Can you think of a Prime Minister worse than Johnson?

grandad I’m reading it as is everyone else who does because of the headline. It’s about past and present prime ministers, but you insist on banging on with your Obsessive hate of Starmer. If you want to discuss the issue it is obvious what you must do.

Why oh why don’t you start your own? Do you have an inbuilt problem with doing so?

I agree Whitewavemark2 with your remarks contained within your post @07:41 today. The non-action by Starmer in the recent Cummings crisis and the alleged fraudulent and other illegal activities of the right wing faction within the Labour party are "of the headline".

Therefore I believe those matters should be discussed within this thread especially when those with well demonstrated political allegiances to those persons and faction refuse to condemn their actions.

Therefore I will continue to post my opinions in this thread or any other thread that I consider linked to the topic.

But this thread is about Boris! Duh! Go and start your own fun thread as has been suggested.

You are being deliberately obtuse grandad=and it doesn’t help your argument

Whitewavemark2, with respect, I believe your above comments in regard to me could also be applied to yourself.

In what way

Eloethan I criticise the power of the unions, grandad43
keeps going on and on about the unions having the power to
destroy the Labour Party , only then do I speak of the damage
the unions have done when they have control of the party.

I have hopes that Starmer will lead the Labour Party to a win
at the next election, grandad43 has already started to criticise him.

Whitewave, I have been dragged into this before and it taught me a lesson. I have found it best to completely ignore, although sometimes I break my own rulesit is a very common tactic, often used on MN, by those who want to disrupt the conversation.
I think what I feel about Johnson is that he is utterly inadequate, and he knows that. It is not his policies that cause me concern, I disagree with them, but that's different, it is the character of the man.

Shellmis ?

I think there are more than a few obsessional posters on here.

galaxy I take your point and will follow your advise.

You are right Whitewave and I should not have let myself be dragged into the argument about the Labour Party on this thread. I just get so irritated sometimes. I will follow the advice of Galaxy in future and try my best to ignore the deflection away from any criticism of Boris Johnson.

Frankly, no. I just cannot accept he is the most competent person on the Government benches to lead the Country in a time of crisis. That is not be political or prejudiced in my view.

Waffling and incoherent messages are not what is needed from the UK’s Prime Minister.

Waffling and incoherent messages are not what is needed from the UK’s Prime Minister.

You know, there is a theory that he is doing this on purpose; blocking questions, not giving any answers, spending lots of time out of sight and generally ensuring that government actions are not open to scrutiny. He's doing it, obviously, so that a lot that is being done, such as awarding government contracts to cronies ans party donors without putting them out to tender, which the electorate might not approve of but have no power to prevent.

He's able to do this because there is absolutely nothing that can force him to act differently. There's no sanction on a PM for failing to answer questions, hiding away from the electorate, or not following usual administrative procedures. None at all.

It could be that puppeteer Cummings is playing a very clever game... telling him to 'just act dumb'

Ilovecheese, your post @11:39 today.
???

It could be he is able to work it out for himself, he has been
doing it for years.

GranddadBrian I would one hundred percent agree with your assessment of the Cummings/Johnson performance of the last week.

I would just add that I believe this is also the Johnson "unmovable Premier act" being made ready for a no-trade deal exit from the European Union at the end of this year.

Also, a very large welcome to the forum GranddadBrian from me if you are a new member.

As is usual Anniebach gets her facts completely wrong in her post @08:46 today. She posts on the "the damage the unions have done when they have control of the Labour party". However, the trade unions have never had control of the labour Party. Indeed it was due to the lack of influence the trade unions held in 1979 within the Labour Party that led to the winter of discontent.

That dispute came about due to James Callahan's policy as Labour Prime Minister of instructing the wages councils and Joint industry councils of that era to restrict their pay increases to within three and a half percent at a time when inflation was over twelve percent in the overall economy.

The above meant that Britains thirteen and a half million trade unionists were to be used as the sole means of bringing inflation under control while all others were to sacrifice nothing.

During the twelve years of the Blair/Brown administration not one section of the fifteen anti-trade union legislation bills brought in by the Thacher/Major administrations were removed, while still the trade unions gave much funding to the Labour Party.

So, does the above look and sound anything akin to the trade unions controlling the Labour party.

I think that's partly true Mazie, his tactic has always been to hide, however I think he is also a fundamentally lazy man, that cant be underestimated.

Start your union thread* grandad43* and a thread of your attacks on the labour leader.

Anniebach, I am perfectly happy making posts on this thread if only to correct the inaccuracies that you continuously and deliberately post. ??

Grandad may have more of a starry eyed view of the trade union movement than some of us who lived on Tyneside in the 1960s.

One of our neighbours was the all-powerful Andrew Cunningham, union leader in North East England, who died in 2010 at the age of 100. At the height of his career in 1971 he held the following positions:

Member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party
Chairman of the Chester-le-Street and the Northern Region Executive of the Labour Party
Head of the Northern District of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers (NUGMW) (the biggest union in the north-east, succeeding John Yarwood MBE)
Alderman of Durham County Council
Member of the Chester-le-Street town council
Chairman of Durham Police Authority
Chairman of Newcastle Airport Consultative Committee
Member of the Northumbrian River Authority
Member of the Peterlee New Town Development Corporation
Member of the Tyneside Passenger Transport Authority

His role with the GMWU in particular gave him considerable influence, via the Trade Union block vote, in the selection of Labour Party parliamentary candidates. The Poulson scandal also destroyed the careers of T. Dan Smith and the Conservative Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling. Cunningham was sentenced to five years imprisonment, reduced to three on appeal. He was paroled from Ford Open Prison in June 1976.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Cunningham_(politician)

All power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely - and trade unionists are no more of an exception than Tory SPADs.

What utterly astounds me is that given articles by people like Max Hastings and the sort of reports that have become public knowledge by the Eton Headmaster, all saying roughly the same thing about Johnson, is the fact that he somehow has fooled so many people into believing the absolute opposite of what his character is really like.

I think Tories particularly the grandees tried to worn people but I guess it was the brexit message that landed us with the worse prime minister ( I don’t even feel right using the title for him) ever.

varian, in regard to your post @13:56 today the trade unions voluntarily gave up the block vote in all ballots many years ago.

Also, anyone who holds the position of General Secretary of the Labour movement is now not allowed to hold any other position within the movement so as to not hold preference for any other body.

As with all organisations things have moved on in the Labour movement since the 1970s just as they have in all other organisations.

There are also good and bad in all organisations, just think of Jeremy Thorpe and Cyril Smith of the Liberal Party during that era, totally scandalous and seen as the corruption of the positions they held at that time.

That bastion of the right wing The Spectator thinks Johnson isn’t a fit leader

www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-isn-t-fit-to-lead/amp?__twitter_impression=TRUE