The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel - The Tory leadership elections

He was extolling trickle down economics in his launch speech like the past ten years had never happened. This will totally work.

Hiding him away is a good idea for starters, but it is a strategy with limitations. He could be just one tactless blunder away from fucking it all up, then they'll become amateurs! Or no one will care and applaud him, then they are clever operators again.

it's unknowable at this stage but he's got very dodgy allies who've already thrown god knows how much money at achieving the Brexit they want and his fecklessness is not proof against an attempt to force the hardest of Brexits now. I find him less convincing as an erstwhile one nation Tory who just wants to be PM than most of the other possibilities

"I find him less convincing as an erstwhile one nation Tory"

his sister probably does as well.

ok if gove wins the uk politics thread has to be called "one nation under a gove"

He isn't convincing as someone who believes in anything other than himself and his career tbf.

not that I'd put any actual "one nation tories" above boris tbh, cos they are all trash.

but you have to distinguish between between different levels of evil tory trash on this thread or a clusterfuck is on the way.

rather than quoting whatever argument isn’t gelling with you? Do you not see why putting that argument on people who never even alluded to this could be insulting?

I literally said that's my summation and I could be wrong. I wasn't being sarcastic saying that, I genuinely was not sure the precise angle at work. I genuinely meant please tell me if that's not what you're saying. Because I wasn't sure and I don't even know if you and xyzzz think the same thing, how could I?

There's no master troll plan or something. You target my posts on this thread repeatedly and try to force a personal argument, over and over again, to the point that I can barely post here even when what I'm saying is relatively similar to what other people say. You're also the angriest person in this thread.

Most of the time I come to this thread without major convictions beyond the broader ones most of us share here, but tend to question things to find my way to something more close to that. Not everybody is certain of things.

Yeah I get exasperated or make a joke but no more than anyone else here.

The discussion with xyzzz seemed to go on and and end relatively amicably. I'm sick of getting flamed or treated like a troll just for posting fairly occasionally or having a debate. It's totally unfair and on this occasion my posts were not even responding to a single thing you had said, you just appeared to attack me.

I've tried several times to draw a line under this but it obviously won't go anywhere, the bit you picked out of my post above was me being me as careful as I can to show I wasn't sure where the argument had gone and maybe I'd got it wrong and if so let me know, and somehow that's me attacking someone.

I fucking hate this, having to get embroiled in someone attacking me personally and not the things I said. It's totally unfair.

The thing is all these ERGers are going on and on about his tenure as London Mayor when he was far more pro-immigration than official Tory policy at the time and was touting amnesties for illegal immigrants. They're so fucking dumb they don't realize he got elected by being as unTorylike as he could get away with but mostly by keeping out of people's hair by sitting on his fat arse doing nothing all day - much as Sadiq Khan is doing now.

he beat Ken Livingstone, that takes something special does that.

xp excuse you, Sadiq is a far right hate figure and he hasn’t spunked a load of money on a bus that cooks old people

ive often pondered the theory, call it the dennis wise proposition, that you could take out the likeliest to draw opprobrium in incremental steps from the ukpol threads and the net average level of rancour between participants would remain constant throughout the process

can we nominate the two least likely for an experiment in which they have their own ukpol thread and give it a week before they are fee-huriously hissing at each other in place of discussion

that would be good imo

― godfellaz (darraghmac), Thursday, 13 June 2019 15:34 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hard border iykwim

khan's still a slimy slick prick though. I still don't like him for using the word "power" about 89 times in a speech to try and undermine Corbyn, when he was looking weak, and these cunts were plotting to take control of the PLP again.

Chuk has joined the Lib Dems

finally at rest in his spiritual home

oh lol. I thought that was days ago ..but official now! There needs to be a by-election then because hardly anybody voted LibDem in his constituency.

a bus that cooks old people

It's the new Sturridge Has Joined Chelsea

more like fucking Winston Bogarde!

Must be confident he could win a by election.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streatham_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

bogarding a safe labour seat for starters is mr 40K a week!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sbk7BZXAeg

I find him less convincing as an erstwhile one nation Tory who just wants to be PM than most of the other possibilities

If there is dark money flowing into the Johnson campaign in exchange for policy then yes it would be good to know that now and not after he's made PM. I don't believe he's a One Nation Tory or a secret liberal or anything else but his guiding principle has always been self-advancement and self-promotion.

I'm not convinced he would self-immolate his Premiership by going straight for No Deal because the consequences would involve either being ousted, losing an election or forced into a humiliating return to the negotiating table.

If he does I think its more likely to be through stupidity and miscalculation rather than because Arron Banks has paid for it. But then maybe that's just naivety speaking. If it does happen I think we're looking at the obliteration of the Conservative Party for a generation.

what are the options? he could bring back the May deal with some boris branded flannel attached. still wouldn’t get past the DUP. probably just end up kicking the can again and again. at some point somebody has to do something though - hazards already flashing on the dashboard of the economy

leader of the conservative muslim forum drawing a comparison between boris and hitler on the today programme. lovely stuff

The alternative I guess is he calls an election in expectation of winning it but there isn't really time and we're still in the same situation if he does, or if there's a hung Parliament with the Tories as largest party.

Do we think there's any chance of Jeremy Hunt springing a surprise?

would you bet against any of them not getting dark campaign money for policy

does anyone really believe that the obliteration of one of two options could occur for a generation

Hope not. Hunt has survived through 9 years of being successively awful in each portfolio, he’s much less likely to bow to pressure.

He'd have to get caught fucking a corpse for his vote to collapse enough for Jeremy Cunt to spring a surprise imo.

going back to the tax cut thing that would devastate the Scot Tories. Although it was just signalling to the gallery stuff it probably is a taste of the complete lack of foresight and thought to come and perhaps it shows his team only truly have him under control when he's out of sight.

not stoked for anything that's coming right now.

Polly Toynbee vs Charles Moore re BJ on Today right now. Thanks BBC.

what’s his brexit platform in that election though? given the party is existentially split on the question. failing to see how he reconciles the zugzwang without leaning on the milquetoast tory wets and pivoting to no deal for that election

but then at the same time as matt says that sets his premiership on fire and would be a very serious situation for a deeply unserious man

I think Hunt & Gove wld be 'stronger', more autocratic PMs. mb the 'anyone but Boris' crew will get behind Gove

If Raab gets a decent headwind he could split the hard Brexit vote and prevent either of them getting on the final ballot.

Is there a single Remain Tory in the race or have they all decided there's just no point?

― Matt DC,

Given the strong numbers, could brexiters look at this and think we can split the hard brexit vote and make sure both are on the final ballot, Boris has voters to spare that could go to Raab if they wanted too game it?

Stewart is the ideal candidate from a Labour POV bc he can't possibly bring in the Tory right and Brexit crew, so he wld probably lose any election. Gove or Johnson would just have to appeal to a few more centrists than Corbyn, which isn't too hard to imagine

xps

It's strange listening to Polly these days without thinking about recently read accounts about her dad getting blind drunk with his soviet agent best pal Donald Maclean and trashing numerous flats!

If he's in the last two (and unless he fucks a corpse he is), then he's the next PM.

given that a lot of the focus on boris’ campaign has been about his lack of moral core - I’m dubious about his ability to bring cameroonian social liberals back into the fold. he will probably try a turbo charged version of the may strategy - maximise the white vote.

he was quite punchy and dead eyed in his launch presser. now he’s refusing to do debates. I’m worried that he’s met w bannon, gauged the nation’s frustration, seen how may got away with a lot due to “stubbornness” and taken that recent poll at face value that showed GBP would overwhelmingly welcome a strong (ie authoritarian) leader right now... troubling cocktail

From what I can see Rory has generated a ton of noise and one effect is that he has cut space for any of Johnson's rivals. the viable alternatives haven't cut through at all have they? It might already be it for any of them, if you go by first impressions.

My feeling is his Brexit platform in a GE will be the same handwavey blustering Churchillian bollocks as normal. Question is whether enough voters fall for it.

Question is whether enough voters fall for it.

How many of the voters that would fall for, have already decamped to Farage though? This brings them back?

What would Churchill do about Brexit I wonder?*

* This is a joke I am not doing this

hunt has already asked “what would churchill think about boris ducking debates?” lmao

How many of the voters that would fall for, have already decamped to Farage though? This brings them back?

Perhaps, yeah. It did in the early years of May's leadership.

appropriate that the opinion of a dead guy that used to often nod off and soil himself half way through incoherent rambles is very germane to the subject here!

i mean lol what the undiluted imperialist and massive racist churchill did was yard-sale the empire to save the heartland so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

iirc it was Jess Phillips two weeks ago. I see a pattern.

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 13 June 2019 12:24 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If we add Diane Abbott, does the pattern get clearer, or more blurry, clearer, or more blurry?

(I'm aware this joke will be lost on those with perfect eyesight, but fuck 'em)