In the news

Remember 1990?

By late 1990 it was obvious that Thatcher had become an electoral liability - unfortunately but unsurprisingly the Tory bigwigs realised this and sacked her.

On the left we hoped she would stay in office and lose the next election, so we went from shouting "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, out, out out!" to keeping very quiet. Rather like people remembering where they were when they heard about Jack Kennedy 's death, I remember exactly where I was when I heard of Maggie's tearful exit from Downing Street.

Major went on to win a 23 seat majority (much reduced) in'92.

Here we have pretty much the same situation.

How about a 'Let's Boost Boris' campaign ? We need him to stay in office right up to the next election.

whether Truss would call an immediate general election

I'm not sure Truss will make it to a vote of members, there's talk that Rishi and Hunt have a packed to keep her off the ballot.

I tend to agree that him remaining in post is the best outcome for a Labour/progressive government, but the Tory party isn’t exactly awash with talent right now, is it?

The possible successors are akin to the hopefuls in the next series of The Apprentice; a ragged collection of chancers, bullshitters and egotists. Add to that the fact that the electorate that chooses the replacement is about as unrepresentative of today’s Britain as it is possible to be and you’re going to get some third rate Johnson tribute act to replace him.

Then we’ll all gaze on in wonder, stunned to see that it is possible to continue this series of successively more useless PMs that started with Cameron.

they are all taking the piss

sir kieth starmtrooper QC has also been pictured having a drink at a 'work do' with lots of people during last year's lockdowns ofc

To be fair, this was reported in May 2021 and after the circumstances were explained, no media outlets decided to make a fuss about it because it sounded relatively inoccuous (was literally during a formal and online streamed Labour party event), until the Telegraph and Daily Express decided to try to ressurrect the story yesterday.

I.e

Starmer had a beer while having dinner with colleagues during a publicly attended (online) campaigning event a few days before a by election. Compared to organised social events with alcohol during lockdown. They are not the same thing.

I just about remember her leaving, but was too young to realise the significance.

If anything the fact that they kicked her out reinforces that they definitely won't let Johnson run again for a GE now he's recognised as a liability.

Major went on to win a 23 seat majority (much reduced) in'92.

I don't think they'd wait two years for the next GE though - get someone in who'll allow the Tories who won't vote for Johnson to revert and hammer a GE through before anyone notices that the policies and living standards are still the same / worse.

There's definitely a feel of the Bonaparte quote "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." right now.

(Note that Bonaparte was obviously not woke enough to use "they are" instead of "he is".)

Andrew?

Does Rishi just not mingle with the No.10 lot?

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BBC news continuing to use only the cropped version of the Prince Andrew and Victoria Guiffre photo that excludes Ghislaine LOL

That's odd, the only BBC news I see is news night and since the story has been in the news in the last week or so its been the full picture.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59991749

Not cropped here either

Its the BBC news channel and Nicholas Witchell's reports being shown all day on Andy having all his honours dropped, doubly odd as it then cuts to the picture of Andrew with "convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein" whilst photo with another convicted sex offender is cropped to exclude them.

That is the danger for him of chucking all the staff under the bus

Assuming the BYOB party did take place shouldn't the people involved (the person that sent the invite, the people that turned up, the people that turned a blind eye) face some sort of sanction? Bringing the Civil Service into disrepute or something?

What would the Tories do ahead of calling a GE for (say) August? What levers are available that would mobilise their voters? I think article 16 would backfire as it doesn't do what they think it would do, what else have they got - tax cuts?

It would be worse under the other bloke, attack Angela Rayner, start hollering that Starmer wants to reverse Brexit, Carrie to have a science-defying baby, promise to set up machine gun nests over the English channel. That kind of stuff I imagine.

Needs to be sufficient to convince the new Tory voters of 2019 in the red-wall to continue to vote against their own interests.

The pensioner vote is locked in, and there's nothing to be done about that other than wait, but an interesting statistic I saw yesterday showed that Labour would have won in 2019 if only working age voters had been counted.

They may have to revisit the HS2 decision temporarily.

That's really interesting. Where from?

Gov't says don't ride too hard.

Would be great if they said don't drive.

Why do reasonable people still put themselves through watching question time?

Ha ha this so much why do that to yourself

Of course I failed to bookmark it and now I can't find it - I'll post it when I find it.

Doesn't give a view on working age, but shows the split

I am not sure the waiting thing will work. I think the data shows that people become more likely to vote Conservative as they get older, and that trend is pretty consistent over time.

For example, an average 35 to 40-year-old probably voted for Labour in 1997, and probably voted for the Tories in 2019.

The current working-age population might defy the historic pattern, but I am not sure why that would be the case.