Boris is probably a sociopath, supported by a system that presented opportunities and more importantly allowed his obvious failings and idleness to have no repercussions.
In an alternative universe he would be a tramp shouting at pigeons in the park clutching his litre of white lightning.
I have met many people at very senior positions in large successful businesses over half of them to be honest are franky "shite" they have been fortunate by birth and privilege to simply "be there"
Its what this country is built on and why we struggle as a Nation state in the new world we operate in. It can not be changed it is welded/woven into education, entitlement, inheritance, old boys clubs.
Boris is the living, breathing embodiment. Closely followed by Cameron.
These are pretty important days, though. If he really can get away with all of this just by announcing a few crowd-pleasing policy moves and blaming his underlings, then it basically says he can do anything he likes. Also that making up government policy on the fly in a pandemic to save your premiership works. I don't think it will, but shit, if it does...
The BBC stuff is just bringing the endgame forward a bit but "let's stop all covid restrictions" is absolutely dangerous.
see him as very much a product of a broken and unfair society.
I think what you mean to say is he has taken advantage of and manipulated a broken and unfair society.
Broken and unfair societies are broken for everyone - I'm in a fairly unusual situation of getting to rub shoulders with both the homeless and generationally poor and the landed and inherited-wealthy - and I see the same self-destructive traits in both because they both feel isolated. We only generally see the damage inequality inflicts on the poor as there so, so many more of them in that unequal equation, and because the wealthy can buy themselves some privacy when their life is crashing.
The shame of the whole situation is the wealthy work harder than anyone perpetuate the inequality that does them just as much damage as anyone else.
He's not a victim ,he's a **** and I'll have a beer when he dies.
when their life is crashing.
More like
when they're crashing their life
Brian Klaas (Power Corrupts podcast) has book out that touches on why we allow ourselves to be ruled by people who are fundamentally unsuitable to rule. Expect he'll be popping up in media over the next few weeks or so.
Broken and unfair societies are broken for everyone – I’m in a fairly unusual situation of getting to rub shoulders with both the homeless and generationally poor and the landed and inherited-wealthy – and I see the same self-destructive traits in both because they both feel isolated. We only generally see the damage inequality inflicts on the poor as there so, so many more of them in that unequal equation, and because the wealthy can buy themselves some privacy when their life is crashing.
Whilst that is true@maccruiskeen, the poorer are more often keen to work to change society in a way which will benefit others like them, whilst the self-destructive privileged tend to seek to perpetuate and entrench and even enhance the system which has damaged them and others. Alexander isn’t looking to make things for anyone other than his posh-boy mates, and that impacts most of us here.
Sorry but living in Scotland I take exception to that statement , I think you will find the majority of Scots knew full well what he was (and didn’t vote for him), unless by nation you mean the English.
Take exception all you like, people in Scotland still voted for him, just like in Wales and England, The tories didn't win the majority of the votes at the last election, but you could see during the pandemic, johnsons popularity from people who may have been giving him the benefit of the doubt, let's just hope a few of them have realised what fools they were.
I'm with Zippy.... same as Thatcher.
Couldn't give a **** about poor people any of them.
More like
when they’re crashing their life
Like I said - 'self destructive'
Take exception all you like, people in Scotland still voted for him,
20% ish voted Tory. No one outside his constituency voted for him almost universally the scots tories have denounced him.
Can I predict we've 10 days of announcement and 'news' ahead of us while Boris and Conservatives desperately try to distract.
@gwaelod I heard Brian Klass on 5live in the week - really interesting take on power and the people that rise to it, well worth listening to him, or reading his book, which I must do. Explains a lot about people like dear old Boris and his cronies…
I’m a bit late to this, explains the Met’s lack of response
https://twitter.com/snigskitchen/status/1482022329240727564?s=21
Interesting about Javids brother.
Coke n hookers, I knew it
https://twitter.com/BartoszKielak/status/1482817512056266752?t=LSp9U6aWecmSutenaoPG6w&s=19
I’m just saying it’s really irrelevant what opportunities he had and it smacks of jealousy.
It’s not irrelevant … because without them he wouldn’t be PM.
Not necessarily true @kelvin
You think Johnson would have made to be PM without the opportunities given to him?
There’s full agreement a privileged background does not protect you from harm growing up. But it can also result in someone entirely unsuitable for office playing at being PM at a high cost to us all.
I heard Peter Bone, one of the more objectionable Brexity MPs, on the radio earlier saying he'd been out campaigning in his constituency and all he'd been told was positive stuff about Boris and the people wanted the Government and the country to "move on" from this nonsense.
It really does make it easy to find the most appalling MPs in the house; everyone who supports BJ is also an utter arse in everything else. Peter Bone voted against same-sex marriage, voted against the proposed "upskirting bill", campaigned for Brexit, opposed the National Minimum Wage... And supports Boris. What a ****.
johnsons popularity from people who may have been giving him the benefit of the doubt, let’s just hope a few of them have realised what fools they were.
I was talking to my dad the other day, who was admitting that Johnson wasn't doing great (this was before partygate really got going).
It was a complete revelation to him that it was well known that he was a habitual liar, who had been sacked twice for lying, and that this was common knowledge which could have been found with about 10 seconds of googling well before Brexit (which my dad voted for "because of immigrants") or the 2019 election.
Anyway, he voted for his next door neighbour at the council elections, a lovely guy who is the local Labour candidate. Of course, he didn't get in, but it's a start.
Following Operation Save Big Dog, the next one is Operation Red Meat.
Following Operation Save Big Dog, the next one is Operation Red Meat.
Given that it's basically a load of populist "appeal to the right-wing masses" stuff, they may as well have called it what it is. Operation Gammon.
The plan is definitely to release details of a new party each day so Sue Gray has to rewrite her report, ad infinitum
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/new-no10-party-revealed-boris-25962670?
@kimbers that FT story embargo is about the head of a major organisation who has just resigned as he breached COVID regs and so wasn't able to represent the organisation properly.
Amazeballs
Well if there is reincarnation I’d like to come back as someone in the same broken position as BJ.
Bet he’s got nice toys while currently crying in 120k+ worth of new furnishings, before he gets driven somewhere in a flash motor.
And even if it goes south a few column inches a week will soon sort it.
I think ‘Thatcha’ was a different animal to BJ thou and is probably turning in her grave over what he did with her eu deal.
Its what this country is built on and why we struggle as a Nation state in the new world we operate in. It can not be changed it is welded/woven into education, entitlement, inheritance, old boys clubs.
If folk want to read a well-written account of what happens when you've the 'wrong' folk in the 'wrong' positions I can highly recommend:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whatever-Happened-British-Motor-Industry/dp/1859604277
Or “The Establishment: And how they get away with it”.
TBH I gave up reading private eye as it made me annoyed how the samegames get played with no one being held accountable.
Or read none and feel happier.
Ignorance is bliss 🙂
I subscribe to Private Eye, possibly the only thing I took with me from the UK. I read it and get angry and I keep doing that week after week. If I did not, I would to tally dissociate myself from the UK and, while I have a new life in Sweden, part of me is not willing to do that yet.
Maybe one day, when I start forgetting my English a bit more, or finally recognise Swedish as my primary language, but not now.
what just happened there on BBC Breakfast - politics guy was talking about stuff to come this week, Gray report towards the end, Big Dog, Red Meat....blah blah blah and then said something that was bleeped out?? Something they've got info on been embargoed or what? I had to wind back on the SKY box but it's definite.
I think they bleeped out ...shore up the Prime Minister... About 08:13 on BBC Breakfast
Even the wealthy are less happy in unequal societies but unequal societies allow for disloyal malignant narcissists like Johnson, whose every relationship is transactional, to rise to the top. You think of all the BBC did to get him elected and Murdoch says ditch it to guarantee my continued support and so out it goes alongside a load of his minions.
There’s full agreement a privileged background does not protect you from harm growing up.
Not really. The whole boarding school system is pretty much geared up to produce damaged people by design. They are products; Johnson is an extreme for sure, but not so very different from other Etonians I've come across. A weird combination of 'easy charm', utter entitlement and detachment from normal emotional life and the little people.
There's a book about this, which has probably been mentioned here already, called Sad Little Men by Richard Beard. They're all still trying to govern the British Empire.
I guess you can argue that it's not Johnson's 'fault' he was shaped that way, but don't delude yourself that it's something his privilege has failed to protect him from, it's the reason he is that way.
Those places were designed to produce emotionally detached DCs for the colonies in the C19th. 'Buyer's remorse' indeed.
I'm enjoying the thought that if there is a puppet master behind all the leaks, they may be holding back a 'smoking gun' ready for then Johnson finally emerges from his bunker.
The next few days sound like they'll be 'fun' for us, a raft of new measures designed to please a few hundred Tory MPs most of us have never heard of, and the Pro-Tory press doing their best to down play it all, well, now they've got their headlines anyway.
Still, it's all starting to feel a bit like the end of the Thatcher / Major era, Thatcher might have been an Evil populist but Major was a decent Man and PM, but the Tories just can't help themselves sometimes, once they get going, they'll claw each others eyes out to get the 'Big Job' even if it cost them No10, just as Johnson is doing now.
Its pretty easy to get really angry about what they're planning to do (Operation Red Dog/Big Meat) to distract from Boris's parties, but then you look at their track record, their biblical levels of both laziness and incompetence, and realise all these things are just dead cat newspaper headlines.
They'll never actually get round to doing any of it as its just too much like hard work
but then you look at their track record, their biblical levels of both laziness and incompetence, and realise all these things are just dead cat newspaper headlines.
Yes the Royal Navy story seems to ignore the great brouhaha created by Patel when ,just five months ago, she appointed a “ Clandestine Channel Threat Commander – a new role leading the UK’s response to tackling illegal attempts to reach the UK.” - same old, same old.
They’ll never actually get round to doing any of it as its just too much like hard work
I wonder how there was any work at all going on as it seems they were out on the piss most of the time. Would certainly explain some of the massively delayed policy announcements.
I wonder how there was any work at all going on as it seems they were out on the piss most of the time.
Late night drinking after work has long since been part of that environment. It's not just a Conservative thing, and definitely not just a Johnson thing. But we were in a pandemic, and the government had asked us all (with legal backing) to not meet up in numbers to socialise... and then Johnson and his team were inviting 100 people to a BYOB party (to cite just one example). And Johnson lied to us to try and cover it all up. Repeatedly. One rule for us, another for them... and constantly in cover up mode. The alcohol wasn't the problem. Arranging, allowing, and attending gatherings, while we were all made to lean on zoom and phone calls... even to socialise with partners, children, grandchildren, close friends... never mind work colleagues... and then to claim that none of it happened, that you knew nothing about any of it, that you definitely weren't in attendance... all of which was simply untrue... and then to get your staff to write a report for you about what you already know happened (because you were there, and were warned that it wasn't a good idea)... all to buy time for the careful formulation of yet more lies and pinning the tail on a scapegoat... what a piece of work.
Still, it’s all starting to feel a bit like the end of the Thatcher / Major era
Very much so. It is obvious that this administration has run out of road. Governments lose elections when their time is up and "it's the other side's turn!". We've been at that point for some time. Johnson has just accelerated this sentiment.
I am highly amused by the denials that Johnson was told having a party was not a good idea - at least two sources say he was. I would not be surprised for an email to appear in the next few days that proves yet another lie
The longer they defend him the more political capital they use up and the more stupid they look and the worse it will be when Johnson is forced out
I do enjoy a bit of schadenfreude
The longer they defend him the more political capital they use up and the more stupid they look and the worse it will be when Johnson is forced out
You'd think they'd have learnt their lesson by now, wouldn't you?
It appears that some, like Rishi, certainly have and aren't expending any of their political capital on defending him
Did you hear Nadhim Zahawi interviewed on radio 4 this morning? The vocal contortions and moral gymnastics he was tying himself up in to justify Johnsons behaviour was just embarrassing for everybody involved. Something tells me that pretty soon he's going to be sorry he bothered. Loyalty is very much a one way street with Boris
This line has been going around my head... (it was part of Johnson's "apology" where he sought to cancel/revoke all his old lie/stories about knowing nothing, without quite going as far as giving his new lie/story... as that can "wait for Sue")...
“I believed implicitly that this was a work event.”
What is it to "believe implicitly"..?
Did you hear Nadhim Zahawi interviewed on radio 4 this morning? The vocal contortions and moral gymnastics he was tying himself up in
Well they hung him out to dry recently on Owen Paterson, reversing the decision whilst he was on air.
Still, it’s all starting to feel a bit like the end of the Thatcher / Major era
It's more Downfall, wild parties, everyone else to blame, moving imaginary military forces around the map, ludicrous propaganda announcements, wonder vaccines, another purge of the insufficiently deluded approaching and all the while the rumble of another leak drawing ever closer.
The vocal contortions and moral gymnastics he was tying himself up in to justify Johnsons behaviour was just embarrassing for everybody involved.
The way he managed to avoid saying "the PM believed that it was a work event" was like some kind of parlour game. All good fun if it's just about who ate the last slice of Christmas cake.
As P-Jay says, I do wonder if there is more 'scandal' being held back ready to drop when Johnson is out of his self-imposed isolation.
FIngers crossed!
