Tag Archives: confidence

Should fracking ‘confidence’ vote be annulled after shameful scenes in Westminster?

Liz Truss: while her minions (allegedly) bulliedTory MPs to vote against their consciences, she has distracted from an international crisis by “worrying about her knitting”. What a contemptible excuse for a stateswoman. And she wanted us to think she modelled herself on Thatcher!

What do you think?

It has been alleged that Conservative MPs were forced to vote with the government – against their will – by MPs who manhandled them through a lobby they did not want to enter, so that Liz Truss could claim her Parliamentary party had confidence in her leadership.

If this is true, then the result of the fracking vote yesterday (October 19) should be annulled. It simply isn’t safe to describe it as the will of Parliament, let alone the will of the people of the United Kingdom.

An investigation into what happened during the vote should be opened immediately, with Conservative Party whips and cabinet ministers barred from having any contact with other MPs until they have given their evidence.

Another vote should be taken, with Tory whips and ministers again compelled to cast their votes separately from other MPs, in order to ensure that there is no interference with the will of Parliament.

But what happened yesterday should sound the death knell of Liz Truss as a political leader – or even as a member of Parliament.

If MPs were physically forced to do something they had not intended to do, then somebody was ordered to force them. And the buck stops at the top – with Truss.

It seems clear that Tory MPs are of the view that she – and her Cabinet – have caused immeasurable damage to the Conservative Party. Just consider the reaction of Charles Walker, as recorded by the BBC. The man could hardly contain himself:

BBC Political Editor Chris Mason reckons he has been talking to a senior Tory “whose analysis was so brutal it left me open-mouthed”. He continued:

He reckons the argument for a general election will be deafeningly loud – even though no Tory would want it, considering their current unpopularity across the UK. But that situation is worsening with every minute Truss remains in office.

Here’s another perspective on it, from Professor Tim Wilson. Besides his own opinions, he mentions some of the Tories who abstained from voting, including some very big names:

And he’s right about Ukraine. Vladimir Putin has declared martial law in those parts of that country that he claims to have annexed – even though he has not taken possession of them all.

He’s just sitting in Moscow, poised to do who-knows-what.

And, as Prof Wilson says, Liz Truss is worried about her knitting.

Charles Walker is right. The Tory Party needs to get its act together now – and the grown-ups need to take charge.

Until they do, the UK will play no effective part in international events. And who knows what will happen then?

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Fracking debate becomes confidence vote in Liz Truss and her government

House of Commons: will the result of the fracking ‘confidence vote’ see as many people crammed into the chamber?

Did you notice this, from Prime Minister’s Questions?

It refers to an Opposition Day debate on fracking, brought by Labour, to ban the extraction of shale gas by that method.

According to the BBC, a message has been circulated to Conservative MPs, saying: “This is a confidence motion in the government.”

Tories who oppose fracking have been told to support the government line – that fracking is back on the agenda – or face being expelled from the Parliamentary party.

But what if significant numbers of them defy the demand?

If it is being taken as a confidence motion in the Truss government – an administration that has lost all authority with the loss of all its policies on Monday – then who will be around to expel all the Tories voting against her, if she loses?

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Michael Howard wants Johnson out. But are any Tories brave enough to push him?

Former Tory leader Lord (Michael) Howard has said Tory ministers should follow Oliver Dowden’s example and quit, to push Boris Johnson out of Downing Street.

Alternatively, backbenchers on the 1922 Committee should change the rules by which they hold a confidence vote so they can have another one before the currently-stipulated year’s delay ends, he has said.

But are either ministers or backbenchers up to the challenge?

Tory MPs are notoriously timid about unseating a leader, especially when there is no obvious replacement – and none current presents him- or herself because Johnson’s cabinet is full of incompetents and people of questionable mentality.

But with Johnson determined to ignore the meaning of the election results and pretend that people want him to continue on a course that has been disastrous for the UK (as satirised in the image above), it seems they will soon run out of alternatives.

Lord Howard said: “[Mr Johnson’s] biggest asset has always been his ability to win votes but I’m afraid [the by-election] results make it clear that he no longer has that ability.

“I think [the by-election defeats] makes clear that my view is shared by very large numbers of people in Yorkshire and Devon – places so different that I think they can reasonably be regarded as representative of the country as a whole.”

After the by-election results became known, 1922 Committee treasurer Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said MPs would need to hear what Johnson had to say before making a decision.

Well, we’ve all heard it. Now it’s time for MPs to act.

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More than half of UK think Tories were wrong to keep Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson: doubt in his leadership has NOT been dispelled.

A poll has found that 51 per cent of people in the UK – including one in four who voted Conservative in 2019 – think that party’s MPs were wrong to keep Boris Johnson as prime minister in a confidence vote last week.

They join the Welsh Conservatives, who are splitting from the national party in response to the Partygate scandal, despite support for Johnson from MPs like This Writer’s (Fay Jones, Brecon and Radnorshire).

Only 36 per cent of people who took the Ipsos poll said the Tories made the right decision.

Source: Boris Johnson news: More than half of Britons ‘think Tories made wrong decision keeping PM’

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After winning Tory vote, Boris Johnson vows to go straight – back to his bad old ways

Spite: instead of accepting responsibility for his failings and promising to do better, Boris Johnson is planning to suppress the rebels who humiliated him in a confidence vote.

He hasn’t learned anything at all from it and he certainly isn’t going to change.

Instead, Boris Johnson has told his Cabinet that they must suppress the row about his leadership after 41 per cent of his MPs said they had no confidence in him after the Partygate scandal.

The appropriate response would have been to accept that he had damaged his own image, to listen to criticisms and to change his behaviour – but Johnson was never going to do that.

He would have taken a single vote over the 50 per cent winning line as a glowing endorsement of his loutishness, and that is why – with only an extra 31 votes beyond that line – he has chosen to act exactly as he did before.

There will be no further reform to stop the rot in Downing Street and standards in Parliament will continue to decay under his diseased hand.

His sole response has been to tell Cabinet ministers to “draw a line” under the leadership row and get on with dealing with what he says people want.

So idiots like Dominic Raab have been going out to the media, saying there is no credible alternative to Boris Johnson’s leadership – which is grimly hilarious.

“There Is No Alternative” was a catchphrase of David Cameron’s government, that inflicted austerity on the UK – an austerity that still afflicts the country, by the way; none of his and George Osborne’s changes have been repealed.

In fact, of course, there were credible alternatives to the “Starve the Beast” economic policy that put the UK on its back during those bad days – and Osborne’s period as Chancellor is rightly derided by many economists.

And the Tory rebels haven’t gone away. After winning a larger proportion of the vote – from a larger Parliamentary contingent – than voted against Theresa May in 2018 (who, as everyone and their dog told us repeatedly yesterday, was out within six months of her own confidence vote), they are now agitating to change the 1922 Committee’s rules so that another confidence vote may happen sooner than in a year’s time.

In Parliament itself, the Liberal Democrats are tabling their own “no confidence” vote that would allow MPs from all parties a chance to vote on Johnson’s future as prime minister – but this is only likely to go forward if Labour gets behind it, and Keir Starmer is sitting on the fence again.

Starmer may see a tactical advantage in leaving Johnson where he is; Labour may win a general election against a prime minister who has been weakened by a confidence vote and by whatever failings he inflicts on the UK in the future (his new version of ‘right to buy’ will be one such disaster).

But of course the public is able to see such manoeuvrings for what they are: cynical politicking that ignores the good of the nation. How could we vote for the person behind it?

Looking further ahead, Johnson will face the humiliation of the expected by-election losses on June 23.

And then he will face investigation by a Parliamentary committee charged with ruling on whether he broke the Ministerial Code. If the finding goes against him, he’ll have to resign anyway.

And after his anti-corruption champion resigned yesterday, saying that this was because Johnson broke the Ministerial Code, it seems that result is already locked in.

Boris Johnson is on borrowed time and the best he can do now is try to salvage what little is left of his good name before slinking back into history’s shadows.

And he’s the only one who doesn’t seem to know it.

Johnson wanted us to think he was another Churchill. But he turned out to be more like Lord Haw-Haw.

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Boris Johnson wins ‘no confidence’ vote. What now?

Boris Johnson has won/lost a vote of ‘no confidence’ in his leadership of the Conservative Party – and of the Conservative government – but it’s not really enough.

The vote was split between 211 for the prime minister and 148 against. That’s just 31 more people for him than the number needed to gain a victory.

It is a much worse performance than Theresa May’s in 2018 – and she lasted just six months afterwards.

Where she won 63 per cent of the vote, Johnson could only scrape up 59 per cent.

The prime minister’s position will still be uncertain, going into the future. He’ll be asked to change his ways to a huge extent – and it is not certain that he is even capable of doing so.

And there’s the question of his breaking the Ministerial Code; the government’s anti-corruption champion has resigned, saying that Johnson was guilty of a breach that means he should resign too. A committee of MPs is set to examine whether he breached the Code over the next few months – and may compel him to resign as prime minister if they find against him.

The vote has also generated a huge amount of enmity between Conservative MPs.

BBC Newsnight’s political editor Nicholas Watt says supporters of Boris Johnson were intensely angry.

He reported that one ally of Johnson said his colleagues were “lying snakes” while another strong supporter said he could “throttle” those MPs who “want to hand our country to a coalition of Labour, the SNP and the Liberal Democrats”.

That’s not going to happen any time soon; the huge Tory majority in Parliament remains.

But no matter what the result, a shadow is hanging over the Conservative Party – and the Conservative government – and is likely to remain until the next general election at least.

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‘Excoriating’ memo damns Boris Johnson ahead of ‘no confidence’ vote

Oh dear: has Boris Johnson seen the memo attacking him on Tory WhatsApp groups?

A memo entitled ‘Conservative leadership’ and shredding Boris Johnson’s record is allegedly spreading like wildfire among Tory MPs ahead of a ‘no confidence’ vote in the PM’s leadership.

Written by an anonymous Conservative MP, the 758-word document has been spreading on Tory WhatsApp groups.

It states that the man once dubbed “Big Dog” is “no longer an electoral asset”.

The Telegraph obtained a copy and published some of the contents:

Source: The excoriating memo spreading like wildfire on Tory WhatsApp groups that damned Boris Johnson

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Boris Johnson’s anti-corruption champion quits – calls on PM to resign

John Penrose: when the Anti-Corruption Champion resigns because of the behaviour of the prime minister, it can only mean that he has found the PM to be corrupt.

Is this the killing blow against Boris Johnson?

The government’s anti-corruption champion has resigned, saying it is clear that Johnson has broken the Ministerial Code and the only honourable choice for the PM is to step down as well.

John Penrose, MP for Weston-Super-Mare, has himself suffered criticism related to corruption because he is married to Dido Harding who – as the person in charge of the government’s disastrous ‘test and trace’ strategy – wasted £37 billion of public money on a system that did not work at all.

But he has salvaged his reputation today by making it clear that he considers Boris Johnson to be unfit to lead the Conservative Party or the country – and that his reason for believing this is corruption.

In a letter to Johnson, published on Twitter, he stated: “It wouldn’t be honourable or right for me to remain as your Anti-Corruption Champion… nor for you to remain as Prime Minister either.”

He wrote: “My reason for stepping down is your public letter last week, replying to your independent Adviser on the Ministerial Code about the recent Sue Gray Report into ‘partygate’.

“In it you addressed the concerns over the Fixed Penalty Notice you paid, but not the broader and very serious criticisms of what the Report called ‘failures of leadership and judgment’ and its conclusion that ‘senior leadership at the centre, both political and official, must bear responsibility for this culture’.

“You will know (and your letter to your Adviser on the Ministerial Code explicitly says) that the Nolan Principles of Public Life are absolutely central to the Ministerial Code, and that the seventh of them is ‘Leadership’.

“So the only fair conclusion to draw from the Sue Gray Report is that you have breached a fundamental principle of the Ministerial Code – a clear resigning matter.

“But your letter to your independent Adviser on the Ministerial Code ignores this absolutely central, non-negotiable issue completely. And, if it had addressed it, it is hard to see how it could have reached any other conclusion than that you had broken the code.”

Mr Penrose listed some of what he considered to be Johnson’s achievements, but then stated: “I hope you will understand that none of these can excuse or justify a fundamental breach of the Ministerial Code. As a result, I’m afraid it wouldn’t be honourable or right for me to remain as your Anti-Corruption Champion after reaching this conclusion, nor for you to remain as Prime Minister either.

“I hope you will now stand aside so we can look to the future and choose your successor.”

Damning words.

They make it clear that the government’s Anti-Corruption Chief considered Johnson to be corrupt according to the rules.

And they state that the prime minister should resign ahead of today’s vote on his future. Staying on to await the result of a ballot would be dishonourable and wrong.

Johnson now sits on the horns of a dilemma. Should he resign now, on Penrose’s advice? Or should he try to brazen it out and tempt the wrath of backbenchers incensed at being asked to support somebody who is dishonourable and corrupt?

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D-Day for Boris Johnson as he faces ‘no confidence’ vote TODAY

Boris Johnson: we all think it’s time for him to go – but will Tory backbenchers have the courage to remove him?

Plans by the Tory leadership to shore up Boris Johnson’s popularity among backbenchers with a series of policy announcements have been foiled after it was revealed that a vote of “no confidence” in the prime minister has already been triggered.

Supporters of Johnson in the Cabinet spent last week – while Parliament was in recess – saying there was not enough support for a vote, then did a sharp u-turn last night to admit that one may happen later this week if enough letters arrive with 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady.

But this morning (Monday, June 6), Sir Graham announced that he has already received more than enough letters to trigger a vote and it will happen between 6pm and 8pm today:

From what he said, it seemed that Johnson would have an opportunity to speak to Tory backbenchers this afternoon, before the vote takes place – and this has since been confirmed; he’ll make a speech at them, starting at 4pm.

According to the BBC, a spokesperson at 10 Downing Street has said he “welcomes the opportunity to make his case to MPs”, and that tonight’s vote is “a chance to end months of speculation and allow the government to draw a line and move on”.

Whichever way the vote goes, that will be true – meaning the government may find itself moving on without its current leader.

Boris Johnson’s team has already sent a message to all the party’s MPs, laying down a series of reasons for them to support him – and they are nonsense.

The document says the government wants to concentrate on the war in Ukraine – in which the UK is not even a participant – and on the cost-of-living crisis at home – that Johnson’s government created.

Judging by his recent record, it seems clear that the current prime minister can only make these matters worse.

The document says Johnson intends to reduce crime – hardly a credible pledge from a PM who has recently been fined for committing a crime, reducing taxes – an incredible claim from the leader who has increased the tax burden on us by more than any other in the last 40 years at least, and cutting NHS waiting times – that Johnson increased exponentially by failing to support the health service properly during the Covid-19 crisis.

On Covid itself, the document claims Johnson dealt with the “biggest peacetime crisis in a generation” with a rapid vaccines rollout and “unprecedented” help for workers and businesses – but we know that he spaffed billions on contracts with fake companies run by crony Conservatives, while starving the NHS of resources, causing the deaths of nearly 200,000 UK citizens who would have been alive today if the country had had a competent leader.

And it says if a full leadership contest is triggered, it will lead to “civil war” in the party, benefiting the Labour opposition – and again, this is not true. The leadership contest that elected Johnson himself was run in an orderly manner over a short period of time and Labour did not enjoy a boost (although this may have been because turncoats in that party were deliberately trying to hinder then-leader Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of success).

“Under Boris Johnson’s leadership”, the document states, “we secured the biggest Conservative majority since 1987”. That’s right – because Johnson falsely presented himself as a man of the people. He has since been proved to be out-of-touch with the rest of us and interested only in furthering his own personal ambitions rather than serving the UK.

“We got Brexit done,” the document states, as if shrinking the economy by four per cent, creating huge customs backlogs at our borders, creating an inflationary spiral due to huge goods supply problems and dragging Northern Ireland back towards the bad days of the “Troubles” is an achievement.

“We unlocked more rapidly [after Covid] and restored our freedoms more quickly than other countries” it continues, neglecting to mention that Johnson tried to pull the UK out of lockdown too soon, thereby triggering a huge spike in infections over the winter of 2020-21 that caused tens of thousands more excess deaths than needed to take place.

“We are standing up to Putin, arming Ukraine with huge military support” – that has focused the Russian dictator’s eye on the UK with a view to taking military action against us. Any such action would be like one of us swatting a fly as Russia outguns the UK massively – “and humanitarian help” that is only just beginning to be felt after Tory claims to be the first to provide such help were proven to be false.

“We are delivering cost of living help” after being shamed into a u-turn over a windfall tax on profiteering energy firms to provide the funding for it.

“Boris Johnson has an unmatched electoral record – and he will win again,” the document states at a time when the Tories are living in the shadow of two expected by-election defeats later this month.

The document also states that the controversy over his law-breaking and lying to Parliament is no more than a “distraction” when in fact it proves that he is crooked and corrupt.

Tory backbenchers are also being told that there is no potential leader in Parliament who would be able to take over – but that has already been contradicted by at least one senior member: Sir Roger Gale said he believed there were some “very good alternatives to the prime minister” within the party.

He said: “There is a list of people … Any single one of those people in my view would make a better prime minister than the one that we’ve got at the moment… I think we’re spoilt for choice.”

Another leading Tory, Andrew Bridgen, has said he will be voting against Johnson because the row over Boris Johnson breaching lockdown rules and allowing further breaches by his staff is likely to drag on. “I don’t think people are going to forgive and forget.

“It’s not normal for a Conservative PM to be booed outside St Paul’s Cathedral.”

He also criticised “intimidation within the party to suppress the letters” which triggered the no confidence ballot.

Johnson needs to win support from a majority of Conservative MPs in order to remain in 10 Downing Street – that’s 180 votes or more. At the time of writing, just 50 have declared support for him.

Even if he wins – securing a period of grace (as Sir Graham Brady described it) of one year in which no further ‘no confidence’ vote may be triggered against him, Johnson may still be ejected from Number 10 sooner.

Theresa May won a confidence vote easily in December 2018 – but six months later she was no longer prime minister.

Whatever happens later today, it seems clear that Boris Johnson’s remaining time in 10 Downing Street will be short. Perhaps his party should put us all out of our misery and end it now.

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Confidence vote in Boris Johnson may be inevitable – but when should it be?

Boris Johnson: what will it take to get him ousted from 10 Downing Street – and do Conservative backbenchers have the necessary qualities?

So much for Priti Patel’s claim that speculation about a confidence vote in Boris Johnson is a “sideshow”.

So much for Dominic Raab’s claim that such debate was just “Westminster talking to itself”.

Now government ministers are giving up their demand that such a vote simply will not happen and, in a major u-turn, they are accepting that it will.

The big question is: when?

According to the BBC,

Johnson and his supporters are pulling out all the stops to win round the waverers.

In the coming week they will unveil plans to tackle the Covid-19-triggered NHS backlog – but this will just repeat a false claim that unpopular tax increases are being used to cut waiting lists.

And a major review into NHS management will propose an overhaul of NHS leadership structures to helping failing trusts replicate those that are performing best. Another advance for private health structures that benefit nobody but corporate shareholders?

Johnson is also set to launch new “right to buy” home ownership schemes, allowing people who rent from housing associations to buy those houses, for example. This will be a huge political own goal as the original “right to buy” policy championed by Margaret Thatcher created huge housing problems for the UK.

So the government, in trying to neutralise dissent, may in fact cause a larger rebellion with these short-sighted and ridiculous plans.

But This Writer reckons the time for a confidence vote will be after the Tories lose Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton on June 23.

Polling over the weekend has shown the Conservatives on course for a humiliating defeat in Wakefield, and it seems several MPs from the 2019 general election intake have said they will not submit a letter of “no confidence” until after such a result.

According to The Guardian,

One wonders what “shit” that MP is describing – the drama, or the prime minister creating it?

Either way, it seems the best bet is to wait until after the by-elections.

But then there’s the question of whether the vote will be triggered by accident, due to a lack of co-ordination by Tory rebels.

If he wins a “no confidence” vote, his own party will not be able to trigger another one for an entire year.

It seems tragically possible that Johnson could be allowed to continue wrecking the UK because of exactly the kind of incompetence for which he himself is justly infamous.

Source: Johnson prepares fightback as allies admit confidence vote now very likely

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