The Tory lead on the economy, long their strength, has gone.
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There are some encouraging shoots, amid the gloom and chaos. Starmer has been too gentle hitherto; suddenly he took a ruthless line with Johnson at PMQs today; finally homing in coldly on Johnson’s fatal weakspot, that transparently rattled the PM. Johnson’s sly use of public and private audiences is made to present different, protean persona, or contradictory messages to the world; playing with innuendo and deniable references against opponents, that are used to exploit public division and anger; a classic propaganda technique.
Starmer momentarily cornered the basic shiftiness of it all; that led to Johnson’s frightened and feeble bluster about Starmer being “out of his tiny mind”. Who could resist such deft, effortless wit? Almost everybody, including his own cringing Conservative back-benches, now slowly looking around for a way out from the bright spotlight soon coming their way, and falling on just how much of Johnson’s guff they swallowed; how will they show they fronted-up to this obvious gross demeaning of high office and Parliamentary standards, when the measure of them as politicians is finally taken?. Then they look around the Conservative front bench, and all hope of salvation falters.
Nothing was more preposterous than Johnson back-tracking on a veiled criticism of the BBC, when Starmer pointed to the risks BBC journalists are taking by reporting near the front in Ukraine. We reached the level of toe-curling farce when Johnson described himself as a “journalist”; remember he built his sorry reputation by writing carelessl ‘sourced’ stories on the EU – and indeed was sacked from one job, by ‘The Times’ for making up a quote: for informed background on the problem read Max Hastings, his boss at the ‘Daily Telegraph’; in, ‘I was Boris Johnson’s boss: he is utterly unfit to be prime minister’; The Guardian, 24th June, 2019. Hastings described Johnson as a “weak character”, and in a ruthless demolition of his character he makes this telling observation: “I came across an observation made in 1750 by a contemporary savant, Bishop Berkeley: ‘It is impossible that a man who is false to his friends and neighbours should be true to the public.’ Almost the only people who think Johnson a nice guy are those who do not know him.” Hastings also claimed Johnson “has long been considered a bully, prone to making cheap threats.” Now we are approaching the territory Starmer has finally addressed.
Starmer has at last taken the tough line of attack against which Johnson has no defence, and which leads the PM to reveal his real, divisive, cynical, self-serving persona. Starmer should take that route going forward in the Commons, and press it home to the very end.
Agreed
Starmer has had a good two days
He needs many more
So right, John. I have been waiting for such exchanges by Starmer for a long while. Now they have come, they must continue.
Terrific quote from Hastings, John. Thanks for the reminder.
“Which government do you think would be better for tackling the government’s deficit?”
It’s interesting that polls such as these ask this sort of leading question, as if this should policy actually be pursued.
Worrying and dangerous.
Agreed
But that is the narrative right now
Completely ignorant assumptions underlying the question. No understanding of macroecon at all.
The Tories might be pleased about this, insisting that markets determine outcomes and so on. The rest of us might just think that they are a busted flush.
If we needed reminding, the financial crash of 2007-8 was the final, chilling, and crushing demonstration that when the chips are down – the markets are always, and unavoidably the biggest busted flush. It is the sovereign issuer of the currency and receiver of taxes who is, ultimately the lender (and more critically in modern money markets), the dealer of last resort.
Liquidity is the master of markets; and at the last ditch, liquidity has only ever one master.
From a Labour perspective I think it’s still the belief that they caused the entire global financial crisis a decade ago all by themselves. People still seem to believe that.
Please, tell me it ain’t so. How could anyone be so dim as to continue to believe something like this.