British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's resignation came as a big surprise to me though it should not have done.
Nor should David Davis's resignation at midnight last night.
Mr. Davis's resignation left Boris without credibility, but so does the report that he promised at dinner with the cabinet on Friday evening, after its 12 hour meeting at which Boris's Brexiteer faction lost badly, to defend Theresa May's cabinet's Brexit position wholeheartedly.
Mr. Davis seemed to invite the Foreign Secretary to resign when he was asked about him in an interview on Radio 4 this morning. David Davis put him in a very difficult position indeed, whether intentionally or not. A resignation by Boris Johnson and other cabinet ministers on Friday evening would have been much easier for Boris Johnson. Donald Davis has resigned on a matter of principle and honour. Boris's resignation is a ruse and he is damaged goods.
The problem for the Tories and all parties in Britain is structural. It takes months to elect a new leader and the people worst qualified to make a decision - party members - get to do so. That's why, appalling though she is, it's hard to see the party dropping its incompetent and ill starred leader.
But what matters now to me that somehow in this scrum the ball might be, to use a rugby expression, fumbled and Britain ends up not leaving the EU at all. And to cap it all being ruled by a Trotskyite far left populist government.
The Queen's first Foreign Secretary in 1952 was Anthony Eden, whom she later knighted. Now she will appoint another.
I thought this tweet gets it right.
Nor should David Davis's resignation at midnight last night.
Mr. Davis's resignation left Boris without credibility, but so does the report that he promised at dinner with the cabinet on Friday evening, after its 12 hour meeting at which Boris's Brexiteer faction lost badly, to defend Theresa May's cabinet's Brexit position wholeheartedly.
Mr. Davis seemed to invite the Foreign Secretary to resign when he was asked about him in an interview on Radio 4 this morning. David Davis put him in a very difficult position indeed, whether intentionally or not. A resignation by Boris Johnson and other cabinet ministers on Friday evening would have been much easier for Boris Johnson. Donald Davis has resigned on a matter of principle and honour. Boris's resignation is a ruse and he is damaged goods.
The problem for the Tories and all parties in Britain is structural. It takes months to elect a new leader and the people worst qualified to make a decision - party members - get to do so. That's why, appalling though she is, it's hard to see the party dropping its incompetent and ill starred leader.
But what matters now to me that somehow in this scrum the ball might be, to use a rugby expression, fumbled and Britain ends up not leaving the EU at all. And to cap it all being ruled by a Trotskyite far left populist government.
The Queen's first Foreign Secretary in 1952 was Anthony Eden, whom she later knighted. Now she will appoint another.
I thought this tweet gets it right.
Damian Thompson@holysmoke This is what happens when you hang on to a Prime Minister who is easily as selfish and unprincipled as Boris. The room-temperature IQ doesn’t help, either.
I like Boris, personally. He is indeed capable of being witty and is good company...
ReplyDelete...But there is a strand of intense dimness running through that family which, when allied to an almost bizarre sense of entitlement occasioned by the most expensive upbringing that money can buy, plus a surfeit of ambition and an almost complete absence of principle, leads us to where we are now. The least effective foreign secretary in 60 years resigns and is hunkered down with his simpering groupies preparing for what he thinks is his birthright, i.e. to lead the country.
You must be joking, Boris. Is anyone convinced that Boris is a committed Brexiteer? Sure — I know from first hand his genuine disdain for the rules and regulations of the EU. But I suspect he opted for ‘out’ in 2016 because he thought there was more chance of personal advancement in taking that position. Which is also why I think he has now resigned. (‘Does another resignation weaken her fatally? Or will it weaken me if I do it?’ That was the calculation.) I don’t think leaving the European Union came into it.
And remember the debacle once we had voted to Leave — the complete absence of any senior figure from the Leave camp capable of stepping forward, a catastrophe of vaulting ambition, spite, misplaced hubris and real stupidity which left the Conservative party with a choice between Theresa May and some woman called Andrea.
Rod Liddle
14 July 2018 9:00 AM