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Whilst I’d like to believe this is plausible I fear the second part of the statement might not be the “massive vote winner” you & I hope it might be…..
I'm inclined to agree. Make haste slowly. I know that doesn't sit well with our left leaning idealists, but fannying around arguing about idealigical purity keeps condemning us to Tory rule.
It seems Johnson is trying to get some anti-French mileage out of the Liverpool game. A few facts then.
It was Liverpool that demanded the paper tickets that were fraudulently copied and resulted in "fans" getting past the initial police check and blocking the stadium entrance gates when they weren't let in. Thousands of 'em.
Half of the 27 people arrested were Brits.
Of the 52 pickpockets and other delinquents arrested around the stadium in the course of the day there were 42 French, the others were European from Italy, Spain... and a couple from North Africa. None were Roma.
The root of the problem was the Liverpool demand for paper tickets far too easy to copy. French games usually rely on smart phone technology that has so far been fraud proof.
Just watching C4 news and it seems the French Interior Minister is trying to get some anti-aEnglish mileage out of the Liverpool game as well.
No doubt that the paper ticket issue was the root of the problem but their is also no doubt regarding the Frnch Police tendency towards paramilitary style thuggery!
Could be one of those situations where two wrongs make a wrong...
It was Liverpool that demanded the paper tickets that were fraudulently copied and resulted in “fans” getting past the initial police check
BBC journalist on 5Live now confirming from personal experience other reports that there were no initial ticket checks at an outer cordon in quite a few areas around the ground, the only checks were at the turnstiles.
Not disputing there may be an issue with fraudulent tickets (though some of the estimated numbers from Police and UEFA are ridiculously high) but seems like there were some fundamental failures in the system that must have made it worse.
Probably better discussed on the football thread though.
Caller on LBC just now with Iain Dale complaining that he's sick of remainers putting the boot into Johnson and its all their fault that things are going so bad when he's doing such a good job.
These ****ers need lobotomising to stop them doing us further harm
When in Rome, eh.
I was in Spain over the weekend, when then was a police car parked at a roundabout I slowed to walking pace and only picked up speed again when the Guardia beckoned me through. In France I'd just go around the roundabout normally unless they put a hand up to stop me. Go to a football match or a manif' in France and you expect there to be "paramilitary style thuggery" if there's trouble and as the Minister pointed out the arrests tell us the inhabitants of 92 weren't the thugs causing the trouble the police responded to.
Probably better discussed on the football thread though.
Posted 8 minutes ago
After two pages of metric imperial debate you reckon football is off topic ! 🙂 even when the spat was started by johnson at which point the French interior minister took umbrage at the lies.
Northwind, your rudery is forgiven. May I apologise profusely for not having seen it.
I'm pretty sure Liverpool haven't forgotten the article he edited and approved (and refused to apologise for) in the wake of the Ken Bigly murder in Iraq.
Looking beyond his shit hair and crappy suits that rotten mutha ****er is really starting to age. Suspecting / hoping that when he wakes up in morning the first thing he thinks is ‘awww **** not again’ gives me immense satisfaction.
****.
He look like a whisky on his cornflakes man - and he is going bald fast
Yep, he's definitely going for a comb-over isn't he.
Remember that Hamlet advert in the photo booth? A spoof of that would make a good party political broadcast by anyone other than the Conservative Party.
I can hear the background music as I type...
Front cover of the Yorkshire Post. One of those collage pictures made up of people who obeyed the rules showing a PM who didn't. There's a lot of anger in the "red wall" seats that he won at the last GE.
https://twitter.com/JayMitchinson/status/1531370957683793922?t=3U-KHioSz3ZcZ9cbpsxqAg&s=19
Last picture like that I saw was made up of many sphincters forming a person. This one is made up of many people forming one giant sphincter
Front cover of the Yorkshire Post. One of those collage pictures made up of people who obeyed the rules showing a PM who didn’t. There’s a lot of anger in the “red wall” seats that he won at the last GE.
That Yorkshire Post cover is incredible. Hats off to whoever took the time and used some amazing skill to put that image together. I did my dissertation on Photomontage and its use as a political weapon and thats one of the most powerful I've ever seen
As for the anger... you're not kidding. The Guardian was quoting yesterday that the latest polling in individual constituencies shows that all but 3 of the Red Wall seats would go back to Labour if there was an election tomorrow
This is the closest I’ve come to believing he’ll be gone after the Jubilee weekend. I’m praying we aren’t 1 short of a letter.
Media stories that we already have 54, but SGB won’t announce until after the Jubilee.
IMO the best outcome is the 54 letters go in, he then wins the confidence vote by one vote and is untouchable for a year. that takes us close to the next election with no time for him to be ditched and another mp to become PM and reset. In that year Johnsons behaviour continues to damage the tories. thats the route that will inflict maximum damage on them
Media stories that we already have 54, but SGB won’t announce until after the Jubilee.
I think 54 letters converting into 180 odd tory mp votes is a big ask. Given the festering turd has no moral compass or sense of honour I don't think he'll step down without being thrown down.
I'm leaning towards not wanting him to go mind. He's toxic and rallying around loathing him is easy. Given Starmer is proving hard to love and Sturgeon is looking a bit jaded so are not going to be mopping up the votes unaided, having a properly despised tory leader in power now is the best thing for us all in the medium to long term. Keep him there and I don't doubt he'll **** up again a good few more time between now and the general election. I'm also enjoying my brexity inlaws who voted 'get it done' having to wallow in the the shit that they were responsible for (along with all the other gammons). As law abiding covid rule followers it is delicious watching them twist and turn with what they were (along with millions of others) responsible for. Throw a 'this is the man who's judgement you valued into believing that leaving the EU was for the best' grenade in every now and again for added squirm. My unpopular Scottish independence opinions are even harder to question when you point to the fat **** and suggest I've only got to put up with him as PM because of English voters - like them.
IMO the best outcome is the 54 letters go in, he then wins the confidence vote by one vote and is untouchable for a year. that takes us close to the next election with no time for him to be ditched and another mp to become PM and reset. In that year Johnsons behaviour continues to damage the tories. thats the route that will inflict maximum damage on them
In some way that is the best option for damaging the Tories, but not sure the country would survive.
Or is there a risk that ditching Boris with a year to the next election means that his replacement would benefit from a bounce in popularity - "give him/her a chance, has to be better than Boris" mindset among the disillusioned?
I'm not sure there is a "good" option in all of this.
I think 54 letters converting into 180 odd tory mp votes is a big ask.
It's a start, and once the gates are opened things will start to move. Swings can happen quickly once the knives come out. Don't forget Thatcher was removed by the conservatives.
I don't believe that any Tory MP's have actually developed any principles or a spine, but I imagine they're looking at the polling, doing the maths and working out the likelihood of them shortly being out of a job.
As you've said though, getting a VONC in the first place is the easy bit, winning it given the selection of muppets who will stand against him is quite another.
It doesn't look like a majority of Tory MPs want rid of him yet, which just goes to show how detached from reality they are
But then its no bad thing for the labour party having someone as toxic as the fly-tipped sofa sat in number 10 as we approach an election, particularly as the cost of living crisis really bites and all they've got is "would you like to measure things in shillings and groats?"
Morecash
If Johnson is kicked out then there is a chance to tories can put someone either competent or popular in place
Johnson being so wounded can do little damage and anyway a change to a different tory PM changes nothing significant policy wise
Whats best for the country is to ensure the tories are unelectable. Johnson continuing as PM is the most likely way of doing this
In some way that is the best option for damaging the Tories, but not sure the country would survive.
There's a fairly high risk he'd take the country down with him.
I mean, we're already screwed but if he really decided to go out like Trump, he could do a lot of damage...
Don’t forget Thatcher was removed by the conservatives.
She resigned. she was not booted out. she resigned because she had some principles.
she resigned because she had some principles.
Well yes, if the principles involved were 'Look, I've only just scraped through the first round of a leadership election, chances are I'll lose the second round, so time to bow out with a few shreds of dignity'.
she resigned because she had some principles.
Isn't it crazy that we have now sunk to a place where, despite your political leaning, you can look back at Thatcher and see some positives now lacking.
Isn’t it crazy that we have now sunk to a place where, despite your political leaning, you can look back at Thatcher and see some positives now lacking.
Yep, we're in 'at least Mussolini made the trains run on time' territory.*
*he didn't
She resigned. she was not booted out.
That should read; she resigned before she could get booted out
I’m not sure there is a “good” option in all of this.
I think the 'best' option is for Boris to remain in post, because he doesn't actually DO anything. He makes announcements and pronouncements but in reality he has no goal or ambition other than his own continued residence in number 10, and that seems to be a full time job at the moment.
Better that than someone who wasn't completely bone idle and thought that being PM amounted to a bit more than donning a high viz jacket for another photoshoot in Doncaster
Yeah, the partygate thing really gets to almost everybody in a way that nothing else has done.
Thatcher was told, one by one, by her closest colleagues that they would personally back her in the second round, but she would not win. She resigned at the last possible moment and clung on until that point. She didn't resign out of principle, she resigned because it was jump or be pushed.
Who gives a shit about that now, anyway? Johnson will not resign because he is a monumentally arrogant chancer who loves the kudos despite all the (deserved) abuse. Johnson is not really a politician with a vision or a direction. He is a self-serving 'personality' for hire. It is all about him and he is an incredible narcissist.
Quite how such a ridiculous character got to be PM is a mystery... oh no it isn't! It's a direct consequence of Brexit!🥳🎉🥂👯♀️
The big drawback of personality politics is that people vote for a personality. This has been going on since around Blair's PM. Maybe Thatcher? I'm not sure.
Not sure it is a direct consequence of Brexit.
As noted before on the forum, we're now at the point of having the cosplay cabinet. An entire leadership devoid of direction and vision, other than the one they borrowed from the alternate universe 1950s.
If Johnson survives or not with what's coming down the pipes over the next couple of years economically whoever is in charge will be very unpopular whether or not it's a new leader trying to dissociate themselves from what came before or still Johnson doing the same. The problem is the damage that can still be inflicted in the intervening time but there's little that can be done about that.
I think the ‘best’ option is for Boris to remain in post, because he doesn’t actually DO anything. He makes announcements and pronouncements but in reality he has no goal or ambition other than his own continued residence in number 10, and that seems to be a full time job at the moment.Better that than someone who wasn’t completely bone idle and thought that being PM amounted to a bit more than donning a high viz jacket for another photoshoot in Doncaster
Good point. There was a point made about Chris 'Failing' Grayling, that it would have been cheaper to pay him a ministerial salary and have him sitting at an empty desk all day than to fix the costs of everything he actually did. He did a fair bit but he monumentally ****ed up everything he touched resulting in vast cost overruns and/or making things worse than they already were.
If Johnson survives or not with what’s coming down the pipes over the next couple of years economically whoever is in charge will be very unpopular whether or not it’s a new leader trying to dissociate themselves from what came before or still Johnson doing the same. The problem is the damage that can still be inflicted in the intervening time but there’s little that can be done about that.
Imagine a PM who took over at a time of crisis and suffering, ran the country as best as he/she could out of a sense of duty and public service rather than self-aggrandisement and the need for electoral success?
Incomprehensible, I know.
Imagine a PM who took over at a time of crisis and suffering, ran the country as best as he/she could out of a sense of duty and public service rather than self-aggrandisement and the need for electoral success?
Theresa May?
Whilst still contemptible as a tory I do believe she understood a public service ethos and indeed thought it her duty to lead as she did. she put up with so much shit from her own party I almost felt sorry for her
Probably pushing the analogy - her entire premiership was spent enthusiastically driving through one of the biggest acts of self-harm in the UK's history, while knowing full well this was the case. Admittedly she almost torpedoed it entirely by calling and nearly losing an election, which would have been an act of selfless public service, but I'm not sure that was deliberate.
Theresa May?
Whilst still contemptible as a tory I do believe she understood a public service ethos and indeed thought it her duty to lead as she did. she put up with so much shit from her own party I almost felt sorry for her
She had an impossible job. She was essentially a supply teacher in a sink school, who'd been tasked with getting them all good grades in their exams, with Boris as the ringleader of all the feral kids determined to make her life a misery
she resigned because she had some principles.
Martinhutch has nailed why she really reason she resigned. Andrew Marr inadvertently nailed the difference between Thatcher and Boris in his new Elizabethans programme last night.
Thatcher believed in the individual, aiming to give everyone the rights and opportunities to succeed (unfortunately she assumed that the difference between success or failure was hard work and ignored any factors like luck, where people started, and a complete lack of moral integrity in some sectors which left a huge proportion out in the cold or without a safety net). But basically when she talked about the individual she meant everyone.
When Boris talks about the individual he means himself.
Back in the real world the government is today being told that, once again, disadvantaged kids are quite possibly going to starve through the upcoming school holidays and they need to do something to expand the Free School Meals programme
While Boris is busy focussing, as always, on 'Saving Big Dog', in one of the richest economies in the world working parents can't afford to feed their kids.
Expect them to do the usual and ignore it until they are forced into another U-turn by Marcus Rashford
she put up with so much shit from her own party I almost felt sorry for her
Yes she was incompetent and unsuited to the job but I do think she was driven by a, misguided, sense of public duty rather than anything else.
Leadsome enters the fray. The punches are coming now.
Leadsome enters the fray.
"The conclusion I have drawn from the Sue Gray report is that there have been unacceptable failings of leadership that cannot be tolerated and are the responsibility of the prime minister."
Of course, all these key Brexit campaigning MPs pointing out the obvious truth about the PM still won't move the "it's all made up by Remainers to distract from the great work of our great leader" narrative.