UKH

Johnson gives a rousing speech to the party faithful.

Audience laps it up.

Prepare for another 5 years of Tory rule!

I thought it was a great speech!

I also expect to get a bucketload of dislikes

They are the people who voted him onto that stage.

Maybe, maybe not. One things for sure, enthusiastic applause from your loyalist fans doesn't mean election victory. Corbyn would be PM if it did.

The Tories know and understand their party's greatest asset remains in charge of the Labour party.

Meh, he'll do anything to duck out of PMQs

Is there not some irony in the championed future of fusion being a European funded project?

Pretty policy free drum banging that would obviously be popular. It was better than pretty much anything he's done so far as PM/Con Leader but that's not saying much.

Hopefully not in Scotland.

Depends on how long you stay in the Union?

That’ll be UK money coming back home?

Exactly

I didn't hear him promise to match the funding. It just seems odd to champion a project that would probably never have got off the ground without Euratom.

They also seem to have spent the "EU membership fee" a few times over......

Well they would wouldn't they. There was just the same adulation at the Labour party conference last week, maybe more, but I think everyone understands that you don't get into government by giving good conference speeches, well not very often at least.

The more I think about his "it's not fair I have to obey the law" whingeing the more I think we'll have a confirmatory referendum. It looks very like the EU are going to tell BJ to "phurque orf" and so he'll be bound to send that letter to Brussels and ask for an extension.

At that point I think he reasonably tell the faithful that he's done all he can and the only option to "get Brexit done" will be to get the public, who are all on his side, to vote for it again in another referendum. The opposition can hardly object as that's what they've been asking for for the last 18 months.

So, I reckon a referendum around early December and revocation of article 50 by mid December, General Election in early February and a coalition government led by Labour by early March.

Regarding the spending pledges, they're in line with UK economic growth and will have little effect on borrowing so no real change in policy there.

You don’t sound convinced by Conservative pledges.

Do you be in Father Christmas as well?  

A referendum would take far longer than a couple of months to organise.

There’s no majority in Parliament for a second referendum, one of the reasons why we’re in this situation.

A Conservative party that pushes for one would be wiped out in a future general election.

Labour fear a similar fate.

He also claimed "they are on the verge of creating commercially viable miniature fusion reactors for sale around the world". This should be much bigger news!

I'm certainly not going to be convinced by any "pledges" made by Johnson - has he ever kept any of them ?

I could possibly find one if I search for long enough.

How far back can I go?

You know it's amazing what's possible when people put their mind to something. I'd say the minimum amount of time required to hold referendum would be the time it takes to book the polling stations and print the papers.

There hasn't been a majority up until now because the Tories always voted against one. This time they'll vote for one. In fact Labour might even abstain just to rub their noses in it and make sure everyone knows who owns it. 😊

If Brexit is any example, it’ll take Parliament years just to agree on an acceptable question 

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/uk-research-and-european-un...

"The UK is one of the largest recipients of research funding in the EU and, although national contributions to the EU budget are not itemised, analyses suggest that the UK receives a greater amount of EU research funding than it contributes. The UK Office of National  Statistics (ONS) report an indicative figure for the UK’s contribution to EU research and development of €5.4 billion over the period 2007 – 2013. During this time, the UK received €8.8 billion in direct EU funding for research, development and innovation activities."

Do you have a link to the ONS report quoted in the article?

I’ve had a quick google but can’t find anything. Thanks.

Complete tosh. Didn't know what he was taking about most of the time, right from the onset.

Doesn't even know difference between broadband and wifi

Page 12, footnote 29 of this https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/eu-uk-funding/uk-membershi...

gives this https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/researchandde...

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/researchandde...

Buried in the excel download to the right of the webpage opened by the link in Carless' link at the bottom of pg12 is the link to the ons webpage, as above. You're on your own if you want to trawl through any further detail........

I'm not that sad, honest - i've had occasion to trawl through other ons links, and they do like to bury them away......

Edit - maybe didnt see carless' directions to it - maybe we are both that sad.

Considering it was to a home crowd, I thought it was boring, limp and short. Fnar.

Whoever's in power, whatever happens with Brexit, it'll certainly feel like it.

Definitely that sad, but it's vaguely part of my job

Are you really suggesting that a Tory Party Conferences audience, is the same as the general public?

You be saying Corbyn's likely to be PM because of the "OH! Jeremy Corbyn" chant in Brighton.

Surely, it's about the public and policies, not what lies you tell to your lap dog audience, of either party.

You don’t expect him to focus on the details do you?

Its Johnson.

You think the UK can afford to fund its own meaningful fusion research?

That money will come home and it'll go to tax to the tax cuts being floated this week then its gone, Britain is shut out of those programs we once lead, much diminished. Bravo.

jk

Thanks.

Thanks

People who've made it their job to count now believe there is under the right circumstances. Can those circumstances be created?

Maybe, maybe not. Over the course of the last year your fellow travellers have gleefully bought 'no-deal', the worst job destroying incarnation of 'project fear'. Safe to assume they can be sold pretty much any other shite so long as its failure remains someone else's fault.

The bigger problem with that particular brexit/no-brexit roll of the dice isn't the electorate, it's the hard right donors who've paved Johnson's way to No.10 to deliver their shock. Will he gamble on being able to restock the coffers with pro-EU business money for an election if he double crosses them? Is he strong enough to pull off such an about-face without them and their zealous cabinet lackeys? Probably not.

jk

I think whoever is doing the counting needs to check  their sums.

None of the two majors parties want to call a referendum, it’s an election vote loser in key seats without any definitive outcome.

It’ll be an election but heaven only knows when - I’ve heard next summer mentioned from one commentator.

No.

John Crace's views seem a good distance from yours:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2019/oct/01/tories-revea...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/30/tory-eurosceptics-bring-so...

Plus a fun spoof 'Sherlock' bonus post

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2019/oct/01/revenge-of-the-m...

You joke - but I've been questioning whether it could actually be the case. I struggle to see how such a profound lack of pragmatic action could be explained otherwise.
In NZ, a similar situation with the Labour party having an ineffectual leader was solved by that leader stepping down (Little), and support being given to a new leader (Ardern), and it's likely this action secured them enough votes for a term of government.
Accolades for the man in question such as such as "Opinion polls during the first few months of his leadership gave Corbyn lower personal approval ratings than any previous Labour leader in the early stages of their leadership amongst the general public"
and
"At the end of Theresa May's time as Prime Minister, she had a small lead over Corbyn in the best PM polling question. However, following the appointment of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister in July 2019, he gained double-digit leads over Corbyn on this question"
should be highly troubling, and it seems there is no/little innovation to improve them.
 

But he’s just trying to sell newspapers to the non believers.

Good

We haven't had 5 years since the last election, which was widely predicted to be a Tory rout.

Ah, yes, well, but .................

It costs us less than 50p a day (individually), which seems like great value to me for the cross pollenation of knowledge and research and skills between the UK and Europe which has benefited the UK thus far.

Doesn’t sound like a lot until you multiply it by how many million people?

https://twitter.com/37paday/status/1056696915373502464

It's 5p a day per head, in fact. 

Edit: According to the CBI as of October last year, the UK got £10 back for each £1 invested, in terms of the benefit to the economy presumably.

You didn't feel that it was irresponsible of him to refer to 'the surrender bill' during his speech regarding Brexit - framing (being in favour of) anything other than leaving the EU as unpatriotic or weak?

You've got to credit him for the sheer brass neck of using the Joint European Torus project as the poster child for UK science after Brexit.

His speech to Scottish delegates was interesting, lots of talk about planting Union Jacks in Scotland. No, seriously:  youtube.com/watch?v=WFo3h8HrYog&

I've just managed to catch up with the speech. As far as I can see it is just crowd-pleasing bluster; his main concern is with getting himself elected. There is no genuine attempt to address wider issues; there is no attempt to deal with the realities of Brexit. There is hypocrisy and lies. "We love Europe"? "We will respect the peace process and the Good Friday agreement"? Really?

It's not even great electioneering - it's just addressed to the core Tory vote and potential Brexit Party voters. Will that be enough? It looks like a recipe for another hung parliament. 

John's latest, on the speech itself

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/02/more-vacuity-than-vision-i...

He wants to prorogue parliament again next week, on Tuesday, presumably so he doesn't have to face MP's at PMQ's. 

He's a man of integrity then...

If he lied during PMQ's, then Parliament would be entitled to have him dealt with, as "lying to Parliament" is a major offence.

Just another excuse to prevent him getting himself shown up for what he truly is; a two-faced double-dealing lying sh1t.

That'll end well

A pretty good summary!

For the SNP.