If there's going to be a geography-based plot to replace Johnson, suspect that one originating in Melton Mowbray is far more likely to result in a new Tory leader who's actually a conservative than one originating in either Cameroon Notting Hill or Goldsmith Richmond. As @GoodwinMJ suggests in this thread, if the Tories were to elect a new Party Leader/PM ideologically grounded in Notting Hill/Richmond, rather than the shires & the Red Wall, their chances of retaining power are much lower.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1481612…

With this decision, the medico-totalitarian Australian government, both in legislative & judicial forms, has placed itself beyond the boundaries of civilised society.
Utter disgrace. telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2022/01… Abundantly clear that Djokovic has been targeted & punished, not b/c he is healthy & infection-free but just unvaccinated, but b/c he's thereby a dissenter who threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the entire medico-totalitarian regime.
What a s**thole Australia's become.

100%, @CitySamuel. As if the Online Safety Bill wasn't enough of an additional threat to already under siege #FreeSpeech in Britain, the judicial-activism which awarded Meghan Markle a win without even a trial exerts a further chilling effect on it.
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/… VG analysis by @CamillaTominey. Contrary to the extravagant claims made in Markle's triumphalist but victimhood-larded statement, what her legal action proved was that she does have the voice which she disingenuously insists she lacks.
telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2…>
#PrincessPinoccchio

Says it all about the Woke-Left #BiasedBBC, doesn't it, that Edwards was reprimanded for 𝙤𝙗𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 to the 'decolonisation'-inspired removal of a statue, on the grounds that its removal was 'censoring history'?
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/0… And to add insult to injury, the #BBC, which never misses an opportunity to ram its own anti-heritage, anti-white woke revisionism down our throats, actually had the gall to say Edwards was risking breaching its internal impartiality guidelines.
You couldn't make it up....

So the same #BBC that unapologetically beams the foulest language & most extreme perversions at its audience to promote the Woke-Left agenda feels the need to apologise at 3.24. a.m for a double Olympic gold-medallist dropping an F-bomb in exulting at his victory.
#DefundTheBBC No need even to guess. They'd already started.

THREAD
1/4
Part of my cynical brain wondering whether the Johnson Junta is actually following a devious plan to deliberately go OTT on both #oneruleforthem entitlement & repressive Covid-authoritarianism, in the hope of generating a public backlash so big... 2/4
…that it would force them to abandon all Covid restrictions as politically impossible to sustain; thus partly getting themselves off the hook for when the full reckoning for the economic & societal damage #lockdowns have already caused comes in…

1/7
OK, tweeps, here’s my take, FWIW, on Boris Johnson’s possible ‘logic’-tree on sacking Matt Hancock.
Interested in hearing your (NB non-abusive!) thoughts.
THREAD 2/7
BJ would prefer MH gone. MH has now destroyed any former usefulness he had as a human shield for BJ over Covid, and as a lightning rod for growing public discontent.
But - on what grounds to sack him without damage to, or at least with minimum damage to, BJ himself ?

Legit Q now if Hancock's alleged infidelity was solely that, with no other probity connotations.
Apart fm accusations of cronyism re Coladangelo's appointment, was it also to bring her into daily contact with him, & on public payroll, as cover for affair?
thetimes.co.uk/article/matt-h… If nothing else, 𝘓'𝘈𝘧𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘦 Hancock yet again shows starkly the apparently widespread "rules are for you, but not for us" entitlement of our ruling caste.
We saw it on the insouciant disregard of masks & S-D at #G7, we're now seeing it again in Whitehall.
#DrainTheSwamp

Quite compelling viewing, this. Three #BBC D-Gs being grilled in succession.
Doesn't always happen, but this particular one is HoC scrutiny working as it should. Irrespective of political affiliation, all @CommonsDCMS members rightly excoriating their studied evasiveness.

https://twitter.com/Broadcastnow/status/1403043029947064322

Summary (in effect) Lords Hall & Birt:
"We re-hired the guy whom we knew/suspected was a liar with previous form in faking docs, & who'd been sacked for wrongdoing in US media, & who we knew was moonlighting for ITV while working for us.
But neither of us is in any way to blame"

Chair of Commons DCMS Select Ctte giving ex #BBC D-G Lord Hall-Hall a serious grilling on the re-hiring of Bashir.
Haw-Haw being evasive, in effect blaming subordinates.
Obviously no sign on 𝘩𝘪𝘴 desk saying "The buck stops here" to go with his salary. Chair: How was this known liar (Bashir) being paid"
Haw-Haw denies knowledge of, or involvement in, Bashir's pay arrangements, on grounds he was trying to run the whole of the #BBC.
"Nothing to do with me, Guv".

This is arrant nonsense. A handful of Tory MPs might, but Johnson's government has no intention of actually fighting against the Woke agenda - only an intention of 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 like it's fighting against the Woke agenda.
telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/0… Does anyone really think the dedicated Woke-Left culture warriors who now run 'the UK's biggest heritage bodies and charities' will be deterred in their mission by bleating entreaties to 'defend our culture' from 'Culture' Sec'y Oliver Dowden?
Pathetic.
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/…

Same way all the vocal, intolerant, Woke 'minorities' have become so powerful.
Years spent infiltrating, then taking over the near-State, quango & 'charity' sectors, & waiting for the signal/excuse to launch culture war.
Floyd/#BLM/#Antifa riots last summer provided both.

https://twitter.com/Janekelly25/status/1359422807600467971

These people, though malign, aren't stupid.
They spotted, early on, how craven, popularity-obsessed but blame-averse, politicos & governments of every stripe were increasingly outsourcing decision-making, upwards to supranational orgs, & sideways to autonomous agencies & quangos.

In its current condition of being in dire need of major structural reform, the Hand Of Hancock should finally seal its fate.
His interventionist but incompetent micro-management will merely increase producer interest capture, but decrease patient outcomes.
telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/0… Fluoride in water, health warnings on sausages, & 'orders to prevent obesity'.
thetimes.co.uk/article/minist…
With #lockdown-fanatic control-freak Hancock in direct charge, the #NHS will become the vehicle for authoritarian behavioural 'nudge'-Govt.
#NannyState

Clear derogatory inference towards Britain intended by @vonderleyen's 'speedboat vs tanker' analogy in her desperate, self-serving attempt at self-defence.
Ocean greyhound vs rusty tramp steamer, more like.
theguardian.com/society/2021/f… Responsibility for Europe’s vaccine debacle lies indisputably with the European Commission president herself.
politico.eu/article/blame-…
Coming from a source which usually is fairly well-disposed towards the #EU, that's pretty damning.

Rightly trenchant condemnation by Gary Oliver for @TheConWom of the #BBC for continuing to give a platform to the malevolent left-wing hack who traduced Scruton by blatant misrepresentation and mendacity.
conservativewoman.co.uk/bbc-gives-scru…
#DefundTheBBC Though Oliver, also rightly, doesn't spare from (wholly justified) criticism fake-'Conservative' MPs like Brokenshire & Mercer who couldn't wait to condemn Scruton & sack him from a quango on the strength of a lie, just to curry favour with the censorious, intolerant Woke-Left.

Just typical Nippy Krankie bluster & BS for her gullible domestic audience.
Without #IndyRef2 enabling legislation passed by the Westminster UK Parliament, it would just be an opinion poll, & could legally be ignored.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9… As @Effiedeans so lucidly explains here, the latest 'road map to independence' put forward by Sturgeon & the SNP is neither a road, nor a map.
effiedeans.com/2021/01/the-sn…

Yes, this was always on the cards, as many of us correctly surmised, but for me, this has to be arguably the most anti-consumer, politically cowardly, wimping-out decision that the compulsively orally-flatulent Johnson has yet taken.
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/… Wonder what alleged 'feminist' Carrie-Antoinette thinks of her PM paramour's decision to keep the #BBC coercively funded by an illiberal regressive tax, non-payment of which accounts for one-third of all criminal convictions against women?
independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

The BBC boat is not about to be rocked by its newly appointed Chairman; but the blame for which lies with a blustering, but backsliding & bottling Boris Johnson.
My latest for @TheConWom:
conservativewoman.co.uk/backsliding-jo… "The BBC needs a chairman committed to demolishing its institutional groupthink. . . . . . .it isn't going to get one, thanks solely to the timidity & duplicity of Johnson and his flaccid government"

Moore is correct in his reminder of the logic of Brexit.
Less so, however in his a-little-too-fulsome praise of Johnson, whose current shine may start to dull quite quickly when the fine details of his deal start to emerge.
telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/2… Already being reported that, as price of an ongoing deal with the #EU on security, UK has had to agree to remain bound by the ECHR, this ruling out any re-write or alteration for domestic purposes of human rights legislation.

Can't help feeling the 'could lead to a new, harsher, debt system' argument is just Johnson's excuse to break his promise.
The really simple answer would be to announce the definite abolition of the 'licence-fee' as part of the 2022 mid-period review of the current Charter.

https://twitter.com/OTVDesk/status/1341149898079662080

But this would require some promise-keeping & political courage, both of which appear sadly lacking in Johnson's administration, and quite possibly also in his own psyche.

So let me get this straight. In desperation to appease Napoleon Macron, Johnson will use British taxpayers' money to Covid-test non-British, especially French, drivers on British soil, so that they can return to France?
telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/…>
Clearly a master negotiator! Talking of master negotiators.....
Johnson offers to halve the amount by which Britain wants the EU's fishing catch from UK waters reduced, yet #EU still rejects his offer.
Why? B/c it knows he's so desperate, he can be pushed to go even further.
FFS, take his phone away!