nerdlinger wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 4:06 pm Most by-elections aren’t triggered by scandals like this one, so the result may be more of an outlier than a reflection of the overall sentiment of the country.

xandreu wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 6:10 pm He clearly has very little respect for democracy and the established democratic systems that have served us well for centuries. From proroguing parliament, twice breaking international law, allowing ministers to get away with breaking their own laws and then barefaced lying about it (Cummings and now last years Christmas party), trying to cover up for his mates when found to have broken the ministerial code and whole list as long as your arm of other things, he's clearly a loose cannon who thinks that by being PM, he can pretty much do what he likes. Our system is deliberately set up so that the power of a PM is curbed and they can rarely act alone and without accountability, yet he seems to get away with it purely because people like to think there's something Churchillian about him, but the two couldn't be more different.

The only thing the Tories themselves have going for them is that they aren't Labour. That's it. It's all very well getting rid of Johnson, but who would replace him? The only one I can think of that might, just might, be able to do the job half decently is Sunak. Apart from him, I can't think of a single Tory who would command enough respect and have the ability to do the job, even though I'd still prefer any of them, even the Downing Street Cat to Starmer.

As I've said many times, the two-party system like the one we have in the UK is not a democracy. Someone like Boris would never have got into number 10 in the first place if people were given more choice. In our system, we don't end up with the best. We end up with the least worst. And that, in a nutshell, is how we end up with the likes of Boris.