Friday 16 June 2017

Friday Quiz - May Day!

How long will May as UK Prime Minister last?



A) 5 days

B) 5 weeks

C) 5 months

D) 5 years



Answers and Comments in the comments.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just slightly after 12th july when the true nature of the nut jobs in charge comes into the media spotlight.

We have very short memories of the waste and carnage that can be generated by upsetting the status quo over there.

CityUnslicker said...

I hope C.

The country really needs a period of calm. Sadly the Corbynista's know this so are carrying on like the GE has not happened and we are still in an election campaign. Revolutions don't happen on their own after all!

A) will be shit but if I was her I might buckle under the pressure. I hope she holds out, for all the brickbats in her direction she is not that terrible.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to see 5 hours is not an option

Anonymous said...

C, We need at least some semblance of normality and the Tory party doesn't want to be seen indulging itself in another leadership contest so soon after the election, nor do any contenders want to do so in the aftermath of tragedy. As such we can expect little to change in the immediate term. But seismic shifts would need to happen for 5 years to ever be an option.

Suff said...

Why 5 ? It's a bit of a large number for us northerners to comprehend. OT loved yesterday's comments and the idea of meeting up for a beer sounds great but being in a different country makes it difficult. It's the same with the Christmas drink. Even though I return to Blighty every year, the late notice makes it impossible to organise a diversion on my trip back. I've noticed lately that quite a few of the commenters are based not far from my old stomping ground Holmfirth. So why don't we organise a Christmas meet up for the Northern contingency of C&W, wippits and flat caps welcome.

Anonymous said...

@Stuff

Huddersfield is actually my home town too, but perhaps a larger city for ease of access?

andrew said...


If she makes it through the summer

1 April 2019.

Anonymous said...

Here we go already, trouble outside Ken Town Hall. Didn't take long, did it?

Bill Quango MP said...

The media have been doing everything short of calling for a riot for 48 hours now. SKY particularly bad.

As for TM.

5 weeks would be best.
Leadership election during the recess and new leader for a new parliament in the autumn.
And as a Tory grandee I'd try my hardest to ensure no more than 3 candidates standing and preferably only 2. All over very quickly like it was when Dave went.

Anonymous said...

"A man in a suit has been chased and attacked by protesters. It is being reported they believe he works for KCTMO, the housing association which ran Grenfell Tower on behalf of Kensington and Chelsea council."

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/grenfell-tower-fire-live-updates-criminal-investigation-opened-as-families-tell-of-losing-hope-after-a3566401.html

Tom Wolfe's Bonfire Of The Vanities is your go-to text for this sort of thing. Everyone should read it. What - 30 years old now? And as relevant as ever.

amcluesent said...

I expect a Govt. of National Emergency will be formed, as in 1939.

NB Anyone else moving 100% into bullion gold?

Nick Drew said...

5 days, I s'pose, the way things are going, followed by minority Lab government. Of course, as Head Girl she knows how to stand up straight when there's trouble around, but that may not be enough

Interesting thing, though: right now, I'd say the Conservative Party doesn't actually exist. There's just two baronial factions, circling for power. And she doesn't lead, or represent, or even belong to, either of them. But no-one who is The Party to walk in and say, OK chaps, this is what we do

Party Chairman? - a cypher

Chairman of the '22? - ditto

Bill Quango? - in the bar

Gavin Barwell? - might just have been plausible were it not for his 'guilt-by-indirect-association'

Anyone else? [enter your suggestions below]

in between laughing like a drain, Osborne must be bitterly regretting he stood down. He must be tempted to march in and take over, though

For another post: historical examples of 'beaten' leaders hanging on in there successfully ...

(oh yeah, I forgot - she's not even a leader)

Anonymous said...

Alfred The Great? But he was an actual leader.

Osborne's certainly not holding back his ES attack dogs, is he?

dustybloke said...

It should be C, but with dopey Osborne attacking her every day, I think she'll crack.

I wouldn't mind but Osborne is a posher Nick Timothy, someone who thinks he has a brain the size of a planet and is a natural bully (typical Eton), but really is a bit dim and insecure.

Steven_L said...

Osborne isn't Eton he's a complete oik.

Steven_L said...

NB Anyone else moving 100% into bullion gold?

No, but I've started a shift into foreign equity funds. Investing in foreign stuff was actually the plan all along as my main pension is a sterling denominated local government one. But then the EU referendum came up and I thought to myself

"Nah, don't buy FX now as when the remain vote comes in you'll lose 10%."

Then we voted leave and suddenly there were lots of cheap UK equities and I was nursing losses on half of what I'd bought already. So I thought:

"Nah, don't buy FX now as when the panic dissipates you'll lose 20%, plus UK shares are dirt cheap."

Then May called an election and I thought:

"Nah, don't buy FX now as when the tories increase their majority you'll lose 10%."

But now I've slipped back to only being about 10% up for the year and my major holdings are all nursing losses. I made the usual daft but hard to avoid mistake of selling my winners (sold Hostelworld @ £2.80 for instance).

So now I've decided to go back to plan A and over the next 12 months will drip it all into into 12 foreign equity funds. My lifetime ISA is going 85% or so into foreign funds too.

Oh well at least I've had a good trading fix.

Electro-Kevin said...

5 Years.

She's what most Tories want - because most Tories want soft Brexit.

A general election with the now very real threat of a Corbyn government will be averted at all costs.

It will be tough. The coming years are going to be hard for everyone and May will have satisfied no-one in her quest to be all things to all men.

Talking tough on Brexit whilst slyly giving Remain every advantage.

Steven_L said...

It just gets worse and worse:

The bosses of the company that installed Grenfell Tower's allegedly deadly cladding was accused by HMRC of pumping £2.5million into tax avoidance schemes, MailOnline can reveal today.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4611268/Grenfell-cladding-bosses-2-5m-tax-avoidance.html#ixzz4kCGBdG5A

So I'll go for A and B at the latest.

Electro-Kevin said...

Steven L - Grenfell Tower is what London Remainers wanted. A cheap workforce in cheap housing hidden behind cheap cladding so they didn't have to look at it !

They can't have it that *good* London is Remain and *bad* London is Conservative.

Remain wanted unsustainable mass immigration and this is the result. Third World housing.

Anonymous said...

Well have to wait for the inquiry of course. However, it seems possible/likely so I am told that the main problem was not the cladding but a gas leak inside the building. The building was one of many n London being converted from electric to gas. Westminster are also doing the same.
The big question may well be -why couldn't the gas be turned off quickly/automatically by appropriate valve or similar? This is where someone/various people in management/'value engineering' might get into serious trouble.

amcluesent said...

The more the Grenfell protests are seen to be hi-jacked by SWP and Momentum agit-props the more pressure comes off May as she can say it's all fifth-columnists trying to overthrow the Govt. Which is true.

Most peeps looking at the news tonight would be forgiven for thinking the reports were from Mogadishu.

Steven_L said...

The protests will probably pass quickly. But the facts of the matter will keep pouring out. They will make good headlines and the newspapers will print them. This one will run and run and run.

For a start loads of other dwellings will be covered in this shite and it'll all need ripping off pronto. So May can either abdicate responsibility and leave it up to local authorities to make another pigs ear of or do it centrally via the Cabinet Office which will result in a very big number being cited as the cost. I reckon she'll plump for trying to order LA's into doing it.

But LA's might point out that the tories (including a lot of Cabinet Ministers) voted down more stringent building regs requiring sprinklers quite recently and that their dwellings are legal. And LA's (encouraged by Blairite nulab, condem and the tories) have all delegated responsibility to dodgy, palm greasing, tax dodging management companies. More juicy sleaze and good headlines to keep the hacks busy.

So leaving it to LA's to sort out if problematic. Or May can assume charge herself, and then any mud just sticks to her. Either way, I reckon she's toast.

As ND always says "Events ...."

Electro-Kevin said...

Grenfell Tower is in staunchly Remain London which wanted its cheap workforce, in cheap housing hidden from view behind cheap cladding.

This was done for the Notting Hill elite to look upon.

I fail to see in what way this is the Tories' fault.

They can't have it that all good things are Remain/EU and all the bad things are Leave/Tory.

Electro-Kevin said...

I'm shortening my time for May dependent on when and how bad the rioting.

Anonymous said...

Dunno, I don't think the 2011 riots did Cameron any harm, though they lost one or two white voters beaten to death by 'youths'.

But then people were fed uup of Labour and the Tories hadn't cut 20,000 police.

Steven_L said...

Riots? Nah. Someone's going to get sued big time, it'll drag on and on and on this. The riots were because the cops shot a suspected gun-toting drug dealer.

This is completely different. 'The authorities' have burned a hundred innocents alive. There'll be hell to pay, you watch.

Anonymous said...

5 months - May's biggest problem now is her aloofness and lack of empathy. We've had three events, all needing a leader with an ability to connect as well as a degree of competence. May fails on both counts, tick tock.

Anonymous said...

"May's biggest problem now is her aloofness and lack of empathy. We've had three events, all needing a leader with an ability to connect as well as a degree of competence"

"Sincerity - if you can fake that, you've got it made"

A lot of people aren't natural emoters/connecters - Clem Attlee for one. But I know just the chap who can meet your requirements - I was hoping we'd seen the last of Tony Blair, but when it comes to telling people what they want to hear while simultaneously sounding as if it was all just there inside him waiting to come out, there's none better. And he's very competent at getting things done - he certainly transformed Britain, even if some of us hated the transformation.