Mike Knell on Nostr: The problems with the idea of #Johnson standing in Dorries’ vacant seat: 1. No ...
The problems with the idea of #Johnson standing in Dorries’ vacant seat:
1. No majority is unassailable right now. The Lib Dems overturned a 24,000 majority last year in a seat that had been blue for a century.
2. That’s assuming he can get adopted as candidate by the local constituency Tories.
3. The constituency party were probably already selecting a candidate for next year, so they might have one already. Booting an already adopted PPC just because a “name” fancies the seat is historically known to cause major unrest in local parties.
4. He could run as an independent, but that would guarantee the seat going to (probably) Labour.
5. Of course, he probably doesn’t even care about 4 so may stand anyway.
6. The Privileges Committee isn’t just Harriet Harman. The Tories have a majority on it (Con 4, Lab 2, SNP 1) so trying to smear the committee is a tall order.
7. Finally, there’s the elephant in the room - the Privileges Committee report is likely to be published during the by-election period. That is unlikely to be good news for him, especially as the police are considering more offences thanks to the Cabinet Office doing their job.
8. Even if he does get elected, it would take quite a lot of study of Erskine May to decide whether he can or cannot still be sanctioned. This isn’t a general election, it’s a by-election. Parliament won’t have been dissolved, and with the summer recess looming it’s very likely that any final vote on the committee’s recommendation will happen in the autumn.
9. He might be gambling really hard that he wouldn’t be sanctioned, or that if he was there wouldn’t be the numbers to make a recall petition stick, but I doubt it.
I think when he says he’s out of Parliament “for the time being” he’s trying to threaten Sunak rather than anything else - “put me in the Lords if you want me to shut up”. His current shenanigans are just clumsy manoeuvring by a man with no self-awareness and the ethical compass of a
cat in an aviary. His statement was just petulant whining by a man who is finally, for the first time, being told “no” and simply cannot manage the trivial amount of self-reflection necessary to understand why that’s happening to him! of all people!.
1. No majority is unassailable right now. The Lib Dems overturned a 24,000 majority last year in a seat that had been blue for a century.
2. That’s assuming he can get adopted as candidate by the local constituency Tories.
3. The constituency party were probably already selecting a candidate for next year, so they might have one already. Booting an already adopted PPC just because a “name” fancies the seat is historically known to cause major unrest in local parties.
4. He could run as an independent, but that would guarantee the seat going to (probably) Labour.
5. Of course, he probably doesn’t even care about 4 so may stand anyway.
6. The Privileges Committee isn’t just Harriet Harman. The Tories have a majority on it (Con 4, Lab 2, SNP 1) so trying to smear the committee is a tall order.
7. Finally, there’s the elephant in the room - the Privileges Committee report is likely to be published during the by-election period. That is unlikely to be good news for him, especially as the police are considering more offences thanks to the Cabinet Office doing their job.
8. Even if he does get elected, it would take quite a lot of study of Erskine May to decide whether he can or cannot still be sanctioned. This isn’t a general election, it’s a by-election. Parliament won’t have been dissolved, and with the summer recess looming it’s very likely that any final vote on the committee’s recommendation will happen in the autumn.
9. He might be gambling really hard that he wouldn’t be sanctioned, or that if he was there wouldn’t be the numbers to make a recall petition stick, but I doubt it.
I think when he says he’s out of Parliament “for the time being” he’s trying to threaten Sunak rather than anything else - “put me in the Lords if you want me to shut up”. His current shenanigans are just clumsy manoeuvring by a man with no self-awareness and the ethical compass of a
cat in an aviary. His statement was just petulant whining by a man who is finally, for the first time, being told “no” and simply cannot manage the trivial amount of self-reflection necessary to understand why that’s happening to him! of all people!.