[Politics] Johnson inquiry verdict

[lawros left foot]

Johnson’s first Daily Mail column, well worth £250,000 a year.

 

[A1X]

Johnson and his brown-shirts never took or intended to take Covid seriously. Ever.

Imagine being so pompous. So damned full of yourself that you believe you are immune to a virus that kills thousands. Thousands I might add, that they had a duty of care to.

They never intended to follow any rules. Instead they quaffed, sang, toasted, danced and sniggered their way through the whole thing in a manner more befitting of Bachus and his giggling nymphs than of a government charged with guiding us safely through the most deadly national crisis in our lifetime.

All of them should be charged with endangering lives.

All of them should be ploughed into a f***ing ditch.

The thing I find most bizarre is that Johnson still didn’t take it seriously AFTER he was hospitalised for it. Who gets hospitalised for something and still thinks “well this is trifling nonsense”? Unless they’re a psychopath.

 

[Machiavelli]

A few of his supporters turned out in the media yesterday peddling the old line that Johnson is a transformative politician who has a special connection with voters. It's weird that they still believe this to have ever been true. Most people, whether for him, or against him, may have found him amusing, but never seemed to trust, nor particularly like him. I suppose there is a bit of magical thinking mixed with a bit of (wilfully?) mistaking causality for correlation. ('cum hoc ergo propter hoc' as he would undoubtedly put it).

They think, or would have us believe, that Johnson was the key factor that broke through the red wall. They ignore Corbyn's unpopularity with a huge number of traditional labour voters; they ignore the urge to elect a government that would break the years long deadlock over Brexit negotiations; they ignore the broken trade union links between workers and Labour in the deindustrialised North; they ignore Labour's lost seats in Scotland; they ignore the decimation of the Lib Dems following the coaltion. There was a perfect storm for the Tories to win their landslide in 2019, but the only element that some politicians see is Johnson as leader. Yes, his celebrity probably made him less unappealing to unengaged voters than most of his predecessors had been, but he very much isn't now. In terms of public image, the avuncular clown has been replaced by the real man that those who knew him best warned about.

He is permanently tarnished with voters outside of the tory cabal who worship him. He will forever be seen as the Nero of Covid. The public will not forgive and forget. He won't get his Churchillian call in from the cold at a time of national crisis. Churchill was a man of action whose time arrived. Johnson is a man of inaction. We've seen what he is like in a crisis. He blusters, he blames, he lies and he waffles, and when none of that works, he hides in a fridge.

All of his statements around his downfall have exuded what my kids call 'main character energy'. He thinks that the story of the world is all about him and can't envisage a turn of events where he is an irrelevancy. The problem for him is that, to the rest of us, he's just a more colourful Liz Truss. He won't loom over his party for decades like Thatcher and Blair did, because he didn't actually do anything in office. He wants to be Churchill, but he will become Ted Heath: A jealous yesterday's man heckling from the sidelines, motivated purely by his personal issues with his former colleagues.

Agree with this, apart from a quibble on the first sentence.
Of course he wasn't a transformative politician. Tories rarely are. The only PM that achieved it really was Thatcher.
But it's on the issue of special connection with the public/electorate that I disagree. He had it, despite the fact that all the other things you say aided him.

 

[rogersix]

No. Not fruity in the slightest!

they are nanas

 

[Greg Bobkin]

they are nanas

Or a couple of plums.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

The thing I find most bizarre is that Johnson still didn’t take it seriously AFTER he was hospitalised for it. Who gets hospitalised for something and still thinks “well this is trifling nonsense”? Unless they’re a psychopath.

Maybe he wasn't actually hospitalised in the first place (I certainly don't buy the 'hE neAlY DiEd' shit)?

Might be a bit far-fetched to say it was all a stunt, but I wouldn't put anything past that lot.

 

[Brighthelmstone]

Agree with this, apart from a quibble on the first sentence.
Of course he wasn't a transformative politician. Tories rarely are. The only PM that achieved it really was Thatcher.
But it's on the issue of special connection with the public/electorate that I disagree. He had it, despite the fact that all the other things you say aided him.

I'd argue Liz Truss transformed our economy, and it only took her a month!

 

[Lever]

Writing about overeating in the Daily Mail is perfect for Johnson; thank goodness, after his ruinous premiership, he has found his level in the poison rag that propped him up for so long.

 

[rogersix]

Writing about overeating in the Daily Mail is perfect for Johnson; thank goodness, after his ruinous premiership, he has found his level in the poison rag that propped him up for so long.

replacing schofield soon?

 

[A1X]

Maybe he wasn't actually hospitalised in the first place (I certainly don't buy the 'hE neAlY DiEd' shit)?

Might be a bit far-fetched to say it was all a stunt, but I wouldn't put anything past that lot.

I think it’d be impossible to fake being in hospital when he wasn’t, and they wouldn’t have taken any chances. But I’m also sceptical of the “nearly died” line.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

I think it’d be impossible to fake being in hospital when he wasn’t, and they wouldn’t have taken any chances. But I’m also sceptical of the “nearly died” line.

Almost certainly impossible, but for a man such a Johnson, I'm not ruling it out.

 

[A1X]

 

[Stat Brother]

A party so shite I thought I was there

 

[Bodian]

A party so shite I thought I was there

Wearing a jumper.....

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I think it’d be impossible to fake being in hospital when he wasn’t, and they wouldn’t have taken any chances. But I’m also sceptical of the “nearly died” line.

He admitted it himself. It was mild.

 

[A1X]

A party so shite I thought I was there

This is a party organised by the Shaun Bailey (now a Lord since last week) mayoral campaign. The guy in the braces now has an OBE.

 

[Stat Brother]

This is a party organised by the Shaun Bailey (now a Lord since last week) mayoral campaign. The guy in the braces now has an OBE.

And next time we're asked to choose 1 in 5 of the electorate will vote for more of the same.

 

[clapham_gull]

This is a party organised by the Shaun Bailey (now a Lord since last week) mayoral campaign. The guy in the braces now has an OBE.

Yeah, that looks like video of the known party as part of the mayoral elections.

The Conservative party knew about it long before the press did, since (importantly) they disciplined a few not for breaking lockdown rules but for getting shitfaced and damaging property. THEY KNEW IT TOOK PLACE.

The doesn't apply to us attitude was endemic within the party, a party that already had a 20 years out of date drinking at work culture.

Edit - just read the party of liars disingenuous response that they disciplined those present. Luckily I've got a longer memory. They weren't disciplined for breaking law, only for getting smashed and damaging property.

 

[Motogull]

He admitted it himself. It was mild.

Not quite.

Surprisingly, he was coy and did not confirm how bad it got for him. So unlike him not to tell the truth.

I never bought for a nano second that he nearly snuffed it; because he was never ventilated. I accept he had it rough.

 

[Goldstone1976]

“cum hoc ergo propter hoc”

@Stato you’re wasted here.