Boris Coup: Day 10

Day 10. And Boris keeps giving the lie to Karl Marx, who talked about history repeating itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. With Boris, it happens only once, is a farce throughout but is perfectly likely to end as tragedy.

A tragedy for him perhaps. At least, we should hope so. Otherwise it could be one for the rest of us.

BoJo: not so happy these days

Let’s see what he’s been up to.

Well, he’s had to contend with more resistance to his high-handed behaviour, in particular his expelling of Conservative MPs for voting against him. The worst resistance came from his brother Jo, who will stand down as an MP as well as a minister, because of the “unresolvable tension” between loyalty to his family (i.e. his brother) and the national interest. How tough it must be to have your own brother declare your actions not in the national interest...

Boris laughed at Ed Miliband’s victory over his brother David for the Labour leadership back in 2013:

...only a socialist could do that to his brother, only a socialist could regard familial ties as being so trivial as to shaft his own brother

It seems that fraternal shafting isn’t restricted only to the left after all.

What else has Boris been doing? 

He attended a police training academy in Wakefield, in the North of England. The understanding was that it would be a celebration of his decision to recruit another 20,000 police officers, without a word of politics being breathed. But Boris treated that as a firm commitment, so he broke it.

First he kept the police officers and trainees waiting an hour, standing around in the sun. A fine illustration of how deeply he cares about ordinary people. Then he made a wholly political speech, part of his campaign for an election which, much to his frustration, he hasn’t yet been able to call.

In true Trump style, he took advantage of having police as a backdrop to make the speech. Something the police themselves resented, since they value their reputation, or at least the appearance, of being politically neutral. But Boris doesn’t pay much attention to protocol and procedure. If the regulations get in his way, he simply ignores them.

It was the same when he was an undergraduate in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford University: if he felt like trashing a restaurant, he just did it. Mere conventions suggesting that kind of behaviour was unacceptable were never going to deter him then. They don’t deter him now.

It’s interesting that he’s campaigning for an election, given that one of the votes he lost in Parliament, as I mentioned yesterday, was a motion to call a poll. The latest news is that the Opposition parties don’t intend to give him that election until after the Brexit date.

That’s more bad news for poor Boris. A new poll by ICM for Represent Us, a group campaigning for a second referendum, suggests that the Brexit Party’s vote would double from 9 to 18% if an election were held after 31 October and Britain still hadn’t left the EU. That would leave Corbyn and Johnson level pegging on 28%, whereas in an earlier election BoJo would be ahead by 37 to 30% (according to the Financial Times, which has a paywall).

No wonder the Opposition parties want the vote in November.

Especially as the Lords have now ratified the bill requiring BoJo to delay Brexit if he hasn’t negotiated a new deal by Halloween. “I’d rather be dead in a ditch,” he told the Guardian when asked whether he’d request a delay in Brexit.

He keeps claiming he’s making good progress towards a deal, but since the EU says there’s been no progress at all, like the boy who cried wolf, Boris finds few who believe him.

So he could be heading for 31 October with no deal. Then his choice would be to ask the EU for a delay to Brexit, and comply with the new law. Or he could break the law, which would be a serious extension to his coup and might have some difficult consequences. Or of course he could die in a ditch.

By happy chance, it seems that Parliament may well be digging one for him.

Alas, poor Tories, and poor us: the lesson of Hallam

With just a day to go before the British General Election, there are a whole series of seats which are promising us “Portillo moments.” The term refers to former Thatcherite Minister Nigel Portillo. In 1997, he was beaten in an extremely safe seat, Enfield Southgate, to much rejoicing at the downfall of this notorious right-winger.

It’s unfortunate that such upsets are now named after him. Since leaving politics, he’s turned into rather a good broadcaster, taking honest, well-argued and – frankly – frequently liberal stances on a wide range of questions.

Still, there are still such upsets, many of which would be highly welcome if they occurred. 

It would be wonderful to see Nigel Farage of the dangerously far-right United Kingdom Independence Party losing his bid to enter Parliament in Thanet South. Equally, there would be a sense of Karma if the constituency of Sheffield Hallam waved goodbye to Nick Clegg, whose support for the Tories – in breach, many would argue, of fundamental principles of the Liberal Democrat Party he leads – made the government of the last few years possible.

Possible isn’t the same as bearable.

The reality is that Clegg will probably hang on in Hallam. In fact, the latest constituency poll, carried out by ICM for the Guardian suggests that he has a comfortable lead – 42% over 35%. Curiously, the second-placed party, historically in Hallam David Cameron’s Tories, is now Ed Miliband’s Labour Party. The Tories, indeed, are down to 12%.

Nick Clegg: unlikely to lose his seat
But the way he retains it may be highly instructive...

Hold on a minute, though. As well as asking whether voters would choose Clegg or one of the other candidates, ICM asked them to say which party they preferred. Which gave substantially different results.

To that question, Hallam voters split 34% for Labour, 32% for the Liberal Democrats, and 21% for the Conservatives. A 2% lead for Labour. That’s pretty much in line with the previous poll carried out by Lord Ashcroft.

A fascinating picture emerges from all this, doesn’t it?

What it says is that Labour supporters show some real conviction. Between the two questions, the Labour vote stayed practically unchanged. But of those who prefer the Tories, nearly half chose Clegg when they were asked about specific candidates.

That rather suggests a lot of Tories have identified Nick Clegg as a natural friend. A great many of us would say they’re far from wrong. He certainly already seems to be angling for a new invitation into government from his mate big Dave. And now it seems it’s a substantial group of Dave’s supporters in Hallam who might give Clegg his constituency back.

The poll, however, also implies that rather a lot of Hallam Tories need to be reminded that Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, the man who kept their party in power for the last five years, leader of the Liberal Democrats, is their local MP. And standing for re-election. By them. 

One wonders how many, prompted with his name, responded “who?”

Not exactly on the ball, one would have to say.

It’s not my aim to be unduly mean, but I can’t help feeling that this reflects a level of intellectual horsepower which might make a lot of other complex ideas difficult to grasp. Like compassion. Tolerance of difference. Human rights.

And certainly anything sophisticated like social justice.

In turn, that might go a long way to explain a lot of our problems. With Tories. Far beyond Hallam.