Next British PM

I think there is opposition build to Johnston's bid. He se.scto be struggling to get beyond the 50/60 signiture mark.

I think there is to much of a risk with the probes into him over party gate. Getting to 100 will not necessarily get him to a run off. I think the real problem is the indictive vote unless he got well above 150 he would come under huge pressure to stand aside especially if Rishi had the backing of 100+ more MP's more than him. Penny Mordaunt will withdraw in the next 24 hours if she back Rishi it will be hard for Johnson's bid to continue

Well it's Rishi. Boris has thrown in the towel. He says he had the hundred votes, I doubt it says Croker. When Rees Moggs was on this morning I knew he was bluffing. Busted flush.

Will the stop Rishi campaign manage to get behind Penny Mordaunt. I suspect not. Even if she get to 100 I think the indictive vote would force her to withdraw.

Rees Mogg's knifing of Truss at the fracking vote has backfired. I think it time to put manners on the ERG mob

Johnson has pulled out of the race.

Maybe somebody pointed out the ridiculousness of what he was attempting.

I doubt he came to that conclusion on his own. He is too stupid.

Doing the same thing again and expecting different results.

He is/was the master of bluster. It had it's time and place. Churchill was the man of an occasion. Boris taught he could do the same. But he had no principles. Churchill spend 6-8 years in the political wilderness. Boris always had to be in the public glare. He could not cope with exile like Churchill.

Deep down Churchill was a democrat, an anti-fascist. Boris wanted to use the fascists ( the ERG) to gain power. When his thinking on them was not popular he still stood by his beliefs.

Boris is like Trump the end justify the means. While Consertives politics has many points to admire, it's the extremes of it that destroy it as a political movement.

The longer it's stays in power, the more polarising the belief of a hard core of its party becomes.

Boris and the circus have already been a disaster for Ireland. And, yeah, more of the same would be worse again.

But you have to ask yourself, what has to happen for the UK to change course in a direction that might do Ireland less harm? And I think one thing that has to happen for this to be even a possibility is a change of government in the UK. And that won't happen before January 2025, unless the Conservative government falls apart. So, just at the moment, Ireland's interest lies, ironically, in a maximally unstable UK government; it increases the chances of an early change of course.

I think if you think an unstable British government is good for Ireland you are deluded. If it's unstable it's being held to ransom by the ERG group and the Tory Thatcherite wing. Its the Chinese curse ''that you live in interesting times''

This. For Brexiters, Brexit was supposed to make the UK more "nimble", but in fact it has dragged the UK into a policy cul-de-sac and created political sclerosis. For the UK to address the political and economic crisis that faces it, it has to accept that Brexit was a mistake and it has to start moving away from "getting Brexit done" and start realigning with the EU. But the Tory party is absolutely unable to do that. Therefore there must be a change of government. And, with a 70-seat majority for the Tories, that won't happen unless the Tory parliamentary party falls apart. Which requires continued Tory instability.

So it's instability leading the a general election, or continued paralysis. Both lousy options, but they're all there is. Instability leading to a GE might not result in things getting any better but continued paralysis certainly won't so, of the two, instability is the less awful option.