Boris leadership 2019

We don't know exactly how many Conservative Party members there are because - unlike the UK's other parties - the Conservatives don't regularly release the figures.

The last time they did so was back in March 2018, when they put the figure at 124,000.

That's larger than some of the more pessimistic guesstimates, but way down on the peak of nearly three million that the party boasted in the early 1950s.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48395211

Brexiteer entryists may have pushed that number up, natural wastage has surely pushed it down.

Results you might have missed from the YouGov poll of Tory Party members last week:

Please imagine that Nigel Farage joined the Conservative Party and stood in the leadership contest, how happy or unhappy would you be if he became the next leader of the Conservative Party?

Very happy 28
Quite happy 18
TOTAL HAPPY 46

Neither happy nor unhappy 13

Quite unhappy 14
Very unhappy 26
TOTAL UNHAPPY 40
Don't know 1

Imagine you live in the land of Oz, and the candidates are the Tin Man, who's all brains and no heart, and the Scarecrow, who's all heart and no brains. Who would you vote for?

Tin Man 67
Scarecrow 14
Don't Know 19

Rory out. Shouldn't have taken his tie off

What were the torys' issues with the withdrawl agreement anyway? Were they just using the backstop to engineer someone else in?

Rory Stewart getting less votes than last round looks like Team BoJo shenanigans?

Gove out tomorrow, then The Saj, leaving Johnson vs Hunt in the tragic denouement.

Quite possibly. Lending votes yesterday to knock out Raab?

Shame Rory Stewart is out. It's presumably just a procession from here on.

Now we play the long game...

Giggles in the house:

Blackford: "He's a racist"

Speaker: "Can't say that mate"

Blackford: "He is a racist tho."

Thanks. The Guranaid seems to assume that it's 160,000:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/19/the-guardian-view-on-tory-leadership-and-the-constitution-a-crisis-in-the-making

I don't know where that figure comes from.

Wikipedia?

I think what we can safely say is that, assuming it actually goes out to the party for a vote, it’s not the biggest and possibly not the most diverse electorate.

Ha, indeed. Wikipedia gives this source:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/05/25/conservative-membership-surge-amid-fears-campaign-swing-leadership/

No idea if that article in turn gives a source, as it's paywalled after the first couple of paragraphs.

Chances are the Guradina went directly to the Torygraph.

Sources claimed the rise was down to a recruitment drive led by Brandon Lewis, who was appointed as party chairman in January 2018.

Should read

Brandon Lewis claimed the rise was down to a recruitment drive led by Brandon Lewis, who was appointed as party chairman in January 2018.

The cons would be driving that story and there is an advantage to them overstating there membership.

2 spoilt ballots?
Ken Clarke and Dominic Grieve want to be able to say that they are no part of what happens between now and 31st October?

Or Boris supporters "correcting" Jeremy's name

ooof hatchet job on boris on the 5 oclock news
every slur possible

Has Boris been knocked out in a ridiculous twist of fate yet?

Johnson.

so a cunt or a johnson.

What of my trade of journalism? A poor thing, you might say, and one whose deference to “Boris” has been a disgrace. But as his first press briefing showed, our next PM treats reporters who call him “Johnson” and hold him to account with a hostility he never shows to the flunkies on first name terms.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/15/when-will-resistance-to-populism-in-britain-properly-begin-brexit

Johnson and Hunt. Hunt reverses the position to overtake Gove. Not even slightly fixed...

BBC quoting 160,000 members of the party. Mostly over 55, mostly white and mostly wealthier than the average.

Charterhouse v Eton.

It's not fair!

Why do we have to choose? Can't we have them both?