Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

Maybe, maybe not. I have no doubt that the Left, including the liberal, metropolitan left that fancies itself as the authentic voice of Twitter, is absolutely crapping its pants over the thought of Boris as Tory party leader because, regardless of what extrapolations the Telegraph has made, as things stand he clearly does have the reputation and voter recognition that other candidates don’t, he is the arch-Brexiteer, closely associated with the battle bus and the £350 million slogan that brings them out in hives, and he beat Ken Livingstone to be London mayor twice in a city that, at its default setting, is Labour territory.

Far be it from me to argue the technicalities of poll construction as I’m not an expert, but I absolutely don’t believe that anyone frantically tweeting a multi-part rebuttal after hastily deleting a first attempt that basically read “bull5hyt, bull5hyt, bull5hyt” is coming at this purely from a desire to defend good social science.

Another objection I see being raised is that May was also popular until she went up in front of voters; this cheerfully ignores the fact that Boris has been up in front of voters in a way few other of our current generation of politicians have and, as I’ve already said, won Labour London against the most Laboury, Londony Londoner ever to run for office. Twice.

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

Not everything is a lefty conspiracy. The guy is a Professor of Social Sciences and has written a lot on polling. He was one of the senior people working with John Curtice for the Exit Poll at the last election and is a frequent commentator on how polling works and he is also backed up by a Director at YouGov: https://twitter.com/anthonyjwells/st...04304527855616

The point is precisely that Boris is well known and most of the others are not. However the latter will change if they were to become Prime Minister. It's taking this scenario and run with it as if there was a General Election today with the idea that at that point nobody has heard of whoever is leading the Tory party as would be the case with Mark Harper. All based on one poll.

As for Boris winning in London this was Pre-Brexit when he was perceived quite differently and not just from the 'metropolitan-left' but also the more liberal wing of the Conservative Party. A very different Boris Johnson would be running now. For example if you plug the Telegraph's assumption into electoral calculus itself you have the Tories winning Brighton Pavilion from the Green Party which seems unlikely....

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

I understand the recognition argument so far as it affects the other candidates but that argument seems to depend on increased recognition for, say Jeremy Hunt, resulting in less recognition for Boris Johnson. The ComRes poll data that the Torygraph has relied on for its headline doesn’t ask voters to choose between candidates, it asks them who they would vote for in a general election, multiple times, each time with a different person in charge of the Tory party.

I totally get that the Torygraph is waving a flag for Boris and is interpreting a dataset that has piled hypothetical situations upon hypothetical situations to get where it is. I totally get that uniform swing calculations are not an exact science, and that predicting a Tory win in Green Central is the proof of the pudding.

Nevertheless, there is a clear difference in public perception of the Tory leadership candidates. Boris is, as things stand, the clear favourite among them as far as the public is concerned. The liberal left - which I am pretty much certain counts Rob Ford amongst its number quite regardless of the level of impartiality required by his day job, in which capacity he is not tweeting today - is terrified of Johnson precisely because they understand these polls are telling them they should be. Technical rebuttals of the methodology and interpretation try, and fail, to obfuscate the obvious, basic truth that as of right now, BoJo has an advantage over the other candidates. The Left knows this and has been frantically going after him for weeks to try and poison the well. They really, really don’t want him to get the job, not just because he’s a Tory, not just because of his personal failings, but because he is the Tories’ best chance of delivering Brexit and winning an election. And if he does that, the Corbyn project is finished.

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

So do I, but he is the only realistic choice if the Tories want to have any chance of contesting the next election

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

But that's the central objection to what the Telegraph has done. It's not so much that Boris has done well, although they do question the extent to which such a hypothetical is useful at all, but that they've compared him with full name recognition to everyone else then projected that to seat outcomes in an election. In the underlying data there is 31% DK voting intention with Stewart as leader.

Does the poll show Boris is the most popular of the candidates? Yes. Does it show he is the difference between a huge majority and the Tories losing over 100 seats? Not really.

You're taking what appears to simply be legitimate objections to that as being motivated by a metropolitan elite fear of Boris Johnson. It's just a crap way to report the results.

As an aside I think you overestimate the degree to which the liberal left cares about the Corbyn project. It's no more a singular bloc than the right is. The surge of support for the Liberal Democrats and the clearly soft numbers for Corbyn show how little of a base Corbyn's Labour actually has.

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

A society were the country is so divided. I like the way Boris dodged the question did you take cocaine while at University the reply was there are more important issues to debate!


Make a Dis-United Kingdom great again... I don't think so.

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

Arch brexiteer, he made his mind up the night before campaigning started and had opinion pieces for both sides depending on what side offered the best prospects for boris, you follow him if you like but to me he's the worst type of leader and politician, he'll let you and the rest of us down on a whim when it suits him, why else do you think he's left his announcement to the last moment and generally kept his head down throughout, it's because he doesn't stand up to scrutiny, he's gets by on being that funny bloke of the telly, scratch the surface though politically and it's as grubby as his personal life

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

Thing is Boris is way, way ahead so they're keeping him out of the limelight as much as possible to avoid slipping up.

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

Yes, there were some good articles a week ago contrasting his approach to Gove's.

---------- Post added at 21:41 ---------- Previous post was at 21:40 ----------

Nailed it.

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

Boris Johnson leads 1st round leadership contest with 114 votes as Leadsom, McVey and Harper knocked out.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics...ader-live-news

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

BoJo already has enough support to secure a place in the “final two” ballot of party members. His chances of being the next PM are very, very good right now.

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

Trouble is that we are getting like the galactic president in Hitchhiker's. It's not content that's important it's image, at least in some respects.

Mrs May was not very good in front of the cameras. Whatever you think of him Boris is. And imagine the fun of Donald and Boris together, the combined ego's could collapse in on themselves and create a black hole.

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

Disappointing to see Stewart still in and the two ladies out .

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

I wonder who's in the shed with their cat in the back of beyond who really makes all the important decisions?

:rofl:

Re: Leadership who is the next PM?
 

It pretty much confirms Boris as PM unless he does something to detonate his own chances