Brexit, for once some facts.
- Thread starter flecc
- Start date
It does sound the kind of empty cliche boris may have dredged up (from the bottom of his not so great spirit)?
some people like his jokes.
The point is, can the UK's PM coat policies with jokes because he believes that a little sugar makes the medicine go down?
My guess is the ERG will turn on him as soon as they hear the word 'transition period'.
I really don't give a damn about personalities, so that of Boris does nothing for me. I only care that he is a failure who disguises his failings with humour that some fall for. Some, including you it seems, even mistake that as success.
His disastrous term as London's Mayor says it all, we are still trying to deal with the mess he made of everything and the huge sums he cost us with his mistakes.
And for those deluded enougn to believe his mythical version, that his term in London office was a great success, I give you his time as Foreign Secretary, proof enough of his comprehensive incompetence.
Leavers have the prime minister they so richly deserve. It's just sad that remainers undeservedly have to suffer him too.
.
he's still the one the old folks in the conservative party like best and trusted enough to vote for brexit on his recommendation.
Whether he can use his prestige among the tory grassroots to win over the ERG and DUP who voted TM's deal down and her out of office remains to be seen because deep down, there is only one way to minimise the cost of brexit which is a transition period to re-arrange the economic cards and he'll want it.
https://qz.com/1668162/meet-boris-johnson-the-uks-outlandish-new-prime-minister/
Your uncle was obviously inclined to make comic remarks
He’s a **** without the depth or charm.
I reckon he will break the record of the shortest serving pm ever. Although tbf I don’t know what that is.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/boris-johnson-self-serving-incompetent/
Norman Baker: I worked with Boris up close. He really is as self-serving and incompetent as he seems
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Norman Baker1 yearThursday July 12th 2018Most Popular
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This week we learned of the death at 99 of Peter Carington, the Old Etonian Conservative foreign secretary who resigned after the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands in 1982. Not because it was his fault, but because he believed that honour demanded that the man at the top of the tree should take responsibility.
What a contrast with the shabby self-serving resignation this week of that other Old Etonian Conservative foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, for whom the word honour is an alien concept.
Boris has one motivation
It is astonishing just how far you can get in Britain with the right background, a buffoonish appearance, a creative turn of phrase and a capacity to make people laugh. But the jokes long ago wore thin as more and more came to realise that the bumbling facade was just a clever construct to hide the moral vacuum inside.
To understand Boris Johnson it is only necessary to understand one thing: he aches to be Prime Minister and doesn’t care what he has to say or do, it doesn’t matter what damage is done to his party or his country in the process, if only he can get to No 10.
You don’t need a weather vane to know which way the wind blows, wrote Bob Dylan. No, you just have to look at Boris. In June 2016, shortly before the referendum, he wrote in the Daily Telegraph that he “would be well up for trying to make the positive case for EU membership.” But then, with the weather turning, he stabbed his old mate David Cameron in the back.
Last weekend, he pronounced himself happy with the outcome of the cabinet meeting at Chequers, even raising a toast to the plans. But that was before he was, in his mind, outflanked by David Davis, and so, desperate to keep his leadership chances alive, he stabbed Theresa May in the back.
In 2016, he stated that Donald Trump was “frankly unfit to hold the office of President of the United States.” Now that he has been elected, Boris says: “I am increasingly admiring of Donald Trump.”
Far from mourning the loss of a foreign secretary, the Prime Minister ought to be celebrating the clearing out of the Augean stables. The mystery is why she appointed him in the first place.
As a government minister at the time, I saw close up what he did as mayor of London. He spent time and money on a white elephant Boris Island airport that was never going to fly. He promoted a garden bridge that has been torn to shreds by the Public Accounts Committee. He introduced at vast cost a huge fleet of new Routemasters with open platforms and conductors, only to withdraw all the conductors and keep the doors shut. He gave us a cable car crossing at Greenwich that is a huge drain on the public finances. And he bought water cannon vehicles from Germany in an attempt to bounce the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, into allowing them on London’s streets, and when she resisted, he went behind her back to David Cameron. Quite rightly, she told him where to get off.
He had a habit of running straight to the Prime Minister or the Chancellor to get his way, ignoring successive Transport Secretaries. He was politically highly partisan in a way that was out of line with the coalition, refusing to engage with Lib Dem ministers even where we could be helpful to him. And behind that bonhomie, he was lazy and petulant. That a lot went right was down to his inheritance from Ken Livingstone, and the highly competent Peter Hendy at his right-hand side. What worked did so in spite of Boris, not because of him.
As foreign secretary, he has been a disaster at a time when more than ever, Britain needs friends abroad. In the past, he had described Africans as “piccaninnies with watermelon smiles”, a phrase that could happily have tripped off the tongue of Enoch Powell. In office, he claimed the Libyan city of Sirte could become the new Dubai. “All they have to do is clear the bodies away”.
The public may have loved him, but those in the know saw a different Boris. Back in 2013, he was eviscerated by the brilliant Eddie Mair on the BBC, who reminded Boris he had agreed to supply an address of a third party to a friend who wanted to fix up a physical assault on that person.
“You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?” he challenged. He was, and he is. A long way from Peter Carington. For while Lord Carrington put his country and the dignity of office first, Boris is only interested in Boris.
Norman Baker was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Lewes in East Sussex from 1997-2015, and served as a minister in the Coalition Government
Alas mediocre minds describes Conservative party Members
What about this side? Churchill , BJ's hero, when he chose his battles stuck to them...
His tough Classical education at Eton should help him apply lessons learnt from the Minatour story and Pandora's Box to the challenges ahead.
I was Boris Johnson's tutor at Oxford – but did I teach him the right lessons
(and this from the Torygraph)
As he left the college, he was hissed and booed by members of the current undergraduate generation.
As he departed, I reflected ruefully on the college’s part in his education. We had been privileged to be given the task of bringing up members of the nation’s political elite. But what had we done for Boris? Had we taught him truthfulness? No. Had we taught him wisdom? No.
Rather confrontational to blame leavers for Boris. I have never offered support, or to be fair criticism, of the bloke. Fingers has expressed contempt for him yet somehow he, s the one we deserve.
The situation we now find ourselves in is a product of leavers and remainers with special help from Cameron and a failing opposition.
Apartioning blame is counter productive. Where next with whom should be the topic of conversation. At what point is your hero Corbyn going to put his white hat on and ride in to save us all?
He, s talking about an immediate vote of no confidence in BJ but not changing anything he does or says. (well he, s said he might support ref2)
BJ is primarily in office because May`s deal was voted a failure by both extremes, not just leavers.
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I didn't blame leavers, I said they have the PM they deserve.
There's a difference, try to work it out.
.
In modern times it was Sir Alec Douglas-Home who only served as PM for 363 days.
.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/boris-johnson-self-serving-incompetent/
Norman Baker: I worked with Boris up close. He really is as self-serving and incompetent as he seems
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Most Popular
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The i newsletter
News for free thinkers
This week we learned of the death at 99 of Peter Carington, the Old Etonian Conservative foreign secretary who resigned after the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands in 1982. Not because it was his fault, but because he believed that honour demanded that the man at the top of the tree should take responsibility.
What a contrast with the shabby self-serving resignation this week of that other Old Etonian Conservative foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, for whom the word honour is an alien concept.
Boris has one motivation
It is astonishing just how far you can get in Britain with the right background, a buffoonish appearance, a creative turn of phrase and a capacity to make people laugh. But the jokes long ago wore thin as more and more came to realise that the bumbling facade was just a clever construct to hide the moral vacuum inside.
To understand Boris Johnson it is only necessary to understand one thing: he aches to be Prime Minister and doesn’t care what he has to say or do, it doesn’t matter what damage is done to his party or his country in the process, if only he can get to No 10.
You don’t need a weather vane to know which way the wind blows, wrote Bob Dylan. No, you just have to look at Boris. In June 2016, shortly before the referendum, he wrote in the Daily Telegraph that he “would be well up for trying to make the positive case for EU membership.” But then, with the weather turning, he stabbed his old mate David Cameron in the back.
Last weekend, he pronounced himself happy with the outcome of the cabinet meeting at Chequers, even raising a toast to the plans. But that was before he was, in his mind, outflanked by David Davis, and so, desperate to keep his leadership chances alive, he stabbed Theresa May in the back.
In 2016, he stated that Donald Trump was “frankly unfit to hold the office of President of the United States.” Now that he has been elected, Boris says: “I am increasingly admiring of Donald Trump.”
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and US President Donald Trump greet before a meeting at the United Nations. (Photo credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)Why was he ever appointed?
Far from mourning the loss of a foreign secretary, the Prime Minister ought to be celebrating the clearing out of the Augean stables. The mystery is why she appointed him in the first place.
As a government minister at the time, I saw close up what he did as mayor of London. He spent time and money on a white elephant Boris Island airport that was never going to fly. He promoted a garden bridge that has been torn to shreds by the Public Accounts Committee. He introduced at vast cost a huge fleet of new Routemasters with open platforms and conductors, only to withdraw all the conductors and keep the doors shut. He gave us a cable car crossing at Greenwich that is a huge drain on the public finances. And he bought water cannon vehicles from Germany in an attempt to bounce the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, into allowing them on London’s streets, and when she resisted, he went behind her back to David Cameron. Quite rightly, she told him where to get off.
He had a habit of running straight to the Prime Minister or the Chancellor to get his way, ignoring successive Transport Secretaries. He was politically highly partisan in a way that was out of line with the coalition, refusing to engage with Lib Dem ministers even where we could be helpful to him. And behind that bonhomie, he was lazy and petulant. That a lot went right was down to his inheritance from Ken Livingstone, and the highly competent Peter Hendy at his right-hand side. What worked did so in spite of Boris, not because of him.
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson wears a traditional headdress during a visit to the Shree Swaminarayan Mandir, a Hindu temple in Kingsbury. (Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images)A disaster
As foreign secretary, he has been a disaster at a time when more than ever, Britain needs friends abroad. In the past, he had described Africans as “piccaninnies with watermelon smiles”, a phrase that could happily have tripped off the tongue of Enoch Powell. In office, he claimed the Libyan city of Sirte could become the new Dubai. “All they have to do is clear the bodies away”.
The public may have loved him, but those in the know saw a different Boris. Back in 2013, he was eviscerated by the brilliant Eddie Mair on the BBC, who reminded Boris he had agreed to supply an address of a third party to a friend who wanted to fix up a physical assault on that person.
“You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?” he challenged. He was, and he is. A long way from Peter Carington. For while Lord Carrington put his country and the dignity of office first, Boris is only interested in Boris.
Norman Baker was the Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Lewes in East Sussex from 1997-2015, and served as a minister in the Coalition Government
Utterly appalling cutting and pasting.
You’ve got one job ffs!
He has to last past November 11th.
That’s not a gimme where this spunk trumpet is concerned.
truthfulness and wisdom are for lesser college alumni - those who end up in our Civil Service or industries, not those going into politics.