Westministenders: Hustings and Humilation

[RedToothBrush]

Round 1 has passed.
Boris is winning. But these are the Tories. Surprises might yet happen.

But the chances are the lying buffon is full speed ahead to be the next PM. As long as he manages to keep his mouth shut.

Unfortunately being Prime Minister involves talking. This might prove to be something that bursts the BorisMania rather rapidly.

A GE is still very much on the cards.

And we might face the Constitutional and undemocratic shutting down of parliament to satisfy the Tory Faithless.

Meanwhile the EU couldn't give less shits. They just think we are wasting the time we were granted in good faith.

31st October beckons with No Deal.

Yaralie,
Can you give me the reference please for the 4+ million Tory voters voting retail in 2016.

Robert Peston@peston
The risk aversion of @BorisJohnson is something to behold. Every other Tory candidate is taking questions from newspapers, TV and radio in a 4th estate or “lobby” hustings. The only one who has refused such scrutiny is the one who still makes a living writing for @Telegraph.

re: LBJ I'm not sure if he realised the white Southerners would be permanently lost

Oh, he knew. He famously turned around to an aide after signing one bill and said "We can forget about the South for a generation" referring to their support for the Democrats.

James Rothwell @ jameserothwell
Great @JamesCrisp6 story. Dominic Raab was nicknamed the Turnip in Brussels - a pun on the Dutch word for vegetable - after he backed down on his threat to leave with no deal while he was Brexit secretary
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/06/17/brussels-nicknamed-dominic-raab-turnip-disastrous-spell-brexit/amp/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw&__twitter_impression=true
Brussels nicknamed Dominic Raab 'The Turnip' during his disastrous spell as Brexit secretary

Report in the Guardian dated 2/ 6 /18-

"In an analysis that exposes the scale of the party’s support from voters who backed Remain, it found that 3.5 million people in Britain voted to remain in the European Union in 2016 and then went on to back the Conservatives in last year’s election.

More than a million live in London and the south-east, with another 800,000 living in either the east of England or the south-west. It means there are significant areas of the country in which the party will have to hold on to Remain voters if they are to protect the seats from Labour or the Liberal Democrats.

The study, compiled using data from a 175,000-strong panel set up by pollsters YouGov, estimates that there are 86 Conservative-held constituencies where the number of Tory voters who backed Remain exceeds the party’s current majority."

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/02/tory-remainers-hold-key-to-86-seats-hard-brexit

Whatever the Tories think, BJ will not win them an election. I think perhaps half of Conservative voters detest him, let alone the rest of us. As for "uniting the country", that's the most egregious piece of wishful thinking I can imagine.

David Phinnemore @Dphinnemore
Piece notes: "[Raab] had been pushing for a UK-wide Irish border backstop behind closed doors in Brussels only to disown it in his resignation, sources claimed."

Although our regular Leave posters like to belittle the number of people who have demonstrated and signed petitions, the fact is that the Tories were slaughtered in the Local Elections, and did badly in the EU elections. Those were real votes, and they didn't come from nowhere. Locally for example, in a 2 seat ward the votes for the candidates if 4 stood would be something like 800, 650, 550, 400, so not a great lot in it. This time the winning candidates were getting votes of e.g. 1300 and the Tories in this case were trailing with 400 or so. This was on higher than normal turn outs too.

What are the odds on a GE happening any time soon?

DG I know that famous LBJ remark, but that's what I mean:
he said "for a generation" - but instead it caused a permanent realignment of voters / parties

Would he have still brought in those Civil Rights laws if he'd known that much of the white Southern vote, previously such a key group in getting Democrats elected, would be lost permanently ?

Ellie A GE before Brexit is quite likely if whoever is elected leader goes for No Deal

Parliament will try to block No Deal
and some Tory MPs - e.g. Clarke - will carry out their threat to resign, in order to bring down the govt in a Labour NC motion

Alternatively, the new PM might well call a GE himself, if the polls look promising, to get a Tory working majority

• with Tory Remainers likely to be deselected

Also, one way of running out the time to force No Deal is to call a GE after about 26 September, which would dissolve Parliament until after Brexit Day

• Corbyn would likely agree to a GE and Labour MPs would find it difficult to vote against.

I know I shouldn't but I have just looked at the OUTRAGE and ANGER from the snowflakes commenting in the Daily Fail about the 'debate'.
Not a beeding clue, any of them!
For a bunch of MPs (well, many of them really) if they can't negotiate leaving a friendly trading bloc how the hell are they going to get any sort of deals with the USA/China/Russia?

Alternatively, the new PM might well call a GE himself, if the polls look promising, to get a Tory working majority

I thought the FTPA prevented this.

DG A reminder to us in the UK that one emotional issue can bring about permanent political realignment,

especially tied up with feelings of nationalism / fear of familiar life being swept away by change / wanting to break the old system and hence different groups swapping allegiances

It's possible Brexit will do this and maybe create / destroy parties for decades to come, despite FPTP,
or leave us with permanent hung parliaments in a true multi-party system

Oubliette That's why I said that Corbyn might agree to a GE

• a 2/3 majority is enough under the FPTA to call a GE

That's how May called the 2017 GE, only 2 years after the last GE:
Corbyn & the PLP agreed and voted with the Tories for a GE

That's how May called the 2017 GE, only 2 years after the last GE:
Corbyn & the PLP agreed and voted with the Tories for a GE

And look how that ended up...

Just think if May had not done that, she might have got the WA through and Brexit might have actually happened by now. Then again maybe not. Who knows?

Good leader?

What Tory members think.

It's bizarre that it's almost the mirror image of what non-Tory party members think

It's like a parallel universe...that's one of the things I'm struggling with most. The values of most Tories are so different to the ones I hold and my circle of friends, I find it incredibly hard to understand them.

Have they always been this way and have just hidden it slightly better?

Perhaps I've not realised because since I've been an adult the Tories have only been fully in power (without the Lib Dems) for a few years? Or have they genuinely swung further to the right in the past 5 years?

I'm suspicious about YouGov polls as we've covered on here before; leading questions, dubious responses and little room to explain why you lumped yourself with one of their narrow answers.

I'd take everything from them with a large pinch of salt.

wheres there have always been the hard right like Redwood but these have always balanced out by the likes of Nick Boles. Its always been a broad church Labour encompasses so pretty far apart ideas too. It’s one of the reasons the two party system has managed to exist otherwise they would have splintered off into smaller parties. They stick together despite differing views because that has been the best way to retain Government. Brexit because it is not simply a left right split has tested these divides the the limit.

Personally I think a lot of Tory members want Boris to be the fall guy.

If you look at it like they are playing their joker with the hope he can pass Brexit off as a mere folie then guffaw about it a bit before being replaced by their sensible offering, you can see how they want to sweep it all away (including troublesome Boris).

My Twitter feed this morning.

Neil Harding:

"...When Rory Stewart is the stand out candidate and he has exactly the same policies as May- keep trying to ram same WA deal through parliament & hard sell the dementia tax. Jeez!"

Lisa Nandy:
"Now Michael Gove is lecturing us about child poverty and opportunities for young people. He was literally the Secretary of State who slashed Sure Start, axed the EMA and wasted billons on free schools and academies leaving our schools with a funding crisis"

EL4C:

"...Sajid Javid has just said that the government has not been preparing properly for no deal for the last three years.... isn’t he part of that government?

What a shambles."

Pretty much sums it up.

I don't think Steward and May are the same at all. He won't be pandering to the far right or making crass one liners like "Brexit is Brexit"

He will confront the mess, not try to paper over the cracks.

I'm suspicious about YouGov polls as we've covered on here before; leading questions, dubious responses and little room to explain why you lumped yourself with one of their narrow answers.

Saturdays was a nadir. It basically put a lot of unsupported "facts" and asked for a choice. No answer was right because no answer could be right, the only purpose for the entire survey was in order for someone to wave it around as "proof" of public support.

I have to admit I've always noted oddities in YouGov and know they're down to the people paying for the survey. But it seems they've either gone native, or have abandoned any semblance of impartiality - they're now the polling wing of the Tory party.