UK opposition leader IDS faces no confidence vote

[emad]

From BBC News:
Iain Duncan Smith looks set to face a vote of confidence in his leadership after Tory backbenchers claimed they had raised the 25 names necessary to spark a contest. The declaration looks set to put an end to weeks of damaging speculation over Mr Duncan Smith's helmsmanship.

The Tory leader had called on plotters against him to either have gathered by Wednesday the 25 names they need to call for a vote of confidence or fall in line behind his leadership. Mr Duncan Smith is due to make a statement shortly after 1415 GMT on Tuesday.

A confidence vote is triggered if 25 Tory MPs write to the chairman of the backbench 1922 committee, Sir Michael Spicer. A straight majority of 83 votes would see the Conservative leader keeping his post. But one vote less than that and he loses his job, and is ruled out of the ensuing leadership contest.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3221105.stm

They are going to boot him out. Despite Blair's obvious rollercoaster ride down the pan, the opposition knows IDS (a great chum of Donald Rumsfeld) has all the charisma of a dead toad and has to go.

[number six]

1. He's toast...

The hilarious thing is they have absolutely no one to replace him. Ken Clarke is too reasonable and pro-euro for the dry tories. The only real alternative is Portillo, and he's gay! That would be so sweet, an admitted homosexual leading one of the most violently homophobic parties in Europe.

[La_Serpiente]

2. Here's an article that backs up your statement

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Elections/Story/0,2763,197320,00.html

Yes, I would find it funny. Leave it to a gay guy to get the party "whipped" in shape.

[Vikingking66]

5. Gay Eye for the Straight Party? n/t

[emad]

3. There's been some stealth promotion going on for the last 2

years in the search for a younger (35-45yr old) more plausible candidate to appeal to a centre-right electorate: Boris Johnson is one of the prime contenders - if only he could get a decent barber to tidy up his wayward hair, and maybe neutralise his slightly toff public school accent. A touch of estuary english wouldn't come amiss.

All the old guard are heading for the skip: none of them has a hope in hell while Thatcher is still alive while more than a handful of John Major's alcolytes are pointing straight in the direction of Belmarsh jail. And that includes Howard, Clarke, Portillo and Theresa May.

[number six]

4. Boris Johnson, as I recall from when I lived over there

comes across on TV as a quite deranged public schoolboy. Should fit the role perfectly.

[emad]

6. It's either Tory leader or next Archbishop of Canterbury for Boris:

until someone outs him for being a bottle blonde....

[Oggy]

9. I have to say

I have always quite enjoyed seeing Boris on T.V. I may be flamed ( by U.K. based DUers ), but I've always thought he was quite reasonable. I saw him recently, can't remember what on, but he was being asked about being leader of the tory party, and seemed very happy doing what he is doing, and had no interest in being more than a back bench MP.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

12. I love Boris too

in a perverse sort of way.

I think it came from when he was on "Have I Got News for You" & couldn't remember the title of the book he had just written. He's like a walking, talking Harry Enfield character, yet totally original at the same time.

As to the Tory leadership -- the problem they're really gonna have is getting anyone remotely electable through the constituency party (with its average age of something like 65).

[legin]

13. Just a personel instinct

I think you may have to be a bit careful about Boris Johnson.

The winning, self effacing, eccentric verging towards just plain dippy, image that dear Boris projects on 'Have I got News for You' could well be just an act. A sort of standard act inheirited from his public school education. Whilst underneath the vaneer there is actually quite an astute, mentally tough and hard-boiled politician, and probably quite a nasty right wing one too.

He is editor of The Spectator owned by Conrad Black, Mark Steyn is a columnist, and he personally interviewed Berlesconi for the magazine.

[rjbcar27]

14. Big difference between liking him and voting for him!

Don't think any of us Brits here will be voting for any Tory any time soon! :-)

[T_i_B]

15. Boris is a good writer

And he is quite personable on TV, but I can't see him getting too much promotion just yet. For one thing too many tory bigwigs are unhappy at his having voted for Kenneth Clarke in the last leadership battle. He would most likely be editor of the Telegraph by now were he not in parliament.

Mind you, just because I think he is a good writer does not mean that I nessesarily agree with him on all issues by any stretch. Paul Johnson is a good writer and he is known by the likes of Private Eye as "loonybins" for a good reason.

[rjbcar27]

7. I think Boris is great!

Totally insane, I like that!

Seriously though, Portillo is the only man who has any chance of making the Tories electable again and he won't stand.

[number six]

8. Well, maybe it's all over for the tories...

I guess the next leader of the opposition will be Charlie Kennedy, then. Something of an improvement on IDS!

[T_i_B]

17. Speak of the devil

The Grauniad must have been reading this thread! Anyway, what a good birthday present for me, the tory party tearing itself to shreds. :evilgrin:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1072893,00.html

[emad]

18. Many happy returns! Thank your lucky stars it wasn't yesterday

(as Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman put it, the feastday of St Jude, patron saint of lost causes....)

So who is the DU poster trawling the internet for original material to plagiarise for their esteemed rag?

Anyone able to out Mark Lawson's DU username?

Let us hope Boris Johnson does not achieve cult status as a result of the attention he's getting on the DU. On the other hand, it might not be such a bad idea.

Can't WAIT for the news of IDS's inevitable plunge into the abyss tonight. Hope it leads to the expose of his hideous links to Donald Eumsfeld and his outing as an Opus Dei agent provocateur.

[T_i_B]

19. Hmmmm.....

So who is the DU poster trawling the internet for original material to plagiarise for their esteemed rag?

The article was not plagarized, and if it was inspired by this, that that surely is a good thing. :-) Mark Lawson is welcome on DU BTW if you ask me.

Let us hope Boris Johnson does not achieve cult status as a result of the attention he's getting on the DU. On the other hand, it might not be such a bad idea.

Boris the menace will not become a cult figure thanks to DU, Have I got News for You and his writing for Conrad Black publications maybe but not DU.

[emad]

20. Wish there was a DU 'smilie' for "wry sardonic attempt at satire"

'Evil grin' does not quite speak the same volumes...........

[legin]

21. Funnily enough

There is a poster here who has a picture in their signature line which is a tough looking lady with muscles who looks like a welder or something. It's a picture i totally associate with being here. It's the front cover of the BBC magazine I saw while shopping in Smiths today.

could be just coincidence maybe.

Happy Birthday Thankfully_in_Britain too.

[T_i_B]

22. Thanks

Here's the latest. the result should be in about 7PM British time. I'll be down the pub by then either way. I suspect Dimwit-Smith will be out on his arse but there ya go.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3222375.stm

[Spentastic]

10. And all the while

AP would have us believe that the Tories will romp the next election if Blair were to step down.

The Tories are as good as dead.

[emad]

11. It's Bonfire Night soon. All the UK Bush Administration in both the

Labour and Tory parties should be tossed onto a giant pile of brushwwod high up on London's Parliament Hill, doused with several tanks of Texaco Unleaded and despatched to that great upper debating chamber in the sky....

Poor old Charlie Kennedy, he looks so pickled he's surely due for self-immolation. Time to test some spontaneous combustion theories perhaps....

[T_i_B]

16. That was always a bankrupt argument

It always did make me laugh when certain Blairites tried the vote for us or it's the tories argument as the people making that argument seemed at times to be writing with no experience of UK politics whatsoever, well either that or blatant dishonesty. :eyes: Not only do we have a PM who to all intents and purposes IS a tory but we also have Dimwit-Smith who has zero chance of ever getting into Downing Street. That much is common knowlege and that is why the tories want to depose him.

If what the likes of AP had any basis in the truth then the tories would not be trying to depose Dimwit-Smith. I think it's quite sad that all that the Blairites can ever do is shout "torypartytorypartytorypartytorypartytorypartytorypartytorypartytorypartytorypartytoryparty" over and over again as all that approach ever does is highlight how negative and vacuous "new" labour has become. It just shows how little "new" labour has to offer.