A thread to catalogue the eloquence, dignity, diplomacy and wisdom of Boris Johnson: V Gone-ish!

There's a thunderstorm heading for Deeside at the moment.....

 

He's getting a good look at the sunlit uplands.

 

So two people have to fly to Scotland (and back) on different planes to go through an outdated and pointless formality. Fantastic (if I may borrow that word, Boris) example as the globe overheats and, paradoxically, many prepare for a cold, cold winter. Apologies if this has already been mentioned.

 

I'm touched by your oft-repeated faux-empathy for Her Majesty. I would suggest she might be less so by your determination to split the Union of three hundred and fifteen odd years.

 

She`s fine with it, Dec`s promised she can still use Balmoral anytime she wants to (mates rates of course).

 

The Union has been on a one-way trip to dissolution ever since the 2@ Cameron gave us the referendum. Brexit will inevitably cause this, £1bn to the DUP and saying "Non" to the SNP a few times may delay it but it will happen.

 

You voted for Boris to 'get Brexit done', didn't you? Another vote to add to catalyse the splitting of the union.

Like they say at Tesco, 'every little helps'.

 

Boris complaining about ‘rule changes’ that’s a good ‘un.

 

That may well be true (but then, counterintuitively, it may not be), but I've yet to claim my empathy for The Queen to support my dislike of, say, Nicola Sturgeon, who was undoubtedly plotting to break the Union even as The Duke of Edinburgh (funny, that!) was being carted off, splendidly boxed, on his Landrover. I say 'undoubtedly' because that is, from what I can see, about all she does.

 

Is there the slightest chance that when BoJo appeared at Balmoral this morning HM said "come in number 14, your time is up" ?

 

Leader of the SNP, plotting to break the union? well I never.

 

Today I've been musing that the Queen has a lethal right hook, and that her saintly self-restraint slipped a little.

John

 

As I’ve said before, Don’t Put Your Daughter on The Stage Mrs. Worthington. Your greedy Cast has finished the Union. Punch the air and rejoice, think of the billions that could be put into NHS England (while you still have it),

I keep coming back to the same question- how low are you prepared to go in giving cover to Johnson? On present form, I’d say vry vry low. He’s a criminal.

 

A consumate politician whose competence is on a level the tories can only weep in envious despair at.
I mean, Nicola V Liz....lols.

 

And your vote has helped her cause because Scotland voted to stay in the EU. It's the law of unintended consequences and all that.

Maybe, just maybe, instead of deflecting this time, you could actually take some responsibility for your actions?

 

Show me where I was giving cover to Johnson? I wasn't. I was simply removing yours.

 

Did we find out if Boris n Carrie were asked to stay on for lunch?

 

Genuine question: is it normal practice for an outgoing PM to take their spouse to see the queen for the official handover?

 

I read that was indeed the case. Problem is Boris doesn’t even seem to know how many offspring he has so it could have taken ages to round them up and get the permission of the various mothers.

 

I'm vaguely (very vaguely) intrigued to know where I'm 'deflecting', or indeed failing to take 'responsibility for my actions'. Strong stuff. You talk as though I alone voted to leave the EU. I'm afraid it took a majority to achieve that.

My own vote to leave the EU was premised upon a fairly straightforward but strongly felt desire for the right to hire and sanction the politicians who set the laws by which I must abide, and spend the money that I relinquish in tax. This process is referred to as 'representative democracy'. For all of its shortcomings, and I willingly admit there are many, I believe it to be very much preferable to the system of unrepresentative centralised technocracy that is presumably your favoured model.

In voting to relinquish the latter for the former there were always going to be consequences, most of them broadly anticipated, some of them not. Most of the unwelcome consequences are set around the unnecessary conditionality of membership of the Single Market upon full compliance with the EU's overarching political project.

An unintended but widely anticipated consequence of a decision by Scotland to leave the Union would be the immediate sacrifice of the disproportionate representation and influence that it currently enjoys within the Union, of a substantial and telling chunk of its public expenditure budget - and the consequent and immediate imposition of perhaps a decade of austerity that would have the potential to make the (EU-induced) Greek debacle look like a picnic - together with the loss of any control over its own monetary policy. Should a perhaps less-anticipated (unintended) scenario of a Putin-fractured and energy-starved EU not be willing or available to pick up the baton, I would suggest that Westminster magnamanity - or at least geopolitical expedience - will need to be available in spades in order to prevent the not-so-independent Scottish government from assuming the position in front of an opportunistic China bearing IED-laden compound interest-bearing gifts.

Unintended consquences indeed. In the harsh light of what we have learned in recent years, if I were a Scottish voter I would be considering my options very carefully.