What is there to say in the day after it became apparent that the Tories are intent in foisting Boris Johnson on us as prime minister?
Let's leave personality aside here. What appeals to some may not appeal to others. Let's just stick to facts and policies.
There are two facts above all others that are relevant. He is a liar. His past employers have said so. His Tory bosses have said so. He lied in the referendum campaign and has never apologised.
So, question 1. Do we want a liar as PM?
Then there is the second fact. He is incompetent. He failed in London. The Garden Bridge is the best example, but there are ample others, and he failed again as Foreign Secretary. His staff and support ministers say so. And that we are in a Brexit mess is also proof. He was Foreign Secretary, after all.
So, question 2. Do we want someone who has only ever failed as prime minister?
Then let's move to policy. The man says he'll renegotiate Brexit by 31 October. The EU and his Tory colleagues all say this is impossible. But, I suggest he is not lying. He is deluded instead.
So, question 3. Do we want someone who is deluded as prime minister?
We should then note he is adamant we will leave the EU on 31 October if we have No Deal. The civil service say we are not ready for this and business says it will cause untold harm. But he ignores all the advice, irrespective of the harm it will cause.
So, question 4. Do we want a man as prime minister with such proven ability to ignore sound advice?
After Brexit with No Deal Johnson then says he will then break our international commitment to the EU to pay our outstanding budget contributions. He is, then, contemptuous of the importance of honouring undertakings given.
So, question 5. Do we want a man as prime minister who so willingly ignores commitments voluntarily given, and the risk that this will create for the UK's reputation when it will need all the help it can get?
Last, Boris has said “fuck business”. This was, of course, to dismiss their opinion when they suggested his judgement as to his own best interest when compared to theirs might be wrong. I suspect it's not just business that he holds in contempt in this way.
So, question 6. Do we want a man as prime minister whose only concern is his own well being?
My own answer is unsurprising. But I defy anyone of reasonably sound mind (by which I mean anyone but a Tory MP fearful for their job or a Tory party member of retirement age and independent means) to think otherwise.
And so, question 7. How did we come to this?
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Hi Richard,
I agree with all of that – Johnson has the advantage of higher intelligence but both he and his American equivalent Trump’s most serious flaw is that they are both temperamentally unsuited to high office. This is before one gets to disagreements about policy.
The problem for the conservative party is that their short-term electoral prospects have come to be defined absolutely by Brexit. Just think that David Cameron thought he was putting this issue to rest by having the referendum!
Neil Robertson wrote “Johnson has the advantage of higher intelligence..”
I’m not sure I agree with that. I’d argue that he has been educated beyond his intelligence.
“Johnson has the advantage of higher intelligence..”
But the point is does he ever use it? Spouting pithy Latin quotes is evidence of laziness not intelligence.
@Ken
“I’d argue that he has been educated beyond his intelligence”
I agree with that. Also, Eton has also convinced him of his brilliance and given him boundless and misplaced confidence in his own abilities.
My original comment related specifically to his place on the intelligence spectrum in relation to Trump – which is a fairly low bar 🙂
Another issue is that his written statements are generally better constructed and more coherent than his spoken statements. It’s the rambling, random nature of the latter that betray an unfocused mind that is perfectly capable of producing contradictory and/or utterly incomprehensible statements: hardly an advantage in debate or dialogue, where clarity of thought and expression are crucial, and potentially disastrous in sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations. Eddie Mair talked him into a corner in his now-famous interview and, if that were to happen at the despatch box or EU talks, his premiership would be “hingin’ frae a shoogly peg” (to use on old Scots expression) in no time.
I once saw the man being briefed about an economic issue by one of his advisers.
In that light, I have to beg to differ on his supposedly higher intelligence. Cunning deviousness is not intelligence.
A privileged higher education and a polished accent can be excellent masks for very unremarkable minds.
So no, nothing will now help poor Britain get out of the mess it’s getting itself into with this Johnson selection.
What Richard concentrates on here, the qualities of the future PM, are intrinsically linked to his personality.
Egocentric megalomaniac buffoons rarely make principled reliable competent Leaders.
” Johnson has the advantage of higher intelligence” I don’t any see intelligence in Johnson, I see a waffling buffoon !
Boris is bad enough but, in my view, the 114 MP’s who voted for him are much worse.
Some of his supporters may be so stupid that they don’t believe your assessment.
However, out of 114, there must be some (I believe the majority) who would agree with you but think it’s OK to inflict Boris on the country, along with the massive damage he is likely to cause.
Why would they do that? To save their jobs, and keep their party in power.
They believe in Brexit, but saving their bacon is the most important thing.
8. Why aren’t the votes by the tory MP’s for Al Johnson not secret!
Spiderman fireplace salesman and fired Defence Sec chief whip and DUP go-betweener, Murdoch spiv Gavin Williamson has bullied all Boris voters into taking a photo of their voting slips.
The lemons are happy to be squeezed.
Question number 8:
DEMOCRACY??????…….
How ineffably sad is it that 114 Tory MPs are prepared to vote for someone who lacks the temperament and character to be an effective Prime Minister. I hope those 114 MPs end up paying a price for their irresponsible behaviour.
Nicholas Haines wrote: “I hope those 114 MPs end up paying a price for their irresponsible behaviour.”
Unfortunately, Nicholas, it won’t be the 114 MPs who bear the brunt, it’ll be the less well-off citizens and businesses of the UK who will.
You are right Ken
The other character flaw about which those who’ve worked with or under him often complain is his laziness. He doesn’t read briefing papers and generally speaks off the cuff – hence the gaffes.
I would also ask him about how much involvement American Health Care Companies will be allowed in the NHS if he becomes PM.
“How ineffably sad is it that 114 Tory MPs are prepared to vote for someone who lacks the temperament and character to be an effective Prime Minister. I hope those 114 MPs end up paying a price for their irresponsible behaviour.”
Yet Labour MPs are willing to vote for Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister, to which the above applies much more than Boris.
I’ll answer those questions for you:
1. No we don’t want a liar like Corbyn to be PM. “I didn’t lay a wreath on Terrorists graves”. “I’m not an anti-semite”. Right.
2. As opposed to Livingstone or Khan, who both have much worse track records than Boris, who managed to cut crime, improve transport and build 100,000 homes in London in his time?
3. Again, because Corbyn isn’t deluded at all. “Let’s give the Russians the Novichok and they’ll be honest with us and tell us if it was them or not”.
4. “We don’t have a problem ith anti-semtism in the Labour party because Chami told me so.”
5. “I think we should leave NATO”.
6. Ok you got me there. Corbyn only cares about getting hold of power so he can implement marxist policies in the UK – which would damage everyone else’s well being.
7. Because idiots vote for Corbyn. Which is why he would lose an election to Boris and Labour know it, so people like you are screaming and mewling.
You may have noticed that I have my differences with Corbyn as well
You overstate your case
But I even wonder why you are raising it here
He’s worse than just a liar: don’t forget that he actually conspired with his fraudster friend Darius Guppy to have a journalist beaten up: https://youtu.be/C9MUwBEJRwk.
He should have been charged with criminal conspiracy.
If Johnson wins I think it’s a distinct likelihood that he will be so inordinately pleased with himself he will call a general election.
And that means decision time for Labour.
We came to this because although Boris does not behave very well, his behaviour is still not in-keeping with usual behaviour people have come to expect from politicians whom they don’t trust.
What we know to be a shambles comes across as honesty and smacks of being less of a ‘party foot soldier’, more of his own man to others and this appeals to people at a time when they feel let down by politics.
I tell you what as well – Boris is going to be used by his party to keep it afloat a bit longer to finish the job off . But I think/hope he will make a mess of it as usual and he will be pushed out of the nest at some time by the usual Conservative cuckoos.
If Boris wins the leadership election, he will open his mouth, and then he will lose. No doubt some of the 114 are thinking that Boris can take the heat for Brexit going wrong (as May has been doing) and they will be waiting to take their chance as the leader afterwards.
I’m somewhat surprised so many Conservative MPs are willing to ditch May now, before the full awfulness has come to pass. Boris will undoubtedly be blamed for whatever happens next, and he is not as clever, as charming, or as teflon-coated, as he thinks.
He is an American tax dodger. He was born a US citizen and remained one into in his fifties. He only renounced that citizenship after he realised he could save tax by doing so.
So question 8 could be: Would the USA allow a British tax dodger to lead its government?
PS: I don’t expect too many of your readers are avid viewers of “The Simpsons” but if there are any, can we please start referring to him as “Sideshow Boris”?
To be fair he happened to be born in the USA to British parents and lived there for just the first 3 months of his life. Whilst that may have made him a US Citizen his connections to the USA are tenuous and it appears he never really exercised any of the rights of a US Citizen.
The interplay between US Taxation and UK Taxation is very complicated and expensive to deal with. Things such as spouses being able to inherit the family home are by no means trivial, and when you get into the realms of something which is already complicated like a pension the whole thing can rapidly become a paperwork nightmare.
Investments of all kinds can result in huge amounts of complicated calculation and paperwork filing and that even includes something as simple as keeping cash in a bank account.
If that wasn’t bad enough a US Citizen resident outside the USA could even end up paying tax on losses made when buying and selling an asset (eg a house) if exchange rates make it look like they made a gain in US dollars.
There are so many issues that an increasing number of everyday people are now giving up US Citizenship and many financial institutions will even refuse to offer services to US Citizens which can make their lives very difficult if they do otherwise.
Why is the BBC running a “hustings” for the Conservative leadership election ?. In 2018 there were 124,000 potential voters (Conservative members), a number which may have risen, but why do we have to put up with these right-wing politicians monopolizing the airwaves ? The news is continually filled with items for an event we colossal majority have absolutely no input. Shouldn’t the other parties have an equal opportunity to counter the propoganda of these right wing extremists ? Can’t the Electoral Commission do something about this ?
I wish I could answer those questions
Tom Mills gave some answers in “The BBC: Myth of a public service”. Basically, it’s the creature of the establishment and the government.
Pointing out faults does not make the world a better place. So to answer the questions
1) ALL politicians are liars, they all make promises they know they can’t keep
2) His time as Mayor of London was NOT a total failure! Comparing it with the current one he looks quite good
3) That he is the only one who has indicated that he will give the EU a chance of modifying its position in the face of a co-deal Brexit, I’d have thought you would see him as the least worse.
4) It is convention that no government can bind a subsequent one.
5) Not honouring voluntary commitments isn’t the same as ignoring them. But see 4 above
6) If that was true, the last thing he’d want would be to be PM!
7) Because so many people are blind to the damage the EU institutions are doing to democracy. With the power being held by an un-elected commission, decisions made through obscured council of minister meeting and a parliament that has less power than the Russian Duma and Chinese People’s Congress, compounded by European courts that has self-assigned itself as capable of extending laws beyond the expectations of the politicians who voted for them.
Don’t get me wrong, I have no respect for any of our politicians, but singling out Boris for this type of character assassination is wrong in my view
Peter
Come on…..Boris is a charlatan of a different order
Richard
Johnson is a Pound Shop Trump: he believes and is interested in nothing other than himself.
But actually, that’s no bad thing, because as the ultimate Flake he will co-opt as his own whatever works and disown anything he said previously. Once Brexit is out of the way (and I think Johnson will go with a Brexit without May’s red lines and s..t on anything he promised to the contrary to anyone) then a policy vacuum will be starkly revealed in UK politics.
I don’t believe this policy vacuum can be filled by top down institutions and funding by Treasury, Central Banks or indeed banks as risk middlemen at all. I think we will see communities network in new ways, mobilised by complementary credit creation through people-centric (not machine -centric) financial technology.
In the future, Party will no longer make Policy: Policy will make Party.
Keep hoping Chris
I hope you are well
There is something very satisfying when lefties start to lose it. Pretty much every politician we have now is a liar. No more so than previous generations.
Lest us not forget ‘the leaflet’ before we start accusing people of lying.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/515068/why-the-government-believes-that-voting-to-remain-in-the-european-union-is-the-best-decision-for-the-uk.pdf
Sticks and stones and all that. Being a buffoon does not disqualify one from the highest offices. Has always been the case.
What is so serious about your comment is that you think – as a tax professional in Norfolk – that someone with those traits is acceptable
He could not survive in professional life but you think he’s fine in political life
What does that say about you?
Is it possible the UK is just another puppet state of the US?
Boris is the Trump choice.
Vote (if you get a chance) how you like.
My guess is that 300 odd will give 70000 a choice of two pre-picked droids as the sovereigns rep in the commons.
Controlling the lives of 65,000,000.
And they call it democracy…
Crass? Perhaps.
“How did we come to this?”
We’ve frozen income for regular citizens and multiplied it for execs and rentiers. The tax evasion and avoidance you campaign so eloquently against is a big part of it.
People feel cheated so they prefer “let’s rip it up” charlatans to business as usual continuity candidates.
You can’t let people run the country through votes while simultaneously screwing us without disruptive consequences. Voters are at the stage where dishonest, racist and maverick are seen as better than someone smooth like George Osborne.
Boris will probably win the 2022 General Election especially if Brexit goes badly.
Would it not be great if Boris nominated Chris Grayling as his deputy PM. We would have a vote of no confidence within a year and the Tory party would then vanish without trace.
What ministry will he get to mess up next?
Isn’t No.5 a legal commitment?
That is open to debate
I think it is
Are there no psychological assessments available to answer the points you raise? The Eddie Mair interview quoted by Ken Waldron should give a good basis for even an ‘off-the-cuff’ one I’d have thought… A proven liar, racist, duplicitous, lazy, self-aggrandising buffoon of a wean….
Peter
I think that yours is very instructive comment about the confused state of the contemporary UK electorate.
You conveniently tar all politicians with the same brush because it helps to keep you safe and comfortable within your loyalties and your prejudices I’m afraid – or we could say that you are just partial to what you think you know. You also use this to justify actually backing someone who is even worse than that which you vilify for reasons I set out above.
But stop! Think?
There are one-nation Tories whom I could support and find reasonable (and whom seem to be going through a period de-selection by of all people their local associations – I mean we talk about pogroms of party members in the Left but honestly – Trotsky & Co and any Marxist would be proud of any Tory association electing to deselect true democrats like Dominic Grieve). I think Heidi Allen was right to talk about tactical voting because I think it shows that she knows that FPTP is finished and a new politics is waiting to be born,
There are Labour party politicians whom I have a lot of time for – too many to mention – but the women are very promising as well as some of the men outside of the Corbyn archipelago who I think speak the truth and no doubt there are some in the Lib Dems who do not like the Orange book bollocks that the others carry around who resonate with me.
And then there is Caroline Lucas – I mean what has she done wrong Peter? Nothing as far as I can see.
The problem is you – and too many of the electorate – hide behind your unreasonable blanket assessment that ‘they are all the same’. In doing so, you wilfully cut yourself off from voting for better politicians who would and can solve the problems we have.
One can only conclude that you (and they) have lost faith. All I can say is try to find it again. Throw off the faithlessness. It takes courage but you cannot go on voting for more of the same and then complain about it or the politicians that deliver it.
If you want better politics vote differently next time. Have faith, have courage.
And as for Europe I must point out that this country is the member of a treaty framework – our ministers take part in formulating EU policy and our ministers also exercise discretion and opt out of EU policies that they do not like (like the Euro Peter).
I say this to ensure that you know that the ills you ascribe to the EU are actually the result of what the British domestic Government does or does not do within that treaty framework. Your issues are closer to home than you realise. Can you realise Peter?
Try!
Pilgrim,, please don’t ascrib to me your prejudice. By all means claim, “I think many…”, But don’t presume to know my thoughts. I always look at what actually happens, rather than believe any rhetoric. I then consider where the drivers for those actions are. Thus I conclude a rather distopian political system.
I am neither Left nor Right, but rather Up: As in “Up the lot of them!”
You appear rather anti-Left here Peter
Peter
There is no prejudice on my part at all – merely observation of the false rhetoric that ‘they are all the same’ – written by yourself. They are not all the same Peter.
Also, I cannot possibly second guess someone who says ‘Up the lot of them!’ whilst also defending Boris.
But as I said – your comment is indicative of the often confused and muddled thinking of many voters that people like Boris and Farage are able to exploit.
I do not say they are all the same, While I do assert they are all liar, they do lie about different things.. The self-evident contradictions in every manifesto make it thus. They are prepared to turn a blind-eye, nay support, policies they don’t agree with in order to move forward ones they do agree with. Politicians always claim that compromise is the art of politics, I call it straight dishonesty!
I wish for a political world, where they are people of principle, who ALWAYS vote for and against what they believe in, and accept, with some patience, when they lose.
This thread is about Richard’s playing-the-man-not-the-ball critic on Boris. I look for a comparative critic of all of the viable candidates. I’ll make similar points if the questions were designed to be a character assassination of Corbyn.
I have criticised Corbyn for exactly the reasons you note Peter
But your idea has two fundamental flaws: one, it does not embrace the idea of changing one’s mind and the other? It ignores the need for compromise to create parties
I simply do not accept that party discipline is a good reason for compromising ones views. Corbyn frequently voted against party whip, surely he demonstrates that one CAN vote on ones principles and stay effective as a party!
There is the apocryphal story of the politician who said, if you don’t like my principles, I have others.
Come on Peter – I know you do not think Labour is effective
Simon’s posting at 5.55am today mentions Boris’s racism. Startling evidence of this popped up online today from Boris’s days as editor of The Spectator:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/politics/boris-johnson-published-a-poem-joking-about-the-extermination-of-the-verminous-scottish-people/ar-AACV6O7?ocid=spartandhp
While Boris didn’t write the piece, he must have approved it for publication and it certainly chimes with his on-camera remarks about a pound spent in Croydon being better for the economy than a pound spent in Scotland (which begs the obvious question ‘Whose economy?’) A further question for Richard’s piece could be “Will Boris be responsible for the disintegration of the UK? On current form, the answer is increasingly Yes. The direction of travel is already there and his elevation to PM will only accelerate it.
So much for being a Unionist
Although that philosophy was always, and still largely is, an English construct
Richard,
“So much for being a Unionist
Although that philosophy was always, and still largely is, an English construct”
Please forgive me, but I don’t think that is quite right. Keeping Scotland in the Union is one thing – a matter of ‘realpolitik’; the “philosophy” of Unionism is quite another. The first attempt to propose a philosophical Union was made by the late medieval Scottish philosopher John Mair (1467-1550) in ‘Historia majoris Britanniae, tam Angliae quam Scotiae’ (1521). Mair had a significant influence on later scholars. His principal philosophical opponent on this issue was George Buchanan. It may be argued that in the 18th century Unionism in Scotland broadly becomes a theory of Empire.
I stand corrected
The Boris syndrome tells us we urgently need a Code of Conduct for politicians. They seem to be the only people allowed to lie, misrepresent and make mistakes without apology or corrections, all without any sanctions. Anyone can make an honest mistake of fact but in most occupations you would be expected to correct it and apologise. If an academic concocted fake facts in their research, published and was found out then their reputation would be trashed and unemployment would beckon. Or if the head of a school or Health trust told the kind of lies Johnson tells regularly there would be a public clamour for their dismissal. Yet Johnson sails serenely on to No. 10, a hero to many.
Some kind of Code of Conduct with effective sanctions would prevent the likes of Johnson even becoming an MP, never mind PM.
Agreed
Yes me too – a new constitution must be underpinned by proper and fit human behaviour.
As to a ‘code of conduct’, check this out:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life
Known in short as the ‘Nolan principles’. One might be forgiven for thinking that a number of our politicians fall short.
Thanks…
I would just like to also add that what I am seeing in voters is an unwillingness to accept the Left as the answer to their problems. My view on this remains the same – that there is something wrong in the way the Left presents its micro alternatives to these people in that they maybe actually be counter productive – reinforcing prejudices and loyalty to the Right. The Left is associated with weakness and failure.
This leads me to conclude that it is only macro policy that can unlock this in the form of MMT, GND etc.
Interesting – see the Observer today (I am laid low with hay fever and have not felt like writing…)
Well, I hope you get over it soon – I tend to have periods where I sneeze a lot, get red eyes and then it just goes.
Peter Dawe
Politicians are not all liars Peter. If you look at politicians like this (and please don’t try to wiggle out of this by saying that I am ascribing attributes to you when all I am doing is responding to your very own words) then how can you tell friend from foe? Just because too many sociopaths tend to get on the front bench does not mean that there are no effective and talented, truthful politicians on the back benches or smaller opposition parties.
I say again, a jaundiced, faithless cynical view of things will always retard progress – it will stop the chance or opportunity for change being realised.
It is self defeating Peter – utterly self defeating.
May I also add this – is the Neo-liberal ice age thawing at long last?:
http://blog.spicker.uk/the-economist-is-berated-by-right-wing-libertarians-on-twitter/#respond