General British politics discussion thread

Igotadose

At least he wasn't photographed while he was licking someone's nipples.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119103372#Comment_119103372

"Fizzgate". Sigh. That lazy suffix irritates me far more than could be considered rational.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119103620#Comment_119103620

At this stage, I remain sceptical. Johnson is teflon at this stage, it doesn't seem anything can touch him.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119103873#Comment_119103873

Would seem like the tactic now is to deflect with something. Throw a live grenade at the EU with a crazy legislative swerve and let the redtops go wild when we invariably go "WTF, get lost with that".

Itssoeasy

It’s amazing how stuff like the pictures today come out and other things which to any normal politician wouldn’t have survived but Boris Johnson seems to be super Teflon. I know sky news and other news organisations in the UK need to put “appear to” and “allegedly” to be safe but sky news out an appear in the headline about the PM holding a glass ffs.

also here’s that question which seems to be the instance where the pictures show that someone wasn’t telling the truth, or lying. This is taken from Hansard btw in case any of his fans say that I’d be misquoting him.

Catherine West 

(Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)

Q6.  Will the Prime Minister tell the House whether there was a party in Downing Street on 13 November? (904648)

The Prime Minister 

No, but I am sure that whatever happened, the guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times.

devnull

The Daily Mail that ran a 14 day campaign against Starmer with practically the same old thing and photo day after day, has had a complete blackout and is the only so called newspaper to totally ignore the story on its front page tomorrow.

Even for them, that's absolutely shocking. At this stage it fails the most basic tests of being a newspaper. They have as much integrity as the charlatan they support.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119105154#Comment_119105154

The Mail is a Tory supporting paper. It doesn't like Labour.

The readers of this paper know this.

English newspapers have always been partisan and stories are often written in a humouress way.

English people don't take these tabloids seriously.

PommieBast

@hotmail.com

English people don't take these tabloids seriously.

Unfortunately a significant number of them actually do. It is a major reason I chose to live in Ireland for best part of a decade.

Itssoeasy

The sue gray report has been received by Downing Street.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119110607#Comment_119110607

They can use it to fire up the waffle irons.

brick tamland

It wont make a blind bit of diffence really. He wont go until the conservitive party decide that hes too toxic or that the wont win the next election with him and use him as a scapegoat. He wont resign or be ousted before that.

Expect another string of diversions and rows with europe over the next few days

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111039#Comment_119111039

I wonder what kind of curry Starmer will be revealed to have had or what kind of naughty poses Rayner will be pulling off over the next week.

retalivity

The report is out, initial reports look like its tame enough...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/findings-of-the-second-permanent-secretarys-investigation-into-alleged-gatherings-on-government-premises-during-covid-restrictions

Arghus

Tbh I don't know if anything can take him down, he seems to bounce from one scandal to another and then some distraction politics come out and hey presto we're all further along down the road and the previous scandal is in the rear-view mirror. He's looked to have been toast on several occasions, but, yet, here we are still. In my heart of hearts I just don't believe anything will come from these reports or photos or whatever is next.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111039#Comment_119111039

What's actually clever about this is that he's bound any Tory MP's with public profiles to him so that now, anyone who campaigns for leadership of the party on an anti-corruption platform will be forced to remove all of them. It's how he's kept his cabinet united for so long.

I think the main problem his Tory opposition has is that there's nobody who can credibly campaign against him as a result.

Sam Russell

'I think the main problem his Tory opposition has is that there's nobody who can credibly campaign against him as a result.'

Except perhaps May - she is still around, and reasonably corruption free - for a Tory.

hotmail.com

I get the impression this story is over now.

English willing to move on and are bored with this saga.

Johnson's delay strategy worked.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111433#Comment_119111433

Probably one of the few relatively honest, principled Tories. She was an appalling leader and campaigner though.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111644#Comment_119111644

Maybe, but Biden beat Trump. Biden was honest, principled, and an appalling campaigner.

So, maybe May is the best choice.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111724#Comment_119111724

Trump presided over hundreds of thousands of Americans dying preventable deaths, inflamed race relations to their worst nadir in decades, etc... I wouldn't say this is a fair comparison. Johnson is deeply flawed but he isn't stupid. He presided over a successful vaccine rollout and knew that only mass vaccination would end lockdowns.

Biden is a vastly superior campaigner to May. Remember "Strong and stable"?

devnull

Typical Boris Johnson statement now to the House of Commons.

Saying that he will take responsibility for everything that happened on his watch, but the fact is that some of the things happened when he wasn't even there so actually it's not his fault as he didn't even know about the parties until he read the report.

Of course, not a word about the fact that he partook in some of these events and did nothing to stop them anyway, so not sure how whether he was there or not is relevant because it's not like it would have made much difference.

He then goes on to blame practically everyone else and throw as many people as he possibly can under the bus and states that he hears everyone loud and clear and that is why he's reformed Downing Street and changed people who work there.

As Dennis Skinner once said

"When posh boys are in trouble, they sack the servants"

Dave0301

A truly infuriating performance from Johnson.

Still, he will end up surviving this one too I suspect.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111724#Comment_119111724

Largest number of votes ever received isn't appalling. Dukakis was appalling. McGovern was appalling. Not Biden.

Ahwell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111620#Comment_119111620

Nope, there is still the Commons Privileges Committee investigation and I see no indications that the public is "bored" with it.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111993#Comment_119111993

As if the public cares about a parliamentary committee.

beggars_bush

Typical that Boris gets a giant news story from the US to deflect attention

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111644#Comment_119111644

Yeah not the best at leading although it probably wasn’t easy to lead having the ERG on your right flank prattling away. I can see her being the Kenneth Clark of the Tory party. In that she’ll trow in snips the rest know are right but won’t say it out loud, and be a voice of reason which is probably needed more now than in the past.

Shelga

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119111644#Comment_119111644

She clearly didn't believe in Brexit, then pretended she was a hard Brexiter when she became PM, to portray an image of a powerful and convincing leader. There's nothing principled about her, only in comparison to Johnson, but that is a low, low bar.

farmerval

This is exactly why the right have loved Putin all these years. He started the whole "I am lying to you, you know it, I know it, everyone knows it, but are either too scared or not invested enough to do anything about it".

It's Trump all over again, it's fake news!! The truth is gone, we live in a post truth world, or an alternative facts world. Boris Johnson and presumably his team worked on what lockdowns were necessary, went out and told the nation what they needed to do, and then ignored every word they had issued, without as much as a care in the world.

The Tory party always had the image that somewhere in hidden corners serious people, almost certainly men; held the levers of power behind the scenes, that when a leader needed to be removed because they were damaging the Tory brand they quietly moved the chess pieces into place to make it happen. Where are these serious people now?????? Bit like the image of British diplomacy, always being in the right place to have a word in the right ear at the right time. Where is it now? Lord Frost ( a serious sign that the honours system is a joke) abusing the American delegation that flew over about the protocol.

And finally the most disgusting thing about all of this is that the Tories could still win the next General election. If Labour can offer no more than they are not the Tories they will lose again. It's quite incredible.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119114321#Comment_119114321

I disagree. The one pro-Remain speech she gave, she couldn't help but mention the absurd tens of thousands Tory target. I think she was a tepid remainer who was more than happy to embrace Brexit when it suited her.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119114354#Comment_119114354

May forced a version of Hard Brexit and the protocol or something like it with her red lines. They were completely unnecessary and she could have easily gone down the path of staying in the single market etc. Whether she truly believed in Brexit or not, her eternal shame will be bringing the UK to this position. Cameron and especially Johnson are worse than her for various reasons, but that does not massively absolve her.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119114374#Comment_119114374

In fairness, she didn't have much choice. She tried to keep the UK in the customs union and failed because it wasn't enough for the DUP and the ERG. She had one card to play and that was article 50 which she invoked before the disastrous 2017 election.