in with a ginormous mandate to fundamentally rewire the british system.
unfortunately it'll be bullshit, bankrupt schools, powercuts and queues for bread
I voted no at the last indy ref. and also no for Brexit. But I've got to say the more this government carries on the more likely I am to vote yes if there is another indy ref. The prospect of Bojo back in, never mind any Tory is just too much.
If ever there was a time for Charles to say enough is enough and have a GE it would be now surely.It could even save 'The Union' long term if that happened.
It currently sounds like the Johnson team are publicly stating they have 100 backers, while desperately still cold calling MP's trying to rustle up support in the background. It is basically a template for his whole political career, a facade of public bravado and bullshit covering over reality.
@longdog - same here. As soon as the Brexit result was announced, I knew an independent Scotland was inevitable.
I think now the dust has settled a bit that the tories that wanted clown back in are starting to realise that he would probably wreck the party from inside. Even the right wing press that have supported him are acknowledging that, although I still suspect he will want to go forward and try and have another crack at being PM.
However imo there is no doubt that his, and Darling’s, handling of the greatest global financial crisis since the 1930s was enormously successful and they deserve full credit for that.
I'm being unashamedly lazy here so apologies, but my F.i.L (and subsequently my wife) keep trotting out statements about Gordon Brown selling off gold reserves and doing something damaging to pensions, what are they talking about exactly?
(will go Google also)
I still suspect he will want to go forward and try and have another crack at being PM.
Not against that.....
1/ answer the various standards allegations / investigations against him and let's see if he's fit to be an MP let alone PM
2/ stand again for party leader once the outcomes are known and via a proper leadership contest, not a cobbled together coronation.
3/ have that validated by a GE when the public are also appraised of the man's character (good or bad, let's find out by the appropriate standards committees, etc.)
If after all that he has another crack at being PM, he'll have got there honestly and we'll deserve it for good or bad.
independent Scotland was inevitable.
Will never happen.
Would require delicate discussions and debate between mature and reasonable government. I have some degree of faith in Nichola Sturgeon in this respect, less in the SNP as a whole. Less said about the current Westminster lot the better, could you imagine Braverman, Hunt, Johnson etc. engaging in any sort of meaningful debate? They'd probably see a robust put down as red meat for the Daily Mail and the ERG types.
Interesting article on Conservative Home website by Paul Goodman about the way the nominations and voting works. Basically suggesting that you should not take any public declaration of support by an MP as being the way they actually will vote. That cuts two ways for the candidates
even Brady won’t know how his colleagues vote in the event of an election. An MP could declare that he is supporting a candidate, nominate another…and vote for yet another. Meet “the most sophisticated electorate in the world”.
Tell him he can run if he gets a ****ing haircut and combs it every day.
TBH I don’t see why Javid Savid doesn’t get as much the love as much as Richie Sunass.
His principles to not sack his advisors cost him his job and put the tax fiddling junior on the podium.
Not that I have love for either, I can’t see either of them pulling a chicken out the hat to sort out the mess their party have presided over without joe public getting a beating.
As much as I don’t,like Savid much the only reason I think we have Richie is due to amount of Wonga he has influence over with his missuss(and appeal to the Tory party) not his stellar finance acumen.
Tell him he can run if he gets a **** haircut and combs it ever
TBH looking at the holiday pics, I don’t think he could physically run anywhere nowadays, he does seem to be enjoying the good life.
As opposed to his attempts to lose weight after covid, which were important then.
I wouldn’t normally body shame but he’s on my shit list for Brexit and handling of covid and conning a nation.
Oh no mate, it's okay, that body is shameful.
3/ have that validated by a GE when the public are also appraised of the man’s character (good or bad, let’s find out by the appropriate standards committees, etc.)
I think you're crediting the electorate with far too much intelligence. I've got colleagues at work who were practically cheering at the return of the honking pudding. They think all his "shenanigans" are a good thing!
I’m being unashamedly lazy here so apologies, but my F.i.L (and subsequently my wife) keep trotting out statements about Gordon Brown selling off gold reserves and doing something damaging to pensions, what are they talking about exactly?
Gordon Brown's gold reserve sell off is a standard line trotted out by Tory supporters to criticise him. IMO it is irrelevant to his handling of the international credit crisis.
Gordon "no return to boom and bust" Brown got a lot of things wrong imo, including his obsession with alleged wage driven inflation/government subsidies of low wage employers, the drive for private sector involvement/commitment to the free market, but to his undeniable credit he threw the neo-liberal rulebook out of the window, as many other governments also did, when the international credit crisis hit the UK.
He and Alistair Darling were highly successful in pumping money into the public sector to prop up the private sector thereby, along with other measures such as slashing VAT, saving an incomprehensible amount of jobs and unemployment never reaching the expected levels.
Despite the crises being far worse than the one inspired by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s unemployment never reached anywhere near the over 3 million which occurred under her premiership.
Gordon Brown was willing to allow socialism to once again save capitalism in a crisis, for which he was later punished. It is hard to imagine that Thatcher, Major, and Cameron, would have been so responsive - Thatcher made her crises worse by taking money away, Major sat back and did nothing during his crises when people were losing their homes and were trapped in negative equity, and Cameron decided to create his own crisis as soon as he became PM by introducing brutal austerity which caused countless misery and unnecessary deaths.
Johnson did, it has to be said, significantly allow socialism to come to the rescue during the crisis caused by the pandemic, other Tories would undoubtedly have taken a trump-like light-touch denialist attitude, but I don't think you are allow to say anything vaguely positive about Johnson on here.**
Gordon Brown's sell off of UK gold reserves whether right or wrong is pretty irrelevant in the whole scheme of things, the figure his accusers use is less than £5 billion, how does that compare with the size of the UK economy?
The previous Tory Chancellor promised to spunk £45 billion on unnecessary tax giveaways, with even more later, before being unceremoniously sacked.
Edit: ** To be clear I have no doubt whatsoever that a Labour PM, any Labour PM, would have coped with the pandemic better than Johnson. Before I get the predictable accusation that I am a Tory/Johnson supporter.
The fact that there seems to be some "senior" Tory MPs who are saying that while they're with and support Johnson, they won't do so publicly until 1. He declares he's actually in the race and 2. He's got >100 votes.
Neither which is there with about 24 hours to go.
Johnson did, it has to be said, significantly allow socialism to come to the rescue during the crisis caused by the pandemic, other Tories would undoubtedly have taken a trump-like light-touch denialist attitude, but I don’t think you are allow to say anything vaguely positive about Johnson on here.**
- Johnson's main competitor to lead the party in 2019 was Hunt. During the heights of the pandemic he consistently called for the government to do more earlier, not less later (we were less prepared for the pandemic partly because of his actions while in government.. perhaps it was guilt that led him to call out Johnson's government for not being interventionist soon enough once it had hit).
- Johnson's main competitor to lead the party in 2022 is Sunak. During the heights of the pandemic he, er, did those things you're crediting Johnson with. If the furlough scheme etc was "socialism", then it was devised and delivered by another Tory, not Johnson.
Our pandemic response was often too late because Johnson, personally, did not want interventions, and delayed and delayed 'till he could delay no more. The price was high. The price paid wasn't purely down to the conservatives being in power, Johnson was and is responsible for those delays in taking necessary action.
[ I said I'd shut up, but this continued reassessment of Johnson's pandemic response is pure hokum ]
For what its worth, the cashout figure on my bet on Johnson being the next PM has been going up continuously
Make of that what you will
I'm not cashing out.
Despite the party grandees desperately trying to avoid it, this looks like a Rishi/Johnson run off being put to the membership and theres only going to be one winner there
At which point I'll put another bet on Johnson being out before Christmas
At which point I’ll put another bet on Johnson being out before Christmas
Wish someone had given me odds on two new PMs before the year is out during the period of mourning.
The gold reserve sell off was massively overstated. He did sell at exactly the wrong time for gold, but then invested in US securities at exactly the right time, so it ended up overall bad, but as Ernie says in the grand scheme of things it was peanuts. By current chancellor standards (pick any of the recent ones) the losses were tiny.
In fact the size of the gold loss pales in comparison to the pension fund tax he introduced (or rather tax break he got rid of). That cost pension funds a lot of money but they were already a house of cards ready to collapse, he just didn't see it - his tax took a lot of money out of the system and precipitated the curtailment of final salary pensions (which to be honest were always a bad idea) as well as help create some black holes in some pension funds. The reality was though that the intention was he was taxing the 'excess' which it turns out wasn't really there, but because of the way they were leveraged with so many complex finance deals, it looked like they were in rude health, but when 2008 came along I suspect it would have unravelled either way as it all fell apart.
It's worth noting on that while it was generally bad idea in hindsight, the size of the pensions hole completely dwarves the tax raid from Gordon Brown. They were totally inadequately capitalised to cope with the increasing life expectancy of their defined pension recipients, nor were they protected against the wild fluctuations in the market we've seen in the last 20 years. Further, subsequent to the pension tax increase, they (the funds, the gov, companies, individuals) have done very little to increase contributions, and the UK still lags miles behind everyone else in that regard.
So in conclusion, yes GB did some stupid stuff, yes he shouldn't have done it, no in the grand scheme of things its not that important, even for pension holders.
I didn't vote Labour in 2010... looking back on the fallout of Brown leaving government... a big mistake.
I’m not cashing out.
For what it's worth, I'd cash out now. What can you get at the moment? What will you get if he becomes the next PM?
Johnson’s main competitor to lead the party in 2022 is Sunak. During the heights of the pandemic he..
Outrage as prime ministerial hopeful says science advisers failed to acknowledge trade-offs of Covid restrictions
Conservative leadership contender Rishi Sunak has come under fire for claiming it was a mistake to “empower scientists” during the Covid-19 pandemic—sparking outrage from academics.
According to the former chancellor, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies—which provided the government with scientific advice during the pandemic—had too much influence on decision-making.
Graham Medley, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the government had the power, “so if one member of cabinet thinks that scientific advice was too ‘empowered’ then it is a criticism of their colleagues rather than the scientists”.