I posted a poll on Twitter on Friday, asking the above question. This was the finding after 24 hours of polling:
I make no pretence that this is scientific: it clearly is not as those answering were first of all amongst those that my Tweets might reach, which is a biased sample (everyone's reach on Twitter is biased, so there is no value judgement implicit in that) and those voting were self-selected. I was, nonetheless struck by how fixed the 80:20 ratio was. Five votes delivered that outcome, and so too did 2,911.
I admit to some surprise that anyone thinks Johnson might be PM in a year. That's not because I think that the Tories will be out of power. I think that very unlikely. It is because with Labour polling at 40% or more the Red Wall seat MPs will be nervously eyeing the situations vacant columns right now and will do anything to stay at Westminster, including sacking Johnson.
I am not sure that there is much agreement on when Johnson will go. I doubt it will be before Christmas, simply because the mechanism is not there to achieve it with parliament in recess, but a loss of this week's by-election could definitely do for him very early in the New Year. If that is not the political death knell then NHS collapse could deliver the blow soon after. My guess is that by Easter he will have little to do but change nappies, although I bet he's never been near one.
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I liked this comment on his Xmas Quiz by GuyForks in The Independent:
“” ..and finally , question 10:
which lying malfeasant PM will be sacked by Christmas 2021? “
Although it is wondrous to contemplate the relegation of Trump 2 to nappy changing, let us not forget that crass inhumanity, vicious class based politics and personal corruption represent the current core values of the Tory Party, as well, apparently, as around forty per cent of the English population. The sudden surge of knives pulled from belts is not about moral outrage and defence of core democratic, liberal values. It is about a soul felt desire to hang onto power by selecting a leader who doesn’t actually flaunt contempt for the little people. Actually having that contempt is a prerequisite of leadership of the present Tory Party. This is why my money is on the vicious poster boy. Smooth exterior around a hard core of concentrated neo-liberalism should do the trick. Gove’s the same, of course, but somehow can’t avoid an aura reminiscent of Himmler and I dont think losing the spectacles would help!
The Pareto Rule or distribution is based on a 80:20 ratio. I can’t explain why it might apply in this situation?
I’ve no idea – I really have not.
For all we know, this is just political theatre put on to distract us and Boris is taking one for the team.
A new leader would be a disaster – chance for people to forgive and forget the most inhumane, corrupt and politically sectarian Tory party in my life time? I hope not. I want to see them go down together, ripping each other to shreds as they go down the plug hole into the sewer where they belong.
In fact, on the subject of sewers, doesn’t Boris and his party remind you of Stephen King’s ‘It’ – a homicidal, evil party fronted by a clown killing people and wreaking havoc. Did King know something we didn’t when he wrote it? Discuss.
But in the back of my mind I’m thinking ‘What are they up to?’ whilst all this is cracking off.
For the future then:
1. Get rid of the FTPA.
2. Ban people with a net personal worth of a certain amount from sitting in Parliament (no millionaires please). The ‘commons’ should mean the bloody commons and that’s that. Millionaires ain’t. Bye, bye Jacob (and others).
3. Identify lying in Parliament and punish it accordingly. Lying by the PM should lead to impeachment and leaving office and maybe arrest and prosecution.
4. Sort out the internet and police it better.
5. Allocate parties the same budget for general election campaigns – a flat rate for all and police it rigorously.
6. Sort out a proper constitution for Parliament and set up constitutional court to uphold it NOT made up of MPs. Write up a mandate to protect democracy and write it into law.
7. Give the Electoral Commission real teeth.
I’d better stop there because as my list grows longer I’ve just realised why the Tory party cannot afford to lose. Because all their corruption, incompetence and anti-democracy would come out in the wash – BREXIT, Covid – you name it.
The millionaire issue is not sustainable. That’s about half of people in London who are old enough to have paid off their mortgage.
I’m not sure what you mean Richard. The current crop don’t all come from London do they – they just live there in their second homes?
If you’re saying that they need to be rich just to live close to Parliament…
Stop them buying then, and give them free or cheap accommodation with the post of MP?
To me MPS need levelling down to those on median wages and hopefully they might be more mindful of the impacts of their policies rather than living in another world like they do.
You said exclude millionaires
I was saying there are a great many of them
TINA
There really is none available to us. Now that NuLabInc are back in to continue the two card trick Hobsons ‘choice’ that is presented to us through pantomime.
“Labour now has a top team ready for government, says Yvette Cooper”
To which I will paraphrase Heseltine (the last chance one nation Tory we had):
‘It’s not Starmer’s it’s Balls! ‘
The Blairites are back and having purged the grassroots again they are finally ready for their big scene of nailing shut the NHS and anything else that remains of the postwar covenant.
Are we supposed to ‘Rejoice’ as Maggie once urged after murder?
Ps Julian Assange is reported to have had a stroke whilst a unconvicted political prisoner in the U.K. threatened with deportation to a country with a death sentence for reporting war crimes. Anyone care?
So, now let me ask – will you vote Labour still? If not, what will you do?
As someone who basically shares DunGroanin’s views on this subject, its an interesting question, isn’t it ?
As an ex-Labour member who continues to keep a close eye on what is going on within the party, I have to say that I will NOT be voting Labour. Its soul has now well and truly been sold to the Esthablishment, and its gameplan is that nothing should really change,.
So who else ? Greens ? Possibly, although there is every reason to suspect that, should they start making real gains, are likely to become just another route for career politicians.
I’ll just have to wait and see what is on offer. I could lend my vote to TUSC, should they stand a candidate.
Otherwise, for the first time, I shall abstain on the grounds that the current political system has disenfranchised me, and I’m sick of voting for the least worst candidate.
When Corbyn resigned my (right wing) Labour MP told the local media that she hoped things would now “return to normal”.
I did think of dropping her a line to let her know that “normal” meant I would no longer be voting for her, and the votes and support I gave her during the 2017 and 2019 elections were actually proxy votes for Corbyn and the hope that the “normal” political situation might change for the better. But in the end, I didn’t. I just withdrew my support (financial and practical).
So you’d rather abstain than vote against the Tories
Sorry, but I just don’t get that
It is a good question prof and everyone.
I will try and answer it and ask a few of my own. I think it merits debate and an effort to preserve the future of voting.
I have always said that a vote should be cast.
It is a hard won right and it is only in the interest of status quo to reduce turnout and increase apathy.
Why should politicians care about voters who can be made apathetic?
Then again controlled opposition means there is NO possible change to underlying lobbied policies regardless of the controlled two/3 party system, all sides supported by the same backers and with controlled media – how can a vote make a difference?
If we are never allowed genuine PR? If we have fptp and highly gerrymandered seats that make it almost impossible to make many votes count?
In any safe seat I would encourage all who feel the same as me to register a protest vote. And to make MASSIVE such votes across the electorate. From all shades of the spectrum. We are after all have more in common than politics.
If several millions of voters and previous non-voters COLLECTIVELY arrange a mass protest vote then it has to be reported! Politicians have to react to that clear demand that what they collectively offer informed voters in a mature democracy that needs voters to vote to claim legitimacy.
A campaign, from the grass roots, constituency by constituency, is the only way we as a people are ever going to expand our voting rights, which means more voters counts – that centuries old battle didn’t come to an end with Suffragettes or 18 year olds, did it?
Why not PR? Why not minimum turnout? Why not mandatory voting? Why not a regular election of candidates by party members prior to each election? Why not a possibility of an end to a predictable partisan system that has evolved to eliminate true choice, to stay the same while the electorate has expanded well beyond when half a dozen bought voters could install an MP that had bought a seat?
I live in a safe Labour seat that has a controlled local party and candidate that is not local. My only option is to protest against that lack of choice using my vote.
Here is one lot of people suggesting how, I don’t think I am alone in feeling this way and have never done before but will be advocating that a properly defined protest vote is made at my next opportunity.
https://www.votenone.org.uk/protest_votes_count.html
Wouldn’t a few million such votes make the government and the establishment and their lackeys burn with shame and in the eyes of the billions across the world as we rejected their false choice?
It is honestly where I am now.
Many thanks for responding to the challenge
I respect that
And yes, FPTP is the enemy
Yes Dungroanin, I care about Julian and the grotesque parody of our justice system bowing down to US imperialism. His treatment and that of Craig Murray is the best evidence of our liberties being under attack. It should be becoming evident to everyone that freedom of speech of the press, which includes bloggers like Richard, has been entirely corrupted and the attacks aren’t commented upon by mainstream media. General apathy will lead to collapse of our civilisation, quite likely sooner than we think.
What great record that would make.
Cameron elected, resigned.
May in office with DUP support, forced out/resigned
Johnson just over two years, forced out/resigned
All in six or seven years.
As Oscar Wilde wrote, to lose one may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. But three?
And yet only a few months ago, people were sure the Conservatives would win again.
MacMillan was right to warn of “events, dear boy”
Just the suggested news videos on YouTube or news sites displayed by a Google search would seem to confirm what so many suspect and you have written here: the writing is on the wall for Johnson and its more of a case of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. What I find staggering is that parliament is roughly mid-cycle, always a low ebb for the encumbent government, and considering the hefty litany of scandals and failures already accrued by this Tory government that the Labour Party is only now scratching a thin lead. Both Milliband and Corbyn enjoyed far larger and more sustained polling leads than Starmer’s party currently has, all the while dealing with a scurrilously hostile mass media, something that has been strongly attenuated since April 2020. This suggests (to me) that this is the Tories losing support rather than Labour gaining it.
I’m also somewhat surprised by how national polls typically have the Greens fairly steady on around 6%, yet all year they have been taking councils seats (and even council control) off both the Tories and Labour Party, the latter of which have struggled frantically to simply tread water in most of this year’s local elections. I appreciate that voting behaviour in local elections does not accurately reflect national intentions – the Lib Dems also usually fare quite well in local elections, but this figure seems almost at odds with what we have witnessed throughout 2021 as I would have expected the Greens to have a higher share of support.
The scene is confused
Do not also doubt the wholly misplaced but still relevant ‘he did his best on Covid’ factor in Tory support which I think is evaporating now
Or am I deluding myself?
“The scene is confused”. That one sentence might well perfectly encapsulate the political reality of the UK both now and at least the successive short-term future. The Tories are dreadful and dishonest, Labour are awful and untrustworthy, the Lib-Dems are eternally political ‘ugly sisters’ while the SNP and many others are nation-specific, non-options for English voters. That leaves the Greens. They’re hardly a well-oiled, tried-and-tested political machine but that may well go in their favour with the public at the ballot box. Next GE they have my vote as they support both full PR and the removal of all private interests from the NHS. I’ve never voted Tory in my life (and will never do so) while Labour’s return to chicanery and mendacity has put the final nail in the box as far as I’m concerned.
No, I don’t think that you’re deluding yourself. I’ve read quite a few opinions posted on social media about how many ’19 Tory voters let slide all the deaths from COVID and all the other utterly appalling actions and inactions by Johnson and his gang that are now up in arms over the Christmas parties of last year. Maybe this is what is has taken to begin to tear the veil of denial from their minds about this Conservative government. Hopefully, those a little less uncritically zealous in their support for Johnson’s Tories will come to consider some of their other actions and policies since 2019 and perhaps, even further back before marking their cross next to a Tory candidate’s name on the ballot form. Let’s hope that enough of that misplaced support does evaporate before the next GE.
If they lose North Shropshire (let’s hope so) or drop their majority vastly the 1922 Committee will get rid in the New Year using the excuse that he is unelectable, rather than blaming the lying, cheating, corruption and sewage.
Let’s hope he still gets prosecuted for unnecessarily killing 150,000 UK Citizens.
Once he’s out we need to work on the rest of the ERG Cabal in turn and purge the HoC of criminals.
With healthcare being a devolved matter, such an attitude means that we should prosecute of Sturgeon, Drakeford and the NI equivalents.
Any potentially preventable death from a respiratory infection means the Prime Minister or the equivalent stands trial.
I think there are defences in their cases
You pose the question of whether to vote Labour. Your mantra, ABC, deals with that. The dire state of English politics, including the absence of an Opposition does not change that. It still remains the case that liberal democratic values do survive in both the Labour and Libdem Parties and those values are our last stand as a society most of us, hopefully all who contribute here, would wish to live in. Make no mistake. This government is edging not so slowly down the time honoured route of populism, repressive laws justified by bogus enemies, anti wokism, xenophobia and racism, combined with rabid, undiluted neo liberal economics. To be clear, even under that cretin, Starmer, Labour does NOT espouse that package.
Has anyone seen this:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/11/so-which-of-these-politicians-is-a-neoliberal-not-one-of-them
Now this IS interesting.
I’ve not had time to read it all – I’ve skimmed some of the the actual book Cohen is referring as I’ve downloaded it.
As per usual, Cohen is a mixture of sharp insight and atavistic dogma (why does he think the label ‘Neo-liberal’ can only come from the Left – tut, tut), but his paragraphs lay out some heavy hits:
“Far from being a spur to entrepreneurial dynamism, the Conservative party is the party of the people who have stopped working, rather than the party of businesses and their workers. Johnson and ministers stroke the prejudices of his core pensioner vote and put their economic interests first.” Very true actually on reflection, but there is no acknowledgement or links to Neo-liberal thinking that led to such a situation.
” I cannot imagine the ghost of Friedman applauding a government that raises taxes on employers and employees to protect the property of wealthy retirees.” Cohen does not seem terribly au fait with events in Chile either when he makes statements like this.
“You won’t beat them with obscurantist labels voters don’t understand and you may well not understand either.” Maybe true – but have we really tried?
” You won’t beat them until you understand them and when you do you will realise that whatever else they are they are not neoliberals.” Well, this lot aren’t, but make no mistake, the world they rule over so effectively now is one shaped and enabled by previous Neo-liberal policy and practice.
I am not quite happy with what I’ve read so far of the book either. The book seems to want to downplay Neo-liberalism, its effects and its origins. As we know, Neo-liberalism is very good at being invisible whilst actually being there.
We also know that Neo-liberalism itself was distorted by those who funded it and became more hard-line because of that factor. And that Thatcher renounced it especially when it became understood that the country was fast become a hot bed of inner-city rioting as result of her Neo-liberal ardour.
Take a look for yourselves I’d say.
I downloaded but today was a long Covid day – they follow the same pattern and aren’t fun
If it follows the pattern I’ll be fine by tomorrow lunchtime
Well, I hope you get over it smoothly.
Where I live it is dyed in the wool Tory anyway cap doffing supreme. I don’t bother voting Labour (they were wiped out in 2019) and vote for the Greens who are just nice people, if a little dim on economics.
When I’ve attended local meetings the local Labour lot seem to dismissive of everyone to be honest. They seem resentful of others efforts to work together. It’s a shame.
I certainly agree that “liberal” of any hue – neo or traditional – is not a remotely accurate description of the current Conservative government. They are would-be dictators posing as democrats.
It is interesting the way language works. “Neo-liberal” seems to have been a terminology invented by the far right wing to disguise their non-liberal intentions, but has now become a term more used by those of the left (or centre-left) pejoratively. Just as “woke” was once a slang term of black Americans about their peers who had only just appreciated the racism in the society they lived in, but has become a term used mostly by the right-wing to denigrate those who have never themselves used the term but try to treat all humans with equal respect.
I have not read Cohen before following the link (at least from memory), but I found I agreed with much of what he wrote, in a form that was both incisive and trenchant; candidly, I find most of the ideas of both Left and Right pitifully redundant (two drunks looking for a lamp-post).
I confess I have used the term ‘neoliberal’, and I do not fit Cohen’s model. Cohen oversimplifies, and he falls into the trap of journalism – a glib facility of expression passing off as insightful knowledge (a form of intellectual hubris); first in failing to appreciate that Hayek, Thatcher etc., did not themselves adequately understand what they were doing, or what they had unleashed; second, in himself not seeming to understand the operation of a modern, global monetary economy. He does not appear to understand the underlying, fundamental problem of ignorance. I do not say this because I would claim to have risen above it; I make the claim because at least I know I haven’t.
The problem is that Economics has passed itself off as science; but it isn’t, it fails the test. It does not pass the Sale of Goods Act as a scientific discipline. It seems to have seduced Cohen.
I agree with Paulhenry,
I am not arguing that Labour is the answer to all our problems …they are very far from that but they will constitute the only real alternative at the next election. I would prefer that they might agree an arrangement with Lib Dems to allow the non-Tory to win in those seats where a combined anti-Tory vote could take away a Tory seat …but I won’t hold my breath. Yes, yes, I k ow all the arguments against it but …to bowdlerise a saying….I refuse to allow the ideal to be the enemy of the only acceptable alternative. Then again there are plenty of people prepared to vote tactically without the need for any party to endorse such an approach.
As for the likely timing of Johnson’s departure. when I checked the bookies’ odds on this they gave next calendar year 2022 as the equivalent of a ‘racing certainty’ for him to be gone. Subsequent years had much longer odds. I think he wants to go and really doesn’t care about his position any more…if he ever did. And of course at the moment he can’t possibly earn what he thinks is sufficient income on the paltry salary they pay the PM. Alan
With regard to voting Labour or being self indulgent and voting Green/Libdem etc., many of us are in a situation where a vote of anyone other than the Tories effectively does not count thanks to FPTP. It therefore becomes a moot point whether we vote Red Tory to shore up an overall Labour vote count or indulge ourselves with a protest vote.
The other interesting factor is that of Labour claiming that Scotland has to vote for them in order to beat the Tories (guilt trip) – which ain’t the case. If England doesn’t vote for Labour, then Scotland has no hope of influencing anything. D.
Scotland can quit
If only Richard if only. There’s a desperate shortage of spines in the Scottish government as most are more concerned with their own careers.
It’s depressing to see the anti-Labour comments on here which all point to one conclusion: the left or “anti-Tory” vote is split (yet again) and the Conservatives will retain power in 2024
Why can’t people see that in order to remove the Tories from power sometimes you have to hold your nose and vote for someone you might not like or disagree with
In our area the Lib Dems have the best chance of ousting the resident Tory so they will reluctantly get my vote.
I will be holding my nose
I very much expect to vote LibDem next time
I would also hold my nose and vote Labout if I had to
I would rather vote Green