Politics Today

[tavyred]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/591136035188428800

6 years ago Mike, what’s changed?

 

[Grecian2K]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/591136035188428800

Nice one mate!
Let's see how our West Devon reporter manages to deflect this one.

Anyhow, enough politicking. More important matters to focus on for the next couple of hours. Seeing off those pesky (borderline) Cymric invaders.

 

[arthur]

No Brexiteer was winning that leadership contest art. The parliamentary Tory party and the Government itself in 2016 was majority pro EU and thus it was pre ordained that a safe pair of hands was going to give us a remainer Brexit in the hope that the 17.4m wouldn’t notice.

Yes, of course all 17.4 million who voted Leave wanted exactly the same Brexit. Like Norman Lamont, fervent Brexiter, who wanted us to leave the EU political structures and stay in the economic/trade ones, like Switzerland.

I suppose the fact that Gove was unattractive and Leadsom was useless had nothing to do with the result of the leadership election. Johnson withdrew because he was in serious danger of winning; he'd already made the mistake of winning when he didn't want to a few months earlier and he didn't want to make that mistake again

 

[IndoMike]

Nice one mate!
Let's see how our West Devon reporter manages to deflect this one.

Anyhow, enough politicking. More important matters to focus on for the next couple of hours. Seeing off those pesky (borderline) Cymric invaders.

UTC!

 

[IndoMike]

6 years ago Mike, what’s changed?

She didn't want to repeat it year after year in order to avoid accusations of plagiarism.

 

[IndoMike]

Nice one mate!
Let's see how our West Devon reporter manages to deflect this one.

Anyhow, enough politicking. More important matters to focus on for the next couple of hours. Seeing off those pesky (borderline) Cymric invaders.

Oops. (Hangs head in shame)

 

[tavyred]

Yes, of course all 17.4 million who voted Leave wanted exactly the same Brexit. Like Norman Lamont, fervent Brexiter, who wanted us to leave the EU political structures and stay in the economic/trade ones, like Switzerland.

I suppose the fact that Gove was unattractive and Leadsom was useless had nothing to do with the result of the leadership election. Johnson withdrew because he was in serious danger of winning; he'd already made the mistake of winning when he didn't want to a few months earlier and he didn't want to make that mistake again

That story about BJ I genuinely have never heard before, it was my perception that Gove was initially happy for BJ to be the face of the Brexiteer ticket and for reasons of self advancement Gove stitched up BJ and announced he was running instead and was thus withdrawing his support of the BJ candidacy.

 

[IndoMike]

I am referring to your assertion that the age of the populists is dying.

it's not dead, but I think it's dying, basically because populist leaders seem to end up becoming authoritarian.
These authoritarian populists lose popularity because the people in general do want democracy and can see through the incompetence of leaders who came to power via
bullsh+t.
Trump, Bolsonaro, Modi, Orban, Levshenko are good examples of authoritarian populists that have failed / are failing.

 

[angelic upstart]

Corbyn came out in 2016 saying he was a (mild) fan of the EU. He very much wasn't.

He also pledged in 2017 to honour the 2016 referendum result. He didn't.

He was no better than the rest of them.

Good points, I take it back. That said, he's not Johnson level of lies.

 

[Mr Jinx]

Good heavens. I was wondering what The People would think of the Mercer outburst. But apart from the specific matter in hand (prosecution of troops who served in NI) all of what Mercer said has been said before by many others - the chaos and sheer nastiness of the Johnson regime and the fact that Johnson makes promises to people which he has no intention of keeping.

Tim Shipman made the point in the Sunday Times that Johnson being a "Slippery barsteward" is priced in - i.e. the electorate is well aware of his fundamental dishonesty (or vacuum of integrity as D Grieve put it this morning), yet they are still happy to support him because they think he'll deliver for them.

Deliver quite what I wonder. He's delivered naff all so far - the vaccine triumph was down to Cummings and Whitty taking an enormous risk which paid off, and credit to them. (The EU Commission was not capable of behaving like this, having 27 countries to answer to if they wasted billions on something that didn't work, which is why they became mired in bureaucracy and delay).

So we live in a country run by a man everyone knows to be fundamentally dishonest, yet relatively few people seem to care. Am I allowed to find this ever so slightly depressing?

Yes by all means.

I think the country is happier being led by the current incumbent rather than someone a little bit more honest and saintly like Theresa May. Don't you?