General British politics discussion thread

Tom Harwood is not a great source to be honest. Incredibly pro Johnson and pro Tory plus not the sharpest knife in the drawer...hence he is on GB News...

Think this sounds like a flat denial there was a pary in no. 10 on November 13 and therefore if it can be proved there was a party the PM is bang to rights?

Well you may be wrong

Slick Willie with his pervarications around the meaning of 'is' ain't got nothing on this guy...

Well…might or might not be related:

“Do as I say and not as I do” and all that: as always, proof shall be in the eventual pudding.

(for those who don’t know it, that Twitter account is notable for high-quality leaks)

In fact the Times are reporting that the Saville jibe, and the fact Johnson has doubled down on it, could be the cause of even more letters going in.

Johnson's string a disgraceful statements are catching up on him, as his 'Happy Boris' mask starts to slip. Eventually for all any populist bluster, people want to see results and decency. Now that the Covid cover is blowing away, British people are looking at their wages, and what things cost, and want results to start coming in over Brexit promises - not 'Happy Old Party Boris' continuously putting his foot in it, while promising yet more great things by 2030 (Level Up....)

https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1488864383237296132?s=20&t=bh3FvQmvgz3UMAk8WO180Q

Another one in

https://twitter.com/garystreeterSWD/status/1488920944949317646?s=20&t=JOo21jRZq-dLU5Qlf1pXzQ

The Johnson Saville stuff is one of the most deplorable things BJ has ever done tbh

It's something Trump would be very proud off

What a despicable human being

The use of Saville backfired.

I haven't heard any of the Starmer allies having to defend Starmer about this.

Under the Tory party rules, if Johnson loses a vote of confidence in the parliamentary party, he vacates the leadership. An election is held to find a new leader; he cannot stand in that election.

So, there is no possibility of Johnson being turfed by the parliamentary party and then put back in office by the rank-and-file membership.

The question is whether Johnson would be turfed by the parliamentary party before the cops have finished their job, or is this more likely to be successful afterwards?

The problem here is, what do we mean by the cops "finishing their job"? They've already said that, if they issue fixed penalty notices to anyone over participation in "work events" in Downing Street, they won't be announcing who. And, is their job "finished" when they issue the FPNs, or does it continue until all the FPNs have been paid, or until anyone who doesn't pay has been charged, tried and convicted? That could be a long time.

Besides, why would the parliamentary party have to wait for this? You'd like to think that the criterion of fitness for leadership of the Tory party is a little bit higher than "not actually guilty of a criminal offence". In terms of the criteria that are normally applied to decisions like this - Do we trust this guy? Does he command the confidence of the party, or of Parliament? Is he competent? Has he sound judgment? Has he lied to us? To the monarch? To the country? Is he an electoral liability? - they already have a great deal of information. If, knowing what they know now, they still think he's fit for office, I struggle to think that the police investigation is very likely to disclose anything that would change their minds.

He might well win a vote of confidence in the Parliamentary party if it were held tomorrow. But, if he would, then he would almost certainly also win such a vote if held after the police investigation is finished. So, if you're a Tory MP who wants to shaft him, I wouldn't hang about. The circumstances are unlikely to become much more favourable than they are now.

(With one caveat; if, instead of waiting for the results of the police investigation, you wait for the results of the local government elections that are coming in May, and if the Tories are whipped to a puree in those elections, that might make Johnson a bit easier to shaft. But against that you'd have to set the risk that the present head of steam might have dissipated a bit by May.)

That is a problem all right but there are some London seats that could be very telling especially around Johnson's own posh parts of town.

The danger of dragging this out is the dreaded limbo. Boris's numbers with the tory members may somewhat stabilise but overall Tory numbers may still languish behind Labour. So you have worst case scenario, a politician strong enough to survive any possible heave but nowhere strong enough to win a general election.

You also have all other rivals over thinking it ,,they want him gone, but they won't to get their hands dirty as it could come back to haunt them in any leadership campaign.

Its very messy , interesting to see if we get a few more high profile letters of no confidence in the next few weeks, so fair its been relative nobodies.

4 senior team members gone now.

Stink of loser now on him.

The Saville stuff was ill advised, and childish. He did a lot of damage to himself.

Only a matter of time till he is gone now, he is now so toxic electorally that he may over turn the Tory 80 seat majority and make Labour electable.

Some achievement.