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.

What lying about parties? Depends what you think of as a party/ gathering really.

Drinking doesn’t make a party if that’s what you do anyway of an evening. At my place of work ( education) no way is drinking part of the culture. Having drinks means fun. Sure Parliament is different.
If you’re from Eton then Oxford everyone important is your mate? That’s literally the point of going to them.
Dodgy Russians? Surely all Russians need to face sanctions.

Your whole rationale for not accepting this explanation is essentially that you don't think Tory MPs should behave in this way.

Well no, I don't think that Tory MPs should support a leader who is so catastrophically self-centred, corrupt and deceitful.

Is it a feature of Conservatism that they should? I don't think it is. Is it a feature of being a Tory MP? It's looking like it, and you certainly think it is.

In which case, why would anyone vote Tory if leaving at the door any sense of morality, integrity or what's best for the country is a requirement for those seeking election?

People should be emailing their Tory MP and asking them what the fuck is going on in their party, and what has happened to Conservatism.

Ugh

51% of Tory voter think johnson lied

but only 27 % think he should resign

So 26% think he lied but is fine to stay in charge.

Yougov

Exactly. Ugh.

This.

Any MP who is not disgusted by the behaviour of the Prime Minister, those trying to defend the indefensible, the culture he has fostered, the lying, the faux apologies etc and hasn't yet condemned his behaviour in a letter to the party leadership, has no business pretending to represent the majority of their constituents and deserve to go in the next election.
I will be reminding people of this whenever that comes around.

What lying about parties?

You think that saying there weren't any parties is the only time Boris has lied in parliament? www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/boris-johnson-lies-viral-video-b1830732.html

Dodgy Russians? Surely all Russians need to face sanctions.

Elevating the son of a KGB officer to the House of Lords against security advice because he is your mate is dodgy, don't you think?

@lightisnotwhite "What lying about parties? Depends what you think of as a party/ gathering really.

Drinking doesn’t make a party if that’s what you do anyway of an evening. At my place of work ( education) no way is drinking part of the culture. Having drinks means fun. Sure Parliament is different. "

The government were clear that it was not ok to drink socially with colleagues.

Johnson tweeted a reply to a 5 year old who had no birthday party saying he did the right thing. But then Johnson was fine to have a party for himself.

Apple, there are two issues:

1. Integrity: Johnson is breaking the Nolan Principles.

That ought to matter. It would appear that - by not replacing him - Conservative MPs no longer give a stuff about the Nolan Principles.

That is, actually, shocking.

If you like the U.K. having a reputation as a largely y corrupt place, where officials aren't corrupt, you should care.

I find it incredible, frankly, that Johnson is able to carry on as he does.

I find it depressing that he is not stopped by MPs.

Remember: the Cabinet governs, all the MPs in Parliament are there to hold the Prime Minister and Cabinet to account.

They're not doing that.

1. Actually, it seems that quite a lot of the U.K. actually feel like me. Johnson is an electoral liability.

The Conservative MPs seem to be in the grip of some kind of magical thinking. They seem to believe he has a talismanic allure, or that they are all in some kind of ripping yarn, where 'Johnson Pulls it Off!' In the last few frames of an adventure story.

And, in that respect, they seem to be somewhat out of touch.

For all we're told that Johnson is more popular than, say, Jeremy Hunt, I don't think constant repetition will make it so.

Why?

Because (1).

The economic crisis is going to hit - hard. And very few people are going to have the bandwidth to tolerate a law-breaking narcissist, whose grift is to play the loveable toff.

And that is why it is so baffling that many MPs still seem mesmerised by this narrative that, 'No-one but Johnson can do it!'

I'm pretty sure they're wrong.

When the going gets tough, it becomes insulting to have someone like Johnson as your PM.

It feels like disdain.

It feels like contempt.

Because it is.

He clearly dies not appreciate or value his privileges.

And that stings when you are struggling with bills.

But I guess a lot of Conservative MPs are so disconnected from struggling they don't instinctively feel it.

They're going to have to wait for focus groups and polling to tell them otherwise.

And, when they do, I hope peopke remember that it was the majority of Conservative MPs who doggedly kept him in place.

And I hope peopke vote accordingly.

@thecatfromjapan great post.

I agree @thecatfromjapan
Sums it up nicely.

How do you manage not to swear in your posts, cat when you lay it out like that?

Hats off to you.

And he won an 80 seat majority for them, the biggest Tory majority since Thatcher, then he delivered Brexit, thereby vindicating their decision.

Politics is about winning. Tories understand that. Lefties don’t, and they never have. And I say that as a former Labour activist.

But the two main reasons he won that election no longer apply.

Polling showed a majority think he should resign. An even larger majority think he has lied to the country.

People, as a rule, don’t like being treated as fools.

His personal ratings are shit.

Larry the Downing Street cat could do a better job if being PM than Johnson.

I think a fair number of people didn't really care about the lockdown stuff.

🤦‍♀️

As a Conservative voter, I do care about BJ breaking the lockdown rules that he set. I also hate his deflection and prevarication. I'd far rather he'd own up and give a proper apology, not more blustering and half-truths.

But the fact is that I'd never vote Labour or Lib Dem as I don't agree with their political ideology. I quite like Starmer as an individual but he also looks to have been caught out on the lockdown rules front.

Unless a new party is formed, which I can't see, that leaves me voting Conservative. I'd rather have Sunak as PM but I think a leadership contest would be too disruptive at the moment given the current state of the economy and the situation in Ukraine.

He’s basically a Putin, only slightly more constrained by our flawed but ( currently) genuine democracy. He dreams of Putin’s job for life.
Luckily at some point we can vote him out, if enough of us have the common sense to do so.
I just wish that we actually had a creditable opposition!

A leadership contest might force the Tories to actually come up with some ideas about how to solve the cost of living crisis instead of doing fuck all then stealing Labour’s policy after being whipped to vote against it.

A leader who has to take things seriously to win a vote would mean an end to this charade where politics isn’t focused on running the country, rather covering up for the personal failings of a lame duck leader.

Starmer had a curry in someone’s office after working late.
That argument really doesn’t fly!

The thing is if they push him out no body wants the job it's a poison chalice . He's been saddled with doing brexit, cover ukraine war and global cost of living .

Think people prefer to sit on the sidelines criticising .

Johnson is only PM now because nobody else in the Tory party wants the job …. They know there’s no easy way to sort the cost of living crisis, or the post-Brexit Northern Ireland/EU trade situation, or the fucked NHS, or the crisis in the care sector…. They’d be as doomed as Theresa May was.

I’m no Tory and I’ve never voted for him but I think my MP, Tobias Elwood, would make a good PM. Calm in a crisis, plenty of leadership experience when in the army, plenty of government experience in Defence…. Openly critical of Boris recently and I know he’s handed in his letter. However, he actually does seem like a decent bloke, and therefore I wouldn’t wish that job on him…

Of course there's people in the Tory party who want the job. People would be throwing their hats in the ring faster than shit off a shovel.

They might prefer different timing, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't go for it.

Rory Stewart would have been a brilliant leader but they lost most of the better ones via the great brexit cull.

im not a Tory.

It's not a feature of Conservatism as an ideology that they should, no. Not as I understand it. It doesn't have to be either, that's a strawman. Whether the current crop of Tory MPs are behaving in a way ideologically consistent with the history of the party or whatever other definition you want to use doesn't affect the material point: Johnson is still there because his MPs, the only people who matter, remain unable to identify a candidate who they consider more likely to win the next GE. And he will continue to be there until that changes, unless he goes voluntarily which he currently isn't showing any sign of doing.

Those of us who wouldn't vote Tory and don't have a Tory MP we could petition being angry about this state of affairs doesn't remotely affect it. They and the situation are as I've described them.