Why the fuck is Boris Johnson still Prime Minister?

[noblegiraffe]

Fucksake. I mean seeing minister after minister wheeled out to defend the indefensible in the media rounds. Do they have no shame? Prattling on about how it was an 'essential part of leadership' to be a Toastmaster to an illegal piss-up. No, leadership was the Queen sat alone at a funeral, like so many of her subjects had to do. Not carrying on with your unprofessional boozy work culture and then have your team crow about how they 'got away with it' when they successfully didn't vomit in front of the cameras there for another press conference telling everyone how important it was to stick to the rules.

Johnson knew it wasn't right to have birthday parties when he personally wrote to a kid saying they were right to not have theirs, but then thought it was just fine to have one of his own and then announce that all rules had been followed to Parliament? (The police disagree, as does anyone who was forced to cancel their own celebrations).

Telling people that it was his duty to have a party for leaving colleagues while at the same time people couldn't be with dying family?

And now they are having the gall to say that he has accepted full responsibility? How? That sort of statement is followed by a resignation, not a 'now let's forget about it and move on'. How has he demonstrated that he has done anything apart from his utmost to weasel out of taking any sort of responsibility, to the point of asking Sue Gray to give up on her report? The report that that he told the rest of us that we had to wait months for the outcome of to find out what he already knew.

He says he wants to deliver what the British people want. Polls said yesterday that a majority want him to resign. Get the fuck on with it then.

But polls also showed that only a tiny minority of people actually believe he has the integrity to do the right thing (learned from bitter experience).

So what, the British people are stuck with this craven, corrupt liar as leader?

Well no. He could be no-confidenced by his MPs. What the fuck are they waiting for? Do they think it is to their benefit to have him shitting over public office every day? 'Oh but they can't think of anyone better'. What exactly does that say about the state of the Tory party if that's true?

Cannot stand seeing his face, hearing his pathetic lies, seeing his shitty schtick any more. JUST FUCK OFF BORIS.

Of course it is. I don't actually believe that most posters justifying their decision to vote Conservative in the next election care primarily about women's rights though. They're either well off and sitting pretty under the Tories, or ardent Brexiteers, or not very bright, or inexplicably fans of Johnson and his funny hair.

Boris Johnson and his sorry cabal need to Fuck Off.

You're dead right, OP. And currently 90% of the voters on this thread agree with you. I despise what the Tories stand for for the most part, but I find myself nostalgic for the Tories of the '80s who at least (mostly) had a decent work ethic and some integrity left.

YANBU, but the opposition and alternatives scare me even more. The last 2 elections should have been a walk over for Labour. I'm starting to wonder if they are thinking 'glass cliff' and throwing the elections.

I'm a Conservative voter. I have mixed feelings on Boris. He's lazy, can't give a straight answer and Starmer runs rings around him at PMQ.

But after the disruption of the pandemic, followed by war in Ukraine, a leadership contest feels a bit indulgent. I'd vote for Sunak but I can't really see many other strong contenders.

I’ve no idea. He’s a joke. I wouldn’t trust him to run a bath.

He will never resign though. It would take insight and putting other people first, and he’s incapable of either. I suspect the Tories are using him as a scapegoat so that when people realised what a shit show Post Brexit Britain was, they could blame him and jettison him then. He’s a disposable PM. Sadly, then we had a pandemic, and a war, so we’ve conveniently been able to blame everything on those instead and seem to be stuck with him for the foreseeable.

Thank you for your insight - genuinely; it's really interesting to hear from Conservative voters.

What will you do if we go to a General Election with him?

Because if we do, you'll be voting for another term, with Johnson at the helm.

Yet you don't come up with a name!

But even if you did, there's no polls clearly indicating that any other candidate would be more likely to win them the next GE. And ultimately, until and unless the parliamentary Conservative party think they have such a candidate and have some evidence to back that up, Johnson is staying PM. That's the answer to your question. It's just utterly fucking unpalatable, is all. Doesn't stop it being true.

The old style Conservative party, I might believe the scapegoat theory. The current crop simply don't have the wit or the organisation skills to be capable of that level of planning.

but the opposition and alternatives scare me even more

😞

Does any real power lie with the pm ? After all they come and go, it seems the power is more with the party as a whole and or the institutions behind the pm.

*Thank you for your insight - genuinely; it's really interesting to hear from Conservative voters.

What will you do if we go to a General Election with him?*

Thank you, I slightly brace myself when I post about voting Conservative....

There's no other party I'd currently vote for so it would have to be more of the same by default. If a new party emerged, which it won't, I'd consider changing my allegiance.

I wonder how many Conservative voters there are who are prepared to vote for a liar with no integrity because they don't fancy the alternative parties for some reason they don't want to substantiate.

The Conservative party didn't win the last election, PM Johnson did and Conservative MPs know it. He could become very problematic and take his voters elsewhere if they got rid. The only consolation in this is PM Johnson is destroying the Tory party.😆😆😆

The Conservative party as a whole, ie the mass membership, don't have much power here either. I guess their members are more likely than average to live in Tory constituencies, so they have more opportunity to make their voices heard than those of us without Tory MPs in that they can pressure their MPs to send 1922 letters. Whereas me in a Labour area can't even do that. But even then, they can't make it happen if an MP just plain won't.

Its not a consolation - and thats coming from a lifelong Labour voter. No one in their right mind wants a single party State.
IMO, a country thrives when it is run using mixture of soft Socialism (for social issues - housing, health) and controlled capitalism.

When he didn’t run for PM after Brexit I was a bit put off him. Put your money where your mouth is Boris.
I don’t mind his cavalier style. It’s what works in unprecedented times.
The parties thing matters not to me. I couldn’t care less about people in a work bubble drinking. Made no different to Covid.
He didn’t break the rules of visiting his mum, her funeral, his wedding etc which were the tough ones.
I wouldn’t mind him stepping down but I like that he doesn’t moan. Unlike just about everyone else. You know that whoever replaces him will use BJ as the excuse for the country going tits up.

The members of the Conservative Party voted for Boris Johnson as leader.

They knew what he was. Shame on them.

He didn’t break the rules of visiting his mum, her funeral, his wedding etc which were the tough ones.

How about the rules of not lying to the Queen, not lying to parliament, not using power to line the pockets of your mates and mistresses, not taking bribes, not endangering the security of the country by putting dodgy Russians in the House of Lords?

The Conservative party didn't win the last election, PM Johnson did and Conservative MPs know it.

I think he gained a lot of votes off the back of Corbyn who is now long gone. And Johnson has done a lot of shit since he got in that has tainted his brand.

I cannot fathom why they think he would be a sure-fire vote winner. The public think he is a liar, untrustworthy and lacks integrity. In fact they know he is. And there's no 'But Corbyn' or 'Get Brexit done' to make people overlook that anymore.

Yet you don't come up with a name!

I'm not a Tory, why would I favour any of them?

Looking at the betting odds, Jeremy Hunt seems to be up there, and while previously he was his own rhyming slang, I think that was a feature of being a Tory, which given that the replacement has to be a Tory is something that will just have to be accepted. I don't think he is as absolutely despicable as Johnson, therefore, an improvement. Don't know much about Ben Wallace which is probably a positive sign. Nadhim Zahawi is doing a shit job as Ed Sec and is a total Johnson arselicker but still an improvement on Johnson.

Johnson is not an asset to the Tory Party, he's a liability. Don't know why the Tory party are letting 'can't find anyone brilliant' be a barrier to 'getting rid of the massive morale-sucking, party damaging, country ruining turd'.

And deeper shame, even disgrace, on them for supporting him with everything he's done.

If you're saying there must be someone, and you felt able to do that despite your own political leanings, the onus is on you to make a suggestion. Hunt probably is their best alternative at the moment, but again, even he is nowhere close to being a demonstrably more likely winner for them. The other two you mention are non factors. And that is why Johnson is still there. Because they won't get rid of him until he's no longer seen as their most electable option: note that this is not the same as thinking he's a sure fire winner.

Your whole rationale for not accepting this explanation is essentially that you don't think Tory MPs should behave in this way. But that has nothing to do with whether they will or not. They don't have to do anything if they don't want to, they don't want to, and we don't have a system with mechanisms to affect that.

51% of Tory voters think Johnson should resign (yougov this week)

But only 27% think he should resign.

So 26% of Tory voters are ok with a prime minister who lied to parliament.

Utterly staggering.

If 26% of Tory voters are OK with supporting a liar it doesn't say much for their moral compass does it?