Its a common mistake to dismiss and underestimate people we dislike. Intelligence, like beauty, is something we all consciously or unconsciously hold in high regard. And as such, is often the thing we instinctively claim the person we dislike lacks.
It's also a common mistake to dismiss out of hand evidence that doesn't agree with your viewpoint.
It could be argued that becoming prime minister is evidence he is intelligent. But then it would also be evidence that Liz Truss in intelligent and I am simply not buying that.
After reading Jeremy Vine's account of basically the same thing you recounted, don't you think it's at least possible you got taken in by a performance that Johnson repeats almost everywhere he goes?
It's possible to be genius in a particular area. Some people can be have an incredible aptitude and intelligence when it comes to being a con-artist. However, there's a reason they make their living as con-artists and not as something better.
If there is any recorded evidence of this vast intelligence, I would be very interested in reading it.
Until then ,I will continue to believe that a lot of people were mugged by a world class bullshiter.
That's (probably) why he was such a successful sex pest.
In another life he would have been a fortune teller/palm reader.
A local lass that I know became a tory MP and worked quite closely with Johnson a few years ago. While I disagree with her politics I would regard her as fairly intelligent. I was chatting with her in the pub one night about Johnson at the time she was working with him and she was in no doubt at all that he was a highly intelligent man.
If anyone was ever in any doubt that the 'bumbling lovable rogue' image is anything but an act he puts on, have a read of this:
https://reaction.life/jeremy-vine-my-boris-story/
I was chatting with her in the pub one night about Johnson at the time she was working with him and she was in no doubt at all that he was a highly intelligent man.
Did that intelligence manifest itself by apparently being able to absorb information quickly and formulate responses with apparent ease despite just having rolled in the door amongst a cloud of disheveledness?
It's a performance he seems to be very comfortable with and until people started realising that I suspect it's a performance that would have taken in almost anyone.
It’s academic really.
No matter how intelligent you are, if you’re only prepared to use it exclusively for your own self-serving ends, in the total absence of even the remotest trace of any moral standards, then what’s the point?
Personally I’ll go with Ian Hislop on this one…
I think Michel Barnier had it about right - "boucaniers", bucanneers. Johnson could bluster through fine relying on his staff until both he and his staff bit off more than they could chew.
He rose to power through the old school tie network getting jobs he would never have got on merit. But served his paymasters well enough with columbs full of bollocks and outright lies - his forte.
And screwed nearly all of you all over. He came close to screwing me over too but Barnier wrote a very good withdrawal agreement. It's only very recently that I've had any kind of info that my UK pension shouldn't be affected by Brexit. For a while it looked like it might not be indexed linked like say Australia where Brits only get a tiny non-indexed proportion of their UK pension, but it looks like Barnier and his team protected the interests of Brits already established in Europe - fingers crossed, I still can't find anything beyond press articles. Barnier did a far better job of protecting Brits' interests than British PMs Johnson and May.
He rose to power through the old school tie network getting jobs he would never have got on merit. But served his paymasters well enough with columbs full of bollocks and outright lies – his forte.
The old school tie network certainly played a big part - there's no way a kid from a comprehensive could have had the 'career' he has had. But you overlook shameless self-promotion as well. Back in the naughties he would crop up constantly as the 'colour' in broadcast debates, shows etc. He realised early on that shameless self-promotion was the fast track to high office (as a substitute for working up from diligence as a constituency MP etc).
I've no doubt he possesses some intelligence. But it is of the con artist type. Understanding dupes and how to manipulate them en masse.
He looked an utter pillock suspended from that wire, but it played well to his dupes who would say "well, that's Boris" and "you wouldn't see David Cameron up there". Ed Davey deployed this basic line of tactics in the GE just gone. Some people lap it up - the question is merely "is 'some' the same as 'enough'?"
Isn’t he really one of the first U.K. ‘celebrity’ politicians, who have used their ‘celebrity’ entertainment valueas opposed to actual political ability.
Getting on the telly at every opportunity and playing the jolly hockey sticks japster.
HIGNFY probably made him.
Trump would be the non U.K. one I think of that used the apprentice to mould an image of self made success 🙂
I think Farage is also similar and know he has his own show,has four years to polish the act before the curtain rise 🙁
Well, to be a confidence trixter/ good shmoozer requires a certain amount of inteligence, academic genius not necessarily required to be a good manipulator.
I can think of someone I’ve know since childhood who has had a very successful career (in sales) that’s provided a very comfortable lifestyle for him, despite the fact that he’s (academically) as thick as mince.
He reminds me of Johnson in many ways, mainly in the fact that he’s a pathological liar and I wouldn’t believe a single word that ever came out of his mouth. He’s also a true blue Tory and behind his apparent breezy ‘charm’ is a truly vile human being
HIGNFY probably made him.
Knowing what they know now, I wonder if they'd have still given him all that exposure in the way that they did?
I think Farage is also similar and know he has his own show,has four years to polish the act before the curtain rise 🙁
I see he's started the campaign trail already with a Party Political Broadcast last night, regurgitating his vile rhetoric.
If there is any recorded evidence of this vast intelligence, I would be very interested in reading it.
I can recommend Johnson at 10 By Anthony Seldon. I think he agrees broadly with the assessment of some on this thread, that while he's not stupid, and generally intelligent enough to have managed a long career in journalism and politics. His other more obvious faults; idleness, fickleness, inability to concentrate, poor impulse control, and lack of judgement make for a combination that overshadows any other qualities like how clever he is.
HIGNFY probably made him.
Knowing what they know now, I wonder if they’d have still given him all that exposure in the way that they did?
I'm pretty sure Ian Hislop is on the record as saying one of his main regrets/mistakes in his career was to act as an enabler to Johnson's rise to being PM.
And I agree, it was a huge enabler - HIGNIFY was the absolute perfect vehicle at that time for Johnson to use.
Parasites are very adept at finding the right host organism.
I can recommend Johnson at 10 By Anthony Seldon
Just started listening to this. Even the first chapter reciting the list of 'main players' had me labelling each "corrupt", "liar", "Incompetent", "WTF?" or, in some cases, all 4.
I know someone who reported to him directly at the FCO. There's no doubting he's smart. There's no doubting he can "rally the troops" and make people feel special. All the doubt comes when it comes to his diligence and motivations. Personally, I'd label him as lazy and entirely self serving, even when he uses his considerable skills in persuading people that he has their interests at heart and will do everything he can to further those interests for them (he doesn't, he won't). I wouldn't trust him with my wallet... and I wouldn't say that about any other PM we've had, even those I politically disagree with on every level.
Another recommendation for “Johnson at 10” here too.
I’m looking forward to the Truss one too. Should while away an hour or so.
I’m looking forward to the Truss one too.
He doesn't hold back. It's like reading one of those fake Alan Partridge memoirs, only, y'know, real. Paints a mostly awful picture about the limitlessness of ambition when it's not held back by the very obvious limits of intellect.
Matthew Paris said much the same, summarising Truss devastatingly accurately in a single sentence during her leadership campaign
I managed to listen to a bit of his self-serving fantasist drivel until they got to Brexit and apparently the fact there was no plan whatsoever after they won was David Cameron’s fault.
According to Boris, it was entirely’Daves’ fault that there was no plan as to what the * to do in the event of a ‘Leave’ vote
Nothing whatsoever to do with Johnson and the opportunistic *-wits who advocated it, obviously
As the figurehead for it all, why would any plan have anything to do with him? Nothing to do with me guv. It’s somebody else’s responsibility to sort out all the shit I just caused
His sense of entitlement is off the *ing scale
An utter utter *!
It’s actually pointless being angry, we just need to accept that ****s live amongst us.
I managed to listen to a bit of his self-serving fantasist drivel until they got to Brexit and apparently the fact there was no plan whatsoever after they won was David Cameron’s fault.
According to Boris, it was entirely’Daves’ fault that there was no plan as to what the **** to do in the event of a ‘Leave’ vote
Then follow that up with “The Oven Ready Deal”.
I listened to snippets of Nick Ferraris interview with him, and would only be repeating Binners posts if I summarised, and he adds criticism of the current government. He even denies the Parties in no 10 still.
Such an odious character which only gets lower on the scale every time he surfaces.
He even denies the Parties in no 10 still.
He'll be taking formal legal action against the Met to clear his name, then?
Oh no, that's right, he won't. He'll insinuate and lie openly right up to the point it could become formal then invent an excuse to scuttle away.
He's a ****ing ****.
I mean, tbf, Cameron does bear a lot of the blame for the whole Brexit debacle. He was PM! To set that ball rolling and then just scarper like a guilty child when it all went wrong was an absolute dereliction of duty. Arguably a worse PM (in terms of serious damage done to the country) than Boris if you ask me.
Cameron's colossal arrogance combined with insecurity was his fatal weakness - one exploited perfectly by Leave.
His insecurity led to him announcing a Brexit referendum would be held.
His arrogance in assuming that his mere endorsement of Remain would prove enough was a big factor in the bit of a mess we have ended up with.
He completely misunderstood the impacts of the 2008 Financial meltdown, MPs expenses and austerity for everyone else.
He also massively overestimated the intellect of the average voter.
But these are all mistakes. Albeit ridiculous and extremely consequential ones.
Johnson is different. An entirely cynical liar who has no interest in anything other than his own self-interest.
If Cameron had come out to that lectern and said something like "clearly there's an issue here so let's work on a framework for setting out the options for what people want, rather than what they don't want, with me still in charge", it would have fizzled out waiting for an actual plan, instead of, well you know.
Look at it's eyes, even the dog hates him.
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1843586733994324043
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1843586733994324043
/a>
Cameron is an absolute idiot for giving us an advisory referendum instead of a legally binding one with a 60/40 cut instead of a narrow "victory" which incidentally also allowed the leave campaign to break rules with no comeback - but Johnson is just a lying self serving shit - both elevated above their innate abilities by their upper class backgrounds.
He completely misunderstood the impacts of the 2008 Financial meltdown, MPs expenses and austerity for everyone else.
I was today enjoying my lunchtime stroll listening to the More or Less podcast from Radio 4.
This one:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j0t5yf?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
I'd not ever understood the impact of 2008 on the country. It's worth a listen (context is, it's about the "fastest growing economy" line and provides the background. If you don't enjoy it, you've lost 28 mins of your life, so sue me)
Rich_s
Full Memberit’s about the “fastest growing economy” line and provides the background.
Gaaaahhhhhhhhh. God I hate this shit. everyone else has a recovery, we essentially don't, and then when they inevitably slow we celebrate because for one week we outrun them. It's like the obsession with recessions, .000001% reduction for 2 quarters is a disaster, 1% reduction followed by .000001% improvement is a recovery. It's jsut an absolute nightmare that the easiest to understand version of events is also really false.
I used to do a job where we had a limited number of places to fill. Most years we'd fill most of them, it'd vary a little bit, but tbf it had very little to do with anythign we did that year, it was mostly about demographics. But then one year we filled them all, and oh my god, the howls of derision when we said "next year we will definitely not fill more places". Surrounded by intelligent people but nobody could grasp reversions to the mean, or "we did as well as we possibly could this year, please stop asking us to do better".
Course, we did treat every .0000001% increase as proof of our absolute genius and hard work, and every 1% decrease as being just unavoidable market stuff, we're only human.
It’s clear to me that dog is nothing more than a prop.
Everything and everyone is just a prop to him. He's a complete sociopath!
One of the Thick Of It Writers was on Five Live before. He made a good point about him. He said that 10 years ago he was seen as this bumbling, amiable buffoon and after everything thats happened he thinks he can just return to that. He can't because... well.. where do you even start...
So now he's just really resentful that people won't view him as before (other than some brainless idiots) due to such trifling matters as Brexit, all the Covid dead, Partygate and everything else on the list of things that showed him to us all for what he really is
Brexit, all the Covid dead, Partygate
You missed off (at least):
Illegally proroguing parliament.
Lying to the Queen (my golly gosh).
Porking another woman on the family sofa whilst his wife was undergoing cancer treatment.
Using £100k of taxpayer money to get his leg over with Jennifer Arcuri.
To name but a few. I was going to say "breaking his wife's nose with a punch" but that was his old man, wasn't it...
Still, amiable buffoon, right?
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/ckgnlj3g95mo
If a proven liar writes a book explaining that what he said was lies, then, in the interview says they are not lies, are they lies?
Lies²
I’m refusing to fuel this ****er’s publicity in any form (apart from in this thread).
I'm with scuttler.
I'm not going to rile myself up by actively seeking out Johnson's bullshit and it giving him 'views' or 'hits'. It only makes me angry.
I'm going to do my level best to pretend he doesn't exist - which, if it was true, would have been a better situation by far for most people.
The lying, narcissistic, cynical, cheating scumbag.
I’m not going to rile myself up by actively seeking out Johnson’s bullshit
Private Eye have saved everyone a bit of bother by compressing and optimising the book for us
I hate to agree with Johnson, but he's right that, following the referendum, Cameron's government should have prepared a white paper on how to respond to the referendum result, not just f'ed off.
Cameron’s government should have prepared a white paper on how to respond to the referendum result
Anything the "Remain" camp put forward as a plan would have been portrayed as a "betrayal of the vote". Cameron "led" the remain campaign, he couldn't be the one to plan the next steps. I suppose he could have tried, but how could it have gone well?
he’s right that, following the referendum, Cameron’s government should have prepared a white paper
Nah, he’s only saying this because he knows it’s not worked. As he has done all through his life, he takes no responsibility for failures and looks to blame others.
Had it worked, then he would be claiming ownership.
For the muppets that voted leave and Tory in 2019
The period after the vote but before the s. 51 letter was the one time UK had the advantage. It should have been exploited.
Nah, he’s only saying this because he knows it’s not worked. As he has done all through his life, he takes no responsibility for failures and looks to blame others.
Had it worked, then he would be claiming ownership.
For the muppets that voted leave and Tory in 2019
Exactly.. the public were never sold a 'crash out' 'hard brexit' - it was always "we'll stay in the customs union, we'll do a 'Norway type deal" etc, etc.
But that's not what Johnsons government delivered, the UK negociators insisted on extraordinary dispensations that were always totally incompatible with the EU framework, not to mention the international peace treaty in place between the UK and Ireland...so we basically crashed out with no deal at all, which it the worst possible outcome for both UK citizens, and the EU.
So now we have what is known as, in techincal terms, a bit of a mess.
Exactly.. the public were never sold a ‘crash out’ ‘hard brexit’ – it was always “we’ll stay in the customs union, we’ll do a ‘Norway type deal” etc, etc.
Which I is why I want starmer to deliver the brexit “we” voted for.
Which I is why I want starmer to deliver the brexit “we” voted for.
I thought it was pretty evil the way Starmer dismissed ideas from the EU to allow people under 30yo more freedom of movement, but also on the flip side, that could be construed as discrimination if UK citizens under 30 have more rights than those over 30...that would be a legal can of worms.
But that's the position we put ourselves in... at the end of the day 51% of UK voters voted to hurt the entire UK.
If Cameron, or indeed May, had any backbone, they would have played on the advisory aspect of the referendum, and the lack of checks and balances, and indeed the total lack of forward planning... (they were both 'remainers' afterall).
EDIT:
In fact, so was Johnson... they are all so bloody spineless and petrified over losing a few votes to UKIP, they shafted the entire country to save a bit of face in the press.
And now look at them, the UKIP/Reform vote cut the tory vote in half at the last GE, so they accomlished the net sum of sweet F*** all, and wasted an intangible amount of public money in doing so.
And Starmer seems to be following the tory playbook.. too scared of losing a few vote to the far right.
Be careful what you wish for….
Sorry to rejuvenate this thread, he really is the turd that won’t flush.
i was on a flight earlier and the lady next to me* was reading the Daily Mail app on her iPad. Johnson’s comment piece has the following headline :
Channel migrants are shock troops recruited by Emanuel Macron for his jihad against Brexit
What the actual could he possibly be banging on about with that tosh? It’s literally like he thinks, oh bother, the Mail are expecting a column tomorrow. I must think of three things that the readers get furious about and put them together into one incomprehensible headline. And he gets paid for that. And, more worryingly, people read it.
*not my wife
It's a great attention-grabbing headline, you can't deny that !
It’s like a tick list of words that will send the gammons into an apoplectic rage
What the actual could he possibly be banging on about with that tosh?
I expect nowadays he just sticks a prompt into chatgpt "produce an article in the style of Alexander Boris Johnson that references the latest UK political news".
Does the mail still has its "this is the random Greek/Latin words the subeditors had to find two of so he could sound like he is clever".
Mods - CONTAINS SPOILERS, please
What the actual could he possibly be banging on about with that tosh? It’s literally like he thinks, oh bother, the Mail are expecting a column tomorrow. I must think of three things that the readers get furious about and put them together into one incomprehensible headline. And he gets paid for that.
He gets ‘well’ paid for it and it sells, all he does is write what people want to hear.
It’s entertainment but not truth, which is the problem as people don’t get the fact that it’s just entertaining prose.
He gets ‘well’ paid for it and it sells,
Johnson himself is flawed in so many ways - but his agent must be a ****ing magician!
Once again I open the thread and feel disappointed.
his agent must be a ****ing magician!
Although Johnson, like other very high profile former politicians such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, uses the Harry Walker Agency, I very much doubt that the Boris Johnson act has a personal agent as such.
As a highly successful columnist and former editor of The Spectator Johnson seems perfectly capable of generating his own publicity.
I have read the article in question and there is nothing of notable interest about it, just a daft allegation of vindictiveness from Macron, as if Macron doesn't have anything better to worry about, but with probably help from a Daily Mail headline writer it has given Johnson all the attention that he could wish for, including for at least a couple of days on an obscure MTB forum.
I suspect that the Daily Mail feels that paying Johnson large amounts of money to write nonsense is a sound investment.
Edit : To be sure people who read Johnson's inane musings don't necessarily agree with them, curiosity generated by the revival of this thread got the better of me as I thought "what the **** is that **** on about now". Credit needs to go to whoever wrote the headline.
I read somewhere, genuinely can't remember where, that his Mail salary was circa £250,000.
The £250k per year was for the Telegraph column, which he famously described as 'chicken feed'
His contract at the Daily Mail is understood to be around £1m a year, or about £20k per column. Nice work if you can get it...
Full title was edited, I believe.
Top ten reasons why you won't believe how Channel migrants are Climate Conspiracy Shock Troops recruited by Emanuel Macron for rewriting history in his Culture War Jihad against the NHS' Brexit Churchill Dambusters.
Sorry, I'm just sh*tposting really.
Maybe Boris' newspaper job(s) really is been written by a small AI agent. I doubt anyone would ever notice the difference. I doubt I ever would. He was pretty much a pastiche of his own character act even a short way into the political career.
I dunno, as laughable as it seems it feels a bit like when David Cameron started sounding out his return, first steps on a rebrand so he can come back but really go for the Reformer vote. Wouldn't be laughing too much at that.
I wouldn't trust him with my wallet...
Wallet? I wouldn’t trust him to clean my shoes - I’d probably find something nasty in one of them! 😣
I think as opposed to Farage you’d probably like him if you met him in a pub and had a few pints and then at the end of the night realise he’d not got a round in 🙂
I dunno, as laughable as it seems it feels a bit like when David Cameron started sounding out his return, first steps on a rebrand so he can come back but really go for the Reformer vote. Wouldn't be laughing too much at that.
Agree, getting Boris back as Tory leader before next election would give them the best chance they have while also taking back a lot of potential Reform votes. I hope they do because as much of a tosser Boris is I would rather have that than Farage.
Wallet? I wouldn’t trust him to clean my shoes - I’d probably find something nasty in one of them!
Probably his todger if you put a blonde wig on one of them. 🙄