If you think thats about to change then you’re hopelessly naive.

Well I said that I remain sceptical but just not quite as sceptical having heard him publicly identifying real problems and their negative affect on both the economy and Tory interests.

If that’s naivety then it’s a naivety which is shared with the FT :

https://www.ft.com/content/ad5061b8-6a16-42de-b5a9-824cf15b84b6

“A kind interpretation of this volte-face would say Covid-19 has brought all but the most fanatical free marketeers to their senses. It has exposed the destructive impact on the public realm of the decade of austerity after the global financial crash. To the extent that the economy emerges in reasonable shape from the pandemic it will be because the Treasury abandoned its fiscal fundamentalism.”

Yes he was thin on detail yesterday but he was supposedly setting out the skeleton and the flesh will come in the autumn. I agree with the GMB gen sec that jam tomorrow from Johnson rings hollow. Although much investment has been already laid out in ‘building back better’, I guess the detail will be in how the regions will benefit, which in turn will of course benefit both the economy and the Tories.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/build-back-better-our-plan-for-growth/build-back-better-our-plan-for-growth-html

And yes I fully agree that Johnson has a massive battle on his hands dealing with a Tory Party welded to Thatcherism for over 40 years, as indeed he will have with southern Tory voters who risk defecting the LibDems, a party still committed to Thatcherism. From the FT article :

“Affluent conservatism has not given up its preference for small government and lower taxes. Tory voters in the south will not be inclined to open their wallets to pay for regeneration of the north. The extraordinary rise in public borrowing during Covid-19 at some point will demand a reckoning.”

Time will tell. Politics is always full of surprises, who could have predicted that the LibDems would go into coalition with the Tories in Westminster?

C’mon do you really think that Johnson gives 2 hoots about leveling up?

Winning votes, he’s down with that.

Hes been promising to flesh out the detail of social care reforms he first announced in 2019, the only changes we’ve seen are 1000s of deaths in social care

And his infrastructure promises are classic Johnson legacy projects, all about him.

No mention of ending the benefit cap or uc uplift removal, or sure start, because to end the cycle of poverty you need to stop people growing up in poverty

If that’s naivety then it’s a naivety which is shared with the FT

I know that surely everyone sane would like to see a shift away from the failed policies of austerity and Thatcherism and onto actual investment.

But the people in the present cabinet aren’t sane. They’re hard right ultra-free-marketeers. They’re Ayn Rands adherents. Disciples of Milton Friedman Chicago School economics. They believe in tax cuts, deregulation and privatisation. The polar opposite of what Johnson is advocating.

I don’t know about getting funding past home counties backbenchers, his biggest opposition will be from number 11. Rishi is itching to put a stop to the essential Covid-related government subsidies. I don’t see any appetite for opening the cash taps for anything deemed ‘non-essential’, and ‘The North’ is most certainly deemed that by this lot.

If Boris wants to do this then he’ll have a huge fight on his hands with his own party. And Boris isn’t a fighter. He’ll take the path of least resistance every single time.

He won’t follow through on any of this. And nobody knows that more than the present cabinet. Thats why they’re happy to let him carry on waffling on about it, knowing full well that not a thing will come of it

The details are always coming some time in the future. See absolutely any policy announcement by Johnson ever. Hospitals, bridges, social care, Ireland, fish… whatever. And that’s before we get to implementing those details… you’ll grow very old waiting for any of that.

C’mon do you really think that Johnson gives 2 hoots about leveling up?

In the way that Mike Ashley cares whether his customers are unemployed or not, yes.

Skint customers are of no use to Sports Direct.

Johnson made the point yesterday about the regions providing customers for the metropolises.

If Johnson made a point, you can be damn sure he’s now in a room telling someone else the exact opposite.

That the regions can’t provide customers for the metropolises?

Why would he ignore the glaringly obvious truth?

The “opposite” point will be that people need to pull themselves up into having disposable income… it’s not for the state to help them. He’ll be keeping people onside with that line away from gullible listeners to his barely coherent “speech”. Nation of lazy workers don’t forget… Britannia Unchained.

Btw Kelvin well done for moving on from calling him “Blobby Blobby Johnson”.

Although to be fair it did bring back fond and nostalgic memories of being back in the school playground. So that was nice.

Mr Blobby is perfect for Johnson. He deliberately creates chaos to keep all eyes on him.

No no no……”Blobby Blobby Johnson” not Mr Blobby.

It’s much easier to chant in the playground.

Blobby Blobby is Mr Blobby’s catchline. It’s two words as well (sort of). Perfect for Johnson. Or, come election… bring out the big phrase Blobby Blobby Blobby!

Next time he’s making a speech try to be there and chant “Blobby Blobby Johnson”……he might burst into tears.

The details are always coming some time in the future. See absolutely any policy announcement by Johnson ever. Hospitals, bridges, social care, Ireland, fish… whatever. And that’s before we get to implementing those details… you’ll grow very old waiting for any of that.

Don’t forget the tunnel projects.

I get confused, is it now a bridge or a tunnel to Northern Ireland?

is it now a bridge or a tunnel to Northern Ireland?

Why not have both like the Dartford crossing?

my personal fave is the one I don’t remember the uk press reporting.

British Moroccan Undersea Tunnel

And the Forty Hospitals, if only work had started on them, something useful.
(Well apart magicing up Docs and Nurses to staff them.)

I mean who wouldn’t believe that this will definitely happen?

it may as well have come from Mr blobby, he explained it so clearly

Who said "levelling up" as a concept was fuzzy and confused? Boris Johnson has just described it in one sentence… pic.twitter.com/wdU7st2mLG

— Sarah O'Connor (@sarahoconnor_) July 15, 2021

Doesn’t the tunnel now include some sort of terminus/theme park underneath the Isle of Man?

About as likely to happen as any of those hospitals, a Garden Bridge or and airport on Boris Island.

Has anyone totted up the total in trillions of all Boris’s unfulfilled promises? I bet its even more than his child support payments

Phew. No more than 15 minutes from a football pitch. What more can anyone ask for?

I’m still waiting for the high-tech solution to NI border issues.

It’s almost starting to seem like just having whimsical bluster and a ‘positive mindset’ isn’t enough on it’s own to sort out complex international issues.

Doesn’t the tunnel now include some sort of terminus/theme park underneath the Isle of Man?

Just having a single tunnel was going to be barely worth getting the diggers out for so the idea was to have one tunnel from Stranraer, one from near Lancaster and one from Liverpool all meeting under the Isle of Man and then a single tunnel running to NI from there.

Has anyone totted up the total in trillions of all Boris’s unfulfilled promises?

Its only Labour who are asked to provide prices for stuff. The overall trillions I couldnt really care about though its the millions Johnson hands over for “feasibility” studies.

I hope none of these bloody marxists expect to be taking the bloody knee on any of these new football pitches

It’s almost starting to seem like just having whimsical bluster and a ‘positive mindset’ isn’t enough on it’s own to sort out complex international issues.

You are definitely over thinking it. When May tried some form of harmonisation fudge in 2018, the blundering Foreign Secretary saw his chance, started talking up a bridge to Northern Ireland (all that was lacking was the political leadership apparently, whatever could he mean) and then soon after left the cabinet. Northern Ireland was, according to him, all easily sorted with positive thinking, and any paperwork resulting from Brexit could just be sent to him to be binned. Since then, it’s all been sorted, using his mighty mighty performative politics…

“A danger to the world”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-covid-scientists-warning-b1885305.html?fbclid=IwAR0wAAY5sHOT5HEtCF80jLiUOR-7CrltjG2xPpxgUKQkbtJrVzpBXRYM9lk

Gets “pinged”. Doesn’t self isolated.

he’s on that mythical pilot scheme SelfIntitledCocksuckingRacistsDonthavetoselfisolate

*slow hand clap*

There’s no way my missis will finish her quarantine now, and I suspect thousands of others will be the same.

They just get more and more brazen but it’s hardly a surprise.

That’s the end of that then…

My kids school just been closed down days b4 end of term, a whole class has to isolate for the start of the holidays now, some holidays have had to be cancelled

And yet…

https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1416661730768396291?s=19

When is Boris’ holiday in Scotland due-in the next couple of weeks??

Boris has just given the green light for those planning for summer “staycations” to do their own private versions of this stupid trial.

Cases, hospitalisations, deaths…

Yep the daily testing pilot for the our betters whilst the poor suckers have to stay at home with zero pay.

They have just decided that the rules probably should apply to them in one of the fastest U turns yet…

Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have all been chosen to skip isolation

Is Sunak shagging as well? We know Johnson and gove can’t keep it in their trousers so its either no isolation for them or they have to remember what it was like at school and shag each other 😉

Could they not forsee the reaction from the public and opposition, hell even some of their own MP’s when they made that choice? They really are as thick as pigshit.

Edit – the original choice to not isolate I mean. The u-turn is largely pointless now. Cat’s out of the bag.

An even a U Turn on masks tomorrow would seem like its being done for them and them only, they really are in a difficult position having once again demonstrated that he’s a self centred narcissistic liar.

He needs to go, and you’d have thought this would be yet another catalyst for that that just might succeed. But no, we”l be stick with this lying Buffon for for another few years yet.

Even the Sun’s editor-in-chief was on the TV this morning slagging them off with “One rule for them and another rule for the rest of us.”