Mood music tonight is that Johnson is in big, big trouble and could be facing a vote of confidence within days (looks like people are not even going to wait to see what the Sue Gray report says).
I remember Cummins couldn't accept that Boris was giving into his wife over Cummins, and Cummins being Cummings was leaking negative stories against her. That was the final straw that made Boris fire him. I reckon he hates her more than Boris
Talk that the number of letters sent to the 1922 committee could either breach, or be very close to breaching 54 tomorrow.
If that happens then there will have to be a confidence vote by the rules of the Tory Party. If Boris wins the secret ballot (simple majority) he is then protected from similar being held for 12 months.
There's also talk that the report to be authored by Sue Gray will be sent to Boris before it is published and he may be able to influence the content of it's report or redact some of it, which is crazy.
If there's a vote please let it be because of the "Pork Pie Plot"
a member of the cabinet dismissed this potential move as being run by "idiots", who don't pose a serious threat to the PM, joking that their efforts were a "pork pie plot" because one of the group is Alicia Kearns, the MP for Rutland and Melton (home of the pork pie).
20 MPs is a serious bloc. But are these newly elected, everything to lose MPs so are they voting him out, or forcing an early challenge to keep him in for another year.
Meanwhile in NI there's the row over Double Jobbing / Dual Mandate. It was banned in NI. For reasons. And will be banned in 2024 anyway.
SF,SDLP, Alliance, UUP and TUV are dead set against it. But looks like Westminster including Labour will be imposing it on NI. And if it's imposed then DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson would be able to run in the Assembly elections in May without loosing his Westminster seat. He is of course the person who has frequently threatened to collapse the Assembly.
The main benefit of the shenanigans would be the DUP's support in a possible motion of confidence in the PM.
"UUP, SDLP, Alliance, TUV, Sinn Fein united on an issue. Maybe the Tories are really pushing peace and reconciliation by stealth?"
The optics of a PM leading a single party government with an ~80 seat majority needing 8 seats from outside to survive a commons confidence vote would be incredibly damaging.
The idea put forward by Patel etc (but particularly her - as she has the most unpopular legislative changes planned) that they have to protect Boris to keep their majority til the nest election is exceptionally wrong though. Its the parties majority, not his - and he is the one that has lost them Chesham and North Shropshire so far, he is the one who could cause any remaining sane MPs to walk and so on.
And the party whip is so weak they can't even rely on their majority in the first place!
It's not wrong. The thing is that a lot of the current government, arguably all of them are tied to Johnson. He's their figurehead. If he goes, they go. There's literally no reason for a new PM to hang on to a cabal of ministers who are unpopular, incompetent and were chosen for loyalty to Johnson and compliance. If said new PM wants to detoxify the party prior to the next election, the likes of Raab and Patel need defenestrating as visibly and as soon as possible.
So a vote before the report is published might actually suit him
A new PM with a new cabinet will still have the same majority as Johnson, though - they're already an unmanagable, whip defying lot.
The majority isn't really the point though. There's an election supposed to be coming in the next few years, probably 2023 but maybe 2024. A large chunk of the MP's are from "red wall" seats and therefore in precarious positions. It's why they can afford to defy him. On one hand, the sooner he goes, the more time there is to prepare or to limit the damage. On the other, if he wins a vote of no confidence, that's 12 months to use him as a shield to be dumped for a year's worth of scandal.
The majority is being used as a - clearly wrong - reason to hold on to Johnson by various people, extensively Patel. That's my point
He is now a threat to the majority in every way.
'He is now a threat to the majority in every way'
Do you mean by majority the majority of Tory MPs, or the majority of the Tory Party, or the majority of the population.
Clearly the OP would suggest the majority of the population would like to see him and his Tory Party gone from power for a long time - and could he take Patel with him.
None of those. The parliamentary majority.
I think the majority will largely be gone at the next election now. At the very least. Their polling is disastrous at the moment and they have no unifying cause any more. All people see is corruption and more corruption. Were I a Tory MP, I'd want him gone immediately so at least some of the damage can be repaired.
And in further damage to that majority, Christian Wakeford (Bury South, "red wall" etc etc) has crossed the floor to Labour.
Majority of 78 (was 87 at time of election), two by-elections which are likely to leave it the same - and this is despite the Tories winning Hartlepool. There are a few suspended Tories that could in theory come back in to the fold.
I would not be surprised if a few more cross the floor, or at least go Independent, should Boris get challenged and survive.
Christian Wakeford defects to Labour and will be sitting on the Labour side in PMQs. LOL.
Johnson is getting tied up in knots here.
No insults please. Post deleted.
He's come out trying to waffle his way out of it this week, there's no attempt to pretend to wear sackcloth and ashes. He got tied up in knots at one point at Starmer's questions and just went full bore into the "if we'd listened to them we'd still be in lockdown" schtick. Absolutely pathetic.
Apologies.
The other part of my post, Johnson claims that the extent of the vaccine rollout is proof that people still trust him. Because getting a vaccine is supposedly a vote of confidence in the prime minister.
I see this and wonder: did his constituents vote for him, or the Tories? Cos while there may be a degree of principle behind his change, it may cost him the seat at a later point (while a person going Tory => Labour, however centrist the latter is these days, can be coloured as especially opportunistic given the ideological disparity going on here).
First Tory breaks ranks.
David Davis just hit Johnson with a sledgehammer and asked him to go.
That constituency was such a mess its hard to tell
Previous Labour MP was out of the party over sexual misconduct allegations; he then left the party (that he was suspended from!) over Corbyn and sat as an Independent. He took over 1300 votes as an Independent, and the Tory won by 400 - but there was also over 1600 votes to BXP and 2300 to Lib Dem. And while its "red wall" it has some very, very wealthy areas - and also very significant Jewish areas that would have usually been Labour through and through but might not have been in 2019.
AV would likely have given it to Labour. A lot of the Labour votes will be for whoever holds the rosette so if he manages to get re-selected for them he'd probably hold it due to the suppression in Tory votes, no Corbyn issues etc etc.
It's all falling apart for Johnson......finally!
Finally, a Tory stands up and asks for him to go.
He actually quoted the legendary Cromwell line ‘In the name of God, go’. I was about to make a joke about that
Just tuned in to the live PMQ and heard the question about what will Boris do to give hope to the over tired and over worked doctors and nurses of the NHS.
What a waste of a fxxxin question! 🙄
I believe it was a Leo Amery quote.
He can't even keep a straight face now when he says they have to wait for the outcome of the inquiry!
