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BIG DOG! (Jamie Lorriman/WPA Pool/Getty Images)
With just over a week to go until the climax of the Conservative leadership contest, the name of the people’s favourite is surely not in doubt. After five ballots of MPs, weeks of campaigning and more than ten public hustings, the will of the members could not be clearer. The punters have weighed up the two candidates, examined their pasts, studied their principles and reflected on their promises. And faced with a choice between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, the finger of fate points to… Boris Johnson!
Such is the implication of a recent YouGov survey, which found that fully 49% of Tory members would choose as their leader the darling of the Greek tavernas, if only he were allowed to run – a higher proportion than those backing Sunak and Truss put together. And as The Times reported earlier this week, this was echoed in findings of focus groups among swing voters, who seem exceptionally unenthusiastic about either of Johnson’s potential successors.
Again and again, in fact, the same theme appears: Boris was robbed. “I really liked Boris and I was really, really disappointed in the way he was treated,” said one swing voter in Esher and Walton, speaking for the rest. “They’re picking on minor things. You know, furnishings and wallpaper and making such a big deal about it. And it’s the media. The media are the ones that turn everyone against him.”
Was Boris robbed, though? You didn’t often hear that line in June and July, when he narrowly survived a no-confidence vote, led his party to crushing defeats in the Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton by-elections and was forced to watch the collapse of his government as some 31 ministers from all sides of the party, equating to just over a quarter of his entire administration, resigned in protest. On 7 July, the day he finally threw in the towel, YouGov found that his public favourability had sunk to truly diabolical levels, with just 19% having a positive view, and fully 72% a negative one. That made Johnson even more unpopular than Theresa May just before she quit, and almost as unpopular as Jeremy Corbyn at his nadir. So much, then, for the populist hero of the Red Wall masses.
And yet, as extraordinary as it may sound, the Big Dog’s fightback began that very afternoon. The opening shots came as he stood outside 10 Downing Street, reminding the cameras of his “incredible mandate: the biggest Conservative majority since 1987, the biggest share of the vote since 1979”. Then came Johnson’s insistence that it was “eccentric to change governments when we are delivering so much”, and his dismissal of the Westminster “herd” that had moved against him. And then, in his final Prime Minister’s Questions appearance a fortnight later, came those ominous words “Mission accomplished, for now”, as well as that classic Johnsonian sign-off: “Hasta la vista, baby.” The only surprise is that he didn’t use another Terminator payoff: “I’ll be back.”
Ever since, the idea that Boris was robbed, cheated, stabbed in the back has been gathering force. The Tory tabloids insist that he was the victim of a “putsch”, while his adoring Culture Secretary, the ridiculous Nadine Dorries, maintains that he was removed by a “ruthless coup” led largely by Sunak. And among Tory activists, the idea that he was toppled by a sinister media campaign has almost visibly gathered strength — enthusiastically fed, it has to be said, by Liz Truss. When, at one Tory hustings earlier this month, the former Sun political editor Tom Newton Dunn asked if Johnson had been the author of his own downfall, an activist shouted that it was “the media”. “Sounds like you’re being blamed, Tom,” said Truss with a smirk, “and who am I to disagree with this excellent audience?”
Not all stab-in-the-back myths are entirely baseless. Richard Nixon always maintained that the media had it in for him during Watergate, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. That said, it wasn’t the Washington Post that bugged the Watergate building, paid off the burglars and tried to cover it up. It was Nixon himself. And in any case, so what if some of the newspapers have it in for you? Some British media organisations are always hostile to any Prime Minister, because our papers are so unashamedly partisan. Sure, it’s true that Matthew Parris and Max Hastings and everybody at the Guardian loathed Boris from Day One and were never going to give him the slightest credit. But again: so what? Just think of how bitterly much of the media hated Margaret Thatcher in the Eighties; or how viscerally the Tory press loathed Harold Wilson in the Seventies. And in any case, Johnson could always rely on the Express, and the Mail, and the Sun …
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Subscribe“Perhaps, inside every really keen political partisan, there’s a conspiracy theorist struggling to get out”.
I quote the keenest political partisan I know: “I just don’t think those on the left can be nasty like those on the right”.
The jury is still out whether this qualifies as an adjunct to conspiracy theory, an impressive feat in the denial of reality, or just plain idiocy.
Re: Boris. His time’s up, it’s over. His contribution was achieving the blunt trauma of Brexit. He was useless at the detail of governing afterwards which is one reason why he had to go. Move on.
Agreed.
Though I’m pretty shocked, as an avid reader of Sandbrook’s books and watcher of his tv programmes, at his vehemence in this piece against Johnson.
He’s usually much more objective and less emotive – and I think this perfectly illustrates the nature of the anti-Johnson defenestration that wasn’t actually a planned conspiracy – c’mon Dominic, how could you fail to see this, it wasn’t an organised conspiracy, but it was pretty obvious to me that it was the outcome of a groundswell of envy and hatred about Johnson having achieved such success. Tall poppy syndrome, enabled by his own flaws.
And I know a lot of very intelligent people, including Sandbrook it now appears very much to my surprise, who have allowed their assessment of the big strategic achievements (Brexit after May, Covid, Ukraine) to be clouded by the trivial stuff. No one expects Marin to resign after her mates partied naked in a government office; the groper MP was actually cleared by May initially – but Johnson was widely hated, so everything became a justification for his resignation,
Boris was a useless PM
Prime Minister is a brutally difficult job and he just wasn’t any good at it.
Time for somebody else to have a go.
As much use as an ashtray on a motorcycle….
It doesn’t happen that easily. Look at Cameron and May.
Boris has little in common with Trump, except that both sets of supporters seem to deny reality to an almost manic degree! The truth is that neither are the leaders the acolytes want them to be.
Boris has achieved absolutely nothing since Brexit. Levelling up? He could have taken us on the Swedish road when confronted with covid, but capitalulated immediately to the lockdown brigade, ditching Britain’s pandemic plan in the process. Forgiveable and understandable the first time, weak kneed cowardice the last, with the Omicron variant.
Boris is fundamentally an unserious dilettante, and as Matthew Collins and others have argued, completely failed to see the political revolution he was the beneficiary of over Brexit and the ‘somewhere’ people. He tried, rather trying pathetically to ride two horses galloping in different directions at once and, deep down, to try and curry favour with his establishment political enemies who will always loathe him. It’s not ‘fair’, but Margaret Thatcher was hated much more, which didn’t prevent her achieving a political and economic revolution.
I agree Boris had the right instincts at the start of the pandemic but yielded to the lefties who said he wasn’t doing enough. I wonder if these experts had their noses in the trough of Big Pharma.
100% in agreement, this type of journalism concentrates on character assassination and even goes as far as to include supporters of the PM of whom there are a great many and many achievements-an immediate one being fighting off the mob gathering at the door.
The press created an unstoppable groundswell of fabricated negative opinion to push public opinion over the edge, it was more than obvious, if you chose to go along with it, more fool you I say.
Then came the backlash as people understood the dupe.
A foul stench coming from Fleet Street & Westminster.
And what exactly are these ‘great many’ achievements? I can’t think of one. Not one.
On the other hand, he gave us record illegal immigration in plain site, with nothing done about it; NI sold out; suspension of our basic civili liberties, education and economy for no rational reason (while he held parties, showing what he really thought of the restrictions); record borrowing; record inflation; another three years of rotten, barmy public sector waker; a collapse in the police, courts, GPs and NHS; and the highest tax burden since 1947.
If that’s Conservatism, we may as well have elected Corbyn.
Many countries made the same mistakes as if they followed each other like sheep. The media having an agenda didn’t help esp the Guardian and Independent.
Perhaps hated by most insiders but loved by a majority outside of Parliament?
You’ve basically explained how it works. The media generates the rubbish, the cabinet get nervous because they imagine that the electorate are brain-dead sheep, so they panic. And hey ho.
The fact that so many people so readily gave in to the fear-mongering tactics of Jonson’s pet “scientists/experts” for over 2 years, shows clearly that most people ARE brain-dead sheep.
Not so much that as emotionally-driven conformists – perhaps unsurprising, in this wet, feminised anti-logic excuse for a society.
At least Truss knows what a woman is.
We didn’t have much choice at the beginning. We became wiser as it went on but the main media is still braindead.
I agree, like this bit of Media – look at this Insanely Wrong line from the above MSM writer:
”So here’s what Liz Truss” ”should tell her members about Boris Johnson. For once, she should tell them the truth.” ”She should tell them that he got some big decisions right — vaccines, Ukraine”
WHAT?? Boris destroyed Britain by those two insanely wrong policies. Of all the wrongness any Politician has ever been wrong about to the utter destruction of his people – those two, covid and Ukrane – stand as the greatest examples of how Boris did as great harm to his own people, and even the world, as any policy in history.
To find a leader who committed such a stupid act you need to go to General Custer:
”*(During his first campaign against the Cheyenne in 1867, General Custer galloped off after a herd of buffalo, aimed his revolver — and shot his own horse through the head. On foot, bruised and totally lost, he had to be rescued by his own men)*”
Custer only harmed himself by his stupidity – Boris destroyed half the pensions and savings and economy of UK. That ‘his own men’ did not rescue Boris afterwards was the right thing for them to do. The problem is elevating Truss is just putting the revolver into the hands of another rider primed to shoot her own horse in the head.
So what did Boris actually achieve?
Unnecessary lockdown √
Brexit in name only √
Net zero √
Unlimited immigration √
High speed 3 √
In sum, nothing at all to the benefit of the country. Johnson is a WEF stool-pigeon, loved by the globalists.
I agree with some of this, but not the conspiracy nonsense. Some of you guys would define ANY Brexit as ‘Brino’ ! The only part of the country where that accusation makes any sense of, is Northern Ireland. Boris certainly shafted them by changing his view on the Protocol overnight, but they voted Remain, are probably heading out of the Union in the medium term, and no one in GB gives a damn anyway!
I do.
Have hope. Brexit is nearly there. Just NI and fishing to sort.
So, you think Britain should not be supporting a European country faced with an all-out invasion of utter brutality?
I don’t. Ex-Soviet affairs are none of our business or concern, or the EU’s or USSA’s.
And what other kind of ongoing, militarily resisted invasion is there, but one of ‘utter brutality’? Read up on the Allies battles and campaigns through Tunisia, Italy, France and Germany: gruesome mass casualties, infantry battalions annihilated, prisoners shot, looting, rape, mass civilian casualties through the levelling of enemy-held towns by artillery and aerial bombing, it’s all there. And it was the same in Vietnam too – see My Lai and a dozen other such episodes that didn’t make the headlines – and to a degree in Karbala too. And then you have the wedding parties in Afghanistan and Syria blasted to burnt offal by US and UK drones. And ‘Extraordinary Rendition’, Gitmo and Enhanced Interrogation too….
This whole thing is in essence a US proxy war aimed at taking the Crimea from Russia, controlling the breadbasket of Europe in Ukraine and, politically, taking Belarus too. Strategically, it’s Moscow on the defensive here. Don’t pretend Russia is any worse here than the USSA where ‘lawlessness’ and brutality are concerned. It isn’t, and people who live in glass houses are in no position to throw stones.
I think he is right on Ukraine not so much the Covid though.
Let us deal with fact, not misty eyed emotion: Johnson, due to pure idleness and lack of interest in detail, allowed a mess of the detail of Brexit, he allowed totally undemocratic dystopian hate crime to become the corrupt and dishonest Police priority. He allowed totalitarian restrictions on freedoms to be imposed during Covid, and lied about, manipulated, and distorted statistics to achieve this. His knowledge and understanding of economics, was lower than his interest in it.
He was a pale imitation of a self obsessed, utterly dishonest hybrid between a Latin American dictator and erstwhile East European USSR puppet .
Well put, esp. the last bit. Yes, basically a cross between Juan Peron and Nikolai Ceaucescu. Rot him and all his dim-bulb, purblind defenders: I hope he catches monkeypox.
Error
The only valid ones are the last two. The others are shared with other nations.
Agreed, Roger. Johnson was useless. This is a Friday column-filler for August.
Love the ticks. How d’you do that?
Are you suggesting the square root of f**k all?
Conspiracy theories always abound with pathetic ‘evidence’.
But this is not the case with partygate, and it has to be emphasised that it was partygate which ousted the PM.
Support for Johnson failed because the press coverage had become very ugly and Johnson’s prime backstabber (Sunak) was telling anybody who would listen that this would cause electors to abandon in droves. This caused ambitious members of government to cut ties after Sunak had made a leading move.
But we now know that one of the great architects behind the partygate scandal was James Forsyth; political editor of The Spectator and a times columnist. He is a close personal friend of Rishi Sunak. His wife, Allegra Stratton, was Sunak’s spinmeister.
Stratton’s appointment and almost immediate departure from the post of Downing Street press secretary is probably related.
The press had us believe that there was non-stop wild partying in No10 with Johnson at the helm. This turns out to be a far cry from what is written in the Sue Gray report.
Long before Sunak exposed the plot, Forsyth was blasting forth with editorials and blogs that hinted that Sunak would probably end up taking over from an incompetent Johnson. All done with no declaration of his own self-interest.
If Johnson leaves the government he may well consider suing Forsyth on the basis of malice with juxtaposition. And there are no shortage of others, such as Peston, who could fall under the accusation. Just about the whole of Fleet Street is guilty of juxtaposition.
I don’t know all the sordid details, but you’d need to be pretty naïve to think that any suggestion Johnson was ousted by the press was a conspiracy theory. It was a very determined and co-ordinated effort.
Nailed it. The Times ran an average of 10 columns and articles a day, every day for the best part of a month, with ‘curtaingate’. Same with ‘wallpapergate’ and ‘cakegate’, but these were just the warmup acts for ‘partygate’. But like sniggering children, all dressed in the dull grey uniform of the same opinion, telling smutty stories about the headmaster, Times columnists have now turned on Johnson’s potential successors to feed the commentariat they’re nurtured. It isn’t Johnson’s acolytes which have poisoned the party, but the MSM which has poisoned democracy.
Even if it were true that the Times ran “an average of 10 columns and articles a day for the best part of the month” about ‘wallpapergate/cakegate’ (an invented statistic), it is delusional to suppose that would have swayed Conservative MPs to rid themselves of Johnson: they are much more influenced by the MSM newspaper known as the Daily Mail, which has been entirely supportive of him.
MPs did not rid themselves of Johnson. He had just won their support, albeit by a slim majority.
That’s when Sunak went for the nuclear option. It backfired, both for him and for those who tried to jump on the bandwagon. A lot of people have just gambled away their political careers.
For the good of the country we should add.
I agree with you about the media having poisoned.democracy but the damage was done some time ago.
I remember when we had men and some women of real high intellect and impeccable moral standards,or at least knew how to behave in public. People of culture,well read often,educated,in a radio discussion could quote the facts or numbers off hand,no “I don’t have that with me”.
And all the media did all the time was tell us they were only in it for themselves. So gradually decent,honourable people stopped coming forward and the field was left to the opportunists and chancers the King of them being Boris Johnson,with his personality disorder. Every radio phone in show,caller after caller would spout the same words,”they’re all the same,they’re only in it for themselves ” like a load of pre-programned parrots. Incapable of thinking for themselves. So now the people who are “,in power” No,they are our SERVANTS,are a bad lot,or some of them,the media should not have traduced good people and thus lost any moral authority they might have had.
So – perhaps don’t do these things and offer gaping open own goals on the first place! Of course all those incidences are rather good indicators of the trivial priorities of Johnson in the first place!
To whine about having political enemies and adversaries inside and outside your own party is truly pathetic – that is the usual state of affairs..
That is very true actually. The gutter press are a danger to democracy. Without truth we are in danger unless we know it and stand up to it.
Spot on.
Johnson had to go: his mismanagement and crazy ideas (along with wife Princess Nutnut) were causing too much damage to the Tories and to the country. The ‘-gates’ were a useful, at-hand crowbar and were used very effectively, even though they were themselves unimportant.
Mismanagement and crazy ideas?
For example?
I can assure that when people were being interviewed on the street before the by-elections all they were talking about was ‘they were partying up every night when we couldn’t even go to funerals…’
They were not saying ‘I’m not going to vote Tory because I think investment in Windmills is ridiculous’.
The man’s a clown. It’s been abundantly clear for the 20+ years he’s been in the public eye. Why on earth does anyone think he’s fit to run the country?
Your worthless slob-poltroon gave us a toxic brew of record illegal immigration in plain site, with nothing done about it; NI sold out; suspension of our basic civil liberties, education and the economy for no rational reason (while he held parties, showing what he really thought of the restrictions); record borrowing; record inflation; another three years of rotten, barmy public sector wokery; a collapse in the police, courts, GPs and NHS; and the highest tax and National Debt burden since 1947.
If that’s Conservatism, we may as well have elected Corbyn.
I think you already said that?
You are correct in your reading of this, it was a plot pure and simple.
I agree about his wife. She is a bit woke. It must have hindered his ability to lead.
Speaking as a member of the public I was not taken in by “the media”. I was aware that it wasn’t “wild partying”. Yes,it was “a few” drinks in the garden after a day on their computers. Yes,it was just a few sandwiches and a shopping trolley load of booze. BUT what offended me and most other “ordinary” people was that this was when Boris and those very partying acolytes were telling us on TV that even a minute in proximity with your Grandma would or could transmit the virus to her and kill her. OK so the “party” was just ten minutes relaxing after a hard day of work. I’m sure all the others had been slogging away,looking up facts and making policy. Boris was just THERE. About the place. But in a time when we were told ONE MINUTE in close proximity with Grandma could kill her,then 10 minutes of proximity I’d really taking the proverbial…but any daft people who took the slightest notice of any of those stupid rules deserved their contempt.
Exactly, on all points. The one you missed was that Johnson’s own actions demonstrated clearly that he himself knew that the ‘Scientific’ SAGE restrictions he had ruinously and barbarically inflected on our country were utter NONSENSE. But he didn’t care. As a political tactic, it suited his short-termist interests and for him, that’s all the being PM is about. It’s nothing but a stage role for him, that’s all. A man with superficial charm, obsessed with image and control, devoid of any sense of responsibility or capacity for guilt, Johnson is, literally, a classic psychopath. And as his kind always do, he has left ruin in his wake…
It seems rediculous to me that a ten minute working meeting with sandwiches and beer could bring down a prime minister.
Rishi Sunak was the best man at James Forsyth’s wedding to Allegra, so they’re more than just pals/colleagues, they’re very close friends, nearer to best friends.
Explains a lot.
Hilarious! A journalist from a small circulation political monthly is to blame!!
Johnson was an utterly useless Prime Minister, betrayed his own supporters on numerous occasions, engaged in bare faced lies, especially over partygate, over which the public WERE angry, being seen by Johnson and others as stupid dupes, with many people having been prosecuted with much heavier fines than Johnson et al got.
What is it you guys don’t get: we have a Parliamentary system, and as soon as the PM cannot command loyalty from the majority of the House of Commons he or she has had it. This is exactly the same as all previous occasions, despite the Johnson brigade now in full denial mode and attempting to rewrite history.
Absolutely spot on , if you chose to go along with this assassination you were duped and extremely naive; the outrage in the party is by no means out of place.
The root cause of the problem seems obvious to me:
In a parliamentary system you cannot outsource the choice of Prime Minister. You cannot, sensibly, directly elect a replacement to an office that was not subject to direct election in the first place. This choice has to be left to MPs because there is no mechanism for forcing MPs to accept the authority of a leader for a day longer than they wish. Party member outside Parliament should be restricted to nominating candidates for their respective parliamentary seats. In being offered a choice between Truss or Sunak (or Boris) party members are being asked to exercise power without responsibility. What fools dreamt up these rules?
I do agree. The UK is a parliamentary democracy and too often now the PM is being treated as a president. The Tory party is voting for their leader, they are not voting for the PM, it just happens that (s)he will be PM, I know that this seems like nit-picking, but it is an important distinctions. I also think that we shoulld do away with the debates during a general election, again because I am voting for a local constituency MP who will (one supposes) adher to most of the manifesto of the party to which (s)he belongs, if I want to question my prospective MP on any issues I can do so. I know what I’m saying is open to accusations that I am being naive, this isn’t how it works, but if it isn’t then it is because the communications media have been complicit is trying to Americanise the UK political system.
I edited out my initial reference to party leadership per se, as I thought it an unneccesarily complicated my post. The travails in the Labour Party shows what happens when party members foist a leader on a party. I think we agree completely: We choose our MPs, but then it is up to them (for good or ill).
EDIT
It gets worse: In the Telegraph today.
“Boris Johnson supporters tantalisingly close to their dream of a veto on PM’s ousting. Petition calling for constitution to be altered to allow vote on whether to accept premier’s resignation nears required 10,000 signatures”
Is this a petition to the Tory Party constitution?
If so why does it require 10K signatures?
If it is for parliament then there is no ‘Constitution’.
I assumed it was referring to the Tory Party’s constitution. I haven’t read it though.
UnHerd should offer Victor Davis Hanson right of reply to Dominic Sandbrook’s criticism of him in his last column. VDH read the article and had some choice things to say about it on his podcast.
Perhaps they should also offer Boris an article. He’ll be available next week.
Isn’t it just simply (and sad) that lovely as he undoubtedly is, he’s crap at being a PM? And worse, his likely successor is going to be just as crap. Which is tragic for our country. And worse, for us all, there is apparently no one out there, of any stripe, who might be able to save us (from ourselves, obvs). Hold your nose and pray.
Does anyone remember, any longer, that it was senior civil servants and journalists who “partied”, and not Johnson? If that isn’t media lying, I don’t know what is.
In this age of instant “news” generated by social media not many people remember anything anymore. A lie lives as “fact” for as long as it’s useful & is then memory-holed to make room for the next lie masquerading as “Truth”. No apologies necessary if you’re all on the same team!
Remember US president Biden and everyone below him demanding we all take covid “vaccines” and threatening unpleasant outcomes for those who didn’t? Because you “can’t contract or transmit” the virus once you’ve had the vaccine!
As long as Johnson went along with the covid nonsense he was OK. But his original sin in the eyes of the political class was Brexit, so they were always going to gun for him at some point.
Any PM of integrity and backbone would have stopped it right there: ‘Right! Stop! This is ILLEGAL – by the emergency decrees I myself enacted and you aree all committing a CRIMINAL OFFENCE that could land you a £10k fine. The Science says you will all catch and spread the worst disease since the Bubonic Plague. Go home at once. I am calling the Police.’
Johnson, OTOH – knowing that The Science and his decrees were balls – just poured himself a glass, poised for photos and joined in…
(NB. Thats are NOT MY half-arsed asterisks. For some reason, the system auto-Bowdlerised the plural of ball into b***s. Just case any of you didn’t know what word I was attempting to use. See George Carlin’s famous routine on t’he seven words you’re not allowed to use on TV…’ )
“the poison builds and the grievances fester… Have the Tories really not learned that lesson?”
They could learn it from recent Australian experience. In 2007 Labor were elected with Kevin Rudd as PM. He was dispatched by deputy Julia Gillard, but he stuck around, undermining Gillard’s government, eventually getting the numbers to return as PM, only to lead the party to defeat at the next election.
It was awful looking on as your national government slowly tears itself to pieces. It was bad enough that people were prepared to vote for Tony Abbott as PM. But the pattern was set – Abbott then tossed out by Turnbull who was in turn skittled by Morrison. Hopefully Johnson won’t be a Trump.
We all make mistakes that we get away with and go unnoticed. Except Boris backed the wrong people at the wrong time and this didn’t go unnoticed. It wasn’t allowed to go unnoticed by a rabid press that was backing ‘remain’ and out for revenge. With the benefit of hindsight Boris was toast when even his beloved Daily Telegraph dropped him.
a rabid press that was backing ‘remain’ …
And what planet are you from?
Earth I expect.
The politcal and media establishment mostly supported Remain.
But the rabid press didn’t!
the Remainer media were as rabid as anyone. Or have you forgotten Project Fear?
Planet Indie, Times, BBC and Grauniad, it seems.
He’d still be there if he had run his office properly, exercised a bit of political judgment (backing dodgy MPs and then changing his mind) and not been captured by the climate brigade. Would have muddled along quite well a decade or so ago in quieter times, but being inept, shallow and over-promoted does show. For conspiracy theorists, maybe Boris was actually a remainer double agent taking orders from …
He was toast when he got the Brexit agreement through. The establishment, the media (hi Emily!), the intelligentsia, the unions and corporate Britain wanted revenge.
All feels very academic, this constant ruminating over Boris, the rights and wrongs of him, and what happened to him. Perhaps all parties die amidst some tremendous ongoing argument over one character. Happened to Labour over Corbyn. The Tories are going to lose so very, very badly, because they are tired, and pusillanimous, and they have no idea what they stand for anymore – other than a form of reheated, Brexit-friendly Blairism (which it pretends is Thatcherite). It’s far more profound than the matter of any single personality. Boris is fun to talk about, but it’s a distraction from the bigger picture.
I almost agree with your summary of Johnson. But I think, on the plus side, it was a bit more than: “a rare gift for reaching people who weren’t interested in politics.” It was more a deep empathy with what matters to a very large number of people. But it is true that he seems to lack the organisational skills needed to implement the change.
As to the “media”, we have to distinguish between the collective noun for newspapers and broadcasters, and the meaning of dominant voice. The BBC, ITV and Sky absolutely dominate the media, and they ran a campaign to “get Johnson” with what was essentially a lie. That’s just a fact. It was a very successful lie, but a lie nonetheless. Hence the sense of a media coup.
There’s a degree or truth in that. But for all the good he was to anyone on the patriotic/ Brexit side, good riddance.
Of course the polls show antipathy towards Boris. But for all the wrong reasons. They would be more convincing if they forgot the cake etc and objected to his actual governing. And that would not even be a fair assessment as too much time was spent on covid and batting off allegations. I still think Boris could do well if he had a decent cabinet and the cooperation of the civil service.
“He got something’s right – v*zines, Ukraine ..” – utter bilge. Both catastrophically wrong-headed decisions.
I agree Kerie. It can and has been, proved that the v*zines have killed and injured a lot of people. It cannot be proved that they saved the life of anyone.
The war in corrupt Ukraine will bankrupt and kill off the “West”.
If you think we are fighting Putin to protect solely the Ukraine, you are mistaken. The fight is to defend the whole of Eastern Europe from a maniac who wants to rebuild a lost empire.
Utter bosh. It’s the USSA-NATO-EU that’s expanding its empire. Guy Verhofsdat boasts of it. With the coup in Ukraine and the attempted one in Belarus, Russia, strategically, has been backed into a corner. Putin had to drawn a line in the sand, or by 2025 he’d have had NATO in the Crimea and on the Russia-Belarus border.
Why do you think that?
Are you an “Ivan”?
I’ve a sneaking suspicion Kerie and Jeanie are the same person
I thought so as well
Got no argument to make?
Just plug your ears and sing out ‘Russian troll’. It’s the ultimate trump card. Wins every debate with ease.
“Oliver Stone’s JFK assassination theory, for example, involves so many different conspirators — the CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, the Secret Service, the military-industrial complex and even Kennedy’s own vice president — that it’s hard to believe they would ever have found a room big enough to hold their evil planning meetings.”
Oh dear, why does Mr Sandbrook step so clumsily, lazily and facetiously outside his area of knowledge, undermining his broader credibility? Is it because the implications are just too unimaginable?
For Mr Sandbrook and others interested in a methodical and exhaustive approach by an historian on JFK’s assassination 60 years ago next year, I recommend the work of John M Newman, an army intelligence officer who served in east Asia before becoming executive assistant to the director of the National Security Agency and currently adjunct professor of political science at Madison University. He was a consultant on Stone’s film – see his titles at https://jfkjmn.com/ He is mid-way through a series meticulously documenting the events leading up to the assassination based on archive material that continues to be released. Another excellent and perhaps easier introduction is James W Douglass’ JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.
What Sandbrook misses is that, as with current US politics, you don’t need an organised conspiracy. You just need a confluence of interests, a tacit understanding that ensure the key people who aren’t actively organising the riots/ demos/ smears/ FBI raids/ prosecutions/ assassination/ passively collaborate, I.e loyally go along with it, toe the party line or at least look the other way.
Project much?
There was probably no conspiracy theory, but any political event trundles along until enough people decide to jump on the bandwagon. So pure self interest by many people – who may or may not have made the correct decision.
The corollary of their being no conspiracy is that there is no lesson to be learned. Even if event follow a similar course in the future.
To summarise – the author says ‘pants’ to people who voted for him…..that he knows what’s best for them.
He probably believes them to be ‘uneducated, xenophobic, and racist’ too.
It is manifestly not a Conservative Party, but a neo Communist collection of otherwise unemployable, talent devoid, over aspirant lower middle class whose only interest is to manipulate a crass electorate by telling them what these odious politicians think that they want to hear, in order to keep their political jobs.
Johnson is a WEF stool-pigeon. The globalists love him despite the carnage he has caused in the UK.
She should tell them nothing about Boris and get on with governing
Big Dogs leave big steaming turds all over the place.
Whatever the content, just like his history books, this was an utter joy to read. Johnson may have got Brexit done but he used my spiritual homeland (the whole island) like a dirty shagsack. Good riddance.
Yes it was the medjahadeen, the blob and their accolytes wot done it but he had to be shallow and stupid enough to let them. I saw an interview with him reported on Spanish TV around June time and he was pretty obviously high. This was not lost on the Spanish newscasters. Pity really: if you could splice his skills with his younger brothers’ he may still be PM.
Not sure about this one – simple issue is whether the Conservative Party, and ‘conservatism’ are more important than the egos fighting for the top job.
And nobody lived happily ever after. Good night children.
For those interested in the Kennedy assassination, this is a pretty good overview of the latest thinking:
Mark Groubert Goes to Dallas w/ Special Guest Viva Frei (rumble.com)
Are we seriously expected to believe that “vaccines” was a big decision which Johnson got right? A trashed economy, exacerbated societal divisions and massive loss of trust in our public institutions are the great legacy of the panic-stricken response to a non-existent “pandemic”. A good example of the waste is the now-scrapped track and trace system which swallowed some 31 billion pounds!
Johnson went along with vaccines – and gung ho Ukraine support & virtue-seeking “climate change” initiatives – not because he believed in them but because he calculated it would garner him further public support. It clearly worked with Mr Sandbrook.
I suppose Caesar wasn’t stabbed either he just leant against a knife one day.
The Queen appoints the Prime Ministers. It is one of her remaining prerogative powers. She appoints them on the basis of their ability to command confidence in the House. (Taken from instituteforgovernment.org.uk)
So what she will do if Liz Truss is endorsed by a tiny number of Conservative voters – contrary to the vote taken by the parliamentary party – remains to be seen.
I should have thought that she would ask Tory MPs to endorse this decision before she got involved, but we must just wait and see.
The key here is ‘ability to command confidence in the HOUSE’.
What that means is whether a majority of MPs support the PM.
The Queen would never actually need to ‘decide’ in that sense. She appoints whoever comes forward…if that person did not have the confidence of the house they would vote them out.
The House is dominated by the Tory party, so it is they who need to have the “ability to command confidence in the House.”. Obviously the opposition MPs do not give their support to the PM but to their leader.
I assume that if there was a coalition in government the situation might be more tricky (which is probably why the word “House” is used) but as it stands, the Tory MPs voted for Rishi Sunak and without another vote by the parliamentary party, there is no way of knowing if Liz Truss has “the ability to command confidence in the House”.
Thus the conundrum which the Queen might have to address..
(PS. Back in 1963 the Tory hierarchy appointed their PM (no overall vote) – Sir Alex Douglas Home was the last PM to be elected in this way)
“… there is no way of knowing if Liz Truss has “the ability to command confidence in the House”.”
On the contrary, there is an explicit mechanism. Its called a vote of no confidence. Of course a PM would probably resign if he lost a major vote with a 3 line whip, or whatever.
Any which way, in the UK system it’s not up to the monarch to establish definitively who has the confidence of the house, it’s up to the monarch to select somebody they believe could command the confidence. Parliament will throw them out if they don’t.
There is a theoretical possibility that there could be more than one person who could be accepted as a viable PM. In that case the monarch could decide between the possible candidates.
That does happen where I live (Italy). As it has a system of proportional representation the governments are ad-hoc coalitions of possible majorities. When more than one is possible the President decides after loads of iterative consultation with party representatives.
In the UK this is theoretical because there are two few parties to make complex formulations possible. It is not the queens job to take into account eventual dissenters, she assumes the party represents all the MPs that have the parties whip.
The Tory MPs last voted for Rishi Sunak in a three horse race so we will never know which of the two current contenders would have won the MPs’ mandate. However, I’ve heard in the last week or so that Liz Truss has more MP supporters than Rishi Sunak did at that last vote.
Rather an over-complicated bit of journalese?
Johnson had to go because he was a Trojan Horse – a fraud. He claimed to be a Conservative, but in fact was a green Lib/Dem.
That’s all. No great story there.
I don’t think there is any evidence that Nixon was responsible for bugging the Watergate Hotel.
Otherwise it’s a good piece.
Well,well so Dominic (I love his podcast along with Tom Holland) is in the club I’m in along with lbc presenter Nick Abbot,that is people who think Boris has no intention of going anywhere. This voting charade like a TV reality show has been a farce,a distraction. Boris HAS NOT RESIGNED. He doesn’t need to come back because he hasn’t gone away,worse luck. You see,on Sept 5th Boris is going to pull some stunt on us.
Is what Boris is doing actually legal. Is anything Boris does legal. Is there any precedent for a British Prime Minister “resigning” buy not “resigning”. Have we had before a Prime Minister who is not actually the “leader” of his political party. Yes,Boris has delivered. Truckloads of manure,good for the roses. No,Boris did not get the vaccines or Ukraine right. Lots of people including me have got some sort of health issue or other following the jab,some have died,and seeing Boris throw the country’s money down the toilet ie give it to the Ukraine mafia is intensely disturbing. The amount of people who think Boris is very nearly Jesus,I know two,it just shows how many people in this country SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO VOTE. But Boris will sort that. I’m fully expecting him to cancel voting as it costs to much money and there IS a war on. Our Dear Leader.
Johnson is a quasi Trump, but with an IQ, and unlike Trump is an arch socialist. It baffles me that the public accept so many politicians who have absolutely zero experience of, or training in management, finance and strategy, let alone any aptitude whatsoever, and allow fire place salesman, PR people, and solicitors ” run” gobernment departments, which of course they don’t, as civil servants ” do” but they have, unlike in France, Germany and the US, no financial training in managing budgets, spend and margin.
The key political issue going forward is how Britain will manage it’s Government spend, competitive price/ efficiency tendering, and its funding, and the MoD, Ministry of Health, railways and road/ infrastructure budgets/ spend needs to be publicly exposed, torn apart and re- set.
As I have said so often, The Government must devise a new form of specialist long term ( 30-50 yr) bond funding ” Guaranteed in default only”, that appeals to long term pension fund and asset management institutional investors, but assure investors ( as in Switzerland, Germany and Japan) that each project will have margins managed on a commercial basis.
A good example would be for the Govt to ” nationalise” all phone masts, take them off the private sector, re build them, and lease their use back to the phone companies: ” Fonemastco plc” could then in future be floated on the stock markets in an IPO, but the capital spend to keep them up to German standards, would be assured.
The tories will get over BoJ in the same way that Labour will get over Corbyn.
Dominic Sandbrook: a very nice piece of writing.
I remember Thatcher being blamed for the weather in some circles. It was really rediculous. Sometimes if you do the right think you will get opposition but the make up of that opposition says everything. I quite liked Boris who was a good statesman but a riddle. He was half woke and half pricipled but I am not certain of that. Just an impression. His great asset was that he learned from his mistakes. His passions were generally on the ball.