Stop voting for fucking Tories

[Hal Jordan]

So, which dirtbag will use the dead cat bounce of the Johnson removal to call a snap election and give us give more Tory rule as the faithful flock back now that the naughty boy has gone?So, which dirtbag will use the dead cat bounce of the Johnson removal to call a snap election and give us give more Tory rule as the faithful flock back now that the naughty boy has gone?

[SaintK]

I'm sure he'll have a good living on the after-dinner speaking circuit, regaling all and sundry with how he save the country with the VACCINE!, delivered BREXIT!, SAVED UKRAINE! and wasn't the lying shitstick people thought

What I'm hearing is he is so poisoned that even the investment banks aren't looking to offer him a position because any lobbying capability he might still have is massively eclipsed by the sh*t clinging to his torpid body.

He'll make mega-bucks on the US rubber chicken circuit. FFS even May has earned over £2M since she was toppled.
The Telegraph will have him back in a heartbeat or maybe the Daily Mail now he's given Dacre a peerage.

[tabascoboy]

To add insult to injury

Pound Rallies as Johnson’s Exit Plan Spells Relief for Traders

The pound strengthened and UK stocks rose on reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is planning to resign.

Investors said the news may spell some initial relief for UK assets, which have been battered by the country’s high inflation, weak economy and political uncertainty.

Sterling rose as much as 0.6% to $1.1994. The FTSE 250 Index, which tracks UK mid-cap stocks, gained 0.9% on Thursday.

[PCPhil]

To add insult to injury

Pound Rallies as Johnson’s Exit Plan Spells Relief for Traders

The pound strengthened and UK stocks rose on reports that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is planning to resign.

Investors said the news may spell some initial relief for UK assets, which have been battered by the country’s high inflation, weak economy and political uncertainty.

Sterling rose as much as 0.6% to $1.1994. The FTSE 250 Index, which tracks UK mid-cap stocks, gained 0.9% on Thursday.

Bluebirds have been sighted cavorting over the white cliffs of Dover.

[I like neeps]

I'm sure he'll have a good living on the after-dinner speaking circuit, regaling all and sundry with how he save the country with the VACCINE!, delivered BREXIT!, SAVED UKRAINE! and wasn't the lying shitstick people thought

What I'm hearing is he is so poisoned that even the investment banks aren't looking to offer him a position because any lobbying capability he might still have is massively eclipsed by the sh*t clinging to his torpid body.

He'll make mega-bucks on the US rubber chicken circuit. FFS even May has earned over £2M since she was toppled.
The Telegraph will have him back in a heartbeat or maybe the Daily Mail now he's given Dacre a peerage.

Yes he'll be an incredibly highly paid speaker and journalist again. He'll definitely have a show on either GB news or Talk TV. And he will be relentlessly critical of the next PM and all those who betrayed him. It will be smashing.

[GuLi]

So, which dirtbag will use the dead cat bounce of the Johnson removal to call a snap election and give us give more Tory rule as the faithful flock back now that the naughty boy has gone?So, which dirtbag will use the dead cat bounce of the Johnson removal to call a snap election and give us give more Tory rule as the faithful flock back now that the naughty boy has gone?

More of the same from the Lefties' echo chamber I see.

[PCPhil]

Will he slink out the back like a piece of odorous pork fat or will he front up and take the jeering crowd.

[Uncle fester]

I suppose in terms of his staying until the autumn, ridiculous though that seems, there could be a situation where he’s PMINO for a few weeks.

Imagine he just wants to outlast May's term. How long does he need to do that?

[Gumboot]

So what's with the announcement delay? Bad hair day?

[Insane_Homer]

So what's with the announcement delay? Bad hair day?

probably some argument about him staying until autumn, Dim Dom on the other hand wants to be the big dog.

[PCPhil]

So what's with the announcement delay? Bad hair day?

Probably ensuring it strikes the right tone of apology and humility.

[Paddington Bear]

I'm sure he'll have a good living on the after-dinner speaking circuit, regaling all and sundry with how he save the country with the VACCINE!, delivered BREXIT!, SAVED UKRAINE! and wasn't the lying shitstick people thought

What I'm hearing is he is so poisoned that even the investment banks aren't looking to offer him a position because any lobbying capability he might still have is massively eclipsed by the sh*t clinging to his torpid body.

He'll make mega-bucks on the US rubber chicken circuit. FFS even May has earned over £2M since she was toppled.
The Telegraph will have him back in a heartbeat or maybe the Daily Mail now he's given Dacre a peerage.

With that said, the Telegraph is pretty vitriolic about him

[Insane_Homer]

So what's with the announcement delay? Bad hair day?

Probably ensuring it strikes the right tone of apology and humility.

Good one.

[fishfoodie]

Carrie might not stick around long enough to have a breakdown.

I wasn’t going to comment on this but I understand she likes to live frugally and within her means.



I give it a year tops.

Naa, she is already gone, rumour has it they are all but estranged already.

I wouldn't be surprised. When he starts to reflect, he's going to blame her for a lot of the decisions that brought him to this day.

[Paddington Bear]

So what's with the announcement delay? Bad hair day?

Trying to work out whether he has the support to stay on as caretaker, because if he can't he'll have to visit the Queen.

[Torquemada 1420]

So, which dirtbag will use the dead cat bounce of the Johnson removal to call a snap election and give us give more Tory rule as the faithful flock back now that the naughty boy has gone?

That's likely to be the worst outcome for the Tories. It's all too fresh in the public's mind. They need as long as possible for his turncoats to distance themselves from him and attempt to convince the masses that they are reformed characters, "lessons have been learned". Meantime trying any scare tactic possible to insinuate things could get worse under Labour or the Libdems. In reality the UK's economy is now so far down the plughole, it cannot get any worse.

If I were a Tory, I'd let the election walk, bide my time for 5 years and then blame the oncoming famine on the inability of whomever gets elected's inability to run the country. But, that won't happen because they are all power hungry, short term greed driven plus Boris's lot have pretty much emptied every coffer and avenue for debt raising into their own pockets already: so there is no more gravy to be had.

[I like neeps]

What I'm hearing is he is so poisoned that even the investment banks aren't looking to offer him a position because any lobbying capability he might still have is massively eclipsed by the sh*t clinging to his torpid body.

He'll make mega-bucks on the US rubber chicken circuit. FFS even May has earned over £2M since she was toppled.
The Telegraph will have him back in a heartbeat or maybe the Daily Mail now he's given Dacre a peerage.

With that said, the Telegraph is pretty vitriolic about him

They'll be vitriolic about the next PM too when it becomes clear we will cooperate with the EU, we won't drop the green targets, and everything in Britain will continue to get worse as we suffer from inflation made even worse by decades of poor energy policies and Brexit.

This time next year Johnson will be being vitriolic about the next PM at the telegraph. It really is not in the right wing press or the Tories interests to really tear him to shreds. He'll be rehabilitated as the lovable oaf before you know it.

Brexit is the beginning of the end of the Tory party. They can't be anti EU and pro tax cuts. It doesn't fit the country. The problem is the press have spent a long time whipping up anger and as things get worse post Brexit and with Starmer replacing Corbyn (you'd have to try almost pathetically hard to get angry at the cabbage that is Starmer) the only place that anger is going is the government.

[sturginho]

[Paddington Bear]

He'll make mega-bucks on the US rubber chicken circuit. FFS even May has earned over £2M since she was toppled.
The Telegraph will have him back in a heartbeat or maybe the Daily Mail now he's given Dacre a peerage.

With that said, the Telegraph is pretty vitriolic about him

They'll be vitriolic about the next PM too when it becomes clear we will cooperate with the EU, we won't drop the green targets, and everything in Britain will continue to get worse as we suffer from inflation made even worse by decades of poor energy policies and Brexit.

This time next year Johnson will be being vitriolic about the next PM at the telegraph. It really is not in the right wing press or the Tories interests to really tear him to shreds. He'll be rehabilitated as the lovable oaf before you know it.

Brexit is the beginning of the end of the Tory party. They can't be anti EU and pro tax cuts. It doesn't fit the country. The problem is the press have spent a long time whipping up anger and as things get worse post Brexit and with Starmer replacing Corbyn (you'd have to try almost pathetically hard to get angry at the cabbage that is Starmer) the only place that anger is going is the government.

If you think Brexit will be a complete disaster, having one man to pin the blame on will be preferable for the right wing press rather than admitting a mistake.

[Lobby]

He'll make mega-bucks on the US rubber chicken circuit. FFS even May has earned over £2M since she was toppled.
The Telegraph will have him back in a heartbeat or maybe the Daily Mail now he's given Dacre a peerage.

With that said, the Telegraph is pretty vitriolic about him

They'll be vitriolic about the next PM too when it becomes clear we will cooperate with the EU, we won't drop the green targets, and everything in Britain will continue to get worse as we suffer from inflation made even worse by decades of poor energy policies and Brexit.

This time next year Johnson will be being vitriolic about the next PM at the telegraph. It really is not in the right wing press or the Tories interests to really tear him to shreds. He'll be rehabilitated as the lovable oaf before you know it.

Brexit is the beginning of the end of the Tory party. They can't be anti EU and pro tax cuts. It doesn't fit the country. The problem is the press have spent a long time whipping up anger and as things get worse post Brexit and with Starmer replacing Corbyn (you'd have to try almost pathetically hard to get angry at the cabbage that is Starmer) the only place that anger is going is the government.

You seem to manage quite well

[I like neeps]

With that said, the Telegraph is pretty vitriolic about him

They'll be vitriolic about the next PM too when it becomes clear we will cooperate with the EU, we won't drop the green targets, and everything in Britain will continue to get worse as we suffer from inflation made even worse by decades of poor energy policies and Brexit.

This time next year Johnson will be being vitriolic about the next PM at the telegraph. It really is not in the right wing press or the Tories interests to really tear him to shreds. He'll be rehabilitated as the lovable oaf before you know it.

Brexit is the beginning of the end of the Tory party. They can't be anti EU and pro tax cuts. It doesn't fit the country. The problem is the press have spent a long time whipping up anger and as things get worse post Brexit and with Starmer replacing Corbyn (you'd have to try almost pathetically hard to get angry at the cabbage that is Starmer) the only place that anger is going is the government.

You seem to manage quite well

Haha ... True but I don't like him because he abandoned every single one of his leadership pledges and so is as much of a liar as Johnson. I don't think that will bother you average Sun/Mail/Telegraph reader. He's not like Jeremy Corbyn nationalising sausages.

[PCPhil]

Truss reportedly straight back on the 1st flight from Indonesia as a matter of urgency! Only stopping for hair, makeover, photo session and Daily Mail column.

[Torquemada 1420]

Truss reportedly straight back on the 1st flight from Indonesia as a matter of urgency! Only stopping for hair, makeover, photo session and Daily Mail column.

No chance we could board her onto MH370 I suppose?

[tabascoboy]

Truss reportedly straight back on the 1st flight from Indonesia as a matter of urgency! Only stopping for hair, makeover, photo session and Daily Mail column.

No chance we could board her onto MH370 I suppose?

I hear that Mariupol is nice this time of year

[PCPhil]

They can’t keep him on as a caretaker PM. Maybe for his vanity they could give him that title and get him to make the tea but it’s ridiculous.

[tabascoboy]

FFS, the problem is yes he was a disaster but only because he was an eco-warrior and not right wing enough...

Paywalled article C&P'd for convenience
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/0 ... oris-2019/

His premiership is ending in disaster, but I don’t regret backing Boris in 2019
Allister Heath 6 July 2022 • 9:30pm — 4 minutes

Is this the time for a mea culpa, or as our outgoing Prime Minister might have once put it, even a mea maxima culpa, for supporting Boris Johnson three years ago? The answer, dear readers, is an emphatic “No”, and not only because I’m not a Roman Catholic. His subsequent performance has been atrocious, delusional and indefensible, but Johnson was the right and only person for the job in 2019, a time when, some have conveniently forgotten, Britain was falling apart.

Within months of becoming leader of the Conservative Party, he had rescued the country from a debilitating constitutional crisis after a series of audacious gambles, delivered a meaningful Brexit and thus salvaged the greatest democratic exercise in our history, saved and united a Conservative Party that had fallen to 9 per cent in an election, destroyed the most Left-wing, fanatically dangerous leader in Labour’s history and repelled the threat of anti-Semitism. It was an astonishing turnaround job, confounding his Tory sceptics in the most vivid way imaginable.

For all these historic achievements, and despite his subsequent, calamitous failures, he shall be remembered as one of this country’s most consequential prime ministers. This is why the 160 MPs who supported him in June 2019, fully aware of his imperfections, should feel no regret for their decision, and neither should the 13.9 million people who voted Conservative on that glorious December day. He delivered on his core, short-term mission, against all the odds: backing him was the right thing to do at the time, even if it isn’t true any longer today.

Johnson’s tragedy is that he outlived his usefulness so quickly and turned from exceptional asset to prohibitively costly liability in record time, which is why so many erstwhile Johnson loyalists and voters turned on him decisively. He misunderstood his early luck and success, and refused to build a proper structure around himself, rather than a dysfunctional court made up of warring factions.

His staggering lack of self-awareness extended to the moral realm: he didn’t seem to grasp that voters are allergic to double-standards, hypocrisy and downright lies. His lack of a guiding ideology, other than personal ambition and self-interest, meant that he failed to understand why so many of his supporters feel ideologically betrayed by his high-tax, high-spend agenda.

It became apparent well over a year ago that there would be no lengthy Johnsonian era, as I fleetingly thought might have been possible in the immediate aftermath of the election, no new economic and social model named after him, no great project to remodel Britain a la Thatcher. It is a bitter disappointment, a catastrophic waste of an 80-seat majority, a seismic defeat for the forces of conservatism in an increasingly Left-wing culture, the ultimate proof of the futility of purposeless ambition, of the idea that charisma, slipperiness and off-the-cuff verbal dexterity beats principle, thoughtfulness, organisation, reliability, focus and managerial ability.

Johnson’s performance went downhill almost immediately after the General Election, with his decision to approve HS2 the first of many errors. His greatest failure was to make fools of those of us who believed his assurances that he was broadly a Reaganite, freedom-loving supply-sider, albeit one with an unfortunate weakness for Keynesianism, municipalism, Helseltinian central direction and grand projets.

For a short while, at least in the second half of 2019 and until the start of Covid, it felt as if there was some sort of plan, a fusion between his ideas and those of his advisers. I didn’t like all of them by any means, but it felt as if we would end up with a mix of tax cuts, deregulation, a radical reform of the Civil Service and procurement, the end of the licence fee, a semi-libertarian embrace of freedom, a semi-consumerist, conservative (rather than collectivist) approach to environmentalism, as well as lots of extra spending in many areas.

We ended up instead with massively more spending, a vicious series of tax increases, global corporation tax harmonisation that made a mockery of Brexit, a hard-Left green agenda that is barely less authoritarian than that of Extinction Rebellion, a war on consumers, including drivers, meat-eaters and anybody with a suburban lifestyle, a full-on paternalist agenda, more red tape and bureaucracy, no planning reform, an unleashing of the Civil Service and further gains for the woke classes. None of the good things have been delivered, and all the bad ones have happened, and worse.

His management of Covid was middling, average even by global standards, but no less disastrous for that. Yes, he faced difficult choices, but he refused to follow his supposed principles. Why did he not conduct proper cost-benefit analyses? Why didn’t he tell the public that furlough was strictly temporary? Why all the mendacious, demagogic nonsense about the NHS? The vaccine success was one of the few positive outcomes, but even that was squandered when Johnson returned control to the bureaucracy. The British state has learnt none of the right lessons from Covid when it comes to future pandemic-management.

Covid would have damaged any PM, but it permanently derailed this one, and not just because he suffered so badly from it. It gave Johnson a taste for unlimited spending and state power from which he never recovered. It also exposed the hypocrisy of an elite that thought it could party while the rest of the country was locked down, destroying Johnson’s greatest political advantage: the idea he was different and on the side of normal people.

Perhaps Johnson’s most perplexing failure was to misunderstand the purpose of Brexit, the policy that will define him forever more. Instead of a traditionally Eurosceptic pro-growth agenda, he chose to ape the continental economic model we had struggled so hard to escape. Instead of renewing our institutions, he happily embraced the technocratic status quo. His semi-socialist economic model is incompatible with growth, and will now need to be scrapped if his successor is to have any hope of rescuing the Conservative Party and the Brexit legacy.

Now that his Government has imploded in a sordid, chaotic mess of resignations and frustration, Johnson will soon have a lot more time to reflect on how it all went so pathetically, absurdly wrong.

[redderneck]

Has to be said. When you Brits do a setpiece, you don't half put on a show. It's got to be hard to turn a meltdown into a codified spectator sport, but you've cracked it. Kudos.

[sturginho]

Has to be said. When you Brits do a setpiece, you don't half put on a show. It's got to be hard to turn a meltdown into a codified spectator sport, but you've cracked it. Kudos.

Another sport where England can lose the final on penalties?

[Paddington Bear]

He's playing for time. If they don't get him out today he'll hang on.

[Ovals]

BBC reporting that no10 are saying he has filled all the ministerial vacancies !!!

He ain't out yet, no matter what has been said.

Edit - it's only the Cabinet that has been filled - not all ministers.

[Margin__Walker]

Has to be said. When you Brits do a setpiece, you don't half put on a show. It's got to be hard to turn a meltdown into a codified spectator sport, but you've cracked it. Kudos.

It's got everything.

[fishfoodie]

They can’t keep him on as a caretaker PM. Maybe for his vanity they could give him that title and get him to make the tea but it’s ridiculous.

He disagrees !

He's just appointed a new Leveling up Minister to replace Gove !

Rory Stewart raised a very good point on the Radio; when the Bumblecunt resigned from, the FCO, he didn't leave that day, as all previous Ministers did, he hung around in his grace & favour, for weeks !!

[_Os_]

He's left it too late to try and separate Tory leader from PM, retaining power/position/prestige but shedding some accountability. "Castling" like Putin/Medvedev. It may have worked if he had more loyalists and did it much earlier in a planned way (could've moved himself into the Lords to separate the roles more and shedding more accountability from the PM role too), but he only has the volkssturm now which isn't enough support to do anything. His only play was refusing to go, making a constitutional crisis and aiming for an election.

Doubt he'll make the end of the month now.

[tabascoboy]

[Hal Jordan]

FFS, the problem is yes he was a disaster but only because he was an eco-warrior and not right wing enough...

Paywalled article C&P'd for convenience
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/0 ... oris-2019/

His premiership is ending in disaster, but I don’t regret backing Boris in 2019
Allister Heath 6 July 2022 • 9:30pm — 4 minutes

Is this the time for a mea culpa, or as our outgoing Prime Minister might have once put it, even a mea maxima culpa, for supporting Boris Johnson three years ago? The answer, dear readers, is an emphatic “No”, and not only because I’m not a Roman Catholic. His subsequent performance has been atrocious, delusional and indefensible, but Johnson was the right and only person for the job in 2019, a time when, some have conveniently forgotten, Britain was falling apart.

Within months of becoming leader of the Conservative Party, he had rescued the country from a debilitating constitutional crisis after a series of audacious gambles, delivered a meaningful Brexit and thus salvaged the greatest democratic exercise in our history, saved and united a Conservative Party that had fallen to 9 per cent in an election, destroyed the most Left-wing, fanatically dangerous leader in Labour’s history and repelled the threat of anti-Semitism. It was an astonishing turnaround job, confounding his Tory sceptics in the most vivid way imaginable.

For all these historic achievements, and despite his subsequent, calamitous failures, he shall be remembered as one of this country’s most consequential prime ministers. This is why the 160 MPs who supported him in June 2019, fully aware of his imperfections, should feel no regret for their decision, and neither should the 13.9 million people who voted Conservative on that glorious December day. He delivered on his core, short-term mission, against all the odds: backing him was the right thing to do at the time, even if it isn’t true any longer today.

Johnson’s tragedy is that he outlived his usefulness so quickly and turned from exceptional asset to prohibitively costly liability in record time, which is why so many erstwhile Johnson loyalists and voters turned on him decisively. He misunderstood his early luck and success, and refused to build a proper structure around himself, rather than a dysfunctional court made up of warring factions.

His staggering lack of self-awareness extended to the moral realm: he didn’t seem to grasp that voters are allergic to double-standards, hypocrisy and downright lies. His lack of a guiding ideology, other than personal ambition and self-interest, meant that he failed to understand why so many of his supporters feel ideologically betrayed by his high-tax, high-spend agenda.

It became apparent well over a year ago that there would be no lengthy Johnsonian era, as I fleetingly thought might have been possible in the immediate aftermath of the election, no new economic and social model named after him, no great project to remodel Britain a la Thatcher. It is a bitter disappointment, a catastrophic waste of an 80-seat majority, a seismic defeat for the forces of conservatism in an increasingly Left-wing culture, the ultimate proof of the futility of purposeless ambition, of the idea that charisma, slipperiness and off-the-cuff verbal dexterity beats principle, thoughtfulness, organisation, reliability, focus and managerial ability.

Johnson’s performance went downhill almost immediately after the General Election, with his decision to approve HS2 the first of many errors. His greatest failure was to make fools of those of us who believed his assurances that he was broadly a Reaganite, freedom-loving supply-sider, albeit one with an unfortunate weakness for Keynesianism, municipalism, Helseltinian central direction and grand projets.

For a short while, at least in the second half of 2019 and until the start of Covid, it felt as if there was some sort of plan, a fusion between his ideas and those of his advisers. I didn’t like all of them by any means, but it felt as if we would end up with a mix of tax cuts, deregulation, a radical reform of the Civil Service and procurement, the end of the licence fee, a semi-libertarian embrace of freedom, a semi-consumerist, conservative (rather than collectivist) approach to environmentalism, as well as lots of extra spending in many areas.

We ended up instead with massively more spending, a vicious series of tax increases, global corporation tax harmonisation that made a mockery of Brexit, a hard-Left green agenda that is barely less authoritarian than that of Extinction Rebellion, a war on consumers, including drivers, meat-eaters and anybody with a suburban lifestyle, a full-on paternalist agenda, more red tape and bureaucracy, no planning reform, an unleashing of the Civil Service and further gains for the woke classes. None of the good things have been delivered, and all the bad ones have happened, and worse.

His management of Covid was middling, average even by global standards, but no less disastrous for that. Yes, he faced difficult choices, but he refused to follow his supposed principles. Why did he not conduct proper cost-benefit analyses? Why didn’t he tell the public that furlough was strictly temporary? Why all the mendacious, demagogic nonsense about the NHS? The vaccine success was one of the few positive outcomes, but even that was squandered when Johnson returned control to the bureaucracy. The British state has learnt none of the right lessons from Covid when it comes to future pandemic-management.

Covid would have damaged any PM, but it permanently derailed this one, and not just because he suffered so badly from it. It gave Johnson a taste for unlimited spending and state power from which he never recovered. It also exposed the hypocrisy of an elite that thought it could party while the rest of the country was locked down, destroying Johnson’s greatest political advantage: the idea he was different and on the side of normal people.

Perhaps Johnson’s most perplexing failure was to misunderstand the purpose of Brexit, the policy that will define him forever more. Instead of a traditionally Eurosceptic pro-growth agenda, he chose to ape the continental economic model we had struggled so hard to escape. Instead of renewing our institutions, he happily embraced the technocratic status quo. His semi-socialist economic model is incompatible with growth, and will now need to be scrapped if his successor is to have any hope of rescuing the Conservative Party and the Brexit legacy.

Now that his Government has imploded in a sordid, chaotic mess of resignations and frustration, Johnson will soon have a lot more time to reflect on how it all went so pathetically, absurdly wrong.

Yes, I always keep mixing up the environmental policies of the Conservative Party with those of Extinction Rebellion.

Who on earth is this cunt?

[salanya]

How is he able to appoint new cabinet members when he's resigning?

And which total arsewipe agrees to these positions when they're waiting for him to resign?

The Tories are determined to make themselves look as delusional, corrupt and ridiculous as they possibly can.

[Paddington Bear]

How is he able to appoint new cabinet members when he's resigning?

And which total arsewipe agrees to these positions when they're waiting for him to resign?

The Tories are determined to make themselves look as delusional, corrupt and ridiculous as they possibly can.

He's not really resigning. He's buying himself three months for something to come up and to tear his opponents apart.

[salanya]

How is he able to appoint new cabinet members when he's resigning?

And which total arsewipe agrees to these positions when they're waiting for him to resign?

The Tories are determined to make themselves look as delusional, corrupt and ridiculous as they possibly can.

He's not really resigning. He's buying himself three months for something to come up and to tear his opponents apart.

I agree, and that's what they're facilitating, after making such public displays of his unsuitability to be prime minister.

Starmer is right, they're all complicit in this chaotic farce.

[Hal Jordan]

Has to be said. When you Brits do a setpiece, you don't half put on a show. It's got to be hard to turn a meltdown into a codified spectator sport, but you've cracked it. Kudos.

It's one hell of a season finale.

[Torquemada 1420]

FFS, the problem is yes he was a disaster but only because he was an eco-warrior and not right wing enough...

Paywalled article C&P'd for convenience
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/0 ... oris-2019/

His premiership is ending in disaster, but I don’t regret backing Boris in 2019
Allister Heath 6 July 2022 • 9:30pm — 4 minutes

Is this the time for a mea culpa, or as our outgoing Prime Minister might have once put it, even a mea maxima culpa, for supporting Boris Johnson three years ago? The answer, dear readers, is an emphatic “No”, and not only because I’m not a Roman Catholic. His subsequent performance has been atrocious, delusional and indefensible, but Johnson was the right and only person for the job in 2019, a time when, some have conveniently forgotten, Britain was falling apart.

Within months of becoming leader of the Conservative Party, he had rescued the country from a debilitating constitutional crisis after a series of audacious gambles, delivered a meaningful Brexit and thus salvaged the greatest democratic exercise in our history, saved and united a Conservative Party that had fallen to 9 per cent in an election, destroyed the most Left-wing, fanatically dangerous leader in Labour’s history and repelled the threat of anti-Semitism. It was an astonishing turnaround job, confounding his Tory sceptics in the most vivid way imaginable.

For all these historic achievements, and despite his subsequent, calamitous failures, he shall be remembered as one of this country’s most consequential prime ministers. This is why the 160 MPs who supported him in June 2019, fully aware of his imperfections, should feel no regret for their decision, and neither should the 13.9 million people who voted Conservative on that glorious December day. He delivered on his core, short-term mission, against all the odds: backing him was the right thing to do at the time, even if it isn’t true any longer today.

Johnson’s tragedy is that he outlived his usefulness so quickly and turned from exceptional asset to prohibitively costly liability in record time, which is why so many erstwhile Johnson loyalists and voters turned on him decisively. He misunderstood his early luck and success, and refused to build a proper structure around himself, rather than a dysfunctional court made up of warring factions.

His staggering lack of self-awareness extended to the moral realm: he didn’t seem to grasp that voters are allergic to double-standards, hypocrisy and downright lies. His lack of a guiding ideology, other than personal ambition and self-interest, meant that he failed to understand why so many of his supporters feel ideologically betrayed by his high-tax, high-spend agenda.

It became apparent well over a year ago that there would be no lengthy Johnsonian era, as I fleetingly thought might have been possible in the immediate aftermath of the election, no new economic and social model named after him, no great project to remodel Britain a la Thatcher. It is a bitter disappointment, a catastrophic waste of an 80-seat majority, a seismic defeat for the forces of conservatism in an increasingly Left-wing culture, the ultimate proof of the futility of purposeless ambition, of the idea that charisma, slipperiness and off-the-cuff verbal dexterity beats principle, thoughtfulness, organisation, reliability, focus and managerial ability.

Johnson’s performance went downhill almost immediately after the General Election, with his decision to approve HS2 the first of many errors. His greatest failure was to make fools of those of us who believed his assurances that he was broadly a Reaganite, freedom-loving supply-sider, albeit one with an unfortunate weakness for Keynesianism, municipalism, Helseltinian central direction and grand projets.

For a short while, at least in the second half of 2019 and until the start of Covid, it felt as if there was some sort of plan, a fusion between his ideas and those of his advisers. I didn’t like all of them by any means, but it felt as if we would end up with a mix of tax cuts, deregulation, a radical reform of the Civil Service and procurement, the end of the licence fee, a semi-libertarian embrace of freedom, a semi-consumerist, conservative (rather than collectivist) approach to environmentalism, as well as lots of extra spending in many areas.

We ended up instead with massively more spending, a vicious series of tax increases, global corporation tax harmonisation that made a mockery of Brexit, a hard-Left green agenda that is barely less authoritarian than that of Extinction Rebellion, a war on consumers, including drivers, meat-eaters and anybody with a suburban lifestyle, a full-on paternalist agenda, more red tape and bureaucracy, no planning reform, an unleashing of the Civil Service and further gains for the woke classes. None of the good things have been delivered, and all the bad ones have happened, and worse.

His management of Covid was middling, average even by global standards, but no less disastrous for that. Yes, he faced difficult choices, but he refused to follow his supposed principles. Why did he not conduct proper cost-benefit analyses? Why didn’t he tell the public that furlough was strictly temporary? Why all the mendacious, demagogic nonsense about the NHS? The vaccine success was one of the few positive outcomes, but even that was squandered when Johnson returned control to the bureaucracy. The British state has learnt none of the right lessons from Covid when it comes to future pandemic-management.

Covid would have damaged any PM, but it permanently derailed this one, and not just because he suffered so badly from it. It gave Johnson a taste for unlimited spending and state power from which he never recovered. It also exposed the hypocrisy of an elite that thought it could party while the rest of the country was locked down, destroying Johnson’s greatest political advantage: the idea he was different and on the side of normal people.

Perhaps Johnson’s most perplexing failure was to misunderstand the purpose of Brexit, the policy that will define him forever more. Instead of a traditionally Eurosceptic pro-growth agenda, he chose to ape the continental economic model we had struggled so hard to escape. Instead of renewing our institutions, he happily embraced the technocratic status quo. His semi-socialist economic model is incompatible with growth, and will now need to be scrapped if his successor is to have any hope of rescuing the Conservative Party and the Brexit legacy.

Now that his Government has imploded in a sordid, chaotic mess of resignations and frustration, Johnson will soon have a lot more time to reflect on how it all went so pathetically, absurdly wrong.

FM, Stalinist revision of history on achievements has nothing on this.