Yes, I think this was why he was a bit unlucky. Politics was dominated for much of his tenure by something he was ambivalent about but just couldn’t escape.

Another irony that occurs to me - Corbyn has been Labour leader since September 2015. One could make a strong case that, in that time, Johnson has done a lot more to thwart the ambitions of Conservative Prime Ministers than Corbyn.

Yes Johnson basically did for both Cameron and May.

But also Corbyn must have a private chuckle at the way the terms of debate have shifted since he's been Labour leader.

Just think back in 2015 when Corbyn came in if you could have a crystal ball and said this is what the government will be doing in 2020:

- Raising the minimum wage by 6.2% despite business groups condemning it as a crazy rise in the current unstable economic climate

- Promising to use taxpayers' money to subsidise ailing manufacturing industries

- Talking about a huge swathe of public investment to reinvigorate the north

- Stripping Northern Rail of their franchise and putting the government on standby to take the line back into public ownership

- Using price-capping in energy markets

....what would the Tories have been saying? They would have seen this as the kind of apocalyptic vision of what a Corbyn-led government would inflict on the UK and destroy the economy.

Now I bet Sal Paradise will be able to make a good argument in favour of each one of those. In 2015....not so sure. He'll have been on an ideological journey like the rest of the Tories and ended up in some spaces that Corbyn has occupied for a long time.

What's really been killed off dramatically in a short space of time, by both Johnson and Corbyn, is the 'Cameron agenda' of small-state, free-market austerity-focused economics mixed with Blairite social liberalism. Given Cameron wasn't going to run again in 2020, I think 2019 was supposed to be the year he handed over to his heir Osborne to carry the torch in to the 2020s.

I disagree I think it is simply of the mind is mightier than the sword - a contributory reason as to why these people are so successful is their intelligence being out thought by a faster more precise mind is the one thing that is difficult to counter. They are very good at networking but first and foremost it is the mental agility that gives these people an edge. This comes across as arrogant because most simply cannot keep up - I see it even on this board. They are the SAS of young talent in this country - they are not the only source of talent - my son went to Durham and there are some clever people there but there is a distinct gap between Oxbridge and the rest.

Cummins' views on the civil service make a lot of sense - too many generalists - too wishy/washy - very too arrogant. Kerslake was on Today this morning - his it can change but it takes decades is the root of the problem its jobs for the boys!!

Corbyn/McDonald - were so far off the mark intellectually and it showed - McDonald invited John Cauldwell to discuss Labour's policies and he was so far off the mark it was embarrassing - Caudwell was three steps ahead of him all the time. McDonald spent all his time thinking about what he could and couldn't say he sounded ponderous and incoherent most of the time - simply not joined up.

Some really good points - I agree I would not have envisaged such a move to the left for the Tories. I would not have expected Hammond to be as mean as he was for as long as he did - this has forced the Tories in to catch up mode.

I never thought we would get a vote on Brexit never mind an actual leave majority - Brexit has strangled parliament for years - another reason for this catch up

Osborne was talking about increased investment in the north in 2014 - so this move is nothing new and something that is much needed - there are some big cities outside of London and the Tories know London is Labour territory and if they want to stay in power then they need to hold on to seats they won. Not even you would have predicted in 2015 what has happened to the Labour heartlands in 2019.

Boris knows something has to be done about wealth re-distribution so I expected that and I expect the same for the next two years - warming people up for the next election 2023. Its painful for business - £100k approx. annual impact - on my business. Its not the people on living wage its the domino effect on everyone else. I have two choices - pass it on or swallow it - the latter is most likely so the question for the government is does the reduction in welfare benefits offset the reduction in CT?

Chill out brother.
I detest the mindset of grubs like IR80 and Sal more than you could ever imagine.

Must be on the right track if my thoughts are the polar opposite of yours

Just out of curiosity, are you suggesting that I (for example) find Boris Johnson (for example) arrogant because I can’t keep up with the agility and precision of his thinking? This could be a rich seam of trolling for you.

Does your intellectual-SAS metaphor apply to all Oxbridge graduates or just the Bullingdon-types? If the former, I have some friends who I think will rather enjoy it on a couple of levels. Or maybe more than a couple, as they’re no doubt thinking in more dimensions than me.

No and also wouldn't have predicted in 2010 what would have happened in Scotland from 2015 onwards. In both cases there was a game changer in terms of a referendum.

But also when you look at politics over time, you see how unpredictable it is and how foolish many of the prevailing political predictions are:

1992 - "If Labour can't win now they can NEVER win"

Major wins against the odds after the Tories had already been in power 13 years, coming off the debacle of the Poll Tax, a recession and with many of the 1980s homebuyers stuck in negative equity. The general take was that Labour couldn't win in those conditions, their only hope was an alliance with the Lib Dems to try and get a coalition in 1997 and establish proportional representation.

Result: Within 3 years it became clear that Labour were on course for an enormous landslide.

2003 - "The Conservative party is dead"

Everyone talks about how bad this Labour defeat in 2019 was - 202 seats, lowest since before the war, worse than 1983. The Conservatives went sub-200 seats for three consecutive elections, 1997, 2001 and 2005!

Blair at this time - before the lies of Iraq had really sunk in - was unusually successful as a PM, at least in political terms. Even Thatcher went through periods of deep unpopularity between her election wins. Blair had sky high satisfaction ratings, Labour had huge leads in the polls for basically 10 straight years from when he took over as leader. The business community was pro-Blair, the tabloids were pro-Blair, the Tories really had nowhere to go. This was the time when we had Ian Duncan Smith saying "the quiet man is turning up the volume" and all that crap. He got deposed as leader and out of desperation the party went to Michael Howard - who epitomised the 'nasty Tory' image the 'modernisers' said they had to shed, but at least seemed like he could be credible across the despatch box against Blair. But at this point it looked like the Tories' demise was terminal.

Result: 2004 was when it started to turn against Blair. Trouble over tuition fees and the exposure of the reality of Iraq took away his golden sheen with the public, and he was weakened in his party by the growing rise of Brown and the factionalism and briefing against him from Brownite Ministers. The Conservatives went through their 'rebrand' under Cameron but when Brown took over it seemed like he'd rejuvenated Labour for a while like Major did for the Tories and there were some rumours of discontent with Cameron, until the financial crisis hit and finished Brown.


2010 - "Cleggmania - end of the two-party monopoly"

After the first ever leaders' debate, the Lib Dems shot to the top of the polls for the first time since the brief SDP-Liberal Alliance lead in the early 80s. But this was about 2 weeks out from an election! Although the Clegg bounce had dipped a bit before polling day, there was talk of the Lib Dems pushing 100 seats and rewriting the two-party system

Result: The Lib Dems actually lost seats compared to 2005, they propped up the Tories in an unhappy coalition and got butchered in 2010 and have never really recovered.

2017 - "Theresa May's coronation":

When the Conservatives swept the board in the local elections (during the 2017 General Election campaign) people were forecasting a 200 seat majority for Theresa May.

Result: The Conservatives lost their majority and had to get the DUP to prop them up, which later checkmated her over the Ireland issue in Brexit. If she'd got her big majority, she'd have been completely in her element - running government in a dominant, authoritarian fashion through her Spads Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill. Up to 2017 people were making comparisons with the 'Iron Lady' and I think those would have carried on if she'd had her expected majority. The result meant you needed someone with skills as a compromiser, which she was unsuited to - but then Thatcher would have also been unsuited to that role as well.
Although the general narrative is that May had a disastrous manifesto and fought a terrible campaign, she boosted the Tories' share of the vote by nearly 6 percentage points compared to Cameron, and got a similar share to what Johnson did in 2019. What really did for May was an unexpected surge for Corbyn's Labour.

later in 2017 - "Jeremy Corbyn will be the next Prime Minister":

With May weakened, JC enjoyed a golden period, being hailed at Glastonbury, huge crowds turning out to see him and chanting Oh Jeremy Corbyn. His internal dissenters in Labour went quiet for a while, stunned by the 2017 result. Labour were ahead in the polls and it looked like Brexit would scupper the Conservatives and open the door to JC in 2022.

Result: Two things really screwed Corbyn. His inability to deal with antisemitism, and his prevarication on Brexit. The first exposed a lot of nasty things within the Labour party, and made him toxic to a lot of the liberal-minded centre left, who decided they couldn't vote Labour again while he was leader. The second separated him from his big youth base, who switched towards campaigning for a second referendum instead of turning up to his Oh Jeremy Corbyn rallies. In the end, Corbyn led Labour to the kind of defeat in 2019, that most people predicted would happen in 2020, when Corbyn first took over the leadership in 2015!

I think the confidence that some Oxbridge graduates have is seen by some as arrogance - Boris is anything but arrogant - arrogant to me are people like Ash Sakar/Grace Blakely/Tony Blair/Alistair Campbell who think they know better than the rest of us. It is a problem with the educated left - they have non-jobs and they try and ram down your throat their superiority. Boris is nothing like that. There is something about these young Oxbridge types that riles you - only you know what that is?

The SAS metaphor applies to Oxbridge graduates i.e. they are the elite of the elite - these two universities are seen by many as amongst the finest educational institutions in the world - they attract the very best. We might mock but the truth is they turn out a high percentage of well educated, well rounded and very talented individuals with a confidence that goes with it.

The world is an ever changing place - anyone who thinks the Tories will be in for 10 is not looking at past history. Boris has to deliver if he doesn't he wont last - as you have shown in the above.