I know everyone's got a hot take about Machiavellian political machinations regarding this Lee Cain business, but the truth may be more prosaic.
Apparently the reason he was nixed by Carrie Symonds (and other women) is becuase he's a bit of a wrong un, with a questionable history of behaviour around women.
Yes, perhaps that does explain why he appeared to get on so well with the PM, but also he may have been a bit of a timebomb.
And just a note on the James Slack thing - obviously the political editor of the Daily Mail is by definition a scumbag - but he probably wouldn't have been responsible for writing THAT headline.
He would have filed his copy and a sub-editor would most-likely have written the headline.
I'm sure it's a happy, positive, inclusive and diverse work culture in No. 10. They usually look a lot happier...
Okay, a bit happier.
A pair of gas giants everyone would like to see pummelled by meteorites.
.
They look like a couple of neds in a police line up
eddie - yes!
Tis amazing news indeed. Now we just need BoJo to cry a bit in his fridge, get his big boy pants on and admit he is not fit to lead a cubs troup let alone the country and sod of to the US as a Republican
It’s neither here nor there though really, is it?
We’ll all be left suffering from the car crash he’s orchestrated. They’re all just going to wander off to count their millions and leave the grown ups to try to clear up the smouldering wreckage they’ve left in their wake
Cummings getting out before the inevitable train wreck, glad he's going, would like to see him pay for his crimes against the state though.
Edit beaten by Binners.
don't believe a word out of no 10
Giventhat I think its likely once they have secured the no deal brexit they have been after and Johnson will go shortly into the new year
He said he'd go by the end of the year, I think we were all too cynical to believe him.
I fear he hasn't technically committed crimes against the nation he can be tried for, but it bloody feels like it.
Edit - he's not leaving Boris to coordinate Gove's campaign to succeed him next year, is he? 😱
I don’t see Cummings leaving as good at all. As binners says, he’s just scuttling off before there is a chance he can be held accountable. The damage is done and he has ‘won’ so why stick around?
The guardian yesterday said that an MP had been saying BoJo was one more mistake away from being replaced. The shambles-o-meter is at an all time high. You’d have to be deranged to want to pick up his mess so Gove must be a shoe-in
Edit – he’s not leaving Boris to coordinate Gove’s campaign to succeed him next year, is he?
That could well be it.
Gove’s campaign to succeed him next year
I don't think Gove could ever be made PM by the Conservatives after what happened...twice. I don''t even they're that cynical/desperate. (mind you they did make Howard their leader, so what do I know?)
I think they need to keep the clown in charge until brexit is done (whatever shape that will be) because no one in their right mind will want to oversee that shambles (might as well credit Bozo with the whole mess) once delivered they will try and distance themselves from 'that' tory party, don't let them they have all sat back and watched this happen from the sidelines.
I'm not convinced that him going is a good thing.....after a decade of thinking that things can't get any worse, I'm now fully awake to the fact that it can....and would if Gove got in. A truly horrifying thought.
Disappear sharpish before the actual reality of Brexit hits everyone. He's got what he wanted, Boris was just the useful idiot to carry out the plan and now, having nicely managed to get millions in contracts awarded to his father-in-law, the little weasel is getting out.
Boris is soon going to find himself completely abandoned. The people he thought were his best mates and closest advisors have used him ruthlessly and ****ed off. His party think he's a total liability and an embarrassment. Europe know he's a liar. America's new president thinks he's inept.
Boris is going to be left standing there like the bewildered parent at their teenage son's houseparty looking around at the chaos and destruction. Everyone around him has drunk all the booze, had a lovely time and buggered off taking the family silver with them and leaving the walls smeared with shit and vomit.
Cummings meanwhile will have a little get out clause somewhere. Dual nationality or some connection via his wife and in-laws. Teflon coated little shit.
^^^^
Crazy-legs has it.
But you are selling De Pfeffel short.
Both the US and EU know he is both inept and a liar.
He used them nearly as much as they used him, though. He got to live out his little Churchill fantasy for a bit too. He'll be off in fairly short order as well.
Long covid, stress of the job, broke himself for his country in fighting the biggest national crisis since the war etc.
🤮
He got to live out his little Churchill fantasy for a bit too.
Couldn’t keep up with the drinking, mind...
That was my thinking too, that there would be a visa to somewhere like America where he had a job lined up for some senator or something, maybe with some sort of honour in the system for his work leading up to Brexit from Johnson and Gove
some sort of honour
If Cummings or Johnson end up on an honours list it’d be a national disgrace of the highest order.
some sort of honour
Cummings will get his Hero of the Russian Federation, probably at the same ceremony as Melania
That was my thinking too, that there would be a visa to somewhere like America where he had a job lined up for some senator or something, maybe with some sort of honour in the system for his work leading up to Brexit from Johnson and Gove
As a senator (or mayor) - After a short time sobering up, that'll be Johnson's next job.
Cumming's - after meeting his "airline" mates at a Black Sea resort, along with Banks and Farage, will be off to NZ/Oz to wreak their special blend of ****ing shit.
There's enough politicians in Europe and the US who want to give Johnson a bloody nose. Gove is too close to Cummings, bold brexiteers are not going to be too popular. Boris will be left to face Jan 1st and then the business owners will be getting very loud about parking up in Kent, bureaucracy and devaluation. Lots of news coverage for the silly season, drums beating in NI. Cummings is already doing a runner.
I have read that Carrie was/is getting 150k as a 'spad'. The fact that all this goes on without too much comment reflects the venality of parliament, millionaire snouts in the trough and so many of them are landlords (Squirmer is onside) that it won't pan out well for renters. The Tories are brutally effective with their replacement service but you'd have to be naive to think an absent Cummings or Johnson will make much difference.
'Respect, integrity and trust' (B Jenkin R4) 'is the message of what's needed', it's all about f messages and messengers, Cain, Coulson, Saatchis, Tim Bell, nudgers, this is the respect they have for the electorate.
Boris is soon going to find himself completely abandoned. The people he thought were his best mates and closest advisors have used him ruthlessly and **** off.
Apprently Boris doesn't really have friends, and I'd assume his relationship with the Vote Leave campaign was a marriage of convenience in which both parties got what they wanted.
Of course Brexit will have a much longer-lasting and more-damaging legacy than anything BoJo manages not to achieve as PM - and we can all take some very dark schadenfreude from the timing of Covid rapidly accelerating his failure (and from the reality of his premiership being so wildly different to the way he probably imagined it).
His party think he’s a total liability and an embarrassment. Europe know he’s a liar. America’s new president thinks he’s inept.
Absolutely. He's shedding these controversial aides in a last-ditch attempt to save his own skin. But he's living on borrowed time for sure.
I fear Boris needs to stay until the Brexit disaster begins to play out properly, because no rational Tory will want to take the role and have their own reputation destroyed by it, and we don't want any more irrational Tories in power, thank you very much. Short term, it's better the devil you know.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, there is an EU summit on the 19th on November. A decision is needed by then or there is no time to get anything through by the end of the year.
They've - we've - run out of road. Caught in a web of lies and sheer incompetence.
Very true Morecash, never has there been a more poisoned chalice than this.
But also, it's not like you wouldn't have a good selection of excuses available.
From Coldwar Steve:
Absolutely. He’s shedding these controversial aides in a last-ditch attempt to save his own skin. But he’s living on borrowed time for sure.
I think it's the other way around. They're shedding him.
Boris is quite useful to people like Cummings. He's short on details, likes the perks of the job but without really wanting the responsibilities and (for a while at least) he was popular with both party and people. That allows him to be used, you can run all sorts of laws past him without him really cottoning on to what you're doing. Now they've made their millions, got what they wanted and Boris is no longer useful, he's a liability.
They're getting rid of him.
Is that Ringo Starr making off with the last leg of lamb?
crazy-legs+1
Boris is a useful idiot.
Cummings has done his job. There's no time or space to turn the Brexit Bus around now, it's all but in the bag. He'll be there for as long as he thinks necessary to ensure he Bags a Brexit. And then off to his own personal sunny uplands, another gig manipulating another public for another billionaire.
Wait, what? Carrie is getting paid as a SPAD? Citation needed for that as I am amazed that no one has be FOI-ing that and publicising it
Re. Summit on the 19th. So this is one final last dead cat to get them over the line without scrutiny?
Re. Summit on the 19th. So this is one final last dead cat to get them over the line without scrutiny?
There is nothing left to scrutinise. The choice is simple, no deal or the thinnest of thin deals. Boris needs to decide. It's displacement activity while he avoids the decision.
It’s displacement activity while he avoids the decision.
The answer.....will be.....at the.....bottom......of......that next bottle.......I......just......know it!
Cummings walks out and then Boris has to self-isolate for two weeks. Coincidence? Or him panicking because he’s not got anyone to tell him what to do?
And will anyone seriously notice if Boris is missing for 2 weeks. That’s just the norm anyway
https://twitter.com/bbcbreaking/status/1328077100016865282?s=21
Johnson is just such a dickhead it is just getting boring now.
How long until he ****s off?
The useless dipstick.
Coincidence?
Just another balls up, I imagine.
So, supposedly getting it, then recovering doesn’t make you immune? Or is he the kid at school who had more than 4 grandparents shuffle off?
Been in contact, has to self isolate.
Irish have already tracked 3 or 4 who have had C19 twice tbf.
Christ he's a useless shite.
2nd time lucky perhaps?
God, that's going to set off the "Boris never had covid" people...
