Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria
Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
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its just pathetic isn't it.
He cant cling on as PM until October, the conservative party has to stop him somehow. Hell even remove the whip, kick him out. If its going to take a while to elect a new leader then put Raab in the top spot for now as a caretaker, he wont run as a candidate so hes the obvious choice.
It pains me to agree with Dominic Cummings, but he has hit the nail on the head with his tweet.
“I know that guy and I'm telling you – he doesn't think it's over.
He's thinking 'there's a war, weird sh** happens in a war, play for time play for time, I can still get out of this, I got a mandate, members love me, get to September.
If MPs leave him in situ there'll be CARNAGE."
I don't agree with Cummings - there is no way back now and I do not think it is possible that the PM does not understand this.
Once the leadership election starts - on Monday - the PM cannot stop it, and when it concludes the new leader will have a majority in the commons and Boris will not.
In this case the PM has been forcefully removed, kicking and screaming all the way. Then at the end gives a speech like that, one in which he blames everyone but himself and its worth taking note that he NEVER once says he has resigned, as either Conservative leader or PM. He says its time to start to look for a successor, but he never says I have resigned. I honestly believe he still thinks he can worm his way out of this and carry on, its one of the very few things i have ever agreed with Cummings on.
Its not really an acceptable position to leave him in number 10 for any length of time.
One thing though. Johnson still thinks he could beat Starmers
Labour in a general election tomorrow. The totally mad thing here is on that he is probably right.
I still don't think Boris actually won his landslide election, it was less a landslide to Johnson, It was more a landslide away from Corbyn.
If there was a constitutional mechanism to put Dominic Raab in as caretaker PM now, I suspect it would be invoked - thought I don't think it would have been had Boris recognised the writing on the wall when almost everyone else did and agreed to go on Tuesday night.
The thing is, we are stuck with the rules as they are - and frankly, the propensity for trying to change the rules whenever they are inconvenient is one of the things which there has been far too much of over the past three years, which undermined trust in the PM, and which I hope his successor will move away from.
Boris may not have managed to make himself utter the words "I resign as Conservative leader," but that was the practical effect of his agreeing with Sir Graham Brady to start the process of electing his successor.
I have met Sir Graham. He has survived in that job for a decade, except for a brief pause when he stood for the leadership himself, because he is one of the regrettably few MPs in parliament whose integrity and discretion almost all his colleagues trust.
This may sound like a contradiction, but it isn't: Sir Graham Brady also knows where even more bodies are buried than Boris Johnson does. I don't believe he would let Boris Johnson reverse what he did by agreeing to start the process of electing a new leader and in the unlikely event that I am wrong and he tried stop that process, I don't believe that the parliamentary party in its present mood will elect a 1922 committee executive next week which would let him.