The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

[Stavros]

When Boris Johnson resigned as Foreign Secretary last month, it meant that for the first time since 1721, there were no Old Etonians in the British Government, defined as the Cabinet of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Eton College was founded by King Henry VI in 1440 to educate poor boys who would then be permitted entry to the King's College, Cambridge, which Henry founded in 1441. It has since become one of the most exclusive -and expensive- schools in the world; 19 British Prime Ministers have been Old Etonians, the last one being David Cameron, a few years younger than Boris when he was there, and regarded by Boris as a silly little twerp. It is not known if David fagged for Boris at Eton, but they were both members of the Bullingdon Club when they 'went up' to Oxford.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born New York City, June 1964 when his father was studying economics at Columbia -he has dual US and British Nationality) has been in the news because of an article he published in The Telegraph on Monday 6th August 2018. (article is hidden behind a paywall).

The article concerns the legal ban that Denmark has imposed on people wearing full-face clothing, and though it has been called the 'Burqa Ban' because when debated in Parliament it was this item and the Niqab that was most cited, in fact the law covers more than the Niqab, and



forbids the wearing of full-face veils such as the niqab, balaclavas, face-covering ski masks, face masks and fake beards.

It does not include protective masks, winter clothing such as scarves or costumes, motorcycle helmets and masks often worn during Carnival or at Halloween.

https://www.dw.com/en/denmark-bans-full-face-veils-in-public/a-44021340

[The law may have included the last clause cited above because when a similar law in Austria was passed it led to two men being arrested: one was dressed as a rabbit, the other as a shark].

These details are lost on Johnson who has been accused of Islamophobia with multiple calls for him to apologise for an article in which, written in his flippant style, he likened the appearance of a woman in a Niqab to a 'letterbox' and also wrote 'If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber' arguing simultaneously that such woman should remove their veils in public spaces or when talking to him as an MP at his surgery but that Denmark was wrong to make this clothing illegal. It is not even known if anyone has ever worn a Burqa in Denmark and they estimate the law affects less than 200 Muslim women. The difference in clothing can be seen here-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241

This is how Boris Johnson, who in the first part of the article lauds Denmark's 'Liberal' culture and defends the view of it proposed by 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill -'that you should be able to do what you want provided you do no harm to others'- appeared to defend a basic principle of liberal democracy, while raising the flag of prejudice against Muslims to appease those in his party and anywhere else he wants to support his long-term campaign to be the Prime Minister, because that is his greatest dream, something he cannot let go of, believing it is his destiny. Or some other inflated rubbish of the kind only his bloated idiot can invent.

It goes deeper, though because Johnson has been meeting Steven Bannon, who is on a quest to revive European fascism through something he calls 'the Movement,' bringing like-minded people across Europe together to oppose most of the Liberal values Johnson claims to defend in the Telegraph article. Indeed, there is some belief that when John Bolton met -in secret and in violation of Diplomatic Protocol- the European Research Group of Tory MPs in July, it was to convey the President's message: Theresa may must Go! Replace her with Boris! Bolton's visit taking place shortly before the President gave his interview to Rupert Murdoch's comic, The Sun, in which he suggested May was not up to the job of PM and that he liked Boris Johnson.

Where is Boris Johnson headed? The calls for disciplinary action will probably not produce more than censure, because Theresa May knows that Boris Johnson is popular in the party -but not all the MP's who will select the candidates to succeed her- and doesn't want to give him more power than he already has. But on Radio 4 today (Weds 8th August 2018) Dominic Grieve MP said explicitly that were Johnson to be elected leader he would leave the Conservative Party, regarding Johnson in his words as 'an unfit and improper person to lead the Conservative Party'; raising the prospect that either Johnson could split the party if elected, or if expelled, would take a lot of Tories with him.

So now we have Labour tearing itself apart over anti-Semitism, with Corbyn's leadership challenged; and the Conservative Party convulsed by Islamophobia with Theresa May under fire because of her useless Brexit plans.

To conclude: the Boris Johnson Show is not a comedy, or a tragedy. It is a warning. As in the USA, it is democracy itself that is threatened.

And here is the man himself, describing the Republican candidate in the US elections as unfit to be President-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4EAc0QFubs

[Stavros]

I was quoting Dominic Grieve from memory this is what he actually said:

“If he were to become leader of the party, I for one wouldn’t be in it. I don’t regard him as a fit and proper person to lead a political party and certainly not the Conservative party,” Grieve told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One on Wednesday.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/08/dominic-grieve-i-will-leave-party-if-boris-becomes-leader

[Stavros]

Over the weekend Boris Johnson has produced two articles in his campaign to replace Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party. Both of them reveal what we already know, that Boris Johnson is not a leader in waiting, just waiting. There was some gossip in the press that he was preparing a leadership challenge this week, ie starting Monday the 10th of September, so it could be that he will with his friends, launch it on 9/11, having a taste for theatrics that to most people leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

On Sunday the attention-seeking whore, the 'Polished Turd' of Primrose Hill, said, of the Chequers Plan that Mrs May thinks will secure an orderly transition out of the EU
“We have opened ourselves to perpetual political blackmail. We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution – and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/09/boris-johnson-calls-theresa-may-chequers-brexit-plan-suicide-vest

Even if you can bear to set aside the gruesome insensitivity of the 'vest', Johnson might step forward with this 'British Constitution' he seems so ardent on defending, because the reality is, there isn't one. But why let an historic detail like that get in the way of his deliberate intention to provoke discussion about, well, Boris Johnson. For after all, this the same Boris Johnson who, when he was actually right there on the ground at Chequers, signed the agreement along with his Cabinet Colleagues, but in a true example of hiis version of leadership, betrayed them days late by resigning and trashing the very documet he approved of.

Or it could be that he did not approve of it at the time but was too much of a spineless coward to say to to his colleagues in person. That's leadership for you.

Now, today, as if we needed proof, Johnson has outed himself as an economic illiterate. His latest ruse is to promote tax cuts as a means of encouraging economic growth and prosperity for all, claiming it is based on both the Laffer Curve, and the wisdom of the ancient Muslim sage Ibn Khaldun -just in case you thought he had a problem with Muslims.

The Laffer Curve has been proven to be nonsense, none of its claims being supported by evidence, just as Johnson quoted Ibn Khaldun out of context because the details are never of any interest to such a headline banger.

The Laffer Curve states in simple terms: high taxes = low economic growth; low taxes= high economic growth. From this simple equation it follows that for an economy to grow, taxes must be low. How this explains the economic growth of the USA between say 1945 and 1955 is not hard at all: it doesn't. Because it's wrong. Thus:

this scenario is not applicable to the US. Private investment tends to ebb and flow with the business cycle; when demand is feeble, so is investment. Cutting taxes on America’s rich isn’t going to encourage them to invest more—they already have plenty to spend and aren’t spending it. Worse, by shifting wealth from middle class families to the moneyed few—a group that is able to consume far less than the working masses—this sort of policy suppresses consumption, which in turn discourages investment in productive businesses. Slowing demand drags on growth, causing debt and unemployment to rise.
https://qz.com/895785/laffer-curve-everything-trump-and-republicans-get-wrong-about-trickle-down-economics-and-reaganomics/

As for Ibn Khaldun, he was talking abut taxation in a different age, and while he appears to be an advocate of low taxes, the context in which he made his comments was not shaped by a capitalist economy with networks of supply and demand, but of the relgious duties of the Empire: he advocated low taxes when one dynasty takes over from another -but a Muslim rule, thus

"The reason for this is that when the dynasty follows the ways (sunan) of the religion, it imposes only such taxes as are stipulated by the religious law, such as charity taxes, the land tax, and the poll tax. They mean small assessments, because, as everyone knows, the charity tax on property is low.
https://www.themadinanway.com/single-post/2017/10/22/Ibn-Khaldun-Al-Maliki-And-Taxes

Last comment: Johnsn's claim that the policies of the US President have resulted in econmic growth at rates of 4.5% is also a detail lost in analysis -dare one accuse the US President of faking the figures?

Economic growth rebounded under Trump — but hasn’t reached the rate he promised, and is still below the best years under Obama ...

The first official estimate for the second quarter of 2018 won’t be released until July 27 (https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/news_release_sort_national.htm). However, the “GDP Now” forecast (https://www.frbatlanta.org/cqer/research/gdpnow.aspx) produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta projected on July 6 that the second-quarter growth rate will come in at 3.8 percent — almost within the range that Trump promised.

But few if any economists expect sustained growth at anywhere close to what Trump has pledged.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/53651#section0) projects real GDP to grow 3.3 percent this year, and 2.4 percent in 2019, then settle to an average of 1.9 percent (https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/reports/53919-2018ltbo-appendixa.pdf) for decades to come.

The National Association for Business Economists June survey (https://nabe.com/NABE/Surveys/Outlook_Surveys/June_2018_Outlook_Survey_Summary_v2.aspx) produced a median forecast of 2.8 percent growth this year and 2.5 percent next year.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/sep/10/boris-johnson-increases-pressure-on-may-by-urging-tories-to-rule-out-tax-increases-politics-live
(at 10.59 am).

[filghy2]

The Laffer Curve states in simple terms: high taxes = low economic growth; low taxes= high economic growth. From this simple equation it follows that for an economy to grow, taxes must be low. How this explains the economic growth of the USA between say 1945 and 1955 is not hard at all: it doesn't. Because it's wrong. Thus:

Last comment: Johnson's claim that the policies of the US President have resulted in econmic growth at rates of 4.5% is also a detail lost in analysis -dare one accuse the US President of faking the figures?


The Laffer curve is actually the relationship between tax rates and revenue collected, not tax rates and economic growth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

I doubt that the figures are being fiddled just yet, but the 4.5% figure (which has since been revised to 4.2%) is just one quarter's growth converted to annual terms. That's a pretty silly way to report things and the US seems to be the only country that does it that way. On the basis that other countries do it - growth over the past year - the US economy has grown by 2.9%, which is reasonable but nothing special.

[Stavros]

The Laffer curve is actually the relationship between tax rates and revenue collected, not tax rates and economic growth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

I doubt that the figures are being fiddled just yet, but the 4.5% figure (which has since been revised to 4.2%) is just one quarter's growth converted to annual terms. That's a pretty silly way to report things and the US seems to be the only country that does it that way. On the basis that other countries do it - growth over the past year - the US economy has grown by 2.9%, which is reasonable but nothing special.

You are of course correct with regard to the theory, I don't think that was what Johnson meant and that he presented his argument in the same way I reported it, as a simple equation between tax rates and growth.

As for US growth, according to the President

The GDP Rate (4.2%) is higher than the Unemployment Rate (3.9%) for the first time in over 100 years!

The clam is that not just that is simply wrong, but that someone gave the President the figures with an added zero to make it look better and please their Lord and Master, perhaps a necessary means of 'proving' there is no 'resistance' to him in his own office?

The truth is here, if anyone is interested in it.

during the 70 years since the government has tracked growth and unemployment, the real GDP growth rate has been higher than the jobless rate more than 20 percent of the time. At a briefing with reporters Monday, Kevin Hassett, chairman of Trump's Council of Economic Advisors, conceded that Trump's claim was not true.

"From the initial fact to what the president said … I don't know the whole chain of command," he said. "What is true it is that it's the highest in 10 years. At some point somebody probably conveyed it to him adding a zero to that, and they shouldn't have done that."

Then there is this claim

Last month, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders falsely claimed (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/14/white-house-overstates-job-gains-for-black-americans-under-trump.html) that Trump has created three times as many jobs for black workers as his predecessor, President Barack Obama (https://www.cnbc.com/id/105068019), did during his entire time in office.

"This president since he took office ... in the year and a half that he's been here has created 700,000 new jobs for African-Americans," Sanders told reporters Aug. 14. "After eight years of President Obama in office, he only created 195,000 jobs for African-Americans. President Trump in his first year and a half has already tripled what President Obama did in eight years."

But according to the official count from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most of the employment gains for black people since the Great Recession occurred during the Obama administration.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/trump-latest-tweet-citing-economic-data-is-not-even-close.html
(Statistical graphs provided)

[filghy2]

Until the Brexit campaign I knew of Boris Johnson only as a sort of charmingly eccentric purveyor of witticisms, which I suspect is the main reason for his popularity. Does he have a history of supporting the positions he advocates now, or is he just being an opportunist?

[Stavros]

Boris Johnson has one priority in his political life, and that is Boris Johnson.

He is the kind of old Etonian people assume that remarkable school produces: convinced of their own superiority over others, and born to lead. The problem for Boris is that although he was two years ahead of David Cameron, whom he regarded at Eton as a little twerp, it was Cameron who became leader of the Conservative Party. Boris may not even have wanted the job until Cameron got it, but either way his record as a journalist -sacked by The Times for inventing historical facts proven to be wrong-was based on 'jolly japes' such as his reports from the EU in Brussels for the Telegaph in which he claimed the EU was going to re-define snails as fish, ban British 'pink sausages', standardize condom sizes and ban Prawn Cocktail flavoured crisps. Some have claimed he made these stories up because he lacked the patience to actually sit through sessions of the European Parliament or even read documents from them or the European Commission.

As Mayor of London he made promises he did not even attempt to keep, indeed, whch seemed to produce the opposite of what he offered:
He promised to totally eradicate rough sleeping on the streets of London by 2012; rough sleeping doubled under his leadership. His 2008 manifesto promised there would be manned ticket offices at every station; the former Mayor closed all of London's ticket offices. (http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2013/11/21/boris-johnson-s-ticket-office-closures-are-his-tuition-fees) He aimed to reduce transport fares; they increased by 4.2 per cent on average and subsequently rose in line with inflation.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-are-we-so-surprised-that-boris-johnson-lied-when-he-s-been-sacked-for-lying-twice-before-a7105976.html

When Boris decided to back the 'Leave' campaign in the EU Referendum in 2016, it was seen for what it was -a direct challenge to David Cameron's leadership of the Conservative Party. For the simple reason that he had written two speeches: one in favour of withdrawiing from the EU, the other in favour of staying in. The argument was based around the failure of David Cameron to persuade other EU members to back his ideas for reform, offering him crumbs instead. Although the pro-EU speech has many criticisms of the EU, this is the argument Boris offered for Remaining:

Britain is a great nation, a global force for good. It is surely a boon for the world and for Europe that she should be intimately engaged in the EU. This is a market on our doorstep, ready for further exploitation by British firms: the membership fee seems rather small for all that access.
Why are we so determined to turn our back on it? Shouldn't our policy be like our policy on cake - pro having it and pro eating it? Pro Europe and pro the rest of the world?

He ends his assessment by saying
I am going to muffle my disappointment and back the prime minister.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnsons-article-backing-britains-future-in-the-eu-a3370296.html

He did the opposite. Waited to see which campaign Cameron was going to chose, and chose the other for that reason alone.

Even his resignation letter to Theresa May contained false details, because he has never bothered to fact check his own statements, details being less relevant than his over-sized, over-rated ego. Thus, he stated:

“If a country cannot pass a law to save the lives of female cyclists — when that proposal is supported at every level of UK Government — then I don’t see how that country can truly be called independent.”

however,
It’s true that when he was Mayor of London, Mr Johnson campaigned to introduce tougher rules on lorry safety to protect cyclists.
But he’s left out some key details.
For one thing, he neglects to mention that the regulations he’s talking about were in fact put forward by the European Parliament (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27032476), and backed by 570 MEPs, with 88 voting against. He also fails to acknowledge that those laws have actually been passed.
More crucially, Mr Johnson is wrong to say that the laws in question were “supported at every level of UK Government.”
When the regulations were put forward by the EU, the UK government explicitly did not support the proposals.
https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-boris-johnson-lied-about-eu-safety-regulation-in-his-resignation-letter

If the devil is in the detail, this is a man so convinced of his own sainthood that the details can look after themselves. Pity that the devil then laughs in his face when it emerges that Boris Johnson was a useless Mayor of London. That when his constituents expected him to stand up in the House of Commons to object to a third runway at Heathrow Airport he was nowhere to be seen. That his definition of loyalty is to campaign against the leader of his party, not once, but twice. Even when, as a junior Arts Minister he was asked to resign by the leader of the party Michael Howard (Johnson lied about having an affair with a journalist that included her having two abortions), Johnson refused to go and was therfore 'relieved of his duties.

Boris Johnson, like his new buddy in the White House -the same man he has said was 'unfit' to be President of the USA, believes in himself, and himself alone. Talk of a leadership challenge to Mrs May may yet fizzle out it is hard to say, and we still don't know if he will go for it, but whatever happens, he is a completely untrustworthy politician who will be as useless in No 10 as he has been in every other office he has occupied.

Further reading:
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/07/boris-johnson-peddled-absurd-eu-myths-and-our-disgraceful-press-followed-his

https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/times-boris-johnson-flat-lied/

[Stavros]

Edit to my OP -Johnson no longer has dual nationality, havin renounced his US citizenship.

[Stavros]

Mummy! I'm going to be President!

https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/nintchdbpict000247414006.jpg?strip=all&w=1200&h=800&crop=1

[Jericho]

I genuinely don't know what to say.
No matter who wins, we lose.
But this.............WTF?

1164740

[Stavros]

All spruced up and ready to kiss the hands of our Noble, and Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Boris Johnson, who, according to the Princess Royal of the USA, Ivanka Kushner, will tomorrow become the Prime Minister of the United Kingston. Not sure if that is Kingston-upon-Thames, or Kingston-upon-Hull. The difference? Swans in the former, skittles and a pint in t'other.

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/cMp926gdxYEsaUOhgpBzGQ--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAw/https://media.zenfs.com/en-gb/aol_com_uk_608/bc41db0fff929bcbe766dc17ff61de53

[Crazytrucker]

When Boris Johnson resigned as Foreign Secretary last month, it meant that for the first time since 1721, there were no Old Etonians in the British Government, defined as the Cabinet of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Eton College was founded by King Henry VI in 1440 to educate poor boys who would then be permitted entry to the King's College, Cambridge, which Henry founded in 1441. It has since become one of the most exclusive -and expensive- schools in the world; 19 British Prime Ministers have been Old Etonians, the last one being David Cameron, a few years younger than Boris when he was there, and regarded by Boris as a silly little twerp. It is not known if David fagged for Boris at Eton, but they were both members of the Bullingdon Club when they 'went up' to Oxford.

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born New York City, June 1964 when his father was studying economics at Columbia -he has dual US and British Nationality) has been in the news because of an article he published in The Telegraph on Monday 6th August 2018. (article is hidden behind a paywall).

The article concerns the legal ban that Denmark has imposed on people wearing full-face clothing, and though it has been called the 'Burqa Ban' because when debated in Parliament it was this item and the Niqab that was most cited, in fact the law covers more than the Niqab, and



forbids the wearing of full-face veils such as the niqab, balaclavas, face-covering ski masks, face masks and fake beards.

It does not include protective masks, winter clothing such as scarves or costumes, motorcycle helmets and masks often worn during Carnival or at Halloween.

https://www.dw.com/en/denmark-bans-full-face-veils-in-public/a-44021340

[The law may have included the last clause cited above because when a similar law in Austria was passed it led to two men being arrested: one was dressed as a rabbit, the other as a shark].

These details are lost on Johnson who has been accused of Islamophobia with multiple calls for him to apologise for an article in which, written in his flippant style, he likened the appearance of a woman in a Niqab to a 'letterbox' and also wrote 'If a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber' arguing simultaneously that such woman should remove their veils in public spaces or when talking to him as an MP at his surgery but that Denmark was wrong to make this clothing illegal. It is not even known if anyone has ever worn a Burqa in Denmark and they estimate the law affects less than 200 Muslim women. The difference in clothing can be seen here-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24118241

This is how Boris Johnson, who in the first part of the article lauds Denmark's 'Liberal' culture and defends the view of it proposed by 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill -'that you should be able to do what you want provided you do no harm to others'- appeared to defend a basic principle of liberal democracy, while raising the flag of prejudice against Muslims to appease those in his party and anywhere else he wants to support his long-term campaign to be the Prime Minister, because that is his greatest dream, something he cannot let go of, believing it is his destiny. Or some other inflated rubbish of the kind only his bloated idiot can invent.

It goes deeper, though because Johnson has been meeting Steven Bannon, who is on a quest to revive European fascism through something he calls 'the Movement,' bringing like-minded people across Europe together to oppose most of the Liberal values Johnson claims to defend in the Telegraph article. Indeed, there is some belief that when John Bolton met -in secret and in violation of Diplomatic Protocol- the European Research Group of Tory MPs in July, it was to convey the President's message: Theresa may must Go! Replace her with Boris! Bolton's visit taking place shortly before the President gave his interview to Rupert Murdoch's comic, The Sun, in which he suggested May was not up to the job of PM and that he liked Boris Johnson.

Where is Boris Johnson headed? The calls for disciplinary action will probably not produce more than censure, because Theresa May knows that Boris Johnson is popular in the party -but not all the MP's who will select the candidates to succeed her- and doesn't want to give him more power than he already has. But on Radio 4 today (Weds 8th August 2018) Dominic Grieve MP said explicitly that were Johnson to be elected leader he would leave the Conservative Party, regarding Johnson in his words as 'an unfit and improper person to lead the Conservative Party'; raising the prospect that either Johnson could split the party if elected, or if expelled, would take a lot of Tories with him.

So now we have Labour tearing itself apart over anti-Semitism, with Corbyn's leadership challenged; and the Conservative Party convulsed by Islamophobia with Theresa May under fire because of her useless Brexit plans.

To conclude: the Boris Johnson Show is not a comedy, or a tragedy. It is a warning. As in the USA, it is democracy itself that is threatened.

And here is the man himself, describing the Republican candidate in the US elections as unfit to be President-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4EAc0QFubs

1176153

[Crazytrucker]

BloJob is inherently a lazy SOB, who is only out for himself and his paymasters, he would and probably has eaten his own large intestines to get the keys to #10 though I suspect he'll barely be able to move his furniture and his tart into the place before he's evicted! He cares not a jot for anyone with less than multi millionaire status, to paraphrase my late Mum, BloJob is all wind and piss and will fuck us here in the UK like we've never been fucked before, if we thought the last 4 PM's we've had were bad we ain't seen nothing yet, he's only had the job a week, elected by a few thousand dead folk from the Shires, not by us I might add! He will take us to hell in a handcart and not give a shit about it for he has assembled around him the most right wing Cabinet not seen since the days of Hitler and the Reichstag! He has scraped the bottom of a very deep and dirty barrel to put this lot together, to quote Fraser from Dad's Army, "we're doomed I tell yer, we're all doomed!"

117615411761551176156

[Stavros]

Ouch!

[buttslinger]

Bring the HEAT CrazyTrucker, you warmed up my old cockles.
Who's Boris Johnson?

[sukumvit boy]

Wow , I didn't realize how crazy this guy was , being an American we don't get the thing in perspective on the news here , but this recent New Yorker magazine article opened my eyes.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/the-empty-promise-of-boris-johnson

[buttslinger]

I think the problem with Johnson over there and Trump over here isn't that we don't understand them, the problem is we do understand them. And not that you don't believe them, they lie. What is impossible to believe is that the majority of our fellow Countrymen voted for them.

[filghy2]

What is impossible to believe is that the majority of our fellow Countrymen voted for them.

Actually they didn't. BoJo was never voted in by the electorate. He's only PM because a majority of only 160,000 Conservative party members voted for him. As you should know, Trump received 2.8 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. He only got 46 per cent of the vote.

[buttslinger]

Actually they didn't. BoJo was never voted in by the electorate. He's only PM because a majority of only 160,000 Conservative party members voted for him. As you should know, Trump received 2.8 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. He only got 46 per cent of the vote.

Thanks for the correction.

[Stavros]

Rumours have been floating around that Boris Johnson can't cope with the pressures of being Prime Minister, that he has not fully recovered from his bout of Covid 19, and will be gone in six months. I think the aim of the rumours is to give vent for those members of his party who think he has lost control of the Government. The shambles over A level and GCSE results, and the 11 u-turns the Government has made on health policy since March (see link below) have undermined public confidence, with the result that a spectacular election vctory in December now looks like a one-off oddity that mostly happened because so few people could vote for Jeremy Corbyn.

Having transformed the Conservative Party into a Brexit party, I think he is desperate to lead the English into a new dawn of Freedom at midnight on December 31st, and the real question is, if the UK leaves without a trade deal of any substance, willl Boris be Prime Minister on December 31st 2021?

As for the curious case of Ministerial Responsibility. the exams fiasco is now blamed on a 'mutant algorithm'. One assumes a now sentient computer, fed with an algorithm by the exams regulator OFQUAL, pinged to itself, 'I can do better than this' and the mutant was born.
Or it could be that a human being somewhere knew months ago there was an algorithm and was 100% confident it would produce better results than teacher assessments, and is thus unable to explain how it all went wrong. That the person or persons involved made the wrong decision, is of course speculation that will appear as fact -or not- in the report into the fiasco when it appears, probably next year when the news is all about some trade dispute with Bulgaria, or Tuvalu, or most likely something fishy.

It at least enables Boris to shift responsibility to a computer when he is after all, as Prime Minister, the man responsible for it all. Maybe if he was actually doing his job, he might know more about what happens, and not delegate everything to the galactic superbrain of Super-Information, Dominic Cummings, who I am reliably informed is not an Android.

Responsibility -is this now the dirtiest word in politics?- be it the UK, the USA, Belarus, Russia, China, Brazil -the list goes on....

"Boris Johnson (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson) got an angry response after telling school pupils that the exam results crisis was caused by a “mutant algorithm” and he was glad it had been “sorted out”.
The National Education Union (NEU) called the prime minister “brazen” after he appeared to shrug off responsibility for the fiasco."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/26/boris-johnson-blames-mutant-algorithm-for-exams-fiasco

U-turn if you want to, the Government will carry on spinning, around and around-
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/19/covid-19-climbdowns-the-uk-governments-u-turns-and-missteps

[Stavros]

Hmmm, Boris, where is your left hand? Is that why she's smiling?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2020/09/05/TELEMMGLPICT000162856610_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqp FlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth= 960

[Stavros]

The Telegraph has temporarily lifted its paywall in defence of a 'free press' because of Extinction Rebellion's siege of printing works, though I suspect most people access the paper oniine and read articles that are not in the print edition.

Whatever. The link below documents the relationships that Johnson has cultivated in the White House, not so much with the President but the Under-President Kushner and his wife, and in particular Stephen Miller. But it is a sad comment that to get the President to listen you must first spend ten or twenty minutes telling him what a great guy he is and how well he is doing as President, rather like meeting the leader of a Banana Republican and showering him with praise before suggesting his foreign policy is rubbish.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/05/trump-dilemma-turning-flattery-foreign-policy-wins-easier-said/

[MrFanti]

I tend to tread lightly when it comes to discussing the politics of countries that I'm not a citizen of.

[Stavros]

I tend to tread lightly when it comes to discussing the politics of countries that I'm not a citizen of.


Why tread lightly when this was the country that gave you Jamestown; gave you the Slave Trade- which I assume traded your ancestors for £20 a head, sometimes £3-; that is at the root of the claim that Americans don't approve of taxes or Kings, but whose President was desperate, and I mean desperate to be seen to have a banquet with the Queen, and is seeking a trade deal with the UK that gives the US 100% access to UK markets in return for what, 5% of the US?

Why tread lightly when the Prime Minister was born in Manhattan, and shares with the President from Queens a self-obsession that sneers and jeers at lesser mortals, makes flagrantly ridiculous campaign promises, yet in office is revealed to be a liar and a fraud, a pompous creator of bogus tales, a fanatical devotee to a flimsy idea called Brexit that threatens to unravel the Union -ours, not yours- ,while the public heath crisis that has engulfed the UK is being handled with the same level of incompetence at the political level as your Government, with the frightening possibility that the man in charge of Covid policy in the US, Under-President Kushner, is conferring with his father-in-law's equivalent, bloated foozler were it not for the fact that Boris Johnson is too lazy to play golf, but seems to give himself the same sporting chances as the President when it comes to playing pussy.

I get it, that the UK doesn't mean much to you, but look around and ask how it is that we see political leaders across the world who in reality don't lead, who talk a lot but don't walk it, who jeer at everyone they think is beneath them, while above them the people turn away in disgust, and while this same class of criminals who blame their predecessors for economic and financial failure are helping themselves to the Nation's cash as if it belonged to them, or rather, as if they were Medieval Kings acting on their entitlement.

You might think you are alone, but the US is mired in the same swamp of corruption and lies as Russia, Hungary, the UK et al -but with the better option for getting out of it. By the end of this year you might be on the road to restoring your self-respect, the Constitution and the Rule of Law. With the cavalier attitude to the rule of law and International Treaties being shown by our Prime Minister, the UK is being kicked down the road to ruin.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/06/johnson-at-bay-starmer-on-the-rise-and-sunak-waiting-in-the-wings


And no, we don't want you to come to our rescue this time.

[MrFanti]

Why tread lightly
Because IMHO, when one doesn't reside and or is not a citizen within "said" country, that individual misses out an numerous innuendos to the bigger picture.

Do I have opinions and perspectives?
Yes indeed!!

-But I don't around blaring them out like I had a megaphone in hand....

[Stavros]

I have stated before that there are a lot of those nuances in American politics that I don't get, and there are a lot of people in politics and the media well known to you I have never heard of. There is nothing to stop you from commenting on British, European and World affairs, and I would welcome it. All I can say is that you might not be aware of how constant reporting on the US is in the UK, not just because of the election, from high politics to social and cultural affairs, probably more than what you get of the UK over there.

[MrFanti]

I have stated before that there are a lot of those nuances in American politics that I don't get, and there are a lot of people in politics and the media well known to you I have never heard of. There is nothing to stop you from commenting on British, European and World affairs, and I would welcome it. All I can say is that you might not be aware of how constant reporting on the US is in the UK, not just because of the election, from high politics to social and cultural affairs, probably more than what you get of the UK over there.

I generally agree with you in that the world receives more on the US than the US does on the rest of world - which only serves to strengthen my resolve on treading lightly on other countries politics.
I will however make an exception - for example I spent 3 months living in a small Italian town. I saw a whole lot more in those 3 months living in Italy than in a single year from a US reporting perspective on Italy.

[filghy2]

Because IMHO, when one doesn't reside and or is not a citizen within "said" country, that individual misses out an numerous innuendos to the bigger picture.

It seems we have a master of malapropism in our midst.

[Stavros]

It seems we have a master of malapropism in our midst.


filghy2 -any thought on Tony Abbott being appointed 'Trade Adviser' to the UK Government? I don't know a lot about him other than he was dumped by his own party when Prime Minister, and has been appointed either because there is no-one in the UK who can do his job, or Johnson can't find anyone in the UK with sufficient Brexit zeal to be trusted. That Abbott has been offered a job by a bare-faced liar who told us in December he had an 'Over Ready' deal with the EU which turns out to be half-baked, suggests Abbot is either a fool who has been conned, or is desperate for a job, even one that comes without a salary though I assume the tax-payer will pay for his travel and accommodation expenses. Or maybe he just wants to live outside Australia for a while?

[filghy2]

filghy2 -any thought on Tony Abbott being appointed 'Trade Adviser' to the UK Government?

I know that he was never trade minister and does not appear to have any expertise in that field (he was health minister in the previous conservative government before he became PM). A senior ministerial colleague also once said that Abbott knew nothing about economics, though I guess lack of expertise would be a plus rather than a minus for Boris and the Brexiteers.

Abbott was actually born in the UK and studied at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. I believe he has strong political connections in the UK, which I suppose is why he got the job (in addition to being a Brexit fan). I would guess that he has found his relevance in Australia to be declining, so perhaps he concluded that the current government was unlikely to offer him a good job. Since he left politics his views seem to have become increasingly hard-right - eg describing the climate change movement as a cult (even though he claimed to accept the science when he was PM) and also praising what Viktor Orban has been doing in Hungary.

[broncofan]

Because IMHO, when one doesn't reside and or is not a citizen within "said" country, that individual misses out an numerous innuendos to the bigger picture.

Do I have opinions and perspectives?
Yes indeed!!

-But I don't around blaring them out like I had a megaphone in hand....
I feel everyone knows what I'm about to say but I won't feel comfortable until it's been said or I've said it.

Mr. Fanti did not write what he wrote in this thread because he really wants to comment on British politics but is not doing so out of humility. He wrote what he did because he doesn't want any non-Americans who disagree with his nonsense in other threads to comment there. And he's pretending he's holding back here so they should hold back there. But he's not holding back here given that he probably knows even less about British politics than he knows about American politics which is close to nothing.

People should comment on whatever they want and their arguments stand or fall based on whether they're supported by facts and reason. Thank you for your cooperation:).

[filghy2]

Mr. Fanti did not write what he wrote in this thread because he really wants to comment on British politics but is not doing so out of humility. .

What kind of self-important idiot posts to say that he doesn't intend to express an opinion on a topic anyway? Did he really think that we were all wondering why he'd expressed no view on Boris Johnson and it was important to explain why?

[Stavros]

It is really up to Mr Fanti or anyone else to tell us what they think. Occasionally a supporter of the President will post something, but for the most part Republican supporters tend these days to stay quiet. We had some around 10 or so years ago but they tended to be heavy on attack but light in defence, though I wonder what the poster, whose name I forget, who constantly posted the rising debt under Obama, thinks of Obama's successor, who has been in debt most of his life and has been adding $1 trillion in debt to the US deficit every year since 2017.

There is a crisis in the UK right now -a public health crisis, and a political crisis shaped by the determination of the UK to leave the EU. It is a deep crisis because it not only raises questions about political representation and accountability, but as we have seen this week, the rule of law and what it means. The UK is not alone in this, there is a crisis in the US, while within the EU Poland and Hungary are struggling to accept that the EU's values are their values too, while the crisis in Greece and France with regard to migrants arriving on the coast (UK) or the islands (Greece) is being as badly handled as Covid 19.

One would expect intense debate on these issues, but in HA it seems, Boris Johnson doesn't merit much interest. Yet even the Telegraph, for which he writes, posted an article in the last 24 hours suggesting Johnson has 6 months to 'take control' or lose his position as party leader and Prime Minister -proving that in this febrile age, an 80-seat majority in the House of Commons is no guarantee of security of tenure. Because Johnson really is an incompetent oaf. And since the Telegraph's articles are locked behind a paywall, few people will read it. Which rather sums up the content of this post!

[Stavros]

From one breathtaking liar across the sea, to our homegeown, or homespun version. One could argue that as a student of Classics at Oxford, Boris Johnson knows who Pericles and Aristotle are, even if turns out he doesn't meet their standards of virtue in public life, whereas the 45th President probably can't pronunce Pericles, and thinks Aristotle used to own a lot of ships. He may also bristle with envy at this estimation Stewart makes in the review printed below-that Boris Johnson is

"the most accomplished liar in public life."

What is remarkable is that having led the country out of the EU to the delight of his party's lunatic fringe, and having won them a huege majority in Parliament, Boris Johnson is at war with the very same cohort of MPs, plus some new boys and girls, who are Libertarians not Conservatives and object to, and have voted against his Lockdown measures. Johnson exhibited his own version of contempt when he heard the Speaker calll Theresa May to reply to his speech on the Lockdown. Barely a sentence into her reply, and not adhering to any convention that he respect a former Prime Minister, indeed, the colleague who gave him the job of Foreign Secretary, and listen to, and reply to her speech, Johnson stood up and walked out -not to his left through the door behind the Speaker's Chair, but down the central aisle of the House where all could marvel at his childish behaviour.

As we lurch from the Covid-19 crisis to the moment of truth on Brexit, his former colleague and leadership challenger, Rory Stewart, has written a review of Tom Bower's biography of Boris that is so openly dsmissive of Johnson it needs to be read in full.

It is from the most recent Times Literary Supplement, and is here for you to enjoy-

Lord of misrule


Boris Johnson: an amoral figure for a bleak, coarse culture


By Rory Stewart

On Boris Johnson’s desk in Number 10 stands a bust of the Athenian leader Pericles – his “hero” and “inspiration” for forty years. Tom Bower, who has made his name trying to destroy the reputation of famous figures (from Richard Branson to Prince Charles), chooses in this new biography of Boris Johnson, to provoke through rehabilitation – to invite comparisons with figures such as Pericles by praising Johnson’s personality, talents, political successes and character.
On Boris Johnson’s desk in Number 10 stands a bust of the Athenian leader Pericles – his “hero” and “inspiration” for forty years. Tom Bower, who has made his name trying to destroy the reputation of famous figures (from Richard Branson to Prince Charles), chooses in this new biography of Boris Johnson, to provoke through rehabilitation – to invite comparisons with figures such as Pericles by praising Johnson’s personality, talents, political successes and character.
Bower tells us that Johnson can be warm-hearted, kind and genuinely polite, that he is not gossipy or malicious, and that he is generous, believes the best of people and lacks pettiness or envy. He reminds us of “Johnson’s magic combination of intelligence, wit, cunning and exhibitionism” which – allied to a formidable memory, and a facility with words – has made him one of the most highly paid writers and speakers of his generation. He minimizes Johnson’s misdemeanours – not by omitting them, but rather by listing so many that they lose their power to shock. Thus, the first time he describes Johnson cheating on his wife, and lying, it is disturbing; but when Bower describes the fourth affair and Johnson’s claim that “It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle. It is all completely untrue and ludicrous conjecture …”, it is bathetic.

Things that would seem humiliating lapses in others (such as Johnson’s prevarications to avoid leaving his official residence when he resigned as foreign secretary) are made to seem predictable and “authentic”. The countless times when he lets people down subliminally readjust our expectations, so that on the rare occasions when Johnson does what is required for the job (gets up early to read his briefings as mayor of London, for example) it appears a sign of heroic diligence. And when Johnson behaves particularly badly, Bower is able to excuse it as a product of an unhappy childhood, with a mother who had a breakdown and a stingy father who (according to Johnson’s mother) kept them in cold houses, cheated on her, and hit her in front of their young son.

There are other compliments that could be paid to Johnson. Bower is not strong on his sense of humour, or flashes of learning. He passes quickly, for example, over the impressive lecture Johnson gave on the Latin poet Horace in 2004. There are some characteristic Johnson touches in that speech (he emphasizes Horace’s hypocrisies, cowardice and compromises over the more dignified and stoical elements in the Odes; and reduces the poetry to the question of whether journalists are more important than politicians). But it is impossible to deny the ease and enjoyment with which Johnson cites Latin verse. And few other public figures would have observed that “there is a final sense in which Horace is not just a ward and protégé of Mercury but also carries out the ultimate function of that divinity”.

It is above all, however, as a successful politician that Bower invites us to admire Johnson. He bet on the side of Leave in the Brexit (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/topics/brexit/) referendum when the polls were against it. He persevered after his first failed leadership campaign. He resigned as foreign secretary, although resignation is generally fatal to a political career. And on the basis of all this became prime minister, just as he twice before became a Conservative mayor in a Labour city. Then – having defied parliament and the Supreme Court, brought in an unpopular and provocative Chief Adviser, fired some of the most senior and well-known members of his own party (and also others including me), and called an election when the polls were unpromising – he won an astonishing majority. He appears able to sense and grab the tail of the galloping horse of history, when everyone else is still wondering where it might be stabled.

Even this underestimates his achievement. Johnson is not simply an opportunist, exploiting impersonal historical forces; he has often created these events – whistling the horse of history to himself, and whipping it on its way. In 2019, he faced the same Labour leader and the same Brexit conundrum that led Theresa May (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/may-at-10-anthony-seldon-review-anne-mcelvoy/) to lose her majority two years earlier, and with a highly personal and idiosyncratic campaign won an eighty-seat majority. And his disproportionate impact on that election, which was not apparent in the early polls, also suggests that he did not simply benefit from the vote for Brexit, but made it happen. Bower concludes, therefore, that those of us who criticize him – as I am about to do – are narrow-minded, prudish, inadequate or envious.

Perhaps it is envy. Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent – but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true. And because he has been so famous for this skill for so long, he can use his reputation to ascend to new levels of playful paradox. Thus he could say to me “Rory, don’t believe anything I am about to say, but I would like you to be in my cabinet” – and still have me laugh in admiration.

But what makes him unusual in a politician is that his dishonesty has no clear political intent. Lyndon Johnson’s corrupt and dishonest methods were ultimately directed towards Civil Rights Reform; Alberto Fujimori’s lies enabled a complete restructuring of the Peruvian economy. Machiavelli (http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/machiavelli-inverted-advice/) argues on the basis of such examples that dissimulation may be necessary for effective political action. But Johnson proves that it is not sufficient.


On Boris Johnson’s desk in Number 10 stands a bust of the Athenian leader Pericles – his “hero” and “inspiration” for forty years. Tom Bower, who has made his name trying to destroy the reputation of famous figures (from Richard Branson to Prince Charles), chooses in this new biography of Boris Johnson, to provoke through rehabilitation – to invite comparisons with figures such as Pericles by praising Johnson’s personality, talents, political successes and character.
Bower tells us that Johnson can be warm-hearted, kind and genuinely polite, that he is not gossipy or malicious, and that he is generous, believes the best of people and lacks pettiness or envy. He reminds us of “Johnson’s magic combination of intelligence, wit, cunning and exhibitionism” which – allied to a formidable memory, and a facility with words – has made him one of the most highly paid writers and speakers of his generation. He minimizes Johnson’s misdemeanours – not by omitting them, but rather by listing so many that they lose their power to shock. Thus, the first time he describes Johnson cheating on his wife, and lying, it is disturbing; but when Bower describes the fourth affair and Johnson’s claim that “It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle. It is all completely untrue and ludicrous conjecture …”, it is bathetic.

Things that would seem humiliating lapses in others (such as Johnson’s prevarications to avoid leaving his official residence when he resigned as foreign secretary) are made to seem predictable and “authentic”. The countless times when he lets people down subliminally readjust our expectations, so that on the rare occasions when Johnson does what is required for the job (gets up early to read his briefings as mayor of London, for example) it appears a sign of heroic diligence. And when Johnson behaves particularly badly, Bower is able to excuse it as a product of an unhappy childhood, with a mother who had a breakdown and a stingy father who (according to Johnson’s mother) kept them in cold houses, cheated on her, and hit her in front of their young son.

There are other compliments that could be paid to Johnson. Bower is not strong on his sense of humour, or flashes of learning. He passes quickly, for example, over the impressive lecture Johnson gave on the Latin poet Horace in 2004. There are some characteristic Johnson touches in that speech (he emphasizes Horace’s hypocrisies, cowardice and compromises over the more dignified and stoical elements in the Odes; and reduces the poetry to the question of whether journalists are more important than politicians). But it is impossible to deny the ease and enjoyment with which Johnson cites Latin verse. And few other public figures would have observed that “there is a final sense in which Horace is not just a ward and protégé of Mercury but also carries out the ultimate function of that divinity”.

It is above all, however, as a successful politician that Bower invites us to admire Johnson. He bet on the side of Leave in the Brexit (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/topics/brexit/) referendum when the polls were against it. He persevered after his first failed leadership campaign. He resigned as foreign secretary, although resignation is generally fatal to a political career. And on the basis of all this became prime minister, just as he twice before became a Conservative mayor in a Labour city. Then – having defied parliament and the Supreme Court, brought in an unpopular and provocative Chief Adviser, fired some of the most senior and well-known members of his own party (and also others including me), and called an election when the polls were unpromising – he won an astonishing majority. He appears able to sense and grab the tail of the galloping horse of history, when everyone else is still wondering where it might be stabled.

Even this underestimates his achievement. Johnson is not simply an opportunist, exploiting impersonal historical forces; he has often created these events – whistling the horse of history to himself, and whipping it on its way. In 2019, he faced the same Labour leader and the same Brexit conundrum that led Theresa May (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/may-at-10-anthony-seldon-review-anne-mcelvoy/) to lose her majority two years earlier, and with a highly personal and idiosyncratic campaign won an eighty-seat majority. And his disproportionate impact on that election, which was not apparent in the early polls, also suggests that he did not simply benefit from the vote for Brexit, but made it happen. Bower concludes, therefore, that those of us who criticize him – as I am about to do – are narrow-minded, prudish, inadequate or envious.

Perhaps it is envy. Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent – but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true. And because he has been so famous for this skill for so long, he can use his reputation to ascend to new levels of playful paradox. Thus he could say to me “Rory, don’t believe anything I am about to say, but I would like you to be in my cabinet” – and still have me laugh in admiration.

But what makes him unusual in a politician is that his dishonesty has no clear political intent. Lyndon Johnson’s corrupt and dishonest methods were ultimately directed towards Civil Rights Reform; Alberto Fujimori’s lies enabled a complete restructuring of the Peruvian economy. Machiavelli (http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/machiavelli-inverted-advice/) argues on the basis of such examples that dissimulation may be necessary for effective political action. But Johnson proves that it is not sufficient.
I saw almost daily, when he was foreign secretary and I was one of his Ministers of State, how reluctant he was to push through even those policies that he professed to endorse. He demanded, for example, to know why we were not doing more for “charismatic megafauna”, but when I came back with a £9 million programme to work with the German development agency on elephant protection in Zambia, he simply laughed and said “Germans? Nein. Nein …”. He said, “Rory: Libya. Libya is a bite-sized British problem. Let’s sort out Libya”, but when I proposed a budget, and some ideas on how we might work with the UN and the Italians in the West of Libya, he switched off immediately. “Cultural heritage”, he told me, “is literally the only thing I care about in the world”, but again I could not get him to support a fund on cultural heritage. Even when he did rouse himself to action, as mayor, the results often seemed not what he intended – having campaigned against skyscrapers, for example, and in favour of emulating the architecture of Periclean Athens, he left a legacy of some of the most ill-considered, inhuman towers in London (Nine Elms in Vauxhall being a dramatic example).

Why? Was it that implementing his policies would have involved challenging another point of view and he did not want to make anyone unhappy? Did he lose interest because I had reduced “charismatic megafauna” to actual elephants, or “the bite-sized British problem” to a slow multilateral effort? Was it allergy to detail, which meant that, two-and-a-half years after the Brexit vote, he still struggled to understand the Customs Union, was blind to the issue of Irish borders, and kept saying that we could have a transition period without an agreement? Why did he fail to grasp the implications of Coronavirus (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/topics/coronavirus/) in February?


On Boris Johnson’s desk in Number 10 stands a bust of the Athenian leader Pericles – his “hero” and “inspiration” for forty years. Tom Bower, who has made his name trying to destroy the reputation of famous figures (from Richard Branson to Prince Charles), chooses in this new biography of Boris Johnson, to provoke through rehabilitation – to invite comparisons with figures such as Pericles by praising Johnson’s personality, talents, political successes and character.
Bower tells us that Johnson can be warm-hearted, kind and genuinely polite, that he is not gossipy or malicious, and that he is generous, believes the best of people and lacks pettiness or envy. He reminds us of “Johnson’s magic combination of intelligence, wit, cunning and exhibitionism” which – allied to a formidable memory, and a facility with words – has made him one of the most highly paid writers and speakers of his generation. He minimizes Johnson’s misdemeanours – not by omitting them, but rather by listing so many that they lose their power to shock. Thus, the first time he describes Johnson cheating on his wife, and lying, it is disturbing; but when Bower describes the fourth affair and Johnson’s claim that “It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle. It is all completely untrue and ludicrous conjecture …”, it is bathetic.

Things that would seem humiliating lapses in others (such as Johnson’s prevarications to avoid leaving his official residence when he resigned as foreign secretary) are made to seem predictable and “authentic”. The countless times when he lets people down subliminally readjust our expectations, so that on the rare occasions when Johnson does what is required for the job (gets up early to read his briefings as mayor of London, for example) it appears a sign of heroic diligence. And when Johnson behaves particularly badly, Bower is able to excuse it as a product of an unhappy childhood, with a mother who had a breakdown and a stingy father who (according to Johnson’s mother) kept them in cold houses, cheated on her, and hit her in front of their young son.

There are other compliments that could be paid to Johnson. Bower is not strong on his sense of humour, or flashes of learning. He passes quickly, for example, over the impressive lecture Johnson gave on the Latin poet Horace in 2004. There are some characteristic Johnson touches in that speech (he emphasizes Horace’s hypocrisies, cowardice and compromises over the more dignified and stoical elements in the Odes; and reduces the poetry to the question of whether journalists are more important than politicians). But it is impossible to deny the ease and enjoyment with which Johnson cites Latin verse. And few other public figures would have observed that “there is a final sense in which Horace is not just a ward and protégé of Mercury but also carries out the ultimate function of that divinity”.

It is above all, however, as a successful politician that Bower invites us to admire Johnson. He bet on the side of Leave in the Brexit (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/topics/brexit/) referendum when the polls were against it. He persevered after his first failed leadership campaign. He resigned as foreign secretary, although resignation is generally fatal to a political career. And on the basis of all this became prime minister, just as he twice before became a Conservative mayor in a Labour city. Then – having defied parliament and the Supreme Court, brought in an unpopular and provocative Chief Adviser, fired some of the most senior and well-known members of his own party (and also others including me), and called an election when the polls were unpromising – he won an astonishing majority. He appears able to sense and grab the tail of the galloping horse of history, when everyone else is still wondering where it might be stabled.

Even this underestimates his achievement. Johnson is not simply an opportunist, exploiting impersonal historical forces; he has often created these events – whistling the horse of history to himself, and whipping it on its way. In 2019, he faced the same Labour leader and the same Brexit conundrum that led Theresa May (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/may-at-10-anthony-seldon-review-anne-mcelvoy/) to lose her majority two years earlier, and with a highly personal and idiosyncratic campaign won an eighty-seat majority. And his disproportionate impact on that election, which was not apparent in the early polls, also suggests that he did not simply benefit from the vote for Brexit, but made it happen. Bower concludes, therefore, that those of us who criticize him – as I am about to do – are narrow-minded, prudish, inadequate or envious.

Perhaps it is envy. Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent – but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true. And because he has been so famous for this skill for so long, he can use his reputation to ascend to new levels of playful paradox. Thus he could say to me “Rory, don’t believe anything I am about to say, but I would like you to be in my cabinet” – and still have me laugh in admiration.

But what makes him unusual in a politician is that his dishonesty has no clear political intent. Lyndon Johnson’s corrupt and dishonest methods were ultimately directed towards Civil Rights Reform; Alberto Fujimori’s lies enabled a complete restructuring of the Peruvian economy. Machiavelli (http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/machiavelli-inverted-advice/) argues on the basis of such examples that dissimulation may be necessary for effective political action. But Johnson proves that it is not sufficient.
I saw almost daily, when he was foreign secretary and I was one of his Ministers of State, how reluctant he was to push through even those policies that he professed to endorse. He demanded, for example, to know why we were not doing more for “charismatic megafauna”, but when I came back with a £9 million programme to work with the German development agency on elephant protection in Zambia, he simply laughed and said “Germans? Nein. Nein …”. He said, “Rory: Libya. Libya is a bite-sized British problem. Let’s sort out Libya”, but when I proposed a budget, and some ideas on how we might work with the UN and the Italians in the West of Libya, he switched off immediately. “Cultural heritage”, he told me, “is literally the only thing I care about in the world”, but again I could not get him to support a fund on cultural heritage. Even when he did rouse himself to action, as mayor, the results often seemed not what he intended – having campaigned against skyscrapers, for example, and in favour of emulating the architecture of Periclean Athens, he left a legacy of some of the most ill-considered, inhuman towers in London (Nine Elms in Vauxhall being a dramatic example).

Why? Was it that implementing his policies would have involved challenging another point of view and he did not want to make anyone unhappy? Did he lose interest because I had reduced “charismatic megafauna” to actual elephants, or “the bite-sized British problem” to a slow multilateral effort? Was it allergy to detail, which meant that, two-and-a-half years after the Brexit vote, he still struggled to understand the Customs Union, was blind to the issue of Irish borders, and kept saying that we could have a transition period without an agreement? Why did he fail to grasp the implications of Coronavirus (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/topics/coronavirus/) in February?

Johnson’s explanation for all these things is that he suffers from the classical vice of akrasia. He knows what the right thing to do is but acts against his better judgement through lack of self-control. He is, in Aristotle’s words, like “a city that votes for all the right decrees and has good laws but does not apply them”. But Johnson’s lack of so many of the other virtues listed by Aristotle – temperance, generosity (he is notoriously reluctant to reach for his wallet), realistic ambition, truthfulness or modesty – is startling. It is hard to accept that in every case he agrees on what is good, and intends it, but somehow frustrates himself from achieving it – rather than in fact having quite different beliefs, priorities and intentions.

This lack of moral conviction is not a secret. Rather than fooling everyone, he has in a sense never fooled anyone. Siblings, parents, teachers, bosses, subordinates, colleagues and friends have always seen through him. His housemaster at Eton wrote about the teenage Johnson’s “gross failure of responsibility” and his sense that he was “an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else”. His first Editor at The Times fired him thirty years ago for lying. His next editor at the Daily Telegraph called him “a morally bankrupt cavorting charlatan, rooted in a contempt for the truth”.


And the public are fully aware of this. Nevertheless, millions voted for him to be prime minister – some with great enthusiasm. Is this because many assume that no politician could actually be diligent, competent or sincerely dedicated to public service? And that if someone – a Theresa May or Keir Starmer, for example – claims to be one of these things, they must be deceiving us? Johnson believes so, and this frames his political approach. “Self-deprecation is a very cunning device”, he explains, “all about understanding that basically people regard politicians as a bunch of shysters.”

His speeches, therefore, are written not to dampen but to titillate the public’s sense of scandal, and embarrassment. Take his most familiar speech, which begins with an attack on regulations, and Health and Safety, but continues:

“Which is why my political hero is the mayor from JAWS.”
Laughter.
“Yes. Because he KEPT THE BEACHES OPEN.”

“Now, I accept,” he goes on in an uncertain tone, “that as a result some small children were eaten by a shark …”


The audience follows Johnson down the path of their shared hatred of Health and Safety, only to discover with delight that he has, apparently inadvertently, endorsed the eating of children. Johnson never poses as our better – rather he goes out of his way to exaggerate his incompetence. Take again his central speech during the election campaign, when he stood in front of a row of police and asked:
You know the police caution? (Long pause while he apparently tries to remember) “You do not have to say anything …” Is that right? “But anything you say …” (pause) No … “but if you fail to mention something which you later rely on” … hang on let’s get this right … (pause) anyway you get the gist.


Instead of the politician who tries to impress us with knowledge, Johnson flatters us by allowing us to feel we always know more than him.

Why is this so particularly appealing? Is it that voters want him to confirm their distrust of all elites and high-minded stories? Or to validate some conviction that there can be no true moral or political purpose, no sincere vision of self or country? Or does his disregard for red lights, the edges of racism and homophobia in his humour, the flamboyant ricketiness of his life and finances, his refusal (until very recently) to eat well, drink sensibly, watch his weight, and still less act professionally, tuck in his shirt or brush his hair – while still becoming prime minister – make us feel better about ourselves? Is he a carnival lord of misrule allowing us to rebel against the oppressive expectations of our age, or a hand-grenade to be thrown at the establishment?

Whichever it is, Bower is wrong to suggest that Johnson is seeking to emulate the heroes of ancient Greece. Johnson states grandly that “every skill and every pursuit and every practical effort or undertaking seems to aim at some good, says old Aristotle, my all-time hero. And that goal is happiness”. But Johnson’s notion of happiness seems a much thinner thing than Aristotle’s life of honour and virtue. It is more akin to pleasure, and insufficient to provide a rich, flexible or satisfying purpose to his political life. Again, Johnson often compares himself to Pericles on the grounds that they both enjoy good speeches, democratic engagement, big infrastructure and fame. But Pericles built the Parthenon, not the Emirates Cable Car. And if, like Johnson, he had made and lost a £1,000 bet, he would have wanted to pay it, and be known to have paid it (rather than sending Max Hastings an envelope with a note saying “cheque enclosed” with no cheque).

These differences are not trivial. It is not simply that Pericles had more self-control, allowing him to act more prudently. It is that Pericles’ understanding of which drama and architecture to sponsor, when not to attend a private party, when to speak and when to be silent, and why fame was worthwhile, was rooted in a notion of personal honour, and the honour of the state. Gladstone and Churchill, also – in their very different context – had a sense of personal and national honour (and it can be traced from Churchill’s grand historiographical writing to his micromanagement of the detailed designs of a bomb shelter). Johnson does not. And if Johnson is not a virtuous Greek, still less is he a stoical Roman. Johnson’s delight in bluff, and in what the Romans would have called levitas and impudentia, is the antithesis of the Roman ideal – and a direct rejection of the Roman statesman’s dignitas and gravitas.


On Boris Johnson’s desk in Number 10 stands a bust of the Athenian leader Pericles – his “hero” and “inspiration” for forty years. Tom Bower, who has made his name trying to destroy the reputation of famous figures (from Richard Branson to Prince Charles), chooses in this new biography of Boris Johnson, to provoke through rehabilitation – to invite comparisons with figures such as Pericles by praising Johnson’s personality, talents, political successes and character.

Bower tells us that Johnson can be warm-hearted, kind and genuinely polite, that he is not gossipy or malicious, and that he is generous, believes the best of people and lacks pettiness or envy. He reminds us of “Johnson’s magic combination of intelligence, wit, cunning and exhibitionism” which – allied to a formidable memory, and a facility with words – has made him one of the most highly paid writers and speakers of his generation. He minimizes Johnson’s misdemeanours – not by omitting them, but rather by listing so many that they lose their power to shock. Thus, the first time he describes Johnson cheating on his wife, and lying, it is disturbing; but when Bower describes the fourth affair and Johnson’s claim that “It is complete balderdash. It is an inverted pyramid of piffle. It is all completely untrue and ludicrous conjecture …”, it is bathetic.

Things that would seem humiliating lapses in others (such as Johnson’s prevarications to avoid leaving his official residence when he resigned as foreign secretary) are made to seem predictable and “authentic”. The countless times when he lets people down subliminally readjust our expectations, so that on the rare occasions when Johnson does what is required for the job (gets up early to read his briefings as mayor of London, for example) it appears a sign of heroic diligence. And when Johnson behaves particularly badly, Bower is able to excuse it as a product of an unhappy childhood, with a mother who had a breakdown and a stingy father who (according to Johnson’s mother) kept them in cold houses, cheated on her, and hit her in front of their young son.

There are other compliments that could be paid to Johnson. Bower is not strong on his sense of humour, or flashes of learning. He passes quickly, for example, over the impressive lecture Johnson gave on the Latin poet Horace in 2004. There are some characteristic Johnson touches in that speech (he emphasizes Horace’s hypocrisies, cowardice and compromises over the more dignified and stoical elements in the Odes; and reduces the poetry to the question of whether journalists are more important than politicians). But it is impossible to deny the ease and enjoyment with which Johnson cites Latin verse. And few other public figures would have observed that “there is a final sense in which Horace is not just a ward and protégé of Mercury but also carries out the ultimate function of that divinity”.

It is above all, however, as a successful politician that Bower invites us to admire Johnson. He bet on the side of Leave in the Brexit (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/topics/brexit/) referendum when the polls were against it. He persevered after his first failed leadership campaign. He resigned as foreign secretary, although resignation is generally fatal to a political career. And on the basis of all this became prime minister, just as he twice before became a Conservative mayor in a Labour city. Then – having defied parliament and the Supreme Court, brought in an unpopular and provocative Chief Adviser, fired some of the most senior and well-known members of his own party (and also others including me), and called an election when the polls were unpromising – he won an astonishing majority. He appears able to sense and grab the tail of the galloping horse of history, when everyone else is still wondering where it might be stabled.

Even this underestimates his achievement. Johnson is not simply an opportunist, exploiting impersonal historical forces; he has often created these events – whistling the horse of history to himself, and whipping it on its way. In 2019, he faced the same Labour leader and the same Brexit conundrum that led Theresa May (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/may-at-10-anthony-seldon-review-anne-mcelvoy/) to lose her majority two years earlier, and with a highly personal and idiosyncratic campaign won an eighty-seat majority. And his disproportionate impact on that election, which was not apparent in the early polls, also suggests that he did not simply benefit from the vote for Brexit, but made it happen. Bower concludes, therefore, that those of us who criticize him – as I am about to do – are narrow-minded, prudish, inadequate or envious.

Perhaps it is envy. Johnson is after all the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. Some of this may have been a natural talent – but a lifetime of practice and study has allowed him to uncover new possibilities which go well beyond all the classifications of dishonesty attempted by classical theorists like St Augustine. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and the half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie, and the bullshit lie – which may inadvertently be true. And because he has been so famous for this skill for so long, he can use his reputation to ascend to new levels of playful paradox. Thus he could say to me “Rory, don’t believe anything I am about to say, but I would like you to be in my cabinet” – and still have me laugh in admiration.

But what makes him unusual in a politician is that his dishonesty has no clear political intent. Lyndon Johnson’s corrupt and dishonest methods were ultimately directed towards Civil Rights Reform; Alberto Fujimori’s lies enabled a complete restructuring of the Peruvian economy. Machiavelli (http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/machiavelli-inverted-advice/) argues on the basis of such examples that dissimulation may be necessary for effective political action. But Johnson proves that it is not sufficient.

I saw almost daily, when he was foreign secretary and I was one of his Ministers of State, how reluctant he was to push through even those policies that he professed to endorse. He demanded, for example, to know why we were not doing more for “charismatic megafauna”, but when I came back with a £9 million programme to work with the German development agency on elephant protection in Zambia, he simply laughed and said “Germans? Nein. Nein …”. He said, “Rory: Libya. Libya is a bite-sized British problem. Let’s sort out Libya”, but when I proposed a budget, and some ideas on how we might work with the UN and the Italians in the West of Libya, he switched off immediately. “Cultural heritage”, he told me, “is literally the only thing I care about in the world”, but again I could not get him to support a fund on cultural heritage. Even when he did rouse himself to action, as mayor, the results often seemed not what he intended – having campaigned against skyscrapers, for example, and in favour of emulating the architecture of Periclean Athens, he left a legacy of some of the most ill-considered, inhuman towers in London (Nine Elms in Vauxhall being a dramatic example).

Why? Was it that implementing his policies would have involved challenging another point of view and he did not want to make anyone unhappy? Did he lose interest because I had reduced “charismatic megafauna” to actual elephants, or “the bite-sized British problem” to a slow multilateral effort? Was it allergy to detail, which meant that, two-and-a-half years after the Brexit vote, he still struggled to understand the Customs Union, was blind to the issue of Irish borders, and kept saying that we could have a transition period without an agreement? Why did he fail to grasp the implications of Coronavirus (https://www.the-tls.co.uk/topics/coronavirus/) in February?

Johnson’s explanation for all these things is that he suffers from the classical vice of akrasia. He knows what the right thing to do is but acts against his better judgement through lack of self-control. He is, in Aristotle’s words, like “a city that votes for all the right decrees and has good laws but does not apply them”. But Johnson’s lack of so many of the other virtues listed by Aristotle – temperance, generosity (he is notoriously reluctant to reach for his wallet), realistic ambition, truthfulness or modesty – is startling. It is hard to accept that in every case he agrees on what is good, and intends it, but somehow frustrates himself from achieving it – rather than in fact having quite different beliefs, priorities and intentions.

This lack of moral conviction is not a secret. Rather than fooling everyone, he has in a sense never fooled anyone. Siblings, parents, teachers, bosses, subordinates, colleagues and friends have always seen through him. His housemaster at Eton wrote about the teenage Johnson’s “gross failure of responsibility” and his sense that he was “an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else”. His first Editor at The Times fired him thirty years ago for lying. His next editor at the Daily Telegraph called him “a morally bankrupt cavorting charlatan, rooted in a contempt for the truth”.

And the public are fully aware of this. Nevertheless, millions voted for him to be prime minister – some with great enthusiasm. Is this because many assume that no politician could actually be diligent, competent or sincerely dedicated to public service? And that if someone – a Theresa May or Keir Starmer, for example – claims to be one of these things, they must be deceiving us? Johnson believes so, and this frames his political approach. “Self-deprecation is a very cunning device”, he explains, “all about understanding that basically people regard politicians as a bunch of shysters.”

His speeches, therefore, are written not to dampen but to titillate the public’s sense of scandal, and embarrassment. Take his most familiar speech, which begins with an attack on regulations, and Health and Safety, but continues:
“Which is why my political hero is the mayor from JAWS.”

Laughter.

“Yes. Because he KEPT THE BEACHES OPEN.”
“Now, I accept,” he goes on in an uncertain tone, “that as a result some small children were eaten by a shark …”

The audience follows Johnson down the path of their shared hatred of Health and Safety, only to discover with delight that he has, apparently inadvertently, endorsed the eating of children. Johnson never poses as our better – rather he goes out of his way to exaggerate his incompetence. Take again his central speech during the election campaign, when he stood in front of a row of police and asked:
You know the police caution? (Long pause while he apparently tries to remember) “You do not have to say anything …” Is that right? “But anything you say …” (pause) No … “but if you fail to mention something which you later rely on” … hang on let’s get this right … (pause) anyway you get the gist.


Instead of the politician who tries to impress us with knowledge, Johnson flatters us by allowing us to feel we always know more than him.
Why is this so particularly appealing? Is it that voters want him to confirm their distrust of all elites and high-minded stories? Or to validate some conviction that there can be no true moral or political purpose, no sincere vision of self or country? Or does his disregard for red lights, the edges of racism and homophobia in his humour, the flamboyant ricketiness of his life and finances, his refusal (until very recently) to eat well, drink sensibly, watch his weight, and still less act professionally, tuck in his shirt or brush his hair – while still becoming prime minister – make us feel better about ourselves? Is he a carnival lord of misrule allowing us to rebel against the oppressive expectations of our age, or a hand-grenade to be thrown at the establishment?

Whichever it is, Bower is wrong to suggest that Johnson is seeking to emulate the heroes of ancient Greece. Johnson states grandly that “every skill and every pursuit and every practical effort or undertaking seems to aim at some good, says old Aristotle, my all-time hero. And that goal is happiness”. But Johnson’s notion of happiness seems a much thinner thing than Aristotle’s life of honour and virtue. It is more akin to pleasure, and insufficient to provide a rich, flexible or satisfying purpose to his political life. Again, Johnson often compares himself to Pericles on the grounds that they both enjoy good speeches, democratic engagement, big infrastructure and fame. But Pericles built the Parthenon, not the Emirates Cable Car. And if, like Johnson, he had made and lost a £1,000 bet, he would have wanted to pay it, and be known to have paid it (rather than sending Max Hastings an envelope with a note saying “cheque enclosed” with no cheque).

These differences are not trivial. It is not simply that Pericles had more self-control, allowing him to act more prudently. It is that Pericles’ understanding of which drama and architecture to sponsor, when not to attend a private party, when to speak and when to be silent, and why fame was worthwhile, was rooted in a notion of personal honour, and the honour of the state. Gladstone and Churchill, also – in their very different context – had a sense of personal and national honour (and it can be traced from Churchill’s grand historiographical writing to his micromanagement of the detailed designs of a bomb shelter). Johnson does not. And if Johnson is not a virtuous Greek, still less is he a stoical Roman. Johnson’s delight in bluff, and in what the Romans would have called levitas and impudentia, is the antithesis of the Roman ideal – and a direct rejection of the Roman statesman’s dignitas and gravitas.

Instead, Johnson’s way with words, his irrepressibility, his recklessness (and caution with money), his lofty references and brutal politics, and his tricks echo the less familiar moral universe of Norse literature. Like Egil’s saga, his life shocks and impresses us with the resilience, shamelessness and cunning (disguised as simplicity) that allows him to continually embarrass and defeat every conceivable authority and constraint – teacher and colleague, boss and husband – seizing power through trickery. Johnson may have a bust of Pericles on his desk.

But he is not, as he pretends, a man suffering from akrasia – someone who struggles, with shame, to live up to the ideals of a complex classical civilization. Rather, he is an amoral figure operating in a much bleaker and coarser culture. And it is in his interest – and that of other similar politicians around the world – to make that culture ever coarser. But unless we begin to repair our political institutions and nurture a society that places more emphasis on personal and political virtue, we will have more to fear than Boris Johnson.

Rory Stewart is a Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute at Yale University
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/boris-johnson-tom-bower-book-review-rory-stewart/














(https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/boris-johnson-tom-bower-book-review-rory-stewart/#)

[Stavros]

At Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday last, Boris Johnson attemptd to ridicule the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, by claiming 'he wans to shut down Christmas'. On Saturday night, it was Boris Johnson who did just that. With the prospect of a No Deal on trade with the EU leaving the UK to trade on WTO rules from January 1st, it has been a remarkable year for a man who this time last year was riding the crest of a wave that has dissipated onto a beach littered with dead bodies.

Andrew Rawnsley in today's Guardian/Observer, has a good summary of a year in the life of Britain's Official Idiot.

"The coronavirus crisis could not have been more cunningly engineered to expose Mr Johnson’s flaws. He was made prime minister not because anyone thought that he was a cool and decisive head with the leadership skills and moral seriousness required to handle the gravest public health emergency in a century. He was put there because he was a successful representative of the entertainer branch of populist leadership that prospered in the pre-virus era. “We elected him to be a ‘good times’ prime minister,” comments one senior Tory. “His curse is to be prime minister in bad times.”
Few of his strengths as a politician have been of much utility in this emergency. All of his weaknesses have been searingly exposed. A man who spent his career ducking responsibility was suddenly confronted with a challenge that could not be run from, though that didn’t stop him vanishing at the outset when he went missing (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/michael-gove-fails-to-deny-pm-missed-five-coronavirus-cobra-meetings) from critical meetings. In the coronavirus, he met an opponent impervious to glib slogans and empty promises. Here was a disease posing hideous and inescapable dilemmas that confounded the “have your cake and eat it” philosophy by which he had lived his life."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/20/sudden-u-turn-over-christmas-boris-johnson-caps-year-of-debacles

[Jericho]

Boris Johnson is very sorry we've had a 100k Covid deaths.
Britain Trump Cunt!

[Stavros]

Agaiin: not a comedy because he was Foreign Secretary and is now Prime Minister. Nevertheless...

"Later, after Johnson quit as foreign secretary in July 2018 (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/09/boris-johnson-his-path-to-resigning-as-foreign-secretary), Duncan wrote that Johnson needed publicity like a drug addict needs cocaine. He also told the Spectator in September that year that Johnson “needs a regular fix” of headlines and equates it with political power.
In an entry made in September 2017, Duncan claimed that Johnson “despises” the former prime minister Theresa May and had accused her of disloyalty.
Duncan also claimed he had had a row with Johnson over a press report about diplomats treating him as an “international joke”.
Johnson is said to have asked: “Why don’t they take me seriously?” Duncan claims he replied: “Look in the f***ing mirror!”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/03/boris-johnson-a-clown-with-no-diplomacy-skills-says-ex-deputy-in-diaries

[obslam]

This is a trans pornsite/forum.

Can't you find somewhere else for this drivel?

[Stavros]

This is a trans pornsite/forum.

Can't you find somewhere else for this drivel?

So what do you expect to find in the section identified as Politics and Religion? And do you have anything to say about a man who is known for his ignorance and incompetence, for lying to Parliament, who has presided over the award of billions of pounds of your money and mine to his friends and backers for services either run into the ground because the people concerned had no expertise (eg, Test and Trace), or which never got off the ground at all like the OneWeb scandal, a mere snip at £400 million?

You seem to prefer making snide remarks to debate- but you have every right to duck the issues, and be judged accordingly while the country I live in slides into bankruptcy, preferring isolation and conflict rather than prosperity and co-operation with the EU.

[obslam]

All great except your list of incorrect facts and that the country isn't sliding into anything like bankruptcy.

Like a lot of people you seem to have a great deal of confusion between actual fact, your opinion, future possibilities (or not) and media, agenda-led rumour/gossip.

But you keep on with your largely solo conversation if you like it that much.

[Stavros]

All great except your list of incorrect facts and that the country isn't sliding into anything like bankruptcy.

Like a lot of people you seem to have a great deal of confusion between actual fact, your opinion, future possibilities (or not) and media, agenda-led rumour/gossip.

But you keep on with your largely solo conversation if you like it that much.


A conversation cannot be 'solo', so it is your contribution that makes this what it is. I don't know what your definition of bankruptcy is, but mine looks at the facts with regard to the UK's income and expenditure and it doesn't look good. When dealing with the Conservative Party, or the Brexit Cult Party if that is what its current ID is, always assume the worst. The assumption the Govt makes is that the 'Covid Bounce' will pay for the money that has been borrowed, but once the bounce has ended and we crash back to earth, Brexit will dominate the news.

Obviously you choose to ignore or dismiss the crisis in UK-EU trade, and the stunning fact, and it is a stunning fact, that UK firms that have left the Single Market are now desperately trying or plannng to get back into it by transferring production from the UK to the EU, the Netherlands in partcular. These are facts, not opinions, but are reported on an almost daily basis in The Guardian, a newspaper you probably don't read because it is in your view 'left-wing' and thus by definition a source of useless information, while you happily indulge any source that doesn't report the facts because for them, and I suspect for you, Brexit is a dream come true, whatever the reality might be.

You have nothing to say about Somerset Capital moving its assets out of the UK and into the EU that its founder claims he is pleased to have left; just as you have nothing to say when you idol Sir John Redwood advised his stockholders to invest anywhere but the UK, indeed, in the EU which he too is pleased we have left. Hypocrites all, they enjoy your devotion and support -why?

Yes, the future could be even worse than I fear, or we could just be living through a 2-3-5-10 year transition during which the UK adapts to the fact that it has left the largest market in the world next door to trade at a disadvantage with states that are thousands of miles away even on the other side of the world, rather like Cuba when its closest trading partner was the USSR. I am not a prophet, and I hope I am wrong. Your predictions are the best because they don't exist. Your judgment perfect, because you never make it.

But you keep up with your largely solo ignorance if you like it that much.

[obslam]

If you stuck to facts, we could have a proper conversation, but combining few facts with a large dose of your fairly extreme opinions gives you little credibility. Adding in the insults gives you even less.

I work in economics and safe to say I don’t have many worries about the economies of either the UK or the EU in the next 20 or so years.

Anybody who thinks Covid will cost the country money long-term has the economic understanding of the likes of Peston or Kuenssberg - that is virtually nil.

[Stavros]

But when it comes to facts, where are the ones that prove whatever point it is that you want to make about Brexit?

You have nothing to say about the fact that the UK has left the EU, yet Northern Ireland remains in the Customs Union, a peculiar exit if ever there was one.

UK traders forced out of the EU are now scrambling to get back in, taking jobs with them.

Somerset Capital is not so much banking on the succcess of Brexit which its founder has supported since 2016 and probably before then, as banking in the EU because it has more confidence in the EU than it does in Brexit Britain-

-ditto Sir John Redwood's advice to the customers of the firm he advised, to invest anywhere but Brexit Britain.

And now the UK Government, realising that taking the UK out of the EU and its agencies is damaging the UK's reputation for science, is pumpiing £250 million into the EU's Horizon programme that the UK was supposed to have left behind because we don't need the EU. Only of course, we do. Did Get Brexit Done ever mean anything? Or did it mean, Get Britan Back into the EU?

It does appear that you are not worried about the EU and UK economies, but is it because Brexit will be revealed to be a sham, as piece by piece, the UK finds ways of effectively returning to the EU and its Single Market albeit in an informal manner? Because I see no evidence, and certainly not from you, that the UK will be better off outside the EU, but a lot of evidence that just about everyone, other than the DUP , Steve Baker and Sir William Cash, want to be back in the EU where we belong.

Is there a greater insult to this country than a man who has such naked disregard for the rule of law, the truth and elementary ethics in public life? Instead of defining a Conservative by a Boris Johnson Loyalty Test, which Alan Duncan clearly failed, Theresa May should have had the courage to sack Johnson when he was Foreign Secretary and indeed, expel him from the Party.

Where is the outrage over the Jennifer Arcuri affair that proves Johnson and his sweetheart transferred money from London's ratepayers into her pocket so she could enjoy privileges and a 'leg up' for her business interests as he was getting his 'leg over' with her? In any age other than this age of impunity, this shabby little man would have been forced out of office, and probably spend the rest of his life writing garbage for the Telegraph, that bastion of Brexit published by two rich men who are not stupid enough to park their Billions in the UK or live here.

But as someone who expressed such indignation that there is a Politics & Religion Section in a Porn forum, and claim I write to myself when you obviously read what I write, unless you actually tell us what the economic reality is now, and is going to be, there will be no debate. Just a sneering discontent that does you no favours.

[filghy2]

I work in economics and safe to say I don’t have many worries about the economies of either the UK or the EU in the next 20 or so years.

Anybody who thinks Covid will cost the country money long-term has the economic understanding of the likes of Peston or Kuenssberg - that is virtually nil.

You must be a financial sector economist!

I guess these people don't understand economics either.
"This chapter examines the possible persistent damage (scarring) that may occur from the COVID-19 recession and the channels through which they may occur. Importantly, financial instabilities—typically associated with worse scarring—have been largely avoided in the current crisis so far. While medium-term losses are expected to be lower than after the global financial crisis, they are still substantial, at about 3 percent lower than pre-pandemic anticipated output for the world in 2024."
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2021/03/23/world-economic-outlook-april-2021
The COVID-19 pandemic’s toll on economic activity in recent months is only the beginning of the story. While the rapid and unprecedented collapse of production, trade, and employment may be reversed as the pandemic eases, historical data suggest that long-term economic consequences could persist for a generation or more.
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2020/06/long-term-economic-impact-of-pandemics-jorda.htm

[obslam]

You must be a financial sector economist!

I guess these people don't understand economics either.
"This chapter examines the possible persistent damage (scarring) that may occur from the COVID-19 recession and the channels through which they may occur. Importantly, financial instabilities—typically associated with worse scarring—have been largely avoided in the current crisis so far. While medium-term losses are expected to be lower than after the global financial crisis, they are still substantial, at about 3 percent lower than pre-pandemic anticipated output for the world in 2024."
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2021/03/23/world-economic-outlook-april-2021
The COVID-19 pandemic’s toll on economic activity in recent months is only the beginning of the story. While the rapid and unprecedented collapse of production, trade, and employment may be reversed as the pandemic eases, historical data suggest that long-term economic consequences could persist for a generation or more.
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2020/06/long-term-economic-impact-of-pandemics-jorda.htm

Aren't they global forecasts? Most UK forecasting has us back at pre-Covid/Brexit economic levels by Q3 or Q4 2022.

[filghy2]

Aren't they global forecasts? Most UK forecasting has us back at pre-Covid/Brexit economic levels by Q3 or Q4 2022.

They are making a general point and it's hard to see why it wouldn't apply to the UK, given it's been one of the worst-affected countries. The real issue is when (and if) you return to the previous growth path, rather than the level. If you get back to the previous level by the end of next year that would still be well below the previous growth path.

It's understood nowadays that serious recessions can have long-term effects (hysterisis) , contrary to what many economic models assume. Since the 2008 financial crisis many economies have never returned to their previous growth path, including the UK.

Obviously, any return to normality depends on achieving herd immunity through vaccination, including against virus variants. That is not guaranteed.

[Stavros]

Brexit remains the unknown factor in any recovery, while the Goverment may increase taxes selectively, and the pressure to keep interest rates low or go below zero is strong. Thus-

"The government deficit will increase to levels not seen since the Second World War, and with it the national debt. By the end of the 2020/21 financial year, the government will most likely owe in debt more than the value of everything produced in the economy in one year. This will alter the complexion of the UK’s public finances for decades to come."
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/vision/vision-economy-after-covid-19

And, from a survey of 90 economists by the FT-

"The vast majority of those responding to the FT’s annual survey said UK GDP would not regain its previous level until the second half of 2022, or later. Many said political mismanagement of both the Covid-19 crisis and of Brexit had ensured the UK would underperform other richer countries — and that the biggest risk to the economy in 2021 was that an over-thrifty chancellor would damage the recovery by tightening fiscal policy too early. “The UK will be among the last, if not the last, of the high-income economies to regain its pre-pandemic size,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee."
https://www.ft.com/content/5c51299a-fd9f-4e14-9576-a42a6317c324

But, again, how will UK trade perform if there is no re-negotiation of terms with the EU or some means of reducing the costs and bureaucracy of trade with the EU?
What happens if there is a major dispute with China that disrupts production of commodities on which the UK relies and cannot make owing to lack of capacity?
What of the financial services sector, whose future is still a matter of conjecture, but a sector which has seen Billions of pounds of capital removed from the UK and put into the EU?
How will the transport sector look over the next 10 years, the millions of cubic feet of office space, and the employment profile of the under-30 age group?
If there is no return to normal, how can the word 'recovery' mean anything other than a return to the low-growth, low-performance economy stangled by over a decade of Conservative mis-management?
Will there be a crisis in relations between Scotland the Govt in London, and given the riots in Belfast, a deterioration of relations between Northern Ireland and the Govt in London? These all have economic consequences that are negative in the short term.

One thing absent in all this are markets, given that we are living under a Communist, command-economy Government in all but name, and not a Marxist-Leninist one either. In time the furlough schemes will end, with the assumption that unemployment will fall. I don't know, but as a natural born pessimist, it doesn't look as good to me as it does to some people, and I have zero faith in Boris Johnson as Prime Minister.

[Stavros]

With local elections taking place on the 6th of May, the Conservatives remain ahead in the polls, in England if not in Scotland or Wales. The predicament Boris Johnson is in is therefore something of a paradox. He and his Ministers claim the British public are not that interested in who paid for the refurbishment of the apartment at the top of 10 Downing St. They dispute the claim that Boris Johnson said he would rather dead bodies pile up than impose another lockdown on the UK. As for the precise relationship between his Govt and 'Private Enterprise', those relationships are in the well-worn phrase, 'good for business', though as Max Hastings pointed out two hours ago on BBC Radio 4's The World at One, Johnson has so re-written the rules of Government that it is no longer a matter of principle, let alone basic decency, if friends and backers of the Prime Minister make a load of money off Government contracts, or if former Prime Ministers use their access to Government to lobby on behalf of their mates and a business in which they stand to make millions. In astonishing insight, Hastings pointed out everyone in the country knows Boris Johnson is a liar, and so does Boris Johsnson. A pity that the Govt of Iran hasn't twigged and released Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from prison, as she is there in part because Boris Johnson lied to Parliament about the reason for her visit to Iran that led to her arrest. An act which, in those now distant days when the UK Govt had 'standards' would have led to him resigning as Foreign Secretary, or Theresa May sacking hm.

The Downing St apartment problem has a simple solution -create a separate designated residence for the Prime Minister somewhere in Whitehall, paid for by the taxpayer with more than a couple of rooms and kitchen wth a modest two-ring gas cooker and a microwave (or, as Nigella Lawson now calls it, a MeeCroWarvy).

Did Johnson really say he would rather dead bodies pile up than impose a new lockdown? I think so, but not out of spite, as it is the kind of flippant remark laced with poison he is apt to make, such as his dismissal in the Commons of vile attacks on women MPs on social media as 'humbug' (an all but meaningless word to anyone under 40), and the older claim he would lie down in front of the diggers to prevent them creating a third runway at Heathrow, a Commons vote for which he was famously absent from the House when it came time to vote on it.

As for Brexit, I was wrong when I said billions has left the country, its owners - Leave fanatics- preferring banks in the EU, because Leave is for Little People like me and you. The actual sum has now passed a Trillion Pounds. A fisherman in Devon says Boris Johnson has betrayed him over Brexit, for which he foolishly voted. Exports to the EU of milk and other dairy products are down 90%. That the Govt is crowing about inward investment suggests that Brexit is transforming the UK into an 'investment destination' but this is not odd if a Trillion quid is leaving while a Billion is arriving, for what is now an 'Investment Destination' is what used to be called a 'Third World' country. Which is what Brexit is creating here. With a Third World Government to match it.

And if Max Hastings is right, and if Dominic Cummings, who is not a Conservative, has tapes (tapes again? yes, tapes) of the flippant and idiotic things Boris Johnson is apt to say, the calculation will be that having achieved his ambition of becoming Prime Minister, having 'got Brexit done', and been at least part-time steward of the Covid Recovery, Johnson will decide he can make more money being an entertainer and writing garbage for the Telegraph (and a 900 page book explaining why he is he greatest Prime Minister since Churchill) -and he will quit. And quit before the end of 2021.

I just hope Max Hastings is right, and so does Boris.

[Stavros]

"BAILIFFS are poised to knock on the famous black door of Number 10 Downing Street - after it emerged Boris Johnson failed to pay a £535 debt.
The PM's bill appeared on County Court Judgement files last October with the payment still "unsatisfied."
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14931468/boris-johnson-debt-bill-from-october-paid/

I doubt the Bailiffs will be knocking on the door, but one does wonder why on this occasion Boris Johnson couldn't find a Hedge Fund Manager or a wealthy mate to pay his bills, since he doesn't seem to think he should pay them himself. Pity Greensill wasn't in a position to buy the debt. Is there an informal rule that states f you are rich and powerful you don't need to pay your bills? Hasn't Trump a terrible record in settling his bills?

[Jericho]

The dead cat deflecting from Betty's speech and the loss of even more of our rights.


"BAILIFFS are poised to knock on the famous black door of Number 10 Downing Street - after it emerged Boris Johnson failed to pay a £535 debt.
The PM's bill appeared on County Court Judgement files last October with the payment still "unsatisfied."
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14931468/boris-johnson-debt-bill-from-october-paid/

I doubt the Bailiffs will be knocking on the door, but one does wonder why on this occasion Boris Johnson couldn't find a Hedge Fund Manager or a wealthy mate to pay his bills, since he doesn't seem to think he should pay them himself. Pity Greensill wasn't in a position to buy the debt. Is there an informal rule that states f you are rich and powerful you don't need to pay your bills? Hasn't Trump a terrible record in settling his bills?

[Stavros]

The evidence given by Dominic Cummings to a joint session of the Health and Social Care and the Science and Technology committees will surprise few people. Even Boris Johnson’s friends will cheerfully admit he is a pathological liar, completely untrustworthy and a managerial incompetent. What he lacks in basic skills he makes up for in PR, but lives for headlines without which he feels inadequate and ignored.

I can’t say much about Matt Hancock other than to assume Johnson keeps him there as the fall guy for all and any mistakes made in Covid, and the Johnson Govt made grievous mistakes, the most serious being the re-location of elderly patients in hospital to care homes without being tested for Covid. It is aggravated by Johnson’s failure to fulfill the pledge he made in 2019 to reform social care.

The real point of interest is Cummings praising a few people, damming many, but making no reference to Michael Gove, for whom Cummings worked most of the years between 2007-2014 (see link below) It is relevant because the gossip is that Gove has been plotting an internal party coup to replace Johnson, with Cummings as the scout returning from the front to issue warnings. He is evidently a fan of Rishi Sunday too, so a Gove-Sunak double act would present a rational replacement for the irrational Johnson, not least because the real heroes of Covid are the NHS and frontline workers rather than Johnson and Hancock. And with Johnson thin- skinned and craving constant attention and affection, he may jump ship rather than be forced to walk the plank. Watch that space.

https://dominiccummings.com/about/

[Stavros]

Quelques aperçus pour notres temps...

1) A few weeks ago there was a rumour that Boris Johnson wants to remain in power for 10 years so he can transform Britain....now we are told his Cabinet re-shuffle suggests he is thinking of an early election in 2023. Oh dear, does this mean we are going to have to suffer 10 years of this waffling bollocks-

"Johnson said in his speech that strong leadership was “the yeast that lifts the whole mattress of dough, the magic sauce, the ketchup of catch-up” "--?
https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2021/jul/15/boris-johnsons-speech-on-levelling-up-decried-for-lack-of-substance


2) As part of the re-shuffle, his Brexit Buddy -and one time opponent- Michael Gove, has been given a leg-up in his political fortunes, perhaps because he is now without a wife and is not getting his leg over (well, not with her)? Whatever, he is now to be known as The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; and, The Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (sounds like something from the USSR). It is not known if this means he has two salaries, but it does mean he is going to be very busy, perhaps too busy to plot the removal of Boris Johnson from No 10 Downing Street?
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/michael-gove-makes-cabinet-power-191859169.html


3) If anyone knows what 'Levelling Up' means, drop me a line. If anyone can tell me how a Conservative, by definition committed to the Conservation of Inequality as viewed from Buckingham Palace, Sandhurst, the City of London, and Middle Temple, is so committed to social and economic change, then tell me that person is not in fact a Conservative. Thus-

4) Boris Johnson has defended his Government's cuts to Universal Credit, by saying claimants should rely on their own efforts rather than on welfare. This from a man who had his Caribbean holiday paid for by someone else, who had the costs of the refurbishment of his apartment in Downing St paid for by someone else, and who allegedly doesn't even pay for his own groceries, paid for by someone else... also known as 'welfare', as in, 'the rich concerned for the welfare of Boris Johnson'.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/boris-johnson-universal-credit-cuts_uk_61279c88e4b0231e3699003e


5) And as Brexit continues to swamp small and medium sized businesses with regulations in what was supposed to be 'regulation free' nirvana for British business, the Government so committed to free markets, has entered those markets, defying the orthodox view as Blessed by Margaret that the State should stay out of Markets-

"The UK government has become a shareholder in more than 150 companies during the Covid crisis, including a kombucha drinks maker, a bespoke ship builder and a knitting and crochet supplier, data reveals."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/14/uk-government-fund-invested-in-kombucha-and-luxury-ship-builder

6) And to return to Brexit -is it the case that when Boris Johnson uttered the prophetic words "Fuck Business" he was levelling that barb at SMEs in the UK? That the fundamental aim of Brexit was to transform the UK into an 'Investment Destination' for foreign capital more than eager to Buy Britain? As part of its 50 years of Independence from the UK, the UAE has announced a 10 billion pound invesment programme in the UK-

"Over the next five years, the UAE-UK SIP will drive a significant increase in investment across a further three sectors: technology, infrastructure, and energy transition, as well as build on the existing programme of life sciences investment."
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uae-to-invest-10-billion-in-priority-uk-industries

-Well, that relieves the Parasites of the City of London of the Risk involved in investing in their own country (they prefer dealing in Bonds, and other people's Shares rather than creating things that provide jobs for people)...
...meanwhile the Chancellor of the Exchequer also welcomes foreign capital as part of the 'Global Britain' strategy- again, so his mates in the City can avoid investing in Britain and just skim their 5% off the surface of everyone else's assets...

"Rishi Sunak has given his blessing to a multibillion-pound trend that has seen foreign private equity firms (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/09/morrisons-private-equity-buying-spree-hits-new-record-as-british-firms-targeted) snap up British businesses, describing the buying spree as “good news” for the economy."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/14/rishi-sunak-gives-blessing-to-foreign-firms-snapping-up-uk-businesses

7) Global Britain...but not an Empire, not even an Empire of Capital --which exists but cannot be owned by a single state. And one in which the French, who live not far from us, need never be consulted about anything, be it Sausages, Submarines, or Saltimbocca.

But is Boris Johnson Prime Minister of the UK, or in reality, just First Minister of England?

[Stavros]

Having yesterday issued a childish swipe at France with his own version of Franglais, today Boris Johnson went to the UN and told the world it is time to 'grow up'.

Never one to reflect on his own choice of words, or indeed his policies -when they go wrong it is aways somebody else's fault, if not the French, the EU and so on, ad tedium.- Johnson deployed a dubious mathematical calculation on the human presence to establish that humanity is, in effect, 16 years old-

"An inspection of the fossil record over the last 178 million years – since mammals first appeared – reveals that the average mammalian species exists for about a million years before it evolves into something else or vanishes into extinction.

Of our allotted lifespan of a million, humanity has been around for about 200,000.
In other words, we are still collectively a youngster.
If you imagine that million years as the lifespan of an individual human being – about eighty years – then we are now sweet 16."

Citing presumably his own preferences "We have come to that fateful age when we know roughly how to drive and we know how to unlock the drinks cabinet..." (who these days has a 'drinks cabinet', with a lock?), Johnson went on in dramatic terms-

"My friends the adolescence of humanity is coming to an end.

We are approaching that critical turning point – in less than two months – when we must show that we are capable of learning, and maturing, and finally taking responsibility for the destruction we are inflicting, not just upon our planet but ourselves.
It is time for humanity to grow up."

And then toward the end, the schoolboy who never grew up said

"And when Kermit the frog sang It’s Not Easy Bein’ Green, I want you to know he was wrong - and he was also unnecessarily rude to Miss Piggy."

Muppets, one might say, never die, they just get elected to Parliament and deliver pompous speeches while, in practical terms, doing as little as possible to meet the targets they set themselves, as Sir David King points out in the clip from this evening's Channel 4 News, linked below.

Johnson's speech of Global Importance, is here-
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-at-the-un-general-assembly-22-september-2021

Sir David King on COP26 and the opportunities ahead of us -positive about the UK other than Johnson failing to meet targets -and aso positive on China, is here-
https://www.channel4.com/news/government-actions-need-to-follow-words-on-climate-sir-david-king-says

*If not available outside the UK directly, may be on YouTube.

[Stavros]

Max Hastings recently described Boris Johnson as 'an entertainer' rather than a serious poltician. The climax of the Conservative Party Conference was a sideshow to reality, though the sheep baa'd with approval -well not all as Steve Baker at a fringe meeting referred to his party's tax increases and declared, part satire, part despair 'we are all Socialists now'.

Others were less amenable to the lies Johnson trotted out (see the Independent link below). For example, the Free Market Adam Smith Institute said of Johnson's speech it was "“bombastic but vacuous and economically illiterate”"-
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/boris-johnson-conference-speech-condemned-231213616.html

Also on the sides, Dominic Raab rejected the suggestion misogyny be made a hate crime, then revealed he didn't know what it meant. Mr Raab is Boris Johnson's Deputy.

Johnson's Conference Lies debunked-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-speech-false-claims-b1933390.html

[Stavros]

It has not been a good week for the 'Prime Minister'- -surely, the First Minister of England? After leading the World at the Cop 26 assembly in Glasgow, where Boris banged on about carbon reductions, he lept onto a carbon burning jet to London where, with the help of the Chief Whip he organised a defence of Owen Paterson MP (annual salary £81,932), found guilty of accepting £100,000 from various commercal firms in return for Paterson (ex-Govt Minister) lobbying his chums in Government Departments. So outraged was Boris that one of his oldest chums be exposed in this way, he decided to scrap the Committee that exposed corruption, to be replaced by one dedicatedd to covering it up.

Martina Hyde takes up the story-

"Let’s play out with how the British prime minister spent the eve of this shameful vote. Boris Johnson had left his own climate conference on a private jet, incidentally, to have dinner at the Garrick Club with the longtime climate denialist Charles Moore. Also incidentally, Moore used to be Johnson’s editor when he published his various fabrications about the EU. Incidentally – again – Johnson fairly recently sought to install Moore as chairman of the BBC (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/oct/04/charles-moore-rules-himself-out-running-for-bbc-chairman-role). (Moore has, incidentally, previously been a licence-fee refusenik (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/sep/27/no-10-told-charles-moore-appointment-could-put-bbcs-independence-at-risk)). Still incidentally, Moore is a real friend of Owen Paterson’s, and has been a significant advocate for his foolhardy defence…"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/05/owen-paterson-boris-johnson-standards-commissioner

*Membership of the Garrick Club is for Gentlemen Only.

Currently, Boris has decided not to tell anyone how much his Spanish holiday cost, the costs, as far as we know, being borne by mult-millionaire Lord Goldsmith, the man who was sacked as an MP by his his constituents in Kensington then promptly sent to the House of Lords to represent 'the Government', either because the voters didn't realise what a gifted man Zac is, or because Boris needs to keep his friends close enough to sponge off them as and when needed, and anyway, Zac is 'close friends with Carrie, wife of Boris...

Fish 'n Chips, anyone? Boris is paying (he just persuaded Kwazi K to lend hm a tenner...)

[Stavros]

"“How can I be the thrust – the throttle – your mere footstep as you make your career? Tell me: how I can help you?”"

Whichever way, not the way for the Mayor of London to use his 'office', or for that matter, his orifice..

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/13/how-johnson-pledged-help-for-my-business-to-win-my-love

[Jericho]

You can tell they've been up to fuckery, they've wheeled out Stanley again!
Though, It was nice to see Lindsey grow a set of balls and finally remind Johnson it was PMQ's, not LOTOQ's, though to little too fucking late.
As far as Johnson's concerned, to quote Frankie Boyle, he "Should stick his face in a meat grinder and go live in the woods. I could watch him being gang raped and not feel a flicker of emotion...Actually, that's lie, I'd be disappointed they weren't killing him"!

Hey, when he' right...

[Stavros]

Arise, Boris the Blunderer, you have nothing to lose but your brains...

Extracts from his speech to the annual conference of the British Confederation of Industry-

"I can remember mass unemployment..."

"I have had some pretty wonderful jobs in my life, but among those purely hedonistic, I would rank Motoring Correspondent of GQ magazine. I drove Ferraris, Mazeratis, Nissan's, Skylines, Protons..." (is he scratching his bum when he says this? Hmmmm...) followed by some incoherent nonsense about the "burble and roar" of the internal combustion engine....

"When I was a kid... I remember those huge barges taking coal up the Thames to Battersea Power Station..."

[on wind farms] - "it seems faddish and ludicrous to imagine that we could light and heat our homes with a technology dating from 9th century Persia..."

"Ev's may not burble like sucking doves, and they may not have that vroom! vroom! vrahh! vrahh! you love so much..." (08.03 for the theatre)...

-Having said industrial innovation will be led by business, this, from none other than the re-incarnation of Moses (Moses? yup, Moses)-

"We've set out a ten point plan for Government leadership, a new decalogue that I produced exactly a year ago when I came down from Sinai and said to my officials -the new Ten Commandments., Thou Shalt..." (10.08.)

-at this point, Boris who has been shuffling the pages of his speech gets more animated with them, starts quoting Lenin, repeats his lies about the Crossrail of the North, the waffle about rail links between Manchester and Leeds...with signs of a deterioration as he sounds nervous, looks lost....

15.54 "blast it..forgive me...forgive me...forgive me...." he is lost, shufflng papers trying to find out where he is supposed to be -probably the most incompetent speech I have ever seen or heard from a senior politician. Stunning, but a fine example of just what an incompetent fool this man is.

Suddenly he is on a roll talking about skills and training and the techs-

(from 17.20) "fintech-medtech-edtech-biotech-edtech..er..nanotech-greentech, so you basically sound like 15th century Mexico..."
(What? Hello? )

21.04 "Yesterday I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World- I don't know if you'v been to Peppa Pig World..who's been to- hands up anyone who's been to Peppa Pig World..(waits for a response)...not enough!"

Boris Johnson is Prime Minister of the UK. On the evidence of this shambles, not for much longer Maybe this time next year he will be a 'Greeter and Meeter' -at Peppa Pig World....?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb38AujLFPQ

[Jericho]

Just another dead cat to keep us occupied as they sell off the nhs

[Stavros]

Just another dead cat to keep us occupied as they sell off the nhs

Meow!

[Jericho]

Meow!

If it involves Prime Minister Pantsonfire, that should be a grunt!

[Stavros]

I returned to the UK to watch the shameless Boris Johnson tell the House of Commons he is sorry that the Bring Your Own Bottle party in May 2020 went ahead -"I wish things had been done differently"....but it is feeble to claim that No 10 Downing St is a working address when photos show people including the Prime Minister and his wife and baby attending -how many official meetings are there when staff are asked to Bring Your Own Bottle, Wife and Child?

And again "Wait for the outcome of the enquiry" -What? Boris Johnson needs to read the report of an Enquiry into an event that he attended, because he needs the Report to tell him what he was doing there?
Whether or not he survives is now down the Tory MPs, assuming Johnson insists on staying in office.

BYOB = Bring Your Own Bollocks to No 10, because the rest of the population are Mugs.

[Stavros]

While the majority of the UK -incuding our Head of State, Queen Elizabeth II- was observing social distancing, Boris Johnson and members of his Downing St staff were partying like it was their last day on Earth. Whether it means their last day in their jobs we have to wait for an Official Enquiry to tell Boris Johnson what was happening at the parties in which he was in attendance, a bizarre process that may lead to his exoneration, not least because the person leading the Enquiry works in his Cabinet Office, and the final assessment of its results will be made by the man himself. But who knows, even Sue Gray might be so shocked at what she finds out that she cannot contain her criticism.

The point of this post is to draw attention to the aftermath of PMQ's last Wednesday when so many people called on Boris Johnson to resign, not leas the leader of the Conservative Party in Scotland, Douglas Ross. The Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg dismissed the remarks Ross made by saying he is a 'lightweight' politician, which might actually be true, but in the context of Anglo-Scottish relations seems to emphasize how indifferent the English are to Scotland, suggesting Independence is a virtual reality for Rees-Mogg.

But the icing on this inedible cake came when Adam Tomkins, who 99.9% of the public have never heard of, said of Douglas Ross

'“Douglas is a man of principle and a man of steel"...


Hmmmm....one wonders where Douglas Ross is leading the Scottish Conservatives. To the Graveyard of political office?

[obslam]

I have to say thank you very much indeed to whoever it was who told me how to block posters.

It's surprising how much fun it is seeing from the front screen that the usual victim has posted what I am sure is his usual total and utter dross, but knowing that if I accidentally click on that thread I won't have to see his toxic bilge.

[Stavros]

I have to say thank you very much indeed to whoever it was who told me how to block posters.

It's surprising how much fun it is seeing from the front screen that the usual victim has posted what I am sure is his usual total and utter dross, but knowing that if I accidentally click on that thread I won't have to see his toxic bilge.


Indeed, such is the 'total and utter dross' of my post, quoting English and Scottish Conservatives, that even one of the most passionate supporters of Brexit, Andrew Bridgen MP, has sent his letter to the 1922 Committee withdrawing his support for Boris Johnson, and calling for the election of a new leader of the Conservative Party.

What is being blocked here, my personal politics, or the facts as presented to the world by the men who voted to leave the European Union? Poor obslam is missing out on his opportunity to tell us if he thinks Boris Johson should remain Prime Minister, or Resign.

Not holding my breath on this one, but he may yet respond if he reads the post via others which quote mine. Funny old world, innit?

[Nick Danger]

Indeed, such is the 'total and utter dross' of my post, quoting English and Scottish Conservatives, that even one of the most passionate supporters of Brexit, Andrew Bridgen MP, has sent his letter to the 1922 Committee withdrawing his support for Boris Johnson, and calling for the election of a new leader of the Conservative Party.

What is being blocked here, my personal politics, or the facts as presented to the world by the men who voted to leave the European Union? Poor obslam is missing out on his opportunity to tell us if he thinks Boris Johson should remain Prime Minister, or Resign.

Not holding my breath on this one, but he may yet respond if he reads the post via others which quote mine. Funny old world, innit?

I'm quoting you, Stavros. So Obslam can see your post.

[broncofan]

I have to say thank you very much indeed to whoever it was who told me how to block posters.

It's surprising how much fun it is seeing from the front screen that the usual victim has posted what I am sure is his usual total and utter dross, but knowing that if I accidentally click on that thread I won't have to see his toxic bilge.
I'm not going to downvote your post which I was inclined to do but I don't understand blocking posters unless you're being harassed or something. Even then it's a choice I probably wouldn't make. Can't you just not read his posts or read them and disagree?

[Stavros]

Boris Johnson today-
“I can’t believe we would have gone ahead with an event that people said was against the rules … nobody warned me it was against the rules, I am categorical about that – I would have remembered that,” he told Sky News."

This is simply absurd -it was Boris Johnson who appeared on TV to tell everyone what the rules would be, and now he is saying he needed someone else to tell him? The man is an idiot. Like constantly saying we must wait for Sue Gray's report to tell hm what he already knows!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/18/boris-johnson-nobody-warned-me-no-10-party-was-against-the-rules

We now wait for the 1922 Committee rather than Sue Gray to move this unhappy chapter in English politics to the next rung on the ladder, going down.

[obslam]

I'm quoting you, Stavros. So Obslam can see your post.

LOL, if i wanted to read the poisonous drivel I could unblock the poisonous poster.

[Stavros]

I'm not going to downvote your post which I was inclined to do but I don't understand blocking posters unless you're being harassed or something. Even then it's a choice I probably wouldn't make. Can't you just not read his posts or read them and disagree?


obslam chooses not to debate, and is free to say nothing, or dismiss what I say as poisonous drivel. It says more about him than it does about Brexit, but nobody needs to get upset with obslam as the end result does not change the fact that the UK has left the EU.

Boris Johnson, on the other hand, as one of the principal architects of this disaster, is claiming to have 'Got Brexit Done' when the negotiations with the EU continue, albeit on the 'back burner' at the moment. It might be thought a brazen cheek for anyone to say we have 'moved on' when the simmering crisis in Northern Ireland has not been resolved, as the new Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, who now has responsibility for Brexit, is like Lord Frost before her making threats to annul the Northern Ireland Protocol, just as the DUP in Northern Ireland is desperately trying to hold on to what appears to be a shriking constituenct of 'Loyalists', as Northern Ireland appears to be better off inside the EU rather than outside it. As for the new rules that came into force on the 1st of January, these may continue to have a negative impact on the UK's trade with the EU as the demand, notably with regard to food, for Proof of Origin places yet more bureaucatic burdens and costs on small and medium sized enterprises. All of this contrary to the promises, bogus all, made by Johnson during the 2016 Referendum and after,

But just as there is a segment of the population that thinks Covid as as much an over-rated problem as Climate Change, the opporunity to debate these issues and even to change minds is limited, when minds are made up, and no amount of facts will chage them.

[Stavros]

It just won't go away, and is if anything, getting worse.

So there you are in the Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street (that's the one in London, England, not Greenwich Village, New York, New York), the table is set with snacks from Marks & Spencer, with a birthday cake in the centre of the table. 30 people assemble to sing Happy Birthday! to the Birthday Boy himself, Boris Johnson -and all of it as clear a violation of the rules on Social Distancing that he pronounced with such Solemnity and in such Grave Tones not long before it.

"Boris Johnson’s gathering with birthday cake in the cabinet room was not a party, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, has said, denying the prime minister had organised the event.
“The prime minister clearly didn’t organise to be given a cake,” Shapps told Sky News after the latest revelations about lockdown breaches (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/24/boris-johnsons-lockdown-birthday-party-pm-faces-anger-from-mps-and-bereaved) in Downing Street. “Some people came forward and thought it would be appropriate for on his birthday.”
But he suggested it was “unwise” for the prime minister have been given a cake at the gathering of staff. He told BBC Radio 4 Today that he shares “the sense of unease about all of this”.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/25/cake-and-singing-boris-johnson-birthday-not-a-party-say-grant-shapps

The unease? Because we know about it now, because those who knew what the rules were took the 'sod it' view that such rules were drawn up for the Mugs, aka the British Public, and are now facing the prospect of being grilled by the Meropolotan Police. All of which enables Johnson to delay the Gray Report until the Police Report and to comment on neither until then.

Delay, delay. But can he delay his last day in office indefinitely? He will try, because he has no shame, doesn't think he has done anything wrong, and is destined to lead the UK out of the European Union and into a new era of Global Britain. Cue trumpets, drums for the Prime Minister.

As for us -we don't even get to eat cake. Just eat shit.

[Stavros]

"Foreign Office emails appear to contradict Downing Street’s insistence that Boris Johnson (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson) did not personally authorise the controversial rescue of cats and dogs from a British animal charity in Afghanistan."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/26/emails-suggest-boris-johnson-authorised-afghanistan-animal-rescue-despite-denials

Woof woof?
Woof!
Wooo....

[Stavros]

"The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “It’s not uncommon in Whitehall for a decision to be interpreted or portrayed as coming directly from the prime minister even when that’s not the case, and it’s our understanding that’s what happened in this instance. We appreciate it was a frenetic time for those officials dealing with this situation.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/28/kabul-animal-airlift-foreign-office-says-sorry-for-misleading-mps-on-no-10-emails

Ah so, when 'No 10' is reported to approving this or that, be it in a crisis or over a holiday weekend, it doesn't mean the Prime Minister was involved.

So who is running the country wearing a badge that says 'Prime Minister'? And where does he work? Er, No 10. Which part of London is No 10 in? Whitehall.

And again, that is an address in London, Engand, not New York, New York. (And I only mention this trivia because I used to know someone who lived on that little street in the Village).

[Stavros]

Sue Gray has published an 'Update' of her report INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGED GATHERINGS ON GOVERNMENT PREMISES DURING COVID RESTRICTIONS.

She describes a 'failure of leadership', so how has 'the leader' responded? 'Sorry'. And further action must wait for the full report to be completed -he will decide if it is published in full, while the Metropoltan Police complete their report, not forgetting this means the Prime Minister of the UK is one of the people subject to this criminal investigation.

Over 100 people were arrested by the Metropolitan Police in London in early November 2020 for violating Covid regulations, but none of them were in the offices of the Prime Minister.

How much longer can this hypocrite remain in office? Probably longer than many want.

Gray's report, not that long, is here-

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/21193251/investigation_into_alleged_gatherings_on_governmen t_premises_during_covid_restrictions_-_update.pdf

[Stavros]

I must call it 'Putin's Penumbra' being that shadowy world occupied by Oligarchs and their minions, intelligence men, internet sleuths and who knows who else....linked to the Conservative Party in general, and Boris Johnson in particular.

The man who brazenly trumpets his leadership in the defence of Ukraine has been up to his neck in Russian cash, as the Russia Report might tell us. For that matter, since it is claimed Boris had an affair with the Russian violinist 'Olga D' (who can that be?) in 2020 if not before and since, Boris has been what, 'up to his wick' in Russian affairs? Then there is the relationship he has with a man called Ben Elliot, who is sort of in and out of Putin's Penumbra.

And then there is Brexit....and a campaigin infiltrated and manipulated by the Russians, who also dabbled in our elections, as Theresa May made public in 2017 when Johnson was Foreign Secretary and asked about this and said, categorically 'No' the Russians had not done that. As for the FBI investigating Russia's 'operatives' operating in London.....

Carol Cadwalladr has multiple tweets on this issue, if you have time to read through them.

Get Brexit Done! Defend the Ukraine! Invite me to your Villa again, Lev! Fancy a vodka, Olga?

The truth is out there, who will open the X Files so we can see it? But stay clear of the Kreuzer Sonata.

https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1499482812889681921?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcam p%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

[Stavros]

After a thousand days of lies and corruption and incompetence, allow Professor Peter Hennessy to make the judgment on one of the worst Prime Ministers in history-

"On Sunday (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61134002), the distinguished constitutional sage Peter Hennessy – not exactly given to intemperate public statements – declared of Johnson’s failure to resign for breaking the actual law: “I think we’re in the most severe constitutional crisis involving a prime minister that I can remember.” Describing Johnson as “a rogue prime minister, unworthy of [the Queen]”, Hennessy went on to judge him “the great debaser in modern times of decency in public and political life, and of our constitutional conventions – our very system of government”. As his diary entry for the day Johnson’s police penalty was revealed reads: “I cannot remember a day when I have been more fearful for the wellbeing of the constitution.”

Seriously, Tory party, there is no pooper scooper big enough to clear up Johnson’s constant mess | Marina Hyde | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/19/tory-party-boris-johnson-breaking-laws)

[Stavros]

The party that elected Boris Johnson is now voting to either keep him or replace him. In the meantime, Lions Led by Donkeys has a couple of video accounts of his 'colourful' life...see them here-

Led By Donkeys (@ByDonkeys) / Twitter (https://twitter.com/ByDonkeys?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembe d%7Ctwterm%5E1533765420427186179%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon %5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.co.uk%2Fe ntry%2Fboris-johnson-confidence-vote-led-by-donkeys_uk_629dff27e4b016c4eefbbcf9)

[rodinuk]

comedy or tragedy?

Final Standings:

Resignations Premier League: Government/Party 59 Boris 3

Boris relegated

[rodinuk]

Boris resigns after seeing the Partygate report, Nadine Dorries resigned earlier having been snubbed by her heartthrob. The theory being that by not sending her to the Lords this allowed Tories avoiding a by-election. As hell has no fury like a woman scorned Dorries immediately resigned thereby forcing the dreaded by-election.

[Stavros]

Boris -I AM THE NEWS!- Johnson, perpetually obsessed with himself to the exclusion of all others. I am sick of all this 'entertainment' politics, be it Boris or Trump, neither of whom have a shred of interest in the countries they live in, no significant policies on the cost of living, homelessness, climate change, education and health, transport and infrastructure. It is no surprise that like some second-rate Hollywood He-Man, Boris is leaving, he claims, -for now, as if in a year or two years' time the people will yearn for him to return to front line politics. He became Mr Brexit, then Bungled it, because in the end, he really didn't care one way or the other as long as he was making headlines and using his fame to make a fortune.

As for those multiple injunctions to prevent the media reporting on his affair(s) with one or two Russian beauties when he was supposed to be attending COBRA meetings to co-ordinate the UK's response to Covid -will the Enquiry find out where he was at the time? There is even more dirt waiting to be smeared on the front pages, but he needs to be in control of the message or his lucrative lecture tours might come to an end.

I hope we are at the beginning of the end of these clowns, liars and murderers like Johnson, Trump, Putin and Netanyahu, all of whom are functionally incompetent, all of whom have damaged their brand but more importantly, their countries. I would like to think a better generation of politicians is waiting to take command, but I have become cynical in my mature years though I am prepared to be pleasantly surprised. But it doesn't look promising right now.

[holzz]

https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/signs-sociopath

Matches many of these traits.

Can't accept when he's wrong.
No remorse.
Always the victim.
Only good thing in office was getting Brexit "done". Which wasn't that hard since his treaty and May's weren't that different.

What a waste of space he is.

The fact he might be plotting how to get back shows his ASPD in full flow.

[holzz]

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/boris-superb-underrated-pm-rachel-johnson/

Yes. Very objective. Who would ever think of badmouthing one's sibling in public???

[Stavros]

That he is putting his personal interests in place of the country is of no surprise to anyone familiar with the man's modus operandi -after all, his primary aim in heading the Leave campaign in 2016 was to get rid of David Cameron. When they were at Eton -albeit in different years- Johnson referred to Cameron as a little twerp and was thus incensed when he became leader of the Party and then Prime Minister. But look, Johnson now has something like 9 children who need looking after, and that is going to require a lot of money. He needs to be generating income, and as long as the media think he is a good story, they will run together. Just as if Trump is relegated to the margins of US politics, he will insist on forcing himself on the US public, and the US media will oblige, like some ageing soap star.

[filghy2]

But look, Johnson now has something like 9 children who need looking after, and that is going to require a lot of money.

It seems to be a thing for these right-wing types to father lots of children with multiple mothers. Elon Musk has had 10. Is it just an extension of narcissism to want to propagate your genes widely, or are they trying to do their bit to offset the Great Replacement?

[Stavros]

It seems to be a thing for these right-wing types to father lots of children with multiple mothers. Elon Musk has had 10. Is it just an extension of narcissism to want to propagate your genes widely, or are they trying to do their bit to offset the Great Replacement?

Probably something less grand, as in: 'I don't use condoms', why, dear, because you are a real man?

Given the serial infidelity of the man it may just be luck that he hasn't been a visitor to the Middlesex. I've been, once, and once was enough!

He has taken out super injunctions against the media to stop them reporting on his 'dalliances' with Olga, a Russian violinist when he was supposed to be attending COBRA meetings to co-ordinate the UK's response to the worst public health emergency in 100 years.

His first wife Marina Wheeler estimates he was unfaithful at least 10 times during their marriage, and this link has a roll call of his mates, should you have time on your hands, and want a variation on the Henry VIII memory slate: Divorced, Beheaded, Died; Divorced, Beheaded, Survived; which in Johnson's case is Married, Divorced, Bedded.

I reckon in spite of all this, Trump has got through more lawyers than Johnson has got through women's underwear as London's most notorious 'swordsman' (must be an Eton thing).

I Am Incorrigible on Twitter: "And if the UK press knows about the super injunctions, why have they still chosen to promote Johnson's wedding as being about star-crossed lovers, rather than a match between a power hungry parvenue and a man whose face appears next to the definition of infidelity on Wikipedia? https://t.co/T4YglvK4yQ" / Twitter (https://twitter.com/ImIncorrigible/status/1399279706269224965)

[Stavros]

So now we are in Julius Caesar land, so deluded is this political failure. The Emperor obviously doesn't need to abide by the rules that apply to former Ministers of the Crown...

"In his his first column [for the Daily Mail], Mr Johnson does allude to one political betrayal – using quotes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar about the Roman Emperor’s relationship with Cassius.He claims to have noticed a Cabinet colleague’s weight loss during his time in government and wondering how they had achieved it.
“I immediately thought of Julius Caesar, and his preference for well-fed colleagues,” he writes.
“‘Let me have men about me that are fat,’ said the Roman dictator, shortly before his assassination. ‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.’ As it turned out, Caesar was right to be worried about Cassius.”
Johnson uses first column to discuss weight-loss drug amid claims of rule breach (yahoo.com) (https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/johnson-uses-first-column-discuss-165457706.html)