A taste of the way things were going yesterday came early, with news that Dominic Cummings was in the Number Ten team. Then we knew Boris was serious, and would be a PM of very different stamp to the dilettante David Cameron or the dismally incapable May. Every new announcement of a new member of the Dream Team brought rapture to Leavers on social media and meltdown to remainers.
Boris has three jobs. First, to get the UK out of the EU by 31st October. Second, to consolidate a party whose congruence has been dented by EUphile rebels. Finally, to trounce Corbyn and win an autumn general election. The team he has put together has been designed precisely to deliver those three outcomes - and so far all the square pegs have gone into the square holes.
There were a number of media columns yesterday suggesting that Boris should trigger an immediate election. Risible nonsense. It is time for the Treasury to release its grip a little so that measures to sweeten the changes of the coming months can be appreciated by the electorate before they go to the polls; the public would also not forgive an election until Boris is forced into one by a petulant and obstructive parliament. Those forcing an election will be compromising our ability to put all our efforts into an October Brexit, and thus will be acting against the interests of the British people.
As for Brexit, his message is clear. We are planning for a clean Brexit, but are asking Brussels to accept a cut-and-paste deal taking all the best bits from May's mess; citizens' rights, travel, pets, financial passporting and those sorts of things. If the inflexible bigots and zealots won't budge then so be it; a clean Brexit. Any fall out will be the EU's fault - we tried. And we keep our £39bn.
Cleverly as Party chair is a good move. He's a plodder, not a cerebral. House trained and socially skilled, he can schmooze with the best of them and is utterly loyal to whomever is in power. With the lesser posts filled overnight, this morning we have a cabinet of 30 with 14 leavers and 16 who voted remain in the referendum - though who now are fully committed to Boris and to a clean Brexit.
So many good appointments. And so many strengths - a cabinet that can both manage leaving the EU and plan an election win, that can win loyalty from both the parliamentary party and the Conservative Associations. I'd almost forgotten what a capable PM looked like. DUDE.
Now to bring the party funders back and fill the war chest. James, go!
24 comments:
BoJo needs to cut a deal with TBP. That is the ONLY way to ensure the good guys win the election.
Also to fix PV fraud and election boundaries without any more Tory idleness.
Most of all he MUST break Bercow and the remainiac MP trash in the HoTraitors.
If the CONservative Party manages to come out of this experience intact, I will be very surprised and pleased for it.
However, what the Brexit Party has done is to demonstrate that institutions become lazy if the feet are not held regularly to the fire. Whether this means that the former or the latter are more capable of representing a substantial part of the electorate into the future is moot.
Overall, I think that both represent tendencies very well, but the latter does it without much in the way of baggage, and is perhaps more relevant to the class known as leaver than the combination of the other two parties, that has applied since the early years of the 20th century.
Hopefully the creation of the Brexit Party indicates that we are ready to concentrate on issue based politics rather than general tendencies. The two concepts work together better than a single party assuming that it is representative.
I see in the future that once the Brexit Party has made its point by concentrating the minds of Tory bigwigs, it has done all that it needed to.
What the CONservative Party has done is try to be more like Labour, when it should have been trying to be more like the Brexit Party.
I reckon that a general election will be coming before the October deadline, there will be an attempt by Boris to kill the Brexit Party.
Nice take.
@ Right Writes
Interesting that BoJo is talking about investment for the regions; fast-speed broadband for the whole country and is (according to the DT) considering scrapping the London-Birmingham leg of HS2 in favour of improved transport in the north ..... all straight out of the Brexit Party policy agenda.
Why on earth did he keep the appalling Amber Rudd in Cabinet. Her volte face from extreme Remainer and her and claim to support No Deal (if necessary) is cynical and entirely unbelievable.
We must remember that Cummings was hired by the Leave campaigns to do a job, and for him it was to show how effective he could be.
Comments that he has made subsequently indicate that his views on the European Union and on the UK's relationship with it do not necessarily concur with those of the people who hired him.
Apart from that, Johnson's appointments are much as expected by many, if not by all.
The Speaker is chosen by secret ballot of MPs. There's no particular reason why many of them should want a different one as yet, and the numbers for John Bercow's removal probably simply are not there.
Johnson will face most of the same problems in the Commons as did May. He might just go for a softer exit than she did to get the numbers, and bluster about building a more detached relationship on that later.
We'll see though.
I think the Remainers have used up all their excuses, used up all their Project Fears, and the EU is sliding into greater disrepair. It might seem unlikely from the current media spasms but the Conservative Party (and its earlier incarnations) has a massive re-calibration every few decades to remain relevant. A really big U Turn.
If BoJo pulls Brexit off (I do hope so) then he will have achieved a big Party U Turn and a big change to UK Politics generally. The Lib Dems will have to campaign for Rejoin (a huge challenge because of what the rejoin terms will be). Labour will have to find another fence to straddle, this time with spikes on. The parties seeking independence will face a much harder task - they would have to 'rejoin' too with all the border shenanigans multiplied greatly. The Brexit Party will lose its traction.
And if BoJo fails then the Brexit Party steps forward and the Conservative will have missed their U Turn.
Do we know what Mr Johnson plans to do about the rats in the Civil Service? Is he going to begin draining that part of the swamp?
We see today that reality bites, in that Boeing may soon halt production of the 737 Max. It's all very well to glamorise and to lionise deregulation and small government, but that leads to many deaths, and in turn to massive financial losses.
Johnson's government are going to have to find a way to prepare the people for reality, for the material effects of the UK's leaving the European Union.
Telling hundreds of thousands of people that they would have lost their jobs anyway because of AI, for instance, won't cut it, I don't think.
Let's remember that he said "deal or no deal". He absolutely did not say "no deal".
@JPM
It's the EU who have effectively been saying no deal by their refusal to sanction anything other than the treaty of Brest-Litovsk that they had prepared for their creatures (and I suspect even they were surprised that their creatures swallowed it and tried to railroad it through)
What has AI got to do with the EU or us leaving? It may be an issue but it's a totally seperate one.
The EU also has to prepare for the material effects of us leaving and no longer being a financial milch cow and captive market.
They have gambled the farm on abject British surrender (not unreasonably based on the past form of the vichy establishment). Looking like their gamble has failed. What are their options?
Pity many of the true Democrats have been left out. The 27 who held the ring, without whom we would now be chained to the EU in perpetuity.
Baker, Braverman, Jenkins, Paterson. Even John Redwood would make a better Chairman than Chancer Cleverley (with his invented military career).
The ace move is Patel, the dud is Rudd. I can only hope that she is a patsy and will be forced to walk at some stage in the near future. At least she and her bloke will be able to share the same car home.
So many who voted Remain. Disappointed; only hope Cummings will eviscerate them along with there Civil Service toads.
I had planned to have a detox of politics for a few months but, as is the trend, have applied fir an extension.
JiC. The UK PM does not have executive powers like the US President. It seems that you would prefer that he did, and went on an Erdogan-style purge of all levels of public life.
The Speaker too, is elected by secret ballot - the MPs cannot be whipped, for the same reasons as in like votes in the Parliament of the European Union. However, if you think that, say, replacing a senior civil servant, who DOES understand how important Dover is to UK commerce, with someone of similar grasp to Raab will help the country, then I think that you are mistaken anyway.
There are explanations for why Johnson would have included such mediocrity in his cabinet, but they are all speculative for now.
I wish I could share the enthusiasms shown in the replies....
Raed mentions all the 'good' aspects of his selection but misses the point (imho) that the (potential) real reason for all the niceties is to lull the electorate into BELIEF that he will deliver on his promised Brexit. The Government, in all its previous formats, has always made this their pretension.
In reality I fully expect the public to endorse his current choices to the extent that he feels confident enough to LET Parliament force him into an early election (the idea being he can't then be accused of taking that option himself) - which he then wins anyway (where's the opposition after all?) - and then sells the UK to the EU on the back of a re-vamped WA that leaves us in as good a position with the EU as May originally ttried to conspire.
I'm disappointed in myself for being so pessimistic - not my natural attire - but BJ has always shown himself (to me) as being part of the establishment and if that is the case then he will NEVER allow the UK to leave the EU except by some name-only route.
I hope he proves me wrong.
@JPM
Please speculate without proving you're our beloved troll.
You're sounding awfully like him.
Pretension?? - I meant pretext!
"We see today that reality bites, in that Boeing may soon halt production of the 737 Max. It's all very well to glamorise and to lionise deregulation and small government, but that leads to many deaths, and in turn to massive financial losses."
That'll be the 'small' US State that is a bigger % of the economy now than it was in the heyday of Keynesian control of the economy then........
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYONGDA188S
US Federal government spending is now almost exactly 20%, it was under that figure for the entire post war period up to about 1980, and has bounced around 20% since 1980, with a recent brief spike to 25% as a result of the financial crash. If you can find evidence of a 'small government' trend in that lot you've got different eyes to mine.
Johnson relies on off-the-cuff nonsense, e.g. complete garbage about UK kipper-packing, so automatically and habitually, that one does wonder how he will make out in Parliament, where it is actually a criminal offence to lie.
PMQs will be more interesting that some people are apparently expecting, I'd venture.
I'd speculate that Cummings perhaps advised his cabinet choice as a PR exercise to arrest the stealing of official Tory votes by the other Tories, the Brexit Party. (Among other possibilities).
4/4
Mr Ecks, a reply to a recent petition says that the government will have voter ID in its manifesto (manifesto...haha). PV reply got sent back for another answer so still possible action. The fact that the PV control trial in Peterborough was topped means action very necessary.
JiC, Cumming job will be culling at high level of Civil Service, reduction of ministry numbers etc.
Agree with Billy re left-outs, far too many Remainers and WTF are Rudd, Morgan and a few others doing there?!
Not trying to suggest anything bad about Boris but there'll be a lot of very slithery people putting pressure on him. We don't want any cards slipped from the bottom of the pack at the last minute. Such as a re-jigged May surrender, presented to us with a second referendum to decide on it. Having suffered 3+ years of 24/7 fear porn from every type of medium a second referendum on anything at all is absolutely out of the question.
I've been thinking long and hard about this but haven't found an answer but...
can anyone give an example of any Leave scaremongering prediciton/pronoucement that has actually come to pass since 2016 that couldn't be put down to the general economic decline?
?
?
.... thought not.
Dave_G, there is none. Leave was all about possibilities and optimism. Remain was all about doom and insults. As soon as anyone says "but...the bus"...you know they ahve nothing.
& D_G & S O 17:46 & 18:46
Exactly and propaganda doesn't need to be true, doesn't need proof, for conveniently their claims will only be challenged after we leave, or if we remain they won't be challenged at all. They've been pumping it out non stop all this time for a reason and logically the only reason can be to swing the vote at a second referendum, else ways they would be wasting their time and effort.
Artificial Insemination is a useful technique for human and other animals.
However nobody need fear that it will take over completely.
There will always be a need for direct, one-to-one interaction.
Oops. Seem to have repeated.
Maybe I am a robot and don't know it?
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