Can’t read it as I haven’t subscribed.
He has never really hid who he is. He is an opportunist at the right time and the right place who conned the majority of the country into trusting him.
The major difference between him and Trump is that Boris isn’t as dumb as he portrays, which is deliberate.
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 47 seconds ago
A c-nt?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Absofackinglutely imo
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
comment by GTWI4T- some people deserve to get trolled (U6008)
posted 16 seconds ago
Anyone with any kind of awareness of his historical actions, stances and downright lying knows exactly who he is. The guy is an absolute fraud. Imagine only being Prime minister due to your stance on Brexit. A stance that he doesn't even believe in himself. Literally had two copies of a letter he had written for the telegraph, one being for Brexit and one being against and making an 11th hour decision of which way to go based on what he felt would suit his political career more. A blustering idiot who has zero leadership skills, lies (probably more than any politician in recent history) who has spent his life cheating on pretty much every woman he has ever been with and who is so lazy he has pretty much been kicked out of every job he had. Quite how he became leader of our country based around a silly haircut and using funny sounding words is a sad indictment of where we are as a country and unfortunately, the ineptitude of any kind of opposition leader.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
👍
comment by GTWI4T- some people deserve to get trolled (U6008)
posted 1 minute ago
Anyone with any kind of awareness of his historical actions, stances and downright lying knows exactly who he is. The guy is an absolute fraud. Imagine only being Prime minister due to your stance on Brexit. A stance that he doesn't even believe in himself. Literally had two copies of a letter he had written for the telegraph, one being for Brexit and one being against and making an 11th hour decision of which way to go based on what he felt would suit his political career more. A blustering idiot who has zero leadership skills, lies (probably more than any politician in recent history) who has spent his life cheating on pretty much every woman he has ever been with and who is so lazy he has pretty much been kicked out of every job he had. Quite how he became leader of our country based around a silly haircut and using funny sounding words is a sad indictment of where we are as a country and unfortunately, the ineptitude of any kind of opposition leader.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I wish this wasn't quite so accurate. Joke of an electorate.
To be honest, though I share the author's disdain for Johnson, I didn't think that was a very well-written article if we're talking about defining the PM. We've known for a very long time that he's a shameless, unscrupulous, unserious and utterly unprincipled figure who will brazenly lie or sell out supporters if that benefits his political fortunes.
I don't think he is instinctively authoritarian or conservative. It's just that it's advantageous at the moment to embrace conservative authoritarianism, both from the point of view of maintaining popularity within the ascendant, radicalised right wing of the Tory party, and because it's expedient to chip away at accountability via the courts (reducing power of judicial review), bodies overseeing ministerial misconduct (rulings ignored), popular protest (criminalised), media scrutiny (nominating partisan figures to senior BBC & OFCOM positions, threatening to privatise C4) and democratic elections (voter ID laws that are expected to disenfranchise a million+ voters who are disproportionately poor and ethnic minority).
Anyone who cared to look always knew 'who he was' though, and that was just as clear when he was the socially liberal mayor of London.
comment by babyen ansikt snikmorder (U9094)
posted 2 minutes ago
Can’t read it as I haven’t subscribed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, I didn't know you have to be subscribed, I am.
Can you just not tap the link?
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 25 seconds ago
To be honest, though I share the author's disdain for Johnson, I didn't think that was a very well-written article if we're talking about defining the PM. We've known for a very long time that he's a shameless, unscrupulous, unserious and utterly unprincipled figure who will brazenly lie or sell out supporters if that benefits his political fortunes.
I don't think he is instinctively authoritarian or conservative. It's just that it's advantageous at the moment to embrace conservative authoritarianism, both from the point of view of maintaining popularity within the ascendant, radicalised right wing of the Tory party, and because it's expedient to chip away at accountability via the courts (reducing power of judicial review), bodies overseeing ministerial misconduct (rulings ignored), popular protest (criminalised), media scrutiny (nominating partisan figures to senior BBC & OFCOM positions, threatening to privatise C4) and democratic elections (voter ID laws that are expected to disenfranchise a million+ voters who are disproportionately poor and ethnic minority).
Anyone who cared to look always knew 'who he was' though, and that was just as clear when he was the socially liberal mayor of London.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Agree with that RR. I haven't read up on the author, perhaps she is American and hasn't followed his previous career
Btw for anyone who can’t read it you can get bypass paywalls add-ons that are really handy. I use Bypass Paywalls Clean for Firefox.
It was revealed who Johnson really was a very long time ago…
comment by Vidicschin (U3584)
posted 3 minutes ago
He has never really hid who he is. He is an opportunist at the right time and the right place who conned the majority of the country into trusting him.
The major difference between him and Trump is that Boris isn’t as dumb as he portrays, which is deliberate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I remember a couple of years ago an interview with someone who was very well acquainted with the George W Bush administration - can't remember who it was, maddeningly, but I think it was a Republican who wasn't exactly an insider. The comment that stuck with me was that "everyone thought of Dubya as nice but stupid; in reality they were wrong on both counts".
Johnson shares with Bush the ability to hide his intelligence and strategic intentions beneath a manufactured persona of authentically "saying it like they see it".
One area where I think Johnson is actually more like Trump than Bush is that he's simply too lazy to engage in the boring, detailed work of government. (Not that Bush was perfect in this respect, which is why he Cheney did much of the governing and Bush made a lot of progress in his golf game over those eight years.)
Plus Boris does have a lot of charm, to begin with. Then it wears thin.
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 6 minutes ago
Agree with that RR. I haven't read up on the author, perhaps she is American and hasn't followed his previous career
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I was curious so looked her up. She is a very inexperienced journalist with very shallow background experience. Knowing the economy of online newspapers, I'm fairly sure this is a case of her pitching the article to the NYT and receiving no fee for it. Gone are the days when even the most august newspapers can fill their online content exclusively with well researched pieces written by authoritative journalists who are paid a decent fee. I'd guess that even the commissioning staff for a portion of the filler content aren't that well paid and their KPIs are more to do with traffic / ROI than quality or originality of insight.
Sorry if that all sounds negative about the OP and the piece you linked to. It wasn't a terrible article by any means and I totally agree with the bottom line: that the PM is profoundly unsuited to the needs of our country.
comment by GTWI4T- some people deserve to get trolled (U6008)
posted 8 minutes ago
Anyone with any kind of awareness of his historical actions, stances and downright lying knows exactly who he is. The guy is an absolute fraud. Imagine only being Prime minister due to your stance on Brexit. A stance that he doesn't even believe in himself. Literally had two copies of a letter he had written for the telegraph, one being for Brexit and one being against and making an 11th hour decision of which way to go based on what he felt would suit his political career more. A blustering idiot who has zero leadership skills, lies (probably more than any politician in recent history) who has spent his life cheating on pretty much every woman he has ever been with and who is so lazy he has pretty much been kicked out of every job he had. Quite how he became leader of our country based around a silly haircut and using funny sounding words is a sad indictment of where we are as a country and unfortunately, the ineptitude of any kind of opposition leader.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
‘ the ineptitude of any kind of opposition leader’, I am not English so wouldn’t get as knowledgeable on this issue, but I’ve often heard this argument and I gave to say, from the outside looking in, it strikes me as a big get out of jail free card to excuse people who should have known better for voting for Johnston. Corbyn was and is a good man, probably a little naive politically, and far from perfect, but certainly a hell of a lot better a person than Johnston and would have been a better leader for the majority. That’s not me saying he would have been great, but better than Johnston. But the tories waged a smear campaign, much of which was complete rubbish, and it was swallowed whole, even by labour supporters. Am sorry to say but the bottom line that brexit has shown is that England had a huge racist and xenophobic population who where just waiting for a vehicle to get behind. As unfathomable as it sounds to many, large swathes of the English working class would rather be worse off as long as they can maintain this facade of ‘Great’ Britain. That’s why Boris is in position and why he, and the Tories, can do pretty much any thing they want.
Red Russian killing your article dead MU52. Never mind head on over ty my podcast which is a RR-free zone...
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 3 minutes ago
Plus Boris does have a lot of charm, to begin with. Then it wears thin.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you heard Jeremy Vine's story about doing some industry award dinner in London years ago? The short version is that JV turned up as one of the hosts, Boris turned up too, late and unprepared, went on stage very clearly making up his speech as he went along and even admitting he wasn't entirely sure what the awards ceremony was supposed to be about - and brought the house down with his shambolic but hilarious and refreshingly authentic performance.
Some months later, Vine was at some other industry awards function. Boris turned up - and repeated exactly the same performance. It wasn't an off the cuff thing. The whole shambolic, making-it-up-as-you-go-along thing was a very well rehearsed act.
I once met a London architect who told me a similar story. Johnson as London mayor had turned up at some function and gave the funniest off the cuff speech he'd ever heard. Another reception some time later: exactly the same speech.
I'm afraid we're suckers for a posh accent and an air of self-confidence in this country.
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 15 seconds ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 6 minutes ago
Agree with that RR. I haven't read up on the author, perhaps she is American and hasn't followed his previous career
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I was curious so looked her up. She is a very inexperienced journalist with very shallow background experience. Knowing the economy of online newspapers, I'm fairly sure this is a case of her pitching the article to the NYT and receiving no fee for it. Gone are the days when even the most august newspapers can fill their online content exclusively with well researched pieces written by authoritative journalists who are paid a decent fee. I'd guess that even the commissioning staff for a portion of the filler content aren't that well paid and their KPIs are more to do with traffic / ROI than quality or originality of insight.
Sorry if that all sounds negative about the OP and the piece you linked to. It wasn't a terrible article by any means and I totally agree with the bottom line: that the PM is profoundly unsuited to the needs of our country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's interesting RR. I hadn't researched her at all, but assumed that as the NYTs is reputable newspaper she would be qualified.
Taking that away though it still doesn't make good reading. It is a kind of power grab, and does have serious implications for our kind of Liberal democracy that we have had in my lifetime.
Also there seems to be a increasing number of countries on the same path.
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 11 minutes ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 6 minutes ago
Agree with that RR. I haven't read up on the author, perhaps she is American and hasn't followed his previous career
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I was curious so looked her up. She is a very inexperienced journalist with very shallow background experience. Knowing the economy of online newspapers, I'm fairly sure this is a case of her pitching the article to the NYT and receiving no fee for it. Gone are the days when even the most august newspapers can fill their online content exclusively with well researched pieces written by authoritative journalists who are paid a decent fee. I'd guess that even the commissioning staff for a portion of the filler content aren't that well paid and their KPIs are more to do with traffic / ROI than quality or originality of insight.
Sorry if that all sounds negative about the OP and the piece you linked to. It wasn't a terrible article by any means and I totally agree with the bottom line: that the PM is profoundly unsuited to the needs of our country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apparently she had another article ready about what a fine gentleman and PM Johnson is
‘Wordsmith’ Johnson can barely string a sentence together.
And the scruffy hair and wonky tie all add to the look that fools so many into thinking he’s a harmless bumbling fool.
One of my colleagues did some work shadowing in No10 a few years ago.
It's common knowledge amongst the staff that he's made up quite smart before going on TV but ruffles up his hair etc just before going out. He's also a great big bas**** apparently too and nothing like his 'cuddly' character.
comment by Diafol Coch 77 (U2462)
posted 12 minutes ago
Red Russian killing your article dead MU52. Never mind head on over ty my podcast which is a RR-free zone...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sign in if you want to comment
Boris Johnson
Page 1 of 2
posted on 10/1/22
A c-nt?
posted on 10/1/22
Can’t read it as I haven’t subscribed.
posted on 10/1/22
He has never really hid who he is. He is an opportunist at the right time and the right place who conned the majority of the country into trusting him.
The major difference between him and Trump is that Boris isn’t as dumb as he portrays, which is deliberate.
posted on 10/1/22
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 10/1/22
comment by manutd1982 (U6633)
posted 47 seconds ago
A c-nt?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Absofackinglutely imo
posted on 10/1/22
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 10/1/22
comment by GTWI4T- some people deserve to get trolled (U6008)
posted 16 seconds ago
Anyone with any kind of awareness of his historical actions, stances and downright lying knows exactly who he is. The guy is an absolute fraud. Imagine only being Prime minister due to your stance on Brexit. A stance that he doesn't even believe in himself. Literally had two copies of a letter he had written for the telegraph, one being for Brexit and one being against and making an 11th hour decision of which way to go based on what he felt would suit his political career more. A blustering idiot who has zero leadership skills, lies (probably more than any politician in recent history) who has spent his life cheating on pretty much every woman he has ever been with and who is so lazy he has pretty much been kicked out of every job he had. Quite how he became leader of our country based around a silly haircut and using funny sounding words is a sad indictment of where we are as a country and unfortunately, the ineptitude of any kind of opposition leader.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
👍
posted on 10/1/22
comment by GTWI4T- some people deserve to get trolled (U6008)
posted 1 minute ago
Anyone with any kind of awareness of his historical actions, stances and downright lying knows exactly who he is. The guy is an absolute fraud. Imagine only being Prime minister due to your stance on Brexit. A stance that he doesn't even believe in himself. Literally had two copies of a letter he had written for the telegraph, one being for Brexit and one being against and making an 11th hour decision of which way to go based on what he felt would suit his political career more. A blustering idiot who has zero leadership skills, lies (probably more than any politician in recent history) who has spent his life cheating on pretty much every woman he has ever been with and who is so lazy he has pretty much been kicked out of every job he had. Quite how he became leader of our country based around a silly haircut and using funny sounding words is a sad indictment of where we are as a country and unfortunately, the ineptitude of any kind of opposition leader.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I wish this wasn't quite so accurate. Joke of an electorate.
posted on 10/1/22
To be honest, though I share the author's disdain for Johnson, I didn't think that was a very well-written article if we're talking about defining the PM. We've known for a very long time that he's a shameless, unscrupulous, unserious and utterly unprincipled figure who will brazenly lie or sell out supporters if that benefits his political fortunes.
I don't think he is instinctively authoritarian or conservative. It's just that it's advantageous at the moment to embrace conservative authoritarianism, both from the point of view of maintaining popularity within the ascendant, radicalised right wing of the Tory party, and because it's expedient to chip away at accountability via the courts (reducing power of judicial review), bodies overseeing ministerial misconduct (rulings ignored), popular protest (criminalised), media scrutiny (nominating partisan figures to senior BBC & OFCOM positions, threatening to privatise C4) and democratic elections (voter ID laws that are expected to disenfranchise a million+ voters who are disproportionately poor and ethnic minority).
Anyone who cared to look always knew 'who he was' though, and that was just as clear when he was the socially liberal mayor of London.
posted on 10/1/22
comment by babyen ansikt snikmorder (U9094)
posted 2 minutes ago
Can’t read it as I haven’t subscribed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, I didn't know you have to be subscribed, I am.
Can you just not tap the link?
posted on 10/1/22
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 25 seconds ago
To be honest, though I share the author's disdain for Johnson, I didn't think that was a very well-written article if we're talking about defining the PM. We've known for a very long time that he's a shameless, unscrupulous, unserious and utterly unprincipled figure who will brazenly lie or sell out supporters if that benefits his political fortunes.
I don't think he is instinctively authoritarian or conservative. It's just that it's advantageous at the moment to embrace conservative authoritarianism, both from the point of view of maintaining popularity within the ascendant, radicalised right wing of the Tory party, and because it's expedient to chip away at accountability via the courts (reducing power of judicial review), bodies overseeing ministerial misconduct (rulings ignored), popular protest (criminalised), media scrutiny (nominating partisan figures to senior BBC & OFCOM positions, threatening to privatise C4) and democratic elections (voter ID laws that are expected to disenfranchise a million+ voters who are disproportionately poor and ethnic minority).
Anyone who cared to look always knew 'who he was' though, and that was just as clear when he was the socially liberal mayor of London.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Agree with that RR. I haven't read up on the author, perhaps she is American and hasn't followed his previous career
posted on 10/1/22
Btw for anyone who can’t read it you can get bypass paywalls add-ons that are really handy. I use Bypass Paywalls Clean for Firefox.
posted on 10/1/22
It was revealed who Johnson really was a very long time ago…
posted on 10/1/22
comment by Vidicschin (U3584)
posted 3 minutes ago
He has never really hid who he is. He is an opportunist at the right time and the right place who conned the majority of the country into trusting him.
The major difference between him and Trump is that Boris isn’t as dumb as he portrays, which is deliberate.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I remember a couple of years ago an interview with someone who was very well acquainted with the George W Bush administration - can't remember who it was, maddeningly, but I think it was a Republican who wasn't exactly an insider. The comment that stuck with me was that "everyone thought of Dubya as nice but stupid; in reality they were wrong on both counts".
Johnson shares with Bush the ability to hide his intelligence and strategic intentions beneath a manufactured persona of authentically "saying it like they see it".
One area where I think Johnson is actually more like Trump than Bush is that he's simply too lazy to engage in the boring, detailed work of government. (Not that Bush was perfect in this respect, which is why he Cheney did much of the governing and Bush made a lot of progress in his golf game over those eight years.)
posted on 10/1/22
Plus Boris does have a lot of charm, to begin with. Then it wears thin.
posted on 10/1/22
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 6 minutes ago
Agree with that RR. I haven't read up on the author, perhaps she is American and hasn't followed his previous career
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I was curious so looked her up. She is a very inexperienced journalist with very shallow background experience. Knowing the economy of online newspapers, I'm fairly sure this is a case of her pitching the article to the NYT and receiving no fee for it. Gone are the days when even the most august newspapers can fill their online content exclusively with well researched pieces written by authoritative journalists who are paid a decent fee. I'd guess that even the commissioning staff for a portion of the filler content aren't that well paid and their KPIs are more to do with traffic / ROI than quality or originality of insight.
Sorry if that all sounds negative about the OP and the piece you linked to. It wasn't a terrible article by any means and I totally agree with the bottom line: that the PM is profoundly unsuited to the needs of our country.
posted on 10/1/22
comment by GTWI4T- some people deserve to get trolled (U6008)
posted 8 minutes ago
Anyone with any kind of awareness of his historical actions, stances and downright lying knows exactly who he is. The guy is an absolute fraud. Imagine only being Prime minister due to your stance on Brexit. A stance that he doesn't even believe in himself. Literally had two copies of a letter he had written for the telegraph, one being for Brexit and one being against and making an 11th hour decision of which way to go based on what he felt would suit his political career more. A blustering idiot who has zero leadership skills, lies (probably more than any politician in recent history) who has spent his life cheating on pretty much every woman he has ever been with and who is so lazy he has pretty much been kicked out of every job he had. Quite how he became leader of our country based around a silly haircut and using funny sounding words is a sad indictment of where we are as a country and unfortunately, the ineptitude of any kind of opposition leader.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
‘ the ineptitude of any kind of opposition leader’, I am not English so wouldn’t get as knowledgeable on this issue, but I’ve often heard this argument and I gave to say, from the outside looking in, it strikes me as a big get out of jail free card to excuse people who should have known better for voting for Johnston. Corbyn was and is a good man, probably a little naive politically, and far from perfect, but certainly a hell of a lot better a person than Johnston and would have been a better leader for the majority. That’s not me saying he would have been great, but better than Johnston. But the tories waged a smear campaign, much of which was complete rubbish, and it was swallowed whole, even by labour supporters. Am sorry to say but the bottom line that brexit has shown is that England had a huge racist and xenophobic population who where just waiting for a vehicle to get behind. As unfathomable as it sounds to many, large swathes of the English working class would rather be worse off as long as they can maintain this facade of ‘Great’ Britain. That’s why Boris is in position and why he, and the Tories, can do pretty much any thing they want.
posted on 10/1/22
Red Russian killing your article dead MU52. Never mind head on over ty my podcast which is a RR-free zone...
posted on 10/1/22
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 3 minutes ago
Plus Boris does have a lot of charm, to begin with. Then it wears thin.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you heard Jeremy Vine's story about doing some industry award dinner in London years ago? The short version is that JV turned up as one of the hosts, Boris turned up too, late and unprepared, went on stage very clearly making up his speech as he went along and even admitting he wasn't entirely sure what the awards ceremony was supposed to be about - and brought the house down with his shambolic but hilarious and refreshingly authentic performance.
Some months later, Vine was at some other industry awards function. Boris turned up - and repeated exactly the same performance. It wasn't an off the cuff thing. The whole shambolic, making-it-up-as-you-go-along thing was a very well rehearsed act.
I once met a London architect who told me a similar story. Johnson as London mayor had turned up at some function and gave the funniest off the cuff speech he'd ever heard. Another reception some time later: exactly the same speech.
I'm afraid we're suckers for a posh accent and an air of self-confidence in this country.
posted on 10/1/22
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 15 seconds ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 6 minutes ago
Agree with that RR. I haven't read up on the author, perhaps she is American and hasn't followed his previous career
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I was curious so looked her up. She is a very inexperienced journalist with very shallow background experience. Knowing the economy of online newspapers, I'm fairly sure this is a case of her pitching the article to the NYT and receiving no fee for it. Gone are the days when even the most august newspapers can fill their online content exclusively with well researched pieces written by authoritative journalists who are paid a decent fee. I'd guess that even the commissioning staff for a portion of the filler content aren't that well paid and their KPIs are more to do with traffic / ROI than quality or originality of insight.
Sorry if that all sounds negative about the OP and the piece you linked to. It wasn't a terrible article by any means and I totally agree with the bottom line: that the PM is profoundly unsuited to the needs of our country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's interesting RR. I hadn't researched her at all, but assumed that as the NYTs is reputable newspaper she would be qualified.
Taking that away though it still doesn't make good reading. It is a kind of power grab, and does have serious implications for our kind of Liberal democracy that we have had in my lifetime.
Also there seems to be a increasing number of countries on the same path.
posted on 10/1/22
comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 11 minutes ago
comment by manusince52 (U9692)
posted 6 minutes ago
Agree with that RR. I haven't read up on the author, perhaps she is American and hasn't followed his previous career
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I was curious so looked her up. She is a very inexperienced journalist with very shallow background experience. Knowing the economy of online newspapers, I'm fairly sure this is a case of her pitching the article to the NYT and receiving no fee for it. Gone are the days when even the most august newspapers can fill their online content exclusively with well researched pieces written by authoritative journalists who are paid a decent fee. I'd guess that even the commissioning staff for a portion of the filler content aren't that well paid and their KPIs are more to do with traffic / ROI than quality or originality of insight.
Sorry if that all sounds negative about the OP and the piece you linked to. It wasn't a terrible article by any means and I totally agree with the bottom line: that the PM is profoundly unsuited to the needs of our country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Apparently she had another article ready about what a fine gentleman and PM Johnson is
posted on 10/1/22
‘Wordsmith’ Johnson can barely string a sentence together.
posted on 10/1/22
And the scruffy hair and wonky tie all add to the look that fools so many into thinking he’s a harmless bumbling fool.
posted on 10/1/22
One of my colleagues did some work shadowing in No10 a few years ago.
It's common knowledge amongst the staff that he's made up quite smart before going on TV but ruffles up his hair etc just before going out. He's also a great big bas**** apparently too and nothing like his 'cuddly' character.
posted on 10/1/22
comment by Diafol Coch 77 (U2462)
posted 12 minutes ago
Red Russian killing your article dead MU52. Never mind head on over ty my podcast which is a RR-free zone...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 1 of 2