Boris for PM

[Dodie66]

Reports on sky news say that Boris might stand again for PM. How do you feel about that?
i actually liked Boris but he made a lot of mistakes

Aka a lie? From Johnson??? Who’d a thunk it!

(The Guardian said he was about to declare but then Gove, ‘friend and Brexit ally’ publicly announced that he would not support him)

He flew back from holiday, spent days scrambling around to try to get 100+ backers …. and failed. Then says he’s stepoing aside for the good of the country. He must think half the country are morons - perhaps he’s right.

Lots of disgruntled Johnson fans making GE election noises now. The only thing they care about more than the Tory Party is their own selfish ambition and taking revenge on those who stood in its way. Still, every cloud …

He's stepping aside for the good of himself.
Whoever's PM will likely only be in office a short time, then there'll be a snap election with the prospect of a hung Parliament, Labour or even Lib Dems in power, or something totally unexpected that's even worse.

There's nothing Nadine Dorries would not say, however damaging to them as a party, if it helped Boris. She's actually unhinged.

Do you think Carrie is bothered by Nadine's obsession with her husband. It's a bit full on and seems to go further than politics.

Rishi could do a good job and be in a strong position in 2024. I'm afraid that Starmer does not seem all-that-impressive to me. He has been in opposition for so long that he is essentially all-talk with no provable record other than meekly agreeing with some Tory policies where he should have mounted a robust challenge.

Well Labour are in.
Cuts cuts cuts, a nice pot of cash in the time before an Election.
People will feel hard done by and Labour will walk in and promise to splash the cash.

Cuts cuts cuts, a nice pot of cash

The cuts aren't needed to build a nice pot of cash, the cuts are needed to fill the gaping black hole in the country's finances caused by Brexit and this government crashing the economy.

What do you mean by provable record? Genuinely not being goady here, but without being in power or having a majority in parliament, what record is he supposed to have?

@Croque
Rishi could do a good job and be in a strong position in 2024. I'm afraid that Starmer does not seem all-that-impressive to me. He has been in opposition for so long that he is essentially all-talk with no provable record other than meekly agreeing with some Tory policies where he should have mounted a robust challenge.

Stamer has been in opposition for less than 3 years. Pre General Election, being in opposition is what the Leader of the Opposition does. And he’s done it well - you could tell he was very good at getting right under Johnson’s skin in PMQs. His provable record meanwhile is an extremely impressive career and turning a near 30 point poll deficit into a 30 point lead. Not bad I guess.

He’s having to keep Labour’s policies fairly central for the time being so as to reset the public’s perception about where Labour are politically - Labour having been rightly/wrongly viewed as “far left” under Corbyn.

When several members of the government are calling for a General Election at a point when they are 30 points down in the polls and guaranteed to get a massive kicking you know shit is getting bad. “please for the love of God kick us out”.

@theworldhas the reason labour are doing ok in polls is because tories are so crap nothing to do with Labour being so much better
i had high hopes for Starmer but his party don't agree either on many things and he has been wishy washy
GE tomorrow they would probably get in but not because they are such a great opposition and thats the issue

I don't think it's a given that labour would get in, no matter how far down tories are in the polls.
Disillusioned tory voters are likely to try to stop labour getting in, and will vote for lib dem, or the Green Party, or anyone but labour.
We could end up with a huge mess instead of a clear result.

Like we did in 2010, or in 2017? And yet the Tories still got in didn't they?

The biggest problem with Labour in 2019 was Jeremy Corbyn. I think he's a big part of how Boris won such a massive majority.

I think Starmer is a competent, able leader. I think any labour leader at the moment would have a pretty much impossible job pleasing everyone tbh. How do you have policies that please your red wall voters who are economically left wing but socially conservative, as well as policies that please your socially liberal voters in, say, London? How do you do that? I can't come up with anything that would please both sets really.

I am a GC feminist and I will be voting labour at the next election.

@GabbyOaks
We are conditioned not to like coalition government but many other countries get this type of government. We Woolf here if some form of PR was introduced where seats followed votes. The huge issue would be the likes of Farage though. The system we have keeps out protest votes. There’s good and bad in every system.

I cannot imagine lots of Tory seats going red. They won’t vote for Angela Rayner to be in power. They will go Lib Dem or some grotesquely right candidate. We get polls but we need to see how this shakes down in the marginals and traditionally blue areas.

And how refreshing it would be to have a PM who's fundamentally decent and law abiding!

This is Bob on. Bye bye Bozza, take your enormous ego and lazy backside back to your endless holiday!

Absolutely. Starmer appears to be a decent, honest man with a conscience. How novel.

I wouldn't put it past him to try to get himself leader before the next election. Once the levelling down has been felt by the voters, he'll come back saying he wasn't allowed to implement his sunlit uplands policys, vote for him now and he'll deliver. And the electorate/Johnson fans are stupid enough to fall for it.

Boris will definitely be back, he’ll be plotting it as we speak.
He’ll try and get a move to a safer Tory seat first however and shore up his finances with a column in the telegraph and the mail, a substack, a couple of books related to brexit and also covid etc ( which will be best sellers) and of course the after dinner speaker circuit here and in the US and appearances on various podcasts. He may try and get his own podcast but I don’t personally think he is a concise enough speaker for a successful one, he rambles on too much

One of the big barriers was the privileges committee uncertainty. After that who knows

I agree with @Kendodd & @sashagabadon
There is no chance we've seen the last of Johnson yet.
He is still fairly young so if he can live more healthily (!) he could easily be back as PM in 10/15 years time. Let Sunak take the flak for BJ / LT mess. Labour gets in in 2024/5, then after a term (where they will still be cleaning up the crap) BJ tries again in about 2030. Mark my words... <groan>