Since our last post on the subject three junior ministers have resigned – John Glen (Treasury Minister), Robin Walker (Minister for school standards) and Will Quince (Minister for children and families). Joining them are one more Tory aide and one more Trade envoy.
So that makes five Tory aides, four junior ministers, two senior cabinet ministers, two trade envoys and the vice-chair of the Conservatives. (Just need another cabinet minister to make it singable)
On top of that several more backbench MPs have sent letters of no confidence to the 1922 Committee.
PMQs should be interesting.
Update
One more junior minister joins the exodus – Health Minister Jo Churchill.
Further update
Two more junior ministers go – Victoria Atkins (Justice Minister) and Stuart Andrew (Housing Minister). Plus one more PPS.
Seven junior ministers, six Tory aides, two senior cabinet ministers, two trade envoys and the vice-chair of the Conservatives.
And another update
Six more junior ministers have gone – Julia Lopez (Culture Minister), Lee Rowley (Business Minister), Alex Burghart (Education minister), Neil O’Brien (Levelling up minister), Kemi Badenoch (Local Government minister), Mims Davies (Employment minister). Plus three more PPSs.
Thirteen junior ministers, nine Tory aides, two senior cabinet ministers, two trade envoys and the vice-chair of the Conservatives. (Sorry, that exceeded my musical expectations)
And more
Two more junior ministers have exited – Rachel Maclean (Home Office minister), Mike Freer (Equalities minister). Plus 3 PPSs.
And the BBC is reporting that a posse of Cabinet ministers is arriving at No 10 to tell the PM to resign.
What next?
The showdown is going on in No 10 as we write.
In the meantime, the lastest stats are:
Fifteen junior ministers, fifteen Tory aides, two senior cabinet ministers, two trade envoys and the vice-chair of the Conservatives. Can someone write a tune please?
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Knaptoft: The very heart of England
We do have a two-tier policing system but it is not what our homegrown racists think it is.
From Norman settlement to a civic square
Tom Arms
Ruth Bright
Tom Bailey
Alex Macfie
16 Comments
Watching PMQs just now – incredible ! Keir Starmer was forensic and cutting with some excellent lines. Ian Blackford made a strong contribution. A Tory MP asked if there were any circumstances in which the PM would resign. No sign yet of any Liberal Democrat contribution.
@Brad Barrows – did you miss Munira Wilson?
@Mary Reid
I’m afraid I must have …was waiting for Ed.
Yes Munira Wilson did well at PMQs, but I agree with Mr Barrows that Keir Starmer was forensic and impressive.
As a former Cabinet Member for Social Care, I thought Ms Wilson was very impressive yesterday in presenting her private members bill on kinship care. LDV would do well to give an airing to the issue and to Ms Wilson’s well researched speech. There’s more to real life life than the antics of Johnson the great dissimulator, although I wish Ms Wilson had prepared as well on the railway dispute.
We could be facing a General Election in 4 or 5 weeks – I don’t envy the people in charge of Targeting , they are going to have to be ruthless.
Our Polling average seems to have drifted back to 12%, the lost votes going to increase Labour,s lead.
It is quite hard to keep up with the resignations and calls for Johnson to resign from inside his own party. He could be gone by tonight, if not it must be a matter of days.
The Conservative Party has shown it can respond very quickly, finding a replacement in 5 weeks. If there were an heir presumptive, replacing Johnson could be even quicker, but the Tories are too divided for that.
The Conservatives would hope for a post Boris bounce. Any hint of this would precipitate an election.
It’s very difficult to see any positives in Boris’ run as a Prime Minister but he did speak about investment inequality which has created massively wealthy parts of the UK and many more massively poor areas too, the dangers of allowing the UK to become dependent on Russian oligarch’s money and the need to lead on the climate crisis.
He did do this while only investing in areas which had voted Tory while cutting key investments like HS2 being linked to Scotland and denying Wales any financial support despite that project going way over budget, allowed Russian oligarchs to be replaced by Saudi and Qatar sports-washers, and acted in a way that said speaking about climate change is enough so lets open up that new coal mine.
He’s definitely going now and, who knows, might be replaced by “non-dom” Javid who yesterday “realised” who Boris is – a good 5+ hours before many on the list above.
When Johnson goes, which is likely quite soon, I predict that he will leave parliament and trigger an election in Uxbridge.
Not sure, how long it will take him to claim French citizenship though.
@Paul Barker
I’m afraid I don’t think an early election is likely now. He will probably be gone within 24 hours and then a number of weeks of a Tory leadership election, then whoever takes over will want to sense the mood of the country and will only call an election if there is a better chance of winning in a quick election than waiting 2 years.
When the Tories appoint a new leader it will be heralded as ‘… a fresh start … blah-blah-blah…’.
Some of the electorate will swallow that and it may give them a temporary bounce in the polls. But of course the vast existential problems will not go away.
As both Keir and Ed have pointed out, its not just a question of Boris but of the whole Conservative party who have been complicit to the lies, deceits and vast errors of judgements which have bedevilled this country for so long.
At least Johnson is consistent.. He has been sacked, for telling lies, from just about every position he’s held; it looks as if his lies over the Pincher affair will be the reason for his sacking from his latest position..
Michael, Although I agree with your sentiment, indeed I have been saying we need to nail the Conservatives with the blame for many months now, but I haven’t seen any soundbite on the News with Ed or any other Lib Dem saying it’s the Conservatives. Can you point me at some occasions where Ed or any party spokesman has pointed it out strongly enough for it to be set in the minds of the electorate if we get a snap election.
Indeed the only occasion I have noticed it at all is Kier Starmer doing it today.
I take your point David. Perhaps we should rightly be critical of the leadership for not nailing the blame on the Cons. But we all know that LDs get way too little air-time and that most of the newspapers are hostile to us.
Given this limited media attention, I think our MPs, Peers, Councillors, etc, are good at rationally explaining our position on specific issues and exposing the failures and inconsistences of the opposition.
They would probably be more effective if they played ‘the blame game’ but of course LDs are generally much too polite to do that. But you are right to point out that this is what we must do. And a bit of anger wouldn’t come amiss.
Jim Pickard of the Financial Times tweets:
“progressives cheering on this debacle should remember they could end up with a more right-wing prime minister who ditches Net Zero”
The 2030’s are set to be even more difficult thanks to climate change crisis and Boris was not the man to follow up on his bold statements, which made it even less likely that other larger and more reluctant nations would grasp the need for effective action, but if it becomes all about one individual personal scandal and Boris is seen as such a villain that the very few wise things he said can’t be built upon, then our political system has failed to grasp the need to grow up and we’re going to be even less prepared.
It’s probable that the Tory Party thinks low tax, low regulations, low investment will win back voters so long as the presentation style is improved and it’s very possible they might be right – with baked in inequality caused by party donations, boundary changes and FPTP we might still see a (minority) Tory government after next election. It’s probable that Keir Starmer and possible that Ed Davey now chase after editors of The Sun, The Mail, The Telegraph to try and regain what they think is the center ground and in doing so fail to grasp the need to be part of the growing up.
Michael Cole:
There is well documented evidence that Brexit has harmed the economy to the detriment of everyone (bar a few hedge fund speculators). The Tories are in utter denial and the topic is taboo for Labour; our leadership takes its cue from Labour and avoids the topic too. Only some economists and academics are willing to present reality and nor should we flinch from telling it as it is.
It may be understandable that we do not want to get tied up on joining the Single Market (fleshing out a road-map has difficulties), but our spokesmen/women should not be afraid to say that we would all be better off if we had stayed in the Single Market and that there is an urgent need to rebuild trust and do whatever possible to rid business and industry of the increased burden of bureaucracy.
Our success in by-elections does give us more media exposure and we have to demand more: in the past UKIP got more attention, though never had such spectacular wins as we have produced. Ed needs to learn how to deliver soundbites and he needs wordsmiths who can craft soundbites for him.
Martin, I agree that we should not be shy in advocating as close a relationship with Europe as possible.
I think Ed is doing a good job. Yes, he could be more incisive. I think he is trying to deliver soundbites but has been criticised (unfairly in my view) in some LD quarters by his ‘Show Boris the door’ stunt with Richard Foord. Unfortunately news is presently dominated by easy-to-digest soundbites to the detriment of rational argument, so in the present culture we have to go with the flow.