[Tubby Isaacs]

[Tubby Isaacs]

As pointed out BTL, the constituency contains Brunel University. Of course, not all of them will live or eligible to vote in the constituency, but that's over 16,000 students. The idea that Bozo isn't massively behind with those who would vote here is nonsense. And motivation for turnout among them ought to be pretty decent.

Though as someone else points out, there's a large Hindu population in Uxbridge and the Tories are doing well among them.

[mattomac]

Causing issues for Sunak might not help mind.

Can’t see that student demographic at Brunel going for Johnson, also it was entirely on the phone, 18-24 are one of the least likely to answer their phones from random calls. In fact Apple blocks hidden numbers.

In fact with all that any polls that does phone might actually now be overweighting the Conservatives.

[Andy McDandy]

Also, was there a transcript of the questions? "If there were an election tomorrow, would you vote for a) someone you've heard of, or b) bunch of names with no affiliation or context given?" might also skew the results.

[Crabcakes]

Can’t wait to see how these are all passed off as things he wasn’t aware of that happened while he was in another, nearby room…

[Tubby Isaacs]

They'll say it was childcare help, like they did when Nimco Ali popped round.

[Andy McDandy]

How does one "pop round" to a heavily guarded country mansion?

[Crabcakes]

They'll say it was childcare help, like they did when Nimco Ali popped round.

That is apparently what they’re going with. Because of course the best person to help with childcare is a wedding planner

[Bones McCoy]

How does one "pop round" to a heavily guarded country mansion?

Same way as you would to a heavily guarded townhouse.

[Andy McDandy]

That being the point - it's a case of much organisation on the part of both the visitor and host. Getting them on the list, clearing them with security, driving the distance (remember when the police could stop people for non-essential travel?). None of this should be easy or quick.

For some reason I doubt that if a random spod turned up at the gates of Downing Street and said to the cops on duty "Yeah, I'm a friend of Carrie's. Can you just buzz me through, or give her a bell if you want to check?", they'd get any further than being told to sod off and stop wasting their time. This isn't just a covid thing, it's a security thing.

[Tubby Isaacs]

They'll say it was childcare help, like they did when Nimco Ali popped round.

That is apparently what they’re going with. Because of course the best person to help with childcare is a wedding planner

Well indeed, but looking after a baby for a couple of hours isn't something uniquely skilled. It's not something a wedding planner definitely can't do. This and Nimco Ali suggests to me very much "Sod that! Come round! We'll say you're helping with the baby! but there's not much more you can say. Labour doesn't seem to be going too hard for it, and I think that's right.

[davidjay]

Ha ha ha.

Nice to see that Staines thinks Parliamentary procedure and the judicial process is a "kangaroo court". I do wonder, though, how much help BoZo would get in a by-election. I can see a lot of otherwise active party members being advised by their own MP to say they're washing their hair for a couple of weeks.

[Yug]

They'll say it was childcare help, like they did when Nimco Ali popped round.

That is apparently what they’re going with. Because of course the best person to help with childcare is a wedding planner

This is now how the Johnsons are regarded. Another blatant lie, and no one even raises an eyebrow.

[Crabcakes]

This is now how the Johnsons are regarded. Another blatant lie, and no one even raises an eyebrow.

While I’m as infuriated as the next reasonable person that Johnson hasn’t faced any real consequences or penalty for his behaviour (yet…), I take some comfort from the fact that his actions have placed him in his own personal hell: his premiership will forever be associated with corruption and incompetence, and he and his family and his dwindling band of cheerleaders are all considered liars and basically a joke. He played the clown to get what he wanted, but now the clown is all he’ll ever be. And not a good one at that.

No weighty tomes will be written praising him, and the only comparisons to Churchill he’ll ever get will be to rude, lazy Lord Randolph rather than his better known son. For a man who has always considered himself exceptional, the fact he has been shown to in fact be notably worse than everyone else who has ever held the offices he felt he deserved - and that this has been not only firmly established in his lifetime but in such short order that the Churchillian comeback he also so clearly craves is simply never going to happen - will, I’m sure, make him an increasingly bitter, marginalised figure. And he deserves no less.

[davidjay]

They'll say it was childcare help, like they did when Nimco Ali popped round.

That is apparently what they’re going with. Because of course the best person to help with childcare is a wedding planner

This is now how the Johnsons are regarded. Another blatant lie, and no one even raises an eyebrow.

Apologies for the football analogy, but some years ago I was watching a match involving the Tony Pulis-era Stoke City. They committed so many fouls that in the end the referee gave up calling them and let Stoke get away with it. Johnson is like that - he's normalised lying, cheating and corruption.

[soulboy]

I assume that after the first studs up, two footed tackle the ref pantomimed "somebody's going to be getting an early cup of tea" rather than nipping that shit in the bud.

[Andy McDandy]

Well, Lindsay Hoyle's got to have a hobby.

[Watchman]

What I don’t understand, if de Piffle “got all the big calls right” during covid, why is he so reticent in providing the evidence on how he did it

[Crabcakes]

What I don’t understand, if de Piffle “got all the big calls right” during covid, why is he so reticent in providing the evidence on how he did it

Because what he means by it are all the calls he made to his mates asking if they wanted to pop round for a piss up and to lend him 200,000 quid.

[Andy McDandy]

Slightly more serious answer: because who's to say what a "big call" was?

Releasing people back into nursing homes? Delaying lockdown for the Cheltenham festival? Failing to close the airports? Deleting the existing pandemic plans and reports on training exercises? Eat out to help out? Some might say they were "big calls", but not Johnson or his team. It's a classic Cummings move - a short and punchy slogan, easily repeatable, vaguely slangy and irreverent, and utterly meaningless.

Anything he got right (or more to the point someone else got right while he held the office of PM) is a big call. Anything else isn't.