Boris Johnson radio 4 interview 21 June 17

[Bry Nylon]

Just asked my partner, who is a Doctor (of plants and shit, not medicine).

Try this one tomorrow... you won't be disappointed

Q. Why was the botanist afraid of the club moss?
A. He was built lycophyta.

 

[clapham_gull]

Just asked my partner, who is a Doctor (of plants and shit, not medicine). She "knows the name" but couldn't tell me what he does.

This is clearly a working class household.

I'm as guilty to be honest - I work in the tv industry and generally haven't got a clue.

I listen to the radio a lot (because I always have) but haven't got a clue about new series etc.. I know their titles (because I deal with data) but don't ask me who is in it or what it's about.

 

[Stato]

File on Four does some really good investigative journalism....and i love comedies like Cabin Pressure

'Cabin Pressure' is one of the better sitcoms. How the hell has 'Clare in the Community' been going for so long though? It is Radio 4's 'Two Pints of Lager.' I have never met anyone who finds it funny, yet they just keep making more.

 

[soistes]

I never listen to Radio 4 which probably explains why I've never heard of Mr Angry.

Too highbrow for me.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone call R4 "highbrow" before - middle class, middle-aged, middle of the road, a bit smug, maybe, but never in a million years is it highbrow. Listen to one of its phone-ins ('Any Answers' maybe), and you'll hear that most of its audience isn't highbrow either - more like Home Counties pub bores.


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[Bozza]

middle class, middle-aged, middle of the road, a bit smug, maybe,

And I'm not in the club. You've just made my day.

 

[Stato]

'Middle Class, middle Aged, middle of the road, a bit smug' could be a perfect description of Radio 4 (longwave)'s jewel in the crown TMS, but surely that's a club we all want to be in.

I turn off 'Any Answers' as quickly as I turn off 'Question Time'. Same sh*t, different Dimbleby.'

 

[W.C.]

He's really lost it hasn't he? The bumbling but super intelligent posho shtick is wearing wafer thin as having to appear as a proper politician doing proper politician type work takes it's toll. Diane Abbot might have made herself look a fool over numbers but that time Bozo said the 350 million quid to the NHS WAS in the manifesto just showed up how little notice he'd taken of it.
This **** is only in it for the big job, all the other stuff is just an irritation for him.

 

[TotallyFreaked]

They have some history.





Eddie Mair is one of the few reasons to listen to radio 4 and usually far from Mr Angry. His interviews with Steve Hewlett after being diagnosed with cancer were very moving.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Meanwhile the DUP were just on the Today programme asking for a magic money tree. Should be a nice quick day for Theresa today when she tells them there isn't one.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

I don't think I've ever heard anyone call R4 "highbrow" before - middle class, middle-aged, middle of the road, a bit smug, maybe, but never in a million years is it highbrow. Listen to one of its phone-ins ('Any Answers' maybe), and you'll hear that most of its audience isn't highbrow either - more like Home Counties pub bores.


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How about informed, informative, balanced (despite accusations of bias from both sides often), and on a very wide range of subjects.

And the Boris Johnson interview is top in the list of most watched clips on the BBC website at the moment.

 

[Brovion]

Oh dear! His grasp on detail is shocking, even for him. This shows Theresa May's Cabinet are poorly briefed, their level of discussion is inadequate and they clearly had little idea what would make it into the Queen's Speech and what wouldn't.

I agree that anyone leading a party has to have a better all-round knowledge than that. To think he came within a whisker of becoming leader less than a year ago!

I know. I'm not a Conservative supporter, but at the end of the day they're (just about) the government and you want them to be competent - even if you disagree with what they're doing. This lot are SO bad that people are looking back to Cameron's premiership as the 'good old days'.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Meanwhile the DUP were just on the Today programme asking for a magic money tree. Should be a nice quick day for Theresa today when she tells them there isn't one.

Apparently they are asking for investment amounting to billions for Northern Ireland including 1 billion for the NHS there. The Tories will see it as a price worth paying to keep of power.

There is a magic money tree though!

I suspect they'll find the money for the DUP by:

1. Asking the richest 5% to pay a little more in income tax.
2. Increasing corporation tax to around 26% in line with Germany and other well run northern European economies.
3. Ask parents to pay VAT on private school fees.

I hope those measures satisfy the DUP so they can stop holding the government to ransom.

 

[Bozza]

Didn't people want more spent on the NHS? Presumably that didn't exclude Northern Ireland either.

Everyone is a winner, surely.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

May is clearly still not briefing the cabinet even after the election where she tried to go alone and failed.
Brexit is all consuming and what with no manifesto in place I really fear for all the other so important things that need doing.
They all seem to be running around like headless chickens.
If the DUP get 2 billion and the possible fortune to leave the EU and if Brexit goes tits up like I think it will and all the uncertainty and lack of confidence that will bring with a possible huge effect on the economy we are in for a very tricky time for years.
Plus terrorism and lack of funding for the police to really deal with it.
Plus the possibility of sorting out all the tower blocks.
And anything else that can and possibly will occur in these troubled times.
It's very scary.
I have zero confidence in this government they are weak, but even if we get rid of May, or even the Tories, Labour is still a divided unknown quantity.
What an absolute mess we are in.

 

[Pavilionaire]

I know. I'm not a Conservative supporter, but at the end of the day they're (just about) the government and you want them to be competent - even if you disagree with what they're doing. This lot are SO bad that people are looking back to Cameron's premiership as the 'good old days'.

To recap,

1. None of the Cabinet were familiar enough with their own 2015 manifesto to realise they'd committed to freezing National Insurance before Hammond's Budget blunder.
2. None of the Cabinet spotted the problem with the 'Dementia Tax' in their 2017 manifesto.
3. The PM and other Cabinet ministers failed to win a majority in the 2017 GE due in part to a lack of policy content. By contrast, Corbyn had loads of policy content and his Shadow Cabinet - Diane Abbott apart - seemed well-briefed.
4. Now Boris and other Cabinet colleagues don't appear to know what did and didn't make it from the 2017 manifesto into the 2017 Queen's Speech.

This is a systemic failure, both of May to include her Cabinet so that they know what's going on and a complacency by the Tories generally to read their own manifestos / Queen's Speech.

All of the main Leavers - Boris, Davis, Leadsom and Fox (twice) have all stood and failed as a leadership candidate, while any Remainers would not want to touch the leadership and Brexit talks with a barge pole. Utter f**king shambles.

 

[CHAPPERS]

Didn't people want more spent on the NHS? Presumably that didn't exclude Northern Ireland either.

Everyone is a winner, surely.

I think the issue is the reactionary decisions made by the government. They seem to be making policy decisions based on what is going to help them cling on to power a bit longer, not based on what they believe or want to do (austerity softening). The weak manifesto has been utterly abandoned, the Queen's Speech is a nonsense and the only way they have been able to form a wokring government is by making this deal with the totally out of date climate change denying DUP (as our great leader Caroline Lucas called them, the dinosaurs of the DUP).

 

[Pavilionaire]

Another worrying thing about Boris's lacklustre interview yesterday is that his utter lack of knowledge of policy detail implied that his heart wasn't in the job any more and he's stopped doing his preparation.

How is that going to play out, given he is Foreign Secretary and so supposed to stay close to the detail of the Brexit talks, working closely with Davis and Fox to promote Britain in readiness for a post-Brexit world?

As Morrissey once said "that joke isn't funny any more".

 

[Gwylan]

2. None of the Cabinet spotted the problem with the 'Dementia Tax' in their 2017 manifesto.

The problem with that item is that the Cabinet didn't know about it - it was cooked up by May and her advisers rather than being discussed in Cabinet meetings.

All of the main Leavers - Boris, Davis, Leadsom and Fox (twice) have all stood and failed as a leadership candidate,

Johnson hasn't stood - he chickened out

 

[Husty]

Another worrying thing about Boris's lacklustre interview yesterday is that his utter lack of knowledge of policy detail implied that his heart wasn't in the job any more and he's stopped doing his preparation.

How is that going to play out, given he is Foreign Secretary and so supposed to stay close to the detail of the Brexit talks, working closely with Davis and Fox to promote Britain in readiness for a post-Brexit world?

As Morrissey once said "that joke isn't funny any more".

It's been known for years that Boris doesn't read his briefs. The only surprise is he doesn't get caught out like this more often. I almost want to see him as PM just to watch him fail.

 

[Bozza]

I think the issue is the reactionary decisions made by the government. They seem to be making policy decisions based on what is going to help them cling on to power a bit longer, not based on what they believe or want to do (austerity softening).

Again, if Labour had the ability to form a government, but to do so required a bit of policy watering down and back scratching, they would do it too. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded.