Without wanting to seem like one of the women who thought Johnson might change, here's my slim hope...

Cameron's massive sense of entitlement seemed integral to his being, whereas Johnson has had to consciously adopt it - his arrogance to some degree reflects his insecurities. Now he has won what he always wanted, maybe that will fill the yawning hole in his soul and he can become a real boy...? Jeez, this is desperate. If not, there might be some vicarious pleasure to be had from his upcoming revenge on Michael Gove.

It'll be interesting to see where, if anywhere, he goes with his One Nation Conservative theme. Maybe just an attempt at a reassuring soundbite, after having sacked so many One Nation Conservatives. However, it'd be nice if Raab, Patel and Rees-Mogg got to spend more time with their families. Not for their families, obviously, just the rest of us.

After a competition for the role of Prime Minister between two Party leaders seemingly massively ill-suited to it, at least Labour can change theirs - though there's every chance they'll mess it up. And the Tories get to own their Brexit, whether it proves disastrous or merely hugely underwhelming for those pinning their hopes on it.

This is a once in a generation opportunity to set a centre-right agenda that encourages business but uses those benefits to ensure a better social infrastructure. A very soft Brexit wont cut it and the EU now realise they can't just push the UK around as they would have been able to do with Labour or a hung Parliament. Noises coming out of the EU suggest the penny has dropped.

The North can no longer be seen as a poor relative to the South - failure to address this will cause Boris significant pain in the future. It shouldn't take 1 hur to do a 30 mile journey between two of the biggest cities in the North

You're still clinging to the idea that "the EU" is some sort of amorphous blob. They are 27 individual member states who have given the negotiators instructions and red lines. But we've been through all this and you still think having red lines is bullying.

But I'm pleased you seem to be buying into some sort of socialist infrastructure spending for the north of England.

If Brexit was such a huge issue then a soft Labour-style Brexit will not go down well - there has to be a tangible differences between where we are now and where we end up.

The idea the EU have morphed in May and will be so rigid that we have to comply with whatever they want doesn't ring true no matter what you hope for. The last thing they want is a buoyant large economy showing that there is life outside of the EU

We all hope that you are right.
However, can you remember Mrs May saying "we're all in this together", which translated into, "we're doing ok and it's tough on the rest of you".
Although the times were slightly different, she too was pretending that the Tories had suddenly started caring about others which, fundamentally they just dont.
The ethos is to look after yourself, first, second and third and ok, if some crumbs fall off the table, the "poor" may still be able to eat.
However, I would suggest that, despite his welcoming rhetoric, Johnson doesn't have a clue what "everyday" life is like for many of those who have just put him in Downing Street.
I will say that Corbyn too, hadn't got a clue and although we should all welcome some of Labour's social policies, he was offering nothing to the many and looking after just those at the bottom of the pile - not the worst thing in the world but, it would never get him elected - something that, even after one hell of a beating, he just cant grasp.

The Conservative Government does have tremendous power now, and they need a renewed agenda. Johnson ran against the memory of Cameron and May, as well as (though obviously not as much as) the prospect of Corbyn, but that doesn’t mean he won’t quickly be tainted by their legacy if things don’t go well. Also, he’s going to lose one of his biggest electoral assets in Corbyn.

The Brexit exit is done, it’s hardness agreed and just awaiting ratification. ‘Canada’ with a border in the Irish Sea.

Now, it’s ‘just’ the horse-trading of the free-trade deal. Certain industries (e.g. financial services) and interests will be prioritised, and others (e.g. almost anything else, potentially, given Johnson’s mercurial nature), inevitably, will share the fate of the DUP. As Mr Ghost points out, the unity of the EU position will be more under more pressure than during the exit negotiations. Then it was fairly simple to agree to let us choose from the existing range of statuses for non-members. They’ll have their own internal horse-trading to do for this stage, so where they have been frustrated with our slowness to this point, that may flip moving forwards. It’s likely that to keep his promise to end the transition period at the end of 2020, Johnson have to accept WTO terms, or accept a rushed deal with more concessions. Or go back on his promise - can you imagine?!

This is such a huge thing now - the consequences of the Johnson deal on Northern Ireland could be massive if an alternative isn't worked out through the transition period (and no reasonable proposition that involves leaving the CU/SM has yet been suggested).

A no deal exit presented the prospect of a hard border across the English Channel which was unthinkable madness. Erecting a softer border, but a border nonetheless, down the Irish Sea would have less economic impact - although clearly some. But dividing the United Kingdom up like that is distinctly unpalatable and in normal times would be unacceptable to the unionist party.

Certainly I know of nobody in business who has yet worked out the consequences - the company I work for has outlets in Northern Ireland and paying VAT and export duty on goods being delivered from our main warehouse to there (and then claiming it back afterwards) is preposterous.

Quote ="The Ghost of '99"This is such a huge thing now - the consequences of the Johnson deal on Northern Ireland could be massive if an alternative isn't worked out through the transition period (and no reasonable proposition that involves leaving the CU/SM has yet been suggested). A no deal exit presented the prospect of a hard border across the English Channel which was unthinkable madness. Erecting a softer border, but a border nonetheless, down the Irish Sea would have less economic impact - although clearly some. But dividing the United Kingdom up like that is distinctly unpalatable and in normal times would be unacceptable to the unionist party. Certainly I know of nobody in business who has yet worked out the consequences - the company I work for has outlets in Northern Ireland and paying VAT and export duty on goods being delivered from our main warehouse to there (and then claiming it back afterwards) is preposterous.'" Aye. It is still just a (NI-only) backstop - it’ll be interesting to see if we ever hear anything more about alternative arrangements and technological solutions, or if that is just too much bother now, and they just accept the new backstop as part of the deal, as there’s so much else to negotiate. I can’t easily imagine any pinkening of the ECJ redline, or that Johnson won’t want more freedom to diverge more than CU/SM membership would allow. That’d also let Farage back out of his box, and make him a Tory problem again. The EU are reported to be thinking of requesting an extension to the transition period, which’d allow Johnson to technically keep his word ( ) about not asking for one, get the extension that will be needed and maybe play the magnanimous statesman. I bet he’d ham that up to 11. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... is-johnson That report also says the EU might try for sequencing whereby they basically talk about and come to agreement on their priorities, before moving on to financial services etc. Even I think that is beyond a reach, so they either think they have more leverage than I think they do, or it is just something that costs them nothing to give away later. And Johnson can sell it as another win, on his way to an even bigger majority in 2024, and I can listen to how cuddly he is while waiting my turn in the queue for the food bank.

Quote ="The Ghost of '99"This is such a huge thing now - the consequences of the Johnson deal on Northern Ireland could be massive if an alternative isn't worked out through the transition period (and no reasonable proposition that involves leaving the CU/SM has yet been suggested). A no deal exit presented the prospect of a hard border across the English Channel which was unthinkable madness. Erecting a softer border, but a border nonetheless, down the Irish Sea would have less economic impact - although clearly some. But dividing the United Kingdom up like that is distinctly unpalatable and in normal times would be unacceptable to the unionist party. Certainly I know of nobody in business who has yet worked out the consequences - the company I work for has outlets in Northern Ireland and paying VAT and export duty on goods being delivered from our main warehouse to there (and then claiming it back afterwards) is preposterous.'" Aye. It is still just a (NI-only) backstop - it’ll be interesting to see if we ever hear anything more about alternative arrangements and technological solutions, or if that is just too much bother now, and they just accept the new backstop as part of the deal, as there’s so much else to negotiate. I can’t easily imagine any pinkening of the ECJ redline, or that Johnson won’t want more freedom to diverge more than CU/SM membership would allow. That’d also let Farage back out of his box, and make him a Tory problem again. The EU are reported to be thinking of requesting an extension to the transition period, which’d allow Johnson to technically keep his word ( ) about not asking for one, get the extension that will be needed and maybe play the magnanimous statesman. I bet he’d ham that up to 11. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... is-johnson That report also says the EU might try for sequencing whereby they basically talk about and come to agreement on their priorities, before moving on to financial services etc. Even I think that is beyond a reach, so they either think they have more leverage than I think they do, or it is just something that costs them nothing to give away later. And Johnson can sell it as another win, on his way to an even bigger majority in 2024, and I can listen to how cuddly he is while waiting my turn in the queue for the food bank.

At the moment Brexit hasn't happened, so we haven't seen any of the negative consequences that will happen. People can still say "it's all project fear". A lot of people voted Leave out of frustration with the status quo and think that Brexit is going to make things better rather than worse.

The reality that Boris will have to deal with is that Brexit is going to create a lot of negative consequences and a lot of tough decisions and trade-offs that will leave some groups unhappy. When those realities hit people, and Brexit is no longer a hypothetical situation which the 'establishment' is denying the democratic will of the people for, the terms of political debate will completely change.

Businesses will face all sorts of higher costs, especially if they export or import anything from the EU or are involved in a supply chain with firms who do. Restriction on migration will create hiring shortages and drive up wages. Remember - as the Tories like to keep telling us - we're at close to full employment and have been for a while. There isn't a huge pool of unemployed workers in the UK with the skills needed to fill these jobs. Higher costs will lead to higher prices for consumers.

Boris and his allies have spent 3 years denying the idea of 'project fear' and insisting that we have a 'great future round the corner' outside the EU. They can't backtrack now if negative economic effects happen and blame Brexit. The size of Boris' majority also removes any opportunity to blame Parliament / 'the establishment'. The Conservative government will face full accountability.

Some of those newly elected Conservative MPs in northern areas are going to face some difficult conversations with their constituents particularly if they have spend the election campaign knocking doors insisting that Labour has abandoned them and the Conservatives are the ones listening to the working class. The way the Tory party operates with its MPs is with tightly controlled 'lines to take' and so when they get angry northerners coming to their surgeries complaining about problems with their hospital they will get told, we've put record investment in to the NHS, 30,000 new nurses and we've got Brexit done etc etc whatever, and the people just won't hack it.

Also at the first sign of things going wrong after Brexit, Boris will have to deal with Farage reappearing on the airwaves criticising him as a sell out. Expect an early battle to be over access to fishing rights. The EU are going to drive a hard bargain with the UK over this if Boris wants to get this deal concluded by the end of transition, and with his large majority Boris can probably just concede on it like he did over the border down the Irish Sea and cut off the DUP. Those angry fishing communities will be one of the first groups to say they were betrayed over Brexit (farmers probably will be second) and Farage will position himself as their champion and start to lay in to Boris.

Not true though - we've flat lined economically at a time when the rest of the world was enjoying relative prosperity. We've sunk billions into quantitative easing, thousands of the best paying jobs in the country have already been moved to the future EU and I can speak from personal experience that the collapse of the pound has been a direct factor in some businesses going to the wall and thousands losing their jobs.

And this is just the phony war part.

Ah but the explanation for that was due to 'uncertainty' and used as an argument for getting Brexit done.

Now Boris is going to get Brexit done, we can all surely expect the shackles to come off, and Boris can unleash the great potential of the UK economy...

I look forward to the nonexistent borders for Ireland because he wanted anyone who had extra paperwork to ring him. I wonder how that will go. He won with such a majority that anything that goes wrong he cannot blame on others but he will try of course.

They will. They now own this mess, 100%. But you know who will be to blame if it all goes wrong, don't you? "Labour left the country in a right mess after the 2008 global financial crash, we couldn't afford to do Brexit properly." I can already picture the comment sections of the Daily Mail and Express.

Wassup JeaBron? Logged in using the wrong ID?

Johnson won and I hope for the good of the country he improves things for EVERYONE because his majority is such that anything that doesn’t he and the conservatives own. I and many others will be back to tell you we told you so because sadly he and those around him are even more hard right in ideology.

Interesting post - Labour wont learn and with the power of the NEC in the hands of hard left Momentum gang it is very likely they will elect a leader in the guise of Corbyn/McDonald - they are already lining up lemon-face. Labour leadership are in complete denial - Corbyn is delusional he thought Labour won the argument and it was on Brexit that did for them!!

I think Boris has breathing space as long negotiations are progressing and he is transparent with that progress. He is in a strong position he can leave without a deal and there is very little that can be done about it and the EU know that - a bit like the EU you can't drive a wedge through the resolve of the UK as you could before.

What will be interesting is to see if Labour support Boris' deal - have they learned any lessons? Will the leading leadership contenders vote with the deal?

If Labour are having to win back the kind of people who are saying this on national TV, I'm afraid there is no hope...

"Look around you, shops are shutting, businesses are closing, the full place is falling down, so I voted for change, that's why I voted Conservative"

Why can't these people put 2 and 2 together???

It's definitely not because they're stupid

The powerbase in Labour is more in flux than you might think. One surprising development from Corbyn's election as leader was the reduction in influence of the trade unions over the leadership. In the past, Labour leaders have needed to horsetrade with unions to secure their support. Corbyn's support (in the two leadership elections of 2015 and 2016, and his powerbase ground campaigning machine in the 2017 general) came from the youth movement / Momentum.

When Corbyn first won, the unions demanded that McDonnell (who the union leadership has bad history with as he'd been involved in cases supporting union members against union leadership) not be appointed Shadow Chancellor....Corbyn, secure in a powerbase outside the unions, could ignore them. Of all the attacks that were targeted against Corbyn, we never heard 'in the pocket of the unions.' Instead, Corbyn could keep his preferred union man McCluskey close, giving Unite a disproportionate voice and antagonising the rest of the union movement. The other unions generally kept quiet though because they approved of Corbyn's policy agenda.

This reorientation in the powerbase of the left from unions to the youth movement had a number of implications. In the 1980s, the Bennite left was much more focused around the unions and the chosen battleground to take on Thatcher was the strikes. This was more northern-based and more working-class based. But also partly explains why when Thatcher won landslides in 1983 and 1987, Labour MPs piled up huge majorities in the northern heartlands.

The Corbynite left based around the Momentum style youth movement was more spread around the country, more based on young people, more middle-class but also was drawn from a mixture of movements: the ones that had been on Stop the War campaigns, protests against tuition fees, and now the eco-movement, Extinction Rebellion etc. These don't have easily identifiable leaderships to work with like unions do.

At first the reorientation from unions to these movements was an asset to Corbyn. They were young and energetic, skilled at spreading messages on social media, didn't have the old negative baggage that the unions had. Over time though, these caused problems...

First, the antisemitism stuff tends to come from the Stop the War / Free Palestine part of this coalition. It's less dominated by young people and has a lot of aggressive angry activists who like being provocative to raise the profile of the issue. They also live in a social media bubble where commentary that breaches the IHRA guidance on antisemitism is normalised.

Second, the youth part of this coalition was almost exclusively Remain, and lobbied hard for a second referendum and pulled Corbyn reluctantly to that position against his instincts.

Third, their policy focus is more eco-left than traditional class-struggle left, its why why Labour got pushed to the Green New Deal. This isn't necessarily a vote loser for them but they are closer to Greens than traditional Labour.

The challenge for the new leadership is going to come from harnessing and controlling these movements. Although I opposed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I think a lot of the stop the war / free Palestine groups are problematic - they contain a lot of people who normalise antisemitism. You can take reasonable policies on these issues without embracing these groups. Corbyn had long history as a figurehead for these groups. The youth vote is also instinctively going to coalesce around the most 'remainer' candidate, as they will want to reorient the party towards a future Rejoin campaign. Keir Starmer will be their natural preference.

I thought it would take longer than one day before the truth comes out. The nurse numbers are now over 10 years and his promise to retain current employment legislation and environmental protections will be removed because what he said in October to get his deal through no longer stands.

Some very interesting points there.

The race to succeed Corbyn will be influenced by a lot of pretty varied factors. Any winner will in some ways represent a surprise.

Labour need to make a better choice then either Corbyn or Ed Milliband.
They should have chosen David Milliband instead of Ed and they need to realise that if they go down the route of "ideological" left wing policies (as they've had under Corbyn's stewardship), they will be in perpetual opposition.
To have been annihilated by a dysfunctional Tory party, that itself was split down the middle and had to try and come from behind in the polls, tells yo everything you need to know about their chances of government.
On the plus side, the issue of Brexit should be gone by the time the next GE comes around but, to make it back into no 10, they will have to go back to the Blair type policies (obviously without an Iraq war to screw them over).
They must realise that there just aren't enough of the electorate who share their views and that they have to change.
Even with change, there will very likely be 2 terms of Boris - unless of course he has one of his own moments of madness - we can but hope.

Interesting points but a couple of issues have shown the strength of the unions within Labour - the move 2030 to 2050 for carbon zero and the second referendum which was almost entirely a Unite/unions suggestion/requirement.

The problem Labour have is the arrogant youth who all work in safe well paid media jobs: Owen Jones, Ash Sakar, Grace Blakeley who sit on high and look down on the rest of us. They all have a significant presence on social media and spout to the Momentum crowd. You watch them on TV and their pouting arrogance does Labour no favours. They come from the "You must be stupid if you disagree with me" the Blakeley/Campbell spat on 5Live on Friday showed the huge chasm between these two sides of Labour.

Starmer has no chance - it has to be a women and Momentum want Long Bailey, it would great if they had either Jess Phillips or Angela Rayner but they wont. For me Lisa Nandy ticks a lot of boxes but whether she is has the gravitas I don't know. Love to see Laura Pidcock as deputy - she is one argument away from self combustion.

He can get through Parliament OK now if he removes commitments on employment legislation and environmental protections but it makes the EU much less likely to offer him an attractive deal, so we'll either be in for extended transitions and much longer period of wrangling or the whole no deal stuff rearing its head again next year.

No deal will be less attractive to Boris now he is secure in power as he will know he has to mop up the consequences. Although he does have a decent majority, it's similar to the one which Gordon Brown inherited in 2007, and that melted away after the financial crisis, so he's not secure from electoral consequences if there's a major economic shock.

I agree these types are overexposed and annoying. These types are just commentators, they are not policy thinkers. They haven't got any experience in policy development or delivery. I'm all for young people being involved in campaigning but they need to have some humility that they aren't experts. Owen Jones has taken contradictory positions over time. Ash Sarkar is basically confrontational and immature. Both of those two need to reflect on whether they are putting off more people than they are winning over.

Grace Blakeley has more about her than those two but she thinks she is more intelligent than she really is. I've seen her speak alongside academics and you can see the contrast. The academics are more considered, more reflective and acknowledge what we know and what is uncertain. Blakeley immediately launches in to her view of the world and tells people this is how it is. She wrote that book called Stolen and has had a lot of publicity off the back of it but some academics quickly picked up basic misunderstandings that she has included in her book and that should have been cleared up if she'd peer reviewed and proofed it properly. It's the classic weakness of the young. She's probably got top grades in school and university and been pandered too and told that she's a superstar so she goes out with the confidence that she's right, and blunders in to mistakes. She also doesn't seem to show much self-awareness of when she is wrong.

At that age it's fine to be involved but you should be listening and learning more and lecturing / transmitting less. The problem in the era of social media is that it gives people like that a platform and an adoring audience.