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I'm not sure these latest revelations will have much traction. Staff stayed on after they'd been there for work anyway, Westminster HQ party isn't government staff directly or held at No. 10. He'll distance himself from that easy enough, it's no smoking gun IMHO, (sadly).
Staff stayed on after they’d been there for work anyway
still illegal at the time, the fact that they'd got the caterers in doesnt make it look spontaneous either (theres also similar new revelations about Johnsons quiz)
Twitter is busy tracking down the people in that pic,
At least 1 of those present worked for Johnson leadership campaign, 1 is a major Tory donor, 1 is a tory councillor in sidcup (whos just deleted all his social media)
https://twitter.com/Gathersources/status/1470893110079238153
Shaun Bailey would be resigning as mayor tonight, had he beaten Kahn
The Tory councillor found in that pic has gone totally off grid.lol
Shaun Bailey would be resigning as mayor tonight, had he beaten Kahn
I doubt he would, he'd be getting his team to spin it like mad. Easy for someone to be noble and quit the small stuff, give them actually power and they'll hang on for dear life.
So, to recap. criminalising Roma, and Travelers, revoking the citizenship of folks they don't like, and removing folks rights of protest...All fine. Producing documentation saying you've had a jab...Draconian step into the abyss
Tory Party 2021
Rest of the media haven't picked up the mirror's latest in the same way it did before. Can't help wonder if they'd have been better to wait a day till the 'tory revolt' news has died down.
Or they are just using this one as a primer for a bigger drop tomorrow. I hope so.
So, to recap. criminalising Roma, and Travelers, revoking the citizenship of folks they don’t like, and removing folks rights of protest…All fine. Producing documentation saying you’ve had a jab…Draconian step into the abyss
Ah well,welcome to the dictatorship..
The silence is deafening on the police bill and there’s some well good crackers in that, Serious Disruption Orders - putting your name down on a list banning you from protesting or even discussing protest on ta interweb or anywhere else without being guilty of anything.
Funny all the great brexiteer/covid personalities that bang on about freedom are a tad quiet.
Don’t forget having to produce iD before being able to vote as well, they seem to have forgot that one.
I'd love to see the Mirror approaching the release of photos like an advent calendar, with Christmas eve being a group photo of a pissed Bojo and mates at one of the 'gatherings' holding up a newspaer with the date on it to remove all doubt about when it was, and flicking the Vs to everyone
Or they are just using this one as a primer for a bigger drop tomorrow. I hope so.
I wonder if it is to put pressure on Simon Case and the Met to investigate the parties properly. How can they conclude nothing to see when the papers are showing that there was.
Hopefully they gave something big for tomorrow for the by election
Putting the dic into dictator. This little video seems to sum up the current situation quite well.
This is the constituency next door to north shrops so hopefully will sew a bit more discontent doesn't seem to be a huge story in the scheme of things otherwise
What an absolute ******, to use the current situation as an excuse for a national televised sales pitch / personal political broadcast in support of tomorrows byelection no doubt.
Made frustrating by it being the right thing to do, so no-one can call him our or criticise him for it.
markwsf
Free Member
Made frustrating by it being the right thing to do, so no-one can call him our or criticise him for it.
I agree.
It was a trully epic thing for him to say
anyway
completely uninformed N Shrop byelection predictions?
Con 38
LD 37
Lab 13
REFUK 8
Grn 3
MRL 1
turnout- 35%
Entertaining but just how much affect will it have?
Lol, I'd just come on to post that!
The more it is shared, the more effect it will have.
We all know Boris was not at that party, there is food left on the buffet....
Just the 2 new allegations of ilegal lockdown parties today
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1471567752355852288?s=19
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1471523804841132043?s=19
Oh and met police have finally decided to investigate a party
https://twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1471554692299714563?t=P5KS7oQK9PSLxXVSqtJ_yQ&s=19
To paraphrase Henry II, "Who will ride use of this obnoxious tw*t."
And here we have a client journalist
Drumming up tory votes in breach of electoral law
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1471542007961198598?t=ksKNTDdTH4Ynrk8LXQ8nEg&s=19
Newsnight saying labour fine better than expected so Johnsons is safe
For now
Watching question time and the Tory’s have put up…
*checks notes*
Who?
There’s clearly nobody but the most junior of junior ministers who’s prepared to go out and publicly defend the government position
And when whoever he is he did so, the entire audience just openly laughed at him.
That’s the level of respect that the governments present policy commands
It was hilarious
Lisa Nandy tore him to pieces every time he spoke
The audience weren't that keen on him either
https://twitter.com/jonlis1/status/1471618685647396867?s=20
Even the desperately out of place torygraph journo was met with deafening silence when she tried to save him & switch the subject to brexit
Gone by Christmas? Or mid-January?
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Nick Robinson giving Oliver Dowden a grilling on R4 this morning.
it wasn't even close!
Gone by Christmas? Or mid-January?
There's the rub, do we want the government - however shit it is - to be tearing itself apart with a leadership fight when our winter wave is peaking? I'm not seeing an obvious Arthurian figure emerging to lead us through this.
It's not the government that will be changing, only the bellend who fronts it
I hope Santa brings that bloke in the QT audience an extra big pressie this year
How many more crises can Johnson fit in b4 2021 ends?
Oddschecker has him at 13/15 to be gone in 2022. But 13/10 2023 or later. Hmmm. Not worth a punt but maybe he'll hang on.
There’s the rub, do we want the government – however shit it is – to be tearing itself apart with a leadership fight when our winter wave is peaking?
Yes. Couldn't be much more badly handled at the top, could it?*
Get that nice Mr Hunt in charge. He did a decent job with the London Olympics.
*yes, yes it could. But it's Neville Chamberlain all over again.
There’s the rub, do we want the government – however shit it is – to be tearing itself apart with a leadership fight when our winter wave is peaking?
will you notice a difference?
He's now in "Damaging the party territory" gone sooner not later.
There’s the rub, do we want the government – however shit it is – to be tearing itself apart with a leadership fight when our winter wave is peaking?
Well the alternative is a Government that spends its time lying, covering up, lying again to cover up the first lie. They're still not Governing. They're doing whatever the hell they want to in order to line their own pockets.
In some ways, a leadership campaign would be yet another way of covering that up in the background while they choose the next sacrificial lamb for the altar.
Boris will end up like Farage. Popping up every now and then like an unflushable turd to give some wiffle-waffle about what a brilliant job he did while in power.
What we need is for him to cling on while the party collapses into infighting. Preoccupied that way they will be less dangerous as well
What we need is for him to cling on while the party collapses into infighting. Preoccupied that way they will be less dangerous as well
wishful thinking. its not the labour party....
my guess is he'll get a visit from "the men in grey suits" and told he needs to step down for the good of the party, they'll cite long covid or an other ongoing illness and the needs of a young family to garner sympathy.
Given the massive swing to the LibDems, I can't imagine Boris can last much longer. I think quite a few right-wing Tory MPs were willing to look the other way regrading spending and COVID restriction due to Johnson's popularity, if that's now crumbling away, of what use is he to them?
I reckon now would be a great time to stand as an independent MP. I live in a a constituency that has flipped between SNP and Tory. It used to be Lib Dem before they destroyed themselves. We are dominated by protest votes. People who vote Tory don't really like the Tories, they just don't want SNP / Independence. Those who vote SNP may or may not want independence, but they definitely don't want a Tory. A strong constituency independent candidate who is neither SNP nor Tory could do very well in future elections.
Imagine being a Tory backbencher at the moment. You're about to be 'charmed' by Liz, Priti, Rishi and Gove and their leadership respective bid teams
Lib dems continue their descent into utter obscurity.
They're going about it in a funny way eh?
Its also worth bearing in mind that the Torys lost the previous by-election as well, Cheryl Gillan seat of Amersham and Chesham. The most Try of Tory areas, held by them since the seat was created 40 years ago. A massive swing to Lib Deb (although if generous you could argue this was protest vote due to impact of HS2)
Its also worth bearing in mind that the Torys lost the previous by-election as well,
They won the last one, Old Bexley and Sidcup. Although there was a swing to labour that was only due to the tory vote collapsing by an even greater degree.
it wasn’t even close!
A hell of a swing, even if it was only a by-election. A safe Tory seat for 200 years.
Patrick Maguire in this morning’s Times
There is, on some parallel timeline, a universe in which Owen Paterson has just finished his 30-day suspension from the Commons for second jobbing – sorry, selflessly alerting the authorities to the danger of defective ham for the bargain price of £100,000 a year – and the good people of Wem, Whitchurch and Market Drayton spent the last three weeks unbothered by gawping lobby journalists repeating the word “sleaze”.
That you are instead reading about another Liberal Democrat by-election victory, a 34 per cent swing, the seventh biggest in history; a 22,949 Conservative majority turned into a 5,925 majority for the Lib Dems; an 8.5 on Professor Sir John Curtice’s Richter scale; and letters to the 1922 Committee is entirely the fault of Boris Johnson. All of it. Everything. It is a verdict on his leadership and judgment.
For this by-election would not have happened were it not for the unforced, inadvisable and avoidable decision to try – and quite spectacularly fail – to get Paterson off the hook with a series of parliamentary manoeuvres so shameless as to make Richard Nixon look like Nelson Mandela.
It would not have been lost, by the crushed Conservative candidate’s own admission, had No 10 not allowed one Daily Mirror front page on the Christmas party they insisted never was to become a fortnight-long saga of denials, leaks and inquiries.
That, of course, was not the only reason the Lib Dems romped home. Each seat has its own idiosyncrasies, particularly in rural England, and slow ambulance response times, poor transport connections and the impact of Brexit on local farmers were factors here.
But to borrow Jeremy Thorpe’s deadpan response to the question of whether his trial for conspiracy to murder cost him his seat in 1979: “Put it this way ... I don’t think it helped.”
Divining the future from by-election results is always a bit of a fool’s errand. Recent history is pockmarked with famous Liberal and Liberal Democrat victories – Ripon, Eastbourne, Ribble Valley, Christchurch, Richmond Park, Brecon and Radnorshire – overturned with little fanfare at the following general election.
There is an argument – a convincing argument, at that – that all this morning’s result really proves is that the Liberal Democrats know how to run a by-election campaign. Note, too, the fact they pulled this off in a true blue shire seat with few remainers to speak of. Electoral politics appears to have moved on from 2016.
That need not worry Boris Johnson too much yet. What should, though, is how Tory MPs will take it.
Its also worth bearing in mind that the Torys lost the previous by-election
True, but Amersham and Chesham actually serves to underline just how massive the North Shropshire result was.
Amersham and Chesham has seen an influx of young prefessionals moving out of London changing the demographics, HS2 is a HUGE issue there and it was pretty Remainy, plus it's location meant loads of LD volunteers from London, Oxford, St Albans etc came out to help campaign. there were several ways it could be (and was by some) written off as a unique situation or a fluke win for the LD's.
None of those apply to North Shropshire, it was old, relatively affluent, white, rural, Brexity and hours away from any other Lib Dem strongholds with no major local issue in play.
That's what makes the result so astonishing, everything about it should gave made it an easy Tory slam dunk.
I reckon now would be a great time to stand as an independent MP.
It's occurred to me too. Almost tempted, but I was a big enough bellend in my teens and twenties to not want anyone trying to get juicy soundbites from former friends and colleagues.
Just heard Johnson on the radio, saying nothing at all. Unlike in the past, his attempts/distractions at hiding the fact that he is saying nothing seem to be missing/ineffectual.
they must hand Johnson cards with key words for the day on as he leaves no 10, todays was, Focus.
sorry if this is a re-post...
If Tories are smart they'll get rid of Johnson after 18mths or so , giving the new leader a shot at getting the new leader bounce before an election
knives are out.... the brexit bugle are running with....
Boris in car crash interview as he's attacked over by-election disaster 'I've failed!'
If Tories are smart they’ll get rid of Johnson after 18mths or so
I dunno, I feel he can do a lot more damage in that time. No-one wants the job immediately, so a caretaker manager in the New Year then a leadership fight at the first point one of them is dumb enough to pronounce Covid/Brexit done.
Good god I've just heard that interview from this morning with sky. Abysmal.
Asked about the Tory MPs who are warning him that he could be removed as leader if he does not get a grip in No 10, Johnson refused to answer on the grounds that it was a question about politics and politicians. He said:
"Can I remind you of everything I’ve been saying in this interview? That is exactly the kind of question that breaks the golden rule."
“Can I remind you of everything I’ve been saying in this interview? That is exactly the kind of question that breaks the golden rule.”
Ah excellent, a new standard answer when there isn't a fridge to hide in!
I'm glad Boris has said he accepts the vote in the by election, because presumably the alternative was......what, exactly?
Ironically the actual 'golden rule' from which the term derives is to treat other people as you would want to be treated oneself, precisely the opposite of the 'rules for thee but not for me' approach of Johnson and his cronies.
Honestly, I can't imagine many Tory MPs who are still on the fence about him watching that without reaching for the letter-writing pad. It was possibly the most pathetic political interview I've seen for a while, and I've seen some involving George Eustice and James Cleverly.
what, exactly?
perhaps they were considered using the trump play book and call fraud ? 😉
without reaching for the letter-writing pad.
Sir Graham Brady has said they can email in their letters 🙂
Sir Graham Brady has said they can email in their letters
Scenes from 'safe seat' constituency offices in middle England:
Speculating within the Tory party that there will be a leadership contest in the Summer months.
Could be a whole different world by then. Absolutely fascinating stuff but I still long for politics and politicians to be boring once more.
Anyone else feel that way?
Thats pretty much how I feel.
When you think about it, other than the odd illegal invasion, 13 years of Blairism was pretty refreshingly uneventful. And even with the Major government the lies were generally about who they were and weren't shagging, which all seems pretty innocent by todays standards
I’m glad Boris has said he accepts the vote in the by election, because presumably the alternative was……what, exactly?
Storm the capital building?
His talk to sky is rather good. Apparently its the medias fault for reporting politics and politicians rather than just the good things.
but I still long for politics and politicians to be boring once more.
Nope. Business as usual politics only benefits one group of people, and it's certainly not those of us who live ordinary lives and have to work for a living. We need politicians who are the opposite of boring, and who are willing to stick up for normal people and face down the rich elites who are leading us to environmental and economic collapse.
We need politicians who are the opposite of boring, and who are willing to stick up for normal people and face down the rich elites...
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Sorry, got a bit carried away there...
Surprised?
https://twitter.com/nicktolhurst/status/1471863322446372867?t=QEXbjnpZEOirwUzvtTDxjQ&s=19
We need politicians who are the opposite of boring, and who are willing to stick up for normal people and face down the rich elites who are leading us to environmental and economic collapse.
Unfortunately, the Venn Diagram of "Rich Elites" and "politicians" is basically a circle.
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
You disagree? Seems to me it's pretty obvious where boring establishment 'this is the way it's always been done' politics has got us. It resulted in Brexit and Boris, what more evidence do you need?
what, exactly?
perhaps they were considered using the trump play book and call fraud ? 😉
I did wonder!
Jeez, if its true about Simon Case, he's got to go, surely?
Was that the hold Boris had over him? Better revealed now and get out the firing line
Nope. Business as usual politics only benefits one group of people, and it’s certainly not those of us who live ordinary lives and have to work for a living. We need politicians who are the opposite of boring, and who are willing to stick up for normal people and face down the rich elites who are leading us to environmental and economic collapse.
I think you’re probably on your own with your ‘to the barricades’ stuff, to be honest mate.
Most of us would opt for vaguely competent enough to sort out the logistics in a non-shambolic fashion and keep the corruption to a reasonably acceptable level so as not to rub our noses in it
It’s the British way. How we do things in this country. Or it was until recently
I’d just like to get back to tutting and rolling my eyes at the activities of our political class rather than swearing violently at the telly every time one of the ****s appears on screen
Brexit and Boris were votes to “shake things up” which actually empowered rich elites. Of course we need change, but the hard work that needs doing to improve things for normal people may well be boring and complicated, rather than simple and populist.
You disagree? Seems to me it’s pretty obvious where boring establishment ‘this is the way it’s always been done’ politics has got us. It resulted in Brexit and Boris, what more evidence do you need?
Not with your sentiment, but you were pretty much quoting a Trump speech, and that didn't end well.