I think you are right, The grandees won’t want to go into the next election with the Covid PM at the helm.
But they will want to go into the election with a new candidate untarnished by this Government, in the same way that Johnson sold himself a s a new man and a new leader and took no responsibility for anything done under May (even thoiugh it was the same party)
When Johnson is deposed they will want as much toxicity to go with him so I expect them to keep him on while the shit pile keeps growing.
Expect him to stay until a year before the next election unless his position becomes totally untenable
There already appears to be an internal storm brewing amongst the Tories. There could be enough dissent to challenge but insufficient candidates wanting to carry the can post Covid into Brexit.
I would give him until Easter 2021. The guano will be building high enough at that point for the Grandees to push for “a new face to get Britain back on track” - Make Britain Great.
PMQs today was a massacre. Johnson made a fool of himself, was torn to shreds and worst of all, seems to have had to resort to lying about Starmer not calling for schools to go back.
Not that it matters one bit.
Johnson is a particular response to a particular set of circumstances that, even without COVID, were unlikely to last very long. His* take on ‘Conservatism’ is at odds with pretty much any traditional definition of the concept. Coming off the back of the May administration which paralysed itself into inactivity, the crusading, ‘permanent campaign’ ethos offered by Johnson looked like a solution to Tory members.
The other set of circumstances were that the principle opposition at the time had recast itself into a permanent protest movement. The viability of any government is always judged against the viability of the alternative. As Corbyn wasn’t viable (and don’t “but Murdoch” me, he wasn’t), the level of viability that Johnson needed to demonstrate diminished in turn. No Corbyn, no Johnson. In December 2019, the English electorate had a choice between a perpetual campaign movement or a perpetual protest movement. (The Scottish electorate, lucky souls got to choose between two perpetual campaign movements).
Now, less than ten months on from the election, all scope for crusading perpetual campaign movements is gone. Johnson’s ability to act assertively, let alone gamble seems to have completely deserted him, just at the moment that the opposition has made some decent strides at abandoning protest movement politics and going for the ‘safe pair of hands’ look. As I’ve said before, the Conservatives exist to win power. They are acutely aware they now have the wrong tool (in all senses of the word) for the job and will change it to suit.** It’s not an if, it’s a when. I suspect he’ll be allowed to be buried with Brexit because they like neatness.
*By which I mean, the beliefs and philosophies he has used to win power. I genuinely don’t believe he has any strongly held political beliefs of his own.
**ie win a majority. Policies may (will) not actually suit you.
8 Likes
My 30p has him gone by March
He is a useful punch bag for them at present. People like gove will keep quiet to avoid to much damage
Sunak comes out of it of because he gave the tax payer some of there own money back
Hunt the cunt as an outside punt
2 Likes
You should be writing campaign slogans!
Looks like this month’s supply of derp and D’oh has been spunked all at once.
2 Likes
Thing is, just because someone has one set of misguided views, doesn’t mean they should be binned totally. He may be a genius at data analysis or whatever (and people who are really good with numbers often have odd social skills), so keep him doing that and keep him off Twitter. Unless he’s making the ammo policy decisions for the met, his views there don’t necessarily matter a shit, but now the skills he might have will be lost*
- of course he may just be a useless cockwomble AND a racist… his promotion to the Tory lords being guaranteed in that case
Those views don’t belong anywhere civilized.
6 Likes
Here’s the quote
“ Responding to one person’s tweet suggesting that Metropolitan police officers had been chased out of a housing estate in London by demonstrators, and another that called the police cowards, O’Shea replied: “Time to get out the live rounds.””
Sounds poorly judged rather than grounds for sacking to me. I’d imagine most of us would be unemployed after a cursory trawl of our posts here…
We use aliases. He posted under his own name. Bit dumb if you work for the Govt.
1 Like
More to the point, encouraging the shooting of protesters is a bad thing. It is especially a bad thing given recent events when you work for the Cabinet Office. Indefensibly stupid and a well warranted P45.
3 Likes
Good job he wasn’t a gay code breaker eh?
I’ll ignore the deliberate conflation of issues and allow you verge on whataboutery all on your own there Paul.
My point is that his piss poor judgement needn’t prevent him doing his job any more than Turing’s sexuality (which was of course illegal at the time and probably less ‘acceptable’ than suggesting shooting black people) prevented him from doing his. The expectation that back room people can be any good at (social) media means we risk losing out on the skills we need replaced by media savvy wastes of space. This bloke may not be a great example but the trend of trial-by-tweet is getting pretty tedious.
This can easily be avoided by not tweeting.
2 Likes
Get you with your sensible suggestions 
#yourewelcome
So you think that homosexuality is a matter of poor judgement?
Wow.
How wrong you are.
A stupid public statement, by someone in a position of authority, or trust, should be punished.
That was not a throw away comment.
2 Likes