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Boris Johnson


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13 minutes ago, Jennings said:

He didn't like it when that journalist challenged him for following the science, calling him out as the decision maker.

Yep yet you still get sad little hypocrites kicking off that their beloved has been challenged. 

 

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Captain Turdseye said:


It’s a very effective way of not actually answering any fucking questions. Just keep waffling shite until people forget what was asked in the first place. 

He's stage managed to fuck. From the exaggerated hand gestures, his hair to the bumbling.

 

It was mentioned on GMTV yesterday. Morgan said he'd been told the hair is deliberately messed up just before he faces the cameras. They even put two photos up to compare him to Worzell Gummedge. 

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36 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

He hates being asked anything. He genuinely thinks its all beneath him. 


I thinks it’s more than the born to rule stuff, it’s more than that. A damaged buffoon who has been told he’s special though out his whole life, whilst knowing deep down he’s just a dumpy dickhead, who once read Sophocles, who made it because everybody covered for him or did the leg work.
 

A man educated to the point of stupidity and despite his delusions of leadership grandeur he’s just a scared little boy who’s terrified of being found out for the pathetic mediocrity he his.

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1 hour ago, Bruce Spanner said:


I thinks it’s more than the born to rule stuff, it’s more than that. A damaged buffoon who has been told he’s special though out his whole life, whilst knowing deep down he’s just a dumpy dickhead, who once read Sophocles, who made it because everybody covered for him or did the leg work.
 

A man educated to the point of stupidity and despite his delusions of leadership grandeur he’s just a scared little boy who’s terrified of being found out for the pathetic mediocrity he his.

Never forget he's also a massive cunt.

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50 minutes ago, Duff Man said:

Remember a month or so ago when half the pundits were wondering if he'd be a changed man after his spell in hospital? Credulous fuckwits.

Occasionally people here ask me questions along the lines of "but surely that changed him?

 

Wasn't one of his first steps after getting better, having been treated by foreign doctors and nurses, to try and charge them to work in the NHS only to later reverse his decision (presumably after some public pressure)?

 

These people aren't fucking human. 

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3 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

Occasionally people here ask me questions along the lines of "but surely that changed him?

 

Wasn't one of his first steps after getting better, having been treated by foreign doctors and nurses, to try and charge them to work in the NHS only to later reverse his decision (presumably after some public pressure)?

 

These people aren't fucking human. 

Yep, these are truly great days for the wallet inspector, they really are.

 

See also all the 'surely this is the end for Cummings?' stuff a couple of weeks ago. I guess they must have only just started watching Tories Barely Ever Facing Material Consequences For Anything, and somehow missed the previous 28 seasons.

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Yes, where in most of the episodes a large chunk of the audience has actually forgotten the plot half way through. 

 

Why would they take responsibility for anything? They have a national media whose most prominent voices are essentially celebrity stenographers, and a general public that contains millions of people that are visibly devolving. 

 

Their latest trick of "fuck sake get behind the lads" whenever questioned by any other political party is particularly gratifying as it displays what an inspiring democracy we have.

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Looking forward to 'Rishi Sunak is just a run of the mill Tory? But he seemed so nice with his suit and his hair and his Job Retention Scheme that he definitely would have done anyway even without all the public pressure that led to it'.

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1 minute ago, Duff Man said:

Looking forward to 'Rishi Sunak is just a run of the mill Tory? But he seemed so nice with his suit and his hair and his Job Retention Scheme that he definitely would have done anyway even without all the public pressure that led to it'.

Seeing his name reminded me of the couple of friend of a friend posts I've seen on Facebook along the lines of "He gived u 80% of you're wayges and your stil moaning"

 

 

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11 hours ago, Bjornebye said:

 

 

 

 

I find it amusing that the likes of John the van driver can tell Lineker/RATM etc. to stick to football/music but 95% of their posts, followers and Twitter handles are political. Fucking morons

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14 hours ago, Bruce Spanner said:


I thinks it’s more than the born to rule stuff, it’s more than that. A damaged buffoon who has been told he’s special though out his whole life, whilst knowing deep down he’s just a dumpy dickhead, who once read Sophocles, who made it because everybody covered for him or did the leg work.
 

A man educated to the point of stupidity and despite his delusions of leadership grandeur he’s just a scared little boy who’s terrified of being found out for the pathetic mediocrity he his.

Spot on. He’s only ever been good at the chummy positivity and optimism which made him so appealing to the Brexit brigade who aren’t arsed about detail, only that things will be great again. He’s completely unprepared for actual governance because you can’t talk up a pandemic.

 

What’s happening now is equivalent to asking Bruce Willis what we should do about an approaching asteroid.

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Why I broke with Boris Johnson

A devastating indictment of the Prime Minister from one of his former allies and Downing Street advisers. 

 

 
 
 

The dashboard was flashing red many months before Boris Johnson’s own life-endangering encounter with Covid-19. Long before 40,000 British deaths from this pandemic and the evaporation of the Prime Minister’s reputation for competence there were multiple signs that the ship of state was heading for rocky times. Key talents had been reshuffled out of the cabinet because they had committed the sin of independent-mindedness. The top table was left with a very middle-ranking membership. Ministerial special advisers who dared to differ had been dispatched and years of hard-won experience lost in the process. MPs learned that messages to the Prime Minister needed to be effusive to have much hope of a reply. More often than not, any critical messages – how- ever constructively worded – were greeted with silence.

 

It took six years for Margaret Thatcher’s governments to begin to stop listening to alternative voices. The same patterns had emerged within six months of Johnson becoming Prime Minister, and within six weeks of his general election victory last December. In her early years the Iron Lady relished argument and intellectual debate – and those internal jousts strengthened her for the public battles with her true opponents. In the starkest of contrasts, the team inside today’s No 10 has often preferred to greet internal dissent with retribution – much of it pre-briefed to favoured journalists. Throughout the Westminster village every Tory had quickly learned the score: do, say and tweet as you are told – or else. In February’s reshuffle we learned that earning the disfavour of key prime ministerial adviser Dominic Cummings was fatal, even if you were chancellor of the Exchequer. Everyone was dispensable. Except Dom.

 

Again and again I warned Johnson that “it’s reign of terror now and, inevitably, reign of error next”. In a message from mid-February, I noted that “ministers increasingly fear rather than respect your No 10 operation” and that there was little free-thinking across his government. I urged him to appoint an outsider – perhaps a former White House chief of staff – to conduct a widespread review of his No 10 set-up. He needed to establish how his Downing Street office should be reconstructed so that it had a chance of meeting the challenges of our time. I begged him to anticipate looming problems before it was too late. I pinpointed a “shortcutting of proper process to hit objectives”. I worried about curtailed cabinet meetings where issues such as the economic impact of coronavirus received just five minutes of “discussion” in January. All these private calls for a course correction went unheeded. On 27 February I told him that, with enormous sadness, I was walking away from his offer to me of a “great project”. I could see the car crash coming and I couldn’t bear to be part of it.

 

And it was with enormous sadness. I was demoralised by his operation’s treatment of good people. In the wake of December’s mighty election victory I had been exhilarated by the prospect of what a pro-Brexit, pro-social justice Tory government could do with a solid majority over a five-year term. But that victory had gone to too many young heads. It had been an impressive win but it wasn’t all down to the brilliance of Johnson’s circle, whatever they seemed to think. It owed much to the most left-wing Labour leader of modern times and his manifesto containing an impossible number of promises. It also owed much to a widespread desire from within non-traditional Tory voters for an end to the chaos and disunity of those hung parliament years.

 

Sadly, No 10 hasn’t left its campaigning tactics of divide-and-rule behind it. It’s still campaigning 24/7 – constantly crossing the road to pick a fight with enemies inside the Conservative Party, in the media and beyond. Many who worked with Cummings – when he advised Iain Duncan Smith, when he was at the Department for Education, or when he was at Vote Leave – will recognise the pattern of pugilism.

 

The tragedy is that it didn’t need to be this way. Johnson was not like this when he ran London. He was an upbeat, inclusive mayor who embraced issues such as climate change, same-sex marriage and the living wage before other Tories.
 

He encouraged disagreement within his team. Key advisers Daniel Moylan and Isabel Dedring had differing views on transport but both were heard and heeded at different times. The same was true of Stephen Greenhalgh and Kit Malthouse on issues of policing and business competitiveness.

 

With four-and-a-half years until there has to be another general election it might not be too late to put things right. Cummings is undoubtedly a hugely talented individual but if he is to stay in place he shouldn’t have the dominant role that he currently enjoys. I’ve learnt of too many conversations truncated, and not by brilliant argument or killer facts. “There’s no way that Dom would wear that” has been enough to ensure termination of much alternative thinking.

 

Although Team Boris includes many talented people – David Frost, Isaac Levido and Munira Mirza – it needs more grey hairs and more straight-talkers. If Johnson is going to be presidential he needs something that is a lot more like a White House than Dom’s frat house, starring Caino, Roxstar, Sonic and other playground names.

 

But – much more than a strengthening of No 10 – a restoration of cabinet government is needed. At this time of enormous challenge, it is unforgivable that the likes of Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Penny Mordaunt and Julian Smith aren’t at the top table. And is Tom Tugendhat ever going to be forgiven for having once used the foreign affairs select committee to suggest that Johnson’s time as foreign secretary wasn’t his finest hour?

 

I still have huge affection for Boris Johnson. I wanted him to be party leader, and in the run-up to the 2015 election spent many evenings within a small group that plotted towards that goal. My enduring memory of that time was the role his former wife, Marina, played in his life. An extraordinary brain; unafraid to dispense home truths. She was his anchor and, despite everything, had been for most of his adulthood. He’s now divorced and, while I wish nothing but happiness for Johnson and Carrie Symonds, I can’t make sense of so much of his turbulent time in Downing Street without thinking that the turbulence in his private life does a great deal of the explaining. Few of us would be unaffected in similar circumstances, especially if a serious illness had been layered on top.

 

After Cummings-gate the parliamentary party is moving beyond the terrified phase. Many MPs are furious at the slump in the opinion polls; at the ways in which their multiple calls for Cummings to go were ignored; and at a succession of unforced policy errors. They no longer believe in the Prime Minister in the way they did. They still want their faith to be restored, but does Johnson realise the scale of what will be required to ensure that? I hope so. I fear not. 

Tim Montgomerie is the co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice, ConservativeHome, and a former advisor to Boris Johnson.

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