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  2. It will be a hardcore Leaver because that where the party is now – Jeremy Hunt etc are pissing in the wind. We can therefore expect a bonfire of “green crap” and in general a lot of “deregulation”. Breathe in the air while you can (and don’t be afraid to care…)

  3. I normally keep out of political threads, having no great affinity to ether Left or Right, but I can honestly say that this has been the worst, most long-drawn out and embarrassing political exit of my entire lifetime, from the most incompetent, corrupt, morally vacuous, disgraceful Prime Minister. The man is devoid of a shred of integrity, an inveterate liar, utterly shameless and dishonest. It is to the eternal discredit of the Tory party that he was ever elected leader – a job to which he was entirely unsuited – and that he was supported by them for so long when his position became completely untenable.

  4. Like all reasonable folk, I was hoping for stringing upside down from a lamp post a la Il Duce (I’m a big softie romantic, I know) – but the word on the street seems to be Raab to be PM by this evening.
    So that’s OK.

  5. Best have a sick-bag to hand when it is revealed just how much money this stumbling, mumbling Old Etonian bastard will be raking in for stumbling and mumbling at the kind of events and places I would give several limbs to NEVER be anywhere near.

    Hopefully a runaway bus will get him first.

    • That’s what many of us saw from closer distance literally decades ago. I don’t read the sort of press Johnson writes for, so when those friends of mine who do got excited about him I read Friends, Voters, Countrymen, a collection of his articles, when it was published in 2002.

      In it I didn’t see any of the intellect or brains or even likeability others did, just a swithering mess who covered up his lack of original thought and inability to commit to an argument with ropy humour and classical allusions.. They only people who mistake that for intelligence are those who are impressed because they didn’t go to the same lessons as him at school.

      In the belief that the man’s real opinions would be harder to conceal in fiction I also read his novel, 72 Virgins, a couple of years later. It’s vile.

      Is it too early to open a bottle?

  7. He’s resigning as party leader today but will remain as PM until the Party conference in October, by which time his successor will have been chosen.
    Don’t go expecting any great changes in direction, because there won’t be any. And Boris will probably be creating mischief on the sidelines for many years to come.

      • There is a lot of precedent. The convention is that the incumbent stays in place, with limited authority (*), until a replacement is chosen by their party or a general election is called. Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May all stayed until their replacements were chosen.

        (*) AIUI. No new legislation except in cases of emergency. Basic government business continues. No new appointments made except to fill vacant positions.

  8. He waited until 9am, so an extended Today, and made me miss Amol Rajan’s Rethink.

    Cameron and May both went on Fridays, so I missed Desert Island Discs.

    Why can’t these twats eff off when Money Box or Sunday Worship are on?

  9. Bloody hell!

    Another highly senior Tory source who has been with Johnson over the past 48 hours said his behaviour meant it was dangerous for the country for him to stay. The source said:

    His behaviour in the last 48 hrs and been reckless and erratic. He cannot be trusted to lead the country until the autumn. God knows what he will do.

    One former government advisor said it was “dangerous” for Johnson to stay in post. Another ex-minister called him “a disgrace”.

    Dare I say the words “Nuclear submarines”….?

  10. It’s hard to see how he can stay on given he the majority of gov’t posts are now vacant. As PM he would be expected to appoint ministers to create an interim administration but he’s surrounded by MPs who are saying they won’t work with him. Conspiracy theorists already align to the theory he will use the time between now and party conference to engineer a way not to step down.

        • April 20: Hid in hospital pretending to be dying in order to get sympathy and avoid doing any work… must remember to promise them a new wing or something, preferably one that we already promised about 6 years ago

          “The Prime Minister wants to stay in Number 10 until autumn….. 2040”

            • A few weeks back there was a lot of stuff trending about the idea that he, at the very least, was not at death’s door as was claimed.

              May be true, may be not. His tenure has so totally devalued truth and trust in public life that it almost doesn’t matter.

              Also: let’s see how long Carrie lasts now that he doesn’t have to pretend he’s capable of holding down an adult relationship.

                  • Funnily enough, a deceit like that by a previous Prime Minister – Harold Wilson, John Major, Gordon Brown – I would not wildly object to.
                    Pandemic arrives – serving PM, in order to get thoroughly briefed by experts away from the spotlight, concocts ruse that they have the virus – gets two weeks solid work done on working out how to deal with Pandemic.

                    Fat Boy doesn’t “do” learning his brief (ask Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe), so I shouldn’t think his attention was anymore focused in that period away than it had been when he missed five Cobra meetings on the same subject.
                    That’s when the feeble and bad of the Tory party should have got busy… F.I.V.E. Cobra meetings… not over two years later.

  13. What will happen today.

    Johnson’s resignation speech planned for 1pm.

    12:50 – Durham constabulary, after many telephone calls from No. 10 this morning, issue fine to Keir Starmer

    12:55 – Keir Starmer stands down as Labour leader

    13:00 – Johnson announces he is off to the Palace to request the dissolution of Parliament, with a view to a General Election on 4 August

    4 August – with leaderless Labour in disarray, and after four weeks of the right wing media attacking the opposition in every which way, the Tories scrape home with a reduced majority.

    5 August – “I have a mandate from the people” claims PM Johnson, as he digs in for the next five years, surrounding himself with a new generation of yes men…

      • Right, he has until September to get us into the war, so he can cling on to the job. They won’t replace him if we’re at war will they? That’s what Dominic Cummings thinks, anyway.

  15. He still refused to take any personal responsibility in his resignation statement. It’s always someone else’s fault, in this case the parliamentary Conservative party. Well, yes. With an 80 seat majority which should have been impossible for him to squander they’re they only ones who could put him out of our misery.

  17. Poor man, surviving the sledging to deliver his important programme of
    “getting Brexit done, …settling our relations with the Continent… reclaiming the power for this country to make its own laws in Parliament”.

    Yeah, cause they are really settled.

  21. Wants to do one last showboating, tickle-my-tummy conference speech as leader even after this.

  25. “Johnson is clinging on so that he can continue to have access to Chequers for the summer”…. he can’t be expected to pay for his own summer holiday like a schnook. He might have to, now the oligarchs are under sanction.

  26. OK…everyone here seems to be in agreement that the lieing, petulant toddler fucking off (sort of, but not yet…how weird is this?) is a good thing. Does anyone here actually disagree? The BBC News and the Graun have people saying they liked him and they are sorry to see him go and so on…so he does actually retain some support out there. Anyone here? Personally I have always hated the man and really can’t for the life of me see the appeal, although I have close relatives who certainly do and I got into a stand up agument with them at a wedding last year over him (drink had been taken)….I’d be genuinely interested if anyone wants to defend him!

  27. I know quite a number of people mainly in my office who think he is decent and don’t seem particularly fussed about his lying. I am not sure whether that says more about them than it does about him.
    Couldn’t stand him when he was mayor of London and really couldn’t believe he would ever be elected to the top job. He was so clearly unqualified to do the job – the biggest issue now is that most of those would are putting themselves forward. in the leadership contest were clearly supporters of his. Backstabbing feckless arseholes the lot of them.

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