Rayvin

I don't think there's anyone they have now that has any real intellectual standing or ability. They've gone through the bottom of the barrel and are chiselling into the earth.

Really pleased for him - he seems like such a genuine guy who isn't afraid to love and appreciate those around him, and what he has. I really hope he's part of this club for years to come tbh.

So then if Johnson gets the 100, he's going to be the only one on the ticket?

Would feel better about this if we had Joelinton and ASM in the game. Without them I'm less positive - we're still very defensively solid which suggests that they won't score many, but equally we blow hot and cold up front. Wilson playing should mean we get 1 at least, so for me it's down to whether or not we can limit Spurs to 1. 1-1 or 2-1 to them.

We really do, and I believe I say these earnestly even with my innate bias, need a general election. The people need it, politics needs it, even the Tories need it. They need to spend the next 5 years working out what the hell their party is even doing anymore, it's becoming increasingly clear that they can't do this on the fly. Their MPs need to dig deep, remember that the point of them being there is "public service" and get the fuck out of the way of the nation's governance. I've said it before but they are at this point a domestic terrorist organization powered by incompetence. Stand the fuck down, Conservative Party.

Probably no surprise to anyone but obviously another reason why Johnson would be better for Labour than Sunak.

That's the ERG voting for oblivion or control. I mean come on. I'm fascinated that it's even a debate tbh, maybe Johnson is simply too much for some people's consciences.

I have to admit, I did just catch this in the guardian which Labour should bookmark and revisit endlessly in the election campaign:

I was raised to use her term for it She's not a geordie - probably why she is occasionally tempted to vote for people like Ben Wallace tbh. She is right now telling me how virtuous it is of him to have recognised he is not able to take this role on, and to stand aside - and that his endorsement of Johnson is also understandable on the basis that Johnson supported him on defence and blah blah. He's a cunt. They're all cunts.

Ben Wallace has ruled himself out and seems to be about to endorse Johnson. There goes Mum's theory about him being any sort of decent person.

Fair enough, but the Tories have been kicking our asses up and down the pitch for 12 years. I'm fully on the nuclear option with this now, whatever it takes.

I was talking to my Mum yesterday - soft Labour voter, definitely the kind of person that 'the right' Tory leader could win over. She was talking about how Starmer has no conviction, she doesn't think he stands for anything, and then goes on about how Ben Wallace should take over for the Tories and how good he'd be. - the only reason it seems she'd vote Labour at the moment is that the Tories are terrible. But that's the danger - they're two parties in one at the moment and each side has been able to point to the other for blame in order to keep people onside with them, right throughout the Brexit fiasco. My worry is the slate gets wiped clean for whoever comes in and then Starmer is suddenly under a spotlight again in terms of being boring etc. He wasn't surging against the Tories until Boris started flatlining, Labour did nothing to make that shift happen other than staying the course and letting the Tories implode. If there's no more implosion, does that strategy still work?

Possibly true but would it be enough to sway the membership?

I thought of a better way of reconciling this anyway, at least I think. I will concede that if I knew that the Tories were beaten either way, I would prefer Sunak. Are you happy to agree that if the choice was 2 years of Boris or the Tories win the next election, you'd take Boris? Because I think if we get that far it's just down to our assessment of risk - and really that's a subjective and fairly personal thing.

We don't get those things back until the Tories are gone though, that's the thing. We cannot take 2+5 years of the Tories, the country wouldn't survive it in any sense. If Brexit was the result of austerity last time - which I fully believe it was - then I dread to think that another 7 years of Tory austerity off the back of Brexit would lead us to. We could be a fucking police state by the end of that because to make that fly they'd have to double down all the more on immigrants and the vulnerable. I get your point that they're going to lose no matter what, and on that basis I also can see why you prefer Sunak since he will do less damage in the process of getting to the GE. But I am just not as sure as you are that they don't bounce back and find something they can weaponise against Labour in the way they just always do. I have no trust in where we are as a country for that not to happen.

And only one of them had the ability to prevent the entire fiasco.

And on a different day of the week you'd say Corbyn was. But the real truth of it, is that the main reason for the leave vote was David fucking Cameron and 8 years of austerity.

The strawmanning is relentless on here so I wouldn't start that one. Johnson isn't our Trump, Brexit is. Johnson is the closest individual to that title, but the real chaos at the heart of everything in this country is Brexit. And frankly, it's an even worse version of Trump because it can't be voted out of office. We are stuck with it. And for the last fucking time, which particular side of the Tory party delivered Brexit to us? Which group of competent leaders cast the country down this path? Who let Johnson get his foot in the door in the first place because saving the party was more important to them than protecting the country? Why in fuck would you want those people back. Johnson at least doesn't seem to give a flying fuck about the Tory Party, in fact you could almost believe he's on a mission to destroy it. The threat is the Tory Party. The immediate threat is letting them austerity us through 2 years of a cost of living crisis. The damage and death could be untold - but because they look presentable in suits and say things in a vaguely professional way, people will nod along like the pack of sheep they are, and choke it down. This country is not educated enough to handle that and deal with it appropriately - we have too many people who think they've got the first fucking clue about how any of this works because they spent 10 mins googling it, too many people who wing their views based on how they feel in a given moment. Johnson has the advantage of repelling almost everyone whether they consider him at an intellectual level or, shudder as I say it, a gut feel level. But look, going round the houses now - we just have different views about the potential damage caused by either side. You're worried about democracy and institutions - I'm not, they're fucked already. I'm worried about people's lives.

Sorry like, but did you have trust in politics post-Brexit? When May took a slim majority and turned it into hard Brexit to save her party from schism, were you sat there thinking to yourself "well I still trust this process". Like fuck were you.

Right but as you say, done by his cabinet. One of whom - his second in command - is the present favourite after Johnson himself. And while all of those things are 'bad' they're also very standard fare for the Tory party in terms of where it is. I still wouldn't put any of that on the same level as austerity. I flinch when the notion that the other members of the Tory party not being as openly psychotic as Johnson means that they aren't as inwardly psychotic starts doing the rounds, and that's really what I'm speaking to here. The "sensible" Tories previously delivered us Brexit, austerity, and a health service that knew it was underprepared for a pandemic, reported as much, and which was ignored because preparing it properly would have gone against the austere grain. It's not Johnson's fault that the NHs was criminally underprepared for that pandemic (plenty is his fault in terms of handling it) - it's the fault of the "sensible" Tories. The death is on them just as much, if not perhaps more, than on Johnson. Apparently what Johnson has managed to do here is make everyone think the normal Tories are somehow acceptable or decent people. They're not. They never have been. They are the enemy. Johnson is a fucking fool and a bigger threat to them than to us.

He'll bend the rules somehow I'm quite sure but he's not going to rip up every institution - he'll be too busy presiding over the absolute clusterfuck that will be the Tory Party. I'd be amazed if he manages to do anything, half his fucking party will walk out upon him winning by the sounds of it We're off the deep end now anyway, may as well see this spectacular implosion through to the end. There was a delay to Brexit destroying the Tories but, have to say, their eventual meltdown has been very enjoyable so far. I'm going to add as well - other than mismanaging the pandemic and Brexit, both of which he had considerable help in from the very people he's up in against in this leadership race, what did he actually do? Broke trust in politics blah blah no one had any left anyway. Institutions were broken by Brexit - I mean I'm just saying really, other than scandal after scandal, crisis after crisis, his rule was fairly benign in terms of policy. Unless I'm forgetting something particularly noteworthy. And as a further note, he'll be on holiday half the time. I suppose I just don't understand why you see him as so much worse than Sunak - a man who stood shoulder to shoulder with him throughout literally all of that, a man who backed Brexit from the womb by the sounds of it, and a man who is so rich he has no comprehension of the challenges faced by normal people whatsoever. Sunak is just a competent Johnson. Why would we want a competent Johnson?

Bring it on, sounds even better

Aye it's painful, no doubt about that. Appalling, distasteful, and yet also the true face of the Tories. The longer that's held up in front of people the better. Still not convinced this is going to happen though.

Yes but he's clinically insane as evidenced by his follow up comment: I think there should be a general election because we need whoever becomes the leader - if it’s not Boris Johnson - we need to have the proper mandate. And the only way to get a proper mandate is to go to the people. I’m not pessimistic about the outcome of a general election.

I would agree if he had a 6 month run in to the election but he doesn't - it's 2 years. The wheels will be coming off long before that. The public have also consistently accepted the narrative that the Tories know what they're doing with the economy and austerity is a necessary evil.