Will he be crowned today?
The burning question this morning is: will the Tory MPs ‘crown’ Sunak later today, after Johnson has conceded, or will Ms Mordaunt insist on more ballots and on dragging this out until Friday ‘because the party members must be asked’? Those party members who have been blamed for Truss and cannot be trusted? Unsurprisingly, this is the one item making the headlines today. In one form or another, they’re about Sunak going to become the next PM (link).
Yesterday we saw more Tory heavyweights coming out for Sunak, from lord Frost to Ms Badenoch and Ms Braverman, while more ‘friends of BJ’ kept counselling him not to do it. ‘Johnson allies’ however kept telling the MSM that BJ had the necessary number of MPs to support him. One point I found intriguing was that the ‘trackers’ in the papers never showed how many MP votes BJ really had collected.
Reading the following paragraphs in a report in The Times I had the impression that Johnson was, let’s be kind and say: somewhat ‘removed from reality’ in his analysis of the current situation:
“Boris Johnson was in bullish mood yesterday morning when he addressed his supporters on a Zoom call from his campaign headquarters in central Westminster at 8am. Wearing a suit and tie against a backdrop of Union Jacks he told those on the call that he was the only candidate who had a democratic mandate to lead the Conservative Party. “Let’s do this,” he told his backers as he urged them to get colleagues onside. Political turbulence had caused economic disruption, he said, something that could not be allowed to happen again. The time had come for unity. But a little over 12 hours later it was over. As Rishi Sunak built up an unassailable lead among MPs Johnson concluded that even if he did find 100 to back him and won the race among members he would inherit a parliamentary party so fractured and so largely opposed to his leadership that it would be almost impossible to govern.” (link, paywalled)
I don’t know if BJ really believed his own assessment. Reading his ‘Concession statement’ I think it’s not unfair to say that he is placing the blame for his downfall on the current crop of MPs rather than accepting that he has made rather disastrous mistakes. Moreover, he seems determined to stir up as much trouble from the backbenches, not just for the PM but for his MP colleagues and Party, as he can. Of course, nothing was his own fault.
That is my interpretation when I read BJ’s concession statement in the DT where, scrolling down, I found these paragraphs:
“I believe I am well placed to deliver a Conservative victory in 2024 – and tonight I can confirm that I have cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations, including a proposer and a seconder, and I could put my nomination in tomorrow. There is a very good chance that I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members – and that I could indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday.
“But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.
“And though I have reached out to both Rishi and Penny – because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.
“Therefore I am afraid the best thing is that I do not allow my nomination to go forward and commit my support to whoever succeeds.
“I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time.”
Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP” (paywalled link)
Even as he maintains that he could have won if only …, even as he maintains that he’s the Tory’s best ‘vote winner’, hinting of a comeback for the GE …, even as he paints himself as supporter of ‘party unity’, it is obviously he himself who is deftly wielding his knife, undermining that ‘unity’ he mentions, when he writes, with a tear in his eyes, that he’d ‘reached out’ to Sunak and Mordaunt but they wouldn’t play with him, the baddies.
Not one word about his own situation regarding the Privileges Committee’s investigations and the inescapable turmoil this would have created for himself and the Party had he been PM. It’s customary to assure the ‘victorious’ colleague and rival of support in his difficult job – there’s not one word of that in this statement. We can therefore assume that the warbling about ‘Party unity’ are simply phrases meant ‘for the gullible public’ and for posterity when he writes his memoirs.
We don’t know if Sunak will give BJ a job in his cabinet, following the ‘advice’ by the former US President Lyndon B Johnson. He said that it’s better to keep a ‘bastard’ inside the tent to piss out rather than outside the tent to piss in. Apologies for the crude language – it was more shocking in the 1960s than today where SpAds are quoted using the four-letter word ‘shit’ with abandon according to the ‘sources’ the MSM love to quote.
I leave you with a horror scenario. Starmer has been howling about getting a GE. Allegedly, he will keep on doing so rather than demand a No Confidence Vote to get that GE. The Times has kindly prepared a list of the Labour shadow cabinet. (link, paywalled). We find that the ‘Climate Change Secretary’ would be Ed Miliband – the Miliband who gifted us with the ‘green surcharge’ on our energy bills.
See – even if things are already utterly ghastly, they can always become worse! Meanwhile we’ll wait to see if Sunak will be crowned later today. Truly, a week in politics is a very long time indeed!
How many more ex-prime ministers are going to be a drain on public finances. There are too many still causing havoc behind the scenes, and often in plain sight, and we have to pay for all these has-beens who never were. I think I would like to apply for this position and live very comfortably for the rest of my life after a couple of years, or even a few weeks.
Oilygark Soonak has been in office a couple of hours and remainers have started already.
Tory Extreme Remainer Guy Hands mp says we are ‘doomed’ and on a path to being ‘the sick man of yourope’ because of the way Brexit was negotiated. (yawn, how predictable?).
The “Red Wall” seats are finished. Nobody up North will vote for Sunak.
Boris will be just as dangerous, maybe more so, behind the scenes as he would be as PM. We need restoration of a robust Treason and Sedition Law to deal with those who side with the globalists and suchlike.
I am sure Sunak will bring the economy under control, but at what cost? I think he will pay less attention to the hardship he will bring to people, businesses, schools and charities – he doesn’t need to, as a multi-millionaire he doesn’t have to worry about money. He will clamp down hard on wage rises in the public sector, raising the spectre of strikes and other industrial action, and this could make the Conservatives very unpopular in the country. He has to get the economy under control and start giving tax and allowances back well before the next General Election or he’ll lose it.
“Having the economy under control” might save the Tory party (or lessen a Labour majority) provided it is not too much to the cost of ordinary folks.
But it is not going to save us from the colossal fiscal meltdown that is going to engulf us soon, caused by irresponsible fiscal policies and money printing. But then of course that is part of the plan: Meltdown, chaos then the CBDC to the “rescue” (not). Pravda aka MSM will not of course mention that it will come at the cost of total slavery .
Debbie- in the 1970s GB government introduced law to freeze wages, at a time when there was rampant inflation, plus devestating taxation.
People joined other coys for more money, and after six months or so, went back to first coy who was now offering even higher wage / salary. Other ploys to keep employees included:- we cant give you a pay rise but, how about the coy re-carpets your whole house for say one hundred pounds, and we’d like you stay working for us.
Tax burden went through the roof resulting in:- painter and decorator says 2,000 quid to repaint the house, or 1,400 cash (no tax or tax invoice) in hand.
And then there was the:- you can’t go abroad and take more than fifty pounds in cash out of the country.
When the situation calmed down a little, the French suffered the same mega inflation problems. Well yes, they did the self same things! (We study history to avoid making the same mistakes of his….).
As the Truss ‘get the economy going’ tax reductions has been thrown out, it looks like ‘third time lucky’. Fasten your seatbelts for a rough ride – especially if you have fixed income such as a pension.
Plus we will no doubt hear the siren chorus of voices of ‘we would not be in this trouble if we remained in the common market’.
Did they freeze the indexation of MPs and public servant’s gold plated pensions I wonder?
Perhaps Boris realises that the premiership is now a poison chalice.
Wonder if his Swiss bank account has increased somewhat for his bit of political theatre.
“You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.” One reason why the riven Labour Party and riven Conservative Party have never governed effectively and never will.
But as I said before, if the right of the party ever gets a sniff of power, as they did accidentally through the Brexit win and though the recent ‘incorrect’ vote of the members (not that Truss is of the Right except fiscally – but that is the current existential threat to the country so I was prepared to give her that)… if the right of the party ever gets a sniff of power the rest never cease their sabotage – unity is not in their lexicon or arrogant nature. But once they are back in control they call for unity; ‘the big shut up’ as Steyn calls it.
During the long break up of the British Empire, questions were asked whether certain colonies were ready for independence and self-rule. It is not a question that was asked about the UK’s bid for independence, but we can see that the answer was no.
Independence by popular uprising rarely fared well. Independence sought by indigenous elites fared much better. The warnings from history were there. A country in which the estabishment did not want independence would lead to chaos, but we failed to see that warning from history. The jumped up county council that parliament had become was not ready or able to take back control. A remain parliament, a remain civil service, a remain media, and remain universities, did not magically transform into Brexiteers and everything that happened subsequent to exposure of that fatal flaw is just detail.
“You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament….”
Just for once the Fat Controller speaks the truth.
He might have added, “…and I know the depth of this mire I helped create,It is way over my head. Better get used to the fact that The UK will no longer be governed from, London ”
Now is the time for ALL the constituency parties to have a good hard look at their candidates/representatives.
Cleanse them, purge them, get rid of all the Globalists, Woke, WEF, UN, and Climate Crazies. Listen to the people. No More Immigration.
Can it be done? YES, but there may well be blood on the carpet before it is achieved.
RM- in your list don’t forget the remoaners / remainers who after all this time are still vocal and still causing mischief.
Whilst we may be the laughing stock of the world – the one good thing that may come out of this is the permanent ruination of the Tory Party.
Another thing going on quietly in the background: the WHO Pandemic Treaty has not gone away and the EU Commission is I understand pushing EU states-us included?- towards this treaty.
Where is Brexit when we need it?
Indeed Mary.
The globalist psychopaths “running” Britain are still just a bit scared of public opinion ; otherwise surely they would, without all this theatre, have installed Sunak right from the start to go full steam ahead with the CBDC or “Britcoin.” (The title “Britcoin” alone is an insult to our intelligence and should not fool anyone).
Johnson has just been voters’ bait since so many people think, for reasons I can’t fathom, that he is a harmless cuddly teddy type.
Were we not thrown to the wolves around 2000 by the biggest traitor Blair; Britain has more or less been the plaything ever since of maggots like Soros and the criminal cabal behind it (sic). A maggot who I understand would be arrested if it set foot in Hungary or Russia?
mary – you’re about right I think, we only ever had a choice between the World Economic Forum, The World Economic Forum or the World Economic Forum. I didn’t really ever matter which one of the vile scumbags got to be Prime Minister, they’re all batting for the same side.
You have to ask yourself why someone as extremely wealthy as Sunak wants to be Prime Minister anyway; a slap in the face for us having an Indian as the British Prime Minister. I suppose first on the cards will be a trade deal with India complete with open borders, within a few years Britain will be an Indian province where the indigenous Brits are a minority.
At the current rate of dinghy drivers, it will be India and Albania fighting over which has control of the colony.
India, Albania ….. and Iran?
Iran has its own problems at the moment. A genuine grass roots movement that may well see the end of the Islamic state for a secular one. This would cause huge upheavals in the geopolitics of the region, and occupy all their energies. A freer more open society might even cause some earlier refugees to return. Just a thought.
Our problem is that with the totalitarian states that are now Canada, Australia and NZ, to where can refugees from the new Britain flee?
Hi Phil, Iran was a euphemism for the massive army that is already here — referring to the ideology that cannot be criticised — and has it’s citadels with minarets all over the country. It doesn’t matter what happens in Iran — the danger is already present and can act independently.
Note: Could not reply below your comment as the “Reply” box was missing.
Oh dear flyer, how dare you be so racist in today’s world?
Well at least Sunak is a hindu, not a moslem!
But of course you are right about the W.E.F..
Johnson didn’t win the last General Election as he fondly imagines.
That was down to Corbyn which even labour supporters couldn’t stomach.
There’s plenty of Corbyn supporters still there in the H.O.P. fantasizing over socialist drivel, now almost within their grasp for implimentation.