The Prime Minister would appear to agree with you, judging by his recent interview with Jon Snow. However, many of the conference speeches, including Osborne, Boris Johnson and Theresa May’s, have been about asserting their own ideas and putting a stake in the ground for leadership.
So we’ve got conflicting information.
You’d have to look at John Major as the most recent example of a politician that became Prime Minister in between elections and went on to win the next general election. He had just short of two years to make his case, but managed to convince the electorate anyway.
More down to Kinnock than Major in 1992 I’d have said. It was totally out of kilter with polls, by-election results and so forth. I don’t think the electorate was convinced by Major, still less by Lamont, but they still preferred Major to Kinnock when it came to it.
Even so though, anyone looking to become leader is going to have expectations of having a bit of time to set themselves apart from Cameron. They can’t contest the next election if people don’t know who the Prime Minister will be, so you have to figure these speeches are in aid of a pre-2020 putsch.
I do agree with intiniki that the field of candidates is a bit thin, but the timing could be massive. What would a Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party do for Brexit? Would he, having achieved his goal, change direction?
If Cameron goes, I think that there is a fair chance that there will be a vote of no confidence in the government, one of the only triggers that can break us out of the five year fixed term election cycles.
Not sure. Think he will hang in until the referendum. He might go then regardless of the result. If the vote is out, he won’t have much choice, if the vote is in then he can cling on to a legacy of sorts.
He’s fine until his party decides he’s a liability.
He has control of the media, and the electors gave him a full mandate to make cuts and to run down services so they should be happy enough - though they also voted away our power to control him.
He’s fine until his party decides he’s a liability.
He has control of the media, and the electors gave him a full mandate to make cuts and to run down services so they should be happy enough - though they also voted away our power to control him.
His future is pretty much up to him or the party.
This whole discussion began back in October as Nicky Morgan (of all people) appeared to throw her hat in the ring for the leadership. Now, if people were thinking about their aspirations then, when they believed that everything was tickety-boo, you can be damn sure that they will be thinking of it now.
You can’t knock Cameron’s loyalty - all of this just to protect Gideon from the sack after that appalling excuse for a budget.
That may have been the catalyst, but this government is coming apart at the seams. I’d call myself the chief curator of our Tories in Trouble thread. It really isn’t difficult to find material for it, which is one of the reasons it has been so disappointing to see the government get such an easy ride. They don’t deserve one.
We may well be getting to the point of critical mass. We’re already in a situation where the Tories are now just hopelessly responding to events, rather than directing them. George Osborne is apparently next up to release his “tax return”. I hope it’s better than Cameron’s four page summary, which let’s face it, is meaningless without the detail.
e.g.
pap’s income 2015
1,300,392 - NBA Basketball contract.
250,000 - Royalties from coffee table book “What it’s like to have the largest cock in the world”.
124,000 - Offshore casting agency - (playing Peter Crouch’s double).
I’ve given you some unqualified figures, so it must be real.
Beeb said there were hundreds of people there, the reports from friends who went and the videos/pictures I’ve seen certainly made it seem more like thousands.
Anyway, a good speech here from that dude off Revolution will be Televised. He’s certainly a rather eloquent dude, I’ll give him that.
You don’t have to be a frothing-at-the-mouth sandal-wearing leftie to look at government policy and consider that the current cuts to the poorest and weakest in society are just cruel.
I understand closing a failing business or cutting back on red tape by making cuts, but how can anyone possibly defend cuts to the already-stretched care of the terminally-ill?
Is that really the country we have become?
I was brought up to believe that we are the best, that we rule the frigging waves - and I believe that we are, and we do.
But to the neutral, right now we must look like a country of cruel nasty people obsessed with greed, who despise the poor and the ill with a fucking vengeance.
You don’t have to be a frothing-at-the-mouth sandal-wearing leftie to look at government policy and consider that the current cuts to the poorest and weakest in society are just cruel.
