Tuesday 25 June 2019

If not Boris, who?

It seems many of the people Boris Johnson has come across in this life now have it in for him. I guess that is where obvious and naked ambition gets you.

The list of haters is long, the BBC, the Labour Party, the EU, his ex-bosses, his girlfriend’s neighbours.

All of whom do not think much of him. Maybe if the hate is kept up it may get Jeremy Hunt to be Prime Minister.

But this is just the warm-up. There are only two outcomes of the path we are on.

One is a Jeremy Corbyn government where the hate spews from the Government too as well as the media.

The second is a Farage Government. Can you imagine the BBC and Guardian in that case. It will make this Boris hate festival look like a minor tiff with ones girlfriend.....

18 comments:

Matt said...

I can imagine Auntie having to compete commercially and The Graudian without public advertisement. I'm sure Nige can arrange both...

Y Draig Goch said...


President Franklin D Roosevelt is supposed to have said "I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made".

Boris seems to be on the right side of history.

Anonymous said...

Boris vs Hunt - you only have to look at the Hunt support i.e. he's now getting puff pieces in Remainer media i.e. nearly everywhere.

I wouldn't mind Hunt's proposed military spending increases if they were actually used to defend the UK rather than the RAF sodding around over the Black Sea, the Army doing covert unpleasantness in Syria, and the Royal Navy running a taxi service from Libya to Lampedusa. But they won't be, so I have to wonder whether our Armed Forces currently have any point at all.

andrew said...


Or perhaps a lot of people who actually know BJ understand he is :
a serial liar - sacked from multiple jobs for lying, a womaniser fathering a number of children, happy to pass on a journalists details to a friend so he can be beaten up, waster of public money, fantasist, famously lazy, andcompletely untrustworthy

and as such, not fit to be trusted to run a bath.

Anonymous said...

I can't see a Farage government, simply because a GE means people wanting more information on actual policies. Brexit may be the 500lb gorilla, but there are plenty of other issues people will vote on.

The Brexit Party is currently able to hold together a range of differing opinions because they all agree on one single thing. Start moving beyond that, and you're in choppy waters and that unity starts to fall apart.

I am musing joining the Brexit Party and putting myself forward as a candidate, precisely because beyond Brexit it is something of a tabula rasa and any ideas - left or right - that gain popular traction will be filched by the Tories or Labour flailing around for votes. So whilst an electoral victory may be further out of reach, policy ones are much lower hanging fruit.

If we didn't have a FPTP system, then maybe we'd get a Farage government, but we do.

As for Boris vs Hunt, really it's Boris. Hunt has too much of the Ed Miliband about him.

And I'm coming round the view that, whilst a Boris PM will be better than a Hunt PM, it's not going to go that well for Boris.

His laziness could be a benefit, in that he will be disinclined to micromanage and maybe will let the competent (assuming they will be competent of course) get on with things. But he's plainly someone who like the thrill of the chase, so the position will come to rankle. And he's made enemies galore, across the board, who will be prepping their revenge. I've no doubt Gove will be in the wings too.

The battle in October will be of interest, assuming his Premiership reaches that point, will he try and leave with No Deal? Will Parliament let him? Will the EU let Parliament extend further or force a revocation? Or will he throttle Brexit and hope he can bluster his way out of the betrayal and lay the blame on others?

Napoleon was so very wrong to describe us a nation of shopkeepers, we're soap opera addicts to the point we've turned our government into a second rate one.

dearieme said...

Anyone sensible who voted for Trump did so while holding his nose. Trump's great advantage was that he was Not Hillary.

Boris is Not Corbyn, and probably the only hope of those who want either or both of (i) Brexit, (ii) Nevercorbyn.

Hold you noses and do your duty, oh Conservatives!

Anonymous said...

@andrew - the womanizing is about the chase, as I mention above.

He's a spoilt brat, gets what he wants and then on to the next shiny, shiny.

Women. Position of power. Job. Treats them all similarly.

And yet he's still better than Hunt. Which is no salutation of Boris, just a recognition of the paucity of quality out there.

He will our own Zaphod Beeblebrox, and he'll make us feel good. Probably about remaining in the EU.

I will be happy to be in the wrong, but I think a lot of people who've put their hopes in Boris are going to feast on disappointment.

Anonymous said...

Some important considerations here.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/the-guardian-view-on-tory-leadership-politics-may-not-survive-brexit

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Boris is highly intelligent and also very lazy, which as all military types know, makes him suitable for high command.

Anonymous said...

Boris is a bit of a David Lloyd George, Andrew. He was a serial adulterer and a corrupt crook, which is more than has been proven against Boris. Yet he made a decent war leader.

You'll remember he was the last Liberal Prime Minister, maybe Boris will be the last Tory. I think he'll settle for the May non-deal with a few extra sweeties thrown in (if the EU have any sense) - in which case preseumably goodbye Scunthorpe steel, goodbye my vote and maybe hello Corbyn.

If the EU decide that it's time to bayonet the wounded and loot the baggage trains lets hope some MPs find a backbone.

I see May has allowed residence to some 700,000 assorted Poles and Kosovans, who will doubtless vote in any re-run. I was in the post office queue last week with a woman applying for a UK passport who had very poor English.

andrew said...

Various anons

Through gritted teeth I am forced to agree he is a better bet than Hunt.

But I do not like letting someone who lies (literally) by reflex not pay a heavy price for that.

Anon for PM.

Nick Drew said...

Anon would be great, (s)he comes here regularly

dearieme said...

Lovers of "Zulu" can correct me on the detail, but wasn't there a scene where a scared young infantryman said 'Why us, Sarge?' to receive the reply 'Because we're 'ere lad; there's no one else'?

jim said...

Much ballyhoo about actually getting to Brexit. What sort of Brexit nobody knows. Just possible Boris/Jerry will puke up at the realities, but I can't see them pulling the plug. So Brexit it is.

Then the fun starts, all this crap about tax cuts assumes there is some sort of success to come, can't see it. More like a great big Eton mess. The reality is we are headed for several Winters of Discontent, no Sunny Uplands, no unicorns, everyone headed for the exit. Worse, a reduced tax income.

All running up to 2022, an election everyone will want to lose, except possibly the Brexit party. What japes.

Nick Drew said...

@ an election everyone will want to lose

NO NO NO!

McDonnell has lived his entire life for this moment. Chaos so bad, he will sweep to power and do just whatever he pleases. Emergency powers on Day 1 ... and he's had since 2015 to do some serious planning for Days 2 & 3 ...

Bill Quango MP said...

ND.
Forgotten nowadys, but the entire first two fifths of Frederick Forsyth's book, The Fourth Protocal, is all about how the socialists and communists of the UK take over the United Kingdom offices of state. To ensure a pull out from Nato and expel the US bases from the UK.

It might be worth a re-reading.

E-K said...

Boris is the only one who can stop McDonnell

Wildgoose said...

@Andrew While I agree with the rest of your list, the "happy to pass on a journalists details to a friend so he can be beaten up" is neither true nor fair - and the person under the threat of violence (Peter Risdon) publicly defended Boris from that accusation.

The only thing going for Boris right now is that he isn't Hunt.

On the other hand, the Parliamentary arithmentic means there is no guarantee that even if elected leader of the Conservative Party he will be able to form a Government and thus become Prime Minister - it's not really automatic.