There are some interesting political scheduling issues coming up.
I am presuming Johnson is toast now. It already feels as if the power is draining from him. It is only time before the Tories turn on him.
The convention is that they will not do this before local elections on 5 May, even though I suspect their performance would improve if they did. So 6 May, a Friday, is the first day Graham Brady might call a poll organised by the 1922 Committee.
The trouble is that parliament ends its season on either 6 May or 9 May, meaning all business closes before the State reopening scheduled for Tuesday 10 May.
Actually, I doubt we will have a State reopening. I rather suspect that the Queen is not up to this task. It will save her considerable embarrassment if she is not. The reopening will be by the Lord Chancellor, who will read the required speech.
But, suppose on 10 May when MPs are back the 1922 has the 54 letters needed to call a vote of no confidence in Johnson? He will be offering his programme for government to the House and country whilst facing the real risk of being deposed. How can that work?
Of course, the challenge to Johnson may fail. But suppose it does not? Could he then carry the Queen's speech? The answer must be no, because he will be gone.
Then suppose the challenge fails, although the vote against him is likely to be big? What then? We can be sure he will not go. But would those Tory MPs trying to be rid of him then vote for his programme for government? Who can tell?
There is only one thing I can be sure of right now, and that is that it would be wise for the Queen to miss this speech. The coincidence of timings makes it look as if May might deliver quite a political mess. She would be best clear of it.
And one day we might be rid of Johnson.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
I read that the Times quotes an ‘unnamed official’ saying “Sue Gray’s report is excoriating ….and could be enough to end him.”
His Premiership is draining away.
The Angela Rayner ‘Mailgate’ furore has focused attention on the dubious culture of Parliament, yet again. There is obviously something badly wrong in Westminster, beause this skin-crawling, shoddy display of low standards keeps happening. It must be bad; even the public has now reluctantly noticed that our Parliament, underlying the fussy, formal rituals, is in fact a raucus, seedy and vulgar national embarrassment.
The Sue Gray Report, which has not yet been published, almost certainly solely because Johnson is withholding it – ludicrously by using all the other investigstions now under way into his egregious conduct, as cover to block the Gray Report’s publication; there is a comic irony in this that only Johnson could deliver (but what does that say – about us?). That is how absurd our constitution has been allowed to become (guided solely by the self-serving interests of the Conservative Party), in the hands of this charlatan at the helm.
The press coverage now suggesting the Sue Gray report “excoriates” Johnson is important because it lays to rest the phoney Conservative argument that Johnson’s failure was about ‘Parties’, or ‘Cake’. This is false, and was never anything more than cheap Conservative propaganda. The problem, now highlighted by the very fact that more fixed penalty notices have been issued for Downing Street and Whitehall than for any single location in Britain through the pandemic, was much deeper and goes to the root of a catastrophic failure of political leadership. The crux of the matter is this: The PM sets the tone and standards for the Downing Street operation (the heart of Britain’s executive Government) over which he presides, and which fixes the standards through which Britain is governed. Nothing less. If a PM cannot even understand or control the Downing Street operation that is the nerve-cente of State political power in execution, then it follows inexorably that he or she is not fit to govern. Period. I rest my case.
I can’t believe this business with Angela Rayner.
Even the BBC is describing in detail what it is that she has supposed to have done (‘opening and crossing her legs’).
Every time they mention the accusation, they’re just sticking the knife into the woman and making the accusation stick. Repetition works. There’s no need to keep repeating it and make it real!!!!!!
It’s appalling. What are they doing!!!?
And then the party that sanctioned it, uses denial to boost its ‘human credentials’. Bullshit!
I know I’ve been openly hostile to female MPs who have crap and damaging ideas that hurt society. But there a real whiff of genuine misogyny here that’s shameful. Awful…………………………….
And people now believe she is at fault
Staggering
Over the years I’ve spent much my time at work on the periphery of senior management teams setting out policies etc, for the organisation. I have come to appreciate the highly paid and detached bubbles a lot of these people operate in.
Management by ‘walking about’ is a lost art. Many of these decisions are taken in isolation – without union representation even or a shop floor view. It’s top down in cultural approach.
The amount of times I’ve seen the policy makers fall foul of their policies is remarkable. It is a common problem with British management I’m afraid, commensurate with the higher pay scales.
I think that Johnson and Co may indeed fall into this category.
But what is really important for me in all of this is his denial to us and Parliament that he’d even made such a mistake. It is the pretence of infallibility and lack of self awareness; it is his past and very questionable conduct in other fields that confirms that this was not exception either.
He has to go. And so do the others.
If you cannot admit a failing, how an earth can you ask for forgiveness? Forgiveness is not a right with out clauses I’m afraid.
For a number of years, I was part-time CFO and effective joint CEO of a company. The full-time CEO often wondered how I knew so much about it. I simply arrived early on the days I was in and talked to people. It really was not hard to find out what was really going on.
Even here, while I appreciate the nature of the misogyny I was looking to draw attention to the Sure Gray alleged “excoriation” of Johnson, and Downing Street as the most ‘fixed-notice penalised’ location during the worst of the pandemic; both as evidence of the extent of the depth and extent of the failure of leadership from the top in the Conservative Government and Party. This is the failure that sinks Johnson, not the desperate trivialisation of ‘cakes’ and ‘partys’ that the back-benches seek to hind behind. There is not hiding place.
Sure? My spelling was obviously not so sure, but I hope Sue Gray’s report proves to be “Sure”; if we can be sure that we will ever see it. At the same time, it seems I cannot cope with more than one Party (Parties); if only Johnson could say the same about Downing Street. It also seems I cannot hide behind explaining who Johnson is hiding behind.
I shall now quietly try to put these errors behind me.
I have to do that, often….
Given Johnson’s contempt for the UKs democratic norms of behaviour it is hard to predict what will happen.
Is it possible that he could refuse to resign even if he lost a vote of no confidence?
If yesterday’s Mail on Sunday remarks about Angela Rayner are anything to go by the Johnson gang is prepared to say or do anything no matter how obscene or dishonest to try and hang on to power and no lack of Newspapers prepared to support them.
Yes. It’s a Constitutional wrinkle that Johnson is PM primarily because the Queen invited him to form a government. He may have been invited *because* he was leader of the largest party but once in post, he’s in post whether he’s leader or not.
Any normal person would stand down once he lost the leadership, but this isn’t a normal person. I think, though, in practice any attempt to cling on would last as long as it took to organise a vote *in the House* as opposed to in the party.
The Tories could fo9rce him out – but it might take the Cabinet to resign to do that
Odds on that?
My suspicion is that Johnson will try to hang on for as long as possible. The Queen invited him to form a government because he “commanded the confidence of the House” and this, it appears, is the only criterion. There appears to be nothing to say that the Prime Minister has to be leader of the largest party, or even an member of any party, or a member of either of the Houses of Parliament, or, as a constitutional lawyer I know likes to point out, a human being. If he refuses to resign then it would seem that the only way to get rid of him would be for the Queen to dismiss him and invite someone else to form a government.
I can imagine a scenario in which he is recalled by his constituency and still refuses to go.
They will keep making things up
Eventually even the Tories will have enough though
Paul above is correct: just how low are the Tories and their backers prepared to go to protect their mendacious programme to reverse progress? These people vomit all over democracy – so my expectations are low.
There may be worse to come.
Johnson is toast.
However, surely (at least constitutionally) the Queen’s Speech is about what “Her Government” will do….. and Johnson is just one minister in the Government (albeit primus inter pares). Whether Johnson stays/goes should not alter policy (given that his dismissal is not about policy).
In practice a new leader like Hunt might want a different policy agenda…… but U turns are a Tory speciality.
I can’t see anyone who comes in wanting his agenda…
Really? Truss, Patel, Wallace would surely campaign on “continuity Boris policy” – how else could they justify being in Cabinet now?
I REALLY hope we don’t get either of those…. but you and I don’t get a vote on this (unless, of course, you have a surprise confession to make, Richard?).
Not me guv’
In my view the Queen has been out of it for years. How else could we be in the State/state we are in? Sorry, but it has to be said.
She has no power to stop it, even if she wanted to
I know what you are saying Richard but she could still voice her opinion on the state of her subjects and through the Privy Council. The Royals have sought to influence Parliament on a wide range of issues.
All the Windsor’s have that option as far as I am concerned.
All we need is a royalty that say ‘Enough is enough – let’s end this charade. It’s ridiculous’.
Accepted
I am rather sorry for the situation that The Queen finds herself in with the last three Prime Ministers, especially given her age.
Clearly an elected president, even with minimal powers would always have the ability to say ‘no’ which in turn would have an influence on the political culture.
The Queens Speech might be delivered by Dominic Raab? Oh crumbs.
The sitting Lord Chancellor delivered the speech for Elizabeth in 1959 and 1963 when she was pregnant, and similarly for Victoria for much of her reign after Albert’s death in 1861.
But that was before the constitutional reforms in 2005, when the Lord Chancellor lost two of his three roles (judicial, and presiding in the House of Lords). The Queen could delegate the role to someone else – perhaps the Prince of Wales might like a try? Or the Lord Speaker, John McFall?
Here is some speculation to this effect about a month ago. https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/prince-charles-on-standby-read-queens-speech-at-state-opening-of-parliament-may-amid-health-fears-1541985