You can’t unsee this image of Gove jogging.
Warning: This photo may be upsetting to people of a sensitive disposition.
(Those poor kids must be scarred for life.)
Is that Hunt, though?
Hard to tell if this’ll come to anything, but Johnson’s personal life is a bit of a ticking timebomb for him.
Police called to loud altercation at Boris Johnson’s home
Will The Guardian release the recording? If they do, will it make any difference? Who knows these days, frankly.
I doubt if it would make any difference to Tory members, whether as reported speech or in a live recording. It doesn’t tell us much more about Johnson’s private life and character than is already widely known. True, it doesn’t say much for his negotiating skills, but will Tory members think throwing an EastEnders tantrum is the way to deal with the EU? Though if I were the Downing Street cat, I might be looking for a bolthole just in case.
Why would anyone want to preside over this slow-moving disaster? I picture the Titanic heading straight towards an iceberg and not even trying to steer away.
By sheer force of personality and negotiating skill the iceberg will be persuaded to melt in time. Because we are special and it owes us. Or computers can work it all out. Or something (I’m not entirely confident I’ve quite understood the mindset of a Tory Brexiteer, except I’m pretty sure that they don’t seem to have grasped the difference between a political agreement and a legally justiciable one).
Boris will blame the disaster on others: the EU, Remainers, the Labour party, the Irish government, Theresa May…
Anyone see Johnson’s interview today? With TalkRadio? Talking about model buses?
Jesus.
Boris Johnson is the politician who lost £40 million of taxpayers’ money on an imaginary bridge.
His policies are:
- To negotiate a new deal with the European Union (EU).
The EU has stated there will be no new deal.
Of course Boris could bring his ‘renowned’ diplomatic skills to bear. Shame he was sacked as Foreign Secretary for being a buffoon. :rolleyes:
- To depart the EU by Oct 31 (deal or no-deal.)
The UK parliament has voted against no-deal (and see the Irish border question below…)
- No difficulty with the Irish border question.
Boris claims there is a ‘technical solution’ if no-deal goes ahead.
After 3 years of discussion, nobody else thinks there is. There is agreement that it will be a disaster if there is no solution.
His campaign style is to avoid answering questions or any debating.
He has told many lies.
Agreed. What, then, are the Tories thinking? Why does he have so much support within the party? Help me understand their thinking, even if I’m never going to agree with it…
Yes, but to run with the analogy, from Boris’s perspective, it was the steering away (and glancing blow) which sunk the ship. If Titanic hits it straight on the crash is survivable.
I’m a little unclear about what Parliament voting against “no deal” actually does, apart from ensure that they’re committed to keep talking and voting on the issue. If the deadline (Sept 29?) comes and goes, and they haven’t actually signed a deal, and the EU doesn’t give them another extension, “no deal” will just happen all by itself.
Which presumably Boris is fine with…
It’s not so much thinking as feeling. To the extent that there’s any thinking going on, it’s largely thinking about how to assauage feelings.
Within the parliamentary party, probably a majority of members do not believe that a successful, beneficial Brexit is possible. All Brexits are more or less shitty for the UK, but for the Tory party not to deliver Brexit at this point would be political suicide. On the whole, their Brexit objective would be to seek a less shitty Brexit rather than a more shitty one, but this objective is subordinated to two others - first, deliver Brexit in a way that doesn’t fracture the Tory party and, secondly, deliver Brexit in a way that preserves some shred of a chance that the Tory party can win the next election.
In short, they’re putting the interests of the party ahead of the interests of the country. So the objective is not the lesast shitty Brexit, but the Brexit whose shittiness can most plausibly be blamed on someone other than the government that implements the Brexit. In tha context, the party’s interests are best served by choosing a leader who has the presentational and other skills to distance the party from the consequences of the shitty Brexit they are going to implement. Hence, a personab;e, plausible rogue is desirable, even if his Brexit policy is, viewed in objective terms in the light of the national interest, incoherent at best and disastrous at worst.
The deadline is October 31. If, by that date, the UK hasn’t (a) ratified the Withdrawal Agreement, (b) sought and obtained an extension of time from the EU or (c) reovoked the UK’s notice of intention to leave, you’re quite right; the UK leaves without a deal. Parliament can repeat till its blue in the fact that they don’t like this or don’t accept it but none of that means anything at all unless they are willing to take or require the government to take one of the above actions.
People assume that, because parliament doesn’t want a no-deal Brexit, when push comes to shove they will take one of those actions, but I don’t think that’s a given. There is no agreement on which action to take, for one thing. And parliament’s obvious reluctance to take any action until the last minute, coupled with a degree of wishful thinking about when “the last minute” actually is, might well mean that they defer making a choice until it is, in practical terms, too late to make a choice.
*The wheels of the bus are falling off, falling off, falling off… * 
There is definitely a sense that Johnson is losing his touch. People are laughing at him, not with him over this, and over the release of the photo with Carrie Symonds.
The reason people support him is that he tells them what they want to hear in a positive, upbeat way, and appears to be intelligent and charming. (At least, a stupid person’s idea of intelligent and charming.) But now he is avoiding answering any questions at all, just like Theresa May. He is saying nothing, he is not upbeat. He is refusing to answer a question 23 times in one interview. There was nothing feel-good about those interviews. He is not the same self-confident person he was.
To me, the strangest thing is that the Telegraph and the Daily Mail have been running articles critical of him. It seems that some powerful people on the right have decided they prefer Hunt to Johnson.
Whether all this will make any difference among Tory Party voters, I don’t know. Probably it won’t. But after he becomes PM, it will undermine his ability to get any support at all from Parliament or the public.
As the Independent points out:
From the Guardian:
I’ll tell you why the Tories favour him as leader. Because he’ll ally with Farage in a future election, that’s why.
We’re heading for a BXP/Tory coalition. We’re in serious danger.
So, Boris.
Interesting times.
Is “being daunted” (as opposed to undaunted) a Britishism? Because Boris’s insistence that he and his party are not “daunted” would seem somewhat clever if it came from an otherwise clever man, but from his mouth it sounds like a Trumpism.
Dude!
An energised dud…