Boris's days probably numbered.

[mikeymikec]

I gotta tell you, it's taken me some courage to write this, because i reeeally dont feel like defending BJ. But here we are.

1. i absolutely do believe that BJ is a smart person.
I'm not calling him honest, or moral, or any other good quality we normally would attach to the idea of a smart statesman, but he is an intelligent man.
It was explained to me that the hair, is a tactic.
Bojo wants to get away from THIS

among modern conservatives, he is one that most harks back to old'england, where Class was an insurmountable barrier.

I see no evidence of your assertion that he is smart. Plus he's in the wrong party for that kind of attitude, class being an insurmountable barrier is a very tory thing. Also, he spent time as a 'journalist' for The Daily Telegraph, which is very much a paper for bigots who think they're well-educated.

2. BoJo passed a Vote of No Confidence: https://www.theguardian.com/politic...nce-vote-despite-unexpectedly-large-rebellion
that's it. There is NO arguing with this.

There's no arguing with this fact, sure, but it's not a sign of intelligence. Tories historically (at least in my lifetime, I don't know much about UK politics before then) have a problem with image with the electorate. They look and sound like a bunch of accountants who were educated at Eton, and they don't have particularly popular policies. Therefore they need a leader that can somehow transcend all of that, and if elected, their people will cling to that leader like a life raft, because who the hell else is there to keep the party in power. The reason (IMO) he won that vote of no confidence is that tories were well and truly bored with this whole covid and 'having to take care of ordinary people' thing and they wanted desperately to get back to making money, so therefore if boozy Boris had some fun on a few occasions, why should that bother them?

The reason .. follow me on this one ..
The reason why BoJo did not lose the vote of no confidence, is because BoJo is doing an EXCELLENT job as Prime Minister.

More unsubstantiated nonsense. His Brexit strategy is floundering once again (in an entirely predictable manner, Brexit and NI was always going to be a serious problem), his Covid strategy has some good points but the tories are clearly bored with covid now. He has now made his career on the opposite of taking responsibility for anything bad happening. I have no idea what you think constitutes a good leader, honestly, because IMO he has none of the attributes of a good leader.

3. BoJo makes money for those who control the UK.
you cannot argue with the blingblings, and bojo has managed to keep the country afloat and has managed to keep the corruption going through the world's worst pandemic of the last 100 years, WITHOUT raising the wages of the NHS staff, WITHOUT passing WFH regulations, without impacting the servitude of the populace.

Apart from the good ideas of supporting those out of work during covid (without which there would have been probably 40% unemployment, tonnes of dead businesses etc, so someone needed to have had such an idea or the tories would have been dead in the water come the next election), he's basically played the tory playbook from day one. Politicians have advisors, the civil service. None of this needed Boris nor is there any sign that Boris was instrumental in the creation of these policies. Plus you're acting like not raising NHS wages is a *good* thing? AFAIK they've maybe had one paltry pay rise since the last recession?

Partygate and all that bullshit means nothing. Lying to Parliament means nothing, it's almost a tradition.
Lying to the Queen is far, far more serious, we're talking a world of difference, and he survived even that. Despite people's misconception that the royal family "serves a ceremonial role", the truth is that the Queen IS THE GOVERNMENT and she can dismiss the PM "at her pleasure"; the UK government is "The Queen's government" which means they are basically hired to do a job, and the crown could, in theory, dismiss Parliament and resume direct rule.

You don't survive lying to the queen unless you are really fucking good.

What the hell are you talking about? The Queen is a political puppet, nothing more. If she stepped one toe out of political line, the monarchy would be gone in short order. The British monarchy has done nothing politically meaningful in decades, probably centuries. Their official roles in politics are entirely scripted the the party in power at the time. What on earth makes you believe otherwise?

*Getting caught* lying to Parliament historically has been a reason for resignation. Hence there was a vote of no confidence because it's that politically damaging to the PM and the party. During the last vote, BBC Radio 4 was asserting and substantiating their position that unless a PM overwhelmingly wins a vote of no confidence, their days are numbered. Boris lost the support of more than a third of his party as a result of that vote which is huge because in other political votes in the future, that's the number of tories who might rebel in order to further damage his leadership, so therefore the tories potentially no longer have a majority in parliament. Theresa May had a larger majority in her no-confidence vote and still was gone in about a year.

Methinks you've been drinking the Boris kool-aid. Boris has had plenty of time to do something intelligent, not just as PM. He's famous for his bigotry and bad haircuts. That's the mark he's made.

Fifty-two tories (so far!) have resigned because of this latest idiotic movie by BJ! I personally hope that the oaf keeps this up for as long as possible, he might be able to destroy the tory party from within

 

[mikeymikec]

nvm

 

[Lezunto]

Add the UK's Guardian ...

The UK's Guardian: Boris Johnson needs to go

 

[mikeymikec]

According to multiple news sources, BJ is about to resign and is expected to officially announce it later today.

 

[sdifox]

Boris Johnson facing calls to quit as PM as soon as possible

Boris Johnson is standing down as Tory leader but wants to stay on as PM until the autumn.

www.bbc.com

Guess he is out.

 

[pmv]

I am looking at Sun and DailyMail, and they are crapping on him pretty hard.

Can't say I keep up with what those papers say, but I really don't believe their attitude has anything to do with Russian sympathies. The Mail can appear quite erratic, as it tries to guage what lower-middle-class middle-England is thinking. Oddly, the Express seems to find it much a much less complicated task to pander to its target market of Northern working-class pensioners.

I had the impression the Mail was partly irritated with Johnson for the things he got right - i.e. because he, reluctantly, did invoke lockdowns during the pandemic. Even if he was constantly pulled by the Tory bankbenchers towards opening everything up again.

Plus there's a strain of moralism in the viewpoint of lower-middle-class-middle-England that isn't entirely hypocritical, and Johnson, just like Trump, is far from an exemplar of respectible bourgeois morality.

Maybe the relevant demographic here isn't quite as morally-flexible as the Trump-supporting Christians are in the US? i.e. they are more likely to actually apply their standards to their own 'side'.

"Partygate" angered a lot of people, including Daily Mail readers.

 

[pmv]

-double post-

 

[Lezunto]

The Chorus has told Boris: Get lost, goofy.

Its about time. This clown racist needed to be kicked to the curb a while ago.

 

[fskimospy]

Can't say I keep up with what those papers say, but I really don't believe their attitude has anything to do with Russian sympathies. The Mail can appear quite erratic, as it tries to guage what lower-middle-class middle-England is thinking. Oddly, the Express seems to find it much a much less complicated task to pander to its target market of Northern working-class pensioners.

I had the impression the Mail was partly irritated with Johnson for the things he got right - i.e. because he, reluctantly, did invoke lockdowns during the pandemic. Even if he was constantly pulled by the Tory bankbenchers towards opening everything up again.

Plus there's a strain of moralism in the viewpoint of lower-middle-class-middle-England that isn't entirely hypocritical, and Johnson, just like Trump, is far from an exemplar of respectible bourgeois morality.

Maybe the relevant demographic here isn't quite as morally-flexible as the Trump-supporting Christians are in the US? i.e. they are more likely to actually apply their standards to their own 'side'.

"Partygate" angered a lot of people, including Daily Mail readers.

Well there is at least some aspect of UK politics that isn’t quite as morally flexible because while Johnson is a piece of shit his various scandals would barely even register as compared to Trump’s depravities and yet you saw only the barest flicker of resistance from the Republican party.

 

[sdifox]

Giving speech now. Apparently he stayed on not because he wanted to hang on to power

 

[HomerJS]

I see Trumpism England style went well

The last straw was Johnson hired a guy who liked to grope other guys and Boris knew it. Wonder if he survives if he groped women?

 

[sdifox]

Next PM should send him to Rwanda

 

[mikeymikec]

Well there is at least some aspect of UK politics that isn’t quite as morally flexible because while Johnson is a piece of shit his various scandals would barely even register as compared to Trump’s depravities and yet you saw only the barest flicker of resistance from the Republican party.

The UK's trajectory into depravity isn't as steep as the US's currently is, but there are compatible elements. Brexit is a lightning rod for the crazies, and someone with sufficiently lax scruples could turn it into a violent movement like you have in the US. I think you'd need to combine that with Labour continuing to be Nu-Labour / tory-lite / centrists (IMO this is a near-certainty) and only succeeding in mild reforms that are then easily reversed by the conservatives, and I think we'll have our own similar political crisis in the next decade or two. We've also got our dubious news sources that will happily rile up the crazies too.

To avoid such a crisis IMO Brexit needs to be dealt with, permanently. IMO there isn't a way to implement Brexit without a recession (possibly some kind of permanent financial hit on the UK's economy too) or potentially bloodshed (re Northern Ireland), and the only way to stop it would be a political party winning an election with EU re-entry as a major campaign promise, and that party needs to decisively win and be completely on-board with the Brexit objective.

IMO the worst case scenario is that Brexit is part of a plan to undermine the UK's stability and the conservatives are in on it, for much the same reason that the GQP is undermining America: Poor, stupid voters fighting amongst themselves rather than recognising the architect of their worsening fortunes.

 

[mikeymikec]

The Chorus has told Boris: Get lost, goofy.

Its about time. This clown racist needed to be kicked to the curb a while ago.

Unfortunately, the reason for his departure is because tories felt that his incompetence was making them look bad, as opposed to any karmic principles at work.

 

[sdifox]

trolllololol

Larry The Cat's Announcement Amid UK Ministers' Resignation Goes Viral

After several MPs in the United Kingdom resigned from Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet, Larry the Downing Street cat also shared his resignation message on Twitter.

www.ndtv.com

 

[mikeymikec]

trolllololol

Larry The Cat's Announcement Amid UK Ministers' Resignation Goes Viral

After several MPs in the United Kingdom resigned from Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet, Larry the Downing Street cat also shared his resignation message on Twitter.

www.ndtv.com

This makes me think of that line out of Men in Black from Edgar:

"The only thing that pulls its weight around here is my god-damn truck!"
<UFO crashes into truck>
"Figures."

 

[pmv]

Next PM should send him to Rwanda

Until recently he held US citizenship (was a dual-citizen). Technically that meant he could have been subject to the new rules his own government introduced, allowing the Home Secretary to strip British citizenship from people considered undesirable (they can only do it to people who have dual citizenship or the right to claim citizenship of another country, because otherwise it would break international law by leaving someone stateless).

However, patriotic man of stern-principles that he is, he surrendered his US citizenship so as to reduce his tax burden, and as a side-effect he can no longer be kicked out of the UK.

Interesting that Rishi "Rich" Sunak held a Green Card (while working as Chancellor) while his millionaire wife was classed as a non-dom (resident in India) for tax-purposes. For a government that played so heavily on 'policing the borders' and 'controlling immigration' it included an awful lot of people with an ambivalent relationship to the UK.

 

[pmv]

Unfortunately, the reason for his departure is because tories felt that his incompetence was making them look bad, as opposed to any karmic principles at work.

Yeah, I can't imagine things are going to improve much in terms of policies. Will just be less clowning and open Muslim-bashing. And less Latin.

 

[Ajay]

Wow, done and dusted! Popped on to YouTube a couple of hours ago - and Boris' resignation speech was in my news feed. Politicians are something else, almost sounded like he was victorious.

 

[RnR_au]

Jonathan Pie has a few words to say...

 

[Dave_5k]

Great street background music for the Tory Boris-splainers:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1545077380527673344

 

[NTMBK]

Sounds like one MP is already sick of the leadership horse race!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1545299214636310529

 

[mikeymikec]

Jonathan Pie has a few words to say...

I don't always agree with Jonathan Pie, but when he gets it right, he really hits it out of the park.

 

[Lezunto]

Just make him leave. He is trying to appoint a new cabinet member as if nothing is wrong. He refuses to leave.

His would-be successors are lining up to vie for his job.

 

[pmv]

What the hell are you talking about? The Queen is a political puppet, nothing more. If she stepped one toe out of political line, the monarchy would be gone in short order. The British monarchy has done nothing politically meaningful in decades, probably centuries. Their official roles in politics are entirely scripted the the party in power at the time. What on earth makes you believe otherwise?

I'm not so sure about that. While DigDog overstates the case the other way, I wonder whether the monarchy is as powerless as you say.

In general the powers of 'The Crown' have been comprehensively appropriated by the Prime Minister of the day (and its the residue of the absolute monarchy that makes the UK system potentially quite undemocratic, e.g. it was through the powers of 'The Crown' that the UK government sacked the Australian Prime Minister - probably in turn acting on behalf of the American President!).

But just as the US is now demonstrating how much power a politically-driven Supreme Court can wield, I think it's possible that when the egotistical Charles takes the throne we might find the monarchy has more power left than we realised. Even the generally innocuous Liz has apparently from time-to-time bent the ear of a minister or two in the interests of keeping her tax-bills down. Charlie will probably be much worse.