Friday, October 25, 2019

Boris Is Right

Much as I hate to admit it, Boris Johnson is right about the need for a General Election.

The simple fact is that his government clearly doesn't have a stable majority with which to get their agenda through the House. Were it not for Labour playing silly buggers, they should be laying a Motion of No Confidence, forcing the issue and bringing down the government. And yet it's also true that nobody else has the numbers to form a government - Corbyn won't get the support of the Lib Dems or the former Tories, and so can't do it, while nobody else has the support of Labour and can't do it. And so, since there's no alternative government available, it should be a General Election.

The only reason Labour haven't pulled the trigger is, bluntly, that they're sure they'll lose... but that's not an acceptable reason for them not doing their jobs. The country needs a government, and to get that we need an election.

(Incidentally, it's worth noting that Boris Johnson shouldn't even have been appointed Prime Minister. When she tendered her resignation, the outgoing Prime Minister was required to recommend her successor, but that successor had to be someone who could command the confidence of the House. That was the standard that needed to be applied, not "who has been elected leader of the Tories" or even "who has been elected leader of the biggest party." Given that Boris manifestly does not command a majority, and indeed never did, he should not have been recommended in that manner. And, indeed, since Theresa May could not actually recommend anyone who could command that majority, she should have been required to stay in post. But never mind.)

What's unfortunate is that I'm convinced that the Tories will win a comfortable majority in the election, whenever it happens, which will allow them to push aside any opposition to Boris' deal and bring about their hard Brexit. The SNP will probably make gains, but it will avail them nothing - Boris won't be minded to grant a Section 30 order, there's no way to compel him to do so, and the SNP refuse to contemplate any Plan B. So I'm finding it really hard to see any hope in politics right now.

2 comments:

Kezzie said...

God help us! It's all a bloomin disaster and Boris is an idiot but yes, what's going to happen?
P.S. Re your new computer versus NSA idea, I also need one. Something BAD has happened to my laptop and I think I have a dreadful virus that has taken down my firewall so i can't get updates and thus internet will not work. My BiL has tried to troubleshooot over the phone and nothing worked! I resent this.

Steph/ven said...

That sounds absolutely horrible. Sounds like you may need to call in professional help and/or get an entirely new laptop.

Be warned, though: that professional help is very likely to start by wiping the whole machine and starting again, which will get rid of the virus... and also all of your data. Unfortunately, copying that data off the machine now runs the risk of also copying the virus, but you may want to consider doing it, ideally onto a brand new memory stick that you won't use for anything else.