General British politics discussion thread

That is actually the curtain

I've seen a lot of commentators saying that Starmer not calling for Johnson's head is proof of his weakness, but I'd be inclined to go with, "Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake".

Forcing the Tories to oust a leader, for effectively the second time in 3 years, gives a strong edge on the "strong and stable" stick that can be used to beat the Tories over the head with.

The Tories' problem is that any successor to Boris still has a big pile of crap to deal with. He has functionally not managed to really make any major moves forward after taking over from May. He "got Brexit done", but they're still having the same old arguments and discussions about Northern Ireland and treaties and withdrawal agreements that stuck May in the mud. If the next leader can't do that, the UK could arrive at the next election and Brexit is still a "thing". Consider how bad it looks that the Tories were in power in 2016 when the referendum went through, and 5/6/7 years later, it is still not really finalised or implemented in any satisfactory way.

And the Tories have nobody without any greasy fingers. The next theoretical Tory leader will be someone who has backed Johnson's mess to the hilt and so can't claim to be a breath of fresh air.

Well, I'm not sure about that. We've had the 'F you Deputy Stagg' in Dail Eireann and we all know what the floor is like in the houses of congress in the US when it comes to dignity and respect. Elsewhere in Europe we see actual fist fights from time to time and Australia's parliament sees exchanges that are more like a school playground than that of the highest elected office in the land.

But, it is worrying because it shows how little he cares about the fact that he is blatantly lying and ignoring the reality of what Brexit has been. And as I pointed out in my earlier post, all this at a time when you really would expect them to be trying to redeem themselves to some degree. That comment was of someone who isn't in the slightest bit concerned about how he, his party, PM or government are being perceived. And while people focus on the christmas parties and the second jobs, and the wearing/not wearing of masks, the passing of bills that can renege someone's UK citizenship, the cutting of social welfare benefits and or the awarding of massive contracts such as Track and Trace or for PPE to friends of key Tories is sliding out of public consciousness.

And when the time comes to focus on the next GE, they'll wrap up Johnson with all the negative press and discard him and promise everyone that they have learned their lessons. And JRM looked like he feels that they literally have the run of the place. I'm repeating myself here, but its entertaining, but very worrying as well.

When a party can have so so many mistakes as the Toies have had since the Brexit referendum was announced, and still be sitting on such a majority nearly 7 years later then you have to be concerned about just what they are going to do. And we're watching them do it. Met refusing to investigate the actions of the government is very worrying for what it actually means moreso than because they are going to get away with having broken Covid regulations.

Of course, one point worth making in all this is to paraphrase Will Smith talking about police brutality, that maybe it isn't that things are necessarily getting worse, but just that now, everything is recorded.

A certain guy with a gold plated apartment being the hero of the working class in the deep south in the US comes to mind also.

There is a considerable echo of the Brexit nonsense though, in the fact that there is now a "Covid Recovery Group", who membership seems to intersect with the old ERG.

Many of the same sort of airy assumptions and British exceptionalism have transferred directly to the Covid debate.

This might be something to do with why the Met have been criminally slow (pun intended) of investigating Tory/Government restrictions violations.

The next tweet in the thread is pretty telling.

The rebellion last night included not only the usual suspects, libertarian hard right, but (relatively) centrist remainer Tories like Damian Green.

Now maybe they are sincere in their motives, but are they giving Boris a kicking just because they want him out?

Any polls in advance of that?

Saw one yesterday that had tories a percentage point ahead of lib dems but that was internal lib dem poll so you might treat that with caution. While there's no formal voting pact, definitely lots of labour voters are switching so seems sure to be pretty close anyway. Way things are going, any sort of victory probably a relief for Johnson at this stage.

Which probably means he has the required number of letters in his desk drawers but a number of them are on pause.

To save the time of having to get the signed letter of no confidence in a leader to Graham Brady, some MPs give him one when they think the leader is getting wobbly but say they're not active.

Each MP that has sent a letter gets to decide if the letter is active or not, they can also take it back entirely. Odd system. He needs 54 active to call the vote.

Not that I have any sympathy but it's hard to know what Tory backbenchers even want anymore.