Westminster Politics

Paul the Wolf said:
They are foolish to let him carry on. It was unbelievable that he was ever considered suitable to lead the Conservative party never mind the country. I've had the unfortunate experience of dealing with people like Johnson. There is only one way to deal with them. People who pander to people like him will always be treated with contempt, that includes his fellow MPs and the electorate.
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I was listening to an interview with someone who was doing a documentary about Boris.
The man said to Boris that he had said something about a specific subject and Boris immediately denied saying that.
The guy then showed Boris the film clip of him saying exactly that and Boris just laughed and said to the guy that what he had actually said was just as a joke and not to be taken seriously.

And to me, that was a good example of Boris. Saying the first thing that comes into his head, denying ever saying it and then when shown the evidence, passing it off with some excuse or other.

He has repeatedly been proven as unfit for any position of responsibility because he is a showman. An actor who says what he thinks people want to hear. Totally unreliable and totally incompetent and unable to take responsibility for his own mistakes.
 
Wonder if Carrie will move on to someone more influential now. Steve Baker seems nice.
 
Annihilate Now! said:


I think even some hardened Mail readers might think they've missed the mark on this one...
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Nah they’re onto it. Their readership has been taken so far with the mental right wing bullshit that there’s no going back now. You’d assume that almost anyone who goes in the door will be too moderate now
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Too many people unfortunately!
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You are quite right about that. I was trying to refer to those who post here. But as you say, that paper has far too much influence on the British people. Gawd knows why unless it appeals to their inherent masochism.
 
GuybrushThreepwood said:
Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I just couldn't forgive him for his antics during the EU referendum. We know that:

- He only campaigned to leave, as he noted that around / at least two thirds of Tory party members supported leave at the time, and so he determined that it was better for his chances of winning a party leadership contest and becoming PM. Numerous people within the party who have known him for a very long time confirmed that before his public announcement he never once indicated that he wanted to leave the EU.
- He didn't actually want to win the referendum and leave the EU. He was hoping for the expected outcome which as a narrow remain win. Cameron's authority would still have been heavily weakened following the bitter in-fighting within the party during the campaign (he wouldn't have resigned immediately but his expected departure would still have surely been brought forward from 2019-2020), and he'd be in pole position to replace him without having to clean up the huge mess of a leave victory.

He is worse than Farage (who I also despise) as far as I'm concerned. At least Farage genuinely wanted to leave the EU, and for at least 2 decades before the referendum including when is nothing more than a fringe movement. Johnson didn't

So he treated the most important UK-wide democratic event in many of our lifetimes, far more important than any general election (for people in Scotland the 2014 Indy Ref was of course bigger and maybe the 1997 devolution one as well), as a political game, and contributed massively to leading the country to a castrophic act of unnecessary self harm.
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Doesn't that describe most if not all politicians?
 
Red the Bear said:
Doesn't that describe most if not all politicians?
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I don't think it does, certainly not to the extent of Johnson.

Sure Theresa May was sneaky during the referendum, delivering one major speech and then going into hiding, but at least she delivered that one speech in favour of remaining in the EU which she thought was best.

I despised Osborne and his record as chancellor, not least the excessive austerity (which was a major contributing factor to Brexit). But he knew that leaving the EU would be disastrous, and he basically and knowingly destroyed his own leadership ambitions (beforehand he alongside Johnson and May were considered to be the main contenders to replace Cameron) during that campaign and enraged many his Tory party colleagues by so strongly supporting Remain (though his series of overly negative, dire warnings were a terrible mistake).

Johnson clearly knew and thought ahead of during and the EU referendum that it was better to remain in the EU (and when he drafted those 2 Daily Telegraph articles insiders thought that his was in favour of remain was far better), but despite that put his personal ambition above the fate of the country and the importance of that hugely important reference, by campaigning in favour of what he knew full well was damaging for the country.
 
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GuybrushThreepwood said:
I don't think it does, certainly not to the extent of Johnson.

Sure Theresa May was sneaky during the referendum, delivering one major speech and then going into hiding, but at least she delivered that one speech in favour of remaining in the EU which she thought was best.

I despised Osborne and his record as chancellor, not least the excessive austerity (which was a major contributing factor to Brexit). But he knew that leaving the EU would be disastrous, and he basically and knowingly destroyed his own leadership ambitions (beforehand he alongside Johnson and May were considered to be the main contenders to replace Cameron) during that campaign and enraged many his Tory party colleagues by so strongly supporting Remain (though his series of overly negative, dire warnings were a terrible mistake).

Johnson clearly knew and thought ahead of during and the EU referendum that it was better to remain in the EU (and when he drafted those 2 Daily Telegraph articles insiders thought that his was in favour of remain was far better), but despite that put his personal ambition above the fate of the country and the importance of that hugely important reference, by campaigning in favour of what he knew full well was damaging for the country.
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Fair enough and it may just be me lacking perspective on your nations politics but over here and through my own experiences with them I barely met anyone who I felt actually believed in what they were preaching.

Anyway I doubt anything too bad is going to happen to you folks, your current standing in the world won't allow it whether you're in eu or outside of it, wish you the best.
 
SalfordRed18 said:
Personally think this country needs boring in leadership.

General elections are pretty much popularity contests, when they should be about policy and how said policies effect you. We are literally a society in which how you eat a bacon sandwich makes news and effects your campaign.
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Agree, it's position in government, not stand up comedy.
 
Fully Fledged said:
This is good if it turns BoJo's base against the party that abandoned him.
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Just what I was thinking. Sadly most of them will be back to voting for whoever the DM tells them to vote for by the time the next GE rolls around.
 
The reality is Boris Johnson was the proverbial leopard and didn't change his spots! Anyone with even a casual glance at his political career knew exactly what they were going to get. Why did some people think they were going to get anything different? Boris never pretended to be anything he wasn't....Boris playing the 'buffoon'.... Boris being economical with the truth.... Boris telling tales to get out of being blamed... Boris saying one thing and doing another..Boris when all else fails tells lies.....oh shock horror!! Never expected that... come off it!

There has been a lot of righteous indignation expressed recently, but the simple fact is Boris spotted that the majority of politicians were trying their very best to ignore the outcome of the Brexit referendum, because it didn't go the way they expected and they were caught with their pants down, (or at least looking the other way). Boris recognised that in large swathes of the public their blood was beginning to boil, so he rode the crest of the Farage/Brexit wave, perhaps convincing some in his own party that at least he would be better than Farage!

The majority in the country had voted and their vote had been ignored, so Boris did the obvious, (for a politician 'on the make') he didn't ignore them, he even persuaded millions who had never voted Tory in their life to vote for him, and make no mistake it was for him, does anyone really think all those red wall voters had become Tories... its laughable!

Boris has been a 'chancer' all his life, note his parting words about "them's the breaks".. sums it up nicely, the 'Herd instinct' swept him into power and will now sweep him out of it. Maybe politicians have collectively learned the lesson themselves. I suspect the 80+ majority victory will never be repeated again in the FPTP system.... but who knows?
 
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Was it the Owen Patterson saga last year that was the major turning point for Johnson and his popularity, both within his party and in the country?

Before then and around this period last year, the Tories had won the Hartlepool by-election and taken the seat from Labour, nearly taken Batley and Spen from Labour in enother by-election (if Labour had lost that surely Starmer would have come under major pressure to resign), had strong local election results for a party that had been in government for 11 years etc. It was depressing to think that during the Batley and Spen by-election the Tory candidate whose name I didn't even know at the time (I'm sure many constituents didn't either), basically hid, avoided public scrutiny and interviews, watched Labour and George Galloway slug it out and take votes from each other, and very nearly slipped through the middle to win with next to no effort.

I know that many right-wingers opposed to COVID restrictions attacked him in late 2020 - early 2021, but generally they thought he was 'being held hostage by SAGE' or something like that so his leadership wasn't really under much pressure at point.
 
GuybrushThreepwood said:
Was it the Owen Patterson saga last year that was the major turning point for Johnson and his popularity, both within his party and in the country?

Before then and around this period last year, the Tories had won the Hartlepool by-election and taken the seat from Labour, nearly taken Batley and Spen from Labour in enother by-election (if Labour had lost that surely Starmer would have come under major pressure to resign), had strong local election results for a party that had been in government for 11 years etc. It was depressing to think that during the Batley and Spen by-election the Tory candidate whose name I didn't even know at the time (I'm sure many constituents didn't either), basically hid, avoided public scrutiny and interviews, watched Labour and George Galloway slug it out and take votes from each other, and very nearly slipped through the middle to win with next to no effort.

I know that many right-wingers opposed to COVID restrictions attacked him in late 2020 - early 2021, but generally they thought he was 'being held hostage by SAGE' or something like that so his leadership wasn't really under much pressure at point.
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Very often with the fall of PMs you have a drip, drip, drip effect of stories. I think it started before Paterson but yes, you are right, that was the point where Tory MPs and supporters felt able to voice their concerns publicly. The fact it was entirely self-inflicted too probably swayed their thinking.
 
Thank feck he's gone. A very dark chapter in UK history. Cameron and Osbourne, Theresa May, and now Boris Johnson. What a depressing 12 years. Sadly it doesn't feel like anything will really change as long as the UK press are allowed to continue as they have been.
 
Maticmaker said:
The reality is Boris Johnson was the proverbial leopard and didn't change his spots! Anyone with even a casual glance at his political career knew exactly what they were going to get. Why did some people think they were going to get anything different? Boris never pretended to be anything he wasn't....Boris playing the 'buffoon'.... Boris being economical with the truth.... Boris telling tales to get out of being blamed... Boris saying one thing and doing another..Boris when all else fails tells lies.....oh shock horror!! Never expected that... come off it!

There has been a lot of righteous indignation expressed recently, but the simple fact is Boris spotted that the majority of politicians were trying their very best to ignore the outcome of the Brexit referendum, because it didn't go the way they expected and they were caught with their pants down, (or at least looking the other way). Boris recognised that in large swathes of the public their blood was beginning to boil, so he rode the crest of the Farage/Brexit wave, perhaps convincing some in his own party that at least he would be better than Farage!

The majority in the country had voted and their vote had been ignored, so Boris did the obvious, (for a politician 'on the make') he didn't ignore them, he even persuaded millions who had never voted Tory in their life to vote for him, and make no mistake it was for him, does anyone really think all those red wall voters had become Tories... its laughable!

Boris has been a 'chancer' all his life, note his parting words about "them's the breaks".. sums it up nicely, the 'Herd instinct' swept him into power and will now sweep him out of it. Maybe politicians have collectively learned the lesson themselves. I suspect the 80+ majority victory will never be repeated again in the FPTP system.... but who knows?
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In some cases, people saw him as a knight in shining armour in that they saw him as someone who was prepared to take on the EU and the establishment.
That coupled with traditional voting habits changing, especially in those traditional Labour strongholds due to Labour taking their votes for granted.

So in a nutshell, it became fashionable to vote for Boris. And people did so in droves.

However, Boris rapidly became his own worst enemy and behaved in an increasingly unacceptable manner due to his natural characteristics.

It was always going to end in tears as anyone with half a brain cell knew it would. It was all about Boris. Not the country and not the party.

Those who elected him really do have blood on their hands.
 
Buster15 said:
I was listening to an interview with someone who was doing a documentary about Boris.
The man said to Boris that he had said something about a specific subject and Boris immediately denied saying that.
The guy then showed Boris the film clip of him saying exactly that and Boris just laughed and said to the guy that what he had actually said was just as a joke and not to be taken seriously.

And to me, that was a good example of Boris. Saying the first thing that comes into his head, denying ever saying it and then when shown the evidence, passing it off with some excuse or other.

He has repeatedly been proven as unfit for any position of responsibility because he is a showman. An actor who says what he thinks people want to hear. Totally unreliable and totally incompetent and unable to take responsibility for his own mistakes.
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He will continue to lie and manipulate people, including those close to him to the very end. He will never change.
I would say it is a dangerous time for the UK until the moment he's gone.
He cares about nothing and nobody apart from himself. Even though it's so obvious, some people still get fooled by him.
 
Paul the Wolf said:
He will continue to lie and manipulate people, including those close to him to the very end. He will never change.
I would say it is a dangerous time for the UK until the moment he's gone.
He cares about nothing and nobody apart from himself. Even though it's so obvious, some people still get fooled by him.
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yeah... To be honest though I'm kinda looking forward to his inevitable memoirs - especially the several chapters that will be dedicated to eviscerating Gove
 
Buster15 said:
It was always going to end in tears as anyone with half a brain cell knew it would. It was all about Boris. Not the country and not the party.

Those who elected him really do have blood on their hands.
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True, what puzzles me is why some commentators thought it would be any different. Indeed all PM's time in office ends badly they are either forced out by their own party, or in a GE by the public.The truth is all PM's careers end with their displacement, and all who voted for them share their blame/blood spilled etc...it was ever thus!
 
Maticmaker said:
True, what puzzles me is why some commentators thought it would be any different. Indeed all PM's time in office ends badly they are either forced out by their own party, or in a GE by the public.The truth is all PM's careers end with their displacement, and all who voted for them share their blame/blood spilled etc...it was ever thus!
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Wilson?... he pretty much left on his own terms I think... but its a rarity
 
Simbo said:
...to lose it?
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It means the Tory MP's who in the last 48 hours have said the PM has no integrity and isn't fit to be Prime Minister will have to come out and say oh wait , actually we do have confidence in him and he should be allowed to stay as PM for the next few months even though we've all said we don't trust him anymore.

It forces them to come out and defend this toxic hate figure.
 
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right wing twitter is in meltdown. youve got to laugh, all the tough law and order/ thin blue line tory muppets loosing their minds, you can imagine them hysterically crying defundthepolice...
 
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