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I don’t think Johnson or his advisers want the story to . run, I don’t think they expected it to make it into the press in way it has. Remember the row occurred on Thursday eve, I don’t think they expected it to be the news story it has become all weekend and I don’t think that by Saturday at the Hustings event in Birmingham they had formulated anything other than “Don’t get involved in a discussion about it and just call it your private business”. I don’t think they expected Iain Dale (an ex Tory candidate MP, after all ) to go after Johnson for as much time as he did…Add all that up and you end up with 5 minutes of Johnson squirming uncomfortably, seemingly lost for words.
Hmmmm, I do normally prefer cock-up to conspiracy but this was front page news on Saturday morning. Mind you, Boris is famous for not preparing for stuff, it's possible he really hadn't thought through answers for this. I'm not convinced though. It was a big story, you'd think he'd have a stock answer ready, he might not have expected it from Ian Dale [1] but he will have know it was coming from someone at some point.
On reflection I prefer your version. Famously unprepared man is unprepared is slightly more credible than famously unprepared man has cunning media manipulation plan... On the other hand Carrie Symonds is a media expert, maybe it was all her idea.
I can't decide. 🙂
[1] Mind ewe, Ian Dale might be a Brexiteer, but he's a professional interviewer and his career depends on asking the right questions so I can't see why Boris would have thought for one second that Dale would put Boris's career before his own and suppress the big tabloid story of the day. Plus from Dale/Smith's podcast I get the feeling Boris has arsed Dale around over Leader Candidate interviews and IIRC Dale didn't rate Boris in the past so I see no reason for Boris to expect an easy ride.
Hammond is the least of Johnsons worries
even DFDS Liam Fox is being more honest than Johnson!
Another good reason why Boris would rather the press was talking about him spilling wine on a Sofa than his Brexit plan.
rmoofo
Member
Man, you are right it is “so Brexit” … I fail to understand what it has to do with Brexit…
Listening and taping your neighbours is very “stasi”
Hearing a loud disturbance, calling the police and then recording it is somehow irresponsible?
This from the New Yorker is a pretty good summary of Johnson's background and character to date:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/the-empty-promise-of-boris-johnson
God only knows what he'd have to do to lose the votes of Conservative Party members, but I expect he'll try to find something.
Listening and taping your neighbours is very “stasi”
Hey… if they just called the police to attend, and hadn't taped and released the recording, you can be sure that their account of why they were worried would quickly, and successfully, have been denounced as just deceitful trouble making.
Patronising McHunt
That's no munchybox
For his next trick he will be pictured in Lancashire, wearing a flat cap and feeding hotpot to a whippet.
Utter ****s the lot of them, not much more to say
I understand from a fairly well connected source that since Boris has been living with Carrie he has had two other affairs and that the press is aware and looking for the right time to drop the story (to sell papers)
Is it possible that the whole argument on friday (and the follow up by Iain Dale) was confected to undermine/weaken that more damaging story?
Again - I can't believe people are having a pop at the guy who recorded the incident. If it's loud enough to call the police, then you've got have concerns.
Surely MI6 have got his place bugged anyway & will have video footage as well as audio?
https://twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1142391302698545155
All this conspiracy nonsense has been whipped up by the Daily Telegraph and the journalists who have turned that paper into the cheerleader for their most highly paid columnist, who is also an MP and running to be PM
Not much of a conflict of interest there then?
Ok - I'm starting to feel sick now. For the 2nd time I find myself in agreement with Piers Morgan...
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1143067849470201856
Is it possible that the whole argument on friday (and the follow up by Iain Dale) was confected to undermine/weaken that more damaging story?
The argument itself couldn't have been IMHO because they'd have no way know it would be recorded and sold to the papers. There's no way the couple who recorded it were in on it, they openly hate him.
However, personally, I think there's a high chance the cloak and dagger reaction to the recording was designed to distract from other issues. We can see this morning Hunt's challenging Boris to talk about policy and trying hard to get himself in the media so I'd have thought those are more likely candidates to be the thing we're being distracted from. In comparison, cheating on this current GF when he's already known to have divorced/cheated on wives doesn't seem an especially damaging story.
We don't even know how many children by how many women Johnson has. We do know he has had an injunction to stop the press even revealing the existence of at least one child.
He is of course like most public schoolboys a badly damaged individual with regards to his relationships with women. The "education" they get in these establishments leads to all sorts of issues trying to form relationships with women. google boarding school syndrome
Or - he is just an utter shit
Looks like whisperings of a vote of no confidence if Boris gets in, May survived but I'm not sure Boris would. His no deal stance is making people nervous.
Looks like whisperings of a vote of no confidence if Boris gets in
That'll be from the same people who said they'd never vote for him in a leadership election, then did precisely that.
Its the Tory party. The members of the Tory party only care about the Tory Party. That's it! They'll happily watch the country burn as long as they're the ones still in charge of the charred remains
Don’t get me wrong, as someone who is in great debt to the NHS, I truly despise Jeremy Hunt, and in no way wish him to run a bath, much less the country.
That said, he has always been pretty consistent, so you know where you stand with him. He hasn’t reverted to underhanded covert marketing techniques, been in contact with Steve Bannon (to my knowledge), been undermining the EU for a bit of sport for the last 30 years etc
He just seems to have been doing what he does. No doubt he will have done some manoeuvring and schmoozing to get where he is, but nowhere near the scale that the racist, homophobic, faux incompetent **** who will say anything to get into power has.
Im very sceptical that Tory remainers will risk a GE, its party before country every time, which is part of the reason were in this mess!
Im very sceptical that Tory remainers will risk a GE, its party before country every time, which is part of the reason were in this mess!
It's career rather than party, there's a good chance a few mps are going to be shunted so far from the front benches as to see their careers forever in tatters if they're not out right purged from the party following a BJ win so might see fit to ditch the party and take their chances as an independent or anyone else who'll have them.
Equally there's a few who aren't likely to get returned under BJ regardless of their place in the party, some of them may come down on the side of either try their chances elsewhere or hold fast to govt and start looking for a new job.
Ultimately though the cons. don't have the numbers to resist a no confidence motion if BJ upsets the DUP regardless of their own MPs.
Whether JC and the PLP will push a no confidence motion though is a different matter. I can well imagine a few Labour votes propping BJ up because there's more than one Labour mp who will be in fear for their job in a GE if it happens any time soon. (And I personally don't put it beyond JC to fiddle whilst London burns any more than Boris)
I'm hoping Boris gets the job... simply because he is going to be horrendous, and i think he is our quickest route to a vote of no-confidence in the government and a GE, which will hopefully clear out some dead wood/scumbags from both parties and reset things.
Patronising McHunt
Good of him to take time out of his busy schedule to pop by with your Deliveroo. 🙂
Good of him to take time out of his busy schedule to pop by with your Deliveroo.
Was trying to order a fish supper online from UberEats but my fingers slipped on the keyboard.
Fair play to Uber****s.com though. They delivered it anyway.
Is that not Boris' girlfriend with Ed Sheeran in those pics above? Perhaps that's why they had an argument.
They delivered it anyway
That's rather the risk here isn't it? I bet it was cold, not what you ordered and a lot more expensive than you were quoted too.
Don’t know if it’s beeb discussed already but wasn’t Boris heard saying something like “get off my laptop”?
Do you think his girlfriend had stumbled across c://Boris/nichegrumble/Maggie/ ?
Hmm, I wonder if Boris has ever met Damien Green. Makes you think...
Its the Tory party. The members of the Tory party only care about the Tory Party. That’s it! They’ll happily watch the country burn as long as they’re the ones still in charge of the charred remains
Apparently not according to that You Gov poll that suggested Tory party members were prepared to trash their own party, the economy, the union with Scotland and/or N Ireland and embrace Corbyn as leader of the party if it meant they could have the unicorn-driven rapture that is Brexit. The only thing that even seemed to give them pause for thought was a Corbyn government, they didn't want that.
So these days, mostly no, they only care about Brexit - and not having a Corbynite government - that's it. The party, the economy and other stuff come a distant second.
It's the end of days - or something like that...
they only care about Brexit – and not having a Corbynite government – that’s it.
Many of them were Remoaners. Now they think that deliverooing Brexit will guarantee votes and with it that career and appointments to boards and so on. They'll do whatever is needed, pragmatic to the end.
Many of them were Remoaners. Now they think that deliverooing Brexit will guarantee votes and with it that career and appointments to boards and so on. They’ll do whatever is needed, pragmatic to the end.
I think that's probably true of Tory MPs, but party members were always pro-Brexit. They're generally reckoned to be significantly to the right of both most Tory MPs and non-member Tory voters. They're the people who will elect Boris regardless of his character, lies etc.
Given his current avoidance of televised debates, this tweet isn't aging well...
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/583715164991590400
"Do as I say, not as I do. "
It's hardly a new idea in politics is it? It's not a good thing but it's about as old as the job.
I was going steal that image for the 'uk in 10 years' thread but the idea of Boris not dobbing in his girlfriend for a younger model by then is too outrageous.
this is pretty damning stuff coming from.... I assume he couldn't get it printed in his old paper 🙂
Like many showy personalities, he is of weak character. I recently suggested to a radio audience that he supposes himself to be Winston Churchill, while in reality being closer to Alan Partridge.
I assume he couldn’t get it printed in his old paper
Even if it were, it would only serve to fill a few hundred pages of der telangriff with pro BJ letters and, regrettably, the guardian is preaching to the choir.
53/47 I'm sure I've seen similar numbers before...
That's working out well.
We really are well and truly through the looking glass here
They're discussing on Radio 4 that Ken Clarke and some Tory MPs who truly loath Boris would trigger a vote of no confidence, but that a number of Labour MPs would not vote against him as they want someone to deliver a no deal Brexit, so would vote with the Tories.
Bonkers! Our parliamentary system is well and truly borked!
Looks like we'd be into full-blown constitutional crisis territory in the summer.
Something to look forward too, eh?
That’s brilliant 👏
I do love my English brothers and sisters but for god sake you know how to let utter junk get to the top of your political elite.