When Will It All Go Wrong For The Tories/ Johnson?

[Bald Rick]

Sunak has raced to a 5/2 betting lead, with Wallace at 9/2. If and when the latter declares, these odds will shift Towards each other.

Morduant at 7, the rest at 10 or more.

 

[jfollows]

Survation has Labour on 45% (https://www.survation.com/labours-v...ead-of-the-conservatives-not-seen-since-2013/) but this was a poll conducted on July 6th. and I'd expect the Conservative figures to recover now that Boris is going to leave.

Just for grins, I fed this poll into Electoral Calculus (https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk...AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019base) and it predicts a Labour majority of 96, including Esther McVey losing her seat to Labour. We can dream!

 

[John Hunt]

Also - just for fun - try looking up each of the runners on Wikipedia. I know, Wikipedia is sometimes not the 'ultimate' source, but their entries provide enjoyable reading and some remarkable insights.(Dominic Raab is a black belt third dan in karate.....)

 

[Bald Rick]

Also - just for fun - try looking up each of the runners on Wikipedia. I know, Wikipedia is sometimes not the 'ultimate' source, but their entries provide enjoyable reading and some remarkable insights.(Dominic Raab is a black belt third dan in karate.....)

it surprises me what isn’t mentioned on some of their pages too!

 

[najaB]

Sunak has raced to a 5/2 betting lead, with Wallace at 9/2. If and when the latter declares, these odds will shift Towards each other.

Morduant at 7, the rest at 10 or more.

You have to imagine that Sunak must be Labour's favourite. I mean, a literal billionaire as PM during a cost of living crisis, could there be any easier target?

 

[Acfb]

You have to imagine that Sunak must be Labour's favourite. I mean, a literal billionaire as PM during a cost of living crisis, could there be any easier target?

Surely Truss is Labour's favourite? Sunak would be better than Truss for the Tories although still trails Starmer in hypothetical best PM polling.

 

[duncanp]

You have to imagine that Sunak must be Labour's favourite. I mean, a literal billionaire as PM during a cost of living crisis, could there be any easier target?

A little bit of Googling shows that Captain Hindsight Sir Keir Starmer has assets worth over £7m.

I hardly think he can stand up and say that Rishi Sunak doesn't understand the struggles that ordinary people are facing with personal wealth as high as that.

 

[JamesT]

Possibly, but would such extreme parties actually be able to push through extreme policies? Even a non-extreme hard-right party like UKIP has only managed to achieve, what, 15% support - so anything more extreme than that would a) be unlikely to get much public support and b) be unlikely to push through their policies without support of MPs from other parties.

I would imagine that (thankfully) we've learnt from the 1930s and there are limits as to what level of fringe politics would be tolerated by the public. UKIP yes, neo-Nazis no.

Smaller parties can often wield disproportionate power in a system where you don’t get an overall majority. They will usually demand particular policies as part of agreeing to form a coalition. The poster child for this is usually considered to be Israel as the smaller right-wing and religious parties drag the centrists towards them. You could argue the German Greens getting all their nuclear plants shut down is also an extreme policy.

 

[jfollows]

John Curtice wrote in The Times yesterday (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...-conservative-party-at-a-crossroads-dsl65c93r):
Essentially unsurprising, but whether or not the new leader needs to distance himself from Boris Johnson and show a new direction for the party. Personally I'd like a stance which recognises the "rule of law" and which therefore doesn't try to break the law to achieve its own ends, and doesn't try and subvert international treaties entered in to by the UK. I think a "not Boris" approach will help in the short term at least.

JOHN CURTICE | ANALYSIS

Boris Johnson’s resignation leaves Conservative Party at a crossroads​

John Curtice

Friday July 08 2022, 12.30pm, The Times

The Conservative Party faces two key questions as it begins the process of electing a new leader. First, how much distance should it put between itself and Boris Johnson? Second, what policy stances should it take in the post-Brexit, post-Covid world that threatens the biggest crisis in living standards since 1945.
The controversy surrounding Johnson’s judgment and ethics that has dogged the party over the last six months has not only damaged his personal reputation, but also harmed its electoral standing. On the eve of Johnson’s eventual downfall on Thursday, the party stood at just 33 per cent in the polls, seven points behind Labour.
But will simply replacing Johnson be enough to reverse the damage? Certainly, the new leader will need to have a different style — to be seen to show more regard for due process, a greater sense of collegiality, and a greater readiness to provide a direct answer to tough questions than was characteristic of Johnson.
However, will voters be willing to warm to anyone who was a member of Johnson’s cabinet through thick and thin until earlier this week? And will the spectacle of a near collapse in the government this week have raised questions in voters’ minds about the ability of the party collectively to provide effective government? Certainly, support for the party is down on average by another three points in the first polls to be taken since Johnson’s resignation, leaving Labour as much as 11 points ahead.
One way in which the next leader might hope to reverse the damage done to the party’s reputation in the eyes of voters is to provide it with a renewed sense of direction. In truth, the party has found itself in an uncomfortable place in the wake of a pandemic that has resulted in record levels of spending, taxation and fiscal deficit, a trio now overlaid by a “cost of living crisis”. Many Conservative MPs feel they did not come into politics to preside over a significant growth in the size of the state, and the debate over how best to respond had opened a gulf between Johnson and his chancellor, Rishi Sunak.
The reaction among many in the party has been to reach for the familiar ideological lever of tax cuts, arguing that such a step would immediately help put money in voters’ constrained pockets. Yet those advocating this course have yet to spell out the implications of such cuts for both the management of the fiscal deficit and public expenditure.
Is the party ready to abandon the spending on infrastructure that was central to Johnson’s “levelling-up” agenda, from which Leave voting areas in particular are meant to profit? And will tax cuts — rather than trying to repair the damage done by Covid to the NHS and schools — have a sufficient appeal for an electorate that has already shown signs of concern about the impact of a pre-Covid decade of fiscal austerity on the funding of public services?
Equally, there is debate within the party about how Johnson’s principal legacy as prime minister — Brexit — should now be managed. Some Tory MPs appear keen to seize more vigorously what they regard as the opportunity afforded by Brexit to deregulate the economy by divesting the country of many an EU regulation. Yet research suggests that voters, including many Leave voters, value much of the consumer and environmental protection that has been put in place by the EU and are inclined to evaluate regulation on an unideological, case-by-case basis. Meanwhile, although even many Remain voters do not want to see a return to EU freedom of movement, voters do not necessarily want to see immigration cut at the expense of being able to deal with the labour market shortagesthat have evolved in the wake of Covid.
Hanging on to old verities will not necessarily provide the Conservatives with the direction they need to persuade voters that the party can govern effectively in the midst of the very different and complex challenges that Britain now faces. Rather, the party needs to be willing to think afresh rather than simply resort to its comfort zone.
John Curtice is Professor of Politics, Strathclyde University, and Senior Research Fellow, NatCen Social Research and ‘The UK in a Changing Europe’.

 

[SynthD]

A little bit of Googling shows that Captain Hindsight Sir Keir Starmer has assets worth over £7m.

I hardly think he can stand up and say that Rishi Sunak doesn't understand the struggles that ordinary people are facing with personal wealth as high as that.

There isn’t some magic number to invalidate Starmer saying that. Regardless of success, we can simply look at their previous jobs and which party they chose to join. A public prosecutor has more contact with the struggling people than a fund manager.

 

[najaB]

A little bit of Googling shows that Captain Hindsight Sir Keir Starmer has assets worth over £7m.

I hardly think he can stand up and say that Rishi Sunak doesn't understand the struggles that ordinary people are facing with personal wealth as high as that.

He has money but he's not an actual, literal billionaire.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

And Mogg is the Leader, isn't he?

Was he not replaced in that role by Mark Spencer on 8th February 2022?

Regarding number of Johnson children discussed earlier in the thread, I note that Jacob Rees-Mogg has six:-
Peter
Mary
Thomas
Anselm
Alfred
Sixtus

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2022 ==

There isn’t some magic number to invalidate Starmer saying that. Regardless of success, we can simply look at their previous jobs and which party they chose to join. A public prosecutor has more contact with the struggling people than a fund manager.

Would you not say that it was the hired underlings of the public prosecutor rather the person in post who has contact with "the struggling people"?

 

[jfollows]

Was he not replaced in that role by Mark Spencer on 8th February 2022?

Posts #4706 and #4707 have already covered this!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Posts #4706 and #4707 have already covered this!

I don't know what happened as from the moment that I typed, it appears that a new page of the thread had opened. Thanks for pointing this out.

Don't say that I "nodded off" as a result of the currently warm weather, but at the age of 77, I find this happening far too often for my liking...

 

[jfollows]

I don't know what happened as from the moment that I typed, it appears that a new page of the thread had opened. Thanks for pointing this out.

Don't say that I "nodded off" as a result of the currently warm weather, but at the age of 77, I find this happening far too often for my liking...

Understood!

 

[Lost property]

A little bit of Googling shows that Captain Hindsight Sir Keir Starmer has assets worth over £7m.

I hardly think he can stand up and say that Rishi Sunak doesn't understand the struggles that ordinary people are facing with personal wealth as high as that.

Oh but be can, Sunak being responsible for the cessation of the extra £20 pw for U.C. as it was "only temporary "....but had no hesitation in supporting the healthy balance sheets / dividends and bonus's of the chosen few chums who benefited from his largesse as Covid became more prominent.

 

[SynthD]

Would you not say that it was the hired underlings of the public prosecutor rather the person in post who has contact with "the struggling people"?

He didn’t skip being someone else’s underling. Why do you suggest he was only the director?

 

[jfollows]

Sunak has raced to a 5/2 betting lead, with Wallace at 9/2. If and when the latter declares, these odds will shift Towards each other.

Morduant at 7, the rest at 10 or more.

Ben Wallace isn't going to stand, so that'll make things interesting - like you say I'd also seen that Sunak/Wallace were predicted to be most likely to make the final cut of two.
From https://www.theguardian.com/politic...s-johnson-rishi-sunak-uk-politics-live-latest:

Ben Wallace will not join race to become leader​

The defence secretary, who had been an early front-runner, now says he does not wish to run as leader. Instead, he says his focus should remain on “keeping this great country safe”.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2022 ==

Personally, I think

• Ben Wallace is right not to stand
• Rishi Sunak isn't up to the job, but I'll probably be proved wrong and that's OK
• I really don't want Liz Truss to get the job
• The rest of the candidates are "noise", or standing in order to get recognised and therefore a Cabinet post in the next administration
• But Penny Mordaunt may get through as being "least objectionable to most people"

 

[Busaholic]

in which case we may end up rueing the day we got rid of him.

As Buddy Holly and the Crickets sing into the celestial ether, 'That'll Be The Day'' !!!

 

[Typhoon]

I feel there is an issue here, when PR is used in contemporaneous speech to refer to "one of the many forms of PR that are available" and is often then misinterpreted by some (perhaps intentionally) to point to a specific implementation of a proportional system.

This is an example, you've specifically referenced member lists, when I'm not aware of any posters mentioning the idea of having them recently.

I agree with the first para. It seems that the 'worst' aspect of each alternative is compared with First Past the Post by those that favour the latter. I thought that the list was what was implied by the post I was responding to, I may well be wrong in that. Ideally we will have a government which can convene some panel that can come up with an alternative to our current system which suits our country (two large parties but a number of smaller parties, some regional, others nationwide, including new ones that break out from time to time). Give them plenty of time - years - to do so. The current system encourages apathy as in whole swathes of the country, voters votes do not count. At the last election I voted Green as the candidate was campaigning (I didn't see any other doing so) in the drizzle, decent chap, he listened to me, and I hoped my vote would save his deposit. That is the only difference it is ever likely to make.

But we need to get it right, I don't want to elect some 'nodding dog' by some fluke of the electoral system - we had one of them next door. He was useless and rightly turfed out.

Edit:

* But Penny Mordaunt may get through as being "least objectionable to most people"

She's got a couple of disadvantages, According to the Guido Fawkes racecard, she is supported by Michael Fabricant and Andrea Leadsom. That may sink her before she even declares. All she needs now is Peter Bone and she is dead in the water.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

He didn’t skip being someone else’s underling. Why do you suggest he was only the director?

I was trying to understand the reason why a fund manager was cited as the opposite to this in relation to "the struggling people". If they are "struggling", what assets do they have that would need the services of a fund manager. I am well aware there is the North/South divide, but even so "the struggling people" must have hidden and undeclared assets for a fund manager to use and they could well leave themselves open to prosecution if they had been claiming benefits that the hidden assets would have ruled their benefit claims out if these had been declared.

 

[Busaholic]

I was trying to understand the reason why a fund manager was cited as the opposite to this in relation to "the struggling people". If they are "struggling", what assets do they have that would need the services of a fund manager. I am well aware there is the North/South divide, but even so "the struggling people" must have hidden and undeclared assets for a fund manager to use and they could well leave themselves open to prosecution if they had been claiming benefits that the hidden assets would have ruled their benefit claims out if these had been declared.

Or not, as the case may be.

 

[Yew]

I thought that the list was what was implied by the post I was responding to, I may well be wrong in that.

Apologies, I had meant this more as a general comment, and might have pointed that a little more towards yourself directly than perhaps I would if I could rewrite it.

 

[najaB]

I was trying to understand the reason why a fund manager was cited as the opposite to this in relation to "the struggling people".

The point being made is that Rishi and Starmer both started from relatively modest backgrounds (Rishi's parents were a doctor and pharmacist and Starmer's were a toolmaker and nurse) but Rishi chose to go into finance whereas Keir went into the law (famously fighting the case where McDonalds sued some "little people"), and then into public service. The general population will align themselves more to the latter than the former.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The point being made is that Rishi and Starmer both started from relatively modest backgrounds (Rishi's parents were a doctor and pharmacist and Starmer's were a toolmaker and nurse) but Rishi chose to go into finance whereas Keir went into the law (famously fighting the case where McDonalds sued some "little people"), and then into public service. The general population will align themselves more to the latter than the former.

Agreed, but since the posting that I responded to clearly stated "the struggling people" rather than your use of "the general population", it was that to which I made a response.

 

[DerekC]

I see #10 is rubbishing Sunak. Boris is bound to play games with this contest - presumably to push the least likely candidate to win a General Election so that he is rushed back in under a "Come Back Boris, All is Forgiven" flag. But who could that be? Nadine Dorries comes to mind but hasn't thrown her hat in yet. Suella Braverman?

 

[Gloster]

...Keir went into the law (famously fighting the case where McDonalds sued some "little people"), and then into public service..

I had forgotten that Starmer was involved in the McLibel case: he has now considerably risen in my opinion. One wonders if he is concerned that the Conservatives would use that against him. (“Anti-business commie. Look how he acted against everybody’s favourite multi-national. Don’t vote for him.”)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2022 ==

...Nadine Dorries comes to mind but hasn't thrown her hat in yet...

If she did she would probably miss.

 

[nw1]

Smaller parties can often wield disproportionate power in a system where you don’t get an overall majority. They will usually demand particular policies as part of agreeing to form a coalition. The poster child for this is usually considered to be Israel as the smaller right-wing and religious parties drag the centrists towards them.

Perhaps this is so, though presumably a larger party could only accept smaller parties with sane policies when agreeing to form a coalition.

You could argue the German Greens getting all their nuclear plants shut down is also an extreme policy.

I would agree this is lunacy in the extreme if it did happen. Better nuclear power stations than relying on gas from a mad dictator with nuclear weapons, surely.

I hope Germany will re-open its nuclear stations as a result of its energy crisis.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2022 ==

Ben Wallace isn't going to stand, so that'll make things interesting - like you say I'd also seen that Sunak/Wallace were predicted to be most likely to make the final cut of two.
From https://www.theguardian.com/politic...s-johnson-rishi-sunak-uk-politics-live-latest:


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2022 ==

Personally, I think

• Ben Wallace is right not to stand
• Rishi Sunak isn't up to the job, but I'll probably be proved wrong and that's OK
• I really don't want Liz Truss to get the job
• The rest of the candidates are "noise", or standing in order to get recognised and therefore a Cabinet post in the next administration
• But Penny Mordaunt may get through as being "least objectionable to most people"

Isn't Mordaunt a bit right-wing though? She seemed to be a supporter of Brexit before the referendum; please, no more Brexiters, we need to make up with the EU, rather than prolong the hostile relations that have existed for the past six years. While there are no true "remainers" left, someone neutral on Brexit would be the candidate I'm looking for.

Also someone I know went to a hustings in her constituency before the 2019 election and he reported (so not first-hand evidence, admittedly) that she said some fairly antagonistic stuff (IMO) about either Labour or Remainers - I have to admit I forget which, but it was enough to make a significant negative impression of her in my mind.

What we need is someone able to understand people's financial problems, socially relatively liberal, not over-hardline on law and order, and neutral on Brexit. Only someone like that can appeal to the electorate at large, rather than the Boris Johnson fan club.

 

[Typhoon]

Apologies, I had meant this more as a general comment, and might have pointed that a little more towards yourself directly than perhaps I would if I could rewrite it.

No worries, I have almost certainly been responsible of doing the same.
One of my Bete Noirs is the parachuted candidate - a SpAd who would struggle to find the constituency on a map. The likes of me are told that this is what will happen if we move away from First Past the Post when there are a whole host of alternatives where we can vote for candidates individually. Also, of course, we get them in any case.

In my opinion (and it is only that) First Past the Post encourages big majorities which the likes of Thatcher, Blair and Johnson* used to explain that they have a carte blanche to do whatever they wanted (more or less) with no real reasoning. It is not the majority, it is the size of it. All three would have benefited from a smaller majority so the sort of car crash by-elections which we see from time to time would have made them think again (or risk losing power).

* - perhaps Wilson, too. I struggle to remember.

 

[Meole]

Perhaps this is so, though presumably a larger party could only accept smaller parties with sane policies when agreeing to form a coalition.

I would agree this is lunacy in the extreme if it did happen. Better nuclear power stations than relying on gas from a mad dictator with nuclear weapons, surely.

I hope Germany will re-open its nuclear stations as a result of its energy crisis.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Jul 2022 ==



Isn't Mordaunt a bit right-wing though? She seemed to be a supporter of Brexit before the referendum; please, no more Brexiters, we need to make up with the EU, rather than prolong the hostile relations that have existed for the past six years. While there are no true "remainers" left, someone neutral on Brexit would be the candidate I'm looking for.

Also someone I know went to a hustings in her constituency before the 2019 election and he reported (so not first-hand evidence, admittedly) that she said some fairly antagonistic stuff (IMO) about either Labour or Remainers - I have to admit I forget which, but it was enough to make a significant negative impression of her in my mind.

What we need is someone able to understand people's financial problems, socially relatively liberal, not over-hardline on law and order, and neutral on Brexit. Only someone like that can appeal to the electorate at large, rather than the Boris Johnson fan club.

Whoever promises the biggest and fastest tax cuts will win, this rules out Sunak who was in the Treasury pocket.