The Fall of the House of Johnson

[09philj]

Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the UK, will be resigning as leader of his party, and as Prime Minister once they have selected a new leader.

Boris Johnson facing calls to quit as PM as soon as possible

Boris Johnson is standing down as Tory leader but wants to stay on as PM until the autumn.

www.bbc.co.uk

How did this happen?
Boris Johnson has always been a scandal magnet, even back in his days as Mayor of London. Recently, it transpired that he broke some of the rules of his own COVID-19 lockdowns. This was damaging, but he resolved to fight on, despite the Tories sliding ever lower in the polls. Some Tory MPs had had enough and called an internal party vote of no confidence, but the Prime Minister managed to win, which under the rules would have protected him from further votes for a year. However, the other day the deputy chief whip Chris Pincher groped some men in the Conservative Party's private members club in London. The whip, Chris Pincher MP, had previously been credibly accused of sexual misconduct and had resigned as a whip before over it. Johnson nonetheless appointed him to the role of deputy chief whip. This was the straw that broke the camel's back, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (who's in charge of the treasury) and the Health Secretary both resigned from his cabinet on Tuesday. They were quickly followed yesterday by a large number of junior ministers. A large number of both backbench and frontbench Tory MPs called on him to resign, including Nadhim Zahawi, who was appointed as a replacement chancellor by Johnson on Wednesday. The 1922 committee, which represents Conservative backbenchers, was considering changing its own rules to allow for a second vote of no confidence in the near future. Las night, Johnson was defiant, claiming he'd fight any challenge to his leadership. This morning, he announced he would be resigning.

What now?
Johnson intends to remain in his post until the party have completed a leadership election. There is no obvious successor from among the Tory ranks, so the election is likely to drag on for a while, given the slightly arcane rules that Conservative leadership elections are conducted under.

 

[Trunkage]

As much as I like seeing karma finally paying up *cough Jan 6 cough*.... I don't see how this going to cure any problems for the Tories, particularly Brexit

 

[09philj]

As much as I like seeing karma finally paying up *cough Jan 6 cough*.... I don't see how this going to cure any problems for the Tories, particularly Brexit

No they're just going to keep stumbling towards what looks to be an inevitable defeat at the next election.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

It's not much, but I'll be savouring what little joy there's left in this political shitshow of country as the pit of vipers publicly devour his head, before the next protrusion takes the helm. Even as defanged as labour are now, it's obviously still too much to expect a snap election.

Lol, telegraph gonna telegraph;

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Never mind an absolutely ham-handed handling of the COVID crisis or shoving the worst idea ever (Brexit) down his country's throat- it took a guy grabbing other guys' butts for BoJo's party to finally say "enough, just pack it in".

 

[Chimpzy]

Plague rats abandoning ship, soon to be replaced with other rats.

 

[Hades]

So this what was Brexit was all about huh? An at best middling premiership that inevitably collapsed under scandal like everyone knew it would. I hope the Brexiteer voters were happy with what they got now that the chief aim of Brexit has stopped being in effect.

 

[Trunkage]

Never mind an absolutely ham-handed handling of the COVID crisis or shoving the worst idea ever (Brexit) down his country's throat- it took a guy grabbing other guys' butts for BoJo's party to finally say "enough, just pack it in".

No, no. It took giving the butt grabber a job, firing him for the job and then give him an even cushier job

Also, Ron DeSantid is doing a good job somehow, as spoken by our Lord and Savioue Rogan. Maybe they needed to get tips of Covid from hin

 

[Trunkage]

So this what was Brexit was all about huh? An at best middling premiership that inevitably collapsed under scandal like everyone knew it would. I hope the Brexiteer voters were happy with what they got now that the chief aim of Brexit has stopped being in effect.

Brexit was specifically about trying to go Authoritarian. It's half way there and BoJo probably lost all his support for not full throating it

 

[Silvanus]

I was hoping he would cling on, so as to cause as much damage as possible to the Tory party in the next election. Alas, t'was not meant to be.

There isn't an obvious successor. I think (ex-chancellor) Rushi Sunak would have the best chance of winning the next election, which is why I don't want him to get the job. (Foreign secretary) Liz Truss is a complete void of personality and has zero media savvy, so she's my favoured candidate.

The Tories on reddit seem to want (defence Secretary) Ben Wallace, because he gives the impression of being competent and safe. He doesn't have a high profile in the country, so he's probably quite an outside choice.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I was hoping he'd trip and fall into a jet turbine or something, but this is fine I guess.

I'm not celebrating too hard though, the entire party is rotten so whoever replaces him will still be scum.

Personally, I long for the cold, sewage-filled embrace of the rising sea levels that will eventually swallow us all and put this horrible country out of its misery.

 

[Agema]

At fucking last.

That shitberg was due a fall a long time ago.

Spoiler

I hate Johnson for much the same reason I hate Trump. Both were manifestly unfit for high office - although Trump more egregiously so. Again, one only needs to look back through their histories to see they were not going to end well, and their personality disorders would end up dragging themselves, their offices of state and countries into the mire. Johnson's life is a non-stop car crash of deceit (and adultery), complacency, and professional mediocrity (if we measure by achievements in power rather than achievements at attaining positions of power). Johnson was fired by one newspaper for making stuff up. He then continued that at a new newspaper that let him get away with it. We might remember that when an ex-schoolchum of Johnson, at the time basically a local crime lord, demanded Johnson give him the address of another journalist so he could send heavies round to beat the journalist, and Johnson handed it over.

And just so we know how far it goes back, someone released a school report from Eton:

Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies. [He] 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 the 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 that binds everyone else.

So as a boy, so as a man.

Johnson's reputation following his stint as Foreign Secretary was one of disorganisation and incompetence. And yet his part still raised him to PM, because his gift of the gab was deemed the most convenient way of winning election. I despise the British right wing's hypocrisy about "loyalty" and the lack of it shown to him, given the way Johnson stabbed the two previous PMs in the back with no aim other than personal ambitions. And herein is perhaps the most damning thing about his period in office: he was put there by people who knew he was a car crash waiting to happen, and really, the fault is theirs.

But back to his schooldays. I also resent Johnson and Trump's success in terms of privilege. That these despicable, deeply flawed and inadequate human beings have got so far off the back of their class and wealth. They have screwed up numerous times in ways that would destroy or thoroughly impede people from lesser backgrounds, but having these advantages means that they don't get called out or suffer consequences for their misconduct in good time. Let's not ignore that these men have strengths: drive, persuasion / charm, chutzpah, to smash through and achieve their aims. But if our society and political institutions cannot also recognise their crippling flaws and filter out these dross from positions of high power, our societies have a massive problem.

Even worse, dethroned, Johnson is almost certainly going to settle comfortably back into private sector jobs (like journalism, where he came from) and earn millions and millions. Really, he more needs to be tarred, feathered, and treated as barely fit to sell fries at McDonalds. But that's the thing about these arsewipes with privilege: they pretty much cannot lose, no matter how much they screw up.

Although I'll give Johnson this at least: I still hate Priti Patel even more.

 

[Terminal Blue]

And just so we know how far it goes back, someone released a school report from Eton:

I haven't seen an inbred burned that hard since I moved away from Norfolk.

 

[Baffle]

I'm not celebrating too hard though, the entire party is rotten so whoever replaces him will still be scum.

Personally, I long for the cold, sewage-filled embrace of the rising sea levels that will eventually swallow us all and put this horrible country out of its misery.

I was thinking a gigantic sinkhole, but your idea is good too.

 

[09philj]

Liz Truss is a complete void of personality and has zero media savvy

Truss is very strange. My uncle works for the foreign office in a diplomatic post and met her when she was in charge of international trade, and he described her as dead behind the eyes (and he's a conservative).

 

[Piscian]

This situation is the most British thing I've ever seen. They refused to act on all the actual bad things he's done, and used this opportunity to "revolt" because he hired a guy who groped other guys. It also reeks of typical British homophobia cause I'm sure every member revolting wouldn't care if it he was groping ladies.

Feels like something that would play out in a Mansion in a period drama with everyone throwing tea cups at each other and pretending they didn't just have sex with the maid. Directed by Kenneth Branagh, Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as Boris Johnson.

thank you for attending my talk "Stereotyping the brits"

 

[thebobmaster]

This situation is the most British thing I've ever seen. They refused to act on all the actual bad things he's done, and used this opportunity to "revolt" because he hired a guy who groped other guys. It also reeks of typical British homophobia cause I'm sure every member revolting wouldn't care if it he was groping ladies.

Feels like something that would play out in a Mansion in a period drama with everyone throwing tea cups at each other and pretending they didn't just have sex with the maid. Directed by Kenneth Branagh, Starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as Boris Johnson.

thank you for attending my talk "Stereotyping the brits"

With a supporting role appearance by Benedict Cumberbatch.

 

[Piscian]

With a supporting role appearance by Benedict Cumberbatch.

The groper, obviously.

 

[Chimpzy]

 

[Agema]

Truss is very strange. My uncle works for the foreign office in a diplomatic post and met her when she was in charge of international trade, and he described her as dead behind the eyes (and he's a conservative).

Given what I have read about and seen of Truss over the years, I absolutely believe that.

The Tories are currently a deeply repellant party. As individuals actually think they are on average better than the whole, if only because Johnson gave full force to the most mean-spirited, self-interested, rabid and witlessly ideological of them - Truss, Raab, Patel, Rees-Mogg, etc. Looking at individual backbenchers, I might not agree with their politics, but I'd grant that some of them are decent and reasonable people who believe in the greater good. No matter how good they may be, I also think that they have been disturbingly spineless.

Part of the problem of course is the Tory party membership, which are a bunch of particularly hardline right-wing arseholes, and their excessive reliance on big money donations (often from questionable sources). And so the party has gradually moulded in their image, because they respectively select the MPs and fund the party, even if Tory voters overall have remained significantly more moderate.