I did a poll on Twitter yesterday seeking to find out when people thought Johnson might depart as Prime Minister.
When will Johnson cease to be Prime Minister? A poll:
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) December 22, 2020
This is the result, so far:
This is not a representative sample, of course.
But I still think it's interesting.
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For those who are hopeful that we will see the back of Johnson any time soon Craig Murray has some depressing news at https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/.
Craig has been pretty insightful in the past so I’m inclined to be fearful of the future.
Ask Graham Brady.
BTW – in the future, would it be possible to ban institutions like the 1922 Committee as ‘undemocratic’ in a proper UK/English constitution? Also, their equivalents in other parties?
Chaos at the ferry ports – Where’s Chris Grayling when we need him, if only he hadn’t cancelled those ferry contract.
Sadly I think answers are more of a ‘when people want Johnson to go’ rather than ‘when will he actually go’. Unless there’s a major Tory backbench revolt or a massively reduced majority, I think he’ll hold on longer than people hope. After all most Tory MPs won’t want to vote themselves out of well paid jobs, especially those who won the Northern seats from Labour at the last elections, as they probably won’t be re-elected again. The only hope would be for a 1922 Committee revolt and I think other than grumblings this won’t happen sometime soon. Please let me be wrong…
But it’s not just Johnson we need rid of, it’s the whole party and government.
I do not think the Tories will go
I think Johnson might
I’ve already made my prediction, which is NOTA. He’ll be gone by the end of January, off to another £250k pa cushy number, such as he had with the Torygrsph, writing a weekly article, taking a day at most, and probably only a couple of hours.
In other words, easy money, in sufficiently large quantities for Johnson’s inflated requirements, away from the hard work, responsibility and accountability of the Premiership, with its “nasty probing muckrakers”.
That he will have left to someone else to face and shoulder, while he can return to his favourite employment of Clown-in-Chief, having excelled in his previous incarnation of the Lord of Misrule.
And not just at Christmas, but ever since he became PM, in July 2019, when he started tentatively, for him, but turned up the dial of misrule – taking away the whip from 21 Tories, lying to the Queen to get an Parliament illegally prorogued, an election campaign on a complete fabrication (oven-ready!! As if!).
And then came 2021 – no need to rehearse his mendacious (and possibly fraudulent, if pursued to enable chums to make a killing shorting the pound) incompetence and corruption in the face of both the pandemic and “Get BREXIT done”.
Of COURSE he’ll be gone, sooner rather than later, in view of his record. So I stick to my “end of January” prediction.
I tend to agree with you
I am not convinced by Craig Murray’s argument
It assumes Johnson has conviction and I am not convinced
He’s a sociopath.
So he will go as soon as he can’t handle the criticism (which he will blame on others personal jealousy).
Whatever he does, it will never be his fault that things went to pot and always the “lefties” fault.
The CONservative party has quite a lot of recent history in having leaders who have serious personality disorders.
Disclaimer: this is a personal observation and is not meant to be a criticism of all the good CONservative leaders we have [never] had.
“ban institutions like the 1922 Committee as ‘undemocratic’ in a proper UK/English constitution?”
In what way is it ‘undemocratic’? It is the grouping of backbench Conservative MPs. It is of course a play straight out of the fascist playbook to seek to ban such groups using a spurious ‘undemocratic’ accusation.
What is their equivalent in other parties? Momentum in Labour perhaps? Who else would you like to ban? Anyone who doesn’t agree with you?
It seems to me that its far better to have organisations that are ‘out in the open’ even if you dont like them than skulking away underground
Indeed – there’s also the minor issue of Freedom of Association as described by the EHRC. Worth a read of their website https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights-act/article-11-freedom-assembly-and-association
Craig Murray was wrong about the timing, at least. There was no deal and no “union jacked apotheosis of saviour Johnson all over the media” within a week from 7 December, or even another week after that. Perhaps we will get a Christmas Eve gift, just before the Boxing Day lockdown?
But is he right that Johnson will only go when his party decides he has become more of an electoral liability than an asset. Or perhaps if Johnson decides he would rather do something more enjoyable and paid commensurately with his inflated opinion of himself, although no doubt the recipients of public largesse (and honours) during his watch will be suitably grateful later.
But if so, who’s next? Looking at the present cabinet, what is the opposite of a ministry of all talents?
Hunt
Patel? Perish the thought.
Agreed – it will be Hunt – the acceptable face of the unacceptable.
Well we shall be seeing soon what terms are in the Brexit Deal and whether there’s sufficient dynamite in there for the ERG to blow Johnson off his perch or “hoist by his own petard” as the bard liked to say! Place your bets!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/23/eu-countries-prepare-for-possible-imminent-brexit-deal
To repeat my refrain -Bozo will go join his Bullingdon spaffer-chums, as soon as he has delivered the hard BrexShit.
Just as Dave and Gideon were able to knock-off as soon as they had done their act of delivering Austerity, Scottish non-independence and the OUT referendum result.
The Pathocracy relies on a relay team of psychopathic CEO’s to achieve their long term goals. The rewards for these who deliver are ‘A Seat at the Table’. If they fail they end up on the back benches like May.
The gameofchickenthrone tonight is the EU gurus trying to repeat the same feat they did with May. In effect bounce Bozo into extending. Macron ( being the senior inside man of the Pathocracy) instantly sent up the warning signal in the French MSM claiming England had surrendered! Giving Bozo the excuse to play the ‘were being taken for a ride card’ – as I see it , neither side wants to blink first and walk away from the table saying it is an obvious No Deal.
‘You first Lord Frost, no no apres vous Monsieur Barnier, we’ve just ordered some more pizzas and are happy to carry on straight through to New Year’s Eve ..” etc.
I will be very very surprised if they actually announce anything that resembles what a oven ready deal was supposed to look like and as far as I understand it ‘ A vote by the European parliament to give consent to a trade and security agreement with the UK is no longer possible, given the lack of time left before the end of the transition period.’
I also recommended keeping an eye on https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidHenigUK and Kaya Adler of the bbc for actual upto date developments.
Bozo will leave citing the need to spend time with his newborn blah blah and he did his best and it is now in the hands of others …etc
As a pessimist I put down 2024. Thing is the Tories are doing well with him ensconced at no.10 he is everything they dreamed of, well the far right wing. It’s those in his cabinet who are running the show, and no doubt some none of us will ever even have heard of and never will. The ‘UK’ is not a democracy, that is for sure, but, are people willing to put up with that in the 21st century? Scotland is on a very different path to the one that the EngGov are taking their ‘precious union’ down, it’s do or die now quite frankly, Scotland.
I do think that it is a bit of wishful thinking that Johnson will go any time soon. With all that’s happened in the past 12 months he has the brass neck to carry on. Sadly too, he does have wide support among the electorate. I’ve given up discussing politics with friends and family as I cannot believe the political ignorance. Democracy has failed us, our forefathers would be ashamed. But we carry on, keep up the good work, I love this blog and, mostly, all the contributions.
Thanks
There’s a NewsThump for every occasion:
” “I played bass in A-ha, my Dad invented the Rubiks Cube and I’m World Pac-man Champion” — Boris Johnson”
https://newsthump.com/2020/12/23/i-played-bass-in-a-ha-my-dad-invented-the-rubiks-cube-and-im-world-pac-man-champion-boris-johnson/
Johnson is primarily a coward. He is feart to face his opponents/accusers when the going gets tough.
Should there be no deal, things will get plenty tough and Boris will bolt no later than February.
If a “skinny” deal is struck, it will take a bit longer for the impact to become clear. Once the redundancies kick in, and extra millions try to access universal credit and housing benefit etc., the solids will hit the air conditioning. I’d then give him a year.
To those of us in Scotland, I don’t believe it matters one whit if Johnson stays, or goes. Hopefully we are going to forge our own path in 2021, meaning of course a second Scottish Independence Referendum. If our aim of a Yes vote is achieved, then we can at long last begin the process of becoming an independent nation once again.
I hope that Priti Patel replaces Johnson.
Too much wishful ‘thinking’ going on here, I am afraid.
Johnson, if he ‘believes’ in anything beyond his own sense of overweening personal entitlement, may just possibly believe his own windy rhetoric about ‘global Britain’, free-booting privateering traders and all the guff of that dreadful Greenwich speech. Check out also the initial ‘history lesson’ on his government’s introduction to the ancient origins of free ports – all that classical faux erudition enobling the pursuit of private and unprincipled greed. It’s Willi Frischauer’s immortal line again. “The thing that worries me is that these politicians actually mean what they say.”
So…. as long as he is surrounded by his Cabinet of noddy dogs and has the oleaginous Gove to smarm the media whenever it gets a bit too sweaty for him, he’ll stay and make sure he does a thoroughly half-cock job of realising the nonsense ‘vision’ of deregulated ‘prosperity’ for his mates by which he sets such foolish store. Then, with a few Free Port ‘spectaculars’ behind him – ( I have deliberately borrowed the Povisional IRA’s terminology for showy acts of destruction) – he will bow out to enjoy illgotten gains and semi-privately sneer at the little people whose humdrum lives he will have ruined. That could take him beyond the next General Election.
Only one eventuality will destroy this – Scotland’s independence. So… I agree with others here, that Scotland must, for the sake of all the decent folks in these islands, get on with it and get away. I cannot wait.
Going by the TV newscasts so far, I can see Boris emerging from this smelling of roses and being elevated to minor deity status by the MSM – “The Man Who Delivered Brexit and Made Great Britain Great Again”). That could start to change once the contents of the 2000-page agreement have been analysed and their impact evaluated, but I fear that, until the penny actually drops with the populace (which might take years), he’ll be seen as a hero by the right-wing press and hence by the majority of their readers. Like Nigel, I’m hoping Scotland can get a move on with its independence and restore some sanity in this part of these islands. That, in itself, might restore hope of better governance elsewhere and, indeed, might provide the spark that Labour needs to restore its credibility as a realistic opponent of neoliberalism.