For someone who likes to be liked yesterday’s booing of Johnson, seen by tens of millions as he arrived at St Paul’s, must have been very difficult to stomach. I’m not a fan of the PM but it was hard not to feel for him as he walked up the Cathedral steps with the cameras on him yesterday, At the very minimum, this public display of antagonism to the PM will have been noticed by Tory MPs who soon might…
With the possibility of a Conservative leadership contest in the next few weeks I thought it might be useful to look at the likely contenders. And as we are celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee let’s start with the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss who in her earlier career was strongly opposed to the monarchy and at the LD conference in 1994 moved a resolution calling for its abolition. Clearly, she has switched parties since and her views on the monarchy are not…
But the total is his secret There is only one UK political betting story at the moment and that is whether Johnson is going to face a vote of no confidence amongst Conservative MPs. If 54 of them send letters to Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee Chair, he will initiate the ballot at Westminster amongst the parliamentary party. If Johnson fails to win a simple majority in that secret ballot he is is out. This could all be over within…
Inevitably the main betting interest at the moment continues to be whether Boris Johnson is going to survive. Currently on Smarkets punters make it an 80% chance that he will face a VONC amongst Tory MPs in 2022. But the money is going by 60% to 40% on him surviving such a vote. That, I believe, could look different if both the June 23rd by-elections result in Tory losses as seems likely at the moment. The biggest driving force in…
At least one PBer, surely, will know when the last time that the Tory party lost two Westminster by elections on the same day. If the Smarkets betting above is correct two CON losses look like a near certainty barring a major upheaval in UK politics. All the signs are that LAB will take back Wakefield which was lost at GE2019. A Honiton and Tiverton the LDs have been very tight odds-on punts – a situation that hasn’t changed since…
But Hague disagrees Unless the 1922 Committee Chairman Brady is sharing detailed information with the Deputy PM, which I very much doubt, it is hard to see how he can make his prediction. Doing the round of talk shows this morning Raab was emphatic that Johnson won’t face a confidence vote next week, and the people he calls Tory rebels haven’t got enough names to trigger a ballot. Given the other noises that are coming from the parliamentary party this…
With just a possibility that we might soon be seeing a Conservative leadership contest the former Health Secretary and the one who made the final two last time, Jeremy Hunt, is now the clear favourite. Last time he was in the runoff with the membership and did a fair bit better than most people expected. Under the Tory rules contenders go through a series of ballots with MPs to decide which two names should go forward to the membership. He…