Yup.
Add in Labour. Beneath Corbyn’s friendly visage lies a nest of vipers.
Liberal Democrats for me.
Change UK are a bunch of no-hopers and those about to be deselected. For Ravenclaw I’d suggest the Lords - people who have been promoted out of the way.
Michael Gove’s No 10 hopes falter after cocaine admission: Environment secretary is facing calls to withdraw from Tory leadership campaign
George Bush used cocaine when he was young–it didn’t prevent his election.
Yes, but Bush was elected in a popular ballot. Gove is facing a selectorate largely consisting of elderly, middle- and upper-class white men of notably socially conservative views. This may damage him.
Good cartoon on Tory candidates’ drug use.
The curse of Jeremy Hunt/C*nt strikes again [unintentionally NSFW].
Amazingly, it’s going to be Johnson.
I mean, there’s the rather obvious point that all the contenders for the Tory party leadership are in fact Tories, so it’s unlikely I would look at any of them and think, “I am totally happy with this person being Prime Minister”. But given the selection pool, I am still astonished that Tory party members can look at Johnson and see someone they think will be a) a good PM and b) an election winning Tory leader. The gulf between their view of the man and mine is unbridgeable.
But, it’s their contest, not mine. And for all the “excitement” about whether the person who loses to him in the final ballot will be the John Buchan cosplayer, the guy who stabbed Johnson in the back last time, the wannabe dictator, or the one who leaves British babies to die for the sake of a headline, the polling is pretty clear that when it goes to the votes of Tory party members, Johnson is going to walk it.
What do they think is going to happen next?
I’ve never done cocaine.
This means I’m less cool than Michael Gove.
It’s chilling.
That mirrors my thoughts. Gove is anti-charisma, but he used to take party drugs? It’s almost like that admission is an advantage for him.
It seems that Boris Johnson has escaped from his minders and given a TV interview:
If you look at Boris Johnson’s history, it shows that he is dishonest, unprinicipled, hypocritical, corrupt, and dangerously and expensively incompetent, and has openly derided and insulted women, homosexuals, Muslims, the working class, and the entire North of England. If Conservatives want to say “Yes, this is the man that represents who we are as a party”, who are we to argue?
Case in point: Tory Party members are willing to pursue Brexit even if it destroys the Union and the Conservative Party:
Clearly these are people fully committed to this course of action under any circumsta…
Hmm.
Rory Stewart seems to have a bit of momentum as the anti-Boris candidate, possibly helped by the Last Week Tonight piece on him (which while largely unflattering - John Oliver described him as looking like “If Eddie Redmayne fucked Willem Dafoe in a Wallace and Grommit cartoon” - gave him a sudden visibility bump). Stewart seems to have done well in the debate and has moved up to second place behind Boris (albeit by a long way) but it looks like the rest of the field are likely to gang up on him. We’ll see if he makes the cut tonight.
It’s very telling. But presumably, they would describe Johnson in different terms. And I can’t imagine a set of terms which both favourably describe him and correspond with reality.
Case in point: Tory Party members are willing to pursue Brexit even if it destroys the Union and the Conservative Party:
Clearly these are people fully committed to this course of action under any circumsta…Hmm [Not if it means Corbyn].
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It’s difficult to look at that survey and conclude that they’re OK with stuff that makes other people’s lives worse, but won’t risk Corbyn because his tax policies will affect their second homes and nest eggs.
Stewart is winning plaudits, to the extent that the the Johnson campaign’s in-house magazine, aka The Telegraph, has decided to smear him by implying that he used to be on Her Majesty’s secret service (and this is bad why?). But a lot of the momentum is due to non-Tories backing him, which ought to work in a contest to see who’s going to lead the Tories to the next general election - but likely won’t.
Until you said “North of England” instead of “Scotland” I thought you were talking about a politician from another continent 
I wan’t clear on why the Telegraph thought that was a point against him either. It is highly unlikely to turn the public against him and in fact it may prompt people to read more about his history, which is an interesting one, one that lends more weight to his challenge.
I confess I’ve never thought of him as a tory leader (as he’s always had a whiff of left-leaning to me) but he has struck me as sincere and pragmatic whenever I’ve heard him speak. He also has the benefit of being less divisive that many of the other challengers. He’d probably be my favourite if I were voting.
Results are in for this election round:
Boris Johnson 126
Jeremy Hunt 46
Michael Gove 41
Rory Stewart 37
Sajid Javid 33
Dominic Raab 30
Since there is a minimum of 33 votes this round Raab is dropped. Stewart made a significant increase so he is still in.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Johnson made a deal with the other final two candidate–giving him a nice Cabinet position in return for dropping out of the race.
Just to put these numbers in context, there are 313 Tory MPs eligible to vote in these knockout rounds and they all voted, so Boris still has under 50% of the vote. Not that that matters as, unless all the others drop out, the two candidates with the most votes will eventually be put to the wider party membership.
If we’re to believe the media, the party membership is overwhelmingly pro-Boris, so I don’t really think there’s any question of who’s going to be our next PM. However, what will be interesting is who caves when. Again, if we believe the press, Stewart is the only one principled enough to stand-up to Johnson. The others will likely all pull out if offered a cushy enough cabinet position. I don’t know if that’s true, so it will be interesting to see what happens today. If he plays it right, Stewart could be very well placed to become a more moderate leader, if and when Brexit destroys Johnson’s administration. That very well may be his game plan.
OB
It’s because they believe that Corbyn becoming PM will cause all of those other things to happen as well.
Absolutely, I think that’s the problem with that survey. The responders don’t really believe Brexit will cause any of those things (it will all be bunnies and unicorns). But Labour winning the next election, to them that’s a real and scary possibility.
OB
To be fair, they’re probably right on Scotland and Northern Ireland.
And the worst of all scenarios must surely be Brexit plus Corbyn, as there is no major British political leader in memory who would be a worse choice to lead at a time we need trade deals made. Outside of the EU, we’re not going to rebuild our economy off the back of deals with Cuba and Venezuela. With Corbyn and Trump on opposite sides of the table, we’d be more likely to end up with tit-for-tat sanctions with the US than we would with a decent trade deal. And given the aura of purity that represents pretty much his entire appeal, it’s hard to think of many significant trading partners outside of the EU with which Corbyn could negotiate without either pissing them off or looking like a massive hypocrite.
Of course, the advantage Boris would have is that everyone already knows he’s a massive hypocrite. The unprincipled swine could and would negotiate from a position of pure, short-term national interest, disregarding any moral or strategic concerns. I’m guessing this is why so many Tory MPs are swinging behind him, despite absolutely loathing the man. They see that, while we’re going to be utterly fucked whichever way Brexit plays out, a shitbag like Johnson might have the best chance of softening the blow.
Johnson can be unfailingly relied upon to let you down, and those who support him for the leadership fully understand that he will let them down. His big attraction for the Tories is his demonstrated ability to lie and get away with it, and in the present juncture they see this as a political asset. To get elected as leader he will lie and lie and lie, telling different people and groups whatever they want to hear, however impossible, and afterwards he can pivot and instead do what is possible and practicable. And the people that he lied to won’t be that outraged because, hey, he’s Boris; that’s what he does; they knew that when they voted for him. And so his pivot, whatever it is, will be forgiven and the Tory party will survive.
It’s a desperate hope, but it’s the last hope they have; hence Boris’s commanding position in the race