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How to bring down a Prime Minister Boris isn't the first PM to embrace promiscuity and break his own rules

Mr Mountebank (Matt Cardy/Getty Images)


January 15, 2022   7 mins

A grey, chilly morning in the heart of London. Amid intense speculation, the Conservatives have gathered to discuss the Prime Minister’s future. Nobody doubts that he’s a character, a winner, a showman with the common touch. But there have simply been too many scandals, too many broken promises, too many lies.

And as one speaker after another rises to his feet, a consensus begins to emerge. Enough is enough. The man has served his purpose. It is time to be rid of him, and for the Conservatives to rediscover what they really stand for.

That was the scene on 19 October 1922, when Conservative MPs met at the Carlton Club to decide whether they should fight the next election in coalition with the Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It’s often said that the 1922 Committee, the parliamentary caucus of all Conservative backbenchers, takes its name from that meeting. That’s not entirely accurate: in reality the caucus takes its name from a dining club organised by Tory MPs who won their seats in the election that followed. But the claim does represent a kind of symbolic truth.

That meeting in October 1922 created not merely the modern Conservative Party, but the modern British political landscape. And at the centre of the drama was a man who wasn’t even there that morning. A man with wandering hands and slippery principles; a populist, a philanderer, a crowd-pleaser and adventurer; a clever, showy, utterly untrustworthy man, a proven election-winner whose own friends couldn’t trust a word he said. Yes, it’s Boris Lloyd George!

Since Lloyd George’s admirers are usually found at the liberal end of the spectrum, I imagine many of them will be displeased by the comparison. It’s true that Lloyd George — born in 1863, brought up speaking Welsh, steeped in the Baptist faith of his native land — came from a relatively humble background, never went to Eton, was a brilliantly fluent speaker and had an extraordinary appetite for hard work. And in his early days he exhibited an admirable commitment to all kinds of unfashionable causes — that is, until he sold out.

But more than any other twentieth-century PM, the last Liberal premier embodied the ambition, promiscuity and shameless indifference to rules and conventions that have driven Boris Johnson’s critics mad. Boris might be a mountebank, but Lloyd George was the mountebank’s mountebank.

Had he been prime minister during the Covid pandemic, would he have held parties at Number 10? The answer is obvious. He wouldn’t just have invited you to a party, he’d have sold you a peerage and made a move on your wife while you were still hanging up your coat.

Lloyd George was brilliantly funny. He was patriotic. He had the common touch. He was also, to quote Max Hastings on his modern-day successor, a “cavorting charlatan”, a “bully”, a “rogue” and a “scoundrel”, who “would not recognise truth, whether about his private or political life, if confronted by it in an identity parade”. And like Boris, he never hid it; quite the reverse. “My supreme idea is to get on,” he wrote to his future wife, Maggie Owen, during their courtship. “I am prepared to thrust even love itself under the wheels of my Juggernaut if it obstructs the way.” He meant every word.

According to one of his own aides, Lloyd George was “mental on matters of sex. In his view, a man and a woman could not possibly be friends without sexual intercourse.” That sounds familiar. Like Boris, he could never be entirely sure how many children he had. Within months of his marriage to the stolid and long-suffering Maggie, he had already strayed, impregnating a Liberal activist known only as Mrs J.

Not content with also impregnating his wife’s cousin Kitty, he also had affairs with “Mrs Tim” who was married to his friend Timothy Davies, as well as Julia Henry, another Liberal MP’s wife. He also carried on for decades with his secretary, Frances Stevenson, whom he forced to have at least two abortions. And there were many more — so many that nobody has ever produced a definitive count.

At the time, people joked that Lloyd George had a child in every town in Britain. The story goes that one day his son Dick went into a pub and fell into conversation with a stranger who looked just like him. The stranger eventually confessed that Lloyd George was indeed his father, and was secretly paying him £400 a year. To cap it all, some biographers suggest that Lloyd George also slept with Dick’s troubled wife, Roberta — and this when he was well into his sixties! By these standards, even Boris seems a paragon of fidelity.

Lloyd George’s Conservative coalition partners knew all this, of course. But they tolerated it, because he was a winner. They had first embraced him in December 1916, amid the slaughter of the Great War, when he knifed his own party leader, Herbert Henry Asquith, to get his hands on the premiership. That allowed him to build a reputation as the “Man Who Won the War”, and two years later he led the coalition to a thumping 506-seat victory in the 1918 general election.

Now Lloyd George seemed unassailable, a born winner. Faced with a newly resurgent Labour Party, he had slain the dragon of socialism and reached out to middle-class and working-class voters alike. The electoral map was splashed with coalition blue and yellow, including great swathes of industrial northern England. In Northumberland, for example, Lloyd George’s ultra-patriotic message hit home in seat after seat, including all three seats in Newcastle. The Tories had even roared to victory in Hartlepool.

For a time Lloyd George could do no wrong. There was talk of a historic realignment, a seismic reordering of the political landscape. The Tory leader, the feeble Austen Chamberlain, made no secret of his belief that the future lay in a fusion of their two parties. Yet even at this stage the seeds of Lloyd George’s downfall — both political and personal — had been sown.

Once again, the parallels between past and present could hardly be more striking. Just as Boris Johnson capitalised on Brexit, Lloyd George had capitalised on victory on the Western Front. But the result was an electoral coalition that was much uneasier and shallower than it looked. And as the months passed, the problems mounted.

Lloyd George’s equivalent of levelling up was his promise to find jobs and build homes for Britain’s returning servicemen. Then, as now, there was a lot of talk and not much action. What was even more dangerous, though, was the growing sense that the Tories were losing touch with their low-tax, small-state principles.

By the turn of 1920 Lord Rothermere, co-founder of the Daily Mail, was already demanding that the government slash spending by half and let private enterprise flourish once again. A year later Rothermere founded the Anti-Waste League. Then, in June 1921, an Anti-Waste candidate comfortably beat his Tory rival in the Westminster St George’s by-election.

By now the Tories were becoming seriously worried. Under their populist Prime Minister, what did they stand for? What had happened to their soul?

Next came a wave of scandals — not parties, but peerages. Governments had always rewarded their supporters with honours, but Lloyd George carried it to an extreme. In six years after 1916 he sold a staggering 1,500 knighthoods and 91 peerages, auctioned to party donors by his friend, the theatrical impresario Maundy Gregory. According to Gregory’s critics, he literally had a tariff, pricing knighthoods at £10,000, baronetcies at £30,000 and peerages at £50,000.

Even to the most port-soaked Tory squire, this seemed pretty indefensible. By the summer of 1922 the pressure was almost intolerable. On 2 July more than 200 MPs demanded a parliamentary investigation into the peerage scandal, and five junior ministers threatened to resign unless Lloyd George agreed. Grudgingly he gave way.

But the real trigger for the collapse of his position, oddly, wasn’t spending, or peerages, or even Lloyd George’s sordid personal morality. It was Turkey.

Today the Chanak crisis, which brought Britain to the brink of war with Mustafa Kemal’s Turkey, is almost completely forgotten. In essence it was the epilogue of the First World War, which had left British and French troops in control of Constantinople and ignited a horrifically bloody conflict over the remains of the Ottoman Empire. Right from the start, Lloyd George had enthusiastically backed the Greeks, who had pushed inland deep into Anatolia.

But by the summer of 1922 the Greeks were in headlong retreat. Even as the Tories were getting agitated about Lloyd George’s peerages, his erstwhile allies were falling back towards the Aegean coast. On 9 September Kemal’s cavalry entered Smyrna. Within two weeks the city was in ashes, consumed by a fire that cost an estimated 100,000 lives.

Now the Turkish commander turned his attention towards Constantinople, still guarded by a British garrison. Backed by the reliably bloodthirsty Winston Churchill, who had learned absolutely nothing from the debacle at Gallipoli, Lloyd George prepared for war — and, crucially, an election. His message to the country, he decided, would be simple: “Keep the Turk out of Europe.”

This, then, was the cue for that famous meeting of Conservative MPs at the Carlton Club on 19 October. And the crucial intervention came from a man who might have been designed specifically as the St George to Lloyd George’s dragon.

Stanley Baldwin, MP for Bewdley, ironmaster’s son, was decent, self-effacing and utterly honest, the very soul of small-c conservative respectability. Baldwin didn’t flog peerages. Almost incredibly, by today’s standards, he had donated a fifth of his family fortune to pay off the national debt — and done so anonymously, without a thought of political gain. As for molesting other MPs’ wives, the thought would never have occurred to him. True, as a boy he had almost been expelled from Harrow for circulating Victorian pornography. But a more faithful and loving husband was nowhere to be found.

Like many other Tory MPs, Baldwin was horrified by the idea of war with Turkey. Indeed, even though he sat in the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, he was horrified by Lloyd George in general, calling him a “corrupter of public life”. “I am sick of it,” he wrote privately. “I want a clearer atmosphere.”

And now, quietly, devastatingly, Baldwin plunged in the knife. Lloyd George, he told his colleagues, had been called a “dynamic force, and I accept those words. He is a dynamic force, and it is from that very fact that our troubles, in our opinion, arise. A dynamic force is a very terrible thing; it may crush you.” If they went into an election with Lloyd George as their leader, he said, “the old Conservative Party” would be “smashed to atoms and lost in ruins”.

And with that, political history changed. The Tory MPs voted by 187 to 87 to scrap the coalition. To put it another way, they chose boring competence over flamboyant charlatanry — and it worked. A few weeks later, under the doggedly serious Andrew Bonar Law, they won a massive majority in their own right, condemning the Liberals to perennial irrelevance.

As for Baldwin, he succeeded Law six months later, served three times as Prime Minister and became the unheralded father of modern British politics, which he successfully presented as a straight choice between moderate conservatism and radical socialism. And Lloyd George? He never held office again.

So what’s the lesson? Well, it seems pretty unlikely that Boris Johnson’s premiership will end with an argument about war with Turkey. But it will end, and probably sooner rather than later. When a charismatic, unprincipled populist loses his sheen, he has little to fall back on, especially if his colleagues are already questioning his political direction.

And if history’s any guide, the next Tory leader will probably be Boris’s polar opposite. Somebody earnest, dutiful and hard-working, the last person you’d ever expect to throw a lockdown-busting bash. Maybe somebody who, like Bonar Law, has already had a go at leading the party. and fancies another crack. Somebody a bit boring.

What’s Theresa May up to these days?

***

Dominic Sandbrook discusses the politics of 1922 on the latest episode of his podcast The Rest is History — which also features his spectacular impersonation of Winston Churchill.


Dominic Sandbrook is an author, historian and UnHerd columnist. His latest book is: Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982

dcsandbrook

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Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
2 years ago

You had me. Right up until the last line.

philip.buckle
philip.buckle
2 years ago

I thought you could see it coming a mile away. Anyway, what’s delicious irony if she could take up the job if only as a caretaker until Sunak is available

Mark Walker
Mark Walker
2 years ago

I thought that a provocative ending was coming but never the MayBot.
Sunak is small c Conservative is a more obvious choice than Truss.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago

I would take May 100 times over Boris, and above any likely successor. She lacks all vision, imagination, Charisma, but is steady, and in this time coming, is better than the fools and Self-Servers currently in the upper positions.

Terry Needham
Terry Needham
2 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

May would be on the first plane to Brussels to collect her orders. Then on to Peking.

Jonathan Story
Jonathan Story
2 years ago
Reply to  Terry Needham

Exactly.

Chris Dale
Chris Dale
2 years ago
Reply to  Terry Needham

One of her two “handlers” has retired since though, and the other one has gone commercial. So she would be lost as to what to do and say.

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Come off it! She’s a self-serving cretin. This is a ‘wind up’?

Chris Eaton
Chris Eaton
2 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

Idiot.

Howard Gleave
Howard Gleave
2 years ago

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
2 years ago

The Tory MPs are not going to dump Johnson. They will, instead, dump ON Johnson – and a dream for back-bench and Cabinet power. The situation is an odd one. He has seemingly lost authority, over an aggregation of multiple pifflingly minor misdemeanours and indiscretions, and is now seemingly a lame duck… with a majority of 80. He is weakened to the point where sacking anyone major in Cabinet is dicey. And a recipe for becoming the sock-puppet of whichever Cabinet faction happens to be holding sway, while a brutal civil war and power struggle carries on in the background in the Tory party. It is impossible to operate in this way, and not worth trying. What’s more he cannot force a general election, because his own MPs can vote that down, preferring to keep him on as a-PM-in-their-pocket.

But the solution is simple and I believe this is what he will likely do soon. He will call a back-me-or-sack-me party leadership contest, a la Major. That will instantly flush out how much water the various Tory factions and potential successors are standing in. And the truth is, they are not going to ditch him at the first attempt – unlike Labour, Tories wouldn’t think twice about ditching a sitting PM, but here they are not ready themselves just yet. Ergo they will back him. And that buys him at least a year – very close to the next election.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending Johnson – I think he is an exceptional political operator, but as a governor has proved not particularly effective – although by no means a disaster. But that is neither here nor there. The forces on the march, the ones that bought Johnson to power, are still playing out, and are much bigger than any single individual. They cannot be derailed by the type of incidents we have seen so far – although they potentially could with events of a different class. A photo could emerge tomorrow of the entire Cabinet doing a naked conga around the Cabinet offices during lockdown, and it wouldn’t prevent the Tories winning a bigger majority the next time round.

Last edited 2 years ago by Prashant Kotak
Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
2 years ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

I think that’s a good analysis, though it remains to be seen whether whoever is running the campaign against Boris has more ammunition in the stockpile. Parties and wallpaper are already becoming boring.

I thought the article was interesting, but I think Lloyd George was a significantly more formidable and principled politician than Boris. His record on social reform and effectiveness in various ministries indicates some genuine social justice animation and ability to operate the levers of power.

Both share a willingness to fight outside “Queensbury rules,” and a big sex drive, but beyond that the comparisons aren’t strong.

Any return of Theresa May is a poor joke.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Agreed, and I don’t think there is a cat in hell’s chance of a comeback for May. My fear is, they will pick treasury-brain Sunak, who is a Technocrat par excellence, and a shrewd political operator, but nothing beyond that. He won’t indulge in mistresses and parties, but his vision of the good life feels to me out of date by a couple of decades.

Chris Dale
Chris Dale
2 years ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Is it too early for Liz Truss?

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Dale

I like Truss, but my issue with her is two fold. First, she initially backed Remain, and after the May experience, I’m wary of that. My bigger problem is that she, like pretty much all the Tory candidates, is not offering any vision around the single biggest urgency I see needed in this country – engage with what is needed to survive and thrive in the face of the oncoming technological onslaught of the 21st century, and demonstrate a viable long term plan for the same. Someone who can start debates around AI, genetic engineering, automation, the implications of total technology dependence, employments for the near future and the education needed for that, etc, at a national level, laying out risks and opportunities in a way that treats the populace like adults not idiots. In this context Cummings, for all his faults, was a loss. I am looking for someone not just with values that chime broadly with mine (ten a penny), but a coherent strategy they are not afraid to put forward and defend. And I don’t see anyone offering that. The closest I have seen is not in the UK, but in the US – Andrew Yang, and I guess I’m looking for a souped-up version of that on the right.

Last edited 2 years ago by Prashant Kotak
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Dale

God, no!

Andrea X
Andrea X
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Partygate bored me a long time ago. Now I don’t even open the articles with the latest exposé or commentary.

Katy Hibbert
Katy Hibbert
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

I thought he was going to say Jeremy Hunt, which would be no better than Theresa May. Both are Remainers, and Remainers can’t be trusted not to take us back into the EU before you can say EUggghhh.
With some honourable exceptions, nearly all civil servants are Remainers, which explains why they are happy to party behind Boris’s back and get Boris sacked. As Lord Adonis said, no Boris = no Brexit.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Katy Hibbert

I thought that too. The enemy within. The govt relies on the civil service for information and for implementation. Several times in the last 2 years I’ve thought the govt was being set up to fail because some things just made no sense at all and ministers seemed caught on the hop in ways I would not expect if the bureaucrats are doing their jobs properly. Plus waaay too many leaks to the press. I keep seeing stories about conversations had in the cabinet office, private top level conversations. I don’t remember this ever happening in years gone by. I’ve been wondering if the press actually have microphones in there.

Charles Lawton
Charles Lawton
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Your memory seems short, I am 66, there have been leaks as long as I can recall. Perhaps the issue here is the number of Special Advisers (SpAds) who are seconded to the Civil Service has mushroomed in recent years. The petty jealousies that seem to abound in No10, are probably the reason why the SpAds constantly leak stuff. Having worked with the permanent members of the Civil Service, although I have never been one, only illustrates how professional they are. So please think about this before grouping them with a load of political appointees who generally have far to higher opinion, of their abilities.

Last edited 2 years ago by Charles Lawton
Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

I imagine the enemy within could come from the resentful Remainer faction or the resentful Farageist faction. He’s too soft for one lot and too hard for the other lot. A bit like Labour’s own schism between the Blairite centrists and the hard left Corbynistas. As far as I’m concerned I’m done with all of the main parties, they’re all in their little Westminster bubbles entirely disconnected from the people and even what their own parties stand for. I’m jumping ship to the SDP.

Terry Needham
Terry Needham
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Well said. I abstained at the last election for want of an alternative.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
2 years ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

In Scotland, we can’t imagine our FM holding a party during lockdown.
Or any other time. Not one you’d want to attend, anyway.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago

You are obviously too young to remember Crakerjack

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago

If she did though no-one would care because the press just wouldn’t make a big thing of it. There is a narrative to be followed.

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Does such a photo exist?

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
2 years ago
Reply to  Galeti Tavas

I’ll email Dom and ask.

jill dowling
jill dowling
2 years ago

Enjoyed this article – thank you. Unfortunately for Boris, it’s not just his party that is against him, it’s also all those who cannot accept Brexit. This includes most of the media and possibly the civil service. Why else do they undermine him at every turn? Russia about to invade Ukraine? All of Europe held ransom by Putin’s stranglehold on gas? Hell no, Boris might have (or might not) had a party. “All in the public the interest” they bleat. Theresa May is exactly what they want, absolutely no people appeal and a remainer. Then, Starmer in the next election. Job done.

Fiona Archbold
Fiona Archbold
2 years ago
Reply to  jill dowling

Will said Jill, that’s my nightmare possibility.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago
Reply to  jill dowling

I don’t see that principle-free Boris has any plan to address any of those issues. He has never really been a serious politician; he likes the office but has no vision about what to do with it, or even much understand ing of what his supporters want; hence the net Zero obsession.

Starmer isn’t right about most things but ‘a trivial man’ is spot on. As for the champion of Brexit, Boris was hardly in the forefront of supporting Brexit, only deciding this at the very last moment. If it suited him, he’d be the first in the queue to rejoin the EU!

Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Fisher
Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

I disagree, when Boris won in 2019 there was a real sense of purpose and action and vision and energy. I don’t know how much this was Boris or Cummings, or maybe a productive combination of both. Covid really f***ed everything up. Not just in the UK but everywhere. Boris also spent a massive amount of political capital defending Cummings, only for Cummings to repay him in the worst way. The treachery of politics never ceases to astound me.

Charles Lawton
Charles Lawton
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Cheryl So it seems so but if you followed Boris through his first term as London Mayor a familiar pattern emerges with the people he surrounds himself with and the cavalier attitude he had. The Garden Bridge with a loss to the taxpayer of circa £30 million (with nothing to show for it) capped it all.

Bob Pugh
Bob Pugh
2 years ago
Reply to  jill dowling

The only way Labour could win would be in a coalition setup with Wee Kranky and the English won’t stand for it.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
2 years ago
Reply to  Bob Pugh

If Labour did that it would be the end of Labour /// sadly they probably know it.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
2 years ago
Reply to  jill dowling

Boris is going nowhere … mark my words

Robert Routledge
Robert Routledge
2 years ago
Reply to  jill dowling

It’s not going to be a Starmer government but a Sturgeon Starmer coalition government!

Charles Lawton
Charles Lawton
2 years ago
Reply to  jill dowling

Read Andrew Fisher’s comment below, Boris only championed BREXIT to become more influential. He wrote two articles and published one. Why are you all so obsessed about BREXIT ?It’s done now – not a spectacular success so far, which means concentrating on working out ways for the UK to be successful in the future. Led by No 10 that has a more serious and sensible attitude to work rather than an addiction to a lot of alcohol related functions. Many will say that she would say that wouldn’t she read this article in today’s Observer which may go some way to answer why Party Gate happened at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/16/from-prosecco-tuesdays-to-thank-you-tipples-no-10-has-a-serious-drink-problem

J Bryant
J Bryant
2 years ago

Thanks for the interesting and fun history lesson.
Theresa May? That name rings a bell. Is she Ursula von der Leyen’s cousin?

Peter LR
Peter LR
2 years ago

No, not May, that would be the end of the Tories and Brexit opportunities.
Are civil servants not being held responsible for their actions? It’s very convenient for opponents to blame it all on the PM. It reminds me of the furore when they tried to oust Dom over breaking the rules. Critics were castigating all rule breakers and I could look out of my front window and see a street full of rule breaking. The rules were daft.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

And therein lies the rub – the rules have been daft, which then encourages rule breaking except in particularly authoritarian societies.
I think it would have been difficult, but Boris should have pushed back more on restrictions. Boris’s strength came from being a maverick, however his brush with Covid left him feeling weak and vulnerable and his increasingly dominant wife who has different values couldn’t have helped.

Hosias Kermode
Hosias Kermode
2 years ago

Agree. Carrie Antoinette has a lot to answer for

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago

Agree. He appeared to be pro Swedish approach and anti lockdown from the start but allowed himself to be overruled. Not surprising really when the rest of the world has gone full authoritarian and the media is screaming that if we don’t do the same we’re killing granny.

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  Cheryl Jones

Spot on!

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago

“his increasingly dominant wife”

(makes whip cracking sound Crackkk)

Duncan Mann
Duncan Mann
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

“Brexit opportunities” – there have been very few of these so far, simply because the political and economic landscape created by Boris’ Brexit makes these few and far between – unless you’re talking about selling off the remaining public assets such as the NHS.
It seems from today’s partygate revelations that weekly Drinks Fridays are a long standing feature of No 10 – all he had to do was instruct the Cabinet Secretary and his PPS to put these on hold for the duration of the pandemic. However, it’s becoming crystal clear that it never occurred to Johnson that the rules he was imposing on the British public also applied to the political elites – an assumption that rules don’t apply to him in a similar vein to his declaration in the early days of the pandemic that he visited hospitals and shook hands with everyone he met. So much for having the “common touch”.

Peter LR
Peter LR
2 years ago
Reply to  Duncan Mann

Duncan, in fairness it was more May’s Brexit than Boris’s: he could only make slight changes. There will opportunity when Covid clears. Our independent vaccination head start over the EU was a great example of these opportunities.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

No, that’s not right, except for the Northern Ireland protocol – which of course Johnson claimed as a fantastic success when he signed it just weeks before his government started criticising it! (I support Brexit, by the way).

Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Fisher
Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

But she didn’t have those round things that tennis players hit over the net to push it through.

Last edited 2 years ago by Lesley van Reenen
Charles Lawton
Charles Lawton
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

Peter, I am not so sure do you recall the “Oven Ready Deal” Boris did the exact opposite to May’s policy and put the border down the Irish Sea. He also resigned from the Cabinet in protest at her proposed deal. In truth there was never much else that could have been done. Bear in mind that all the leave camp were saying that the UK would never leave the single market in the run up to the referendum, something that became very evident that we would have to soon after the result. I have swiss relatives who laugh about the way the UK went about organising a referendum on EU membership.

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

And that was because of private enterprise. What a model to build on. Bypass the Civil (disobedient) Service.

Hugh Marcus
Hugh Marcus
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

They were, & they were widely broken. What’s annoying people is not that they broke the rules but it’s now clear that they consistently behaved like the rules weren’t there. Meanwhile outside, ordinary people & celebs alike got slapped with large penalties for breaking the rules. Not far from me, a chap returned from being overseas & took a walk up a country road while he was supposed to be isolating, he got fined £10,000. This article misses one rather large point too. This 2022, a very different age to 1922. We live in the age of instant news & I think the Tories might find the voters (especially in Northern towns) might not forgive them that easily.

Paul Marshall
Paul Marshall
2 years ago
Reply to  Peter LR

Civil servants are never held accountable in the U.K. they fail upwards

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Marshall

If really bad, they fail sideways, but into a totally different department..

Francis MacGabhann
Francis MacGabhann
2 years ago

I think the difference between Baldwin’s Tories and Johnson’s is that Johnson’s Tories are a lot more like Johnston that the Tories of the 1920s were like Lloyd George. I mean, are there any decent, self-effacing, serve-the-country-quietly types left?

AC Harper
AC Harper
2 years ago

The Mayor of Leicester broke the first lockdown rules by staying overnight with a lady friend. He got away with an apology and held on to his job. There was little ‘outrage’ reported, but then he was Labour….
And anyway Boris is safe as long as no credible successor can be found. Theresa May was a compromise candidate, just like John Major. That opportunity has passed.

Duncan Mann
Duncan Mann
2 years ago
Reply to  AC Harper

I’m not so sure the opportunity has passed – it’s clear that there’s very structured dissemination of leaks in recent months, and I see no reason why these will stop – until Cummings and Johnson’s erstwhile backers have achieved their goal of destroying Johnson anyway. Your point about there being few credible alternatives simply reflects the reality that the Tory party as we knew was blown up by Johnson, who got rid of Cabinet members with principles or integrity, and it’s too early for anyone to emerge from the 2019 winners as a potential leader.

AC Harper
AC Harper
2 years ago
Reply to  Duncan Mann

It seems like the “structured dissemination of leaks” is new politics in action. There were structured leaks against Trump, and Biden is getting the same treatment in return (although there is a structured dismissal of accusations operation too). You could make an argument that Corbyn experienced the same thing, Starmer dare nothing for fear of ‘leaks’ and Johnson is being subjected to the same exercise. The EU has always been Leak City.
The question is who benefits? Is it a cunning plot or is it only various actors seizing the opportunities presented by a useful idiot press?

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Sir Peter Soulsby, born 1948. Knighted 1999 by the Blair creature.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
2 years ago

What an appalling suggestion .. Theresa May for next PM … her lies outbid Johnson’s by a mile
She tried to skewer the electorate by stealing their mandate … she shouldn’t even be in the House of Commons never mind PM
I fear your political attennae has totally failed you

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago

I’ve heard it said that all PMs go in an interesting/boring sequence (though you might have to stretch the definition of interesting). In my lifetime:

Heath (b)
Wilson (i)
Callaghan (b)
Maggie (i)
Major (b)
Blair (i)
Brown (b)
Cameron (i – questionable)
May (b)
Boris (i)
Rishi (?)

Last edited 2 years ago by Matt M
Iris C
Iris C
2 years ago

Lloyd George didn’t have a cohort of “Remailers” in his government. They loathe their Prime Minister, because his charisma (with that of Nigel Farage) tipped the balance in getting the UK out of a Europe that was heading towards Federalism.
He has a likeable personality, speaks fluently with compassion and his lifestyle is in line with today’s morality and thus with most voters. His occasional lapses into “economy with the truth” is not blatant and is usually caused when he is being hounded by the press..
The civil servants working in Downing Street are not supervised by the PM and if they choose on sunny days to go into the garden (immediately outside their offices) to have their coffee breaks, that is understandable.. As the PM said at PMQs, he thought they were working, no doubt the staff were coming and going and (possibly) like most offices, there were birthdays to celebrate with pieces of birthday cake to be passed round.
Is that a party? Only if you are looking for an excuse to condemn.
I don’t want the decisions of our government to be decided by the press but, unfortunately, that has been happening more and more over the last two years. It is a nail in the coffin of democracy as a form of government when freedom of the press is misused.. Democracy can only work if electoral decisions are questioned and argued but accepted However, when government is no longer based on political parties having opposing idealistic principles (or even points of view) then, in essence, we have a one-party state.
That state of affairs is intensified when the newspapers also speak with one voice.
Patriotism is a thing of the past. No wonder Russia (a state democracy) and China (a new-form of communism) are laughing up their sleeves.
.

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
2 years ago
Reply to  Iris C

I don’t think he’s at all fluent, more’s the pity, which doesn’t mean he’s a bad politician, but too few of those I hear interviewed on the radio can match their interviewers.On top of that, they tend to be too polite.

David Webb
David Webb
2 years ago

Excellent article … and Dominic’s right that if and when Conservatives dump Boris, it will be for someone with seriousness and integrity … just not Mrs May

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
2 years ago
Reply to  David Webb

“someone with seriousness and integrity”

hahahaaa

What a pity there is not a British Donald Trump.

David McDowell
David McDowell
2 years ago

And that’s the rub. There is no Baldwin now in any of the parties.

Cheryl Jones
Cheryl Jones
2 years ago

I find the timing of these ‘revelations’ rather suspect. Who leaked the photos and the details? Someone inside No.10? Someone has been sitting on this for 18 months, no doubt biding their time. Setting aside the rights and wrongs of Partygate for a moment, the political game-playing is nauseating. I also question whether it is actually in the public interest to know about such things. Am I better off in any way knowing about it? No.

Julie Blinde
Julie Blinde
2 years ago

How stupid is it to:

  • nearly die from covid, then…
  • makes lockdown rules subject to fines
  • host booze-ups the day before DoE funeral
  • get caught
  • many times

.
Do I want a stupid PM ?

Last edited 2 years ago by Julie Blinde
Terry Needham
Terry Needham
2 years ago
Reply to  Julie Blinde

Do I want a stupid PM ?
Preferable to a cunning one.

Julie Blinde
Julie Blinde
2 years ago
Reply to  Terry Needham

Please explain….

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  Julie Blinde

Try reading ‘The Prince’ by NM, you’ll enjoy it.

Anthony Munnelly
Anthony Munnelly
2 years ago

Lloyd George has never been popular in Ireland. There was some doggerel published about him in some paper in 1918, when revolution was coming slowly to the boil, that I have never been able to attribute precisely. For all that, I’ve always found it witty and I’d like, if I may, to share it here. Ahem:

Lloyd George, no doubt, when life ebbs out,
Will ride in a fiery chariot
He will sit in state, on a red-hot plate,
‘Twixt Satan and Judas Iscariot.
And Ananias that day, to Satan will say,
My place for precedence falls
So move me up higher, away from the fire,
And make for the liar from Wales.

Jean Nutley
Jean Nutley
2 years ago

We have no decent statesmen left. I do not mean those who have the credentials to become PM, but rather those who have the capability of advising and guiding their respective parties.

Jeremy Eves
Jeremy Eves
2 years ago

The difficulty with Boris is that he is a journalist. This is not supposed to be an attack on journalists per se – Let me explain. Journalists comment on issues and run campaigns. Most analysts analyse and criticise without producing an answer. Even this article’s final line is to provoke thought rather than be a recommended solution – i think. Few journo’s ever get the experience of working up through ranks of management where managing a team is central to delivering outcomes – although I grant that professional managers don’t have a great track record either! One of today’s photographs of Boris with his feet on a desk in the middle of a shambolic office at No 10 reminds me of (what I imagine) might be a news room at the end of an expose celebration. What we need is a leader with vision combined with good managerial experience. Both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have more experience of managing than Boris.

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Eves

WSC* spent of much his life as a journalist of one sort or another.

(*Churchill.)

Fintan Power
Fintan Power
2 years ago

The suggestion of Theresa May as the alternative is intended to be a joke. But the idea that what is needed to steady the ship of state at this time is a safe pair of hands is not. Boris Johnson has lost all credibility and the games that he is playing is a far cry from what the leader of the UK should be doing at this time, attending to the many issues of a serious nature both nationally and internationally that need to be addressed.

Tony Lee
Tony Lee
2 years ago

To the main body of the article – yes, of course. To the last sentence – be careful what you wish for. Whomever might succeed Johnson, please god it’s someone who (like Boris) loves their country; because we have far too many politicians who either clearly don’t, or are afraid to say so. Ps might they also persuade the NHS to start saving us, rather than the other way about.

Bob Pugh
Bob Pugh
2 years ago

What’s Theresa May up to these days?”. I don’t care as long as we don’t get her back again as PM.

Colin Elliott
Colin Elliott
2 years ago

MAY?????!!!!

Last edited 2 years ago by Colin Elliott
Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago

What about Iain Duncan Smith? At least he understands why net zero has to go.

Nick Dougan
Nick Dougan
2 years ago

Theresa May? No thank you. IDS, on the other hand…

SULPICIA LEPIDINA
SULPICIA LEPIDINA
2 years ago
Reply to  Nick Dougan

Had IDS been more high profile in his opposition to the terrible perversion of justice recently perpetuated on the late Dennis Hutchings*, he may have stood a chance.
However he didn’t, and therefore is totally unfit for any consideration whatsoever.

( *Former Corporal Major of the Life Guards, and mentioned in despatches in Northern Ireland.)

Last edited 2 years ago by SULPICIA LEPIDINA
Duncan Mann
Duncan Mann
2 years ago
Reply to  Nick Dougan

IDS had a crack at being Opposition Tory Party leader for a few years under Blair, and was completely undistinguished. He has subsequently proved himself to be unprincipled (selling out over Universal Benefit as Work & Pensions Secretary, which alone will be sufficient to repulse a large tranche of British voters), and whilst he ticks the box of being boring and steady, Keir Starmer looks like a firebrand by comparison – just the fillip the latter needs come the next GE.

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago

Post his Earldom, Lloyd Georges family have gone to Eton: God, I am so bored by all this chippy anti Eton and Harrow crap…

Robert Malcolm
Robert Malcolm
2 years ago

No, not her. I think she has lost the stomach for power, anyway.
This kind of job usually goe to the person who wants it most: Rishi seems the obvious successor.

Terry Needham
Terry Needham
2 years ago

I am angry at Boris and his entourage for taking the p*ss out of us.
Lloyd George is history.

Jonathan Story
Jonathan Story
2 years ago

There is no doubt that T.May is involved in every and each anti-Bojo plot. So the scenario is credible. What’s T. May’s reputation in the country, though?

Nicholas Taylor
Nicholas Taylor
2 years ago

I didn’t see much sign of ‘lockdown’ in Brighton on 20 May 2020. People were out on the promenade, and on the beaches, in ‘socially distanced’ groups admittedly enjoying the sun and a few drinks. Road traffic was reduced, but still heavy. Who knows where they were going or why? Do I sense hypocrisy elsewhere than in the ‘corridors of power’?

Caroline Foulger
Caroline Foulger
2 years ago

I remember May 20, 2020 very well as it happened to be my 25th wedding anniversary. All original plans were clearly cancelled. My husband and I went for a walk for 30 mins alone and saw no one else.

Zorro Tomorrow
Zorro Tomorrow
2 years ago

May? Clickbait. Backbench factions? They’ll have lists of ‘instead of Borises’ Besides, they are so muted as not to be a whisper, a bit like the Labour and LibDem backbenchers, rarely quoted in the MSM, mainly because nobody cares what they think. I’ll vote Reform to rattle Boris. If Sunak gets it I’ll vote for the local Labour candidate, who looks like a reasonable bloke compared to our Tory.

Bryan Dale
Bryan Dale
2 years ago

Are there enough true conservatives in Westminster for one to be elected prime minister? I have my doubts.

Simon Diggins
Simon Diggins
2 years ago

It may not be Turkey this time but it could be Ukraine.

Can anyone seriously imagine BoJo having to deal with an incursion by Russia into Ukraine, especially if there was a chance that British troops might have to face-off against the Russians?

Nicky Samengo-Turner
Nicky Samengo-Turner
2 years ago

Sunak and Kwarteng + Rees Mogg: that will poss of the ToyliTories….

Melanie Mabey
Melanie Mabey
2 years ago

This Bible verse comes to mind when I think of Johnson ‘… that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men’.Daniel 4:17

Rob Britton
Rob Britton
2 years ago

Theresa May might be just the ticket with Brexit largely behind us. Then again, maybe not!

Hosias Kermode
Hosias Kermode
2 years ago
Reply to  Rob Britton

It’s not behind us at all. Need to sort Northern Ireland. Need to make our economy competitive. Lots to do yet.

Jacob Mason
Jacob Mason
2 years ago

I appreciate the historical comparison and perhaps it is apt.

From an American perspective it seems like the same analogy could be made with Trump vs. the ‘Conservative Party Inc.’ politicians and pundits.
On this side of the pond, however, I think that, like him or not, Trump was far more effective at enacting conservative policies than any other recent Republican.

For all his purported personal purity, Stanley Baldwin sounds like a loser.

Caroline Foulger
Caroline Foulger
2 years ago

An excellent article. Even though your last comment will be controversial, I think it has a lot of merit. Any Tory party leadership election now will be overshadowed by this issue and the voters will be weary. Appoint Theresa May or Dominic Raab (former or current deputy) for 12 months as an interim and get on with the job. That is what a public company would do.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
2 years ago

This whole article demonstrates the pathos of humanity and the leaders that we love to follow. In particular the comment “I am prepared to thrust even love itself under the wheels of my Juggernaut if it obstructs the way” – which very accurately represents the attitude of humanity to the eco-systems that we rely on for survival.
From 5 minutes in this recent talk by Dr Carmody Grey may help us to understand that this emotional immaturity is rapidly driving us to extinction. What do We Want to Sustain? Thinking about Faith and The Climate. Dr Carmody Grey: Hook Lecture 2021 – YouTube
We must wake up to the reality of the ecological apocalypse that is threatening to engulf all of humanity. It is essential to recognise that this tragedy is driven by the global reinforcement of the ecocidal paradigm of economic growth. We need powerful imagination, both to recognise how tragic the future currently appears, and to envisage a different path which can soften the inevitably violent and chaotic collapse that is now accelerating.
Our woefully inadequate net zero policies will be increasingly jeopardised by the financial and food insecurities caused by the escalating climate crisis. In truth, as long as we persist with the GDP growth paradigm, we shall continue to fuel our ecological nosedive, for GDP is also a good indication of the ecological degradation that we inflict. The I=PAT equation tells us that our Environment Impact is driven by the same drivers of GDP growth.
Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology.
We need urgently to learn how to convert that destructive impact into a constructive and regenerative impact. This is not a road that we have ever explored in the past, I recommend an emergency government be formed to consider a wise way forward.
I recommend Alok Sharma as the type of leader that might emerge as worth following, a gentleman with a conscience, he has the potential to demonstrate the emotional maturity to face our current reality.

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
2 years ago

Barbara, For the sake of your sanity, please read my reply to your outburst below Arif Ahmed’s “Sheep Factories”. Your delusions are likely to take you to places you really don’t want to go.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug Pingel

I doubt Carmody Grey would agree with that assessment, she seems as convinced as I am that we are on an ecocidal trajectory. Suggest you check out this brief, essential report, recommended by Scientists Warning Europe it doesn’t hide the main message in the margins can be downloaded from https://climaterealitycheck.net
See summary of impact on page 55.
• 1.5°C temperature around or before 2030, irrespective of actions taken in the interim.
• 2°C is likely prior to 2050, even with actions better than the current emission reduction commitments, 3°C in the second half of the century, with 5°C possible before 2100.
• Even substantial emission reductions will have no significant impact on the warming trend over the next 20-25 years, due to the offsetting effect of aerosols. • The current 1.2°C of warming is already dangerous; 2°C would be extremely dangerous; 3°C catastrophic; and 4°C unliveable for most people.
• A “Hothouse Earth”, non-linear, irreversible, self-sustaining warming may be triggered between 1.5–2°C. There is a risk that we have already lost the ability to prevent accelerating warming

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
2 years ago

Do you (and your “scientists”) know about the “Modern Minimum” about to affect the Earth? You and they are so last century! I don’t take one person’s or mind-shuttered group’s word. I have been following, since before the turn of the century, a number of people, one of whom was a radio astronomer muzzled by the Obama administration on pain of losing his job. I have also followed people like Patrick Moore, a founder-member of Greenpeace who left that organisation for the same reason that I stopped supporting them. People like the well known charlatan Attenborough have been getting up my nose for some time – one of his many revelations which he claimed had never been seen before (his TV program) was seen and reported to officialdom by me and others at least 15 years earlier. Us professionals at sea are often too busy reacting to situations and don’t have time to pick up a camera let alone have camera crews on standby. Many seafarers of all types have given up reporting strange sightings or sounds (in the air and underwater) because they are not believed. I have been rebuffed by various people sujch as “I am a Senior Officer and you are wrong!” or “If you want to get on in the Navy you’d better keep quiet about that” or “I am a scientist and you are only a sailor”. I am a “Sailor” at BA+ and BSc level) I was a Shipmaster who turned down a letter asking me to “go up” for Extra-Master. I may have occaisionally been foolish but I am not stupid.
If you truly believe what you have just written You have a problem.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug Pingel

Are you saying the BBC is lying with its global weather reports? A simple to walk in the English countryside is all that is required see ecocide in action.

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
2 years ago

Weather is what happens from day-to-day – Climate is weather records taken over long periods. Climate change is measured over time segments of 30 years. If you want to see lush growth you might like to fight your way through my back garden. I don/’t need to go for a walk in the country – One of my neighbours (an Eventer) sometimes rode a horse from his stables up to the house. My Wife once phoned me to report a cow in the front garden and there were others in our Close. CO2 is a fertiliser and commercial greenhouses are using “Bottled” CO2 to raise their enclosed atmospheres to between 800 and 1000 ppm to make more money. Satellite photography is showing plant growth in places that were once barren. Please tell me what you would like to reduce the Earth’s atmospheric CO2 down to in ppm.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug Pingel

You can tell us what you have seen at sea. I for one am all ears.

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
2 years ago

Lesley – The unbelieving is now mostly believed by ‘scientists’. The last thing I reported publicly was over 20 years ago when I saw and passed over what appeared to be a “Giant” Squid – In the northen part of The Bay of Biscay. The sea was calm and well illiuminated below the surface by a high Sun. I thought we were going to pass clear of what I first took to be a very large sheet of “dirty” white plastic (a small tarpaulin?) floating beneath the surface. As my vessel drew closer the “Sheet” convulsed and shot under us. I went to the opposite bidge-wing and distinctly saw the white mantle but the object (Squid!!) /went deep’ and disappeared. When I told my tale in the right place they, at first, wouldn’t believe me but another person who came in half-way through did and remarked that commercial fishermen in the North Sea were reporting very large octopii in their catches So they noted my tale but it never got to the press. About 5/6 years ago Basking Sharks were in the news and ‘scientists’ were asking for sightings to be reported. While sailing in the Irish Sea I suddenly realised that I was passing over a very large shoal of Basking Sharks with their mouths open wide in a feeding mode. I called “Sharkwatch” but got no answer. When, in the Isle of Man I got someone to listen to me their reply was “Nobody else has reported Basking Sharks in that area” I sail solo so I had no witnesses, no photographs no nothing eexcept my slight knowledge of Oceanography (near A level but mainly the military side of life as a one-time submarine Sonar Officer). One thing that I did report at a low level was accepted by my peers. Well before the recent attacks by Orcas on the rudders of yachts off the Spanish coast I met up with “Cork Harbour” Orca pod some 15 miles south of the harbour entrance. The Bull approached me a took a quick “All round Look” then went back to his family. A short while late a young female Orca did at least 2 diagonal passes undeneath me. She was Inverted! The only time I see small cetacians inverted or swimming on their side as a pair is when they are ‘Courting’. I got very worried in case the Bull disapproved. My boat, a 33 ft ketch, is built like the proverbial brick outhouse but even at a displacement of 8+ tonnes would be no match for a Bull Orca in full “Daddy” mode. I still wonder what the young female was after. There are many small happenstances over the years but the info is now well buried in ship’s logs and my own. Some now seem petty on my part but I have mainly given up reporting unless I see something which may cause people to be injured. These days HM Coastguard often ask me to take a picture of the ‘problem’ on my phone and send it to them.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago
Reply to  Doug Pingel

Thank you for this fascinating account. Many people are so dismissive of the unusual, the obscure, of wonders and miracles. I think you should post this again towards the top of a thread where pertinent…

miss pink
miss pink
2 years ago

I agree! Doug, I would love to read more about your encounters, if not here perhaps elsewhere?

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago

I think in debates like these we should separate climate change from environmental damage (excluding climate change).

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
2 years ago

I am merely attempting to point out that the elephant in the room is ecological overshoot, which is exacerbated by GDP growth which is increased by all the I=PAT drivers. Now that we are in the collapse phase all our fiscal plans are jeopardised by the food insecurities that result from ecological collapse. Our past experience is no help to us because we have never lived through a mass extinction event. Extinction rates are now 10,000 higher than at any time since we started to inhabit the Earth. According to the data from the Global Footprint Network we have been exceeding the Earths carrying capacity since 1970’s. We are not easing up on any of the key drivers – Population is still forecast to rise by the UN, but Prof Chris Bystroff – who factors in ecological collapse predicts levelling out right now with a reduction of 4 billion by 2040 unless we voluntarily shrink our numbers and our economy very rapidly. Money will rapidly devalue as the collapse escalates, life-expectancy is already being reduced. Covid is a symptom of the accumulated ecological stress that we have built up. Time to look up and wake up. Check out the Wikipedia article for Ecological Overshoot if you doubt any of these observations.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
2 years ago

Barbara, you are obviously passionate and make some good points. Your argument would be better received if you separate out (man made) climate change from ecological harms.

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
2 years ago

I put my response in the wrong place, shall repeat it here. – It is precisely because we are not joining the dots that we continue with our ecocidal paradigm of economic growth. The environmental degradation that results from GDP growth is exacerbating climate change. The I=PAT equation warns us that the drivers of GDP growth also drive environmental degradation namely Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology.

Roger le Clercq
Roger le Clercq
2 years ago

I have lived through a Mass Extinction event so I know what I am talking about. It was awful.

Jeff Butcher
Jeff Butcher
2 years ago

Thanks you this is interesting I’ll check it out

Barbara Williams
Barbara Williams
2 years ago

It is precisely because we are not joining the dots that we continue with our ecocidal paradigm of economic growth. The environmental degradation that results from GDP growth is exacerbating climate change. The I=PAT equation warns us that the drivers of GDP growth also drive environmental degradation namely Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology.