Politics Today

[Mr Jinx]

Time for Labour to push for a General Election, its hard at the moment to see the Conservatives being able to muster a decent opposition let alone Government.

It's difficult to predict just how much damage Boris has done to the Conservative brand...

Labour can push all they want. Given that fix term parliaments got rightly scrapped, it's not up to them.

And they should be careful what they wish for. If Boris was that damaged and that bad, they've missed the boat - he now won't be contending the next GE. Besides, Starmer might not be in situ himself for much longer. And if he u-turns and doesn't resign over the FPN he just got, that will damage his brand massively.

 

[Suzi & The Banned Cheese]

Well, if you want to split hairs, yes it was Boris's fault for getting involved with someone who was politically active.

Most PM's partners in the past have taken a back seat. Carrie was very much not that. Which got Cumming's back up for one...and that was the beginning of the fault line.

You are completely ignoring the fact that Boris was clearly unfit for the Office of Prime Minister .

 

[Mr Jinx]

You are completely ignoring the fact that Boris was clearly unfit for the Office of Prime Minister .

Well, we'll always agree to disagree on that.

And like I said if he was that clearly unfit, Labour have missed the boat, if someone who is clearly fit comes in to take his place.

 

[Suzi & The Banned Cheese]

MAX HASTINGS ON BORIS - FROM JUNE 2019

He would not recognise the truth, whether about his private or political life, if confronted by it in an identity parade

I have known Johnson since the 1980s, when I edited the Daily Telegraph and he was our flamboyant Brussels correspondent. I have argued for a decade that, while he is a brilliant entertainer who made a popular maître d’ for London as its mayor, he is unfit for national office, because it seems he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification.

Tory MPs have launched this country upon an experiment in celebrity government, matching that taking place in Ukraine and the US, and it is unlikely to be derailed by the latest headlines. The Washington Post columnist George Will observes that Donald Trump does what his political base wants “by breaking all the china”. We can’t predict what a Johnson government will do, because its prospective leader has not got around to thinking about this. But his premiership will almost certainly reveal a contempt for rules, precedent, order and stability.

A few admirers assert that, in office, Johnson will reveal an accession of wisdom and responsibility that have hitherto eluded him, not least as foreign secretary. This seems unlikely. Dignity still matters in public office, and Johnson will never have it. Yet his graver vice is cowardice, reflected in a willingness to tell any audience, whatever he thinks most likely to please, heedless of the inevitability of its contradiction an hour later.

Like many showy personalities, he is of weak character. I recently suggested to a radio audience that he supposes himself to be Winston Churchill, while in reality being closer to Alan Partridge. Churchill, for all his wit, was a profoundly serious human being. Far from perceiving anything glorious about standing alone in 1940, he knew that all difficult issues must be addressed with allies and partners.

Churchill’s self-obsession was tempered by a huge compassion for humanity, or at least white humanity, which Johnson confines to himself. He has long been considered a bully, prone to making cheap threats. My old friend Christopher Bland, when chairman of the BBC, once described to me how he received an angry phone call from Johnson, denouncing the corporation’s “gross intrusion upon my personal life” for its coverage of one of his love affairs.

“We know plenty about your personal life that you would not like to read in the Spectator,” the then editor of the magazine told the BBC’s chairman, while demanding he order the broadcaster to lay off his own dalliances.

Bland told me he replied: “Boris, think about what you have just said. There is a word for it, and it is not a pretty one.”

He said Johnson blustered into retreat, but in my own files I have handwritten notes from our possible next prime minister, threatening dire consequences in print if I continued to criticise him.

Johnson would not recognise truth, whether about his private or political life, if confronted by it in an identity parade. In a commonplace book the other day, I came across an observation made in 1750 by a contemporary savant, Bishop Berkeley: “It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public.” Almost the only people who think Johnson a nice guy are those who do not know him.

There is, of course, a symmetry between himself and Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn is far more honest, but harbours his own extravagant delusions. He may yet prove to be the only possible Labour leader whom Johnson can defeat in a general election. If the opposition was led by anybody else, the Tories would be deservedly doomed, because we would all vote for it. As it is, the Johnson premiership could survive for three or four years, shambling from one embarrassment and debacle to another, of which Brexit may prove the least.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/24/top-tory-party-donor-joins-calls-for-boris-johnson-to-explain-row
For many of us, his elevation will signal Britain’s abandonment of any claim to be a serious country. It can be claimed that few people realised what a poor prime minister Theresa May would prove until they saw her in Downing Street. With Boris, however, what you see now is almost assuredly what we shall get from him as ruler of Britain.

We can scarcely strip the emperor’s clothes from a man who has built a career, or at least a lurid love life, out of strutting without them. The weekend stories of his domestic affairs are only an aperitif for his future as Britain’s leader. I have a hunch that Johnson will come to regret securing the prize for which he has struggled so long, because the experience of the premiership will lay bare his absolute unfitness for it.

If the Johnson family had stuck to showbusiness like the Osmonds, Marx Brothers or von Trapp family, the world would be a better place. Yet the Tories, in their terror, have elevated a cavorting charlatan to the steps of Downing Street, and they should expect to pay a full forfeit when voters get the message. If the price of Johnson proves to be Corbyn, blame will rest with the Conservative party, which is about to foist a tasteless joke upon the British people – who will not find it funny for long.

 

[Suzi & The Banned Cheese]

Well, we'll always agree to disagree on that.

And like I said if he was that clearly unfit, Labour have missed the boat, if someone who is clearly fit comes in to take his place.

I am a bit puzzled by your response, Boris is clearly unfit for office and as Max Hastings article brilliantly illustrates this was well known , Boris has damaged reputation of the Conservative Party and the whole of British Politics...

 

[Suzi & The Banned Cheese]

Ok who is going to start clapping at 8pm tonight!!!!

 

[IndoMike]

SS Global Britain has run aground, its crew mutinous, the pirate refusing to leave the wheel.

David Cameron has a lot to answer for.

So does his mum..

 

[IndoMike]

MAX HASTINGS ON BORIS - FROM JUNE 2019

He would not recognise the truth, whether about his private or political life, if confronted by it in an identity parade

I have known Johnson since the 1980s, when I edited the Daily Telegraph and he was our flamboyant Brussels correspondent. I have argued for a decade that, while he is a brilliant entertainer who made a popular maître d’ for London as its mayor, he is unfit for national office, because it seems he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification.

Tory MPs have launched this country upon an experiment in celebrity government, matching that taking place in Ukraine and the US, and it is unlikely to be derailed by the latest headlines. The Washington Post columnist George Will observes that Donald Trump does what his political base wants “by breaking all the china”. We can’t predict what a Johnson government will do, because its prospective leader has not got around to thinking about this. But his premiership will almost certainly reveal a contempt for rules, precedent, order and stability.

A few admirers assert that, in office, Johnson will reveal an accession of wisdom and responsibility that have hitherto eluded him, not least as foreign secretary. This seems unlikely. Dignity still matters in public office, and Johnson will never have it. Yet his graver vice is cowardice, reflected in a willingness to tell any audience, whatever he thinks most likely to please, heedless of the inevitability of its contradiction an hour later.

Like many showy personalities, he is of weak character. I recently suggested to a radio audience that he supposes himself to be Winston Churchill, while in reality being closer to Alan Partridge. Churchill, for all his wit, was a profoundly serious human being. Far from perceiving anything glorious about standing alone in 1940, he knew that all difficult issues must be addressed with allies and partners.

Churchill’s self-obsession was tempered by a huge compassion for humanity, or at least white humanity, which Johnson confines to himself. He has long been considered a bully, prone to making cheap threats. My old friend Christopher Bland, when chairman of the BBC, once described to me how he received an angry phone call from Johnson, denouncing the corporation’s “gross intrusion upon my personal life” for its coverage of one of his love affairs.

“We know plenty about your personal life that you would not like to read in the Spectator,” the then editor of the magazine told the BBC’s chairman, while demanding he order the broadcaster to lay off his own dalliances.

Bland told me he replied: “Boris, think about what you have just said. There is a word for it, and it is not a pretty one.”

He said Johnson blustered into retreat, but in my own files I have handwritten notes from our possible next prime minister, threatening dire consequences in print if I continued to criticise him.

Johnson would not recognise truth, whether about his private or political life, if confronted by it in an identity parade. In a commonplace book the other day, I came across an observation made in 1750 by a contemporary savant, Bishop Berkeley: “It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public.” Almost the only people who think Johnson a nice guy are those who do not know him.

There is, of course, a symmetry between himself and Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn is far more honest, but harbours his own extravagant delusions. He may yet prove to be the only possible Labour leader whom Johnson can defeat in a general election. If the opposition was led by anybody else, the Tories would be deservedly doomed, because we would all vote for it. As it is, the Johnson premiership could survive for three or four years, shambling from one embarrassment and debacle to another, of which Brexit may prove the least.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/24/top-tory-party-donor-joins-calls-for-boris-johnson-to-explain-row
For many of us, his elevation will signal Britain’s abandonment of any claim to be a serious country. It can be claimed that few people realised what a poor prime minister Theresa May would prove until they saw her in Downing Street. With Boris, however, what you see now is almost assuredly what we shall get from him as ruler of Britain.

We can scarcely strip the emperor’s clothes from a man who has built a career, or at least a lurid love life, out of strutting without them. The weekend stories of his domestic affairs are only an aperitif for his future as Britain’s leader. I have a hunch that Johnson will come to regret securing the prize for which he has struggled so long, because the experience of the premiership will lay bare his absolute unfitness for it.

If the Johnson family had stuck to showbusiness like the Osmonds, Marx Brothers or von Trapp family, the world would be a better place. Yet the Tories, in their terror, have elevated a cavorting charlatan to the steps of Downing Street, and they should expect to pay a full forfeit when voters get the message. If the price of Johnson proves to be Corbyn, blame will rest with the Conservative party, which is about to foist a tasteless joke upon the British people – who will not find it funny for long.

Absolutely

 

[Mr Jinx]

I am a bit puzzled by your response, Boris is clearly unfit for office and as Max Hastings article brilliantly illustrates this was well known , Boris has damaged reputation of the Conservative Party and the whole of British Politics...

Ah, so I'm wrong because some bloke who never liked him says so. Boris had fans (he still has a 70 odd majority in case you'd forgotten) and not even a little over a year ago, the Tories were taking by-election seats off Labour.

Then a few chinks in the armour appeared and that's all it took for Cummings to exact his revenge.

If only Boris hadn't gone wobbly over Covid and brought in restrictions that even he knew were ridiculous, I wouldn't be typing this now. Covid's done Boris in just as it did Trump in.

All ifs and buts now. Tories will get a new Leader in now who will experience a bit of a fillip. A shame Frost isn't in the mix. I see Mordaunt is now favourite, and, as she is an ardent Brexiteer, I'd be ok with that. Ben Wallace wouldn't be a bad shout, anyone but Sunak. Given Rishi's wife is a millionaire non-dom, I think that categorically rules him out, thankfully.

Nandy vs Mordaunt at the next GE. Wonder who put money down on that!?

 

[IndoMike]

Well, we'll always agree to disagree on that.

And like I said if he was that clearly unfit, Labour have missed the boat, if someone who is clearly fit comes in to take his place.

.
Yeah, I guess Labour have really screwed up. I mean, it must be awful for them to see the Tory Party self-implode, observe more than 40 Tory resignations, see scores of stories of Tory sleaze, scandal and corruption, and watch as the obese philanderer and charlatan blathers his way through his latest fabrications
Poor Labour Sigh Where did it all go wrong?