Surely Boris visiting Putin is nothing to do with Ukraine and more about explaining the new, plentiful money laundering opportunities available in the non-EU regulated tax haven that is Brexit Britain?

9000! Will he resign / get sacked / **** off and die before 10000?

Johnson isn’t visiting Putin. He’s going to former Eastern Block countries to reassure them. Truss is going to Putin!

Oh Christ!

I’m sure that’ll go well then!

I can’t see many people feeling terribly reassured with the fly-tipped sofa turning up, and Putin will be left wondering why on earth we sent an unhinged supply teacher over for a chat?

truss going to Moscow won’t have Vlad quaking in his boots.
johnson going to Ukraine won’t provide any meaningful support to Zelensky; soundbites and a photo op is all it will be.
johnson calling Putin – another empty gesture.
Distraction politics at it’s finest.

truss going to Moscow won’t have Vlad quaking in his boots.
johnson going to Ukraine won’t provide any meaningful support to Zelensky; soundbites and a photo op is all it will be.
johnson calling Putin – another empty gesture.
Distraction politics at it’s finest.

In the vein of his recent dress-up to distract antics (hi-viz and hard hat accessorized by real working men, hapless jogger with black school shoes…), I am optimistic he will be wearing a shell-suit and wielding an RPG-7 next week in Ukraine.

I reckon he’ll go full Gadaffi with a military uniform and a chest full of medals he’s awarded himself

I am optimistic he will be wearing a shell-suit and wielding an RPG-7 next week in Ukraine.

To be taken seriously this has to be while in the load area of a Toyota Hilux.

He’ll offer to lie in front of a Russian tank, then fly to a nice Greek island instead.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/29/fresh-revelations-about-jennifer-arcuri-affair-threaten-to-damage-boris-johnson

So it wasn’t just a piece of cake.

He definitely wanted a piece of something…

The sad thing is they really dont threaten him do they?
The alledged party of traditional values and law and order doesnt give a shit when their leader goes around breaking laws, throwing taxpayers money at his mistress and turns up looking seriously hung over at a memorial day parade.

^^ It’s no longer the Conservative party in any real sense.

Brexit chewed away at its core, it’s empty and just as torn about over europe as it always was. The Party simply wants to be in power now, there is no other goal.

There is no other real agenda. If keeping Boris in power promotes that, that’s what they will do. If getting rid of him does the same, they will do that.

They are so torn apart because they know that when Boris the figurehead is gone they are a complete vacuum. It’s why Boris has been allowed to get away with so much as PM.

How he got there in the first place is down to the right wing media and “us”.

I reckon he’ll be wearing one of those yeti camouflage suits the Ukrainian army have been shown in 🙈

In 1980 @BorisJohnson thought it would be a wheeze to visit the USSR. He posted jokes to sister, about RIGA-MORTIS in Riga & FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.The postcard was of a statue of man who betrayed a poet to the KGB. Also in USSR in 1980, V Putin, A Lebedev & R Maxwell of the KGB pic.twitter.com/xI7jJLsBGH

— Jack White 🔶 🇺🇦 #SlavaUkraini #FBPE #REJOINEU (@WriterJackWhite) January 9, 2022

They are so torn apart because they know that when Boris the figurehead is gone they are a complete vacuum. I

I am not convinced by that. The hard right press could in theory dive behind whichever candidate they want and keep pushing their agenda.
After all under Johnson it is mostly a vacuum hence why he is so keen on culture wars.

How he got there in the first place is down to the right wing media and “us”

It’s also down to how unappetising the alternative looked. His opponent was gift-wrapped for him

It’s all academic now anyway. We’ll all now have to sit back and watch a few thousand racist pensioners in Surrey decide who they fancy as our next PM

Spoiler alert… it’s Liz Truss

Westminster voting intention:

LAB: 39% (-2)
CON: 34% (+3)
LDEM: 9% (-)
GRN: 5% (-1)

via @OpiniumResearch

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) January 29, 2022

Whereas the current Labour leadership not only has gift wrapped a pandemic, sent anniversary cards for brexit and enjoyed a whole cake – they still see their lead dwindle like a flacid party popper.

His opponent was gift-wrapped for him

yes the rabid right was grateful to you and the other loonies who happily amplified the hard right efforts.

Spoiler alert… it’s Liz Truss

As anyone with an actual clue would know whilst the tory party members do seem to love her whether she gets through to them being able to make the decision is up to the mps and so far as far as I am aware it isnt clear whether she has got enough suporters there.
As for stating its a bunch of racists in Surrey. Thats the kind of juvenile stereotyping which really should only be expected from the rabid right.

You really should say ‘far right’ more. By which you mean anyone not to the left of Dennis Skinner, right?

Anyway… whatevs… not really the point.

Back on topic… It looks like the starting gun has been fired

Tory MP Tom Tugendhat becomes first to throw hat into leadership ring

Which would suggest that the Tory MP’s are now taking a leadership election as a given

“It’s all academic now anyway. We’ll all now have to sit back and watch a few thousand racist pensioners in Surrey decide who they fancy as our next PM”

The decision to give party members a ‘bonus ball’ when it comes to selecting party leaders is the single most important factor in the mess we find ourselves in.

It was an assault on democracy. Not quite as dramatic as the events in Washington last January but maybe as significant in the long run. It gave us Corbyn and it gave us Boris. It gave us Brexit.

Its a scary reality but those racist pensioners in Surrey are deciding all of our and our childrens futures. I’m afraid that it’s us that ‘used to be the future once’. It’s the pensioners that are the future now.

We are facing some sort of Zombie apocalypse / Logan’s Run / Soylent Green scenario. Newsnight would do better to dispense with all the political experts and start interviewing a few science fiction writers instead.

You really should say ‘far right’ more

Nah I will use it when appropriate and, when it isnt, I will use “hard right” or “rabid right” (as ermmm I did) and other terms instead (it is one of the good tricks of the right that “far right” has been turned to just mean racists where as “far left” means pretty much anyone vaguely left wing).
I understand that this might be beyond your simplistic approach but hey ho I am sure you can go for a childish meme instead whilst announcing that anyone who disagrees with you is a mere sixth former.

Which would suggest that the Tory MP’s are now taking a leadership election as a given

It really doesnt. Its really quite odd for someone to throw their hat in since, for some obscure reason which escapes me, the basic rule for tory leadership is if you put the first knife in that you wont get the job. Now Tugenhat hates Johnson so he might think its worth it but on the other hand he clearly has leadership ambitions.
It isnt really more significant than the its time for Churchill so sod off Chamberlain speech.
Hopefully it might mean he is in line for the boot but it isnt obviously true.

The decision to give party members a ‘bonus ball’ when it comes to selecting party leaders is the single most important factor in the mess we find ourselves in.

Really?
So who should be able to chose the party leader?
Should it be the mps remembering, of course, that it was the mps who allowed Johnson to be a choice?

The reason we find ourselves in a mess goes back beyond Corbyn and Johnson but to those who felt that history had ended and now it was for them to explain the sole true path.

“Really?”

Yes really. A few years back both Labour and the Conservatives gave their membership a greater say in how the leader was chosen. Before, the leader was chosen from amongst elected MP’s.

So to answer your question directly, I think it was better when elected MP’s selected the leader, because they had been given a mandate in a general election in which all of the population had taken part.

However, the bright sparks from both parties, (who you rightly point out, believed in Francis Fukiyama’s ‘end of history’ theory) thought they could improve on that model by employing the minority effect, where a tiny segment of the population gets a further say in how we are goverened by being offered a chance to have a special vote all of their own.

The Tories nominated Boris with an eye on how the members would vote. If the membership didn’t have a say and it was left to the duly elected MP’s to make the decision (as had previously been the case) then Boris wouldn’t have got a look in. Neither would have Corbyn and the country would be much the better place for it.

Do you think John Major would have won the leadership if he’d had to pander to party members? Not a chance, his appointment was the perfect example of MP’s conniving amongst themselves to select a leader.

Think of it like this: Once upon a time we all voted in a general election and elected MP’s selected a leader.

Now we all vote in a general election but some of us get a second chance to vote. It actually means that an unelected party member can (and does) have a greater say in who the party leader is than an elected MP from that same party.

That’s why Gladys, who doent like foreigners and lives in a retirement home in Surrey is going to use her special vote to emsure we end up with Liz Truss as PM. If it was left to the elected Tory MP’s, as contemptible as we know most of them are, they would still come up with a better option for the country than Liz Truss.

I get to vote in the final of the leadership contest.

I wonder who I’ll pick?

I wonder who I’ll pick?

Muffin the mule, for all the difference it would make these days.

It’s just an internal theatrical show, we the public play little part.

Maybe Tuggers is thinking he will be the stalking horse and get a cabinet post in the government of the eventual winner. He’s young enough to get a second go at being leader.

A write up in the Tory graph summaries several anonymous MPs as effectively saying he’s a charismatic legacy PM with the success of Brexit and a Pandemic on his side, with a pool of such dimwits to replace him it’d be foolish to see him go.

God help us.

You really should say ‘far right’ more. By which you mean anyone not to the left of Dennis Skinner, right?

Perhaps he means people who repeatedly use the same stock phrases and talking points as Lawrence Fox and Katie Hopkins to attack ‘lefties’. Some of them have confused themselves into thinking they are natural Labour supporters. Bizarre eh.

success of Brexit and a Pandemic

Is this what success feels like? Jeezo.

It gave us Corbyn and it gave us Boris. It gave us Brexit.

Nonsense. Brexit was the result of 3 decades of politicians ignoring and not representing the interests of normal people. And now you want to give them more power???

Political parties are democratic organisations (or at least they should be), the answer is more democracy not less. If we had open primaries for MPs and party leaders they would be much more accountable to the electorate and things like brexit might be nipped in the bud.

I’m always amazed at the authoritarian fascist tendencies of many on here who would remove what little power voters have and hand it to a bunch of self-interested corrupted technocrats.

Before, the leader was chosen from amongst elected MP’s.

And they still are for both parties. Its the MPs who get to chose who the members can vote for (note of course the MP gets to vote in the members round as well).
So the MPs can “connive” amongst themselves to only give a nonchoice to the members. The perfect example of this was the 2016 leadership election where the members didnt get a chance to vote.
Ermm that turned out well didnt it?

If we had open primaries for MPs and party leaders they would be much more accountable to the electorate and things like brexit might be nipped in the bud.

How’s that going to work then with the apathy shown for local democracy nationally? I would be happier to see the party system totally reformed with an implicit duty for representing the country, voters and then political grouping in that order. Binding legislation requiring a 90% attendance and 90% majority to overturn the statute in parliament. Those thinking a referendum then no simple majority ever it must be a supermajority on a minimum turnout of the voters.

MP’s won’t like it but given the current state of the house, **** ’em! They have had their chance and they blew it.

Sadly any democratic system requires a degree of integrity in those involved. No matter what the rules, someone without integrity can always find a path.

On the R4 phone-in yesterday some old West Country gammon was singing Boris’ praises about being the best man for the job and in particular his “Russian” heritage would mean he’d be able to negotiate with Putin. Obviously what he meant he was going to get a few million more donations to the Conservative Party ‘cos the radio host pointed out his heritage was Austro-Hungarian and Turkish.

Obviously what he meant he was going to get a few million more donations to the Conservative Party ‘cos the radio host pointed out his heritage was Austro-Hungarian and Turkish. to fund his & Truss’s thinly disguised weekend away

FTFY

Nonsense. Brexit was the result of 3 decades of politicians ignoring and not representing the interests of normal people. And now you want to give them more power???

Brexit was the result of 30 years of a few newspaper tycoons and a few racists whipping up false a moral panic and blaming the EU for everything thats wrong in the UK.

Vlad knows that the Tory party is dependent on dirty Russian money and lots of Borises rich friends are also dependent on laundering said dirty money for their enormous incomes, so I doubt he’s much interest in any of the embarrassing posturing we’ll no doubt have to witness this week

Brexit was the result of 3 decades of politicians ignoring and not representing the interests of normal people

Was it though ? Surely ‘normal people’ new that since 1979 they’d been voting to close down British industry and pursue a new, service sector economy based on mass consumption of cheap imported goods and cheap imported labour – because that’s what they consistently voted for.
Of course the possibility exists that they didn’t actually understand what they’d been voting for all that time, but that’s a different thing to saying that they hadn’t been represented. Seems to me that the ‘normal people’ either through ignorance or intent, have given a clear mandate to every govt since 79 to screw them over and the one time they had a chance to try and redress things slightly ( Labour 2017) they chose not to get behind it.
In that context, Brexit looks like a misguided, knee jerk reaction by ‘normal people’ to their own voting choices rather than the result of misrepresentation.

I don’t disagree, but we get told off for pointing out to people they are stupid.