Updated: Boris resigns as party leader

Originally Posted by ianch99

Is he 'aving it orf with Daniella Westbrook then?

Be a bit of a blow if he was - let’s draw a line under that…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61865032

Boris Johnson had a "minor routine operation related to his sinuses" under general anaesthetic at a London hospital, No 10 has said.

Hmm! Rather blatant.

[daveeb]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Be a bit of a blow if he was - let’s draw a line under that…

That had me snorting with laughter

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by daveeb

That had me snorting with laughter

As long as it is just laughter you are snorting with

Rumours that Starmer will find out today if he is fined or not. If the police have waited until after the by-elections it suggests he will be.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Damien

Rumours that Starmer will find out today if he is fined or not. If the police have waited until after the by-elections it suggests he will be.

They've not had his forms for very long though. Would be a big news day on top of the by-election results.

Meanwhile, Conservative Party Chairman Oliver Dowden has resigned in a 5.35am letter after the two by-election losses.
https://news.sky.com/story/double-bl...feats-12639472

The Tories were expected to lose the two by-elections but not on the scale they did. Especially the Liberal Democrat win, the Tories had a small hope the majority was so big they could hold it but I don't think they expected for the Liberal Democrats to win so easily.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Damien

The Tories were expected to lose the two by-elections but not on the scale they did. Especially the Liberal Democrat win, the Tories had a small hope the majority was so big they could hold it but I don't think they expected for the Liberal Democrats to win so easily.

Most of the time Tiverton seemed to be a narrow win for the Conservatives from the reports I had read, except yesterday when it looked likely it would fall.

Apparently, the Conservative candidate Helen Hurford was so convinced she would win that she had no concession speech ready! So she dashed out at 4am without making one and did not speak to the press.

[denphone]

Whether one likes Boris Johnson or not he is a dead man walking as these last 4 or 5 byelection defeats are very reminiscent of the John Major era..

The Conservatives need to face up to that or they are going to find it very hard to recover to win the next General Election.

Originally Posted by denphone

Whether one likes Boris Johnson or not he is a dead man walking as these last 4 or 5 byelection defeats are very reminiscent of the John Major era..

The Conservatives need to face up to that or they are going to find it very hard to recover to win the next General Election.

I think the problem right now is that Boris has come to believe his own legend. The last general election victory was astonishing - of the size that is ordinarily all but impossible for an opposition to overturn in one further election. The usual expectation would be for Labour to have reduced the Tory majority in 2024 then aimed to overturn it completely in 2029.

Right now, however, the Tories seem to have forgotten that this rule of thumb can only work while the party in power is at least trying to honour all the other rules of thumb, around attempting to behave reasonably competently and accepting that major misdemeanours mandate ministerial resignations. Boris thinks he’s bulletproof and rather too many of his MPs seem to agree. If they don’t disabuse themselves of that idea pretty soon, they may find themselves making electoral history for all the wrong reasons.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by denphone

Whether one likes Boris Johnson or not he is a dead man walking as these last 4 or 5 byelection defeats are very reminiscent of the John Major era..

The Conservatives need to face up to that or they are going to find it very hard to recover to win the next General Election.

Agreed. But Johnson will only give up power if it's wrenched away from him. He's not one to take a hint, however direct that hint might be!

And there is no obvious successor waiting in the wings as there was with Thatcher and Major and Blair and Brown. Sunak has been tarred with the Partygate brush and financial mishandling. (NI increase and windfall tax u-turn).

It seems pretty clear that the only hope the conservatives have of winning the next election is to ditch Boris.

Whatever public support he had (which was a lot at one point) has now gone.

[denphone]

They can only get rid of him if they change the no-confidence rules again if l am correct.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Chris

If they don’t disabuse themselves of that idea pretty soon, they may find themselves making electoral history for all the wrong reasons.

They've already made by-election history for all the wrong reasons!

According to today's usually-restrained Daily Telegraph, Tiverton was the biggest by-election defeat in British history.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...fx7?li=BBoPWjQ

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by denphone

Whether one likes Boris Johnson or not he is a dead man walking as these last 4 or 5 byelection defeats are very reminiscent of the John Major era..

The Conservatives need to face up to that or they are going to find it very hard to recover to win the next General Election.

The public are fickle and can turn on a sixpence.

I obviously agree that Boris ought to be a dead man walking but if he knuckles down to his job and turns all the bad corners, the Conservatives might survive the next election - though I hope not with Boris at the helm.