Tag Archives: conservative leadership

One wheel on my wagon and I’m still rolling along…

By Andy Boddington | Thu 7th July 2022 - 6:30 am

The government spent Thursday stuck in quicksand. The prime minister was in sand up to his neck. But he still blundered and blustered on regardless through PMQs and a parliamentary committee most people had not heard of. More than forty members of the government have resigned, some from the top table, some the servers who usually bow and scrape. Michael Gove was sacked.

I write this article in the early hours of Thursday before heading off for a lengthy day battling in a Tory dominated council. Will Boris Johnson still be prime minister when I leave the council chamber? Will there be more resignations as dawn breaks?

Boris Johnson has always been in denial of reality. He has always lived in a fantasy world. His world is centred around himself. He is stuck in Slogan Land. Sound Bite Land. Anything but Resigning Land.

When watching Johnson perform at PMQs yesterday, a song from my youth randomly popped into my head. “Three wheels on my wagon, and I’m still rolling along…” The song was nonsense and hasn’t aged well. The same might be said of Johnson. For all the sense he made yesterday, he might have been chanting the New Christy Minstrels’ chorus: “I’m singing a higgity, haggity, hoggety, high. Pioneers, they never say die.”

That’s Johnson. Never say die. Never say resign.

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The Voice

Another day of chaos

By The Voice | Wed 6th July 2022 - 8:33 pm

A Twitter round up, including a great question to the PM from Munira Wilson and a punchy interview with Christine Jardine.

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Mary Reid

The Greased Piglet

By Mary Reid | Wed 6th July 2022 - 9:19 am

Thought you might enjoy these whilst we wait for further developments.

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What Lib Dems are saying about the resignations

By Andy Boddington | Wed 6th July 2022 - 7:30 am

What a night. Boris Johnson apologised for appointing Chris Pincher demonstrating not for the first time his distance from the real world most of us live in. But then a man who doesn’t know when a party is a party is unlikely to have a grasp on when a grope is a grope. The resignations of the chancellor and health secretary, followed by a slew of junior resignations would have left most prime ministers considering their position. But it seems that all Johnson cares about is his own survival.

After Health Secretary Sajid Javid and ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak quit within ten minutes of each other, Conservative vice-chair Bim Afolami, trade envoy Andrew Murrison, parliamentary private secretaries Saqib Bhatti, Jonathan Gullis, Nicola Richards and Virginia Crosbie, and solicitor-general Alex Chalk followed.

Overnight Lib Dems have been reacting to the unfolding events. Here is a selection of comments.

 

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Mary Reid

And a partridge in a pear tree…

By Mary Reid | Tue 5th July 2022 - 11:39 pm

Another junior minister has resigned. That makes a total of nine resignations this evening – four Tory aides, two senior cabinet ministers, one junior minister, the trade envoy to Kenya and the vice-chair of the Conservatives. (That almost works to the tune of “The twelve days of Christmas”)

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Mark Valladares

Sunak and Javid resign – is this the end for De Pfeffel?

By Mark Valladares | Tue 5th July 2022 - 6:36 pm

Ernest Hemingway wrote of bankruptcies that they happened gradually, then suddenly. It seems, this evening, that this is also true of moral bankruptcy, as the Chancellor and Health Secretary have handed in their resignations.

And with backbench Conservative MPs actively calling upon the Cabinet to act, is this the moment when Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson finally meets his political maker?

It’s not before time, as senior Conservative figures are forced to confront the realisation that they have been complicit in enabling this debasement of our political culture to carry as long as it has. Frankly, how many of the current Cabinet …

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Mark Valladares

Welcome to my day: 6 June 2022 – waiting for Sir Graham Brady…

By Mark Valladares | Mon 6th June 2022 - 7:45 am

It looks a bit like a Samuel Beckett sort of a week ahead. Have fifty-four Conservative MPs concluded that;

      a. Their principles cannot bear the behaviour of the Prime Minister; or
      b. Their majorities cannot bear the behaviour of the Prime Minister?

Or, perhaps, that they can get a vote but not win it… yet.

Whatever the truth, like Vladimir and Estragon, we are fated to spend too much time talking around the fate of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson than of the issues that so badly need fixing. On the other hand, if you’re an opposition party looking to embarrass the Government in a by-election, the prospect of the Conservatives spending the next three weeks fighting like rats in a sack is a thing to warm the soul.

The polling data from Wakefield;

      Labour 48%
      Conservatives 28%
      Greens 8%
      Liberal Democrats 7%
      Reform UK 3%

if accurate, suggests a 13.7% swing from Conservatives to Labour, which would overwhelm vast swathes of the Red Wall. The swing from Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats is noticeable too, albeit not as dramatic in impact, but shows that there is a move towards us which, in seats such as Harrogate and Knaresborough, or Cheadle, might be very welcome indeed.

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Paul Walter

“Mandate”? A.B.dP.Johnson has a mandate from 0.14% of the UK population

By Paul Walter | Tue 23rd July 2019 - 12:57 pm

There have been a number of Tory voices saying that A.B.dP.Johnson has a “mandate”. It is important to recognise that this “mandate” is from precisely 0.14% of the UK population:

For the record, those parroting the “mandate” word have included our old china plate, Dominic Raab on Radio Five Live (just after the result was announced) and Tim Montgomerie on Twitter:

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Mark Valladares

22 June 2019 – the overnight press release

By Mark Valladares | Sat 22nd June 2019 - 10:45 am

Tory leadership contenders must reverse school cuts

Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran will today use a speech at the ‘Together for Education Rally’ in Westminster to call on the Conservative Party leadership contenders to reverse cuts to schools.

According to the campaign, 91% of schools have suffered per-pupil funding cuts in real terms since 2015. It would cost £2.2 billion to bring funding back up to 2015 levels.

In a bid to reverse these cuts, parents, MPs, councillors and trade unionists will meet in London this Saturday for the Together for Education rally.

Liberal Democrat Education spokesperson Layla Moran …

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Bernard Aris

Prorogueing Parliament will scupper any EU goodwill in Trade Talks, prorogueing the Tory Party Conference is better

By Bernard Aris | Mon 17th June 2019 - 6:00 pm

Hearing British politicians talk in a cavalier way about proroguing parliament to push through any controversial policy should remind the British of the age when prorogueing and circumventing Parliament was all the rage (and instilled a different rage in the electorate): the reigns of kings James I and Charles I. In trying to get money without having to ask Parliament, Charles adulterated the “Ship Money” statute by applying it not just to the coastal and harbor cities, but to the whole of England. According to its Wikipedia item, demanding Ship Money of its own was possibly even an infringement …

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Mark Valladares

12 December 2018 – today’s press releases

By Mark Valladares | Wed 12th December 2018 - 11:30 pm

So, another day when much has happened, but little has obviously changed. It’s a bit like ‘Waiting for Godot’, in that Brexit is supposedly coming, but never actually seems to turn up…

  • Cable: Conservative spat won’t resolve deepening divisions
  • Agreement Reached Between new First Minister and Kirsty Williams
  • Lamb: Labour’s abstention on cannabis vote ‘deeply depressing’

Cable: Conservative spat won’t resolve deepening divisions

Responding to the reports that the Prime Minister will face a vote of confidence in her leadership, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable said:

Theresa May’s deal is a total mess and is the latest backdrop for yet another Conservative meltdown over

…

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Caron Lindsay

PM Confidence vote – open thread

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 12th December 2018 - 7:30 pm

I’m going to call it now. Theresa May is going to win and win big tonight. That is not going to mean that all is peace, harmony and love in the Conservative Party. Today’s extraordinary scene between James Cleverly and Andrew Budgen showed the toxicity of the atmosphere.

Even if Theresa May was going to limp home, winning by one vote, she would stay on. Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t even have the confidence of half of his MPs and he manages it. I just hope that the Tory Remainers have extracted some concessions – maybe even a commitment to a People’s Vote – in return for their support. A convincing win would mean that she didn’t have to pander to the ERG anymore and could seek to build bridges across the House. If she’s told Tory MPs tonight that she isn’t going to contest the 2022 election and she can’t be challenged, then she has nothing to lose by going for a much softer Brexit, perhaps EEA, than she had envisaged. Whether she will take that course, because she’s not known for her flexibility, remains to be seen.

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