I posted this Twitter thread this morning:
Johnson has gone, protesting his innocence to the end. To understand what has happened it it vital to understand one critical thing, which is that he is a pathological liar. He lies continuously and has not the slightest idea that he is. Nor does he recall doing so. A thread…
Boris Johnson's behaviour has always been inexplicable. His masters noted the fact at Eton. Yesterday's tirades, making accusations of n conspiracy, kangaroo courts and absence of evidence were much the same.
The Johnson phenomenon makes no sense unless it is simultaneously understood that he lied, was expedient, and straightforwardly misled but never once understood that he was doing so - because he could always convince himself he was telling the truth and then forget all he said.
This has always been the Johnson way. When he wrote dodgy articles for newspapers he did not, in his opinion, make stuff up. He just met a deadline. And when he told the Commons there would be no border with Ireland in the Irish Sea, he honestly meant it.
In both cases, an untruth was said. It is just that Johnson did not recognise that. He had simply said or done what was required in the moment, and because it worked in that moment the truth of what was said was, to him, utterly inconsequential.
That's because, for Johnson, there is no past or future. All that matters is winning the moment. If a lie achieves that, then lying is OK. And without a past or future in his timeline Johnson did not recognise the relevance or meaning of lies: all that matters to him is the present.
The Johnson phenomenon was built on this. So big were the lies, and so bold the telling, that people fell for them. Or rather, those that were similarly expedient did so. Most did not. The chancers saw an opportunity. The rest looked on in horror.
The trouble was there were sufficient chancers for a very long time. Their motives varied. The Red Wall saw Johnson as a way to snub the neoliberal elite. The right-wing Tories saw him as an extension of their own fantasies that are based on economic lies.
Those who needed a tool found one. Johnson's excesses were cover for their own false claims, whether that be that Brexit or austerity might work. So over the top was he that they thought they might just succeed in their own falsehoods, all designed to feather their own nests.
Johnson will never appreciate this. It has to be understood that he is incapable of doing so. The moral compass; the awareness of obligation; the worry about being found out; the concern for the future and the ability to comprehend that most of us have is unknown to him.
Instead, all he has is a self-belief that justifies, without scrutiny, everything he has ever said or done, whatever the truth of the claim that he might make about it.
As a result, we have to worry about three things.
The first is that the Tories were mad enough to let such a person become their leader when it was so obvious how deeply flawed his character was.
The second is that until some of those Tories appreciated the impossibility of working with him any longer and resigned less than a year ago — which was the moment of his real defenestration - there was nothing that could be done about this.
We have a system of government where a person out of touch with reality - as Johnson is, at all times - can govern with no effective checks and balances in place to stop him.
And third, that threat is not going away. Johnson will still lie. A whole TV channel (maybe more) now exists to spread his lies. The Telegraph is there to be bought to promote his drivel. And the Mail and Express are already making it clear that they are on his side.
The lies will continue, in other words. Just as Trump has moved politics in the US out of the White House, so will Johnson now try to move politics in the UK out of the Commons, which he sees as his enemy.
Have no doubt that the consequence of all this will be a renewed assault on democracy itself - which the liars will say cannot be trusted. There will be many who will support that. The far-right is alive and far too well in this country.
The trouble is that, as ever, there will be just enough of the truth in what they say for them to get away with their lies. There is a problem with democracy in the UK. It is so flawed it let a man like Boris Johnson become prime minister.
That is precisely why we need proportional representation, so that never again can the government of this country be captured by someone so unfit to govern.
The opportunity to prevent that exists. Labour could deliver PR. The vast majority would welcome it. But there is a catch: they also want minority power. The desire to rule seemingly always exceeds that to do the right thing by democracy and the country.
And so we are at risk. The risk is that Johnson might be gone, but the lies remain. And not only do they remain, but the crippling incapacity within government that they create will continue to shackle us.
So we will be told there is no money, when that is not true.
And we will be told we cannot go back to the EUI when we can.
The hint that we will soon be told that we cannot afford to tackle climate change is now apparent.
And the idea that markets remain supreme when very clearly unfettered market power is destroying all that is of value will stay in place.
Each of these is a lie. They are lies of Johnsonesque proportion. And those telling themselves these lies are very obviously deluding themselves as much as Johnson ever did, and we all know it. But they are the people who want power.
Johnson's legacy has been created over twenty or more years. He has made lying normal. He has permitted the self-deception that now underpins too much of politics. And he created the contempt for the higher principles of public office that demean our democracy.
That means Johnson is far from gone. Even if he slipped silently into the night now (and I think that exceptionally unlikely) his wholly malign influence would remain.
There is, then, not much to celebrate today unless (and this is as unlikely as Johnson going away) the remaining political parties came together now to agree a constitutional programme to prevent someone like him, so unsuited for office, ever governing again.
I can dream that this might happen. But I do not delude myself, unlike Johnson. I think it unlikely. And we might all still pay a horrible price for that. The liars are still winning.
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Johnson is a danger and he still has big money bacikng. The devastation he has left is unforgiveable. Hopefully, voter gullibility will no longer enable him to regain any sort of power. Whinging in the Mail and Telegraph won/t cut the ice it once did.
Who do you think will be persuaded to buy the Telegraph for him to edit?
Lebedev?
Has Lebedev not been banned from this country by Johnson himself?
Did he go to live on Cyprus?
No
He is it actioned here
He was appointed to the Lords, but has only been there once to give his maiden speech; far too busy with the Independent.
Somerset Capital Management LLP?
I thought I was joking at first, but it would have a certain inevitability given his parentage, wouldn’t it?
Could make JRM go bust as well? There’s an idea.
Sounds like a proper full time job- far too arduous for Johnson.
Both Johnson and Trump are using the same excuse: they are victims of a witch hunt which is orchestrated by an elite.
It is complete hypocrisy as both are members of the elite and supported by dark money from Right Wing backers.
It also has the effect of throwing most news into doubt. Conspiracy theories gain traction and objective analysis is challenged by emotion and name calling. The Parliamentary committee are said to know ‘in their heart’ he is innocent, It is a ‘Kangaroo court’ and Sue Gray was in league with Starmer. I have little doubt much of this is deliberate. The truth becomes what they say it is. This is bad for democracy as people lose faith in their institutions, politicians and commentators.
It is also worrying that so many Conservatives and journalists lack the moral courage to condemn the behaviour. Patriots they are not.
What an awful day this is.
In order to bring down one of the most corrupt individuals (morally and operationally) ever to have entered No. 10, Parliament has had to resort to mostly looking at some parties he had during lock down rather than the serious acts of omission and commission that he made in plain sight of everyone.
On top of that, his honours list has been waived through by the current prime minister. And – like George Osbourne – I’m sure Johnson will go on the speech circuit and make millions on the back of how he made everyone else lose such a lot.
To me this is beyond a pyrrhic victory in its badness. To me it solves nothing about the state of our politics at all.
I had to put with Angela Rayner putting forth this morning on R4 but not even she could spell out the truth of the matter.
And the truth of the matter is – as Richard alludes above I think – that there will be other Johnsons – even now – because in my view of the nature of political funding in this country. All politics and politicians – like Rayner and her boss Stymied – need money and this is the problem.
The architecture of parliament is faulty but that other architecture – the financial one – is even worse and in rude health. It is money that enabled Johnson (I imagine it will be money that enables Stymied to do so little) and we still have not got to the bottom of that yet.
And until we do, the crippled humanity we get as prime ministers will not stop.
Now – back to ‘party gate’.
Just to remove any doubt here, I want talk briefly about my dear mother in law whose name was Wendy. Wendy grew up in North Yorkshire and was bright enough to study sociology at university at a time when women going to university were more the exception than the rule. After Uni, she met my father in law (both were educationally products of Attlee’s enlightened education policies) and they both ended up working for HMG in Africa for a number of years – they had two daughters . When they returned, they both went into education and Wendy became a teacher. After a divorce she went on to become the headmistress of a junior school in a northern town until she retired. In retirement she travelled widely and got involved in all sorts of things. In her 70’s, she found herself strapped into an old Russian helicopter flying out to a village in Rwanda to meet her Australian niece who was working at a women’s rape recovery camp. We have a picture of her reading stories to the Rwandan children also at that camp – apparently the children insisted on touching her face because they had never seen anyone that old before (which tells another story). Wendy was a wise friend to me, helped teach me to drive, generous and a fantastic grand mother to my kids. In her 80’s she developed vascular dementia and had to go into a home where she would eventually be claimed by the disease.
During Covid, we could not see her. So we had to use a laptop. I can still see her lying in her bed looking uncomprehendingly at the little screen with us on it, pulling her blanket up closer and closer as she became more insecure – like a child. The saddest thing I’ve ever seen. A decent person, a productive member of society ending her days isolated from her family because of a miscreant prime minister and his party .
If you weren’t already angry at that point by then when many of us were not able to be with loved ones – well – what sort of person are you? A Tory voter? Someone waiting to be given a selection of what to be outraged at by our fascist media perhaps – ripe for manipulation? Is it because you just like parties? I don’t know.
My family and I were already angry by that time – the Johnson Covid denial problem, the non-shows at COBRA meetings, the lack of PPE and austerity, moving the elderly out of hospital because adult social care had not been sorted out – ALL these factors caused Wendy to effectively live away from the only living links to a past that her brain was unable to retain for her anymore. God, she must have been so lonely as her own light went out. All of that was pretty shocking before any bloody parties I can tell you.
And all we have today is theatre in my view – pure theatre. With all that critical failure of leadership, strategic and day to day management it’s just down to some parties and bit of booze. How typically modern day English this feels – brought down by ‘aving it large’. I get no sense of satisfaction at all, and only the sense that Johnson (with his faux outrage) and his motley crew have got away with it with big grins on their faces and a middle finger to us all.
Someone tell me where the justice is in this please because I do not see it or feel it. We settled for the least worse reason to condemn someone and…. I don’t know…………I can’t help but feel nothing is going to change and our own standards are somehow slipping or maybe gone.
Thanks for sharing PSR
I share your fury and disgust PSR. I have a similar story in that the last three months of my mother’s life myself and more importantly my late father only saw her in her nursing home a few hours before her demise when she was no longer conscious. And not together either, but one at a time due to the COVID restrictions. My parents were married just over 60 years, and my dad already had felt guilty about her being in a nursing home, but at least before COVID he’d been able to see her regularly.
And 11 days after she died, my dad did. I’m pretty sure that he simply gave up after that.
Thanks Johnson, you disgusting, worthless piece of crap And thanks too, as Richard has noted, to all his enablers in his revolting party and our vile right wing press.
Justice of a sort has been done I suppose in that his own hubris has brought him down. But he leaves an appalling legacy, normalising lying, scapegoating and conspiracy theory stab in the back rubbish.
So sorry
And thanks for sharing
My wife said goodbye to her mother through a window….
SoD
I’m with you mate – that’s all I can say. My parents passed before all of this and all I could think was thank goodness they did not have to live to die through it.
But even thinking that should not be, should it? The least that we require as a society of a government is that there is a plan, that there is money to deal with these things.
All Covid did was amplify how little we value the elderly. It was shameful.
And what is worse is that useless fucks who run the country just give the idea of ‘the state’ a bad name.
One of the objections to PR is that it leads to coalition government. What these critics forget is that political parties are each coalitions of slightly different ideas and the ones that are successful at election time are the ones that impose an iron discipline on their members. The tensions that were thus disguised are then worked out through cabinet appointments and resignations; hardly the best way to run a country. Much better that the policies that are fought over in coalitions are at least more representative of public opinion at the time.
Agreed
The key to functioning democracy is I think something along the lines that Gramsci said – that even your worst opponent’s point of view has a kernel of truth to it.
Hannah Arendt advocated this too in a way and urged us to understand fascism by getting to the bottom of the issues that are inflated and driven by it to snuff it out or at least control it.
To me, this should always be the perennial great political project in any society – talking, understanding and achieving some form of compromise or win/win.
The problem with modern politics is that it does not work like this.
Politics today thrives on differences – all sorts of difference such as inequality (of money, of power, of information, of support) and ultimately successful politics is seen as the politics of dominance. Big mistake.
So politics is pretty much fucked up. It’s no wonder many of us fear for the future of species. The planet will change and whilst this galaxy we are in exists and the sun is stable , it will survive us, but we will not survive it if we don’t change.
A new politics is the key.
All your comments resonate with me Richard. To pick up a couple of points you make.
The damage and suffering that he and his like cause is simply immeasurable and ongoing.
We need a coalition to deliver PR. Labour hold the keys and the membership membership have indicated their support.
I travel in hope. His past had caught up with him as it has for Trump
Johnson (and Trump) are surely brilliant case-studies for psycho-analysts?
I would like to posit two possibly controversial (for this forum!) views:
– Johnson MAY not be a liar (!)
– UK is not / was never a democracy
A lie is a deliberate falsehood; I could be convinced that Johnson – like Alice – lives in a parallel universe where everything is just as he wants it to be, cf he really has no concept of any difference between his own ‘truth'(?) and reality, thus he will act according to what is most expedient – for him – in the moment.
This is great for say an after-dinner speaker; possibly not so for someone purporting to run a country.
The UK is ‘officially’ a REPRESENTATIVE democracy – ‘somewhat’ a contradiction in terms when you pull apart what that means. Not only that, the whole Constitution is predicated on being run by good chaps – another case study as to whether it should continue?
I generally agree, although I suppose you could argue that the currency and bond markets somewhat work as an effective check and balance, as shown by Truss losing to a vegetable. Not terribly convinced that’s a good thing though, as said markets are typically controlled by people with more money than morals.
It’s weird, because if only they understood money they could call their bluff
A very good post. This line struck me:
“He had simply said or done what was required in the moment, and because it worked in that moment the truth of what was said was, to him, utterly inconsequential.”
This could have been written about Starmer.
Liebore is lining itself up to win mendacious-fatberg’s seat. It would be very unfortunate if it were to do so – since it would result in another party that continuously lies and led by a liar, holding the seat. Voters deserve better.
& I fully support PSR’s comments, because even with M-F gone – nothing will change – packs of liars, left, right and centre.
FPTP a Liar’s Charter! No wonder Starmer doesn’t want to make implementing PR a priority! Getting the electorate to realise all of this even after the obscenity of Boris Johnson is like pulling teeth!
A brilliant tirade . Thank you , I have shared this with many this morning.
Inexplicable? Nah. Psychopathy explains it.
Thanks PSR. Useless Fucks sums up the current government and it’s supporters perfectly.
https://www.facebook.com/martin.dimery/videos/966181104804810
Martin is a Green Councillor and a real musician
It made me laugh
Very good
Richard
I wonder if Johnson realised that the day he resigned was the 40th anniversary of Corbyn being MP for Islington North. Not that he’ll be bothered, of course, as he only thinks about himself.
I truly despair ! Johnson should be Sectioned. Are there any Conservative politicians with sufficient ability . They’re as mad as a box of Frogs, and sick with in breeding and probably criminally insane. They are so Bland !
‘ bit off-topic – unless you believe “has gone” means never to return:
If poor ol’ Boris has now had his wish-list mostly approved, logic dictates that end of July could see the next ex-PM’s: SIR Alexander Kerfuffle Boris Johnson would really serve only to increase his speaking fee (proof if ‘t were needed that there really is “one born every minute”), whereas LORD Johnson (II) gets him back in parliament, albeit politically impotent (although, reading Sir Ben Houchen’s statement perhaps I need a rethink: https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media/FySs_LNXgAAziuc.png ).
He might therefore do a Anthony Wedgewood Benn, lol – or simply a Nige?
Uncharacteristicly (sic) Boris has now absented himself from what he believes is to come: so the PC’s report will now have an etherial target, HoC will no longer be required to vote etc., thus he may well in future shape-shift reality to be that HE did the decent thing?
There are still constituencies where he could win as an independent. That would put CCHQ in a bit of bind – but if they have any sense (lol), they realise this already, so if I were they, I’d be liaising to see if Johnson was looking a go elsewhere… Henley?
– But he don’t want no ‘just an MP’.
My money would be on that since this country is in such a state, with the best will in the world, no-one can ‘succeed’ in a single parliamentary term, so the Tories – in opposition – see their best bet at salvation as being some world king on a white charger. Whom that might be I couldn’t say(!)
Although, the way things are going the parliamentary party will by then (or even next week?) be a completely different beast from that it is now.
https://nitter.net/JohnHarris1969/status/1667621245536333825
Laura Kuenssberg said this morning (BBC TV) that “friend of foe, Boris Johnson has defined our times”. This neatly reverses the real point. Turn it upside down (neoliberals always have everything the wrong way round), and you catch the real significance. Or times defined Boris Johnson. His career was ‘toast’ even before it began, if Britain and British poilitics had not descended below the political Plimsoll Line: the Sewer Line. We sank to the point that we elected a Johnson and elevated him to PM. This is not and accident. all you have to do is distort your standards sufficiently that anything goes.
Why does Kuenssberg do this? I surmise because the BBC wishes to protect the illusion; it isn’t anyone’s fault, it is just a bad apple. We have heard that before. The last thing the BBC will ever do – is blame the electorate. Who is going to tell it ‘as it is’: You voted for him, you bust the economy, there is no way out, and you allowed an electoral system that ensures it will happen again.
I’ve said before and feel free to disagree but we know that the public are lied to by politicians, they are lied to by the media and badly informed by their education – even in Universities – economics anyone or a PPE?
These lies become received wisdom – from middle class coffee mornings or squash matches to working class nights out or on the factory floor.
Look at the way Corbyn was treated and his threat put over to the public and then look at what we’ve ended up with?
All of it facilitated by lies and the herd instinct of certain groups and the media – as well as huge amounts of cash. And believe you me, the only bit of socialism or solidarity going on anywhere at the moment is where the rich stick together and get the politicians they want for us.
Then, bewildered, most people will just blame politics or government itself rather than blame themselves and the neo-liberal project – so cunning – keeps silently moving on, .
We cannot blame the public for that in my opinion. This digging in of wealth into society is perhaps Thatcher’s biggest triumph.
Make ’em rich, and they’ll back you forever, because they’ll have too much to lose if they don’t. That’s what she did. That’s what lives on.
PSR
Socialism is alive and well; it mysteriously appears when there are existential losses that require to be covered ( ‘ banks are still doing quite well, n’est pas?)
Thank you Richard and a big thank you to PSR and SoD. I think your judgement on Johnson’s disregard for truth hits the mark perfectly. I also agree we badly need to move to a proportional electoral system. However, it should not be seen as a kind of panacea. I look around and see Italy’s hybrid system where a majority of seats (62.5%) are filled proportionally and still they managed to end up with Berlusconi and now Meloni. I think we need a wider constitutional settlement to include the Lords and governance of media ownership and control. But even then then there will always be would-be hijackers of freedom and democracy; if they were absent or silenced we would indeed know we were being ruled by an unaccountable self-perpetuating oligarchy. Spain’s media scene is reasonably balanced and elections are by the d’hondt proportional system but I worry we may see Deputy Prime Minister Abascal lording it in Madrid come August. Eternal vigilance, I suppose.
In my view we need to cleanse political discourse of fascism – the constant pointing out of differences and small gripes between social groups, them and us. The politics of division.
To me these factors are anti-social.
We need the language of true pluralism and accommodation and bring us together to understand each others POV.
And we need to deal with inequality. If these can be addressed, the species has a chance.
The blueprint for change already exists. It was tried and tested in the 3 decades after 1945 .The Attlee Government implemented social democracy. It wasn’t perfect but it gave the working class living standards my Mum and Dad didn’t dare to dream of. They constantly reminded me of their young lives in the 1930s. I was born in 1940 as the Battle of Britain raged above. i experienced the full panoply of the changes wrought by that administration. To be fair the Mcmillan Tories stuck to the plans. We had real full employment. In the sixties I changed Jobs half a dozen times before finding the right job . Living standards rose every year. I was the eldest of 5 children. All of us had a home of our own before we were 30. Working class kids went to uni. Opportunities arose for in the arts and classical music . My boyhood friend Patrick Stewart became a world class actor. That would have been out of the question had it not been for the Attlee Government. Britain became the world leader in pop music. Those bands formed by kids from ordinary backgrounds were the result of social democracy and a more equal society. One of the Tories greatest falsehoods is the claim that socialism hold back talent. It is the exact opposite. The free market gives massive advantage to those with wealth. George Orwell wrote in 1941 that the War could only be won by implementing socialism. In the end he turned out to be absolutely right. In the mess we find ourselves today people need HOPE. Something to hang on to during the mass suffering visited upon is by 44 years of neoliberalism. I entered this world just after capitalism collapsed. I know what can be achieved because I have lived through better times. Alas, there was a political party willing to make real changes. That party has now eschewed socialism. I was a member of that organisation for 60 years. I am driven to despair. Perhaps some miracle will happen and my Labour Party will reappear.
Thank you
Richard
This is probably the most incisive piece you have ever posted on your site. Thank you.
And I should also like to extend my sympathies to Pilgrim Slight Return and sickoftaxdodgers. There is no doubt that Johnson’s unwillingness to take decisive action to lockdown the country timeously led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, yet no doubt all we will hear is that HMG handled the vaccine roll-out well; which is true, but in context far from the only significant thing.
Thanks Roy. And what is really bad is that others suffered even more; as Richard says, his wife couldn’t even be at her mother’s side when she died, which is really awful. Replicated thousands of times over. That someone like Johnson could ever hold any office of state or position of responsibility is an indictment of the tory party, his backers in our mostly wretched media, and guillible lazy voters.
And of our grotesquely unequal education system where that bastion of privilege and undertaxed wealth Eton churns out people like Johnson and Cameron with their overblown egos and sense of entitlement.
We’ve probably seen the last of Mr Johnson for some time – at least as a leading political figure. We can worry about his veracity, or lack of it, if and when he does resurface again.
We probably all have fairly good idea of what we’ll get from politicians like Sunak, Hunt, Reeves, and Davey. They all may fail to inspire, but, as politicians go, they aren’t particularly dishonest.
I wouldn’t include Starmer in this list. The Starmer of pre-2020 had quite a different persona from the current Starmer. What he promised the Labour faithful then isn’t at all what he’s saying now. Anyone can understand why they feel cheated. I think what we are getting now is the true Starmer but how can anyone, even if they prefer this latest version, be sure about that? Maybe, after the next election, he could change back into what he was before or even adopt a totally new persona entirely! We just don’t know.
I suspect we will hear a great deal more from Johnson, and soon.
He quit to do more politicking