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  1. #1
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    Default The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

    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-f...lic/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 201 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-



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    Last edited by Stavros; 08-08-2018 at 05:23 PM.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

    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...becomes-leader


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  3. #3
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    Default Re: The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

    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...n-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-e...d-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...liki-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. However, the “GDP Now” forecast 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 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 for decades to come.

    The National Association for Business Economists June survey produced a median forecast of 2.8 percent growth this year and 2.5 percent next year.
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics...-politics-live
    (at 10.59 am).








  4. #4
    filghy2 Silver Poster
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    Default Re: The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

    Quote Originally Posted by Stavros View Post
    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.


    Last edited by filghy2; 09-11-2018 at 02:58 AM.

  5. #5
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    Default Re: The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

    Quote Originally Posted by filghy2 View Post
    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 that Trump has created three times as many jobs for black workers as his predecessor, President Barack Obama, 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/trum...ven-close.html
    (Statistical graphs provided)



  6. #6
    filghy2 Silver Poster
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    Default Re: The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

    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?



  7. #7
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    Default Re: The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

    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. 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...-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/poli...-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, 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/factch...gnation-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/politic...s-followed-his

    https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/times-bo...son-flat-lied/


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    Last edited by Stavros; 09-12-2018 at 11:30 AM.

  8. #8
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    Default Re: The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

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



  9. #9
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    Default Re: The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

    Mummy! I'm going to be President!



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  10. #10
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    Default Re: The Boris Johnson Show: Not a Comedy

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

    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	borisroundone.jpg 
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    I hate being bipolar...It's fucking ace!

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