It's all kicking off in Downing Street
July 5, 2022 10:50 AM Subscribe

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Health Secretary have both resigned.

Will Boris resign?* Can he survive?** What happens next?† Does this matter?††

*Almost certainly not.

** Possibly not. Both resignation letters were weapons aimed directly at the Prime Minister.

† Who knows? Boris is not the resigning type.

†† Yes

posted by YoungStencil (486 comments total) 38 users marked this as a favorite

Believe it when I see it. Can't tell you how many times I've awoken in the past year going, "SURELY HE HAD TO RESIGN OVERNIGHT." But somehow ... nope
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:55 AM on July 5, 2022 [15 favorites]

Boris "Teflon" Johnson
posted by idlethink at 10:56 AM on July 5, 2022

It's funny because there's literally nothing the Tories can do to him to make him step down for at least the next 11 months. He only got 211 Tories during his leadership spill which would make anyone with a sense of shame resign but the man has no shame, is quite happy to take the rest of the party down with him during his joyride as PM, and the Tories don't know what the fuck to do.

Boris will be PM as long as the rules and electorate let him and not one second less.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 11:02 AM on July 5, 2022 [16 favorites]

Surely this
posted by Merus at 11:02 AM on July 5, 2022 [7 favorites]

Said elsewhere:

"Old mate could be buried at a crossroads with a stake through his heart and his decapitated head lying across his feet, and he'd still be failing upwards"
posted by prismatic7 at 11:05 AM on July 5, 2022 [40 favorites]

Every salad is a cesar salad if you STAB IT ENOUGH

STABBBY STABBY STABBY
STAB STAB STAB
STABBETH
STABBAROONIE
STABBBBBBBBBBB my pretties. stab away.
--

From frankie boyle

I sort of think that’s Johnson done, because his pitch to the Party is that he’s an effective bully who’ll keep their differences in check. If that’s gone, I suppose he’s gone.

On the bright side, there’s only 426,877 years left of the Age of the Demon Kali
posted by lalochezia at 11:06 AM on July 5, 2022 [16 favorites]

The Horny Honey Monster is on the ropes, so I think it's time to take a quick look at the runners and riders poised to take over from Boris Johnson
posted by lalochezia at 11:06 AM on July 5, 2022 [12 favorites]

The Daily Mail has turned on Boris, and they most assuredly have decades worth of dirt on Boris that they have been sitting on. I'm so sorry for you Brits, but as an American this is going to be so much fun to watch as things get ratcheted up.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 11:07 AM on July 5, 2022 [14 favorites]

any measure of satisfaction I'd derive from this spectacle is tempered by my anxiety with just how fraught and illusory our democracies appear to be

here is hoping this perfect storm is not pushing us to ill ports
posted by elkevelvet at 11:13 AM on July 5, 2022 [22 favorites]

He'll try and draw it out. He has two days to beat Neville Chamberlain's time in office and about thirty to beat Theresa May's.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 11:15 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's funny because there's literally nothing the Tories can do to him to make him step down for at least the next 11 months.

The 1922 committee can apparently change the rules if they want to - they were discussing doing it after Theresa May’s leadership challenge.
posted by scorbet at 11:19 AM on July 5, 2022 [4 favorites]

The Daily Mail has turned on Boris, and they most assuredly have decades worth of dirt on Boris that they have been sitting on. I'm so sorry for you Brits, but as an American this is going to be so much fun to watch as things get ratcheted up.

I can assure you that, as a Brit, Boris’s downfall is going to give me the heartiest laugh I’ve had in aeons.
posted by HandfulOfDust at 11:21 AM on July 5, 2022 [19 favorites]

The 1922 committee can apparently change the rules if they want to

This is true, but I think that even if he lost the confidence of his own MPs Boris would be "you and whose army?" when the chair of the 1922 committee arrives with the news. He'd claim he still has the backing of the British people, threaten to call an election and dare the Tories to go into one without a leader.

He will drag this out until someone makes a clear offer of a peerage, preferably an earldom, for one last failing up.
posted by YoungStencil at 11:24 AM on July 5, 2022 [5 favorites]

So, the chancellor of the exchequer and the health minister have resigned. Usually in the UK when ministers in important positions resign, it’s followed by resignations by MPs in government roles that sound, frankly, made up. The first such just dropped, Andrew Murchison, in a weirdly blurry way, just resigned as the Government’s Trade Envoy to Morocco (though given the blurriness of the image, it might be as the Gobstopper Trotsky Anvil in Moccasins). I expect that before the end of the night we’ll see a resignation from the Subaltern Ministerial Deputy for Badger Hunting and Oversized Clocks.
posted by Kattullus at 11:26 AM on July 5, 2022 [44 favorites]

Please can we all take a moment to think of garius at this difficult time.

Trying to parody the British government right now must look like that scene in The Wrong Trousers where Gromit is frantically laying toy train track while sitting on the runaway train.
posted by Major Clanger at 11:27 AM on July 5, 2022 [32 favorites]

In the states, feel like I'm trying to go from 0 to 100 since all I’ve heard of before is the whole downing street parties thing.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:28 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Honestly, I’m loving this. I’m feeling quite giddy
posted by HandfulOfDust at 11:29 AM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm so sorry for you Brits, but as an American this is going to be so much fun to watch as things get ratcheted up.

My immediate first thought when I saw this was to want to check when the next episodes of The Last Leg would be airing so I can start figuring out how to watch them because this is gonna be gooooooooooooooood.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:30 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Trying to parody the British government right now...

I feel for RussInCheshire, who put out a very early Week In Tory (two days in Tory...) about half an hour before it all kicked off.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 11:32 AM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

As an American, I look forward to John Oliver trying to explain this to us and giving up.
posted by Etrigan at 11:32 AM on July 5, 2022 [49 favorites]

The Horny Honey Monster is on the ropes, so I think it's time to take a quick look at the runners and riders poised to take over from Boris Johnson

I feel like this has taught me as much as several Guardian articles. He calls Dorries "seemingly recruited into Tory ranks directly from a fight over the outcome of a meat raffle outside a flat-roofed pub."
posted by Countess Elena at 11:32 AM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

The Horny Honey Monster is on the ropes, so I think it's time to take a quick look at the runners and riders poised to take over from Boris Johnson
posted by lalochezia at 14:06 on July 5 [3 favorites +] [!]

Would any of these people be an actual improvement over BoJo?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:38 AM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

I feel you, Going To Maine, but since I'm in a proximate time zone, I've had since this morning (like 12-13 hours ago) to catch up on all the wtf. So fascinating, and also, how unbelievably stupid is Boris to have let this happen? He really thinks there's nothing shady he can do (or not do) that will lead him to suffer any consequence at all for anything. Maybe because his entire social and professional ("professional") and political history backs that up, but it does feel like change is afoot. I'm hanging on every word.
posted by taz at 11:39 AM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

Would any of these people be an actual improvement over BoJo?

Is fulminating scrofula an improvement on syphilis? Is a shit sandwich better than a rotted pissburger? etc.
posted by lalochezia at 11:41 AM on July 5, 2022 [4 favorites]

Johnson's Lies May Get More Extreme As the End Nears (A Different Bias, YouTube, 15m)
posted by flabdablet at 11:43 AM on July 5, 2022

UK political media loves a leadership contest more than anything else. They're salivating at the prospect.

But while it matters a bit, nothing major is going to change in British politics until there's an election that kicks the Tories out.

When Theresa May's administration was on its last legs, people got cross with me for predicting that her successor was likely to be even worse. But here we are.

If the successor is a buffoon like Liz Truss or Dominic Raab we're no better off. If it's someone marginally more reasonable, once the media start trumpeting him/her as fantastic fresh face with a raft of brilliant ideas, that makes the next election a riskier problem.

The problem isn't Boris Johnson or Theresa May, the problem is Tories.

To be honest I want Boris Johnson to lead the Tories into the next election. We haven't even had a sex scandal involving him personally yet.

And when Gordon Brown took over from Tony Blair, it was mildly controversial that we could get a Prime Minister without people endorsing him in a general election. I don't like further normalising the idea that the British Prime Minister is chosen by a Conservative Party leadership election.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:46 AM on July 5, 2022 [36 favorites]

The Tory Vice-Chair resigned live on tv, but Nadine Dorries tweeted her support for the Prime Minister.
posted by scorbet at 11:48 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

You’re absolutely right, TheophileEscargot (particularly your final paragraph), but let’s just revel in our glee for a few hours. Tomorrow can take care of itself!
posted by HandfulOfDust at 11:53 AM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

We haven’t even had a sex scandal involving him personally yet.

There’s so much in that sentence.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:57 AM on July 5, 2022 [15 favorites]

As an American, I can't figure out if I should care or not? Does this actually mean anything? Like I'm presuming at this point that Johnson will continue to be a karma Houdini and get away with whatever he wants until he dies, Trump-style, anyway. (Surely this....?) So does it matter when his staff quits or no?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:57 AM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

One the one hand, I bloody love this kind of shenanigans - I'm watching C4 News right now and there are reporters in the lobby saying in astonishment: "[Person you've never heard of but who is presumably a junior minister] has just walked past and shoved his resignation letter into our hands!" and it really does all seem to be crumbling before us in real time.

I was standing at the gates of Downing Street and later in the public gallery of the Commons on 22 November 1990, when Thatcher was ousted, and that kind of unfolding of Big Politics before your very eyes is just intoxicating.

On the other hand, maybe he still won't go and even if he does his replacement will almost certainly still be terrible.

But I always like to take the time to enjoy these moments of political joy, they're so far and few between and there's no harm rolling around in the sweet, sweet roses of the moment.
posted by penguin pie at 12:00 PM on July 5, 2022 [18 favorites]

We haven’t even had a sex scandal involving him personally yet.

Isn't there a story bubbling about him having sex with someone who wasn't approved to be in the building? (That he could have been blackmailed, and/or that she may have had access to secret documents of the sort you'd find in a secured location?)
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:00 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've been thinking, and when they do the inevitable drama about the Johnson Years, by James Graham or Peter Morgan, instead of just getting Michael Sheen in again, I want them to take the exact script they would give to Michael Sheen and just have it acted out by Spitting Image puppets.

It's nearly time for Jacob Rees-Mogg's incredibly short yet catastrophically disastrous turn as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
posted by Grangousier at 12:02 PM on July 5, 2022 [15 favorites]

Funny you should say that, Grangousier.

(SLTwitter - a tweet by James Graham from 20 minutes ago, that's just a photo of a blank writing pad, a pen, and a glass of whisky)
posted by penguin pie at 12:04 PM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

I'm presuming there will be a series of deputations of grandees this evening, and he'll just refuse to let them in and hum loudly when they try to speak.
posted by Grangousier at 12:05 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Sound choice in pen from Graham.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:09 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Nicola Sturgeon @NicolaSturgeon
Feels like end might be nigh for Johnson - not a moment too soon. Notable tho that the resigning ministers were only prepared to go when they were lied to - they defended him lying to public. The whole rotten lot need to go. And 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 needs the permanent alternative of independence
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:10 PM on July 5, 2022 [15 favorites]

As an American, I've been asking myself why this scandal? It seems like Johnson has had plenty of others that are important enough to resign over.

I barely keep half an eye on UK politics, but my guess is that this is following the "Rats abandoning a sinking ship" plotline: It is just the pretext that they have been looking for, because they know things are going to get worse, soon.
posted by adamrice at 12:12 PM on July 5, 2022 [5 favorites]

heh,❤️: James Oh Brien

@mrjamesob · 10h
Nastiest skid mark in history complains about the state of underpants.

Quote Tweet
Nigel Farage
@Nigel_Farage · 21h
The current reputation of British politics is lower than it has ever been in modern times

posted by taz at 12:13 PM on July 5, 2022 [24 favorites]

This is true, but I think that even if he lost the confidence of his own MPs Boris would be "you and whose army?" when the chair of the 1922 committee arrives with the news.

Yes, I've been wondering about that. Is there actually anything IN LAW that forces a PM to resign if he loses a vote of no confidence in the Commons? Or is it just another of those norms and conventions that people like Trump and Johnson have shown us can be casually ignored by anyone shameless enough to do so?
posted by Paul Slade at 12:17 PM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

As an American, I've been asking myself why this scandal?

This civil servant on a call-in radio show explains it well, it's not just the lying, its the lying about lying in the face of clear evidence.
posted by Lanark at 12:17 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Even Number 10's housecat Larry has tendered his resignation
posted by briank at 12:18 PM on July 5, 2022 [14 favorites]

He will drag this out until someone makes a clear offer of a peerage, preferably an earldom, for one last failing up.

Or he'll just fuck off to Kyiv where he believes he is seen for the Churchillian figure he really is, making sure the Nobel Committee know where they can find him.
posted by acb at 12:20 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Hearing that Paul Gascoigne’s just turned up at Downing Street with a fishing rod, four cans of lager and a copy of the ministerial code

(Source)
posted by fight or flight at 12:22 PM on July 5, 2022 [8 favorites]

Is there actually anything IN LAW that forces a PM to resign if he loses a vote of no confidence in the Commons?

At least theoretically, the Queen can sack him.

Professor Robert Hazell from University College London previously told the Guardian that it may be possible - but only if the PM refused to step down following a vote of no confidence. He stated that the Queen "could dismiss Boris Johnson if he lost a vote of no confidence and refused to resign"

Apparently she was already making inquiries about that back in 2019, after he illegally prorogued parliament.
posted by scorbet at 12:29 PM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

→ why this scandal?

Because it's never the big scandals, that do it: it's the ones that seem the most mundane that shake the highest perches. UK politicians can weather the biggest scandal, but a seeming small event clears the decks
posted by scruss at 12:34 PM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

straw, camels back etc
posted by lalochezia at 12:35 PM on July 5, 2022

The disconcerting thing about camels is how adaptable they are.
posted by flabdablet at 12:42 PM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

The disconcerting thing about camels is how adaptable they are.

and the fact they are ASSHOLES
posted by lalochezia at 12:43 PM on July 5, 2022

and the fact they are ASSHOLES

...which neatly brings us back to the start of this story...
posted by YoungStencil at 12:45 PM on July 5, 2022 [10 favorites]

Steve Barclay (currently Downing Street Chief of Staff) is reportedly the new Health Secretary (tweet)
posted by scorbet at 12:48 PM on July 5, 2022

This is incredibly shallow of me, but I have to admit that I mostly stopped following British politics when John Bercow stepped down as speaker. Oooooordeeeerrrrrrr!
posted by phooky at 12:51 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

At least theoretically, the Queen can sack him.

An absolutely terrible idea. The British establishment is already far too invested in the idea that the royals have "influence but not power," as though influence is anything but undocumented power. Letting Brenda do this would just open the door to letting her successors (you know, those people) fucking around with the state even more than they do now.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:52 PM on July 5, 2022 [6 favorites]

In all seriousness, does it matter that Johnson's likely out when he's just going to be replaced by another Tory? Does this mean anything other than some smirking at a shitbag's star falling even as another's rises?
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:52 PM on July 5, 2022 [6 favorites]

Steve Barclay (currently Downing Street Chief of Staff) is reportedly the new Health Secretary (tweet)
posted by scorbet at 8:48 PM on July 5 [+] [!]

Oh Christ
posted by HandfulOfDust at 12:52 PM on July 5, 2022 [4 favorites]

Michael Crick - a very experienced and smart political journalist - has just made the point that Johnson's taking an awfully long time to announce his new Chancellor. Normally, that announcement is made almost immediately because it's essential to reassure the markets. Johnson's delay suggests there's some very hardball negotiations going on in Downing Street right now, with everyone in the handful of possible candidates threatening to quit unless they get the big job.

I wonder if Sunak and David will speak in the Commons tomorrow? Can we hope for another speech as devastating as Geoffrey Howe's "broken cricket bats" assault on Margaret Thatcher? It's Prime Minister's Questions tomorrow as well. Get the popcorn in...
posted by Paul Slade at 1:04 PM on July 5, 2022 [7 favorites]

> We haven't even had a sex scandal involving him personally yet.

We kind of have - most recently the little story in Private Eye about his indiscretion as Foreign Secretary - but they just don't get noticed: one turd looks pretty much like another when you're watching the sewer.
posted by doop at 8:59 PM on July 5 [+] [!]

That’s the least of it, the absolute least of it as far as I’m concerned. It’s not great behaviour, but it’s human behaviour (scrabbling around for the kindest interpretation of that particular episode). It’s EVERYTHING ELSE that boils my piss.
posted by HandfulOfDust at 1:06 PM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

Since the Tories are such staunch traditionalists, can we watch him being dragged to the Tower for disembowelment? Please?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:18 PM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

Johnson's delay suggests there's some very hardball negotiations going on in Downing Street right now

From Jonathan Reilly:
"Stand off in No10.
Boris wants Liz Truss to become Chancellor.
But Nadhim Zahawi says he will quit if he isn't moved from Education to No11."
posted by scorbet at 1:19 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

→ why this scandal?

It's yet another confirmation that Johnson is incapable of telling the truth - just as Partygate was yet more confirmation that he considers himself and his Etonian pals to be above the law. These things have a cumulative effect, and both have finally reached a point where even diehard Tories and people who generally avoid politics can no longer ignore them.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:21 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

For those who are wondering why this is important, it's because this is the way British governments collapse. The Members of Parliament for the party that's in power choose the Prime Minister from among their ranks. When senior ministers in the Cabinet start resigning en masse, that's game over. Walking dead.

It took them a year to get Thatcher out after her Chancellor resigned, but the end was inevitable from that point onwards.

He's so vicious and toxic he could take the whole Tory circus tent down with him, which could lead to a general election sooner rather than later.

We have the chance then of voting in a generation of people who actually care about this country, rather than the current gang of asset strippers. Possibly a Labour/Lib Dem coalition who bring in proportional representation... proper funding for the NHS and social care... a gradual return to a meaningful place in the European economic and political systems...

I could go on, but yes, it's HUGE.

It's GLORIOUS to watch Johnson's personal downfall. Words cannot express my loathing. I just can't decide if I want it to be swift and brutal or slow and drawn out.
posted by doornoise at 1:22 PM on July 5, 2022 [47 favorites]

Liz Truss ? BWAHAHAHA...

What a shambles....
posted by Pendragon at 1:22 PM on July 5, 2022

Ian Dunt on Twitter always make me laugh.

Make [Nadine Dorries] chancellor. Let's see this clown car shit though to its proper conclusion
posted by inflatablekiwi at 1:34 PM on July 5, 2022 [6 favorites]

most recently the little story in Private Eye

Yes, Private Eye, that's what I was referring to, thanks!
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:35 PM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

Will Boris resign?*

*Almost certainly not.

The goofball's not for turning.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:45 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

seeing reporting now that Zahawi is Chancellor (replacing Sunak)
posted by Sockin'inthefreeworld at 1:46 PM on July 5, 2022

This is all terrible news for Keir Starmer, who will have to come up with a policy beyond “I’m not Boris Johnson” if they shuffle Bojo out.
posted by The River Ivel at 1:49 PM on July 5, 2022 [16 favorites]

The Tory Vice-Chair resigned live on tv, but Nadine Dorries tweeted her support for the Prime Minister.

Nadine Dorries is...very visibly unwell, at this point, and a lot of that seems to be focussed on Johnson. She's got an obsessive and not at all subtle crush on him, and keeps making things worse by leaping hysterically to his defence. She's pretty much the only supporter he has left, and she's Not Helping.
posted by BlueNorther at 1:52 PM on July 5, 2022 [5 favorites]

As much as I want Johnson out I keep having fevered visions of Prime Minister Dorries or Prime Minister Truss and having to get up and walk around in anxious circles for a bit.

The mantra for the last few years seems to be: it could be worse. Oh wait, now it's worse. I don't have enough faith in the universe not to cough up something Much Worse.
posted by fight or flight at 1:59 PM on July 5, 2022 [17 favorites]

It may be different in the actual UK, but here in the colonies (Aus/NZ, maybe Canada) the Gov General (who is essentially the stand-in for the queen) has 2 powers:
- to sign bills into law (or rather to not do if they are egregiously bad - this is never done, yet)
- to call an election if parliament can't function - for example if they don't have enough votes to spend the money the govt needs to function, or they lose a motion of no confidence (which is essentially the same thing)

That second is almost never used - it was used in Australia to kick out the Whitlam govt under rather sketchy circumstances (remember The Falcon and The Snowman?) - with the queens OK. This power is what I assume the queen would use to kick Boris out and call a new election if he lost confidence
posted by mbo at 2:04 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

my grasp of Canadian parliamentary history is not great, but I can't think of a time the Gov. General ever unilaterally imposed their position in any way you have described.

my impression is, it's a title with no clout.. some interesting personalities, and you hope they bring a little panache to the ceremonies and that's it
posted by elkevelvet at 2:08 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

my grasp of Canadian parliamentary history is not great, but I can't think of a time the Gov. General ever unilaterally imposed their position in any way you have described.

It's a power they absolutely have but traditionally only been exercised on the advice and consent of the PM. When a writ of election is issued in a Westminster country it's always the Governor-General (or the Crown itself in the case of the UK) that issues it. It is by their command that parliament is dissolved and by their command that parliament is reconstituted after the election.

I don't think any Governor-General in this day and age would dare unilaterally dismiss a government in a Commonwealth country anymore since that would basically be immediate grounds for basically breaking with the Crown but it's a power they definitely have.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 2:14 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Johnson will never resign. He doesn't have the character to be able to acknowledge his defeat and go down gracefully. He's never had to follow the normal rules of social order in his life, he isn't going to start now. He doesn't comprehend the idea that there would be personal consequences to him for digging in.
posted by interogative mood at 2:19 PM on July 5, 2022 [9 favorites]

He doesn't comprehend the idea that there would be personal consequences to him for digging in.

Will there be? Writing from the states here, but I kind of assume that if he has to leave, he just has to leave.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:30 PM on July 5, 2022

I wonder if he'll hold on just to make sure he doesn't quit sooner than Cameron did when everyone found out he'd fucked that pig's head.
posted by fight or flight at 2:34 PM on July 5, 2022 [4 favorites]

I've only just seen this. There's been no mention of it in the very busy Facebook group which occupies my time - Ridgeway and Ancient Tracks of Britain - where today things have been kicking off in there also, but on a different topic (whether mention of Ley Lines should be allowed in the group).

The bookies currently have Rishi Sunak as the favourite to be the next Conservative leader, followed by the former magician's assistant Penny Mordaunt, and then Ben Wallace and Liz Truss.
posted by Wordshore at 2:38 PM on July 5, 2022 [5 favorites]

I don't think any Governor-General in this day and age would dare unilaterally dismiss a government in a Commonwealth country anymore since that would basically be immediate grounds for basically breaking with the Crown but it's a power they definitely have.

I believe these are called the "Reserve powers" - dismissing a PM, withholding assent for a bill, refusing to dissolve Parliament, etc. The last time something like this was used federally in Canada was in 1926 in the King-Byng affair, when King (the PM) asked Byng (the GG) to dissolve Parliament ahead of a non-confidence vote and Byng refused, giving the Conservatives a chance to form government first. The legal and cultural context has evolved since then, obviously, and I expect it would lead to a full-blown constitutional crisis if it were to happen again (not that it wasn't an issue in 1926) - but the minority governments of recent vintage have discovered the power of proroguing. However, this also happened recently at a Provincial level - in 2017 the Lieutenant Governor of BC refused to dissolve the legislature when the Liberal party realized that, by appointing a Speaker from their own ranks, they had placed themselves in a minority position (this happened 51 days after the election). Instead, the LG invited the leader of the next largest party to see if they could form government.
posted by nubs at 2:41 PM on July 5, 2022 [6 favorites]

Could Johnson be invited back up on the zip line, then left there until his limbs fall off naturally? It would solve a couple of problems, and the really "hard on crime" faction would like the return of hnaging in irons.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:44 PM on July 5, 2022 [8 favorites]

Keir Starmer can't possibly ever be PM, he had a beer one time.
posted by chavenet at 2:47 PM on July 5, 2022 [6 favorites]

Solicitor General Alex Chalk has gone as of 4 minutes ago. Never heard of him but his job sounds important, so...
posted by penguin pie at 2:52 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

And Chalk has resigned.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 2:52 PM on July 5, 2022

his job sounds important

The Solicitor General is the deputy to the Attorney General for England and Wales (Scotland having its own legal system and thus law officers). It's an important post, although it's been a bit of a revolving door under Johnson.
posted by Major Clanger at 3:02 PM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

Solicitor General Alex Chalk has gone
Interesting that the day part of the date was handwritten.
posted by Lanark at 3:07 PM on July 5, 2022 [20 favorites]

Is the doctrine of Parliamentary supremacy, by which light a king got his head removed, still a thing? If it is, that surely solves the problem of how to get rid of him, if Parliament decides to assert itself.
posted by clawsoon at 3:13 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Boris is clownish enough that perhaps Lynne Truss will get the job.
posted by wenestvedt at 3:25 PM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

I know it's only part of the government by technicality, but - didn't I also hear that Queen Elizabeth's duties were also severely cut back this weekend?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:26 PM on July 5, 2022

The mantra for the last few years seems to be: it could be worse. Oh wait, now it's worse.
This is an English translation of "When they came for the trade unionists..."

Austerity, ongoing payments to "too big to fail" businesses to keep a line going up, earning power dissolving so that food banks are available in workplaces that don't actually paying people money they need to live on, eroding our social safety nets by taking 20,000 police out of a short-staffed system, plus promising then withholding pay rises to nurses who'd worked extra during the covid lockdown, bunging £180m here and there for covid emergency supplies without capability assessed in the regular accountable ways, and it goes on...

May the leopard not eat my face.
posted by k3ninho at 3:29 PM on July 5, 2022 [10 favorites]

This is an English translation of "When they came for the trade unionists..."

They do seem to be coming for the trade unionists.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:43 PM on July 5, 2022 [8 favorites]

Those photos of Nadhim Zahawi looking soooooo happy about his new position remind me of nothing so much as the Mitchell and Webb sketch about Admiral Dönitz.
posted by Kattullus at 3:49 PM on July 5, 2022 [25 favorites]

The last time something like this was used federally in Canada was in 1926 in the King-Byng affair, when King (the PM) asked Byng (the GG) to dissolve Parliament ahead of a non-confidence vote and Byng refused, giving the Conservatives a chance to form government first. The legal and cultural context has evolved since then, obviously,

My understanding of it is that the King-Byng Affair is exactly why Governors-General have very limited executive powers now.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:53 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

Any chance we could keep this thread about the UK? Ta.
posted by runincircles at 3:57 PM on July 5, 2022 [13 favorites]

King-Byng------------------// Lady Byng Trophy

".. and like vermin, the Canadians infected the discussion with hockey, The End."
posted by elkevelvet at 3:59 PM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

Canadians came in and the Brits got all quiet all of a sudden. Makes me suspicious.
posted by clawsoon at 4:03 PM on July 5, 2022 [12 favorites]

I was just reviewing some clips of coverage on the issue and heard one reporter refer to the situation as "A Tarantino-esque SQUID GAME", and if nothing else that is certainly presenting a mental image.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:16 PM on July 5, 2022 [3 favorites]

My understanding is that if he doesn’t resign, he is PM for the next 11 months because he won the vote of no confidence. He won’t resign. He’ll wait for the next election or a no confidence vote to be forced out.
posted by interogative mood at 4:23 PM on July 5, 2022

My read was the 1922 Committee can change that rule if they choose to do so.

From the I’s article today:

A second no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson could take place within three weeks, some Conservative rebels believe as they gear up for a vote on who should run the 1922 Committee of backbenchers.

The Committee will announce the timetable for a vote on its new executive on Wednesday, with the vote seen as a proxy contest on the Prime Minister’s future.

A number of candidates for the executive have declared that they would support a change in party rules, scrapping the compulsory year-long gap between formal leadership challenges.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 4:47 PM on July 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have been enjoying this - even the Daily Fail hasd dumped him, calling him a )greased piglet). However, like most such leaders he has got rid of anyone in his government who could pose a real leadership threat to him, and we are left with the grim prospect of Rees-Mogg (who I really can't belivr id real), Truss or (gods help us) Dorris as PM. At least Maggie T was reasonably competent as PM, even if hr policies were from hell, but this cockwomble isn;t even that.
posted by Fuchsoid at 4:52 PM on July 5, 2022 [4 favorites]

re: a Governor-General dismissing a government.

Speaking as an Australian who remembers 1975, the one saving grace of that action is that it went back to the people to endorse or reject via an election.

It may have been an undemocratic first step, and I am not saying it is a great system or I like it. But ultimately the voters got to rule on the decision via a non-violent means.
posted by Pouteria at 6:06 PM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

From this outsider's perspective, if Johnson is put up to a No Confidence vote in the Commons (not just the Tory party conference) and loses, and then refuses to resign, the Queen dismissing him is one of the few things I think that will strengthen public support for the Monarchy at this point.

That's only assuming the Tories have a successor that can command the majority of the Commons which they may not given Boris still seems to control a good proportion of the party and the Tories only have a 39 seat majority. The Queen, who has ardently followed the advice of her Prime Minister during her reign, isn't suddenly going to send the Commons into bedlam by using one of her most grave of powers just because the Tories can't sack the PM themselves and then let them work it out later.

Plus a lot of this has been worked out in the Fixed Terms Act. If there's a no confidence vote in the House then two weeks later a snap election is called which will ultimately sort the whole shit out. The problem that the Tories are trying to avoid is going to an election with all this shit going on because they'd be (rightly) slaughtered by the electorate. They're politically trying to have their cake at eat it too. Boris probably knows this and is basically strapped to the PM's chair which he's wired with explosives, sitting on a pressure pad detonator.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:17 PM on July 5, 2022 [5 favorites]

The problem that the Tories are trying to avoid is going to an election with all this shit going on because they'd be (rightly) slaughtered by the electorate.

That feels like wishful thinking to me. Unless by slaughtered you mean a slightly smaller majority or having to go back to a supply and confidence agreement with the DUP.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:43 PM on July 5, 2022 [6 favorites]

What will become of the Baron? Surely this time there is no escape! (SLYT, spoiler: there is an escape.)
posted by erikred at 7:15 PM on July 5, 2022

→ a Labour/Lib Dem coalition

Unlikely to happen. Remember the Lib Dems are the party for people who hate Labour, but don't want to vote Tory. Wasn't there some noise recently about the Lib Dems not ruling out a pact with the Tories, despite what happened a few years back? A headless Tory party, with the Lib Dems as their toy poodle and the DUP maybe providing C&S would win easily (unfortunately). Even looking from the wrong side of the pond, Labour has nothing: no spine, no message, no appeal. The fact that they're entirely ruling out working with the SNP (who basically have all the seats it's possible to have under the Scottish Parliament system) shows that they're not part of the reality brigade.

Scotland's Indyref2 (Boris down the loo) is at the "interesting times" stage, with the legality of it being referred to the Supreme Court of the UK. Either this confirms that the Scottish Parliament does have the authority to call for independence, or the whole premise for the Scottish Parliament's existence is called into question. Either way, in the absence of a strong PM, this gamble's going to be much more tense than whatever happens with those moist wankers in London.
posted by scruss at 7:35 PM on July 5, 2022 [15 favorites]

We haven't even had a sex scandal involving him personally yet.

There was the Jennifer Arcuri corruption scandal of 2019.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:10 PM on July 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

There's also the rumors about the Canadian [REDACTED] who he got [REDACTED] but there might be a super-injunction covering that.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:22 PM on July 5, 2022

Ever since my own state began officially failing in November 2016, I have watched UK politics, at first just for distraction, but now I see it as a key to understanding the U. S.

The Celtic states as the first imperial colonies. The racism is coming from inside the building! All the same fundamental "reasons" that various minorities can never be Real Americans mirror the class system in the UK - "culture of failure", "no respect for the language,"

Also, I could never really understand where Dorries came from - she wasn't grown in a posh public-school vat liked the others - but it finally struck me that she's just a MargeTailorGreen-style know-nothing, giving a veneer of Jes Plain Folks to the sharkskin suits.

Bodger is not exactly Trump, but they clearly rhyme. And Labour's Red Wall problem, where they're unable to blame Brexit, rhymes with the Democrats being unable to expand entitlements, because a bunch of honkeys are worried that the wrong sort of people might be slightly less immiserated.
posted by Rat Spatula at 10:49 PM on July 5, 2022 [12 favorites]

...and to bring it around to the topic at hand, I mean, "surely this". I accept what you GMT people say about it always being the small scandals that actually bring the PM down, and I accept that none of the scandals will bring him down until the last one, and I accept that the Deep Tory State will want Sunak replaced with someone "competent", but holy bendy bananas, we are so far through the looking glass that I can't share your confidence.
posted by Rat Spatula at 11:06 PM on July 5, 2022

Although I guess the Daily Mail un-choosing Bodger is the real danger for him here. But unless they can provide an alternative, they're just attacking him, which might just energize his defenders - they need a succession plan.
posted by Rat Spatula at 11:13 PM on July 5, 2022

the Tories only have a 39 seat majority

The Tories have a simple majority of 66. They may well be able to boost this from DUP etc as well as the independent group of sexual predators that have been kicked out of the Tory party for now. See here.
posted by biffa at 12:21 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

I wonder what price Liz Truss extracted from Johnson last night in return for meekly accepting he'd snubbed her as Chancellor? He must surely have had to throw her a bone of some kind, if only to prevent her marching out to join the rebels there and then.

She's already Foreign Secretary, so the only promotion remaining now would be to offer her Dominic Raab's current job as deputy PM - a change which would likely cause more trouble rather than less. Maybe Johnson's hinted at a Blair/Brown kind of deal, promising Truss he'll quit soon and back her as his successor? Because that's sure to end well...
posted by Paul Slade at 12:36 AM on July 6, 2022

I wonder what price Liz Truss extracted from Johnson last night in return for meekly accepting he'd snubbed her as Chancellor?

I'd love to know how realistic a prospect that was. The markets would have gone through the floor.
posted by GeorgeBickham at 12:43 AM on July 6, 2022

All of this is a pointless bit of failed political theatre. Some of Boris's old cabinet thought they could shame him into leaving. I guess Tories never had a reputation for being fucking clever.
posted by Dysk at 1:03 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

However, like most such leaders he has got rid of anyone in his government who could pose a real leadership threat to him

It’s irrelevant who he’s got rid of from the government - a leadership challenge can come from anybody in the Parliamentary party, and in fact the people who are no longer in the government are the ones most likely to mount a leadership challenge - hence Sunak and Javid getting out and distancing themselves from his failing leadership so that they’re ready to try and take over.

Also - as well as keeping the topic on the UK, would be good to not have a thread full of hot takes about the Queen from people overseas. She does not and will not interfere in the Government, she’s really not much relevant to this situation, and bringing her into the conversation smacks a little of “As an American [/insert other country here] I don’t understand this fully so let me chip in with something British that I’ve heard of.” Thanks.
posted by penguin pie at 1:24 AM on July 6, 2022 [25 favorites]

There's also the rumors about the Canadian [REDACTED] who he got [REDACTED] but there might be a super-injunction covering that.

I thought the superinjunction was about the Russian violinist
posted by acb at 1:32 AM on July 6, 2022

> Plus a lot of this has been worked out in the Fixed Terms Act.

The fixed term parliaments act was repealed by the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022
posted by Luddite at 1:46 AM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

penguin pie: [Her Majesty the Queen] does not and will not interfere in the Government

It seems there are lawyers who advocate for HM Queen's personal gain: Queen's Consent alleged to be used to protect private wealth from Feb 2021, and Crown Consent near-certainly used in Scotland to exempt HM Queen's land from law changes aimed at reducing climate emissions from June 2022.
posted by k3ninho at 1:48 AM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

Alastair Campbell rips into everyone but especially BoJo on SkyNews
posted by chavenet at 1:56 AM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

I hate to break it to the commonwealth but Liz isn’t going to sort Boris out. Those cases are the rare instance of the monarch using legal representation to argue for improvements that benefitted her. They’re not the queen getting involved in politics.
posted by The River Ivel at 1:58 AM on July 6, 2022 [11 favorites]

Remember the Lib Dems are the party for people who hate Labour, but don't want to vote Tory

Prior to 2016, maybe. Now they're an obvious choice for remainers, right? Starmer has to appease the Red Wall self-harmers, Davey doesn't.

Lib Dems will also benefit from tactical voting, especially those in true blue seats where you might calculate that Labour will never get in, but the Lib Dem might have a chance. Speaking as someone who's voted both Labour and Lib Dem in GEs in the past, and lives outside Cambridge, where the swing for South Cambs and South East Cambs was to the Lib Dems in the last GE: if there's an election soon, Lib Dems look the obvious choice.
posted by pw201 at 2:11 AM on July 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Thing is, there's only one Labour leader in the last 40 years thats been able to win any elections (and now everyone hates them). Meanwhile the Tories have had three different leaders in the last 7 years, and nonetheless all three of them have won elections. So whoever follows Boris is likely to stay in power.
posted by memebake at 2:31 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Sajid Javid will give a speech to parliament today, after Johnson has faced prime minister’s questions. Lots of people bringing up Geoffrey Howe, whose speech against Thatcher is considered to have been the fatal blow to her prime ministership. If, like me, you need reminding what he said, Jonathan Maitland wrote a good article about it a couple of years ago. Excerpt:

What makes a truly great speech? The ancient Greeks – who knew a thing or two about oratory – reckoned the most important thing by far was timing. They even invented a specific word for it: kairos. Defined by the dictionary as “the perfect, critical or opportune moment”.

The Geoffrey Howe resignation speech which destroyed Margaret Thatcher’s political career precisely 30 years ago last week had kairos by the bucketload. But then it needed to. Delivery was never Howe’s strong point. As his political rival Denis Healey famously noted, an attack from Geoffrey was like “being savaged by a dead sheep”. Without the all-important kairos, the speech would have languished in the footnotes rather than being hailed by the editor of Hansard in 2015 as the greatest parliamentary speech of all time.

Warning: Contains cricket.
posted by Kattullus at 3:01 AM on July 6, 2022 [11 favorites]

Like enacting the last days of Rome with the cast of Rainbow
posted by lalochezia at 3:24 AM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

Some of Boris's old cabinet thought they could shame him into leaving.

“If the only tool in your political arsenal is shame, don’t be surprised what happens when you meet a shameless man.” ― Jarett Kobek, Only Americans Burn in Hell.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:42 AM on July 6, 2022 [14 favorites]

Best line ever: "First recorded case of the sinking ship fleeing the rat." - Keir Starmer
posted by mbo at 4:40 AM on July 6, 2022 [45 favorites]

Also: Starmer dismisses resigning Tories as 'charge of the lightweight brigade' and says ministers left are 'Z-list of nodding dogs'.

This is prurient childish schoolboy shit. I love it.
posted by lalochezia at 5:00 AM on July 6, 2022 [24 favorites]

My favorite line was Ian Blackford’d callback: "A few weeks ago I compared the Prime Minister to Monty Python's Black Knight. Actually, it turns out I was wrong, he is actually the Dead Parrot. Whether he knows it or not, he is an ex-prime minister.”
posted by Kattullus at 5:07 AM on July 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

Keir Starmer can't possibly ever be PM, he had a beer one time

although rumour has it he didn't inhale
posted by flabdablet at 5:08 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

The most striking statement was by conservative MP Gary Sambrook. I’ll quote from the Guardian’s liveblog:

The most devasting intervention during the session was an unexpected one. During PMQs Tory MP Gary Sambrook, said that yesterday, in the Commons tearoom, Johnson told colleagues “there were seven people, MPs, in the Carlton Club last week and one of them should have tried to intervene to stop Chris [Pincher] from drinking so much”. Sambook went on: “As if that wasn’t insulting enough to the people who did try and intervene that night. And then also to the victims that drink was the problem. Isn’t it the example that the prime minister constantly tries to deflect from the issue, always tries to blame other people for mistakes and that at least nothing left for him to do other than to take responsibility and resign?”

This seemed to sum up the problem in a nutshell. And it explains why support for Johnson is draining away.

posted by Kattullus at 5:39 AM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

The Geoffrey Howe resignation speech which destroyed Margaret Thatcher’s political career precisely 30 years ago last week had kairos by the bucketload.

Its impact was also increased by the fact that the dead sheep had suddenly sprouted such deadly fangs. Howe had long been dismissed as a hopelessly timid stooge for Margaret Thatcher, who'd begun treating him with more or less open contempt as a result. No-one thought he had it in him to speak out against her at all, let alone to plunge the knife in so effectively. Just listen to the laughter in the chamber when he gets to his big killer line.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:53 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

"I'd like to see Boris get himself out of this one!"

*Boris easily gets himself out of this one*

"Ah. Yes. Well, nevertheless..."
posted by AlSweigart at 6:19 AM on July 6, 2022 [7 favorites]

Dr. Philip Lee (Twitter):

There's a dude on the tube literally making an excel spreadsheet of who's gone so far.

He's added in colours for cabinet secretaries, ministers, PPS, and trade envoys. Man is a pro.
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 6:38 AM on July 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

"when I was prosecuting rapists you were giving known sexual predators jobs in the cabinet"

Keir is basically Diet Tory but that's a good line.

27 down so far. I don't know about angels getting their wings but I definitely get a little bit of endorphin every time a Tory resigns.
posted by slimepuppy at 6:48 AM on July 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

27 down, 95 (MPs with ministerial positions) still to go.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 6:56 AM on July 6, 2022

... ah, hang on, not all of the 27 were ministers. Meh, at this rate we'll get there anyway.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 7:00 AM on July 6, 2022

hang on, not all of the 27 were ministers
The BBC has been keeping a running total, divided by job. It's 15 ministers at the moment.
posted by scorbet at 7:02 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

(Oops forgot the link)
posted by scorbet at 7:04 AM on July 6, 2022

I don't know about angels getting their wings but I definitely get a little bit of endorphin every time a Tory resigns

this is giving me as much joy as I expect to get unless and until certain Republican lawmakers are perp-walked
posted by Countess Elena at 7:05 AM on July 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

I'm finding some of the signatures on these letters fascinating. Yesterday there was one that I believe was the resignation letter from the Minister for Giant Handwriting; today has brought us this letter which has a signature style.
posted by nubs at 7:31 AM on July 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

Michael Gove has told the PM it's time for him to go.
posted by Optamystic at 7:35 AM on July 6, 2022

I'm finding some of the signatures on these letters fascinating.

I find it interesting that on both of those, "Dear Prime Minister" is handwritten instead of typed.
posted by joannemerriam at 7:47 AM on July 6, 2022

A questioner in the liaison committee on integrity in politics, on not getting a clear answer, responded 'perhaps Michael Gove can answer this later - if he's still there'.

He's now just a punchline to a joke, and it's nice the taxpayer isn't funding his more entitled ones for a change.
posted by davemee at 7:48 AM on July 6, 2022

There's a new twitter account that has been rating and critiquing the letters.
posted by scorbet at 7:50 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

There's a dude on the tube literally making an excel spreadsheet of who's gone so far.

Same energy as what has all my editor friends cackling: Rate your resignation letter "rates resignation letters - by originality, brevity, brutality, damage-infliction and future prospects. Out of 20."
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 7:50 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

@Nicola Sturgeon (commenting on recent 5-in one resignation) "Tories in paper saving mode now. How much longer can this go on? If Johnson has merest scrap of concern for anyone but himself he will resign immediately. And then.. let’s have an election to choose an alternative. For 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 the permanent alternative is independence"

As of last week, the Scottish Government were taking the position that they would continue to plan for an IndyRef2 next October - they are asking the UK Supreme court to rule whether it thinks they have the right to do so. If they say "no" then they would fight the next G.E as a plebiscite citing the issue of independence only - and that would normally be some time after October 2023. It is therefore interesting to see Sturgeon's "Bring it on" stance to the prospect of a G.E run much earlier than anticipated.
posted by rongorongo at 7:52 AM on July 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

I don’t want to turn this just into a thread of copy & pastes of the best tweets, but that ship may have already sailed so here’s a cracker from John Niven:

There's a chance this ends with Johnson and Dorries driving off Beachy Head, Thelma and Louise style. But she's pulling him off and he's crying.
posted by penguin pie at 7:56 AM on July 6, 2022 [12 favorites]

For the avoidance of doubt this is what Craig Williams signature normally looks like, unlike todays letter.
posted by Lanark at 8:04 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Apparently the new health secretary tried to block the vaccine rollout, but NHS chiefs ignored him and started doing it anyway.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 8:07 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Apologies, more from Twitter: Periodic Table of Resignations, anyone?
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:10 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

I love how many of the resignation letters close with "Yours ever," [NAME].

more like "Yours, never," amirite
posted by taz at 8:14 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

there was one that I believe was the resignation letter from the Minister for Giant Handwriting

Perhaps he's related to John Hancock.

Michael Gove has told the PM it's time for him to go.

Which means its time to revisit these two Michael Gove clips.

I find it interesting that on both of those, "Dear Prime Minister" is handwritten instead of typed.

I believe that's the proper etiquette when trying to force the resignation of someone you know personally. Anything else would be rude.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:18 AM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

The natural leaders of England: "I've never come across people coming up to me in an electrical store asking me to support any other Prime Minister that I've come across."
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 8:21 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

They were big, burly guys, and they were crying. Sir, they said, Sir, please support Boris.
posted by taz at 8:25 AM on July 6, 2022 [16 favorites]

the new chancellor is calling for Johnson to resign
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 8:41 AM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

My only regret about this thread is that I didn't call it "Downfall in Downing Street" - maybe we can use that one for whatever happens next.
posted by YoungStencil at 8:45 AM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

Expectation among Tory rebels is that at 5pm — in 15 minutes — the committee's exec will announce to the rest of the Tory parliamentary party that the rules have changed to allow another confidence vote, that the letters are already in and that a fresh vote will be held on Monday
posted by Pendragon at 8:48 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

We'll save that one for the it could be worse. Oh wait, now it's worse that follows this.
posted by Braeburn at 8:48 AM on July 6, 2022

Meanwhile, over in this week's Doonesbury re-runs.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:51 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

#Clownfall is now trending on British Twitter.
posted by Paul Slade at 9:00 AM on July 6, 2022 [26 favorites]

Happy one month anniversary to that no-confidence vote, I guess.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:06 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

There is news that the cabinet ministers have sent a team of people to meet with Johnson and tell him to just resign already.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:17 AM on July 6, 2022

They're gonna have to firehose him out of there.
posted by Optamystic at 9:20 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

team of people to meet with Johnson and tell him to just resign already

The best part being that it includes two of the people that he appointed last night - Zahawi and Donelan.
posted by scorbet at 9:24 AM on July 6, 2022 [7 favorites]

do they all just wait hiding in a cupboard and when he walks in jump out
posted by lalochezia at 9:26 AM on July 6, 2022 [11 favorites]

They're gonna have to firehose him out of there.

Shame it didn’t all happen sooner, they could have got some very big hoses at a very good price.
posted by penguin pie at 9:26 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

the new chancellor is calling for Johnson to resign

I mean, that's just ... *chef's kiss*.
posted by Paul Slade at 9:29 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

> Pendragon: "Expectation among Tory rebels is that at 5pm — in 15 minutes — the committee's exec will announce to the rest of the Tory parliamentary party that the rules have changed to allow another confidence vote, that the letters are already in and that a fresh vote will be held on Monday"

Update from @elenicourea:

Breaking

1922 committee exec has not changed the rules

Instead a vote to elect a new exec will he held on Monday

Nominations open today

So, I guess they're going to try giving him a few more days to just get on with it already?
posted by mhum at 9:31 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

They can't threaten to bolt to UKIP because Boris literally does not give a fuck about the party, only about being PM.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:40 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

From the graun:

As Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke came out of the 1922 Committee meeting, he was asked if the prime minister would still be in post by Monday. He replied: “Have you met anyone in the building that thinks that?”

Sick burn
posted by lalochezia at 9:41 AM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

Donnetz telling Hitler he had to go would have been a very different ending to WW2
posted by Going To Maine at 9:47 AM on July 6, 2022

It would have been for Donitz, yeah.
posted by atrazine at 9:57 AM on July 6, 2022 [14 favorites]

As of last week, the Scottish Government were taking the position that they would continue to plan for an IndyRef2 next October - they are asking the UK Supreme court to rule whether it thinks they have the right to do so. If they say "no" then they would fight the next G.E as a plebiscite citing the issue of independence only - and that would normally be some time after October 2023. It is therefore interesting to see Sturgeon's "Bring it on" stance to the prospect of a G.E run much earlier than anticipated.

To be clear, they're asking the court to rule on whether they have the legal power to run an advisory referendum. There is no question that they do not have the power to run a binding one.
posted by atrazine at 10:00 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Remember: Brexit was an "advisory" referendum too....
posted by lalochezia at 10:02 AM on July 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

’I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party
posted by The River Ivel at 10:26 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Watching BBC world news (I'm on me hols) and they are running an on-screen counter: Resignations since yesterday. It currently stands at 38.
posted by biffa at 10:33 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

BATTLE ROYALE

@Steven_Swinford: No 10 divided:
Two groups of Cabinet ministers are gathered in No 10
Loyalists who argue that forcing PM out would lead to snap election & Labour SNP coalition
Newly minted rebels who want him gone
They are gathered *in different parts of the building*
posted by Wordshore at 10:37 AM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

This tumblr is always an excellent source of clear and hilarious commentary on the UK clownshow. They're honestly my favourite news source at this point.
The tag to follow is 'adventures of big dog the clown,' if you want to understand what the hell is actually happening and also be blackly amused.
posted by BlueNorther at 10:41 AM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

Again from Steven Swinford, just now:

Graham Brady has received a huge number of confidence letters
His office said to have been a revolving door today with people handing in letters every 5 minutes
Brady will tell PM but there's no guarantee he will go
Tory MP: 'He's like a cockroach in a nuclear apocalypse'
posted by Wordshore at 10:49 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's a shame that talk of Geoffrey Howe's 1990 resignation speech has been limited to the kairos, the drama and the cricket gags, when its substance is so relevant to the present shambles:

An excerpt [transcript, video]:

It was the late Lord Stockton, formerly Harold Macmillan, who first put the central point clearly. As long ago as 1962, he argued that we had to place and keep ourselves within the EC. He saw it as essential then, as it is today, not to cut ourselves off from the realities of power; not to retreat into a ghetto of sentimentality about our past and so diminish our own control over our own destiny in the future.

The pity is that the Macmillan view had not been perceived more clearly a decade before in the 1950s. It would have spared us so many of the struggles of the last 20 years had we been in the Community from the outset; had we been ready, in the much too simple phrase, to "surrender some sovereignty" at a much earlier stage.

If we had been in from the start, as almost everybody now acknowledges, we should have had more, not less, influence over the Europe in which we live today. We should never forget the lesson of that isolation, of being on the outside looking in, for the conduct of today's affairs.

We have done best when we have seen the Community not as a static entity to be resisted and contained, but as an active process which we can shape, often decisively, provided that we allow ourselves to be fully engaged in it, with confidence, with enthusiasm and in good faith.

We must at all costs avoid presenting ourselves yet again with an over-simplified choice, a false antithesis, a bogus dilemma, between one alternative, starkly labelled "co-operation between independent sovereign states" and a second, equally crudely labelled alternative, "centralised, federal super-state", as if there were no middle way in between.

We commit a serious error if we think always in terms of "surrendering" sovereignty and seek to stand pat for all time on a given deal—by proclaiming, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did two weeks ago, that we have "surrendered enough".

The European enterprise is not and should not be seen like that—as some kind of zero sum game. Sir Winston Churchill put it much more positively 40 years ago, when he said: "It is also possible and not less agreeable to regard" this sacrifice or merger of national sovereignty "as the gradual assumption by all the nations concerned of that larger sovereignty which can alone protect their diverse and distinctive customs and characteristics and their national traditions."

I have to say that I find Winston Churchill's perception a good deal more convincing, and more encouraging for the interests of our nation, than the nightmare image sometimes conjured up by my right hon. Friend, who seems sometimes to look out upon a continent that is positively teeming with ill-intentioned people, scheming, in her words, to "extinguish democracy", to "dissolve our national identities" and to lead us "through the back-door into a federal Europe"."

What kind of vision is that for our business people, who trade there each day, for our financiers, who seek to make London the money capital of Europe or for all the young people of today?

That is what brought Thatcher down, and yet here we are.
posted by automatronic at 10:55 AM on July 6, 2022 [33 favorites]

its a shame dall-e doesn't do living people

prompts such as

"boris johnson as the walking dead resigning from office"

"boris johnson as unkillable zombie clown"

"boris johnson hangs on by his fingertips from chasm under westminster"

would be......a good test
posted by lalochezia at 11:22 AM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

What kind of vision is that for our business people, who trade there each day, for our financiers, who seek to make London the money capital of Europe

In the end the Tory shines through.
posted by clawsoon at 11:27 AM on July 6, 2022

boris johnson as the walking dead resigning from office
posted by Ahmad Khani at 11:27 AM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

boris johnson as the walking dead resigning from office

🎵 🎵 It's the most woooonderful timee of the yeeeaaar🎵 🎵
posted by lalochezia at 11:31 AM on July 6, 2022

Part of me is curious to see what happens if he just clings on. It's not as if it's ever happened before or would ever happen again.

According to David Allen Green, it comes down to the Royal Prerogative, which basically means forcing the Queen to fire him. Which is one of those things the Crown can do but shouldn't have to.

The problem is that the Tory Party works on the Good Chap theory - that anyone in a position of responsibility will do the right thing because he's going to be a Good Chap. It's clear they never devised a plan for when it turns out the Good Chap isn't.

So let's see what happens. It's like constitutional extreme sports. And I've got plenty of popcorn.
posted by Grangousier at 11:55 AM on July 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

Seems to me it can’t be good for the opposition if Johnson goes. He’s losing the Tories votes. If - looking like when at this point - he goes there’ll be a honeymoon period for the government and they’ll continue doing vile things (eg immigration policy) for longer. Assuming Johnson going doesn’t lead to an election, and I can’t see why it would given the current majority. Please tell me I’m missing something and I should feel a sliver of hope about this.
posted by paduasoy at 11:58 AM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

ITV's deputy political editor reports that Johnson is refusing to resign. He's trying to scare the rebels by saying his departure would mean a chaotic leadership contest and pressure for a General Election later this year - which, if called, the Tories could well lose. These seem to be the last two cards he has to play.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:00 PM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

I realize this is hardly the most important reason, but I was hoping that Johnson would resign before the opening match of the Women’s Euros, so that I could enjoy the game without wondering why the loud, disheveled man hasn’t been escorted off the premises.
posted by Kattullus at 12:02 PM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

I suspect you're right paduasoy, but you might get lucky (?) and find he clings on and on, running the party down as he goes? But if they do get rid of him, and do carry on doing vile things, it's just an alternative to having Johnson in place doing vile things, so not sure what option there is in the immediate future that might be any better. (On preview: I guess him staying in place and ruining the party followed by a GE is the dream? God what a dystopia we live in...)

Personally I've always found Johnson's sheer "this job is just what I deserve"-ness to be especially odious, so getting rid of him would still be a gift.
posted by penguin pie at 12:09 PM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

It's difficult to say what happens next, apart from the fact that there seems to be an undercurrent of Austerity revivalism, which is unlikely to play as well in 2022 as it did in 2012. So who knows? There are a lot of fuckwits in the Tory party, more than capable of failing on their own terms. They don't need Big Dog for that.
posted by Grangousier at 12:14 PM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

BBC now reporting that even Priti Patel has told Johnson to resign.

Nadine Dorries auditioning for the political equivalent of Eva Braun in the Fuhrerbunker at this point.
posted by automatronic at 12:16 PM on July 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Could we petition the makers of Downfall to allow one more parody? It would be the perfect swan song for a venerable meme.
posted by Grangousier at 12:26 PM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

In the end the Tory shines through.

A slightly strange remark. There's no "shining through" he's not a secret Conservative who - aha! - showed his true colours in the end, he was on the Conservative front bench.
posted by atrazine at 12:30 PM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

der Bau von 40 neuen Krankenhäusern war ein Befehl!
posted by atrazine at 12:31 PM on July 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Rory Stewart: In the end he has to go because he will lose ministers faster than he can replace them and Nadine Dorries cannot do all the jobs in government.

Simon: *any of the jobs.
posted by Wordshore at 12:37 PM on July 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

"I don't know if Carrie Johnson reads my tweets but Carrie, if you've been thinking of leaving him there will never be a funnier moment than right now"

posted by automatronic at 12:46 PM on July 6, 2022 [23 favorites]

Remember that Blackadder scene where General Melchet expresses sympathy for George's late rabbit Flossie, only for George to point out it was Melchet himself who'd shot the poor beast? Well, Boris Johnson's professed concern for the British economy is like that.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:49 PM on July 6, 2022 [14 favorites]

Again on BBC world news, the sketch writer for the independent was just saying this is a disaster of Johnson's own making, there's been no economic crisis etc. I thought we were in an economic crisis? Where do these useless pricks live? That's not to say Boris hasn't been shit but it seems out of touch with reality.

BBC are now saying the PM has just sacked Gove.
posted by biffa at 1:18 PM on July 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

Michael Gove has been fired! Even I’ve heard of him!
posted by Going To Maine at 1:19 PM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

Michael Gove has been sacked! Callooh calay
posted by HandfulOfDust at 1:19 PM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

Fuck me, Justine Greening keeps going on about levelling up, ffs she was a member of the cabinet, how can she not realize levelling up is bullshit for the northern monkeys, with a side serving of bribery for ex red wall constituencies.
posted by biffa at 1:29 PM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

BBC are now saying the PM has just sacked Gove.

RIP "emotional support turbot"
posted by lalochezia at 1:36 PM on July 6, 2022 [21 favorites]

Michael Gove was the "leveling up secretary"?! Gosh, everyone's playing Elden Ring these days.
posted by all the versus at 1:37 PM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

Resignation since yesterday counter now at 41.
posted by biffa at 1:40 PM on July 6, 2022

the worst possible time

How's the Queen's health doing these days?
posted by 1970s Antihero at 1:42 PM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's 42 now.
posted by Pendragon at 1:42 PM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Wondering of those 41 how many supported him in the recent no confidence vote.
posted by jeather at 1:43 PM on July 6, 2022

Ever since MetaFilter told me about the A Different Bias YouTube channel, I've felt much more up to date about UK politics, despite being from the US.
posted by Bee'sWing at 1:44 PM on July 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

As lightly educated as I am on British politics, this is amazing to watch. Just an absolute shambles.

I loved this tweet - even the BBC presenters are glued to their phones trying to work our what the hell is happening.

They will be writing about this week for a *long* time to come. Absolute scenes.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 1:46 PM on July 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

How's the Queen's health doing these days?

She's pouring herself a sherry, waiting for Newsnight to come on and giggling like a loon.
posted by Grangousier at 1:46 PM on July 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

It's 42 now.

So that's what the ultimate question was.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:48 PM on July 6, 2022 [14 favorites]

Also the casual revelation today that Borris met with a ex KGB agent alone in Italy following a NATO meeting, without any officials present while Foreign Secretary in 2018. I mean way to bury big news on a bad news day but holy cow……and the apparent fact in the linked article that he may have had a heavy drinking session at that meeting…
posted by inflatablekiwi at 1:56 PM on July 6, 2022 [23 favorites]

The Downfall parody has arrived - Clownfall.
posted by penguin pie at 1:58 PM on July 6, 2022 [10 favorites]

Gove out!

Gove being sacked for being a "snake" and leading the mutiny against BoJo is both hilarious and a very Gove way to end things.

I might need to put on The Thick Of It just to keep the vibe going.
posted by fight or flight at 2:08 PM on July 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

One shocked senior Tory reacts to Boris Johnson sacking Michael Gove

“He has lost it. He has become like Caligula - the Roman emperor who wanted to make a horse a consul.

“Michael was one of the best ministers in the Cabinet.”

(Source)

At this point I'm starting to see the upside to having a horse as PM. (Also how anyone can claim Gove was "one of the best ministers in the Cabinet" with a straight face is beyond me, but we are living in strange times.)
posted by fight or flight at 2:12 PM on July 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

I love that Michael Fabricant has declared in a radio interview that he will not seek election as the conservative leader if Borris goes. In similar shocking news I have just made myself unavailable for selection to the New Zealand National Rugby team for the 30th year in a row.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 2:13 PM on July 6, 2022 [27 favorites]

If you think this is bad, just imagine the chaos we could be living with if Ed Miliband was in power! Shocking scenes.
posted by fight or flight at 2:16 PM on July 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Everything I know about Michael Gove.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:16 PM on July 6, 2022 [7 favorites]

I love that Michael Fabricant has declared in a radio interview that he will not seek election as the conservative leader if Borris goes.

His wig, however, is planning to make a go of it.
posted by Grangousier at 2:18 PM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

At this point I'm starting to see the upside to having a horse as PM

Rory Stewart on CNN earlier: “At some basic level, almost anybody in parliament would be a better prime minister than Boris Johnson. Larry the Downing Street cat, at the moment, would be a better prime minister”
posted by automatronic at 2:18 PM on July 6, 2022 [12 favorites]

His wig, however, is planning to make a go of it.

Let's go the full batshit hog - make Fabricant PM and his wig the Archbishop of Canterbury!
posted by inflatablekiwi at 2:20 PM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Resignation 42 was Danny Kruger, a junior levelling up minister who went shortly after Gove was sacked as his boss. Last anyone think he might have any principles, he publicly supported Johnson in the VONC a couple of weeks ago. If his name tickles any recollection its likely as he was the prick who made a statement against women's bodily autonomy last week.
posted by biffa at 2:30 PM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Tomorrows Papers Today (Also @tmorrowspapers on Twitter), which has the front page images of the major UK newspapers, has just been updated. That Guardian front page isn’t holding back - Desperate, deluded PM clings to power.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 2:38 PM on July 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

Edward Argar becomes latest minister to resign (#44)
posted by Lanark at 3:10 PM on July 6, 2022

Can someone please explain for the rest of us what on earth a "Ministry of Leveling Up" is?
posted by mbo at 3:10 PM on July 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

How many are there left who can still resign ?
posted by Pendragon at 3:11 PM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

tclark: Aside from the fact that I was spitting distance from a minor in college in Political Science focusing on UK politics of the post-war era

I think, laying one’s personal knowledge aside, it’s okay to let the Brits lead the way in this thread. And I say this as someone whose sister worked for years in the British parliament.
posted by Kattullus at 3:11 PM on July 6, 2022 [10 favorites]

Agreed and point well taken, Kattullus. I just should have known better than to pre-load the Uncharitable Interpretation gun and hand it directly into a thread here.
posted by tclark at 3:17 PM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Can someone please explain for the rest of us what on earth a "Ministry of Leveling Up" is?

There is no department with that precise name, but (all links are to wikipedia) here is the cabinet position that Michael Gove once occupied, and here is the department. The most useful introductory article might be this one on the slogan-turned-policy "levelling up".
posted by tss at 3:17 PM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

”Levelling up" is a Conservative Party policy, with the aim of reducing the imbalances, primarily economic, between areas and social groups across the United Kingdom, without a consequent detriment to outcomes in prosperous places such as much of South East England.

Or maybe its about huge contracts and Tories lining their pockets. What a surprise that “Conservative-voting areas were consistently prioritised over poorer Labour-voting areas.”

So I guess the Ministry for Pork Barrel distribution would be a rough translation?
posted by inflatablekiwi at 3:19 PM on July 6, 2022 [26 favorites]

> Everything I know about Michael Gove.

Honestly, that comic tells you pretty much all you need to know about Michael Gove.

Although if you feel like you'd like further background, don't miss the time he showed up at an Aberdeen nightclub - I'm reliably informed by someone present that he was "off his tits" - and tried to blag his way out of the £5 entry by informing the bouncer he was the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
posted by automatronic at 4:17 PM on July 6, 2022 [10 favorites]

Given that it's a transparent sop to Northerners....

Pork scratchings barrel .
posted by lalochezia at 4:18 PM on July 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

I read Edward Argar as Kenneth Anger for like a millisecond.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 5:51 PM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Everything I know about Michael Gove.

I was just about to post that cartoon! So good.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:59 PM on July 6, 2022

so.... it seems Michael Gove is the strongest contender for next Brit P.M. by virtue of sheer chance.

carry on
posted by djseafood at 9:02 PM on July 6, 2022

Can you imagine how totally wasted Johnson must be right now?
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:18 PM on July 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

What are the odds he's drinking heavily with former KGB agents?
posted by riverlife at 9:24 PM on July 6, 2022 [7 favorites]

former?
posted by philip-random at 9:32 PM on July 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

Four Seasons Total Landscaping on Twitter:

.
@BorisJohnson
.
@10DowningStreet

Just touching base - we feel the time is right for a press conference.

We have some experience with this sort of thing…
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:59 PM on July 6, 2022 [29 favorites]

I can't find the clip, but there's an episode of Yes Minister where Sir Humphrey explains that, once a PM's eliminated those backbenchers who are too stupid, too mad or too senile to be offered a job in government, he doesn't have enough candidates left to reject anyone else.

The stupid, the mad and the senile are now the only candidates Johnson has left to draw on to fill his next Cabinet, which multiplies this problem by ten. We'll be lucky if his next round of appointees have mastered going to the toilet on their own.
posted by Paul Slade at 11:24 PM on July 6, 2022 [7 favorites]

The day dawns grey over Britain. Somewhere in Downing Street a man is dreaming of his third term in office. Everywhere else, friends and foes alike are saying "Surely now, this must be it?"

And yet it goes on. Next stop: constitutional crisis?
posted by YoungStencil at 11:59 PM on July 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's 8:30am London time, and the number of resignations now stands at 50. That includes seven new additions since 6:00am, when the BBC's major political news programme came on the air. Downing Street's gone very, very silent, which political reporters are interpreting as evidence there's a desperate "what the fuck do we do now?" meeting going on there right now.

Suella Braverman, the attorney general, has just said on air that she wants to be the next Tory leader.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:31 AM on July 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

... Braverman being someone that practically no-one's ever heard of. The equally obscure Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt is currently quoted as joint favourite to become the next PM, priced neck-and-neck with former Chancellor Rishi Sunak at 9/2. Braverman's currently 40/1, Gove is 20/1 and Rees-Mogg 80/1.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:46 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Zahawi (chancellor appointed Tuesday) just called on him to go publicly. What an arc. If he resigns he’ll be the shortest serving chancellor on record by 27 days. And the previous record holder died in office.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:54 AM on July 7, 2022 [9 favorites]

The newly appointed Education Secretary, Michelle Donelan, has now resigned. Like Zahawi, she's been in post for about a day-and-a-half.
posted by sarble at 12:56 AM on July 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

And the new education secretary, in post for a day and a half, just resigned.
posted by Happy Dave at 12:57 AM on July 7, 2022

Zahawi even had the balls to write his letter on Treasury notepaper! "Thanks for the gun, Dad. BLAM!"
posted by Paul Slade at 12:58 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

According to the BBC, the Department of Education now has no ministers at all.
posted by sarble at 12:58 AM on July 7, 2022

Downing Street's just broken its silence by calling the BBC's political editor. He's talking to them off-air now.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:07 AM on July 7, 2022

.. and Johnson's agreed to stand down.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:08 AM on July 7, 2022 [13 favorites]

byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee you stupid motherfucker!!!!!!!!
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 1:08 AM on July 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

Now do the whole Tory party next
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 1:09 AM on July 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Oh my WORD!
posted by YoungStencil at 1:12 AM on July 7, 2022

Boris Johnson has agreed to resign, but wants to stay on as PM until new Tory leader elected by autumn.
posted by Lanark at 1:14 AM on July 7, 2022

Celebrations already underway.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:14 AM on July 7, 2022

Huh, I did not expect that at all.
posted by Braeburn at 1:19 AM on July 7, 2022

wants to stay on as PM until new Tory leader elected by autumn.

In practice, this looks very difficult. Practically his entire party has said they think he's unfit, and who would trust that he wouldn't use the time to try and engineer it to stay in power for longer. He'd be the lamest of lame ducks. I suspect he'll go quicker than that, once he has negotiated his peerage.
posted by YoungStencil at 1:20 AM on July 7, 2022 [9 favorites]

It's been two days. Can you imagine three months of this?
posted by automatronic at 1:21 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

And if not Johnson… Raab as PM? This country is redefining the depths that a country can possibly plumb.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 1:26 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Whoooop!

Pleased that he’s (going to be) gone, and pleased that he got what he deserved in terms of his entire party publicly humiliating him.

Now to try and wrap our heads around the chaos that it seems will inevitably follow as they try to sort themselves out and we spend however long it’ll be with no functioning government, amid the cost of living crisis and everything else.
posted by penguin pie at 1:39 AM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

We've had no functioning government under Johnson for the past few months anyway. The choice was between a finite period of chaos as a new PM is put in place versus indefinite chaos as long as Johnson remained in power.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:44 AM on July 7, 2022 [10 favorites]

Never been so happy to be proven wrong. Not that he'll ever get what he is truly owed for hurting this country and its people with his lies and grifting but I hope this defeat stings and lingers.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:45 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

So will Raab be acting PM until they get round to an election?
posted by biffa at 1:46 AM on July 7, 2022

The BBC has now downgraded this to "resign as party leader today" which means he is planning to stay on as PM. I still think this is unworkable.
posted by YoungStencil at 1:50 AM on July 7, 2022

Right. Fine. Have to confess I really would have preferred him to call a snap election, but apparently he does have some limits to his lunacy.

We can only hope that when we do get a chance to vote again this idiot country remembers that Johnson was just a particularly nasty symptom of the infection that is the Conservatives, and the whole lot are ultimately responsible for the damage they have done to the UK over the past twelve years.
posted by tomsk at 1:54 AM on July 7, 2022 [7 favorites]

As long as Johnson is in number 10,as prime minister, I don't think he's resigned. If a football manager says he's going to pull Jim off and put Gary on in 20 minutes, he hasn't actually taken Jim off, has he? Even if he's told the press that he won't be in the squad for future matches.
posted by Dysk at 1:56 AM on July 7, 2022 [11 favorites]

It seems remarkably on brand that he would lie about leaving, while still making up his plan for what to do instead, and expecting the world to just say: “Oh, OK, yes, whatever you want to do is fine, you’re brilliant and we trust you.”

Same way he lied about everything else, here he is lying about leaving while gaffer tapping himself to the furniture of No 10 in full view of everyone.
posted by penguin pie at 2:01 AM on July 7, 2022 [11 favorites]

Backbenchers (some fresh out of the cabinet too!) are reportedly pissed at the joke of a "caretaker" plan, so buckle up for more Tory bullshit over the next few days (weeks? months???? please don't say years)

If Johnson was out today, he'd be tied with Neville Chamberlain for length of premiership—how apropos. May is next, and he blatantly just wants to beat her. It's the only time I've rooted for that robot to win anything.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 2:08 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

I'm half expecting him to appear at 6pm and announce that the rumours of him resigning are untrue.
posted by YoungStencil at 2:12 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

The whole thing is unbelievable. As I write these words, Gordon Brown is still holed up in Downing Street. He is like some illegal settler in the Sinai desert, lashing himself to the radiator, or like David Brent haunting The Office in that excruciating episode when he refuses to acknowledge that he has been sacked. Isn't there someone – the Queen's Private Secretary, the nice policeman on the door of No 10 – whose job it is to tell him that the game is up?

-- Boris Johnson writing in the Telegraph, 10th May 2010.
posted by automatronic at 2:19 AM on July 7, 2022 [31 favorites]

He is not gone until he is gone. Anybody still relying on words coming out of Johnsons mouth is in for great disappointment.
posted by vacapinta at 2:24 AM on July 7, 2022 [15 favorites]

The BBC has now downgraded this to "resign as party leader today" which means he is planning to stay on as PM.

It can take quite a long time to very carefully steam off hideously expensive (and hideous) wallpaper. Carrie is still probably messaging "hold them off as long as possible" orders to him.
posted by Wordshore at 2:24 AM on July 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Nicola Sturgeon has weighed in:

1. There will be a widespread sense of relief that the chaos of the last few days (indeed months) will come to an end, though notion of Boris Johnson staying on as PM until autumn seems far from ideal, and surely not sustainable?

2. Boris Johnson was always manifestly unfit to be PM and the Tories should never have elected him leader or sustained him in office for as long as they have. But the problems run much deeper than one individual. The Westminster system is broken.

3. For Scotland the democratic deficit inherent in Westminster government doesn’t get fixed with a change of PM. None of the alternative Tory PMs would ever be elected in Scotland. And in policy terms, it is hard to see what real difference hard Brexit supporting Labour offers.

4. Independence only happens if a majority living in Scotland choose it - but there is no doubt it offers the real and permanent alternative to Westminster, and the opportunity to fulfil our potential at home and play our part as a good global citizen. It’s time for that choice.

5. Lastly, my differences with Boris Johnson are many and profound. But leadership is difficult and brings with it many stresses and strains, and so on a personal level I wish him and his family well.

posted by Kattullus at 2:28 AM on July 7, 2022 [19 favorites]

So, while there's still a war in Ukraine happening... does this mean it's still up to Boris what to do with the UK's nukes?
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:36 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Here's a twitter thread explaining the usual conventions about an Acting/Interim/Caretaking PMs, and what their powers are, as well as some of the possible ways that this can go.
posted by scorbet at 2:41 AM on July 7, 2022

So, while there's still a war in Ukraine happening... does this mean it's still up to Boris what to do with the UK's nukes?

Until he actually leaves as PM, yes. Sounds like most of the resigned ministers won't retake their posts for a caretaker government under him while the tory party leadership contest is run (as happened with Cameron and May) because of the madness of the last 24 hours, so another impasse unless he just gives up and actually goes today. In that case, he'd hand the PM's job (and nukes) to f.ex his deputy Raab for the next couple of months.

Note, the job of PM doesn't *have* to be done by the leader of the tory party, it's just convention. If Raab wants to run in the leadership contest, they may coalesce around a different 'safe pair of hands' to keep the lights on until this latest round of tory psychodrama has run its course. Since we seem to be in the timeline where it always gets worse, I'm assuming Nadine 'mad' Dorries or vampire pencil Rees-Smug will be the next PM.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 2:50 AM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

Raab can get in the sea. If he can find it.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 2:55 AM on July 7, 2022 [5 favorites]

Another one for Succession intro fans - the childhood shots are necessary of course.
posted by rongorongo at 2:57 AM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

I am looking forward to this week’s News Quiz, if only because BoJo is a previous panellist and guest host. They know him, and have exactly the opinion you might expect.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:57 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Note, the job of PM doesn't *have* to be done by the leader of the tory party, it's just convention.

I feel like you explained more about the country than you intended to in that sentence.
posted by automatronic at 3:02 AM on July 7, 2022 [23 favorites]

I did think about asterixing it (while the tory party have a majority) ... but figured it was probably more accurate as was, alas.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 3:03 AM on July 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

I still think he's going to try some kind of Costanza strategy. The Costanza energy is strong in Alex Johnson.
posted by Grangousier at 3:11 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

… what’d I miss?

jk - score one for the rational, fact-based reality!
posted by From Bklyn at 3:19 AM on July 7, 2022

Note, the job of PM doesn't *have* to be done by the leader of the tory party, it's just convention.

Elderly chap ahead of me in the queue to vote at a general election, I forget whether it was the last one or the one before that, being talked through the process by one of the polling station staff: "So I put my X by the one I want to vote for... And they're all Conservatives?"

(It's such a safe Tory seat that they might as well be.)
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 3:26 AM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

I’ve never been happier to be wrong.
posted by interogative mood at 3:32 AM on July 7, 2022

I think that, aside from other considerations of the stupidity of the idea that Boris Johnson will remain in office, the timetable of him leaving in October makes absolutely no sense. The process of choosing a new Conservative party leader is in three steps.

First, the parliamentary party will choose the two candidates to present to the party membership. This takes, at most, two weeks.

Second, these two candidates will tour the country talking to local groups of Conservative party members. That takes maybe three weeks, if they decide to be kinda lackadaisical about.

Lastly, the votes of the Conservative party members are tallied, that could take a week. That takes us to the end of August.

Does he really expect the new leader to just hang around for two months? No wonder Tory MPs are losing their rag over this.
posted by Kattullus at 3:40 AM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

Kattullus, Commons recess starts on 21 July and lasts until 5 September. They'll all be off to their second homes in Provence* on 22 July.

*Obviously, the Brexiteers will all be off to their second homes in Cornwall, they wouldn't want to be hanging about in Europe, would they. Would they? Oh.
posted by penguin pie at 3:45 AM on July 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

That’s kind of my point, Johnson is expecting the new leader to hang around for a month, while Johnson does an extended farewell tour of 10 Downing Street.
posted by Kattullus at 3:55 AM on July 7, 2022

I assume he's suggesting that they don't hold a leadership election until after recess, not that they elect a leader now and then have them sitting around until October waiting to take office.
posted by penguin pie at 3:57 AM on July 7, 2022

See, this is what I'm saying. I've stopped believing anyone who says "surely NOW BoJo will resign ...." and that includes BoJo saying he will resign.

I will believe it when his shambling carcass departs No. 10 and someone else is actually PM. Not before. This guy is like some kind of poltergeist that's really hard to banish.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:01 AM on July 7, 2022 [13 favorites]

Glorious: After a suggestion by Hugh Grant, the equal-parts-inimitable-and-annoying Steve Bray is now playing the Benny Hill theme tune on his speakers on College Green so that it's broadcast live on air in the background as some Tory mouthpiece is wheeled out for an interview on Sky News.
posted by penguin pie at 4:15 AM on July 7, 2022 [46 favorites]

Yakety Sax
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:19 AM on July 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Yes, I know the song's called Yakety Sax, in the UK it's universally known as the Benny Hill theme tune because on The Benny Hill Show it always accompanied chaotic/farcical chase scenes and so is now used to denote comedy farce.

*Wilts from trying to explain things to people not in the UK*
posted by penguin pie at 4:28 AM on July 7, 2022 [27 favorites]

I assume he's suggesting that they don't hold a leadership election until after recess,

Yeah, that's his plan. It's apparently difficult to choose a leader if you're on recess and in this case, some MPs were even saying that they'd want a bit more time, as the field is so open. (That is, it might take some time to find out which of them is willing to promise you the best job if you support them. I suppose you can only do so much by Whatsapp)

Meanwhile, Johnson has been appointing ministers to fill his empty spots leading to, to quote Larry the Cat on twitter:
"The government is in such a mess that the Twitter feed includes the announcement of TWO different Education secretaries within three tweets. This is bonkers."
posted by scorbet at 4:31 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

He's speaking now. Predictably self-aggrandising horseshit.
posted by Optamystic at 4:33 AM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

His resignation speech sounds like a campaign speech.
posted by cardboard at 4:33 AM on July 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

I'm curious to find out what classical reference Johnson uses in his resignation speech. Presumably that famous passage from the Iliad when a useless cunt fucks off.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 4:35 AM on July 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

Are we sure this isn't his Oscar acceptance speech?
posted by Optamystic at 4:37 AM on July 7, 2022

"I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world - but them's the breaks." — not a line I remember from the Iliad, but fair enough, I didn't go to Eton.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 4:40 AM on July 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

and you could hear the strains of Yakkety Sax/Benny Hill at the end there
posted by sarahdal at 4:42 AM on July 7, 2022

I missed the beginning of that, but a little bit in the back of my mind imagines that he's still nursing a vision where he boots the leadership election until after recess* and then sneaks in a snap general election over the summer where (in his imagination) he proves he's still beloved of the electorate and forces them to let him stay. I mean, I assume they can't have a GE during recess either, but I wouldn't put it past him to be still hoping.

*which they surely have to - seems tight to get it done before recess and it can't be done during recess.
posted by penguin pie at 4:43 AM on July 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

@LauraAmalasunta arguably wins Twitter: As the UK speculates on whether Boris will resign, allow me to remind it of some wisdom known to trans women... (possibly NSFW)
posted by acb at 4:51 AM on July 7, 2022 [19 favorites]

penguin pie: seems tight to get it done before recess and it can't be done during recess.

Theresa May’s resignation took effect on June 7th, by June 20th the Conservative parliamentary party had selected the two candidates. Though all that had been announced and worked out about two weeks before. Because there’s an election for the leadership of the 1922 committee this coming Monday, I think that the feeling of the parliamentary party will be reflected by the new executive. If they want to get Boris done, they’ll get Boris done.
posted by Kattullus at 4:52 AM on July 7, 2022

DING DONG
posted by lalochezia at 4:53 AM on July 7, 2022

He can't even fuck off properly.
posted by dng at 4:59 AM on July 7, 2022 [26 favorites]

Theresa May’s resignation took effect on June 7th, by June 20th the Conservative parliamentary party had selected the two candidates.

You pretty much prove my point, Kattullus: If we sub in July for June in those dates and assume a similar timescale, that means by 20 July, they'll only just have selected two candidates, they won't even have started the wider campaigning and election among party members.

Then on 21 July everything will close down. Recess isn't just a bit of gentle time out that they can work around, Parliament closes down, completely. MPs don't meet at all. Many of them leave the country for a spell. They just won't be there to do what needs to be done to put a new leader of the Parliamentary party in place, until they reconvene in September.

So, if they do things as they've been done before, they'll really struggle to elect a new leader by recess. Which means either Johnson gets his wish and sits there until they hold an election in the autumn, or they somehow find a way to do things differently - to negotiate a caretaker leader for over the summer, or find a way to hold the electoral process that's different from how it's been done before, compressing the timescale or some such.
posted by penguin pie at 5:05 AM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

Nick Eardley on the Beeb just now on the prospect of whether a new leader could be elected before summer: "It's all possible but I'm being told that the most likely thing is that if there is a full election, there won't be a new leader in place until September".

Says that the list would be whittled down to two before summer, hustings over the summer, and a leader taking their place in September. But also says lots of MPs want him out now and it's possible that when they meet on Monday they'll try and find a way to do things differently to get him gone.
posted by penguin pie at 5:22 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

The other possible behind the scenes item is the party treasurers. I suspect the Tories will be finding it quite hard to fundraise right now. The big donors will want some certainty, I suspect, especially in the run up to the party conference. If I'm right, and if that persists, that will increase the pressure to get this done quickly.
posted by YoungStencil at 5:29 AM on July 7, 2022

penguin pie: Says that the list would be whittled down to two before summer, hustings over the summer, and a leader taking their place in September. But also says lots of MPs want him out now and it's possible that when they meet on Monday they'll try and find a way to do things differently to get him gone.

That’s a much better way of phrasing what I was trying rather inelegantly to say, that if the parliamentary party wants to get rid of Johnson quickly, and signs point to that being the case, they can easily do it before October.

But the process will probably be put in place by Monday evening or Tuesday at the latest, so it’ll be clear then.
posted by Kattullus at 5:30 AM on July 7, 2022

(from twitter)

BREAKING: Thousands of work events reported across the UK.
posted by lalochezia at 5:45 AM on July 7, 2022 [18 favorites]

if the parliamentary party wants to get rid of Johnson quickly, and signs point to that being the case, they can easily do it before October.

Well, Eardley was saying if traditional lines were followed, that while hustings could happen through the summer, the actual election wouldn't come until Parliament reconvenes in September - he wasn't saying that the leader would be elected during the summer and have to sit around for a month or two waiting to take their place.

But I think we're agreed that in reality the party is likely to do what it can, to do whatever they want, on whatever timescale they want, so lets agree to differ on the rest! :)

I did a politics A-Level long ago that was half UK politics and half US politics, and I feel like I'm living in the middle of an essay question, along the lines of "What are the advantages/disadvantages of running a country by convention (=this kind of chaos) or constitution (=portions of the US insisting that a Constitution written at a time when POC and women weren't allowed anywhere near power must stand in absolute stone forever).
posted by penguin pie at 5:51 AM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm often told this sort of thing is because the UK doesn't have a complete, written constitution (it has bits of one, spread all over) But a written constitution can't save you either when a partisan judiciary invents new doctrine out of whole cloth ("major questions" gutting of the EPA) to blatantly contradictory rulings such as 'guns? states don't get to make the rules' to 'are women people? only states can decide'

I think given the deal with 1922 committee chair, Johnson is going to try and brazen it out for the next few months ("maybe they'll change their mind!!") and there aren't enough levers to actually force him completely out until then, short of a no confidence vote in the House, and even the quarter-wits amongst the tories aren't suicidal enough to back that. So he'll just hang around like a bad smell, but with no authority to do absolutely anything, the quintessential "in office but not in power". I hope, anyway.

Then it's over to the bluekip party membership to pick the most anti-woke, anti-immigrant hard-brexity brexiteer that they can from the two on offer by MPs in August/September. If Truss or Patel get into the final 2, then I think they're in with a real shout. Noodle help us.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 6:16 AM on July 7, 2022 [5 favorites]

The common problem with the UK and the US is the broken winner-take-all electoral systems founded on un-proportional representation. Polls in the UK routinely show that only a minority of the electorate support the Tories. Trump had 2.9M fewer votes than Hillary Clinton.

When I went to the polls in the UK and voted for the Greens, I knew at the same time that my vote was worthless and that this was disenfranchisement and a failure of democracy.

Johnson won't go because he does not have to. Newspapers are reporting that he resigned but I must have missed the part where he tendered his resignation to the Queen.
posted by vacapinta at 6:34 AM on July 7, 2022 [15 favorites]

If he gets through to the party membership vote, it currently looks like Ben Wallace (Defence Secretary) would be a shoo-in, according to YouGov and conservativehome, anyway. He's mostly been in Boris's shadow during the Ukraine war, other than talking about "kicking Russia's backside" and speaking to "lookalike" fake Russian Prime Minister.
posted by sarble at 6:36 AM on July 7, 2022

So you have the ERG ballbags, who will vote for whoever is most rabid, but then you have the 2019 nodding dog intake and it's not clear who will command their allegiance. Until the last few days they had stayed loyal to Johnson since when he won his majority they all got nice well paid jobs. Many of them are political and intellectual lightweights, brought in to keep saying yes to everything that needed a yes answer to get some sort of Brexit through. They favour simple parroting of basic points from the Daily Mail. I guess they will be influenced by whoever is looking the most likely to get them re-elected (ie keep them in work post 2024) but will they settle on one person and how much will they be influenced by personal political positions?
posted by biffa at 6:41 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

If this ends up with PM Rees-Mogg or with Boris nominated to the US Supreme Court by the next GOP President, I'm going back to bed.
posted by delfin at 7:05 AM on July 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

There are reports that Johnson is trying to hang on as he and Carrie have already sent out the invites to their wedding celebration at Chequers, this summer.
posted by biffa at 8:00 AM on July 7, 2022 [9 favorites]

There are reports that Johnson is trying to hang on as he and Carrie have already sent out the invites to their wedding celebration at Chequers, this summer.

Imagine the difference in the media's response if Corbyn had done this.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:04 AM on July 7, 2022 [23 favorites]

Dominic Cummings
@Dominic2306
I know that guy & I'm telling you -he doesn't think it's over, he's thinking 'there's a war, weird shit happens in a war, play for time play for time, I can still get out of this, I got a mandate, members love me, get to September...'

If MPs leave him in situ there'll be CARNAGE

Cummings tweeted that at 11:25 this morning, and he has a point. Those who complacently assume Johnson will go when he says he will - and I've heard several of them on the radio today - evidently need another lesson in the limitations of "Good Chap" safeguards. Tory MPs need to hammer the stake in now while they've still got the chance.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:15 AM on July 7, 2022 [9 favorites]

He is like some illegal settler in the Sinai desert, lashing himself to the radiator

Are there many radiators in the desert?
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:17 AM on July 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

If MPs leave him in situ there'll be CARNAGE

... I see they're leaving him in situ.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:22 AM on July 7, 2022

Are there many radiators in the desert?

At minimum, there are as many radiators as there are water-cooled vehicles and air conditioners.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:25 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Chaining oneself to an air conditioner doesn't have quite the same impact.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:32 AM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

It does if the air conditioner then falls (or is pushed) out the window
posted by scruss at 8:56 AM on July 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

New NI Secretary doesn't know that NI is not in Great Britain. Star team that - absolute all round the “A Squad”.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:04 AM on July 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

I am looking forward to this week’s News Quiz, if only because BoJo is a previous panellist and guest host. They know him, and have exactly the opinion you might expect.

/r “News Quiz” with “HIGNFY.” Messing up my BBC light entertainment news panel shows.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:12 AM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

And the cover of The Economist this week. Souvenir edition surely. Get your bunting out.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 9:12 AM on July 7, 2022 [9 favorites]

I’d definitely buy it (first time ever) just for that cover.
posted by aramaic at 9:24 AM on July 7, 2022

Are there many radiators in the desert?

I suspect the radiator thing was a confused reference to terrorist hostage Terry Waite, who was chained to a radiator by his captors during his long period as a captive.
posted by biffa at 9:40 AM on July 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

I suspect that attempting to parse actual meaning from any of the specific words Boris ever said or wrote is a sheer waste of time. Concentrate on his tone if you care to know what he thinks.
posted by flabdablet at 9:52 AM on July 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

Diligent application of that principle has revealed to me that what Boris mostly thinks in relation to almost every topic is "kindly fuck off, you insignificant oik, you're in my way."
posted by flabdablet at 9:55 AM on July 7, 2022 [9 favorites]

Yvette Cooper (Shadow Secretary of State ) is just anazing and on fire here over Borris’ Italy / KGB meeting. Just top notch Parliamentary questioning/take down. See also an incensed Ros Taylor on the emergency Oh God, What Now? Podcast this morning (26 minutes in or so).
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:22 AM on July 7, 2022 [5 favorites]

Questions I should google: how many prime ministers have ended their careers without being forced out in disgrace? It seems like the system is more-or-less designed to produce this result in all circumstances. (Obviously this time is an exceptionally disgraceful exit.)
posted by Going To Maine at 11:45 AM on July 7, 2022

how many prime ministers have ended their careers without being forced out in disgrace?

You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:06 PM on July 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

I can't think of another one who was forced out in disgrace. A number have resigned after losing the confidence of their ministers for political reasons - Thatcher, May; Some because of illness - Macmillan, Wilson; I don't know whether he lost the confidence of his cabinet, but Cameron took the Brexit vote as a personal political failure; Blair was induced to resign for arcane party machination reasons. The only disgrace I can think of is Johnson.

Interestingly, after a question by James O'Brien, the last PM I can think of who was voted both in and out was Heath.
posted by Grangousier at 12:15 PM on July 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

Does having your government reelected count? Major both won and lost general elections.
posted by Dysk at 12:29 PM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

H. H. "Squiffy" Asquith's ousting was a complex one: at first, praised as having the strength to declare war on Germany, but very quickly being seen as a symbol of Britain's ill-preparedness for a mechanized war. While not completely disgraced (he was leader of the opposition for several years after being PM), he never quite got back to where he thought he should be. Also, the involvement of Beaverbrook in providing both backroom negotiations against Asquith and using his newspaper to that effect in public echoes the role of modern media barons
posted by scruss at 12:51 PM on July 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

anyone see the confirmation that Johnson will be announcing his resignation? pretty sure Sky News is featuring that headline
posted by elkevelvet at 12:53 PM on July 7, 2022

Luckily answers will be provided on tonight's Question Time, featuring a hard line grilling from...checks Internet...Mumford and Sons.

Just one of the sons though...not Mumford himself.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:04 PM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Lord North (PM from 1770-1782) was forced out after his blunders lost Britain quite a nice little piece of real estate. America, I believe it was called.
posted by Paul Slade at 1:27 PM on July 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

A real pop star on Question Time? A true voice for the dispossessed and angry youth of the UK? Excellent!
Winston Aubrey Aladar deBalkan Marshall
Ok
Marshall was educated at St Paul's School, an independent school in London.
Old boys include Milton, Pepys and Halley! And George Osborne.
Seems Marshall is also a fan of Andy Ngo and Jordan Peterson. Writes for The Spectator.
Whoever books the Question Time panel has a few issues I think.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 1:38 PM on July 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

I am looking forward to this week’s News Quiz, if only because BoJo is a previous panellist and guest host. They know him, and have exactly the opinion you might expect.

/r “News Quiz” with “HIGNFY.” Messing up my BBC light entertainment news panel shows.

But Have I Got News for You isn't on at the moment. Last season ended in may.
posted by Pendragon at 1:50 PM on July 7, 2022 [1 favorite]

Neither is The News Quiz. My remaining hopes were pinned on John Oliver tackling the story this week, but I've just checked and he's off the air too. We're on our own with this one, people.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:09 PM on July 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

Perhaps Boris could guest on WILTY, in which case the answer would be "Yes. Repeatedly."
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:20 PM on July 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

There's always The Bugle.
posted by offog at 2:23 PM on July 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Lacking the news panels, I turn to Jonathan Pie.
posted by CCBC at 2:47 PM on July 7, 2022 [17 favorites]

"The shock of blonde hair is unmistakable."
posted by Paul Slade at 3:02 PM on July 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

CCBC, I was just coming to post that video! Hilarious rant/takedown by Pie.

(Be warned: copious use of f-bombs.)
posted by darkstar at 3:45 PM on July 7, 2022

There is but one person worthy of a private interview with BoJo, and she is Philomena Cunk.
posted by delfin at 4:01 PM on July 7, 2022 [19 favorites]

Perhaps Boris could guest on WILTY, in which case the answer would be "Yes. Repeatedly."

David Mitchell would get to the bottom of every political scandal that has ever happened in his life through sheer pedantry alone.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:06 PM on July 7, 2022 [8 favorites]

In case you missed it, #Newsnight replaced its end credits tonight with a list of all the ministerial resignations so far set to an acoustic version of Bittersweet Symphony
posted by BlueNorther at 5:14 PM on July 7, 2022 [7 favorites]

As if the Rolling Stones need more money.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:07 PM on July 7, 2022

They actually signed the rights for the song over to the Verve a few years back, so it's all good now.
posted by LionIndex at 7:11 PM on July 7, 2022 [6 favorites]

Does having your government reelected count? Major both won and lost general elections.

Belated answer - no, it doesn't, as Major (and May and BoJo) were re-elected as incumbents, which is a different dynamic. I think the question was designed to show how often the change in leader happened mid-term in response to events (dear boy). Heath was the last Prime Minister to be elected to Number Ten, serve a term and be voted out. And that was fifty years ago.
posted by Grangousier at 12:35 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Fence (previously) has written an Outsider's Guide to the Last Week in British Politics which tries to explain some of the background that people who haven't been following British politics that closely might be missing, like this description of Boris Johnson:

There is no way to discuss Boris Johnson’s abysmal performance as a Prime Minister without addressing his abysmal failures as a human being. His personal life is a horror show of adultery, neglect and cruelty which has culminated in him having an undetermined number of children, at least one of whom he fails to acknowledge. He has repeatedly sought public money to further the interests of his mistresses, and missed the first five briefings on covid’s emergence when he took time away to write a book about Shakespeare to pay for the divorce of his second wife, on whom he had been cheating while she was undergoing treatment for cancer.

posted by scorbet at 1:50 AM on July 8, 2022 [14 favorites]

when he took time away to write a book about Shakespeare

The word "write" is doing a great deal of heavy lifting there...
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 3:31 AM on July 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

> The word "write" is doing a great deal of heavy lifting there...

...write a more personal book about what Shakespeare has taught you about the important things in your life such as sex, ambition and betrayal.

Haha.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 3:54 AM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

James O'Brien's farewell message to Boris Johnson | LBC

The fire is out, but the house is a charred wreck.

posted by flabdablet at 4:39 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Jonathan Pie slings some righteous invective, to be sure, and no lies detected. But just as with TFG over here in the US, none of this was a surprise. I started to lose interest in his diatribe when it was clear he wasn't going to implicate the system beyond "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
posted by whuppy at 4:59 AM on July 8, 2022

...which is of course the first point made in The Fence article linked above.
posted by whuppy at 5:01 AM on July 8, 2022

Please clarify something for me, because sometimes I have to sleep and miss key points in the news cycle:

Johnson has announced he's resigned, but he's still in #10 and still functioning as PM for now, correct? This is more like, he's given his 4-ish months' notice, and gets to hang around fucking things up until they actually replace him?

A lot of the news coverage this (US) morning was "he's resigned" while leaving off the "... but not quite yet" and I want to make sure I didn't sleep through him actually departing #10.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:10 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

he's still in #10 and still functioning as PM for now, correct?

More dysfunctioning, but yeah.

I suspect that actually winkling him out of there is going to involve industrial tweezers and caustic soda.
posted by flabdablet at 5:14 AM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

Marina Hyde’s column has appeared on The Guardian’s website, The good news: Johnson’s on the way out. The bad news: look who’s on the way in. Excerpt:

Boris Johnson is leaving office with the same dignity he brought to it: none. I’ve seen more elegant prolapses. Having spent 36 hours on the run from what other people know as consequences, Downing Street’s Raoul Moat was finally smoked out of his storm drain on Thursday, having awoken that morning with what one aide described portentously as a “moment of clarity”. I mean, he’d lost 57 ministers? And been booed everywhere from the steps of St Paul’s to the cricket? Hard to know how much more clarity could have been offered to this big-brain, short of a plane flying over Downing Street trailing a banner reading U WANT PICKING UP IN THE MORNING PAL? This is the version of Jaws where the shark eats the mayor, and the entire beach is rooting for the shark.

They got Al Capone on tax evasion; they got Al Johnson on evasion. Character is fate, and the prime minister was undone by his lifelong pathological inability to tell the truth. Johnson’s ridiculously graceless “resignation” speech ran the gamut from pettiness to miscast victimhood – a sort of Bozzymandias, where the vainglory stood in painfully unfortunate contrast to the fact it was all lying in ruins around him. As the boos threatened to overwhelm his delivery, it was clear that what would satisfy the crowds was him being made to do a walk of shame, like some Blobby Cersei Lannister. (Same hairdo.) Failing that, he should have been wheeled out of Downing Street in the booze suitcase.

posted by Kattullus at 5:20 AM on July 8, 2022 [17 favorites]

This is more like, he's given his 4-ish months' notice, and gets to hang around fucking things up until they actually replace him?

Sort of. Johnson reisgned as Leader of the Tory party, but not strictly speaking as PM. He'll stay in place (normally with limitations of some sort on what he can do) until he's replaced as Leader of the Tories, who will then be PM. (The same thing happened with both Theresa May, and David Cameron.) When he actually goes depends on how fast the leadership contest takes, and/or if enough Tories feel it's important enough to get rid of him sooner and appoint an acting PM instead. (There was talk of installing Dominic Raab. How much of an improvement that would be is ...unclear.)
posted by scorbet at 5:20 AM on July 8, 2022

Marina Hyde:

I’ve seen more elegant prolapses.

Chef's kiss.
posted by flabdablet at 5:22 AM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

He's resigned as leader if the Tory party, but wants to stay on as PM till the process if electing a new Tory leader is complete. The idea is that he'll then hand over the role of PM to the successful candidate. Shamefully, the party's bigwigs seem willing to let him get away with this.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:24 AM on July 8, 2022

David Allen Green: Has Johnson actually resigned? And, if so, can he renege on that resignation?
posted by Grangousier at 5:25 AM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

1922 Committee treasurer Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has said it's fine for Johnson to hang on till Autumn because he's promised not to pull any strokes in the meantime. Think of it like this.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:29 AM on July 8, 2022

That's right, Eyebrows - for two reasons:

1. He's simply not capable of believing that nobody likes him, is convinced he's born to rule, and just won't go. Also, he has a wedding party planned at the PM's country residence, Chequers, in a few weeks' time and doesn't want to have to rearrange it. He's probably even keener than before to have it now, because it'll be the perfect chance for him to entertain and gladhand all the oligarchs, power brokers and off-shore twats he needs to butter up to progress his career once he's no longer PM.

2. The election of a replacement takes time, and Parliament goes into summer recess (close down/holiday) from 21 July until 5 September. Timelines are tight to get a new leader elected before the break. The Parliamentary party might manage to whittle it down to 2 candidates before the summer, so that hustings can be held at Conservative party branches around the country through the summer. But the actual election, naming and installation of the new leader can't really be done while MPs are on holiday and would likely have to wait until until they're back in the autumn.

That said, two weeks is an exceedingly long time in politics and it's possible that next week, the party will simply try to change the rules to either get a caretaker leader in before the summer, or to hasten the election. My hunch is that they won't, but who knows.
posted by penguin pie at 5:31 AM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

Aha! I stand corrected. Having now read the brilliant Marina Hyde piece linked above, I see he's bowed to public pressure and moved the Chequers wedding party.
posted by penguin pie at 5:39 AM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

Mark Jenkinson MP declares his candidacy.
posted by Paul Slade at 6:23 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

he's bowed to public pressure and moved the Chequers wedding party

Brilliantly, that dribbled out just as James Cleverly was defending Johnson's decision not to bow to public pressure and that he was sure that the next PM would be more than happy to host the party (assuming they'd managed to winkle Boris out by then), because clearly there was no problem at all with the idea...
posted by sarble at 6:37 AM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

As someone not fully read-in to British politics, I appreciate the insight provided here.

Dumb question: Can the Queen bring them back to session to force a decision?

I cannot imagine that she wants a broken rudder continuing to misguide the ship but I don't know if she has the authority to do so.
posted by zerobyproxy at 6:53 AM on July 8, 2022

I think Penguin's comment here might help you RE: the Queen.
posted by Braeburn at 7:19 AM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

Dumb question: Can the Queen bring them back to session to force a decision?

On a constitutional basis, I don't think so. Parliament goes into recess over the summer, but the session is not ended, it's just a period where parliamentary business is on hold. Most MPs head elsewhere, but government continues. Recess dates are proposed by the gov, and agreed by Parliament, but it doesn't involve the Queen, unlike the ending of a parliamentary year (session).

Government can recall parliament for urgent business during a recess, if they need to start a war or something, but it's not common.

The Queen technically has the power to dismiss the government entirely and invite someone else to form one if they can command the confidence of the commons, but in practical terms, the Queen does what she's told by the PM, literally having her speeches written for her, not the other way round*. Sparking a constitutional crisis, where the Queen might be put in a position where she might have to use her theoretical (limited) powers in opposition to a sitting PM's decision is Not Done; hence the outrage over Boris lying to the Queen (illegally, as later judged in court) in 2019 to get her to suspend parliament at the height of a Brexit crisis for political advantage. Forcing the Queen to even have to consider kicking him out of office would probably be a step too far even for Boris.

* the noted exception being where government legislation might impact on her financial affairs, in which case she can and has quietly expressed Opinions that have supposedly resulted in changes. She could also offer advice in her weekly meeting with the PM, but it's thought she generally keeps her personal views to herself on politics rather than risk more people start thinking "so who elected this woman again?"
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 7:44 AM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

Who elected this woman again

God, you heathen.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 7:56 AM on July 8, 2022 [9 favorites]

it was done hanover foot
posted by pyramid termite at 8:09 AM on July 8, 2022 [9 favorites]

Downing Street’s Raoul Moat

Ahahaa deep cut, what a banger. Insane to think that all happened moments after Cameron came to power, some aeons ago....
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 8:18 AM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

Downing Street’s Raoul Moat

Yes! The worse things get, the better Marina Hyde gets, and in a piece full of absolute bangers, that was the one that had me practically hammering the table with joy.
posted by penguin pie at 9:20 AM on July 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

It's beginning to look like the Tories will acquiesce and (attempt to) allow him to stay on over the summer. Johnson has apparently pledged to enact no new major policies, particularly fiscal, and we are supposed to take it that the appointment of long-term anti-Boris Tories to the cabinet will be sufficient to rein him in. I think this is an error for at least two reasons. First, it assumes "he's learned his lesson and we've put in substantial guardrails" which, well, its precisely iterations of this naivety which got them in this position in the first place. When he boldly stated in an interview last week that he couldn't and wouldn't change, that was the first time I'd believed him in a long time. Second, they must know there's more shit waiting to be unearthed. His admission at that fiasco of a Liaison Committee that he met with suspicious Russians alone has legs, there will be further cover-ups to emerge, he will say or do stupid/awful things on the daily because that is all he knows. Their best case scenario involves him spending most of his time at Chequers figuring out how to make the most money fastest only occasionally emerging to embarass him, the party and the country.

Given that, Labour plan to introduce a no confidence motion in the government early next week, to force the Tories to actually vote to say they have formal confidence in a man recently compared to the Honey Monster playing King Lear who they literally just defenestrated for being manifestly unfit for office.

That said, wild few days! Finally got (fairly mild) covid just as Scottish summer started: this has been the only good thing about my isolation. Interestingly, perhaps, the stakes in his crazed refusal to quit were actually low stake stuff: there was no way he was going to hang on once his own party turned on him. For a narcissist who has precipitated at least one constitutional crisis, it is cruelly fitting that he ended with a tawdry constitutional drama.
posted by deeker at 9:58 AM on July 8, 2022 [9 favorites]

offog: There's always The Bugle.

The new episode has been released, and they ditch their semi-scripted, multi-segment format, and instead Andy Zaltzman, Alice Fraser and Mark Steel spend the whole episode riffing on Boris Johnson.
posted by Kattullus at 12:02 PM on July 8, 2022 [7 favorites]

The new episode has been released

"You can't spark a deluge, Andy." - Alice Fraser in that episode.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:27 PM on July 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

Johnson has apparently pledged to enact no new major policies, particularly fiscal,

Bit of a shame about the cost of living crisis and that the revised predictions for the October energy cap are in the order of £3400, up from £1200 in one year. And the skyhigh inflation. And the potential for public sector pay disputes all through the summer. And the on going NI protocol shenanigans.
posted by biffa at 1:05 PM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Johnson has apparently pledged

Oh, good. That usually ends well.
posted by Grangousier at 1:11 PM on July 8, 2022 [6 favorites]

Yeah, I can kind of see him sitting back with glee as people strike for fairer pay and conditions as he smirks and holds his hands up and says: “I can’t possibly meet your demands, I said I wouldn’t do anything, I’m just holding the fort, you’ll have to wait and speak to my successor.”
posted by penguin pie at 1:26 PM on July 8, 2022 [3 favorites]

So Rishi Sunak got his leadership bid running pretty darn quick. He's been given some help with his music selection.
posted by biffa at 1:35 PM on July 8, 2022

Johnson has apparently pledged

um, "Ooh, err, missus?"
posted by Rat Spatula at 1:41 PM on July 8, 2022

Yesterday Andrea Jenkyns showed the crowd at Downing Street her middle finger. Today she is a junior minister for Education.
posted by biffa at 1:44 PM on July 8, 2022 [1 favorite]

One side bit of comedy.

With all the ministerial resignations, movements and firings, Nadine Dorries is still at DCMS.

Even Peter Bone got a made up job, but a promotion for Dorries is still a step too far.
posted by MattWPBS at 2:01 PM on July 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

With all the ministerial resignations, movements and firings, Nadine Dorries is still at DCMS.

Because she's doing exactly the job there she's supposed to be doing.
posted by dng at 2:55 PM on July 8, 2022

today's one page rpg is about a prime minister who won't resign, and it's called The Prime Minister Won't Resign
posted by Etrigan at 4:29 PM on July 8, 2022 [13 favorites]

One deleted. Better to stick to the main discussion here rather veering into a complicated racism in US vs classism in UK discussion because a) I think British members would like to keep this from becoming a "from a US (et al) point of view, this all seems like [xyz]" thing, and b) there's plenty left in this story to discuss without getting sidetracked into greater philosophical investigations about why people seem to feel the need to oppress.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:59 PM on July 8, 2022 [15 favorites]

Looking for a stat on favourability that I couldn’t find again, I discovered myself in the murky waters of Conservative Home. Thought this article was interesting for a take on what Johnson defenders are saying: Johnson represented the licentious, disrespectful, unofficial, eighteenth-century tradition in British politics. It has not suffered a final defeat (Andrew Gimson, biographer). Strong whiff of, well of course the herd is too stupid to understand his maverick brilliance, but you and I ...

More on Gimson, including Johnson’s alleged attempts to stop him writing the biography by offering money, lawn-mowing or Greek lessons (building up the mythos further):
He is a Tory who supports inequality. She wants to be a Labour MP... Every morning they meet over breakfast.
posted by paduasoy at 2:06 AM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

This Spectator article (archive) points out some flaws with the Tory leadership election process, where the MPs narrow the field to 2 candidates and the party members then pick one of them.

...a problem with the way the contest is run: it forces MPs to second-guess the Tory membership – who ultimately pick the winner – rather than simply back the best candidate.

Should he stand, Jeremy Hunt is quite likely to make the final cut again this year. Why? Because Hunt would lose to every other major contender among the 200,000 or so strong membership, according to the latest polling. That is a clear sign that the broad view of Conservatives in the country is that Hunt is not someone who should make the final two in the ballot, but the system gives MPs the perverse incentive to ensure that he makes the final two, along with their favoured candidate.

In a three-way race between, for example, Penny Mordaunt, Ben Wallace and Jeremy Hunt there will be supporters of the first two tempted to vote for Hunt in order to knock out the more significant rival among the membership. This means it is far from guaranteed that the two most popular candidates will face-off against each other.

From the same polling of Tory leadership candidates, it’s clear that Ben Wallace would comfortably beat all of the other choices among members. This might persuade supporters of rival candidates to gang up with the aim of eliminating him early on. But how absurd that being competent and popular only serves to put a target on your back.

Basically the incentive amongst MPs, who are a small enough group to coordinate effectively, is to get "my candidate and the most hopeless alternative candidate" onto the final ballot.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:38 AM on July 9, 2022 [3 favorites]

Sunak's already getting some pushback for that video, principally from people who think he couldn't possibly have put it together in the 24 hours he claims, and is therefore guilty of treacherously premature leadership ambitions. Every media reference I've heard to the video this morning has come with the word "slick" attached.

Similar charges were levelled again Michael Portillo when he was caught installing extra phone lines in his campaign office after previously declaring loyalty to beleagured PM John Major. No-one ever took Portillo seriously as a candidate for leader again.

forces MPs to second-guess the Tory membership

Sunak's video, with its syrupy music and "what a nice young man" vibe, is aimed squarely at Tory Party members rather than the MPs who'll decide the first round. That shit may not play with what's often called "the most sophisticated electorate in the world" (ie Tory MPs), but he's betting your Conservative-voting auntie out in the shires will eat it up.
posted by Paul Slade at 3:01 AM on July 9, 2022

The ERG - European Research Group is a shadowy and opaque right wing faction and party within a part of the Conservatives. Funded by the taxpayer it has no online presence, no public list of backers, and uses its weight to push hard-right policies on Europe. The link provides names of past and present members, which includes present ministers and several who have thrown their hat in the ring for the premiership.
Johnson might be becoming history but a further step to the right could well follow in his wake.
posted by adamvasco at 3:04 AM on July 9, 2022 [3 favorites]

I think Sunak's chances will come down to getting the press on side. Failure to do so will mean constant sledging re the non-dom thing, the citizenship/ green card thing, ignoring fraud, etc. The Mail FP today seems fairly positive and if that replicates more widely then he may be quids in. Bear in mind he has had decent press support to get where he is.
posted by biffa at 3:16 AM on July 9, 2022

The other thing I wonder, if they narrow things to two candidates before the summer, and there end up being factions without a preferred candidate, might we then start to see a 'keep Boris' faction emerge? Is there a route to keeping Boris or could there be?
posted by biffa at 3:21 AM on July 9, 2022

Femi's edit of the Rishi Sunak campaign video is gold.
posted by Lanark at 3:45 AM on July 9, 2022 [4 favorites]

The ERG - Economic Reform Group is a shadowy and opaque right wing faction a

Unless they changed their name recently, it’s the European Research Group (wiki link).

might we then start to see a 'keep Boris' faction emerge?

Nadine Dorries is allegedly considering running to ‘keep Boris Johnson’s flame alive’.
posted by scorbet at 3:58 AM on July 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

what's often called "the most sophisticated electorate in the world" (ie Tory MPs)

Called that in jest, or seriously?

Who have they elected in their last handful of votes?
posted by clawsoon at 4:35 AM on July 9, 2022

Ben Wallace has decided not to enter the race (his statement on twitter.)

According to some polls, he had been the front runner.
posted by scorbet at 4:39 AM on July 9, 2022

I realize it’s all a bit old hat now, but Bloomberg’s report on Johnson’s final days in office [archive.ph] is akin to cringe comedy. Excerpt:

Chief Whip Chris Heaton Harris advised Johnson that he no longer had the numbers to prevent Tory MPs from removing him, but that he would remain loyal. Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevalyan and arch Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg also made clear they would stay supportive. Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told Johnson he would not resign, changing for a formal white-tie event and then leaving via a side entrance.

Other meetings were more difficult.

Home Secretary Priti Patel had an emotional and teary meeting with the premier where she told him he had to go. A spokesman for Patel wasn’t able to comment on the details of the conversation.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, who kept a spreadsheet of Johnson supporters, agreed that the numbers were against them. Policing minister Kit Malthouse delivered a long monologue about how it was over. An exasperated Johnson told Malthouse that if he was going to resign, he should just do it.

This is far from the most awkward situation described.
posted by Kattullus at 4:45 AM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

Called that in jest, or seriously?

"Sophisticated" in this context is another way of saying "duplicitous".

It's just come over the lunchtime that "Downing Street" has expressed disappointment at Sunak's tactics. So much for Johnson's non-interference pledge eh?
posted by Paul Slade at 5:11 AM on July 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

"Sophisticated" in this context is another way of saying "duplicitous".

Much in the way that, in upper-class English, “smart” does not mean intelligent or astute but instead is a synonym for “posh”.
posted by acb at 5:27 AM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

Previously from Sunak: "I have friends who are aristocrats, friends who are upper class and friends who are working class....well not WORKING CLASS!"
posted by biffa at 7:44 AM on July 9, 2022 [3 favorites]

today's one page rpg is about a prime minister who won't resign, and it's called The Prime Minister Won't Resign

I find the thought of the 97 year old Queen wielding a large sword and sneakily executing cabinet ministers rather disturbing. The poor old dear can barely stand, can't one send a footman or something?
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 9:20 AM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

Today's Guardian offers some glimpses from inside the bunker on July 7 as Johnson continued to resist the inevitable:

To some, he protested it was unfair he was being asked to give up the job he had coveted for so long. To others, he argued he had a mandate not through Tory MPs, but 14 million voters who backed him. He said he “owed it to them” to fight on. Some said he seemed strangely upbeat and had “plenty more juice in the tank”. It made it all the harder – but some found it unnerving.

“It’s bizarre that it’s become slightly Trumpian,” said one. “It’s all – ‘I’m not leaving, I see no ships, everything’s fine. One more push and we’ll get it right. None of this is my fault. I’ve been the victim of a stitch-up – if only the party understood just how good I was’. It’s weird.”

In fact, late on Wednesday evening, figures across Westminster and Whitehall began to worry about just how far Johnson would go in his refusal to relinquish power. Levels of denial inside the bunker had become all too much for one cabinet minister. “They’re all mad,” he despaired to a friend. “They’re all mad.”

Even parliamentary sources worried events had taken a Trumpian turn. They feared US-style demonstrations should Johnson refuse to go. “Mob rule is our big fear now,” said one Commons source, warning that a lengthy refusal to leave office could lead to divisive protests outside parliament. They were desperate to avoid “a Capitol Hill”.

posted by Paul Slade at 10:01 AM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

Grant Shapps is standing. Grant Shapps. What a time to be alive.

Liz Truss didn't bottle it this time and is standing.

Nadhim Zahawi no sooner announced he was standing than a prior investigation into his finances was leaked. Which rather suggests the contest will be dirty like only the Tories can really do.

Andrea Jenkyns may not be standing but the new junior education minister made headlines following footage of her leaving Downing Street, yelling at the crowd and flipping them off emerged.

Weeks. This absolute circus is going to last weeks.
posted by deeker at 1:54 PM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

The Times is claiming the backstabbing is well underway, with an accusation that at least two dossiers have already been sent to Labour by different groups. Plus private investigators taken on to look into financial affairs, the use of drugs and prostitutes and S&M.
posted by biffa at 3:00 PM on July 9, 2022 [3 favorites]

Basically the incentive amongst MPs, who are a small enough group to coordinate effectively, is to get "my candidate and the most hopeless alternative candidate" onto the final ballot.

Or you get the Yes Prime Minister scenario, and end up with Jeremy Hunt for PM.
posted by automatronic at 3:01 PM on July 9, 2022

Well this is going to be fun
posted by adamvasco at 3:45 PM on July 9, 2022 [1 favorite]

..of course it was always going to be the most Brazil ending conceivable... "After resigning in disgrace, he continues to serve as Prime Minister."
posted by Rat Spatula at 10:08 PM on July 9, 2022 [4 favorites]

fixed typo in comment: ERG - Economic Reform Group to European Research Group
posted by taz (staff) at 10:11 PM on July 9, 2022

I don't get why each candidate is leaking dirt on their opponents to Labour.

I mean, this is an internal Tory Party contest. Labour MPs and supporters have no say in who's going to win it, so there's no leadership votes to be directly influenced there. Come the next General Election, Labour will then have all that dirt to level against the Tory party as a whole, including (presumably) a good few revelations about whichever of today's candidates is then leading the party. That all seems rather self-defeating from the Tories' POV, doesn't it?

Also, surely the value of the dirt you hold on your opponent disappears the moment that dirt becomes public? By handing it over to Labour, all they're achieving is to remove their own control over whether and when that dirt could be revealed. Wouldn't it be better to have a quiet word with the rival candidate's people, slip them a private copy of the incriminating photographs and gently suggest their boss might like to step down rather than see those pics in tomorrow's papers?

The only Tory upside I can see to choosing Labour as the recipient of dirt about rival leadership candidates is that having Labour make it public rather than doing so yourself allows the leaker to claim his own hands are clean. To my mind, that's far outweighed by the downsides above.

What am I missing here?
posted by Paul Slade at 12:11 AM on July 10, 2022

Yeah, Labour would be better off holding on to it quietly until the next election
posted by mbo at 12:30 AM on July 10, 2022

I'm guessing here, but it might well be in the mutual interest of some candidates and Labour to push out some of the Tory big guns now.
posted by biffa at 12:52 AM on July 10, 2022

Plus private investigators taken on to look into financial affairs, the use of drugs and prostitutes and S&M.

Someone's confident of winning the leadership contest then, it's pretty early to be getting into the details of planning your victory party.
posted by Dysk at 1:11 AM on July 10, 2022 [12 favorites]

From the link above: "At least one is a spad shagger.” Is that something that is okay to search on for a definition or ... not so much? Baffled American wondering and apologies for the derail.

Earlier today I was trying to figure out how many children Boris Johnson has. Had no idea that question was difficult to answer, only that apparently a lawsuit has revealed he has at least 8 and 2 are from affairs when he was married earlier. That dirt didn't make Johnson unelectable.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:39 AM on July 10, 2022

A "spad" is a Special Advisor ie a public servant appointed for some unspecified purpose to work directly with a minister. A spad shagger is someone who has sex with a spad, and by implication, is likely an adulterer, or abusing their position of power, etc etc.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:59 AM on July 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

Penny Mordaunt has launched her leadership bid, and her pitch seems mostly to be: “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a PM whose initials are PM?”

Her launch video bears a striking resemblance to a famous sketch from The Day Today, which has been highlighted by one of its writers, Armando Iannucci, as well as many others.
posted by Kattullus at 3:41 AM on July 10, 2022 [7 favorites]

I don't get why each candidate is leaking dirt on their opponents to Labour. What am I missing here?

I think it's exactly as you say - it lets them keep their own hands clean.

Everyone in the party has dirt on each other. To succeed within the party, everyone has to trust you to keep that dirt under wraps. If you go around openly threatening to leak things, you look like a risk, a snitch, a loose cannon. And it makes you look weak, because those with real power don't have to openly make threats: they're implicit.

So when you want to actually bring some dirt into play, you have to give it to someone else who has an incentive to use it, and let it be known that someone did so. Via stories like that one in the Times.
posted by automatronic at 3:53 AM on July 10, 2022

A "spad" is a Special Advisor ie a public servant appointed for some unspecified purpose to work directly with a minister.

Normal civil servants work for the government, but are not political appointees, and work in a department to deliver whatever policies, though obviously some ideas are more um, implementable than others. They stay in place when the government of the day changes. Permanent secretaries are the senior civil servants, and work closely with a number of ministers in their department over time, but not directly FOR them. Sir Humphrey was a permanent secretary in Yes Minister to give you an idea of the relationship (satire though it is). If there are conflicts, it's not unknown for permanent secretaries to be swapped between departments, though sometimes they resign in protest at a particularly egregious minister; I remember one being forced out of the home office due to bullying by Priti Patel - she bullied a number of her staff - and won a substantial unfair dismissal case. (the PM's ethics advisor also resigned in protest since Boris let her off). In theory they're not directly sackable, but that needs a strong Cabinet Secretary (most senior civil servant) to resist a prime minister on a power trip. Civil service staffing levels have also been significantly cut over the years.

Special Advisors, on the other hand, are temporary civil servants there to give partisan political advice to the minister, i.e. they work for the party generally, and that minister in particular on political spin etc; and are much easier to sack. This makes them far more vulnerable to abuses of power by the minister they work for. So a "SPAD shagger" is basically someone that takes advantage of that vulnerability to have sex with junior staff that are in a deeply unbalanced power relationship, so quite likely to be predatory.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 4:27 AM on July 10, 2022 [7 favorites]

can't one send a footman or something?

Finding footmen with that kind of upper body strength isn't as easy as in the days of Henry VIII.
posted by acb at 5:49 AM on July 10, 2022

I think the keeping your hands clean is paramount. Gove will never be PM despite being possibly the best candidate (actually supported Brexit, clever when he isn’t obtuse, good communicator and strategist by the standards of the Conservative party) because he was seen as stabbing Johnson in the back at the 2016 leadership election. It never goes away. Similarly with the Ed and David Millibands. Stabbing within the party is frowned upon unless it’s a 50 senators assassination of Caesar thing where who knows which actually killed JC.
posted by DoveBrown at 8:22 AM on July 10, 2022

Gove will never be PM despite being possibly the best candidate (actually supported Brexit, clever when he isn’t obtuse, good communicator and strategist by the standards of the Conservative party)

Supporting be Brexit goes in the "for" column now? Jesus.
posted by Dysk at 8:36 AM on July 10, 2022 [3 favorites]

Well, 'best potential current candidate to lead the Conservative Party' and 'best future prime minister' don't technically have to be the same thing...
posted by hangashore at 8:46 AM on July 10, 2022

Sorry should have been clearer, I was talking only about candidates for Conservative leader. Support for Brexit is absolutely required. Gove is the only one who can do a “Nixon goes to China” on Brexit. So much better that the performance of the Recent Convert Zeal of Liz Truss. He is about the only person in Cabinet who seems to engage with the practicalities of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is why he got moved off it to “levelling up”.
posted by DoveBrown at 9:33 AM on July 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

Michelle Donelan who quit after just 35 hours in the job as education secretary is the shortest-serving Cabinet minister in British history, breaking a 239-year-old record of four days set during the government of Pitt the Younger.
Michelle was replaced by Andrea Jenkyns who on her first day in the job gave the middle finger to the crowd outside downing street.
posted by Lanark at 10:12 AM on July 10, 2022 [9 favorites]

Six of the likely candidates for PM work closely with the American libertarian right, who are expanding their influence in British politics.
posted by adamvasco at 10:28 AM on July 10, 2022 [2 favorites]

Michelle was replaced by Andrea Jenkyns

It's been a bit confusingly written in a lot of places, but Andrea Jenkyns is a Minister of Education. (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, to be technical). James Cleverly replaced Michelle Donelan.

That dirt didn't make Johnson unelectable

There's dirt and dirt. Those were seen as consensual affairs (mostly ignoring his wife's view, of course) so weren't that bad. And Johnson is an exception to a lot of the rules, as well. He's Boris being Boris to a lot of people, and yeah, he's sometimes a naughty boy, but he'll get Brexit done.

It's a bit different now, partly because people are tired of the various scandals within the Tory party, so at least several of the potential candidates seem to be running on a "I'm going to clean things up" platform, so any dirt will hit them more. And none of them will be given the same allowance that Johnson was given.
posted by scorbet at 10:42 AM on July 10, 2022 [4 favorites]

Right...doesn't modern media/public perception theory show that revelations that play to the baked in "read" on a person doesn't really move public opinion all that much. Case in point, Elon Musk's revelation that he had twins with a subordinate at the same time that he was having a child with Grimes barely moved the needle because outside of Internet fan communities, Elon's vibe is erratic self-centered behavior. Same with Herschel Walker's kid revelations...he already was an absent father to some...what does it mean for there to be more children that he ignored.

It takes a situation where the public figure has a presentation of being moralizing and upstanding and a paragon of virtue for a revelations about a sex scandal to put a dent into things. Jerry Falwell Jr. is a complicated version of this. Outside observers knew things were off about Jerry but he got his power from the fawning evangelical community that was blind to those troublesome facts. Once revealed, Jerry's scandals were so evocative and broad that once his base had their eyes opened, public perception changed.
posted by mmascolino at 11:24 AM on July 10, 2022 [1 favorite]

[Penny Mordaunt's] launch video bears a striking resemblance to a famous sketch from The Day Today, which has been highlighted by one of its writers, Armando Iannucci, as well as many others.

It's also being mocked because people featured in it want nothing to do with it:

Paralympic athlete Jonnie Peacock is among several public figures who have asked to be removed from the promotional video released by Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt as she launched her party leadership bid. [...]

Peacock, an English sprint runner who won gold at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Paralympics tournaments, replied to the video on Twitter, saying: “I officially request to be removed from this video … anything but blue please.”

At the time of writing, Peacock’s comment had received 12,800 likes – more than double the number received by Mordaunt’s tweet announcing her entry into the leadership race.

posted by automatronic at 2:50 PM on July 10, 2022 [7 favorites]

Rehman Chishti has announced he is joining the race to be the next PM.

Yeah, me neither.

Apparently he was once on a list of MPs who could be a future PM. So I guess he took it to heart
posted by biffa at 12:01 AM on July 11, 2022

1922 committee executive election tonight which is expected to swing heavily to anti-boris MPs. Then they'll set the rules for the leadership contest; sources say they're going to raise the threshold to enter to be nominated by 25 MPs or so, so the no-hopers can be excluded and have a quick elimination contest to the final 2 before recess.

So Rehman Chishti's campaign may be rather short lived... The only one with enough declared support under that criteria so far is Sunak on 32, and Mordaunt is closest on 18, so there's going to be more frantic drumming up of support the next couple of days.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 12:19 AM on July 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

The other weird thing about Mordaunt's video is that she chooses a slogan designed to distance herself from Johnson ("a little less about the leader"), but still includes a clip of him among all her footage of Great Britons at work. Make your mind up, Penny.

Sunak's video avoids showing (or mentioning) Johnson altogether.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:26 AM on July 11, 2022

And just to note, the only one that's mentioned the cost of living crisis so far I think is Grant Shapps, the one who had a scummy 'get rich quick' scam going before parliament, and several pseudonyms. Jesus wept.

Soaring prices have plunged more people into financial trouble than Covid-19...

It brings to 4.4 million – one in six – the number of households estimated to be in “serious financial difficulties” across the whole population.

The majority of those have cut the quality of food they eat, a third have pawned possessions and a quarter have cancelled insurance, the research shows. Single parents, renters, disabled people and families with three or more children are worst affected. Credit card debt is rising and a quarter have zero savings.

The only group in less financial strife since October 2021 are households with income of more than £100,000, according to the study by Abrdn Financial Fairness Trust and Bristol University.

That latter group of course makes up the electorate for the final 2 of the tory leadership. The big pitches so far are primarily cutting corporation tax, and being anti-woke. Yay.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 12:42 AM on July 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

The Penny Mordaunt video is the most "this is pitched at the stereotypical Conservative Party member" video possible. A clipfest of vague/patriotic/wet nationalistic images, and the declining-mind friendly-mnemonic "PM for PM" for closure.

Of course, this means Penny still has to make the initial cut, then reach the final two. If she does, expect another video. Depending to an extent on the opponent e.g. Sajid, Nadhim, Rishi, Suella, or Priti, this one will contain lots of images of Penny prominently standing in front of British backdrops, through which the unspoken context is "I am Penny and I am very white and Penny is, like Margaret, a very British name (brief image of the Penny Black stamp) and I am white British Penny standing in Britain, and I am you". At which point many Conservative party members, watching from their assisted living homes, put down their Daily Mail, tremble slightly, remember the glorious leader, and vow their vote to Penny and not "the [casual racist term] other one".

If PM doesn't make the final two but Liz does, then I'm expecting something pretty similar.
posted by Wordshore at 1:00 AM on July 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

If PM doesn't make the final two but Liz does, then I'm expecting something pretty similar.

Truss is more likely to cosplay though. Either Britannia or Thatcher.
posted by biffa at 3:21 AM on July 11, 2022

The BBC has the current list of candidates in their article about Liz Truss joining the race.

former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch
Attorney General Suella Braverman
newly-appointed Foreign Office minister Rehman Chishti
former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt
former Health Secretary Sajid Javid
Trade minister Penny Mordaunt
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps
former Chancellor Rishi Sunak
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss
backbencher Tom Tugendhat
Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi

They also mention that Priti Patel is still considering a run, and that Michael Gove is backing Kemi Badenoch, as well as going into some of the policies of the candidates (mostly the tax related ones.)

Liz Truss's video is also available, but according to Tim Shipman on Twitter, it is being reviewed by the Foreign Office, as it contains footage shot by civil servants rather than Spads.
posted by scorbet at 5:30 AM on July 11, 2022

Twitter thread by Fergus Butler-Gallie where he analyses the logos of the various candidates for leader of the Conservative Party. They’re all pretty funny, but my favorite is probably this one: “Number 5- Sajid Javid. The front cover of a 300 page report by an external consultancy group detailing sanitary failings at a regional leisure centre.”
posted by Kattullus at 5:48 AM on July 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

No hint of Johnson in Liz Truss's video either.
posted by Paul Slade at 5:51 AM on July 11, 2022

Nadine Dorries Conservative Party leadership campaign video. - parody (today at least). (Sooz Kempner)
posted by rongorongo at 8:50 AM on July 11, 2022

So far the candidates all seem to be all about cutting tax, except the ones who are all about cutting tax and being transphobes. Oh, and Sunak is the odd one out for not wanting to cut taxes, but he's leaning hard on the transphobia.
posted by Dysk at 10:50 AM on July 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

None of them have much of a record to stand on but I was surprised by how much all have leant into tax cuts, especially given they pretty much all voted for tax increases (except for rich people) in the very recent past. Sunak is stuck as they were his tax increases.

It was also quite a surprise that Shapps seems to be playing the voice of reason on trans rights and 'wokeness'. There's been a bunch of stuff in the paper about how the anti Boris faction may be dominant due to the number of Boris acolytes that are tied up in ministerial positions so maybe he's playing to that?
posted by biffa at 12:54 PM on July 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

And Shapps is apparently out. Perhaps his more moderate/conciliatory tone didn't test well with the hate grannies who comprise the Tory base?
posted by acb at 4:42 AM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Time to prepare for open season being declared on me and mine, then.
posted by Dysk at 7:57 AM on July 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Hate grannies? No hate grandpas? I am skeptical, and with good reason. “The 2019 General Election saw unprecedented gender gaps in party support. New data from the British Election Study shows that 47% of men voted Conservative, compared to 42% of women. 29% of men voted Labour, compared to 37% of women.”
posted by Bella Donna at 8:17 AM on July 12, 2022

Their specific deployment of transphobia with a very notable TERF bent in both rhetoric and focus indicates that this is a deliberate play to the hate grannies, not the hate grandpas (who are already on board anyway, as you point out).
posted by Dysk at 8:33 AM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Hate Grannies include Hate Grandpas (and presumably Senescent Hate Enbies, if they exist in the Tory Party)
posted by acb at 8:34 AM on July 12, 2022

Senescent Hate Enbies

Grenbies?
posted by Paul Slade at 9:25 AM on July 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

There was a Guardian article last week which linked to a study(pdf) from 2018 looking at the demographics of the major parties. It looked at the actual membership of the parties (so for the Tories, the somewhere around 150-200 000 eligible in the leadership vote rather than the almost 14 million who voted Tory in the last election) .

At that time, the membership was male (71%), older (61% over 55) and white (97%). It also looked at the views of the membership on different topics (immigration, gay marriage, austerity among others.) There are probably changes in the last few years (the surveys themselves took place 2015-7) but should at least give an indication of what the Tory membership looks like, and how it thinks, particularly compared to the members of the other major political parties.
posted by scorbet at 10:20 AM on July 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

Eight left in it after first shake-out.

Kemi Badenoch
Suella Braverman
Jeremy Hunt
Penny Mordaunt
Rishi Sunak
Tom Tugendhat
Liz Truss
Nadhim Zahawi
posted by Paul Slade at 10:37 AM on July 12, 2022

There's a balance at this stage, between playing to the parliamentary party and the membership, with half an eye on polling numbers with the public as well for anyone who's feeling confident about their chances.

Any way you slice it, the near universality in their enthusiasm for both corporation tax cuts and anti trans culture war is deeply concerning.
posted by Dysk at 11:29 AM on July 12, 2022 [6 favorites]

Tonight's Panorama looks promising.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:39 AM on July 13, 2022

Except it's Laura Kuenssberg, who might as well be a member of tory party HQ given her long history of uncritical regurgitation of their talking points. Don't expect any probing questions to the candidates about how most are selling themselves on honesty and conscience for bringing down Johnson despite supporting him through his many, many scandals up to now, or that they repeatedly voted for the tax rises they're now promising to cut, or even how they plan to pay for them. All of which would be standard if it was any other party.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 2:12 AM on July 13, 2022 [7 favorites]

Don't expect any probing questions to the candidates

I wasn't - principally because the point of this particular programme seems to be not to interrogate the candidates, but to collect some behind-the-scenes glimpses of what went on in Number 10 during those crucial few hours. It'll be mostly bit players she speaks to in this case, I imagine.
posted by Paul Slade at 7:24 AM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

After the first round of Conservative MP voting, 6 go through to "sudden death" elimination votes:

Rishi Sunak - 88 votes
Penny Mordaunt - 67 votes
Liz Truss - 50 votes
Kemi Badenoch - 40 votes
Tom Tugendhat - 37 votes
Suella Braverman - 32 votes

Two were knocked out at this stage, namely:

Nadhim Zahawi - 25 votes
James Hunt - 18 votes
posted by Wordshore at 10:22 AM on July 13, 2022 [1 favorite]

Orthodox Conservatives an anti-BLM, anti-Islam, anti-abortion, anti-LGBT, anti-green youth group which claims to be “grassroots” but which has links to opaquely funded right-wing think-tanks and far-right figures have announced their support for Suella Braverman.
posted by adamvasco at 4:33 PM on July 13, 2022 [2 favorites]

James Hunt - 18 votes

Interesting slip, there. Would a dead racing driver be a worse candidate, d'ye think?
posted by Grangousier at 12:16 AM on July 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Interesting slip, there.

To be fair, the MP concerned has been a notorious typographical error for many years now.
posted by flabdablet at 2:01 AM on July 14, 2022 [7 favorites]

Only one gone? Dear god... why can't they do it Thunderdome-style - dump them all in a pit and throw in a bunch of weapons.

I would be genuinely curious to find out which one that strategy would favour.
posted by Grangousier at 7:39 AM on July 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

You would think it would be little Tommy Tugger (he was in the army you know), but he would get a shock after stabbing Truss in the heart only for her to sneer into his face then knock the smile off it.
posted by biffa at 8:28 AM on July 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

he was in the army you know

Huh.

On 6 July 2003, Tugendhat was commissioned into the Educational and Training Services Branch of the Adjutant General's Corps, Territorial Army, British Army, as a second lieutenant (on probation). His Territorial Army commission was confirmed on 16 July 2003. He transferred to the Intelligence Corps on 29 July 2003.

Tugendhat was promoted to lieutenant on 16 July 2005, captain on 1 April 2007, and to major on 1 January 2010. He was a Territorial Army lieutenant colonel by July 2013.

Tugendhat served during the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan.

On the one hand Territorial Army, on the other hand commissioned officer, on the other other hand Iraq and Afghanistan. Someone with more understanding of the nuances of British military culture would need to tease out the meanings in that.

Anyway, I don't think it suggests he'd be any better in a fight than any of the others. Truss, for example, is positively feral.
posted by Grangousier at 8:41 AM on July 14, 2022

Also, my eyes are narrowing at the phrase "Educational and Training Services Branch of the Adjutant General's Corps, Territorial Army, British Army". What is that? Is it like being a high-ranking officer in the Catering Corps?
posted by Grangousier at 9:06 AM on July 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

More importantly, he went to the Intelligence Corps. That's the military spooks, and probably because of his language skills in Arabic and later Pashto - they spend quite of time gathering human intel in person and as a military interpreter, with higher ranks working as liason to ~~gun happy warlords~~ local leaders etc, and you don't get that high up just because you look good in camo. He did spend time on the ground with other units, including special forces. and he definitely got shot at quite a few times apparently. Being in the TA meant he had more flexibility about whether to go on deployment, but it's not uncommon as a way to retain people with useful skills who don't want to entirely give up civy life.

The AGC is the military support services, btw, including payroll, legal and military police. ETS is the teaching unit, where they train soldiers and officers in various skills, including languages and leadership. He didn't spend long there, so probably was just a holding spot as only officers can go into Intel, so he had to be commissioned first. Royal Logistic Corps has the cooks.

I'd give him odds on against any of them except Sunak, who could easily pay a huge bribe to bring in a small personal army of bodyguards. Even Truss would go down once you chop off *enough* bits I think.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 9:43 AM on July 14, 2022 [7 favorites]

Thank you that explains everything. I'm in general soft-fruit-throwing mode, so inclined to be a bit facetious about pretty much anything. Which is probably not a good look, but everything's either falling to pieces or on fire so I'm less inclined to care about looks at the moment.
posted by Grangousier at 9:47 AM on July 14, 2022 [1 favorite]

Penny Mordaunt is the true ERG candidate;
Like Rikki she has a fervancy for Freeports. As someone pointed out this leadership contest is akin to choosing which portaloo to use at Glastonbury.
posted by adamvasco at 3:19 PM on July 14, 2022 [2 favorites]

It's not often when you can see someone, on the public stage, wrestle with the dilemma of whether to sell your soul in exchange for power, but Penny Mordaunt is doing that.

At the outset of her campaign, she regurgitated a bunch of awful transphobic talking points, and since then she's doubled down. What's disappointing about that is that before she launched her campaign, she had been publicly supportive of trans rights.

It's obviously reductive to explain everything from biography, but it's hard not to ascribe some of her previously expressed beliefs to her relationship with her twin brother, who's gay. From everything I've read, she's very close to him, and that's probably been a factor for her having been an outlier in the Conservative Party on LGBTQ+ rights.

So she's already gone a long way towards selling her soul for a shot at being prime minister. But even that hasn't been enough for the shittier shitbags in her party, and earlier today Suella Braverman criticized her for not being transphobic enough.

To be frank, I basically expect her continue on her path towards transphobia. Selling your soul often seems like such a small step, when competing for an important prize. So it's not that I'm shocked to see a right wing politician trample on a minority group in a rush to gain power, but even so I feel ever so slightly disappointed, just on a human level.

It's not often you can see someone fail such a basic test of moral character, in public.
posted by Kattullus at 4:20 PM on July 14, 2022 [10 favorites]

Fuck her. Fuck her soul. She isn't selling that. She's selling out my life, my soul, and the souls of every other trans person in Britain and elsewhere.
posted by Dysk at 12:41 AM on July 15, 2022 [15 favorites]

And the rest of the fucking field are now criticising her for not being violently transphobic enough. Utter, despicable, worthless, utterly valueless shits, all of them. Being back guillotines.
posted by Dysk at 1:07 AM on July 15, 2022 [18 favorites]

She's not selling out, she's buying in.
posted by rhizome at 3:05 AM on July 15, 2022 [1 favorite]

Interesting thread (I threadreadered it) from Lewis Goodall, Newsnight journo, about a focus group he sat in on. There's an accompanying Newsnight report at the bottom.

/tldr: People really aren't that impressed with either the candidates or the culture war bullshit they've enthusiastically attached themselves to, because they're looking into a financial abyss.

Oh, and there was a televised debate this evening on (ironically) Channel 4, but I didn't watch because I'm trying to cling to the tattered shreds of my will to live.
posted by Grangousier at 1:36 PM on July 15, 2022 [5 favorites]

Interesting thread (I threadreadered it) from Lewis Goodall
I agree. I think the comment about the degree to which short video clips on social media have a reach that far eclipses broadcast TV or newspapers, is particularly important: politicians can benefit massively from a short and pithy sound byte on a panel show or suffer greatly from a video dug up from 20 years ago. Probably the only people who we assume as so out of touch that they still shape their thoughts from an editorial in The Daily Mail - are Tory party members - but even they must be somewhat exposed to social media - maybe via their great grandchildren or their gardeners.
posted by rongorongo at 11:25 PM on July 15, 2022

My parents are not (AFAIK) Tory party members, but they're in their seventies with zero exposure to social media. Mum dislikes technology and doesn't use a computer, smartphone or tablet; Dad writes software for a living but has no interest in social media. If I want to share a photo with him, I email it to him. They get their news from Radio 4, the Telegraph and the Times.

I guess they're less typical of their generation than I assume.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 1:22 AM on July 18, 2022

Here's the link to Mordaunt's article that Dr Rachel Morris referenced. It's more incoherent than you may think.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:54 PM on July 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

In the final ballot before the top two go to the party membership Sunak got 137 votes, Truss 113, and Mordaunt 105.

It’s gotta suck for Mordaunt to have sold her soul and got nothing in return. As for me, I wistfully regret not believing in hell.
posted by Kattullus at 8:12 AM on July 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

Ladies and gentlemen, the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury and inevitable outcome of a strange, ten year prank, Liz Truss. I thought they had topped out with Johnson but you have to admire their commitment to finding someone worse and continuing the trend (I assume to win a bet or something). This will be the first Prime Minister I will have suspected might actually be quite a stupid person. We are so, so fucked.
posted by deeker at 10:30 AM on July 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

It’s gotta suck for Mordaunt to have sold her soul and got nothing in return
Judging by urbanwhaleshark's link, sounds like a fair exchange.
posted by sarble at 11:04 AM on July 20, 2022 [7 favorites]

It has been quite a distillation process to watch: we start of with Cameron going and a tack towards those who are willing to support the idea of actually delivering Brexit rather than trying to back-peddle or buy time. The "six impossible things before breakfast" quality of the problem was already a pretty fierce filter to remove anybody with common sense from the field. May spent a few years floundering around in the impossibility of the situation before running aground. At this stage the filter demanded not only somebody who was willing to endorse the dogma of Brexit but who was also able to bluster convincingly enough to pass off an impossible situation as just temporary hesitation they could overcome. Somebody so desperate for power and praise as to overlook niceties such as laws or logic. Johnson's narcissism meant he could only tolerate a cabinet of people who would echo whatever he said or proposed - and the in-fighting between embittered Johnson supporters and "Sunak the traitor" - mean that we will finally have reached the end game: bring on the fool!
posted by rongorongo at 11:08 AM on July 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

I like John Crace's take on Liz Truss: "She is the anti-ideologue. The anti-conviction politician. Not so much a set of ideas looking for their natural home as vaulting ambition in search of some ideas. Any ideas. If you don’t like hers, she’s got some others." - As a nice example of this here is an extract from an anti-monarchy speech she gave to the Lib Dems conference in 1994 - we see her advocating principles she has since dropped for a party she has since dropped - on the basis of research which sounds compelling but (we might now suspect) a little made up. The interesting thing is that we see her as a better public speaker then (at 19) then now. Maybe, just maybe, abandoning everything you once believed in - not because you see flaws in its logic but solely to be promoted - is not such a healthy thing to do in life.
posted by rongorongo at 3:45 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

She is the anti-ideologue. The anti-conviction politician. Not so much a set of ideas looking for their natural home as vaulting ambition in search of some ideas. Any ideas. If you don’t like hers, she’s got some others.

Australia just turfed out one of those (Scott Morrison aka ScoMo aka Scotty from Marketing aka Scotty from Announcements). If you value your soul, Britain, you'll do likewise at the very earliest opportunity.
posted by flabdablet at 10:55 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile Johnson still thinks he could cling on as PM, and I wouldn't put it past him to try.
posted by automatronic at 4:39 AM on July 26, 2022

Whenever Alfie gets a cling-on as rank as that, we whip out the scissors and give his bottom a bit of a trim.
posted by flabdablet at 5:00 AM on July 26, 2022 [1 favorite]

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