Can you think of a Prime Minister worse than Johnson?

Didn't you know Maizie? Labour voters are supposed to live in sheds and eat gruel. The only skill they need is how to tug a forelock.

If they're fortunate enough to escape their sheds, they should become Tories and pull up the drawbridge and care about nothing except their own sort.

Not to mention that an awful lot of staunch Labour voters, including friends of mine, were very happy to be able to buy the home where they’d lived for years.

There are times when I am absolutely lost for words.

Right wingers go on and on about Labour not allowing people to have aspirations; that the tories are the party for aspirational people.

Then, b*gger me, a tory comes on here and implicitly condemns Labour voting friends for daring to aspire to buying their house, as if it's hypocritical or something.

What on earth is wrong with people?

I agree that mistakes have been made 'without malice' but without competence too and this matters, because e.g. being late to bring in lockdown and allowing a big race meeting and football match to go ahead at a critical moment, have contributed to more deaths, which could have been avoided. We need a government which is both competent and values driven. They are elected to govern and its tough to face a national crisis in the early days - but thats what they are there for. You wouldn't expect a doctor, for instance, to say "I"m sorry I failed to give you appropriate treatment, at the appriate time, but I'm only just qualified" This government had the advantage of being able to look at what had happened in other countries before Covid hit us here - and learn, and plan and act appropriately. They didn't use this advantage effectively. Its hard! But 'if you don't like the heat, stay out of the kitchen!"

Thatcher...even my computer doesn't want to write the old witches name .

hatcher could have allowed the buying of council houses BUT allowed the councils to use the money raised to replace them with NEW council houses.By specifically saying the money wasn't to be used for thet purpose she did without doubt cause the ongoing housing crisis .
The right to buy was only abolished here in 2017(?) Thats one of the criticisms I have of the SNP though I am pleased they have done it .It should have happened the minute they gained power .Regardless of that an d afew other niggly criticisms I believe they are the best option for Scotland ..but then I think ALL governments should be open to criticism and they should listen and take action where possible.

@Mamardoit, whatever her other failings I do get sick of the housing crisis being blamed on Thatcher. Yes, she introduced Right to Buy, but councils were already selling properties to tenants before then - a dd of mine bought an ex council house that was bought by the previous owners in 1971 - well before Thatcher. (Dd paid just over 100 times what they did, as dh found after a good old nose on the Land Reg., and this was not in London, in case anyone’s wondering.)

House prices then were generally far more affordable than they became a few decades later, and I don’t think anyone then foresaw how ridiculous they were going to be.

Not to mention that an awful lot of staunch Labour voters, including friends of mine, were very happy to be able to buy the home where they’d lived for years.

Last but certainly not least, Labour are very fond of vilifying right to buy, so why, during the 13 years they were in power, did they not abolish it?

Answer, presumably because they thought it would lose them votes. If there’s another reason, I’d be very interested to hear it.

For those of you who haven't read it, the following is an extract from a letter sent to Johnson Senior.

"Martin Hammond, who was Johnson’s housemaster and taught him classics, spotted early on that the former Foreign Secretary and prominent Brexiteer showcased a certain irresponsibility and inattention to facts.

Writing of him in a school report in April 1982, he said: “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies . . . Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half): I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.” "

Sounds familiar.

There appears to be a tendency to accuse people of "bullying" merely for questioning an opinion given by presenting the facts.

Yes lemon and the far left are now turning on Starmer

Anniebach quite correct, and it’s ironic isn’t it, given the support over the last few years on here and in RL for Corbyn
That in pushing for JC for PM we now have Johnson as PM.
Any near normal Labour Leader would likely have won the last GE.

MaizieD Yes, that does indeed happen! A poster once accidentally copied me in to a round robin of other posters telling them all they should stick together to’rubbish’ my posts and if that didn’t work to all ignore and not reply to any of my posts.She is still posting on GN today.I commented on what she had done and she went rather quiet?

Absolutely not.
I'm agreeing with people I usually violently disagree with, actually.

People I usually feel an affinity with, have views I can't comprehend over this, but it doesn't matter - it's still allowed, as yet.

Nor does similarity of views and outlook make make posters into a gang or clique.

It would do if we were all PMing each other like mad so as to choose a target and get our 'stories' all in tune. But I'm certainly not and neither, I suspect, are the others.

Though I've had evidence in the past that that is what some more unpleasant posters do

Disagreeing with someone isn't bullying them.
I've never seen such politely put differences of opinion on here, actually.

Sitting in the garden in the sun while unprecedented numbers of one's contemporaries die because a thoroughly incompetent PM leads a corrupt and incompetent government seems quite akin to the actions of a notorious Roman emporer.

Nothing to stop you doing it, Firecracker

Besides, deep down, some people enjoy a bit of a wrangle.

It will happen when people feel strongly one way or the other.

Yes, the sun is shining but the country (and the world) is in a terrible crisis so while we appreciate the thought I can’t help but find it a bit PollyAnna-like.

Dont think. Sit in the garden.

Unfortunately there does seem a pattern on here of posters ganging up and bullying if another poster doesn't share the same views as them, lighten up ladies it's only a grans forum, it's a beautiful morning and the sun's shinning again.

...your statement can't be borne out by the facts.

Seems to be a bit of a pattern for Jw on this thread...

Admire

Jabberwock do you admure Boris then?

Jabberwock I was astounded at your comment "of course, J.A doesn't have our left wing press". I really have to respond because your statement can't be borne out by the facts.

The Open Democracy website provides what I believe is very convincing evidence of a UK newspaper industry that is very heavily biased in favour of the right. A comprehensive table of ownership/political stance clearly demonstrates the strong right wing bias of the majority of British newspapers. Some extracts from an April 2019 article:

"The UK media has a very concentrated ownership structure, with six billionaires owning and/or having a majority of voting shares in most of the national newspapers.

"True editorial independence often doesn’t exist in these papers. The owners can – and do – interfere with what is published in their publications, which editors and journalists are promoted or fired as well as which political parties the paper supports.

"For example, Harold Evans, a former editor at the Sunday Times, made it very clear to the Leveson Inquiry how Rupert Murdoch interfered with the content of the paper..................."

In 2019 The Independent reported:

"Academics at Loughborough University analysed the extent to which different print outlets ran positive and negative stories about different UK political parties in the first week of the 2019 general election campaign.

"They found that the Labour Party was overwhelmingly targeted with negative coverage by the papers, while in certain publications positive stories were almost exclusively reserved for Boris Johnson’s Tory party..........

"The UK is one of the worst-ranked countries in western Europe for press freedom, according to NGO reporters without borders – ranked 33 out of 180 in the world in 2019."

Sorry to other posters for going off the original subject.

Sparkling At the moment deal with what is not what if
Wasn't that what Dominic Cummings used as the basis of his flight to Durham "what if we're both too ill to care for our child" "what if my eyesight is too affected to drive nearly 300 miles" ? If he'd stuck to what is (as no outside childcare was ever necessary), we'd not have some of the threads we do have.

No I can't think of a worse PM than Boris if we're talking about competence, presentation, respect for the people and understanding of the issues. There have been many PMs whose policies I've disagreed with ( start the line-up Margaret Thatcher) but they didn't come across as bumbling idiots.

He certainly doesn’t inspire trust ... in fact he’s completely uninspiring physically, morally, intellectually and effectively useless.