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A thread to catalogue the eloquence, dignity, diplomacy and wisdom of Boris Johnson

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They’re actually proceeding with this thing? I thought it was just another Johnson bridge to nowhere, floated then quietly forgotten about.
 
Eye-opening in-depth article just up on the FT site: 'Inside Boris Johnson’s money network'

Monday June 28 was a gruelling day for Boris Johnson. Days earlier, health secretary Matt Hancock had resigned for breaking coronavirus restrictions during an affair with an aide, and the political aftershocks were still reverberating. Instead of recuperating in his recently redecorated Downing Street flat with his wife Carrie that evening, the prime minister was driven to a Kensington townhouse for a discreet gathering with some of the wealthiest people in London.

Among those milling in the garden over drinks and canapés were key donors to the Conservative party, including host Rishi Khosla, a banker. Peter Cruddas, the online trading tycoon who gave the Tories £500,000 days after being elevated by Johnson to the House of Lords in 2020, was there, as was Howard Shore, the founder of Shore Capital who gave the party £250,000 this year.

These were some of the money men who had supported Johnson’s rise to power. Many were also members of the secretive “Advisory Board,” a hitherto unknown group of elite donors who enjoy frequent and direct access to the most powerful people in government.

The evening was not organised by Johnson. It was convened by an adept high-society operator installed by the prime minister to ensure the Tory party was bankrolled at the last election, is flush today and will be well into the future: Ben Elliot.


Under Elliot the Advisory Board has become the most desirable club in the Tory party, its members granted monthly access to Johnson or chancellor Rishi Sunak, according to people briefed on its activities. Conservative officials say it was set up before Johnson took power, but decline to say when. It does not officially exist on any party literature.

https://www.ft.com/content/8c6041ff-a223-43e9-9e45-53c3f7cf47f7
 
One of the most popular comments on that article was this:

"A serious issue is that Johnson and his uncountable offspring and current and former spouses (and recipients of support) are not famously frugal in their lifestyles (without going into detail.) It was widely suggested that in the short period to July 2018 that Johnson was foreign secretary, he found the salary of £151,000 plus an enormous grace and favour mansion at 1 Carlton Gardens (much larger and better appointed than the 10 Downing Street flat) and use of Chevening House inadequate, and consequently was after a few months hoping Theresa May would either sack him for disloyalty or he could find some posturing ground to resign.

When he did, finally, extricate him from the role which precluded his taking outside income (something he didn't forgo as Mayor of London or as an MP) he promptly managed to round up at least £¾ million in various way, in the 7 months or so before he became Prime Minster. Lately, the moans about having to get by on a mere £162,866, with a flat at No. 10 (including a £30,000 annual decorating budget) and the use of a country house (Chequers) have restarted.

Why does this matter? Essentially because Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, from his teenage years when Stanley wangled his Eton fees out of the European Commission (that was the so-called "scholarship") through most of his life has been some rich mans toy, his bag-carrier - Conrad Black, the Barclay Brothers, etc. He and his family have always expected to live an extravagant lifestyle, funded by others. Someone has always owned Johnson, what he thinks, what he does. Has that changed? It seems unlikely, so who is Johnson's new sponsor, now that the famously untransparent Barclay money is unlikely to be picking up the tab, one twin being dead, the other not looking too hot, and the family feuding..."


Effectively the EU paid for BoJo's Eton education....wow that has been hushed up.
 
The man who mistook his Prime Minister for an umbrella. Johnson more and more resembles a Ken Dodd tribute act- drawing attention from others to himself in more and more grotesque ways.

Hes even trumped his earlier bumbershoot Panto this week, “dripping wet despite holding an umbrella”
oKAhn96.jpg


….never elect a clown, clowns are dangerous.

https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1421106104256315396 He knows (first-hand) that Johnson is an absolute **** .
 
In what way 'surprisingly'..?
Trump called him Britain Trump which made it slightly unbelievable that he could be a second Trump. Then when Trump was defeated I believed Johnson would give up what I imagined was a sycophantic Trump tribute act but it turns out he actually is another Trump. The same narcissistic need to be liked (in Johnson’s case, by giving away money and making false promises he’ll never keep vs Trump’s gloating sadism).I kept pinching myself hoping what I was seeing wasn’t true but it is every bit true and with bells on.
 
Yes, it is; yet - Boris is equally proven talentless to the point of manifest-failure at anything, always has been. He is also long-proven inept at the things that you would expect instantly disqualify anyone from office, for a start:

Sacked twice for lying as a journalist,
then, amongst other things:
..resigned twice as a Minister for ...lying.

Yet this utter %^&* has a coterie of plutocrats wanting/paying/supporting him in place.

Once upon a time we'd all have dismissed Manchurian Candidates as unsettling, but obviously - a fantasy tat could never happen. Heaven knows we could do without it.

Oh - and how do 'we' shout 'the Emperor is Naked!' effectively, when no-one can believe what they read & hear anymore, in no small part because so much of the media is dominated by the kind of people included within that coterie of plutocrats ..?

That shot from 'Citizen Kane' as newspaper editor: 'You provide the pictures - I'll provide the War'. Never more true; also - never more despicable.



ps usable pitchforks still quite cheap on amazon....
 
How do we shout 'the Emperor is Naked!' effectively, when no-one can believe what they read & hear anymore ..?

Cold War Steve shouts it graphically every day but it’s as though you are watching a cartoon caricature, one part of your brain acknowledges it is real and another part cant bear acknowledging it.
 
The Observer View on the naval taskforce and China. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/01/observer-view-royal-navy-south-china-sea
It’s typical of this prime minister that he is prepared to take such a gamble with other people’s lives. It is also deeply contradictory. In February, Johnson declared himself a “fervent Sinophile” keen to expand economic and trade links with Beijing. His government wrongly blocked a bid to give UK courts a say in determining if a state is committing genocide, as China is in Xinjiang.

Yet over the past year, Johnson has excluded Huawei from UK 5G markets, sought to reduce China’s role in nuclear power projects and imposed sanctions over human rights abuses in Hong Kong. At the recent G7 summit, he signed up to Joe Biden’s anti-Beijing “alliance of democracies” and is busily wooing India, China’s rival. Now comes this navy lark. Exactly what is Johnson’s China policy?
 
“TOP cops u-turned on the name “Operation Bunter” for a mission to guard Boris Johnson amid fears it would offend the Prime Minister.
Police Scotland assigned the codename - an echo of fictional chubby schoolboy Billy Bunter - while drawing up highly sensitive security plans for the PM’s next trip to Scotland”.
-The Sun.

They’ve changed it to Operation Aeration allegedly.
 
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