Boris quits as MP with immediate effect

[Glyn_Wigley]

That Partygate inquiry report must be a cracker!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65863267

[Glyn_Wigley]

In the statement issued after he stepped down, the former prime minister said: "I did not lie, and I believe that in their hearts the committee know it."

In other words the report says he DID lie but Boris is getting his version in first!

[Bristol Red Rover]

Prison is needed. He's a danger to society and his many kids.

[ravenrover]

It's everybody elses fault bar his

[Donnywolf]

As always !

His words to the Committee were amazing . Absolve me and I will recognize you were fair , but find me guilty and I will have to conclude you were unfair (that's not verbatim just a paraphrase but it's on record somewhere)

For the record 7 MPs have judged him (presumably) as a liar . 4 are Conservative 2 are Labour 2 is an SNP.


Thought I would throw that in ( in case )

I suppose a simple Poll just asking did you think Johnson lied or lies to Parliament would be 60 40 saying he lies and or lies

[Ldr]

Good riddance

[danumdon]

Lets just hope this is the last we have to endure of this bumbling incompetent, the fact he's managed to get his mate Dorries to resign with immediate effect relieves the nation of two of the most incompetent individuals who could not have been any less suited to their previous roles.

I'm sure due process will ensure the buffoon cannot jump into the supposedly safe seat left by the fawning idiot in  Mid Bedfordshire.

[Branton Red]

As always !

His words to the Committee were amazing . Absolve me and I will recognize you were fair , but find me guilty and I will have to conclude you were unfair (that's not verbatim just a paraphrase but it's on record somewhere)

For the record 7 MPs have judged him (presumably) as a liar . 4 are Conservative 2 are Labour 2 is an SNP.


Thought I would throw that in ( in case )

I suppose a simple Poll just asking did you think Johnson lied or lies to Parliament would be 60 40 saying he lies and or lies

Latest polling suggests 66% of the public believe Johnson lied to Parliament over Partygate. 15% think he did not. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/two-thirds-brits-think-boris-29535502

It's very difficult to see anyway back for him politically based on these figures.

Though interestingly 78% thought he'd lied in April 2022 polling whilst only 8% thought he had not. yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/04/21/eight-10-britons-say-boris-johnson-lied-about-lock

[BillyStubbsTears]

He's going to go full on populist and hope for something really big to happen that gives him a route back as the Champion of the People.

He's not going away. This stench will linger for decades.

[BillyStubbsTears]

How typically Johnson is this?

In his rambling resignation letter he says "I have been an MP since 2001".

He hasn't. He was an MP from 2001-07, then London Mayor till 2015, then an MP after that.

A liar getting hoyed out for lying can't even tell the truth when he's moaning that he's not a liar.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Lets just hope this is the last we have to endure of this bumbling incompetent, the fact he's managed to get his mate Dorries to resign with immediate effect relieves the nation of two of the most incompetent individuals who could not have been any less suited to their previous roles.

I'm sure due process will ensure the buffoon cannot jump into the supposedly safe seat left by the fawning idiot in  Mid Bedfordshire.

I think Dorries has jumped not because of Boris but because her tv job was about to be ruled against.

[Colin C No.3]

He's going to go full on populist and hope for something really big to happen that gives him a route back as the Champion of the People.

He's not going away. This stench will linger for decades.

He’s the U.K.’s Donald Trump.

Despite their lies, manipulations & law breaking, they’re the turd that just won’t flush.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Another MP resigns, forcing a third by-election


Interesting.

Sunak "only" has to lose 30 by-elections this way to lose his majority.

More interestingly, if the remaining Johnsonians are really out for blood, they could block any legislation in the House.

The ongoing Tory Civil War eh? Anyone remember Cameron saying in 2015 that if Labour won it would be chaos?

[Glyn_Wigley]

Don't forget the 2017 mantra of 'coalition of chaos' too...

[BillyStubbsTears]

The whole of the last 20 years of the Tory party has been about Johnson.

Everything.

No political philosophy. No new ideas. No basic competence even. Just a long fight to either keep him out, get him in, or turf him out of No 10.

Never been a case remotely like it in our history of our country being so roundly f**ked the the malign ego of one man.

Anyone who thinks he actually believed in Brexit when he fronted the campaign, or cared about the consequences, really shouldn't cross the road without a grown up to help them.

[Bristol Red Rover]

Hasn't the Tory "philosophy" always been about looking after the top nobs? It's merely dressed up in whatever clothes currently appeals to the lobotomised masses.

Churchill, Thatcher, Johnson. All different flavoured figureheads but simply the same cog in the same machine. Johnson is Trump flavour, possibly more sugar less artificial sweetener.

My point being, whilst I get your sentiment, please don't be suggesting the Tories have anything that can seriously be called a philosophy.

[tommy toes]

Their philosophy is low income tax, and while the country is crying out for more investment in basic services, Hunt is going to cut them so he can lower income tax.
Madness.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's deeply ignorant of our political history to say the Tories haven't had political philosophies. They always have until the last couple of decades. Deep thinkers who had ideas of what sort of country they wanted us to be. You don't have to agree with them to note that there was intellectual weight and justification behind some of their thinking.

From Protection and support for the Union and Empire at the start of the 20th Century.

Through acceptance of the Keynesian revolution, the dissolution of Empire and the move to Europe in the mid-century. To the Thatcherite neoclassical rejection of the post-War consensus and re-assertion of Britain in foreign affairs.

You can agree or disagree with any of those approaches, but there were detailed intellectual arguments for them and the politicians of the eras engaged with those debates.

There's absolutely zero of any intelligent output from the Right these days. Just knee-jerk assertion of what they don't like (Europe, immigrants, woke) and brainless economic ideas that have been somewhere between bad and awful, and which the majority of economists look at with horror.

And into that void came the overweening narcissistic lump that has moulded the party in his image, and whose ego has dominated it.

I'd like to see intelligent policies coming from the Right. It's important that we have that. But we haven't had them for a long time now. And we won't while ever the party is just a playground for that t**t to work out his need to be centre of attention.

[Branton Red]

Hasn't the Tory "philosophy" always been about looking after the top nobs? It's merely dressed up in whatever clothes currently appeals to the lobotomised masses.

Churchill, Thatcher, Johnson. All different flavoured figureheads but simply the same cog in the same machine. Johnson is Trump flavour, possibly more sugar less artificial sweetener.

My point being, whilst I get your sentiment, please don't be suggesting the Tories have anything that can seriously be called a philosophy.

You can't in any seriousness be likening Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson. Can you?

Some of our greatest Prime Ministers have been Tories. Pitt, Peel, Disraeli, Churchill. Leaders who have made a positive impact on our country and indeed the wider world. Were they all simply the same cog in the same machine? No they were great thinkers and great men (as were Gladstone, Lloyd George and Attlee - I'm in no way being partisan here).

And to claim Margaret Thatcher didn't have anything that can be seriously called a philosophy. Come off it. Not heard of Thatcherism? She had a philosophy alright and the strength of leadership and discipline (there is no way she would ever have allowed drunken parties in Downing Street even outside of a pandemic) to see it through. Unfortunately.

And your lobotomised masses comment. Not a fan of democracy then? Not everyone sees the world the same way as you (or me for that matter) that doesn't make them stupid. If you don't let the 'lobotomised masses' have their say you end up in Russia or North Korea or Nazi Germany - seeing as you brought Churchill up. And you end up a hell of a lot poorer and living in a much. much unfairer society.

[ravenrover]

There seems to be few political posters missing from this thread

[Glyn_Wigley]

There seems to be few political posters missing from this thread

That's because they don't post about politics, they only use it to try and needle other posters. And they can't do that in this thread without looking like complete berks because they know as well as the rest of us that Boris is flouncing because he's been caught out.

[danumdon]

Listening to some on here you have to wonder just what world they frequent.

To keep harping on back to what we had and how politicians conducted themselves, its all gone, those times and them people will not be coming back any time soon.

What we have today is people and by definition politicians with the intellect of goldfish, no one is prepared to look at issues and try to rationalise or work anything out , its just too hard for some to devote this amount of concentration to anything of any note, we really do have a dumbed down society, we have instant and mass communications that allow people to be fed all sorts of rumours, lies and just plain wrong thinking, we have political parties who are not prepared to put the hard yards in anymore and get to the nub of what society wants and is prepared to accept.

We have group think, focus groups, all sorts of irregular and extreme pressure groups attempting to push their narrative and force the mainstream to accept their minority views, even the real extreme and dodgy cabals.

We have political parties who latch onto any and every opportunity that comes their way to extract leverage and to impress on a populace who are being led by the nose in a direction that the vast majority don.t want or care to contemplate.

With all this we have our current political incumbents, i'll not say they're all the same here just to keep the blood pressure of a concerned forum member on the right side of safe.

What i will say is that as individuals they are by and large a vastly inferior model than some politicians that we had in the past, we've had some real statesmanship demonstrated from these people in the past and this current lot just do not measure up in any way, shape or form, they are easily swayed, have zero political convictions and are prepared to u turn at the drop of a hat or the results from their latest focus group survey.

Totally without any political nous or conviction, we have to suffer these fools from here on in, this raggy arsed cabal has given us incompetents like Johnson, Truss and their ilk, dangerous leaders like Farage and also spawned ditherers and chancers like Starmer, Davey and Rayner,

We truly are blessed in this day and age with the most incompetent, corrupt, lazy and opportunistic bunch of wasters that you could ever wish to have as your nations leaders.

It's not going to get any better from here on in, we loose a complete chancer and dangerous individual to be replace by more over promoted dross and have even worse to come, a total dither and two faced individual who will promise the earth and supply us with nothing but backtracking and false narrative.

What a delightful political future this country has.

[bpoolrover]

Have to agree with everything the above post says

[Branton Red]

Hi Danumdon

I guess that post is partly a response to mine re 'harping back'.

TBF I was responding to a particular post about Tories never having had any philosophy and all Tory leaders always being of the same ilk throughout time.

Hence my historical comments.

I don't agree with everything you've said there but it's a great post and I agree with your general theme.

You're correct in that we haven't had any great politicians led by personal conviction for some time IMO of any party - and we're much poorer for this.

Re the current lot "they are easily swayed, have zero political convictions and are prepared to u turn at the drop of a hat or the results from their latest focus group survey. " Spot on. Political spin has defeated political substance.

Populism and what tomorrow's papers might say rule their heads. Rather than - This is what I think and I'm going to a) argue my case intellectually and b) aim to get my vision implemented for the good of the country

This is partly the fault of society. Too many people don't care. Too many people are not open to being persuaded. Short termism rules. People want things now not long term projects. And if a politician makes a mistake (even an honest one) they're banished and mocked for ever (Churchill would never have politically come back from Gallipoli in today's world).

So let me hark back to a time of great leaders, great thinkers and great politicians of conviction who altered our world for the better. And allow ourselves to argue a case for a return of some of the societal attitudes that allowed such people to thrive for our collective benefit.

[danumdon]

Branton, sorry if my post has come across as berating your previous post, it was not meant to, i also mostly agree with your view and always consider your posts to be very fair, balanced and to the point.

My post was mainly referring to to the point about our politicians and the calibre that they demonstrate on a daily basis. Ive often been pulled up posting that they're all the same, obviously there not but the point was that our current miserable lot are in no way up to the standards and competence of most previous post holders, how the vast majority come across is really a great disservice to out nation.

Standards these days are so reduced that its almost embarrassing to listen to a great many being interviewed, they way they come across in such a disgraceful manner with their none answers, never getting to a point and always trying to score cheap shots against each other , it takes the voters for granted and also treats them like simple cannon fodder to be fought over like a field of sheep who need guiding in a certain direction. many have no interest in politics and live there lives oblivious to the facts, those who do take the time to hold these chancers to account listen to what they preach and make their own ideas about what they consider, right and wrong, most also take the time to check their facts from various sources.

Overall we have to live with these very average and in most cases, incompetent individuals, it doesn't help that our FPTP system allows these parties to get away with it mostly, but it also allows us to point out that they are on the whole, rubbish at what they do. If they worked in my business(and a great many others) they would be rooted out in no time and dismissed for capability.

This is the mentality that has spawned us cretins like Johnson and convictionless dithers like Starmer, with this type of intake we will struggle until something very dramatic happens to change the current mindset of the voting public.

"mostlyallthesame"

[BillyStubbsTears]

Here's one that's slipped under my radar.

One of the peerages that Johnson has given is to a 29 year old woman who worked with him as a part time special adviser for all of about 12 months.

She will be the youngest and most inexperienced life peer in history.

I'm sure it's a coincidence that she is blonde and good looking.

[Donnywolf]

Media trying to imply she may be his daughter

[Donnywolf]

And another "irony" ( it may be same woman but I don't know) , around the time  Prince Philip was being buried there was a Party which was well photographed , the one with some people posing on the floor in front of tables of food

Several were given Fines but 2 have been given Honours by Johnson including a lady who doubled as DJ at the Party

The irony ? Charlie boy has to present her with a Damehood for partying as he and Queen were grieving

[Colin C No.3]

And another "irony" ( it may be same woman but I don't know) , around the time  Prince Philip was being buried there was a Party which was well photographed , the one with some people posing on the floor in front of tables of food

Several were given Fines but 2 have been given Honours by Johnson including a lady who doubled as DJ at the Party

The irony ? Charlie boy has to present her with a Damehood for partying as he and Queen were grieving

The irony will pass over Charlie’s head like a Red Arrows formation.

“Whee…I’m ‘Knighting’ at last”.

[Filo]

Now found to be officially a lier and still won’t accept it, he should be barred from ever holding office again