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

[Darmok]

Boris Johnson jeered at Glasgow Central Station today, dodging questions about his corrupt MPs,

get him out.

One comment btl states that "If sunak had given 10 million pounds to every man, woman and child in the UK, it would be less money wasted on useless PPE items paid out to his mates."

Is this really true?

 

[Enfield boy]

So Boris wears a mask outside, in the open air, yet doesn't inside a hospital. How can such a crooked fool be permitted to hold any responsible job?

 

[puddlesplasher]

My thoughts exactly…

 

[ks.234]

One comment btl states that "If sunak had given 10 million pounds to every man, woman and child in the UK, it would be less money wasted on useless PPE items paid out to his mates."

Is this really true?

No. It’s only 1 or 2 million

 

[Tony L]

Using NASA costing as a benchmark if we included Dido Harding’s £37bn in the figure I’m pretty sure we could have placed the entire Conservative front bench on Mars. No need for a Mars-base or anything. Just getting them there is more than enough for me. The current Mars Rover cost $3.7bn, and that’s for the whole project including ongoing monitoring. Ok, it likely weighs a lot less than Boris Johnson, but Rees Mogg doesn’t look to weigh much so it would likely balance out.

PS I’m curious how much a trip out of the solar system would cost? Can’t be too safe.

 

[Enfield boy]

Send the bastards inwards, let physics do the work.

 

[zarniwoop]

 

[PsB]

Using NASA costing as a benchmark if we included Dido Harding’s £37bn in the figure I’m pretty sure we could have placed the entire Conservative front bench on Mars. No need for a Mars-base or anything. Just getting them there is more than enough for me. The current Mars Rover cost $3.7bn, and that’s for the whole project including ongoing monitoring. Ok, it likely weighs a lot less than Boris Johnson, but Rees Mogg doesn’t look to weigh much so it would likely balance out.

PS I’m curious how much a trip out of the solar system would cost? Can’t be too safe.

If Dido Harding was running the show, $37 billion would barely cover the cost of getting the party over to Cape Canaveral and fitting them out with space suits, never mind strapping them into anything looking like a rocket.

 

[TheDecameron]

He’s a disgrace.

 

[ks.234]

https://twitter.com/labourlewis/status/1458389839049629697?s=20


(PS, how do you embed a twitter link so it displays as image rather than just a link as above?)

 

[The Far North]

And from today's Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/politic...oris-johnsons-britain-cry-the-corrupt-country

The enduring problem, as Machiavelli and others argued long ago, is that corruption is a permanent and organic threat to public life. It takes several forms, large and small, which all require constant attention, in various ways, to prevent them from becoming systemic and inextricable. It is entirely typical of Mr Johnson that his remarks in Glasgow wholly ignored these real dangers and offered no criticism of, or apology for, any of the current cases that have caused such alarm.

The contrast with Thursday’s interview on Radio 4’s Today programme with Lord Evans, chairman of the committee on standards in public life, could not have been starker. Where Mr Johnson blustered about Britain not being remotely a corrupt country, Lord Evans forensically explained some of the practical controls that need strengthening if Britain is not to slip further into forms of political corruption that are anything but remote. In 2018, for example, Lord Evans’s committee produced a report to tighten control of MPs’ second jobs, about which new allegations now arise almost daily, yet the report remains unimplemented.

 

[Tony L]

He’s a disgrace.

Absolutely. Johnson is, despite appearances, not stupid. Certainly not that stupid. I’d argue he knows exactly what he is doing here. It is almost certainly very deliberate Trump behaviour/ideology. He is sending a message.

 

[Enfield boy]

He’s a disgrace.

In the scheme of things, compared to his other malfeasances this is small beer, however it proves that Raab lied repeatedly on live television about this and surely helps in framing the institutional dishonesty of the UK govt.

 

[SteveS1]

The luster will come off but not while he's in thrall to Brexiteers and other deniers (they tend to be cut from the same rag). But the extent to which Republicans previously considered not among the lunatics have remained invested in Trump has to be a worry, as we seem incapable of not aping the US when it comes to the more stupid aspects. The example in Gaby's piece today is a neat illustration.

Dancing with the one that brung ya, as Ronald Reagan used to call it, means pandering to an ideology that has been calling the shots inside the parliamentary and grassroots party since the Brexit referendum, its leading figures self-styled as the Spartans but increasingly (for a new generation of Conservatives) known by less printable names.

Owen Paterson was a loyal Spartan, so Downing Street marched his reluctant colleagues up the hill to save him from being suspended over lobbying allegations, only to turn and flee when that proved unworkable. The self-harming trade war we are threatening to start with the EU is chiefly for the benefit of the Spartans, who were told that a hard Brexit would have serious consequences for Northern Ireland but wouldn’t listen.

Spartans tend not to like facts that contradict their ideological worldview. In his book Spike, the former Sage science group adviser Jeremy Farrar recalls a Zoom meeting last autumn with Tory MPs from the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group, in which he tried to persuade them of the case for restrictions. Farrar reeled off the numbers on rising infections, hospitalisations and deaths, proof of an epidemic exploding. In return, he writes: “They asked questions like, ‘What should I say to my constituents who don’t see much Covid?’” There is, to put it mildly, a theme emerging.

In the wake of the Paterson debacle – which not only trashed parliament’s reputation but started a war on Conservatives with lucrative outside interests – some Tory MPs are asking hard questions about who has the prime minister’s ear. The mask, in more than one sense, is slipping, and in future they may well push back harder when asked to do things that don’t sound right. Well, it’s progress of a kind, I suppose. What a shame that, for the sake of the rest of the country, it has come several years too late.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/12/pandemic-paterson-johnson-brexiteers-tory-mps

 

[Colin L]

Staggering if true, but entirely possible given his lack of attention to detail. I wouldn't bet against it.

https://twitter.com/dominic2306/status/1459136193162063872?s=21

 

[Darmok]

Boris Johnson holiday villa linked to Zac Goldsmith firms accused of tax evasion

Costa del Sol property firms owned by Goldsmith family ordered to pay €24m in unpaid taxes and fines

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...to-zac-goldsmith-firms-accused-of-tax-evasion

Is there no end to this list of indiscretions?

 

[Nero]

Any sane person wouldn’t have gone near the Goldsmith family anyway. Oh.

 

[TheDecameron]

Any sane person wouldn’t have gone near the Goldsmith family anyway. Oh.

Friends with villas.
Friends with wonga*.

* though looks like the Spanish courts are going to take €24million off the Goldsmiths for defrauding the Spanish exchequer. Maybe Zac asked Boris & Carrie to leave something in the jar when they were leaving?

 

[wacko]

Absolutely. Johnson is, despite appearances, not stupid. Certainly not that stupid. I’d argue he knows exactly what he is doing here. It is almost certainly very deliberate Trump behaviour/ideology. He is sending a message.

Blondes just wanna have fun.

 

[TheDecameron]

The DM has the knives out for Johnson.

He seems to have lost his ability to smell the mob.