Anyone seen good odds at the bookies on him quitting in January?
Fancy placing a wager
Ask Cummings, he runs the show.
I doubt the bookies would offer odds as I imagine a handful of people who just happen to know Cummings personally would be in like a shot, for a cut for Dom himself, naturally...
He's not doing the job now... why do you think he'll take the crown off, when he's always wanted it, and doesn't have to worry about doing the work that would normally come with it?
Sadly a lot do for the life of me I can’t understand why. He says absolutely nothing of substance. This “moonshot” plan which isn’t a plan it’s just and idea with so much still to work out is madness.
My biggest issue with this lot of Tories is their absolute contempt for everyone that they can say what they want with zero come back. But what do you expect from a bunch of rich white males.
doesnt matter, he just has to say he's protecting statues & getting brexit done & they all fall into line
plenty of his fans are getting upset with him, but theyre were [retty bonkers anyway
I wonder what juicy "leaks" we can expect as Dumbojo is thrown under the bus.
Toby Young and Fraser Nelson now all of a sudden realise they were 'mistaken' in their backing for Johnson?
**** right off.
These nasty pieces of work knew full well what a bellend he is and what a bollocks he would make of everything he touched. He was just useful for their rabid right agenda at a point in time. Now they are just distancing themselves from De Pfeffel's car crash as they were always going to.
Now they've pretty much 'secured' a No Deal, they have a 'Road To Damascus' moment?
Pull the other one, it has got bells on it.
I did like the torygraphs site front page picture of Johnson in a testing lab, got me thinking where else Id seen a fat bloke with a dodgy moptop pointing at things...
https://twitter.com/ChrisKimberley/status/1306996106098888705
Ooooh look, a morbidly obese, pampered upbringing, finger on a nuclear button, trump on speed dial, psychopathic despot.........
......
........
...and Kim Jong un
Thanks and good night from me
Well he wasn’t going to pull off the Putin ‘top off on a horse’ pose was he 🤣
fat bloke with a dodgy moptop pointing at things…
Is this a bit Star Wars? White hair = good - Dark hair = Evil? Thank **** we have the good guy
Mr Jong Un should really have gloves on in a lab.
Here's the full article by Matthew Parris in yesterday's Times.
author-image
Boris Johnson’s zing has well and truly zung
Like sheep without a shepherd, voters who trusted the PM have grown confused and resentful at his lack of leadershipMatthew Parris
Friday September 18 2020, 5.00pm, The Times
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‘Like a rotten mackerel by moonlight,” said the 19th-century American congressman John Randolph of another politician, “he shines and stinks.” With Boris Johnson the shine has gone.
Yet it was for the shine that we elevated him. I remember the 2019 general election campaign, and that sense of slightly unfocused excitement. It wasn’t about what Boris would actually do (except not be Jeremy Corbyn and “get Brexit done”): it was all about zing, about whizz-bang, sparkle, fizz, gusto, passion — and fun. Well zing is as zing does and Johnson’s zing has well and truly zung. The fun has gone and with it the shine. We are left with the stink.
Like their politicians, electorates need ladders to climb down; and this prime minister is ultimately our fault. So we excuse our mistake by saying he’s lost that punchy effervescence for which we chose him. But effervescence is a highfalutin word for gas. And gaiters. And talk and trousers will only get you so far. Now comes the void, a void into which nobody stares more mournfully than he.
Face it: there was never any reason for confidence in Boris Johnson’s diligence, his honesty, his directness, his mastery of debate, his people-skills with colleagues, his executive ability or his policy grip. We’d seen no early demonstration of any of these qualities but we just blanked that out. We looked hopefully into the crystal ball when we should have read the book.
Fish rot from the head down, so let me run you quickly through the huge stumbles that can only finally point back up to the boss.
First, Covid. Though I do think our government panicked at the start, I accept that a reasonably cogent case can be made for its first response. Why, then, are we in such a mess now when other countries are facing similar problems with (for instance) testing? There’s no ducking the answer. We’ve lacked any feeling of overall direction or leadership and so, like sheep without a shepherd, we’ve grown confused, divided, frightened, irritable and resentful.
Then there’s the repeated over-promising, “moonshots” and all that. Over-promising invites the law of diminishing returns and slides finally into public contempt. You can over-promise to one woman, then over-promise to another, but in this case there’s only one lady involved, and that’s us. Boris can’t move on to a new electorate.
It would help if our PM, who admitted yesterday that we are in a second wave, would tell us where we’re trying to get to in this pandemic. “Conquering” the virus? Suppressing it until a vaccine comes along? Or learning to live with it? The health secretary and perhaps his medical advisers seem to imply the first, sometimes the second. Some medical/scientific opinion (see the recent discussion by Peter Doshi in the latest edition of The BMJ) seems at least to contemplate the third.
Which, then? The public need to know before we can trust. If all we’re aiming for is to slow down transmission then the case for patchy and sometimes random and even inconsistent prohibitions can be understood, but if we’re trying to “beat” a virus then the measures look ragged, scattergun, and capricious. What and which, then, is Johnson’s overall aim? He’s in charge. As Queen Victoria’s first prime minister, Viscount Melbourne, remarked to his cabinet: “Is it to lower the price of corn or isn’t it? It is not much matter which we say, but mind, we must all say the same.”
Criticisms of leadership all risk stumbling at the final fence, in this case “if not Boris, who?” Could David Cameron, Tony Blair or John Major have proved better at taking the public with them on Covid-19? Better at explaining, at showing humility where there is uncertainty or error, at admitting failures? At persuading?
You have only to imagine any of these three in the chair at press conferences or in the Commons chamber to know the answer: an emphatic, unqualified yes.
Be it PPE, Ofqual, or (now) test-and-trace, with Johnson and his team it’s always somebody else’s fault — in the latest instance, ours, the public’s, whose anxiety to know if we’re infected is entirely natural given the government’s scare campaign. The problem with Johnson is that he so often doesn’t appear to know his own mind and struggles to take a position and stick to it. This is a mind (and I borrow the phrase) “not so much open as vulnerable to a succession of opposing certainties”.
As someone who, like me, has watched him for years and seen him at close quarters put it yesterday: “I don’t think Johnson has any clear view as to what is intended. I think he often speaks without having any really serious intent as to outcome.” Any tribe finds this unsettling in the chief.
And who, anyway, is the chief? Johnson has allowed the impression to arise that Dominic Cummings is his Svengali. Cummings has a usefully sharp intelligence but people hate the whole idea of Svengalis. Cummings’s Barnard Castle episode, with Johnson apparently in thrall to his adviser, was a political catastrophe.
If it were just over Covid, where uncertainty is the norm, some would sympathise with our PM: some still do. But take this summer’s row about A-levels and Ofqual. It’s fashionable to sneer at Gavin Williamson and mock his accent, but if the education secretary should have seen this coming, so should the prime minister. What steer, what support, did Johnson give? My guess is that he will have whistled and looked the other way. And how could a PM who knew or cared about the quality of his cabinet have shrugged shoulders at the rank inadequacy of his home secretary, Priti Patel? People do get the message. Like many weak bosses, Johnson is frightened of competition or discord.
Finally, the Internal Market Bill. Posturing is common enough in politics but to attempt a David-and-Goliath confrontation with Brussels and then sling-shoot yourself in the foot is a fiasco. The whole shaming episode was entirely predictable, as is its conclusion. The bill will sink.
And so we end up with this rancid shambles of a government. The confusion is inseparable from the character of its leader. Is it, then, too late for Johnson? Could he yet wind back and start again? I end as I began, with the words of John Randolph, reflecting on his own career, and how “. . . time misspent and faculties mis-employed, and senses jaded by labour, or impaired by excess, cannot be recalled any more than that freshness of the heart, before it has become aware of the deceits of others, and of its own.”
I'd rather he stayed tbh.
He will stay. He’ll keep “relaunching” and taking “personal control” in fits and starts, only lasting a week at best each time before fizzling out when he hides away again, hoping people have the memory of goldfish. Which, politically, many do.
I never thought he would stay the course and it's becoming increasingly clear he won't; there's another recent Times article which refers to his concerns about money (really?), personal matters, pressures of job.
No sympathy from me.
A salutary reminder to be careful what you wish for.
Will post it when I find the link.
Like their politicians, electorates need ladders to climb down; and this prime minister is ultimately our fault
**** off Parry you pompous windbag, you and your other right wing cheerleader journalist friends lied to the electorate about him, you covered up his many weakness's, bumbling incompetence and narcissism, you glorified his character flaws as Churchillian leadership and promoted him to the highest office in the land. You can't now hide in the crowd of victims, and pretend you were not in a privileged position of knowledge. You were front and centre in playing the con that has brought down the country, you are not one of us, you are just another Boris, blustering and conning a far too ample pay packet without talent, morals or application.
Think you'll find it's Parris...
**** off Parry you pompous windbag, you and your other right wing cheerleader journalist friends lied to the electorate about him, you covered up his many weakness’s, bumbling incompetence and narcissism, you glorified his character flaws as Churchillian leadership and promoted him to the highest office in the land.
The fact that Parris and toby young are now putting the boot in is a clear sign that tories are turning against johnson.
In isolation, that's positive but the concern is who will replace him and can the
gove-cummings inter-dependent relationship be permanently shattered; johnson is yesterday's man - he's finished. It's only a matter of when he either walks or is pushed.
Here's the link to the 'overburdened, underpaid PM' article in the Times.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/overburdened-underpaid-and-misery-on-his-face-boris-johnson-gets-the-blues-r9jl63m2q
If it appears to be behind a paywall, post to let me know and I'll paste the text.
I saw huff post said it wasn't a vintage week for Boris. I beg to differ it seems very much like vintage Boris. Right now he has probably reached the point of apex Boris, the most Boris Boris he can be.
**** off Parry/is you pompous windbag, you and your other right wing cheerleader journalist friends lied to the electorate about him, you covered up his many weaknesses, bumbling incompetence and narcissism, you glorified his character flaws as Churchillian leadership and promoted him to the highest office in the land. You can’t now hide in the crowd of victims, and pretend you were not in a privileged position of knowledge. You were front and centre in playing the con that has brought down the country, you are not one of us, you are just another Boris, blustering and conning a far too ample pay packet without talent, morals or application.
This times one million. Utterly odious how he tries to pin it on everyone.
No chuck, the is you and your evil cronies that propitiated this evilzing, vile filth , and then there is the witless stupid proportion of the electorate too stupid to think for themselves that believed you.
Don't you dare to suggest that anyone with a brain believed the shit you vermin came out with.
To be fair, isn't Parris a centrist old school Tory and don't think he was ever a Boris cheerleader, although I stand to be corrected. Probably backed Hunt. Although boris' failings have been there for all to see since year dot
Frank, your link is behind the paywall...
Nickc, thanks for letting me know; will post full text later this afternoon.
Thanks Frank, much appreciated
TBF parris has been anti Johnson for a while
This Article he wrote just over a year ago was not wrong
The sadness, and it frustrates his critics tremendously, is that in writing this I’m preaching to the converted. They know he’s lazy. They know he’s untrustworthy. They know how he tries to wing things for which he ought to prepare. They look at the £700,000 he has earned since he quit government, much of it on the national and international speaking circuit, and wonder. They know he ducks. They know he makes conflicting promises. They know he skates on thin ice.
And in their hearts they have no confidence in Boris. But they’re scared. They think he may possess a kind of magic. The magic, my friends, will fade.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/let-me-assure-you-boris-johnson-will-fail-as-pm-hl7b6tkx5
Toby Young can f off into the sea though
Boris getting skewered and punted into the sea is the good news we need right now in a sea of shite. Just to see the pathetic look on his face as he is ejected into the outer darkness.
What follows will probably be even worse, but you never know, when the Conservative Eye of Sauron's gaze switches to a leadership contest away from the pandemic, handling of that issue might actually improve.
I could be wrong but I can't remember Mathew Parris ever being a cheerleader for Boris. I heard a podcast on the Spectator he did about the Edward Coulston toppling and it was probably the best piece of joirnalism I heard on the topic, the complete antithesis of his fellow Spectatorists.
He may be a pompous ass at times bùt he's a good writer and one of the few independent conservative voices, a bit like Rory Stewart. He hasn't served as an MP for a long while and I see him as a Tory centrist, I don't associate him with doing the bidding of the current Tory Party.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Matthew Paris has never been a Boris Cheerleader.
Toby Young is just an even lower rent Boris mini-me.
I don’t think for a minute that Johnson will still be there in February. The question at the moment is will he last until Christmas, given how everything is panning out for him.
The next question then is obviously which of the vacuous incompetent half-wits will inherent the poisoned chalice
I don’t think for a minute that Johnson will still be there in February. The question at the moment is will he last until Christmas, given how everything is panning out for him.
If Johnson goes which awful person takes his place Rishi, Hancock... or ANOTHER election.
I think the one thing we can be absolutely certain of, given the polling, is that there’s no way on earth there will be an election
Once again the PM will be decided by a few thousand senile, Home-Counties-dwelling, Daily-Mail-reading old racists
Expect the worst. Probably Raab.
If Johnson goes which awful person takes his place Rishi, Hancock… or ANOTHER election.
Gove. He's the only other one close enough to Cummings and arch-Brexit-y enough to fit the bill.
The problem when you've shoved your Cabinet full of vacuous, incompetent Yes Men instead of ministers who actually know what they're doing is that it's not going to make the situation any better it just puts a different arse in charge of it all.
When johnson goes - in the next few months - others in the clown circus, except govey-gove, will be thinking...FFFF he couldn't handle it, do I really want this?
gove and cummings have been on manoeuvres for months; co-dependent.
Briefing against Sunak started weeks ago.
Would anyone on here care to out themselves as a tory voter in 2019 and share with us how they now feel about how they voted?
Once again the PM will be decided by a few thousand senile, Home-Counties-dwelling, Daily-Mail-reading old racists
Suddenly, a second wave doesn't seem so bad....🤔
Give doesn’t want it. He’s not that daft. He just wants to keep running the show from behind the scenes with Cummings.
Whoever’s next will be just another sock-puppet in the same mould as Boris, but even worse.
Raab’s a shoe in. The right colour. Thick as mince. Nasty as ****, with not a single shred of empathy, compassion or human decency
Would anyone on here care to out themselves as a tory voter in 2019 and share with us how they now feel about how they voted?
This I would love to know. Promised he was gonna "get brexit done" and his deal was "oven ready" wouldnt sell off the nhs and believed the whole Comrade Corbyn rubbish. If i voted Tory (that make me a little sick in the mouth) I would feel well and truly mugged off.
General answer from the tory voters I know is that 'Corbyn would have been worse'.
ffs.
To be fair to them, they’ve got a point. I doubt having the endless fence-sitting procrastinator Jeremy Corbyn at the helm at this precise moment would have been much better. Just a different type of awful.
There can’t be many people looking at the present cabinet and the state we’re in and thinking “do you know what a time of crisis like this requires? ... Dianne Abbott and Richard Burgan. They’d soon have this all sorted...”
That big long article about Boris up there ^ misses out a very important thing. All the massive ****ups this year - the app, exams, testing, Cumming's cumshot in our gobs aka Durham. Add all that in and it's an assassination.
I honestly don't think Corbyn et al would have got this as wrong as Johnson has.
The Tory ideology is a big part of the problem here as to why Covid was/is handled so poorly. In other words, in this scenario and many others, the current Tory/Leave party ideology is malignant.
I had some serous reservations about Corbyns ideology but I could never have labeled it as malignant. At worst naive.
I'd take naive every time these days and others. That said, this is off topic anyway and been done to death.
"Will you help England by populating her with liars?"
Poop, you're not off topic.
Too many of our concerns and problems lead directly back to johnson; his unwillingness and, more importantly, his inability to lead or manage or inspire - on any subject.
His pathetic use of greek and latin are attempts to convince the naive he is superior; only in his own mind.
I would have more confidence in the views of a bloke who licked bogs clean for a living.
I honestly don’t think Corbyn et al would have got this as wrong as Johnson has
It's a tricky one. Would more support for the NHS and more support for the poor (by far the hardest hit group in the pandemic) really have helped? Meaningless slogans and contracts for dodgy Tory supporting companies is how we are going to get through this.
Corbyn would not have sidelined existing expertise in track and trace so we would have had a wiorking system
Much of the tories poor performance in this crisis has been down to dogmatic ideology refusing to use the public sector
Much of the tories poor performance in this crisis has been down to
dogmatic ideologywanting to line their mates pockets by refusing to use the public sector
FTFY.
The whole "oh Corbyn would have been worse" is such an awful argument and not even something to debate its 100% fictional. People are like oh Boris makes decisions but there is zero conviction in then because in 5 seconds he will change his mind. Also, why are Tories still so concerned with Corybn hes not even in charge any more... Tories are a joke.
I would have more confidence in the views of a bloke who licked bogs clean for a living.
Finally!
I thought you were never going to ask
