Armchair politics

Lol.

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Don’t see how he is going to get to the end of this contest with hunt if this keeps up

That would be a shame as it would mean that we get Hunt instead. :scream: Expect all sorts of revelations about Hunt to start appearing in the pro-Johnson media.

Hopefully, the day after Johnson wins the Tory leadership contest the photos of him with a snout full of toot appear all over the media. Neither he nor Hunt strike me as being particularly fit for office. Anyone who has been willing to engage in managing the decline of the NHS deserves to be sidelined from Government permanently.

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Lots of bullying by Johnson’s team going on behind the scenes, threats to dish dirt etc unless MPs back Boris. Gove was a warning shot to the others as well as eliminating an opponent.

Expect the grudges to mire Prime Minister Bojo in all kinds of shit once he’s in office.

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There were two things yesterday.

This one where he evidently still thinks there’ll be some implementation period even without a withdrawal agreement. He’s an absolutely ill advised, badly briefed buffoon.

There was also this corker about how much he supported the bankers in 2008 when no one else would.

He’s a clown. The saddest part of this is that one of the really cynical hard-core Brexiters hasn’t stood for this leadership so they can be very publicly humiliated when their beliefs are demonstrated to be fantasies. When Boris crashes & burns they’ll step back & say his heart was never in the project, he didn’t do it properly, not a true Brexiteer.

These are the cunts; Lilley, Rees-Mogg, Redwood, Patterson, Francois, Baker, Hannan, Cash, Drax etc that should really be exposed for what they are about, not a useful idiot like Johnson.

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grrr.

Alex Massie

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote of the emperor Servius Sulpicius Galba that his career in public life was so illustrious that “everyone would have thought him worthy of power, had he never ruled”. Galba, who succeeded Nero in AD68 after a brief period of civil war, lasted less than a year. He was the first ruler of Rome in what came to be known, with a certain shudder, as the Year of the Four Emperors.

Well, Boris Johnson read classics at Oxford University and knows his Tacitus from his Suetonius. Perhaps in the future some historian will note that it was once said of Johnson that “no one, besides himself, thought him worthy of power until he had it”. Perhaps, that is, he will surprise us all. Then again, who am I kidding?

The cult of Boris is not so very different from the cult of Jeremy that afflicts the Labour Party. Each has a millenarian quality, founded on the presumption — against all available evidence — that there is a messianic figure capable of leading his people to a new and blessed promised land. As one Tory MP notes: “It’s not unusual for people to claim to be the messiah; it’s much more unusual for people to actually believe in them.” Yet this is where we are.

Of course, officially — and barring self-inflicted disaster — Johnson is not yet leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister, but this is potentially a mere technical detail that need not detain us for very long. It is not probable that Jeremy Hunt will defeat Johnson in the final run-off. If it were, Johnson would not have selected Hunt to be his opponent, as some believe to be the case.

As soon as Johnson won the support of more than 100 MPs in the first round of voting, it seemed probable he would have votes to “lend” to other candidates, the better to organise the contest in ways most likely to suit his needs. So, I believe, it proved. This was within the rules, I suppose, but there is still a whiff of some kind of manipulation about it. “Hunt stands for nothing and has no passion or drive,” says one leading Tory, adding : “He isn’t nimble or articulate enough to rip chunks out of Boris. He’ll be annihilated in the run-off.”

Johnson is about to discover that becoming prime minister, no matter how improbable his journey has been, is significantly easier than being prime minister. If a decision reaches No 10 it is because it is a difficult decision that cannot be taken earlier or lower down the chain of political command. Since Johnson dislikes displeasing people, this all but guarantees muddle and confusion and indecision at the heart of his ministry.

Even those people endorsing Johnson do so more hesitantly than you might expect. Since the former foreign secretary has little in the way of a record of accomplishment, all forecasts about his looming premiership rely on a measure of projection. At the heart of it lies this, however: optimists who think Johnson can grow into the job or inch back from some of his statements on the campaign trail are trusting that, while he is offering them a true indication of his true feelings, he has been lying to all the other people who are supporting him. This does not seem a great way to begin.

Never before in my lifetime — and not in yours either — have we endured a spectacle in which the leaders of both the Conservative and Labour parties were so obviously not fit for the offices they hold. This is a low moment in British politics, and one liable to sink lower still. If you think this is bad, wait until you see what’s coming next.

Brexit, of course, overshadows everything else. Johnson’s fans see him as an Alexander the Great kind of figure, capable of solving the problem of Brexit’s Gordian knot with a single quip and a quick strike. Alas, reality is more complicated than that.

There are only three possibilities on Brexit. Some version of Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement can be approved by the House of Commons. Or parliament can decide to cancel the whole sorry business, agreeing to either a second referendum or a straightforward revocation of article 50. Or — and this now seems the most probable, if still not certain, outcome — we will leave the European Union without reaching an agreement or a deal. There will be no transition period; we will embrace the liberation of leaping from the cliff edge without bothering to contemplate the likely consequences of a rough landing on the rocks below.

In the past week, Angela Merkel, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker have each reminded us that the withdrawal agreement already agreed with the UK government is not open for renegotiation. To which, in essence, the Conservative Party responds: “You mean there’s a chance?” At a certain point, cock-eyed optimism curdles into pathology and I think we’ve reached that point now.

The best that may be said of Johnson is he is not Corbyn, just as the best that may be said of Corbyn is that he is not Johnson. The sole persuasive argument for making one of them prime minister is that doing so deprives the other of the opportunity to lead. This is a proposition that will be tested soon enough. A general election looms, quite possibly to be held by the end of the year. Even journalists, for whom such events are generally welcome, cannot honestly relish such a contest. After all, one of Johnson or Corbyn would have to win it.

Never before have the leaders of Britain’s two largest parties commanded such meagre quantities of respect. Deep down, most Labour MPs know Corbyn isn’t capable of being prime minister; deep down, even if they back him, most Tory MPs know that’s true of Johnson too.

Each is so manifestly flawed, so lacking in true leadership qualities, that it is difficult to know where to start when it comes to measuring their shortcomings. In essence, however, this is a mug’s game in which, I am afraid, the joke is on you, the voters. What you see is what you get, and the best predictor of how a politician will behave in office is how they have behaved before they are in power. Hang on tight, then, because this is going to be pretty ugly pretty soon.

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The problem is whether he knows his arse from his elbow…

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Tldr version: Johnson and Corbyn = useless cunts.

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I’m no fan of Alex Massie but he’s nailed it on this occasion. We’re in big trouble. The next PM is going to be a fucking clown. :clown_face:

Multiple car pile up on R4 this morning. First Priti Patel then Jeremy Hunt.

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image

Dumb. As. Fuck.

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Watching his minder (is that the former Mrs Johnson ?) trying, and failing, to get him to do the grown-up thing with the other EU foreign ministers at the start of this clip will remind every parent what trying to reason with a four-year old is like:

The look on the face of the guy on the extreme left at the very end says it all.

VB

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Cold War Steve strikes again

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Boris & Carrie having a ‘make-up’ chat on Johnson’s hugely successful garden bridge.

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Edit to add - shamelessly stolen from twitter

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Is the woman in the purple jacket Yoko?