UK prime minister Boris Johnson

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BDFL - Memuneh
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#2282972 24-Jul-2019 17:17

"Simon Bridges says Boris Johnson has 'buffoon-like quality' and backs no-deal Brexit"

Bridges said he meant that Johnson was someone who sometimes got a bit of marmalade on his chin, sometimes did not say the right thing and whose personal life could be interesting.

He then recalled a time he met Johnson, calling him impressive.

"He really knew his stuff and is the right man for the times in Britain because he is more outward looking.They have been through a grim time and he is going to give them more optimism."

Johnson's no-deal position on Brexit would be good for New Zealand because he was outward facing, he said.

"It means he will be very motivated for a free trade agreement and he has made clear we will be one of, if not the first, off the block."

He would be good for New Zealand because he had a real regard for the Commonwealth, Bridges said.

I don't think Bridges knows what "buffoon" means. I also don't think Bridges knows anything about anything, based on this quoted piece.

gulfa

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#2282993 24-Jul-2019 18:17

Buffoon a ridiculous but amusing person; a clown.
synonyms:
fool, idiot, dolt, ass, nincompoop, blockhead, dunce, dunderhead, ignoramus, dullard, moron, simpleton, donkey, jackass;

Perhaps he should have spent a bit if time checking the meaning before he opens his mouth (AND he wants to be PM)

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#2283018 24-Jul-2019 18:56

There's only one thing the likes of Boris Johnson has any regard for and that's Boris Johnson.

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sir1963

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#2283026 24-Jul-2019 19:11

SaltyNZ:

There's only one thing the likes of Boris Johnson has any regard for and that's Boris Johnson.

So... the USA is run by a prick, the UK is run by a Johnson...

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#2283033 24-Jul-2019 19:33

sir1963:

So... the USA is run by a prick, the UK is run by a Johnson...

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SJB

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#2283037 24-Jul-2019 19:41

SaltyNZ:

There's only one thing the likes of Boris Johnson has any regard for and that's Boris Johnson.

And many other politicians are different how exactly?

elpenguino

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#2283128 24-Jul-2019 22:30

freitasm:

"Simon Bridges says Boris Johnson has 'buffoon-like quality' and backs no-deal Brexit"

For once Bridges says the right thing ......

There's a great deal of schadenfreude to be had watching the UK lurch through this existential crisis.

From empirical power to laughing stock of Europe, the fall is complete.

The country that doesn't know what it wants and how to get it.

It shows that the English, for it is they amongst the UKians who voted for Brexit, don't feel part of Europe and think cutting their own noses off will spite those European faces too.

I can't see it ending well for England or the union.

Of greater concern to me is the Irish question. Currently and since the GFA, Ireland is enjoying the most unity its had for hundreds of years. Mebbe Brexit is a catalyst that will lead to reunification. From a Brexit point of view it's advantageous to reunify Ireland, then there will be no 'hard border' on the island of Ireland.

If the English insist on rebuilding border walls the freedom fighters will come out of the woodwork and the festering mess of the troubles will be heaped on the English too. Not good for anyone.

Johnson has a track record as a BS artist. Remember he was actually fired from a journalism job for making up quotes and used to write all sorts of lies supporting euromyths, let alone the recent lies like 350 million a week.

I simply can't understand Brexiteer's aversion to the European parliament. As the world battles with serious problems like climate change, countries need to work together more, not less.

Most of the posters in this thread are just like chimpanzees on MDMA, full of feelings of bonhomie, joy, and optimism. Fred99 8/4/21

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#2283141 24-Jul-2019 23:26

Eerie coincidences:

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#2283142 24-Jul-2019 23:28

kingdragonfly: Boris Johnson, UK's next PM, pledges to deliver Brexit, defeat Jeremy Corbyn

and faster internet.

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#2283158 25-Jul-2019 07:27

SJB:

SaltyNZ:

There's only one thing the likes of Boris Johnson has any regard for and that's Boris Johnson.

And many other politicians are different how exactly?

Oh yes, in most cases it's a matter of degree rather than quality, and even the ones who go in sincerely wanting to make a difference eventually probably get that beaten out of them. But I think we may be reaching the end game for Western liberal democracy. The 21st Century will belong to the authoritarians.

On the one side we have China, the Lawful Evil: gets unambiguously impressive stuff done but does not give a flying function who they hurt in order to achieve it. And on the other side we have the US & UK, descending into Chaos, along with a European Union facing increasing pressures from within and struggling to hold itself together. And on the other other side, Russia, sitting back and throwing flaming bags of dog poop at everyone just for the lulz.

I honestly don't know what can be done about it. It's not like it's a new phenomenon either. Plato had the same dilemma. The terrifying thing is that this time, when the world order implodes, there is a near certainty that the ashes our grandchildren will have to try to rise from will be radioactive.

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#2283162 25-Jul-2019 07:42

elpenguino:

I simply can't understand Brexiteer's aversion to the European parliament. As the world battles with serious problems like climate change, countries need to work together more, not less.

Because the idea of working with people you continue to willingly hold onto age-old stereotypes about (distrustful Germans, lazy Greeks, corrupt Italians) is something they can't do unless they choose to move out of the 1950s.

It sounds dumb, but watch any sport where a British athlete ends up against a German rival. It quickly becomes unwatchable for anyone who doesn't buy into 'British is best' jingoistic rubbish.

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#2283225 25-Jul-2019 08:41

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/07/24/boris-johnson-plays-clown-hes-really-just-power-hungry-nihilist/

Boris Johnson plays a clown. He’s really just a power-hungry nihilist.

Washington Post

By Ian Dunt

On Wednesday, Theresa May will hand in her resignation to Queen Elizabeth II, and Boris Johnson will become prime minister of Great Britain.

The key to understanding him is not the befuddled onstage act or the inner personality — if indeed there is one — or even the politics. It’s the vacuity. Once you peel past everything else, you find nothing there: no substance, no convictions, no plan. That’s the ultimate Boris punchline. It’s like going on an adventure for buried treasure and finding a whoopee cushion.

The Boris persona itself is fake. Johnson cultivates a carefully crafted bumbling act, one in which the character always turns up late or pretends to have forgotten his lines — a beleaguered journalist-politician-intellectual who just tumbled out of bed.

But that’s all artifice. Those who have watched his speeches multiple times realize that the entire presentation, including seemingly off-the-cuff jokes and stories where he seems to lose the thread halfway through, are replicated word for word. It’s all pretend.

Then again, the persona is not supposed to be real. The act is not the act; it is the recognition of the act even while it is taking place. “Boris” is a postmodern invention. For it to work, you have to know that he is not really the bumbling fool, but actually a highly intelligent strategist using the bumbling fool persona to advance his career.

Even his closest allies endorse this view. The usual comment you will get from them is that Boris is “terribly clever.” In other words: He knows exactly what he's doing. The clown is fake.

So who is the Boris behind the clown? Not Boris at all, for one. The new prime minister’s actual name is Alexander, or “Al” to friends and family. Boris, his middle name, is effectively the stage name.

What's Al like? What's his real personality? What are his politics?

We simply don't know. He is a political mirror: He reflects the views of whichever group he needs to win to advance his career.

When he ran to be London mayor, he was a multicultural, open-minded, cosmopolitan, centrist Tory. When he campaigned for Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum, he was the Euroskeptic who dabbled in racially tinged anti-immigration propaganda. When he was running to be Tory leader this summer, he was the most hard-line Brexiteer imaginable, who even flirted with shutting down Parliament and putting British democracy on standby so he could force through an exit from the European Union with no deal in place to govern Britain’s departure.

Even on Europe, the one subject that now dominates all others, Johnson has no real conviction. In the 1990s, reporting from Brussels for the right-wing Daily Telegraph, he pioneered a literary subgenre of largely fictitious news stories about made-up European regulations. Later in his career, though, he seemed to warm to Europe. He sang the praises of the European single market — before later deciding that it was a “total waste of time.” And then, just before the referendum, he wrote two pieces: one supporting membership and one opposing it. Only at the last minute did he decide to campaign to Leave.

That was, in the end, the right decision for his career. After all, it has triggered a series of events that propelled him to the top. In terms of the political strategy, Johnson is quite accomplished. But in terms of political convictions, they do not seem to exist.

It’s similarly hard to pin down Al’s personality. We don’t know much about him. We don’t even know how many children he has because of the trail of broken relationships he leaves in his wake.

There are some glimpses of the man underneath. Occasionally, you can see a powerful sense of arrogance, a lack of willingness to let anyone else talk and a chuntering discontent at the notion he might not get everything his way.

He seems to have a total inability to grasp detail. In a crucial BBC interview, he relied extensively on a provision in paragraph 5B of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to suggest that Britain could have a standstill arrangement with the E.U. even in the case of no deal. But when he was asked what was in paragraph 5C, he had no idea.

He also seems largely indifferent to telling the truth. He was sacked from his first newspaper job at the Times for making up quotes. The Brexit referendum campaign he helped lead was stuffed full of inaccurate claims. And even his leadership run saw him insist on legal or trade arguments that are objectively false. In a typical moment of absurdity, he at one point brandished a smoked fish in front of a large crowd, insisting that there was a pointless European regulation mandating that it was transported with a “plastic ice pillow.” In fact, the regulation is British, and it has a very specific point — namely, to protect consumer health.

You get the sense that nothing that comes out of the mouth of the clown persona should be strictly treated as true because, after all, it’s only acting. Johnson carries a kind of fictitious conceit around him, like a fuzzy membrane, which objective reality rarely permeates.

But that's it. All we get are these glimmers of an individual behind the broad, well-worn act. Britain really has no idea who is about to become its next prime minister.

Until this week, he was quite an easy politician to predict. Johnson would do anything to be prime minister, and every action he took was predictable, or at least comprehensible, on that basis. But now he is actually prime minister, so that no longer holds. God knows what happens now.

Certainly, we have no idea what his Brexit policy will be. The options he has promoted are mutually incompatible. He says he wants a deal with the E.U., but he has ruled out the key requirements of what such a deal would entail. He says he will force through a no-deal exit if necessary, but parliamentary opposition makes it highly unlikely he can do so. He says he won't hold a general election, which would at least give him a chance of getting past the parliamentary deadlock. And he says he won't countenance another referendum, which might allow him to get his Brexit plan through. He's ruled out all his options. At least one of these promises is going to be broken, but it's not immediately clear which one it will be.

That’s all we really know about the man behind the clown mask: It’s a person with no convictions, delivering a political project he does not believe in, with a plan that does not exist.

It’s proper, next-level postmodern politics. There are numerous layers of understanding, and it does, indeed, seem “terribly clever.” But once you get past the knowing winks, there’s nothing there at all.

sir1963

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#2283261 25-Jul-2019 09:38

NSFW, and have the volume down...

https://vimeo.com/349649184

SJB

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#2283293 25-Jul-2019 10:18

GV27:

elpenguino:

I simply can't understand Brexiteer's aversion to the European parliament. As the world battles with serious problems like climate change, countries need to work together more, not less.

Because the idea of working with people you continue to willingly hold onto age-old stereotypes about (distrustful Germans, lazy Greeks, corrupt Italians) is something they can't do unless they choose to move out of the 1950s.

It sounds dumb, but watch any sport where a British athlete ends up against a German rival. It quickly becomes unwatchable for anyone who doesn't buy into 'British is best' jingoistic rubbish.

Can I assume that neither of you were born in Britain?

Britons that I knew in the many years I lived there never felt part of the European project. Most felt they had been conned into it by Edward Heath, the PM at the time, who was a through and through Europhile. When the referendum to join was carried out it was referendum on joining a trade organization not a political one.

The change to a political organization was made by various treaties between the member countries over the next couple of decades and the question of whether the people wanted that change was never tested by another referendum in Britain. More and more powers were devolved to the EU without the population ever being asked if that was OK with them.

It would be like New Zealand joining the TPPA and then 10 years later it transforms itself into a political organization without getting the agreement of any of the people. New Zealand then finds itself partly governed by faceless bureaucrats in Seoul or Melbourne. I don't think that would go down too well.

The issue of countries working together does not rely on the existence of the EU. In some case it could be a hindrance when trying to get the 27 member states to agree on an approach to a problem. That's unless you think it's OK for the EU to simply ride rough shod over local concerns to get their way.

Incidentally for a long time the European Parliament was just a talking shop with little actual power. That changed in 1999 when a scandal at the top level resulted in the entire EU commission resigning. The parliament now has broadly similar powers to the EU commissioners.

Your comment about sport sounds like it comes from the 1950's TBH. Nobody thinks or talks that way. The one sport where you might make that mistake is football where the rivalry between England and Germany is on a par with the All Blacks vs Australia or South Africa. But that is nothing to do with nationality and everything to do with the 1966 World Cup final and the subsequent World Cups where Germany always seemed to be knocking England out on penalties in the semi-final.

Unless you have a time machine and can experience the alternative no one can tell if Britain was better off joining the EU or not. Similarly, unless you have a crystal ball no one can tell if, in say 50 years, Britain would have been better off staying in or not.

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#2283294 25-Jul-2019 10:21

SaltyNZ:

There's only one thing the likes of Boris Johnson has any regard for and that's Boris Johnson.

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