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Post by BossMan on Dec 15, 2019 10:23:12 GMT
What would have been different had Boris Johnson stayed in the 2016 leadership race and succeeded David Cameron as Prime Minister? Would he have succeeded where Theresa May failed and had Brexit done already?
The conditions were just right for an election win in 2019: a hung parliament which would not allow Brexit to happen and a Labour Party taking an officially neutral stance but pledging a second referendum. Back in 2017, Boris would not have had either of those conditions. In a strange sort of way, Mrs. May arguably did him a favour by setting the stage and circumstances of his election victory.
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Post by johnloony on Dec 15, 2019 23:42:52 GMT
I think he would have been more successful in negotiating a good Brexit deal, better at persuading MPs to enact it, and (crucially) not stupid enough to throw away a working parliamentary majority. We would have had Brexit done in mid-2018, and we would have a Conservative majority government. May just delayed things by a year or two by being useless.
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Post by greenchristian on Dec 16, 2019 17:55:59 GMT
I think he would have been more successful in negotiating a good Brexit deal, better at persuading MPs to enact it, and (crucially) not stupid enough to throw away a working parliamentary majority. We would have had Brexit done in mid-2018, and we would have a Conservative majority government. May just delayed things by a year or two by being useless. He was stupid enough to deliberately throw away his majority as soon as he became PM earlier this year. So there's no guarantee on that one. Yes, his early election gamble happened to pay off in getting him a majority again, but it was hardly guaranteed. |
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Post by π΄ββ οΈ Neath West π΄ββ οΈ on Dec 16, 2019 18:00:49 GMT
I think he would have been more successful in negotiating a good Brexit deal, better at persuading MPs to enact it, and (crucially) not stupid enough to throw away a working parliamentary majority. We would have had Brexit done in mid-2018, and we would have a Conservative majority government. May just delayed things by a year or two by being useless. He was stupid enough to deliberately throw away his majority as soon as he became PM earlier this year. So there's no guarantee on that one. Yes, his early election gamble happened to pay off in getting him a majority again, but it was hardly guaranteed. I don't see that as stupid. There were Neo-Peelite blockers posing as Conservatives, and part of the very necessary realignment was to force out their ultras and defeat them in an election. |
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Post by greenchristian on Dec 16, 2019 18:02:22 GMT
He was stupid enough to deliberately throw away his majority as soon as he became PM earlier this year. So there's no guarantee on that one. Yes, his early election gamble happened to pay off in getting him a majority again, but it was hardly guaranteed. I don't see that as stupid. There were Neo-Peelite blockers posing as Conservatives, and part of the very necessary realignment was to force out their ultras and defeat them in an election. Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames were posing as Conservatives? 
But either way he threw away his majority. On purpose. |
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Post by No Offence Alan on Dec 16, 2019 18:03:21 GMT
He was stupid enough to deliberately throw away his majority as soon as he became PM earlier this year. So there's no guarantee on that one. Yes, his early election gamble happened to pay off in getting him a majority again, but it was hardly guaranteed. I don't see that as stupid. There were Neo-Peelite blockers posing as Conservatives, and part of the very necessary realignment was to force out their ultras and defeat them in an election. I am between political parties at the moment. The Neo-Peelites sound right up my street. Where can I join? |
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Post by π΄ββ οΈ Neath West π΄ββ οΈ on Dec 16, 2019 18:05:48 GMT
I don't see that as stupid. There were Neo-Peelite blockers posing as Conservatives, and part of the very necessary realignment was to force out their ultras and defeat them in an election. Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames were posing as Conservatives?
But either way he threw away his majority. On purpose. Ultimately, yes. They were obviously Peelites. Even more so Grieve, whom the Whigs' latest descendant endorsed. If they want to be Liberals, they can expect Liberal election results. |
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Post by BossMan on Dec 16, 2019 18:06:33 GMT
I don't see that as stupid. There were Neo-Peelite blockers posing as Conservatives, and part of the very necessary realignment was to force out their ultras and defeat them in an election. I am between political parties at the moment. The Neo-Peelites sound right up my street. Where can I join? I'm quite happy to create a new forum group with that name... |
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Post by No Offence Alan on Dec 16, 2019 18:20:25 GMT
I am between political parties at the moment. The Neo-Peelites sound right up my street. Where can I join? I'm quite happy to create a new forum group with that name... Thanks, but no thanks. I expect I shall soon be re-joining the hocus pocus focus gang. |
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Post by BossMan on Dec 16, 2019 18:26:49 GMT
I don't see that as stupid. There were Neo-Peelite blockers posing as Conservatives, and part of the very necessary realignment was to force out their ultras and defeat them in an election. Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames were posing as Conservatives? But either way he threw away his majority. On purpose. He didn't have a majority to throw away in the first place, did he? |
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spqr
Non-Aligned
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Post by spqr on Dec 16, 2019 18:51:07 GMT
I don't see that as stupid. There were Neo-Peelite blockers posing as Conservatives, and part of the very necessary realignment was to force out their ultras and defeat them in an election. Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames were posing as Conservatives?
But either way he threw away his majority. On purpose. May didn't intend to lose her majority, but contrived a situation which exposed her to the risk of doing so. This wasn't actually a stupid thing to do; the "stupidity", such as it was, came during the campaign, when she unnecessarily increased the possibility of losing seats through her own actions. Johnson, meanwhile, deliberately sought to impose on his parliamentary party a more unified approach to Brexit, which involved pushing out those who had already shown themselves willing to gleefully shove spanners into the works. The overall objective was then to go for a general election where the party could present itself to Leavers as the only viable option, and where the new MPs elected would be more pliant on Brexit than the ones they had replaced. Now unless your definition of stupidity is "achieving what I set out to achieve", I don't know how you can accuse Johnson of it with a straight face. It was a risky strategy, for certain, but it wasn't a stupid one - and, unlike May, his gamble actually worked. |
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Post by carlton43 on Dec 18, 2019 9:40:13 GMT
I don't see that as stupid. There were Neo-Peelite blockers posing as Conservatives, and part of the very necessary realignment was to force out their ultras and defeat them in an election. Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames were posing as Conservatives?
But either way he threw away his majority. On purpose. In effect, he had no majority to do anything at all. He faced up to that truth and lanced the boils on the arse of the party and then cut out the worst of the cancers without using anaesthetic as a signal warning to others. Most others would not have done that, seeing a 'paper majority' and an appearance of 'control' to be vital. But what was vital was to restore order and stamp authority and to not only 'put a bit of stick about' but to hurt some people and threaten to hurt more. As a party we can be quite good at that when the need is perceived. We are far more decisive and far less squeamish than Labour in such cases. If only the large sensible majority in the PLP had done the same and ignored the fuckwit crowd-mob membership and listened to their voters they would not be in the sorry state they are now. The getting and weilding of power can involve a fist fight and getting blood on your hands. As the 'one time' party of actual blood sports we used to know about and be good at this. it is all fairly simple in deciding 'Do you want it enough' and the 'Are you prepared to kill for it'? If not, then don't do it, and go and chunter and whimper in a corner. That is what Labour have been doing for 4-years and what we did for 2-years until we decided the old order were effete southern wimps and remainery cunts and that we should appeal to our new friends in the North. |
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