Boris Johnson has pulled out of leadership race

[feckity]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-36570120

Gove is no woodlouse.
I've always seen him in my mind as Lord Vetinari, from the Discworld novels (disclaimer: I've only read the first twenty or so, Vetinari may have changed)

How Theresa May handled the Syed Talha Ahsan case bothers me.

'' The Ahsan extradition case raised controversy due to comparison with the treatment of Gary McKinnon, whose extradition – expected to be 10 days after Ahsan's – was stalled after his medical diagnosis of Asperger syndrome and associative risks, similar to a diagnosis given to Ahsan.

This led to accusations from the Independent of a double standard in the Home Secretary's application of the law, accusing her of not halting Ahsan's extradition because he was a "brown skinned Muslim" whereas McKinnon is white and non-religious.''

She's the best of a bad bunch Auti - the least worst option.

I'd always thought of Vetinari as astute.

Maybe we just read them differently

Oh no, now we need another incompetent idiot so labour can get them out in next election. Shouldn't be too difficult though, Tories are just blithering slobbering toffs

Yes punny can we please please please get Jerry Hall to slip him some slightly stronger sleeping tablets or choke on his food. Anything will do.

Ah yes, I see relavence of leaked email now. Question: does Sarah vine scrub his face every morning? How is he so scrubbed/shiny looking? He must be constantly exfoliating.

Clear something up for me please? I know the leave campaign was based on the bus slogan of £350m going to the NHS instead of the EU. However, why did anyone actually believe that?

I know a few people who work in the NHS, and they would have believed anyone saying "we can give the NHS more money".

They were careless people, [...] -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, [...] and let other people clear up the mess they had made...

Please, can a Brexiter give us the sunny side?

Maybe Boris thought the UK would be TOO AWESOME to govern, now all our problems are fixed? His buggering off is actually a huge sign of confidence in the UK people, who now have so much sovereignty that the country will run itself?

The bus merely implied that the £350million would be ploughed into the NHS, the Vote Leave website stated it would be £100million.

And no, no one sensible could have believed that from people who's stated aim is the destruction of the NHS and our forced reliance on the kinds of insurance company that repossess Americans' houses if they fail to be able to pay for their emergency surgery.

At this point youse might as well have a coup and put in Jeremy Clarkson as PM. Or Supreme Overlord or somesuch, anyway.

So, my understanding of the single market is this. At the moment, every country has it's own regulations governing all sorts of things about the products that can be sold in their country. For example, some countries might say that a product has to fulfil a particular environmental or safety standard. The laws, standards and regulatiions are different for each country. If the UK want to sell products in these countries, then the products they make will have to meet the varying standards of the different countries. This effectively means having to make things slightly differently for each country they are going to sell to. However, everyone in the single market has agreed a common standard and regulations about the products sold. Therefore, manufacturers don't have to spend time and effort adapting their products to sell to individual countries. If we leave the single market, manufacturers will therefore have many more complications in terms of making and selling their products. Manufacturing costs will rise, profits will fall to accommodate this, products will be harder to sell, unemployment will rise and UK companies will be less appealing to investors. Oh, an the financial sector will just leave London and move to France / Germany because it's totally dependent on the single market.

Have I got this right? If so, given that Gove is determined to take us out of the single market, we're all buggered to buggery.

neolara it's also that we can trade in the EU without having to pay any tariffs. So we can sell products in, for example, France without having to pay custom duties etc. If we don't have a deal that maintains that we will, imo, suffer a recession. The price for such a deal has usually included freedom of movement.

Definitely no Vetinari - turns out he's Bloody Stupid Johnson (design plan: become next PM; actual creation: mega omnishambles)

So Gove wants us out of the single market.

May has a track record of being anti immigrant and wants us out of the ECHR.

Leadsom is against renewable energy, gay marriage and doesn't like Mark Carney...she also thinks we can both have a trade deal and not have free movement.

Stephen Crabb is some sort of hardline pray out the gay Christian and also wants to control immigration, not have to follow EU law yet have a trade deal.

And Liam Fox, who gets his, um 'friend' involved in government affairs, likes wars and closed borders.

Yay

He didn't have the support of Murdoch Apr Dacre. He needs it and is fucked without it. There's a clear correlation between successful MPs and unsuccessful ones if they don't have Murdoch on side - as Sarah Vine's email makes clear.

That's just such an awesome plot twist!

Boris has persuaded Gove to pick up the shitty stick so he can drop it, ensuring someone else (May) ends up with it.

This is the best worked out plan I have heard of since the vote, and using the current Labour catchphrase "He is not a leader" is comedic genius.

It was probably all planned from the start.

I think Gove is incredibly astute.
He is also v much liked in the party.

We will need a general election after all this. Probably 2 new leaders, Brexit being negotiated. These are turbulent times.

He is also v much liked in the party

But what about the country?

He is also v much liked in the party. While that may be true he is not popular at all in the country at large. If Gove is elected leader they will make the same mistake Labour made with Corbyn - going for a leader who is popular with their grassroots but not with wider appeal with the electorate.

So Johnson and Farage screw up the country and then slink away taking no accountability for the mess?

I'm no Tory, but I know that there are lots of loyal Tory MNers. Please, please, tell me that your party won't forgive Boris for this? Please tell me you won't let him stroll back in in 4 years time? Please

Doesn't matter if we don't have an election before Brexit soren.

Interesting re Boris but I think Gove will make an excellent PM. And, no, there's no need for a GE until 2020/

He's disgusting. He helps get us into this mess, hoping to launch a leadership challenge when Remain wins by a narrow margin, and now is backing off because he doesn't want to have to actually deal with Brexit and become unpopular.

He knows whoever is next PM will probably end up hated by - hmm, let's see, 52% of the population? So he'll sit back and watch some poor sod grappling with Brexit and endless renegotiations (which will inevitably include freedom of movement and paying to access the single market - so basically everything involved in being an EU member but with zero power to affect laws) and then swan in when they are exhausted and feign regret that he couldn't have sorted it all out himself.

He's a narcissist who only cares about his own advancement. I just hope that his rapidly thinning hair has deteriorated to an obvious desperate comb-over by then. I'm sure that at least 25% of his popularity is down to that daft floppy hair.