the Johnson team moved around some of their votes to get Mr Hunt into the final because he is their preferred opponent....Mr Johnson is overwhelmingly more popular with the Tory membership, an audience that is predominantly white, male, southerly, affluent, very Brexity [all these are condemnable?] and much keener on the former foreign secretary who campaigned to leave the EU than the current holder of the office who did the opposite.
This contest is an opportunity to kick the tyres, inspect the engine and check the brakes of the men who want to be Britain’s next prime minister...[Hunt]...will never match the other man’s gift with the flamboyant phrase and the outrageous untruth...so he should campaign as the candidate who invites Tories to think soberly about themselves, their country and the qualities that ought to be required of a prime minister....Mr Hunt should take a leaf out of Rory Stewart’s campaign book and make himself the honest candidate who asks the hard questions.
Meanwhile, there is always the old option:
He is entitled to make character an issue. Not as in personality, but as in moral character....[As examples of this high-flown sober approach?] is [Johnson] actually all that lovable? The spotlight has been swivelled on to his torrid personal life by the episode in the early hours of Friday morning at his girlfriend’s home....Carrie Symonds complaining that a sofa had been ruined with red wine: “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.”...[is]...an unattractive character reference from someone who goes to bed with him...the least flattering descriptions come from those who know him best...Sir Max Hastings, who employed him at the Daily Telegraph, describes him as “a gold medal egomaniac. I would not trust him with my wife nor – from painful experience – my wallet... He is also a far more ruthless, and frankly nastier, figure than the public appreciates.”...Politicians can change their hairstyles, waistlines, tax policies, views on transport projects and sexual partners, but they can’t change their essential character.[ah yes --essential character.One instinctively knows what that is by the cut of a chap's jib]
One duty that falls on Mr Hunt is to use the next month to direct fierce scrutiny at his rival’s often shifting and contradictory propositions about Brexit...How exactly is he going to do a deal by Halloween with an EU that says it won’t reopen the withdrawal agreement? If he is in possession of a magical solution to the Irish border conundrum, why didn’t he reveal this masterplan to his colleagues during the two years when he sat in the cabinet as foreign secretary? How is he going to take Britain out of the EU without a deal when there is no mandate from the people for a crash-out Brexit and no majority for that outcome in parliament?... even if he is defeated, he can fail honourably by making this a contest, not a coronation. He will be doing a vital service to both his party and the country if he interrogates the character, punctures the fantasies, nails the evasions and unravels the deceptions of his opponent. He should strive to compel a little more honesty from the other man.
Then a hint of the dangers of unintended consequences:
Of course, Tory members probably know [all] this already and perhaps they do not care. An eye-popping poll suggests that a majority of them will sacrifice almost anything in order to get Brexit, including the United Kingdom itself.
Gruany libs can never grasp this.They think Brexit only has great symbolic significance for them. For Leavers it's just a matter of racism and ignorance
N Cohen expresses a new option for Remainers -- resignation with hints of revenge. He seems to have gone off calling for protests in the street to stamp on rivals. It is quite insightful too:
Clegg said Brexit was a battle that had to be won, then fled the field as the struggle began. The same temptation in a different form diverts people who see themselves as committed activists. If they but realised it, they would understand that they too are opting out of necessary fights and making a nonsense of their professed principles. They say Brexit is a calamity, but their behaviour shows they don’t believe it [because all they can do is oppose, and there is no real social root to their protests in the disorganisation of the restless petit bourgeoisie]
Cohen is playing the long game, or maybe going back to a cause decisively lost in the 2011 referendum on alternative voting.Let's re-run that one too?:
They say they oppose an archaic first-past-the-post system that forces the public to choose between two discredited parties. But they do nothing to overcome its biases....Explain the need for Remainer co-operation and activists shudder. They prefer the purity of failure to the compromises that breaking out of our decaying system entails....As the triumphs of Boris Johnson and Corbyn are teaching us, activists are cursed by tribalism and an overweening vanity that makes them believe the country must want what they want.
I saw apathy set in during the 18 years of Conservative rule from 1979 to 1997. People who were full of fight were worn down by four election defeats. I see it now when I visit liberals in the authoritarian states of Hungary and the Czech Republic. They can protest occasionally and laugh at edgy comedians, but the knowledge that their protests can never hurt those in power weighs them down....Millions are now bouncing between parties, looking for leaders who can provide a credible opposition. If they can’t find them, they will retreat into private life and do their best to ignore Brexit Britain. If the choice continues to be between Johnson and Corbyn, they will suffer the worst fate of all: they will opt out
You could argue that Remainers would feel left behind? Would they get resentful and blame outsiders? Or would the bandwagon move on to climate protest?
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