Boris looks ill

[MrBennsshop]

At today's briefing, definitely not himself.

I imagine Mrs Sunak is mentally measuring No 10 up right now.
Doubt it. She's far too rich to want to live somewhere so small

The most prestigious address in the country? Don’t be ridiculous!

His car was involved in a minor accident leaving Parliament. No injuries reported but I bet he will be missing in action again!

Tory Party leadership Challenge allowed from 23rd July

But surely they don't expect the public to put up with another such farce, only a year after the last one? It would do even more damage to the party. The only way to get rid of him is to get rid of Cummings, perhaps they've got a plan for that?

The next tory party leader will ultimately be chosen by the mainly white and old (ish) membership, i doubt Sunak will get a look in.

Javid got 23 out of 313 last time round.

I wonder if Gove is lining up to be PM next. Cummings was always his man. Some slippery serpentine speeches then!
Johnson is looking worse than even they could have predicted. I wonder if he will last until the Transition period is over. It seems as if anything can happen.

Please please please not Gove. As 2020 is going down as one of the worst years in recent history that really would top it off.

Sunak is a lot more popular than Javid - he's posh, good-looking and does as he's told - I think he would appeal even to the membership. Javid's problem wasn't just being non-white but being non-white and working class.

This made me larf
twitter.com/tompeck/status/1273268972801097731

*The next tory party leader will ultimately be chosen by the mainly white and old (ish) membership, i doubt Sunak will get a look in.

Javid got 23 out of 313 last time round*

They’ll vote for whoever’s most electable. Sunak’s the golden boy right now, there will be a lot of Tory blue rinses smitten by his boyish charms pressurising their husbands to vote him in. Javid bears no comparison, even if the world was the same place as a year ago.

Gove is unelectable, even the Tories know that.

Ken Clark summed up Sunak, popular (among MPs) because he is handing out the money, will be far less so when he has to make the savings and tax rises to pay for it all.

Sunak's mum was a pharmacist. His dad was a GP.
but he's still not right for the party faithful.

Cummings has TONS of dirt on Johnson and Gove.

@jasjas1973

Ken Clark summed up Sunak, popular (among MPs) because he is handing out the money, will be far less so when he has to make the savings and tax rises to pay for it all.

That’s only partly right. Sunak’s confident, intelligent, personable, articulate and good looking, with excellent communication skills. The camera loves him and he comes across as trustworthy and sincere. I so wish he wasn’t a Tory because I like him enough to be very worried about myself!

jasjas
Apparently Sunak is really popular with every civil servant he's worked with

• he listens
• he learns
• he takes advice
• and he's so incredibly rich by marriage that no financial bribe or threat can influence him

@jasjas1973

Ken Clark summed up Sunak, popular (among MPs) because he is handing out the money, will be far less so when he has to make the savings and tax rises to pay for it all.

There was a piece in the FT today that the triple lock pensions might come under threat next year, that'd be suicide for a Tory chancellor given that the membership are pretty much exclusively pensioners. Sunak is the golden boy at the moment but as you say all this money has to be paid back in a shrinking economy.

2020 is the year you don't want to be Health Sec
2021 will be the year you don't want to be Chancellor

It's doubtful whether Boris starts or survives 2021 as PM (or whether he even wants to) but the membership are unpredictable and right wing. The Tories panicked and made sure May won in 2016 because they thought the membership would have appointed Leadsom (the right wing equivalent of the Labour membership appointing Corbyn).

A more left field choice for next leader is Hunt. You can see him angling towards it.

Will anyone of them want to take over as PM right now? Won't it be like 2016 when no one wanted the job so May got it.

There was a piece in the FT today that the triple lock pensions might come under threat next year, that'd be suicide for a Tory chancellor given that the membership are pretty much exclusively pensioners

That’s why they won’t do it.

I so wish he wasn’t a Tory because I like him enough to be very worried about myself!

My mum IS a Tory and she likes him. But she's also gutted that Keir Starmer is Labour as she also thinks he's great!

How bad is the dirt Cummings has on Gove given that Gove emerged pretty unscathed from the cocaine 'scandal'? The bar for career-fatal indiscretions is now ludicrously high.

Or should that be low?

CV is causing such a financial hit, many tory sacred cows will have to be slaughtered, including triple lock.

The reality is unemployment may well increase as furlough is withdrawn, UC might have to increase quite a bit too.

£900K repainting a plane red white and blue.

Their justification for that is just utter shit.

@jasjas1973, they’re going to be between a rock and a hard place. If they slaughter their sacred cows economically, they can forget being re-elected. Or at least they should but, given the determination of their fan base here, there seems to be nothing they can do that will deter their most devoted supporters.

@Alsohuman

There was a piece in the FT today that the triple lock pensions might come under threat next year, that'd be suicide for a Tory chancellor given that the membership are pretty much exclusively pensioners

That’s why they won’t do it.

Probably, but there will come a point, probably over these next 4 years and/or beyond, where committing to a triple-lock pension takes up too high a percentage of public spending. There's going to be millions suddenly unemployed.

Loving this. It’s from the comments on Marina Warner’s latest piece in The Guardian.

This government is led by its appendages, not by its insight, intellect or imagination. Throbbing with technophilia and proudly erect, as erect as a Boz with a new bird, Dom dominates, a second-class brain in a third-class government

There are the out and out racists who wont vote for Sunak because he's Asian, but he's also much more acceptable than Javid. As well as being posher, he's also Hindu rather than Muslim and let's not pretend that wouldn't make a difference. If the MPs think he's the best option, they may sew the thing up again.