Monday 6 June 2022

Boris on the Rocks: Predict That Vote!

 ... and not before time.

I suppose everybody already knows what they think about the shameless oaf.  If not, have a read of this.

Open thread, with particular glory going to any BTL-er who calls the vote correctly during the course of the day.

ND

UPDATE  - This bloke wins the compo, hands down

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jun/07/professor-dubbed-mystic-meg-of-politics-says-boris-johnson-will-be-out-by-autumn

Now, if he'd like to email us & claim his free subscription to our own wonderous political sooth-saying ...  

37 comments:

Elby the Beserk said...

Better the devil?

I fear Johnson will not be voted out. Also, who on earth takes over? Low rent rules the day. Maybe we need an absolute Monarchy ;-)

Anonymous said...

Why would anyone sane want to take over the conservative party at this time?
There's a high likelihood things are going to get worse before they get better, so why not keep Boris in for now and take him out just before things start to recover.

Anonymous said...

I hear Theresa May is available

Anonymous said...

It must be said that it's a real poisoned chalice of a job, so he may survive. Is there any competent Tory prepared to grasp this particularly spiky and poisonous nettle? As a public duty? The old Tories would have found someone.

I wonder btw what Dom's view on Europe committing economic suicide to try and inconvenience This Decade's Hitler is?

Nick Drew said...

@ Why would anyone sane want to take over the conservative party at this time?

Well, you did add the qualifier "sane" ...

BUT you need to think like a politician. These opportunities - to become PM!!! - come round very rarely (as a rule ...) and virtually nobody who might be a genuine candidate says to themselves "you know what: tactically, I think I'll pass on this one"

(Boris lui-même in 2016 is the only example I can think of)

That's because (a) the prize is, truly, so extraordinary; and these people are Ambitious. Read up about Lord Melbourne (below)

(b) in their arrogance they fancy they'd be able to make something of it, even in dire circumstances. Maybe even just via the Micawber strategy.

(c) just as I endlessly say to EK and others BTL who periodically say "the next GE is surely one to lose", that's a complete failure of imagination! You always want your hands on the levers of power: they guarantee you the initiative, a precious commodity, in bucket-loads. Granted, some people (e.g. *ahem* BJ) have absolutely no idea how to use those levers, having no creativity or initiative. But that's hardly the point.
___________
"Melbourne said to his secretary, Tom Young: "I think it's a damned bore. I am in many minds as to what to do". Young replied: "Why, damn it all, such a position was never held by any Greek or Roman: and if it only lasts three months, it will be worth while to have been Prime Minister of England [sic]." "By God, that's true," Melbourne said, "I'll go!""

jim said...

What is required is someone who:-

can make 2+2=9

magic gigawatts out of cucumbers

spin gold out of Angie's growler

So Boris it is - he says he can do it - and we all believe him.

This greased piglet will escape, no one else fits the bill.

CityUnslicker said...

Boris will survive, too quick this mechanism I fear. Needed more momentum to get people to think of the alternates as credible. There is no 'Boris' this time as there was with May.

DAD said...

I think that BoJo will obtain a vote of confidence; but will resign in August.

Bill Quango MP said...

DAD has it about right.
Tess the wet won her vote of no confidence. Alas, the size of the ‘please go’ lobby was considerable. She staggered on, coughing and dancing, for another six months. Making everything much worse.

He might do well to do a Blair. Survive the coup. But agree to relinquish power in the not too distant future. With an appointed, anointed, ‘elected’ successor already in place.

( do we recall the comedy of Gordon Brown campaigning to be leader, and PM, around the country, in a race against only himself? Which he then almost lost.)

On the actual numbers in the vote,

52% remain
48% leave

Just to set that nightmare off again.

Jan said...

I think he'll scrape in as he always seems to get by, by the skin of his teeth. He's very good at muddling through. The people who want him out should have waited until after the two by-elections at the end of the month which will probably result in losses for the Tories. That's a fantastic article by the way Nick.

Anonymous said...

OT, Gareth Roberts on yesterday's parade, which I caught a minute of

"As ever, the authorities seemed terrified in their strange way that in a country 87% white and 98% heterosexual, thirty seconds might go by without a minority appearing on screen...We are all the Queen now, shoved in front of things we are not interested in and which are not very good, expected to show polite approval and go through the motions at how improving for us it all is"

andrew said...


I hope that the great British public make the Cons options clear by not voting for them (staying home) in the next 2 by-elections.

Enough that it looks like they might come third in the next GE if you squint.

Boris will then resign about 2 weeks later - call it week 1 July.



Anonymous said...

Think Carrie Antoinette's oversized hat at the service swung it. Glad I was not sitting behind her!

Anonymous said...

OT but a good thread.

"To understand the Ukraine war, you need to look at all four dimensions of this tragedy. It is simultaneously 1) a civil war, 2) a clash of ethnonationalisms, 3) an empire's attempt to reclaim its vital province, and 4) part of a struggle for global supremacy."

https://mobile.twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1530582433288134656

Elby the Beserk said...

Diogenes said...

But it is the point. Take the proposed announcement of Right-to-Buy for Social Housing. The effects on housebuilding and investment will be major if those that finance the sector find the asset base sold off for a politically-induced headline. If you think there is a housing shortage now just wait.

12:42 pm
=====================================================

Our local Housing Association - Aster, since you asked, and acknowledged by tenants and anyone who has dealings with them, to be beyond useless, now sell heir properties when a lease ends or the tenants move.

They say, I am told, that it would cost too much to do them up for sale. I.E. They never do or did any maintenance. And they get a good price as well, making sure that local kids are kept out.

Jaw dropped when R4 a few weeks back talked to the head of Aster's Frome office, about social housing in the area; she proudly proclaimed how Aster were always looking to build new properties. She didn't, however, say what they do with old properties...

dearieme said...

I'm as underwhelmed by prospect of the vote as I was underwhelmed by the Jubilee.

But at least the latter had the amusing skit by HMtheQ and Paddington.

dearieme said...

I meant to add: the acid criticism from Cummings is rather undermined by the fact that his pandemic-related complaint about Boris is that he wasn't fascist enough about lockdowns. Cummings is clearly a nitwit.

Don Cox said...

There's no fool like an intelligent fool. I think this applies to Cummings.

There seem to be big gaps in his understanding of human nature.

Don Cox

Anonymous said...

"There's no fool like an intelligent fool. I think this applies to Cummings."

Yet Boris is pretty intelligent, and he's a much bigger fool than Dom.

I think he'll be mortally wounded tonight. Every Scottish Tory is voting against.

Boris doesn't worry too much about the little people. But I think they'll do for him tonight. The history of post-war Tory confidence votes is all one way. If things have got that far, there's no returning.

"There's no breathing space inside this place, there's no escaping"

Bill Quango MP said...

359

211 for Boris to stay.
148 against

Anonymous said...

148 against. Doomed, doomed! Nemesis!

"I could throttle some of my colleagues. They want to hand our country to a coalition of Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats. It will be votes at 16 and then who knows what will happen?"

But who's going to step forward? If it's Lynne Truss I'll join the SWP!

Andrea Leadsom, step forward please. And bring back Dom!

Nick Drew said...

Everyone I know who personally knows Lynne Truss (& I don't) says the same

personally, if it's Penny ("if they say they're a woman, they are a woman") Mordaunt, I'm off

Anonymous said...

OT, more related to the previous thread, but since the Russians bombed the two-track line through the Carpathians to Lvov on June 1, I've not seen a single large military plane land at Rzeszow in Poland.

Anniversary today of our own "denazification mission". I remember our sales director in 1984. "40 years ago today, I was standing up to my neck in s*** and being shot at!"

Sobers said...

"I could throttle some of my colleagues. They want to hand our country to a coalition of Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats. It will be votes at 16 and then who knows what will happen"

Voting Tory gets you exactly the same stuff as that coalition would deliver, just a bit slower thats all.

PushingTheBoundaries said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PushingTheBoundaries said...

Is Lynne Truss related to Liz Truss by any chance???
If they can't even name the Foreign Sec. What chance for actually voting..ffs!

Nick Drew said...

Exactly

she can get back to writing those books

Anonymous said...

Sobers: "Voting Tory gets you exactly the same stuff as that coalition would deliver, just a bit slower thats all."

Exactly.

Re: Boris Johnson, well, I thought he'd won. But he got less support than Theresa May, who resigned within six months. Sadly, there is still time for the Twerp to start WW3 inside six months.

I suppose with the Defence secretary Ben Wallace blabbing military secrets all over Youtube, like a pubescent schoolgirl, it probably won't last that long.

So there is that!

EK said...

I'm dealing with a crisis oop North (family) and will be back soon.

dearieme said...

Please, chaps, not Jeremy Hunt.

Lord Frost would be best. Could we return to having a PM in the Lords? That would be most amusing.

Or if there is some neat constitutional exemption available find him a safe seat, quick.

Jan said...

GB News want him lurching to the right with tax cuts and getting rid of net zero and green taxes etc. They were all saying yesterday (presenters and guests) that since all the parties are much of a muchness at present, the only way to go is to the right and this would keep the red wallers on side. Otherwise he's toast. I agree and at last there would be some sensible Toryness. Thank goodness for GB News to give a bit of balance in the MSM.

Nick Drew said...

Go well, Kev

Anonymous said...

Your link https://www.theguardian.com/politics ... whatever

is broken, actually you've got https://https://www.theguardian.com etc etc.

Nick Drew said...

fixed, thanks

Anonymous said...

As much as I rag you karate kev the whinger

Yes it’s grim up north

Go well

EK said...

Thanks. The most appalling news, I'm afraid.

djm said...

Moore, when asking the question

"Do you still think it was right to leave Europe?"

betrays her Europhile mindset.

No-one voted in June 2016 to Leave Europe...... they voted to Leave the EU (*)


(*) which still - 6 years down the line - hasn't been done.