How right we were

The women up to now have made better jobs at being leaders.
You can't compare the late MT's speeches to BJ's !!

Iron Lady versus the Tin Man.

Johnson doesn’t make speeches - he waffles.

Here's a crazy thing....I don't like BJ and I find nothing interesting or inspiring about JC.
I thought Caroline Lucas was brave and sensible yesterday.

Lucas is in the constituency next to mine. She will get in again.

I don’t think people in Nick Boles’ constituency think much to him anymore.

No EllanV, the straw man would be more apt for BJ.

I meant scarecrow, why did I type straw Man?

I have watched the clip, it played OK here. Very good if not a little bit scary.

Those who don’t rate Corbyn chances are far too optimistic, if Farage fields candidates in most constituencies that will split the Tory vote, resulting in a lot less seats for Brexit parties.
I don’t look forward to Corbyn as PM but Labour could easily be the largest party in coalition with others. Conservative members were crazy to put Johnson in as PM he is far too aggressive and right wing, also he has proved to be not a good speaker at PM question time.

I agree with you, Davidhs. I would be very surprised if Farage picks up any seats in the rebel Tories' constituencies. As I've written before, it's more likely that about half of them will go to the LibDems. If the BP and Tories both stand, it's likely to split the right wing vote and make the LibDems' job easier.

There's a possibility that the BP will pick up a handful of seats in the North and the East of England, probably at Labour's expense. However, it will almost certainly only be a handful. Labour has many rock solid majorities and it's difficult to see the BP taking many of them.

The most likely outcome of a GE is three major parties (Cons, Lab, LDs) and the SNP in Scotland. Some kind of coalition is almost certainly going to be inevitable. The BP might possible have enough seats to make them some kind of junior party (as the DUP now is), but it's difficult to see them winning a landslide.

grow how does that resolve Brexit?

His haters were so put out by Johnson's good start as PM. It was inevitable that Remainer Parliamentarians would want to take the wind from his sails.

If Corbyn and his Marxist Labour Party is the only replacement, heaven help us all. We seem to have forgotten Corbyn favours enemies of the UK, is anti-Semitic and a Eurosceptic turned Europhile hypocrite.

If Johnson is bad, the alternative is a million times worse.

Johnson’s good start?? Marxist Labour Party????

Hyperbole is quite a weakness of yours isn’t or day6

Whitewave, it doesn't! That's why a GE wouldn't solve anything. One way or the other this is going to go rumbling on for decades.

Even if/when the UK leaves the EU, there will be squabbling about new trade other agreements amongst people in the UK. Issues we've just accepted will become sources of contention. Those who "lost" the referendum aren't going to just shut up. People will be alert to potential losses of human rights and lowering of standards, etc etc.

If I had to make a prediction, I think Labour (probably without Corbyn as leader) will come out on top in the long run and we're going to see a major realignment of political parties.

Anybody who thinks a quick decision will just make it all go away is deluded.

That’s what I thought grow?

Johnson's good start??
Must've blinked and missed that!
Truly a post that further proves that some of us dwell in a parallel universe.

I think he had a cunning plan (or his puppet master did) but it hasn't gone as planned.

This is interesting reading, I'm posting the whole thing as they expect you to subscribe.

september 4 2019, 5:00pm, the times
Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings believe their plan can still work
jenni russell
While no one foresaw the scale of the rebellion a showdown with parliament was long planned
The country is being played on a grand scale by the men in Downing Street. Nothing is as it seems. Boris Johnson wanted and intended to lose his historic vote. The headlines declaring he has lost control are only half right.
Johnson and his chief strategist, Dominic Cummings, deliberately planned and engineered last night’s defeat, goading the Commons into opposing him; he was lying to his party, parliament and the country when he claimed that he was being pushed into calling an election.
An early election that he could deny seeking is exactly what he has been scheming to achieve ever since he took power. And although elements of this strategy went badly wrong this week it is just plausible that Johnson’s tactics of deception could give him victory still.
Five weeks ago Tory insiders explained to me how the prime minister was going to free himself from the prison of a one-vote majority, secure five years in power, outflank the Brexit Party at the polls and end up with enough MPs to let him do what he wanted with Brexit after that.
Everything that has happened since, from the revelation in a Scottish court that Johnson had secretly planned the proroguing of parliament as early as mid-August to the immediate attempt to hold an election, has borne out that this is indeed the plan. As the newly ousted rebel Sir Nicholas Soames says, “this was all completely set up”.
It was essential to Johnson’s scheme to win over Brexiteers that he should look like the reliable champion of no-deal. The tactic was to frame him as a leader imprisoned on two sides: by MPs on the one hand and an intransigent Europe on the other. For this to work he needed to push parliament into explicitly blocking no-deal, and for the EU to be painted as obstinate opponents of a new deal. Then he could claim to be fighting an unwanted but necessary election as the trustworthy, proven standard-bearer of Brexit.
Two factors have thrown this strategy off course. The first is the scale and seriousness of the Conservative rebellion, with several former senior ministers and distinguished backbenchers among the 21 malcontents. These are people who embody what Johnson used to claim to be: moderate, one-nation, liberal Tories. They appeal to middle-ground Conservative voters who are repulsed by the Brexit Party elements. Nobody in No 10 expected that. The rebellion was meant to be tiny, and the threats of deselection were intended to be deterrents, not reality.

Johnson was genuinely trying to win over the prospective rebels at his meeting with them on Tuesday, MPs who were present tell me; they refused because they felt they were being played for fools, expected to believe in sham negotiations with the EU and given no detail. What Johnson claimed to be aiming for was, Soames told me, “unobtainable nonsense — scrapping the backstop and rewriting the whole bloody thing”.
The second unexpected obstacle is Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to back an instant election for mid-October. Johnson and Cummings had calculated that he would be unable to resist the election he has long claimed to want. Instead Corbyn has seen that move as the tank trap it is, and is refusing to agree an election on Johnson’s terms. He won’t support one at least until the legislation that blocks no-deal has been passed.
On the face of it these changes leave Johnson marooned, with a majority gone, an election blocked, and his party looking incompetent, mean and dominated by its right wing. “The optics are terrible,” one Johnson insider tells me. Another former supporter is enraged by the brutality of the prime minister’s approach, which he fears will alienate an entire strand of Tory voters.
This is not how it’s seen in No 10 where, as one insider tells me, “emotions have been oscillating” but the view is that the strategy can still win through. The defenestration of moderate Tory rebels is regarded with personal regret but steely political indifference. The calculation is that voters in swing towns won’t know or care about the absence of Ken Clarke or Philip Hammond. The priority for Johnson is ensuring that the next batch of MPs will faithfully deliver what he promises. “If nice guy John is replaced by Jim, who is neither nice nor thoughtful, that’s sad but irrelevant — Jim will back the strategy.”
The No 10 team are even more bullish about their ability to secure an election within weeks. They are scheming to evade Corbyn’s block in ways they won’t spell out: “Various plans are in motion,” I’m told. The belief remains that the Labour leader won’t be able to resist the appeal of a general election for long.
From this moment on, Johnson and the Tories are going to batter the electorate with the message that they are defending democracy and championing the people against rebel MPs, beastly Europe and the elites. The pitch will be: give me the mandate to get the best deal possible, and trust me to deliver no-deal if I can’t.
This is an incredibly dangerous moment for those of us who detest what Johnson is doing in driving the country and the Tory party to the right. His appeal looks puzzlingly limited. He is only polling a third of the vote, well below Theresa May in 2017. Yet on current forecasts that will win him a decent majority, perhaps 25 to 30 seats, because the opposition to him is so split.
Unless the left and liberal parties can co-ordinate just as effectively on parliamentary and electoral strategy as they did in last night’s vote, Johnson could still be on track to get the victory he’s lying to achieve.

It will be interesting to see what unfolds

It’s too early to talk about a major realignment of parties, the Liberals picking up a lot of seats will be no surprise to me. They have had a very poor share of MPs compared with votes in the past, with the Brexit party taking votes off the Tories and Labour, Liberals gaining 20+ seats is not unrealistic.

Just how they would get along with Labour and SNP in coalition is an open question.

Nonnie, in regard to your post @16:55. Today, the problem for Boris Johnson is not just his failed tactics and strategy as your copied and paste article from the Times suggests. The Tory Parties main problem since the recall of Parliament has been Johnson's performance both in and outside of Parliament.

The removal of the whip and de-selection of twenty-one senior Conservative MPs was in the opinion of many the biggest own goal scored in recent political history.

Johnsons "Demolition" at the hands of Corbyn and many other MPs during Prime Minister's questions was an embarrassment to watch, aided by his own bluster and buffoonery.

It is possible that Johnson's performance may (if he granted sufficient time) improve. However, it is Johnson's unflinching support for Dominic Cummings that is making many Tory MPs ever more hostile to their leader and Prime Minister.

After all, no person while working should be subject to drunken expletive-ridden verbal tirades being hurled against them as many Conservative MPs have been on the receiving end of in recent weeks.

To many, the Johnson administration is totally out of control with no clear strategy outside of lies, bluster, abuse and taking Britain out of the European Union with no deal.

And even in the last of the above he continually speaks lies on.

I have long thought, ever since his antics at the closing ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, that Boris Johnson was a national embarassment,

It now seems that , rather late in the day, even the Conservative Party has realised that.

I would not bet on that oaf still being PM on 1st November.

I have just seen a clip of BJ talking in front of police officers.

It's absolutely desperate. Surely he has access to people who can write speeches.

felice, yes, scary is a very good word for it. That is what life is like every, single day here in the US. I actually come on Gransnet to escape our own brand of lunacy. I feel like I live in a bizarre, Twilight Zone-ish world. There is SO much that happens every day that the news can't keep up and much of what Trump does escapes the light of day. The hard right and mega wealthy have taken advantage and he's filled cabinet and advisory posts with people working against the agencies they oversee! We have a former big pharma lobbyist running Health and Human Services.
and a former coal lobbyist is in charge of the Environmental Protections Agency, just to name two. Scores in his orbit have been indicted and/or embroiled in scandal and many others have been fired or quit in frustration. He's told over 15,000 proven lies since taking office (!) and yet we can't get rid of him and his approval ratings continue to be stable. Makes me feel very depressed.

Sorry for the off topic rant on this thread.

Trump should be seen as a warning to us in the UK. Our own liar Boris Johnson has managed to fool a lot of people, but he doesn't look likely to last as long as Trump.