Well it becomes quite important when we have the unelected Carrie Simmons pushing an insane green agenda/racket that will financially cripple both industry and individuals. It also becomes important when her influence contributed substantially to the ousting of Cummings, one of the few people who might possess the drive and intelligence to change one or two things for the better.
Sorry guys, this latest stream is sounding a bit misogynistic to me. Carrie is Boris’s fiancee and close personal companion. I doubt if she has much influence when it comes to Cabinet decisions. If you cast your minds back, it was Cummings who was in danger of damaging his premiership due to concerns about his political accountability or lack of. I do wonder why 47 people endorsed FB’s assessment – an Unheard record, surely? I’m surprised anyone still sees environmental sustainability as being an “insane green racket.” Clearly, the Conservative Government doesn’t and you only need look at the climatic consequences of indifference in Australia to see that climate change really is happening. I like reading all your comments on a wide range of issues, but I just thought I’d offer this feedback and trust you are sufficiently wise and sophisticated not to indulge in any Neanderthal baiting of Greta and Carrie just because they happen to be women.
You doubt? She leads this weak, spineless charlatan on the surface by the nose, in reality at a baser level. Running up bills in excess of £200k while sneering at people who shop at John Lewis says much about her Carrie-Antoinette delusions of grandeur. His apparent intervention over Henry Newman being the possible source of leaks shows, as they’d say north of the border, who wears the breeks in that household.
Accepting that Cummings was the source, it is alleged our PM is bombarded by her texts on a daily basis, possibly in excess of 30-40.
His increasingly uncosted and not-thought-through virtue signalling on climate change comes from her as do impromptu, out of left field concerns for badgers and the like. She is running him.
Normally, any mention of a PM and being subject to the whip would make a mockery of centuries of parliamentary convention. But this PM is clearly being whipped; what a weak, pathetic, scruffy disgrace he truly is.
Haven’t the disclosures of the past week revealed to you that blundering, dithering Johnson has no leadership ability and instead it is Gove and others who have pushed the scientists’ will on him? If the vaccine programme hadn’t succeeded so apparently well, I doubt you’d be asking the question.
You need to do your research, Duncan. The quote about John Lewis isn’t a quote from Carrie or Boris at all. It was a phrase invented by a writer in The Tatler.
All you have achieved is to provide us with an example of confirmation bias.
I’m a woman (and I have always been a woman). The women I respect are women who earn their power and influence by putting their abilities into open competition, not by taking up with a guy old enough to be their father and then bullying and nagging him into doing what they want. Get a life, girl, get a job, win your influence , otherwise you are just like the French Kings’ maitresse en titre – and the last one of those ended under the guillotine.
Greta isn’t a woman, she is a seriously sick girl. She lives on rice pancakes which her mother has to prepare. Her special needs’ school was very cross at her truancy, as there is a very long waiting list for such schools in Sweden, and they felt she was misusing her place.
I’m a man (yes a real one, born with all the proper bits) and I loved your candied comment re’ being a woman. Made me chuckle. Agree with your comments too I may add.
When you say “proper bits” there may be an implication that some peoples bits are in some way not proper.
Clearly this marks you out as suitable for cancellation!
Should I report you to the thought police or will you be turning yourself in?
I disagree, the criticism of Carrie’s influence is criticism of Boris. It’s perfectly natural for an intelligent, ambitious woman to have strong opinions on things that interest her. What is unforgivable is Boris allowing his decisions to be so influenced by his infatuation with his fiancé, rather than the policy platform he stood on, or his advisors.
PMs have relied heavily on their significant others advice forever. What is concerning is that Boris doesn’t seem to have the strength of character to seek Carries advice, and disregard what doesn’t fit with the platform he was elected on.
As for your comments on green sustainability, it may have escaped your notice but not all well intentioned green policies are effective, sustainable or even particularly green, don’t mistake political marketing for policy outcomes. Cancelling badger culls for example, is soppy, emotional, unscientific intervention that has done more harm than good, because Boris doesn’t have the backbone to upset Carrie on one of her pet topics.
Totally agree – I’ve actually seen Carrie referred to as Boris’s mistress in more than one media article this week. Would these remarks be made about a female PM with a male partner? Of course not, misogyny is well and truly alive in UK journalism – unfortunately. Cummings is a serial liar, the press were all over him on his stupid trip to Barnard Castle. Now he has been sacked he is clearly the fount of all knowledge and truth in the eyes of the media.
Strange how people are queuing up to be nasty about Carrie. The “climate emergency” is indeed a scam but Boris was fully bought into it long before he met Carrie. He gets it from his father.
If you believe the Staggers, then it was Cummings who started the war with Carrie by fabricating a story in Feb last year about them falling out and then claiming that Saj’s Treasury Spads had leaked it, thus cunningly triggering Saj’s resignation.
And while Cummings undoubtedly has intelligence, he has no emotional intelligence and therefore was absolutely the wrong person to effect change from within No. 10, as opposed to coming up with proposals for change that a talented manager could implement.
Katharine Eyre
3 years ago
Looking at this from Austria I cannot help but snigger a bit. If you live here, you just kind of assume that business is in bed with politics and that there’s a certain amount of graft going on. And you read about it, think “for Christ’s sake, this is what I pay my taxes for?” But then you realise that you can’t really do anything about it and get on with your life.
Over the past few years, we’ve had the Ibiza scandal which took down the conservative-far right coalition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibiza_affair), a finance minister signing off a budget where more than a couple of noughts were missing, the same finance minister having dodgy ties to a big gambling company, serious state security lapses regarding the jihadist that committed the terror attack last year and the über-dodgy connections between the BVT (Austria’s intelligence agency) and Jan Marsalek of Wirecard. And did I mention we’re being led by a 34-year-old university drop-out? (see: https://www.politico.eu/article/house-of-sebastian-kurz/).
So, you’ll forgive me if I look at the pseudo-drama being whipped up in Whitehall and think: “try harder.”
Hahahaha! Austria a sensibly run country? No. Things are quite nice and neat and tidy here and stuff works (public transport is world-class). That creates quite a good-looking appearance. Under that, stuff can be really quite scuzzy. Politics is a venal and ridiculous mess.
To be honest I’d settle for a neat and tidy country where stuff works but the politicos are a bit more corrupt. All we seem to have had for 40 years is incompetence and bureaucracy.
Edited to say…
Doh! I need to get out more, and enjoy the sun!
Sorry for accusing you of being blinded by party allegiance. I’ll not derail this bit of the discussion further.
I was aware that there had been some problems in Austria in recent years, and a number of scandals etc. But this seems to happen whoever is in power.
For the record, I do not have a party and you might be surprised to learn that on one of the vanishingly rare occasions I voted in a GE it was for the Lib Dems.
Yes, but this pathetic attempt at a power grab is the kind of transparent overreach I have come to expect from Remainiers who thought they owned the political discourse, only to have it snatched away by the deplorables of the electorate.
I’m mostly preferring not name calling tbh…. haven’t had a good moan about remaining more than a year or more… so not moaning, not being a maniac, not hating on those of you loving the Brexit… just working, paying taxes and getting on with stuff..
And I as an atheist kafir, won’t be voting for Khan. Don’t want London streets renamed and statues depicting both the good and the bad in British history pulled down.
True enough – but the most disturbing thing about this is the role of the BBC in deliberately amplifying and exaggerating the significance of a number of utter non-stories.
The most egregiously stupid is the Dyson nonsense. I have even seen idiot “journalists” in one newspaper describe it as an attempt at tax evasion.
It is a very simple situation: Imagine you are asked to volunteer to work on a critical project in another country for 4 1/2 months. However, if you volunteer, there is a chance that the country you go to help will try to tax you (at double your normal tax rate) on your entire year’s earnings – including income earned in the country where you normally live. Would you volunteer? If the answer is “no,” then you understand why Dyson needed assurances before he could ask his Singapore-based staff to work on the ventilator project.
It is time the BBC was brought to heel.
Like the line in the Hokey Cokey: ‘……..And that’s what its all about’
James Slade
3 years ago
These stories don’t matter because there isn’t a credible opposition. Voters would rather have Boris running the country rather than the people that thought a terrorist supporting racist should be PM. Until such times that changes these stories won’t change voters minds. The cash for honours and the dodgy dossier didn’t put a dent in Tony Blair for the same reason
The opposition is not credible because it is fragmented. The Conservative’s successfully unified the Brexit vote, which is the most important schism in British politics today. There is a realignment going on and one cannot know where it will lead. The most well-off households in Britain are now less likely to vote Tory than the average person. This is an almost incomprehensible development compared with even 10 years ago. The reverse is true of uneducated and unskilled labourers who are now more likely to vote Tory than the average person. British politics is not delineated between left or right in the sense of big versus small government. The primary difference between people is their sense of identity, in essence, British sovereignty first versus global cooperation. Right now, the group supportng British sovereignty first are voting exclusively for the Tory’s but the globalists while broadly a majority – more people voted Labour, Liberal and Green than Tory in 2019, 2017 and 2015 – are fractured between various political parties. It’s not hard to envisage a new faction or leader in politics quickly changing the status quo and managing to coalesce the remain vote around a set of core values and aspirations. Minority party rule cannot last forever. Even more so when you examine changing demographics across England as graduates and ethnic minorities move out of cities and begin to influence politics in the surrounding commuter hinterland.
Self deluding nonsense. Brexit is a symptom of the left’s problem not the reason. The middle class metropolitan left is actively hostile to main stream views in the country. It had a moral choice and it chose an Iranian supporting racist while calling anyone who disagreed with been ruled by unaccountable incompetent bureaucracy racists. Until the metropolitan left work that they might actually be wrong Boris will be in power. Nobody cares that you all agree over quail and claret at high table.
Brexit is a reaction against the perceived assault on national sovereignty arising from the forces of globalisation and an increasingly multi-ethnic nation. Brexit has little to do with the traditional left-right split. There’s lots of polling data in regards people’s changing attitudes that bares this out. Electoral Calculus is particularly good. By all means, keep your head buried in the sand but the status quo will not last.
So you all didn’t tell everyone to vote for a terrorist supporting racist because he was against Brexit. Hint the fact the a terrorist supporting racist was elected twice to the leader of a self avowed anti racist party might be a problem. Every time the left wonders off into Bennism, the working class vote tory. They did it in the 80s and now they do it again. It wasn’t Margo and Jerry from the golf club that kept the tories in power for 18 years.
Most working class people voted Labour even in the 1980s. Mondeo man was a media trope and not the rule. Again, go and read the historical election and polling data for yourself. The point is that 2021 is not 1981. There are key differences between the two eras and you’re failing to grasp the new schism in British politics, in my opinion. We are in the midst of a great political realignment.
Does the evidence not fit with your point of view? Considering our rigid electoral system I certainly would not be surprised if we had another 20 years of minority party rule. Nonetheless, the system is unstable and the ongoing realignment may take us in a direction that no one can predict.
What a dim argument. It’s a breath of stale air that takes me back to 1983, and to outraged student lefties fulminating about how 56% “voted against” Fatcha. Of course by those lights, 72% “voted against” the cretin Foot and 74% “voted against” the SDP. Likewise in 2019, 70% “voted against” the terrorist-fe||ating Iran-smooching anti-Semite Corbyn.
If you think Lib Dem and Green voters have more common with a Brexit Tory Party you’re seriously deluded. One wonders how long this forum will be moaning about Corbyn and using his name as an excuse for Johnson’s corruption.
The boundary changes will certainly level the playing field and benefit the tories in the next couple of elections when compared to the past couple of elections.
Sharia will become the dominant law as the Muslim demographic is racing ahead of the white indigenous Brits. Political Islam is clever. The womb is also seen as a weapon and where women are seen as the tool of Allah for making soldiers for Allah.
I am looking at a Muslim prayer mat start up. Want to invest?
Wait until you experience it. I have had loads of times. Don’t play music it’s against my religion I was told by an imam at a wedding. Go and research political Islam. They have 1400 years experience and are winning. Pleased I won’t be around to see the result having been to Islamic lands.
I’ve lived in Bethnal Green, have Muslim friends and my girlfriend comes from a Muslim family. Nothing sinister at all. They are all amazing people, moderate and committed to mainstream secular values. You are blinded by bigotry.
There are a plethora of non-state violent groups in the world using terror as a tactic. Some Muslim and many not. Do you have a citation for your assertion? In the UK circa 30% of referrals to Prevent are white supremacists or alt-right fascists. The proportion is increasing year-on-year.
In Ireland, most of the terrorists are not muslim. I wouldn’t call them particularly christian either, mind. As one old local put it, they are no great prop to either community.
Your argument here appears to be, if everyone who didn’t vote for the party that had the most votes, had all voted for the same alternative, then that alternative would have won.
The key problem with that argument is that the last time any party got more than 50% of the vote was 1935, before that 1931 – and both of those were Conservative majorities.
Minority party rule cannot last forever – this proves it. But one (or even 2) occurance of it doesn’t fundamentally change the political system.
The voters are fractured, smaller parties will always get a small percentage of the vote and the larger parties will incorporate their policies to attempt to woo those people who voted for them. Thinking of politics more as a series of pressure groups rather than the left vs right might help
FPTP only works in a solidly 2-party state and even then I believe it forces far too broad a church on the main political parties and leads to far too many votes counting for nothing.
A majority of votes in 2019 were for political parties advocating for a second referendum on Brexit. It’s funny how a narrow majority in a referendum is enough for massive constitutional change and the removal people’s EU citizenship but when it comes to General Elections we are perfectly happy with a minority winner takes all approach. If Labour had a backbone they would immediately champion a more proportional voting system. The Tories will not because they are quite happy with minority rule.
If we go proportional representation, in any one of the available formats, we will end up with more or less permanent coalitions. Which may or may not be a bad thing, but carries two big problems. First, the loss of the constituency MP. Secondly, no-one will know when they go to the polls how much of whose manifesto will survive the coalition horse trading. If we go that way, we should do it with a total constitutional re-think, put to a referendum, on the basis that it will need more than a Commons majority of one to overturn it.
Good summary. I’d add that the actual result depends a lot on political culture in addition to the voting system (consider Denmark v. Italy v. Israel), and that it is hard to predict what political culture would evolve in the UK post-FPTP. The big advantage of a proportional system is that voters have choices (!), so it becomes very hard to govern against a strongly held majority opinion. In a proportional system, Corbyn would never have a chance of being in full control of a parliamentary majority, for instance.
The voting system in Scotland is a mixture of a proportional list and larger constituencies with a direct representative. I’d favour the introduction of the AMS system that works well in the devolved assemblies being used for future general elections. If it’s part of a winning manifesto pledge then there’s no reason for a referendum.
So the removal people have EU citizenship, but the rest of us don’t? Is it something to do with packing cases?
I think your arguments would be more persuasive if you could be bothered to read them before posting.
“British sovereignty first versus global cooperation…”
With respect, this is nonsense. NATO is one of the most successful inter-governmental; alliances ever. It has mostly kept us safe for decades, despite the best efforts of idiot eurocrats to undermine it. Being a member of NATO entails absolutely no surrender of sovereignty.
🙂
But, that was a sovereign agreement at the start of the NATO treaty. We did not confer on NATO the powers to make changes to the rules that we were subsequently obliged to follow.
It is akin to the difference between signing a contract to join a gym versus giving the gym power of attorney over your life.
They’re broad categories but nationalism vs globalism is the key divide in British politics as opposed to fiscal conservatism vs tax and spend.
Nationalism scale
Anti-EU / suspicious of sharing sovereignty / critical of climate change accords / critical of immigration
Globalism
Pro-EU / positive about multiculturalism / concerned about climate change
I don’t think the above broad categories negate the benefits of NATO. There are going to be elements of cross-over between the two but I think the overall picture is useful for understanding British politics in 2021.
No, the difference is between people who do real work for a living, who now all vote Tory, and students, welfare queens and those with bulls*** jobs who vote Labour.
One wonders what ‘real’ is subtext for but whatever you really mean there’s no point discussing politics with someone pushing such baseless stereotypes.
CHARLES STANHOPE
3 years ago
Who really gives a toss about a measly £58K?
The real question is what the hell has happened to the £37 billion, yes billion, that has been squandered on this “Trick & Trace “ nonsense?
Yesterday you were singing the praises of Herman and I was rather curious.
Herman got fairly savagely criticised for numerous errors in ‘To Rule the Waves’…. including the upside down Union flag on the cover.
Is he up to the standard of N.A.M. Rodger or Andrew Gordon for example
He is an excellent single-volume introduction to the 18th century. Even though he may be wrong on stuff, there is no other popular work that mentions the War of Austrian Succession or Suffren’s exploits in one volume, etc etc etc. The general stuff is all there and is pretty A OK. Some of his WW2 stuff is a bit off, and his Jutland account is so hilariously romanticised that it isn’t real history at all.
…but then that’s weirdly ok. You KNOW it’s so off you’ll look for the real thing elsewhere. Where he gets it right, he’s very good. Going from the 14th century up to the Falklands while avoiding the usual stupid pitfalls like “battleships obsolete off Malaya”, or “Nelson invented everything” is a pretty good achievement.
If you want the full detail, go NAM. Herman’s a good introduction to the RN’s history for a 14 year old…. which I was when I first read it. Herman provides the context that you can place NAM’s detail in.
I’d vote for that as long as the destroying starts with the BBC.
Jez O'Meara
3 years ago
Carrie is the weak spot that Boris Johnson can ill afford, for whatever reasons she appears to be a lightening rod for a lot of the turmoil in downing street.
Perhaps you’ll hear “get out of my flat” once again, only this time from no. 10.
Albireo Double
3 years ago
I’m afraid that many in the media are just as narcissistic as the politicians. They all think that they amount to something, or that their vacuous witterings are worth listening to. After all, these are people who appear to think that Twitter is real life – and that it matters, even one tiny bit. How deluded can people be?
Meanwhile out there in the real world, the 99.9% of us just get on with our lives, and occasionally look in through the little Westminster window and chuckle wryly at the preening self-obsession, narcissism and self-absorbtion on display.
The Oscars this year had about a fifth of its audience of 4 years ago – a steepening of a years-long decline. And this in a year when we were all at home with not too much to do! That says better than anything I can say, about the utter disconnect between us, and the world’s luvvies, politicos and their-hangers on.
Kevin Thomas
3 years ago
It is worryingly reminiscent of the American media’s behaviour during the Trump administration, which was to exaggerate, or entirely fabricate, a new scandal or outrage every week in the hope that one of them would bring him down or that the sum of them all would damage his image with enough voters. God help us if that is what the British media is turning into. Plenty of them seem to really hate Boris, largely for making fools of them over Brexit. I agree that none of the current stories will do much harm. I could care less what he says in private or who nearly paid for the number 10 redecorations.
Compared to say, Trump’s sincerity, honesty and integrity on display during press interviews on a weekly basis. He so corrupted basic human values that honest reporting was deemed lies. A sorry state of affairs.
Andrew Best
3 years ago
Is it a disgusting example of greed and believing they are worth it, yes
Is it immoral, yes
Do we as individuals and a country have more important things to worry about, yes
Saying a politician is suspect and a bit grubby is like saying fish swim in the sea, no s**t Sherlock!
Next you will tell me that the labour say they love the NHS and the Tories want to sell it to the highest bidder, never heard that before.
Your only there for a few years so just do your job, running the country and helping us don’t worry about pleasing your girlfriend, your probably dump her for a younger model soon anyway
A anyotherbizniz
3 years ago
I agree nobody should care that much about a few thousand spent refurbishing Number 10. But we should all be concerned when the PMs go-to response when asked about it is to lie and to send his Cabinet out to dissemble on his behalf.
He should have owned up and shrugged it off, so we could all have moved on. Instead of which we are all tangled up in the web of deceit he has spun.
If it looks like a gossip article (ie nothing to substantiate facts; or clearly deliberate misrepresentation, I don’t waste time reading it). What galls me is the way we have surrendered to expediency in order to promote a binary view: that is, there is no longer any pang of conscience about deliberately misrepresenting or misquoting to bring someone down. We probably no longer notice how many headlines are encased in quotes which is the nearest they get to owning up to gossip.
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
The MAIN issue is that the prime minister is increasingly influenced by his girlfriend.
58K is a lot, to be sure, on the other hand there must be plenty of proles living in Third World countries shocked that the leader of a G7 country lives in a flat, while their own leaders occupy presidential palaces. Erdogan’s stately pile is a prime example.
You might equally well ask why our Head of State has (I think) two palaces and multiple estates while the person who actually runs the State gets a poxy flat above the shop and a comparatively modest weekend retreat.
The prime minister of the UK receives a good but not over generous salary. Someone doing such a high pressure job, on behalf of us all, deserves to have a space where they can relax. Given the vast sums of money involved in government, surely it would be reasonable to allocate a sum of money to each incoming PM to decorate the Downing Street flat.
It’s a good wage but really when you stack the numbers, not sure what they get now is it 175k?
Run the country – 175k
Run bet365 – 465 million
I would much rather pay politicians “industry standard” wages BUT they be held much more accountable and have the best possible credentials for the roles. Higher pay might even attract far more competent people into the jobs that know how business, science, health, education work along with a keen sense for getting value for our money.
I know the argument pay peanuts, get monkeys but a highly paid monkey is still a monkey. The idea that someone who can earn 100s of millions elsewhere is going to enter into the cauldron of public life for 300k a year is laughable.
Could you imagine any other developed country kicking up so much fuss over spending £58k on the presidents’ apartments? It’s like the outrage over the cost of renovating the Speaker’s apartments and The Palace of Westminster. They’re Grade 1 Listed Buildings which means everything about them is prescribed in minute detail and such stuff costs a lot of money.
Does the Head of the London Fire Brigade get provided with a London town house, country estate, chauffeur driven Range Rovers to take the family to the pub on a Sunday lunchtime, £115K to run an office in retirement etc etc??
“have sleepwalker into…” I’m afraid. The only question is, will we ever be allowed out, and what totalitarian control measures will they leave in place if/when some restrictions are eased?
Peter LR
3 years ago
Alison, from where do you get all this inside information; do you work in Downing Street? I ask because you state things as fact?
Will Podmore
3 years ago
Pro-EU media attack pro-Brexit PM – hardly news, is it?
I totally agree, after all, it was only that famous Europhile publication The Daily Mail that broke the ‘bodies piled high’ story.
Last edited 3 years ago by Zach Thornton
Gorgia Verolini-Wright
3 years ago
I guess journos generally focus on writing articles which get major responses. I was appalled this am to see the quality (lack of, generally) of comments under an article in the Times attacking Boris. It doesn’t appear to matter what he does, he is always attacked in the same way by the same people in large numbers & that phenomenon will continue to drive these ridiculous articles ..
This is it though, it’s entirely people who already hate him, whether for Brexit or lockdown or consigning Corbyn to the dustbin of history, just grabbing at whatever story comes along that is supposedly bad for him. I doubt there is one person in the country who is genuinely angry that a Tory donor nearly paid for the redecoration rather than Boris. If there is, they should seek help.
Does depend which Tory donor it is, (Dyson? Lex Greensill? Nicola Sturgeon? One of Putin’s tame oligarchs? Huawei? ..) and what he expects to get in return. Well, we do not know till we are told, do we?
Who gives a shit about any of them while trying to survive on a lousy state pension.
Sean MacSweeney
3 years ago
Can’t even begin to articulate the contempt that I harbour for the MSM and their vulture “fake news” style of journalism
willy Daglish
3 years ago
Glad I am not the only disgusted by this pointless non-scandal.
Steve J
3 years ago
I don’t care about Westminster gossip. I don’t care how the PM paid for redecorating his mistress’s boudoir.
I do care that Johnson is an awful, authoritarian Prime Minister who has trashed the economy, public finances, civil liberties and children’s education in response to a virus that doesn’t present a very big risk for most of the population.
he was sold to us as a Conservative.what happened there?
Mike Wylde
3 years ago
I’m not sure I remember quite as much fuss over Bercow’s wallpaper. Even with the possibility it might have been chosen by his wife.
Phineas Finn
3 years ago
Seldom have I read such drivel. Pick 3 historical ‘bad-guys’; add the lad Boris to the witches’ brew (as a piquant foil) and hey presto- you have the makings of a mid-week article for the ‘herd’ community. It will take better writing than this to get me to financially subscribe to Unherd.
hijiki7777
3 years ago
If the matter is so trivial, why doesn’t Johnson give straight answers to straight questions? If it were trivial, then that would be easy to do, right?
Why has he let this story string out over so many days, and who can tell when it will end? All he has to do is follow the ministerial code of conduct, or if he thinks it needs changing then he should change it. We have had these stories coming over for many years now. I recall the scandal over a Labour minister’s wallpaper. We didn’t hear the Tories then claim it was a minor matter. The ministerial code is meant to stop this kind of thing. If you don’t like it, don’t be prime minister. There was no shortage of other candidates.
Stephen Rose
3 years ago
Oh dear, my recollection about Pugin wallpaper seems to have been taken down. For balance I could mention Sir Michael Heseltine and the deputy priministral carpet. My point is politics has its share of venality, like every other area of human contest. When parties attack soft furnishings, its a sure sign of frustration.
hughrosetrian
3 years ago
Vaccines take time to administer and work. It would probably be of much more help to the Indian health services today to receive immediate supplies of oxygen and the unused equipment from our unused Nightingale hospitals.
Peter James
3 years ago
“One after another, the big names of British political journalism puffed themselves up to express their moral indignation.” I was amazed (and shocked) by this. Every time one of them spoke I was expecting the killer shot to launched at the open goal. ‘Mr Cummings, maybe I misheard, please confirm that you drove 60 miles to check your eyesight.’ The killer question never came, they all droned their statements of moral indignation.
Patrick O'Connell
3 years ago
20 bedsteads, 600 concubines? 30 concubines to a bed? Too crowded!
Paul Booth
3 years ago
In my view the state should pay for the redecoration of the flat that is in the head of government’s official home.
T J Putnam
3 years ago
Sadly the PM and his friends are not on your side, Peter. Whatever the subject, they conspire to push their personal foibles to the fore because they imagine they can carry on as they like. People will come to believe it’s endemic and any other Government would be better. Time to get a grip.
Antony Hirst
3 years ago
Boris has got Brexit Done and won the phoney war against a virus. So now all the ‘difficult’ things are out of the way, the knives are out.
The fact is Boris is unfit to lead. Fact(er) is that so is the whole of Westminster.
Peter writes: “Covid, however, made politics heavy again. Suddenly it became impossible to prevail through rhetorical means alone. The politicians who tried, such as Donald Trump or Ursula von der Leyen, came badly unstuck.” He shouldn’t try to rewrite history. Trump made a lot of mistakes in dealing with the pandemic, but he was also responsible for Operation Warp Speed. These drive-by sneers at Trump are becoming habitual on Peter’s part. I suggest he write two or three columns that will represent his full Trump takedown, and then we can judge his arguments on their merits. What does he think of Trump’s making the C-CPI-U the escalator for elements in the US income tax?
Stuart Bennett
3 years ago
I’ve all but lost interest in the news and daily politics for exactly the reasons expressed here by Peter Franklin. The empty puerile nature of almost everything put int front of me is insulting, and yet papers sell. The bottom of the barrel is nearly worn through.
And yet people continue to click click click… where does the problem really lie? Is it the professions of politics and journalism or the audience? I’ve not settled on an answer yet.
Last Jacobin
3 years ago
But don’t forget that last autumn, the media were more interested in attacking Kate Bingham for who she’s married to and who she went to school with, than understanding her vital work with the Vaccine Taskforce
As far is it goes this is fair enough. But without transparent systems for determining how people like Bingham or Dido Harding get appointed it does look as though roles are given out based on personal friendships and the result can be positive (as with vaccines) or negative (as with Test and Trace). These issues are too important for the outcome to be determined by whether or not your mate’s wife turns out to be a good egg or a bad one.
Yes, the £58k may seem unimportant but has to be seen in context of all the things that are important that are brushed aside – inquiry into handling of Covid, illegal prorogation of parliament, ministers breaching their own code, EHRC finding Home Office broke race laws over hostile environment, VIP procurement streams. The £58k is important because of all the other more important things that this government shrugs aside or slips out of dealing with.
When you have a few months to mess around with going through a nice selection process (multiple panels, psychometric testing etc) is brilliant. However, when the house is on fire ….
Judy Johnson
3 years ago
Well said Alison. Since Boris became PM I have assumed that he lied to his family when he was having adulterous relationships and would therefore definitely lie to those he has never met such as the electorate. Consequently what he says is of little interest to me.
That has to be one of the daftest comments.
If you accept that someone who lies to their spouse about an affair will automatically lie to everyone else around them, then you must assume that, something like, 25% of the population lie to everyone all the time.
As for wallpapergate. I don’t care – as long as the taxpayer didn’t pay.
The apparent fact (no proof as yet) that Carrie spent £200000 disgusts me, but then again, it is a listed building and belongs to the nation.
I do wonder who else has re-decorated, and how much they spent. Mrs Blair?
And the Blair’s bad taste. Costs more to cover it up!
Fennie Strange
3 years ago
“In this country we now have a choice…” Do we? Do we really? I’d be very grateful if someone – anyone – could explain to me how I exercise that choice.
Bar shooting yourself, absolute nothing I’m afraid.
Rob Alka
3 years ago
You have to wonder why politicians don’t fight back against the media. Answers that mislead or change the subject does make politics pathetic and reviled profession Yet I think there are justifiable reasons why politicians choose to mislead or not be transparent with public or media: 1) Politicians have a right to personal privacy. Journalists (supposedly on behalf of the public) demand the right to check a politician’s integrity or morality. There needs to be a reason of substance to overrride giving a politician the benefit of the doubt. 2) When politicians are negotiating a deal for the beneit of the countryor at least for mutual benefit, to give in to the deamd for transparency can hand the advantage to the other side whose interests are for their country, not ours. 3) Companies entering into an arrangement with government have a right to personal and commercial privacy, with their ethics given benefit of the doubt. It is up to government to become familiar and comfortable with business rather than for business to learn how to tread on eggs when dealing with government. 4) Media abuses transparency by reporting selectively, ambiguously, with innuendo and with “quotations” unsourced. The agenda seeks to sensationalise a situation or harm a government whose politics a given media doesn’t subscribe to, or a politician whose scalp they are after for no good discernible reason. It is hard to imagine such reporting is inept or careless. There is wilful distortion that makes it almost impossible for politicians to tell it the way it is. 5) In almost any field, directors, executives or clerks have qualifications or experience that, if dissatisfied, can be taken to another employer. For a politician, there is no other employer in their field of expertise (such as it is!), so they must seek a new career, just like a doctor being struck off. This makes the insatiable demand for transparency insidious.
Nick Faulks
3 years ago
But he didn’t pay for it himself, did he? He hasn’t got any money. Somebody else paid for it, and we don’t know who. That’s the point.
Dave Smith
3 years ago
We sure are grounded in the real. Internal passports on the way . First time ever an Englishman has ever been faced with such a thing in peacetime .. Freedom of movement and assembly on a knife edge and at the whim of the misery guts of sage and Robespierre’s mini me Hancock. I hope it is the little things that do for this government in the end. Like wallpaper and sofas.
I am not voting again .A pointless exercise which by taking part means that I half condone this assault on my way of life.
The financial future is horrendous and now this build back better drivel. It will all be made in China like these electric cars with batteries which need raw materials only buyable if China says so. Truth is the lot of them panicked last March. The NHS was not up to the job so the country had to be shut down for three weeks .That was a joke .It is still shut down and looks to be staying that way if sage is allowed zero covid.,
Yes it does matter that Carrie Antoinette and Johnson spend money like water on tacky designer gear for that tacky house in Downing St. The small businesses ruined, lives put on hold, children kept out of school and he and her spend thousands. It gets up our noses. It ‘s got up mine. I want him gone .
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Tom Graham
3 years ago
Why does the media hate Boris Johnson?
Four reasons:
He is a Tory, and most journalists are left-wing Corbyn lovers.
He led the successful campaign to take Britain out of the EU, and most journalists are screaming remaniacs.
He was a journalist, and made shedloads of money doing it.
He quit journalism for a wildly successful political career – becoming Mayor of London and Prime Minister.
Envy and political hatred. Hence the hysteria about curtains. It won’t ever stop as long as he is PM. The media really are lower than vermin. Anyone disagree?
Steve Gwynne
3 years ago
The Medieval Court comes to my mind.
These self serving careerists are not heavy in real politics but heavy in unreal power games.
Rasmus Fogh
3 years ago
OK, nasty intemperate remarks, and self-indulgent, semi-corrupt personal finances are not in themselves the biggest problem. If you had a prime minister who was otherwise honest, or competent, or had useful ideas, or cared about the country he is governing, or promoted good colleagues and practices, you could shrug your shoulders at some entitlement. Since what we have is Boris Johnson, we should instead consider that even Mobuto Sese Seko started small. It may be only the first time he is proroguing parliament to exclude it from important decisions, or hands out bucketloads of contracts to government chums, or finances his personal lifestyle by ‘loans’ from rich businessmen, but once we establish that this behaviour is OK for the prime minister – and his friends – it is unlikely to be the last.
Had to disagree here with you, a lot of very broad things you’ve thrown at the man here. I personally think the man does care for the country, is as honest as he can be in his position, and has done as good a job with the pressures of COVID, Brexit, the Union issues with Scotland as anyone can reasonably measure.
Oh for heavens sake – whatever happened the refurbishment was never going to cost the taxpayer anything so who cares.
My major problem is the peanuts we pay the PM (whoever it is) to run the country. Compared with the CEO of major companies the salary is ridiculous.
Perhaps the quality we get is our own making.
As for the honesty issue, the next time I hear a politician give an honest answer I’ll fall out of my chair. The problem however is the media – any honest answer would be accompanied by howls of derision and immediate demands for a resignation.
I agree. Ads I wrote above, I assume he lied to his family when he was a serial adulterer and therefore he would lie whenever expedient to people he has never met – most of the electorate.
Johnson’s usefulness, such as it was (Get Brexit Done etc.) has long passed its sell-by date. He’s a liability in more ways than one, and now needs to be discredited. He’s known for some time that he’s trapped in this role, that he thought would be such fun – the cornered, hunted look of recent weeks says it all. He was easily snared by his narcissism, but he has the intelligence to realise that the end is nigh. He thought he could rely on his popularity, but there are far more powerful forces controlling the agenda. I almost feel sorry for him, except that he absolutely brought it on himself in his absurd pride. It’s like a Shakespearean tragedy, but with a terrible script.
Jorge Toer
3 years ago
A band of pundits opportunistic greedy people,,if you aadministered a country with corrupted actions ,down the road are citizens that will do the same ,results are ,the jungle.
Peter Dunn
3 years ago
Thoughtful&brilliant observations..& a superb piece of writing.
Fraser Bailey
3 years ago
Am I the first to come up with ‘Carrie Antoinette’?
Rob Alka
3 years ago
“ruled by super-persons who consider themselves above the details of governance and are much more interested in fleeting moods and shifting narratives then anything concrete”
How does one become a super-person by pursuing what is titillating but lightweight and insignificant?
I fear the answer is that such a pursuit meshes with the interests or fascinations held by the majority of citizens
The implication then becomes that any politician who attempts to dismiss or rise above a self-entitled mischief-making media (eg by telling them in an interview where to get off) will face even more virulent character-assassination from a baying media mob, supported by its readers or viewers who preach but don’t practice a higher order of things.
*** “Covid, however, made politics heavy again. Suddenly it became impossible to prevail through rhetorical means alone”
Don’t bet on it. Well, not until the current politicians get a brain or personality transplant or until the voting masses are prevented from choosing candidates whom they can identify with.
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Last edited 3 years ago by Rob Alka
steve horsley
3 years ago
this across the board standing behind boris johnson is sickening.writer after writer in the telegraph and times have done the same knowing full well that the pm is at it and wouldn t know the truth if it bit him on the arse.maybe they re frightened of who would take over.
Well it becomes quite important when we have the unelected Carrie Simmons pushing an insane green agenda/racket that will financially cripple both industry and individuals. It also becomes important when her influence contributed substantially to the ousting of Cummings, one of the few people who might possess the drive and intelligence to change one or two things for the better.
Nice taste in rattan, though.
I’ve upvoted you but for the general greening I blame the media. Oh and St Greta of course.
She’ll be the death of Boris’s career.
Sorry guys, this latest stream is sounding a bit misogynistic to me. Carrie is Boris’s fiancee and close personal companion. I doubt if she has much influence when it comes to Cabinet decisions. If you cast your minds back, it was Cummings who was in danger of damaging his premiership due to concerns about his political accountability or lack of. I do wonder why 47 people endorsed FB’s assessment – an Unheard record, surely? I’m surprised anyone still sees environmental sustainability as being an “insane green racket.” Clearly, the Conservative Government doesn’t and you only need look at the climatic consequences of indifference in Australia to see that climate change really is happening. I like reading all your comments on a wide range of issues, but I just thought I’d offer this feedback and trust you are sufficiently wise and sophisticated not to indulge in any Neanderthal baiting of Greta and Carrie just because they happen to be women.
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Doubt away.
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You are in a very small minority.
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PS – claims of misogyny – means you have an extremely weak argument.
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Come off it this Green nonsense is the greatest confidence trick since the Resurrection and C-19 combined.
BTW : Australia is always having ‘disasters’. Remember when it was being overrun by rabbits?
… and cane toads!!
Didn’t their PM build a wall or a fence or something a la Trump and his equally hungry and annoying invaders?
Yes, a fence as I recall, and the damned ‘Bunnies’ pushed it over by sheer weight of numbers!
Result: Bio Warfare, a virus known as Mixi’ was released with results that would even have impressed John Wyndham.
I think the ‘Bunnies’ storming the wall/fence is on film.
Indeed it was made into a film. The film was called (quite originally) The Rabbit-Proof fence.
Although that wasn’t really about the bunnies.
Just another hare-brained plot…
Oh I don’t know. Maybe we are all rabbits now? “Following the introduction of myxomatosis to control rabbits in the 1950s, the importance of the rabbit-proof fence diminished.” lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit-proof_fence
You doubt? She leads this weak, spineless charlatan on the surface by the nose, in reality at a baser level. Running up bills in excess of £200k while sneering at people who shop at John Lewis says much about her Carrie-Antoinette delusions of grandeur. His apparent intervention over Henry Newman being the possible source of leaks shows, as they’d say north of the border, who wears the breeks in that household.
Accepting that Cummings was the source, it is alleged our PM is bombarded by her texts on a daily basis, possibly in excess of 30-40.
His increasingly uncosted and not-thought-through virtue signalling on climate change comes from her as do impromptu, out of left field concerns for badgers and the like. She is running him.
Normally, any mention of a PM and being subject to the whip would make a mockery of centuries of parliamentary convention. But this PM is clearly being whipped; what a weak, pathetic, scruffy disgrace he truly is.
Its obvious you enjoy chewing razor blades..lets hear how you would have led us through this pandemic.
Boris did just that.
Haven’t the disclosures of the past week revealed to you that blundering, dithering Johnson has no leadership ability and instead it is Gove and others who have pushed the scientists’ will on him? If the vaccine programme hadn’t succeeded so apparently well, I doubt you’d be asking the question.
You need to do your research, Duncan. The quote about John Lewis isn’t a quote from Carrie or Boris at all. It was a phrase invented by a writer in The Tatler.
All you have achieved is to provide us with an example of confirmation bias.
Fine, Dougie – whatever. And the rest?
I’m a woman (and I have always been a woman). The women I respect are women who earn their power and influence by putting their abilities into open competition, not by taking up with a guy old enough to be their father and then bullying and nagging him into doing what they want. Get a life, girl, get a job, win your influence , otherwise you are just like the French Kings’ maitresse en titre – and the last one of those ended under the guillotine.
Greta isn’t a woman, she is a seriously sick girl. She lives on rice pancakes which her mother has to prepare. Her special needs’ school was very cross at her truancy, as there is a very long waiting list for such schools in Sweden, and they felt she was misusing her place.
I’m a man (yes a real one, born with all the proper bits) and I loved your candied comment re’ being a woman. Made me chuckle. Agree with your comments too I may add.
When you say “proper bits” there may be an implication that some peoples bits are in some way not proper.
Clearly this marks you out as suitable for cancellation!
Should I report you to the thought police or will you be turning yourself in?
Very noble, but not averse to having a femininestyle swipe at another female…suppose you’ve got to have your fun.
I agree with you about Greta, but I must point out that Carrie does indeed have a job and is just finishing her maternity leave.
The correct way for Carrie to exercise political power should probably be to be selected in an electorate and to get elected by the public.
I disagree, the criticism of Carrie’s influence is criticism of Boris. It’s perfectly natural for an intelligent, ambitious woman to have strong opinions on things that interest her. What is unforgivable is Boris allowing his decisions to be so influenced by his infatuation with his fiancé, rather than the policy platform he stood on, or his advisors.
PMs have relied heavily on their significant others advice forever. What is concerning is that Boris doesn’t seem to have the strength of character to seek Carries advice, and disregard what doesn’t fit with the platform he was elected on.
As for your comments on green sustainability, it may have escaped your notice but not all well intentioned green policies are effective, sustainable or even particularly green, don’t mistake political marketing for policy outcomes. Cancelling badger culls for example, is soppy, emotional, unscientific intervention that has done more harm than good, because Boris doesn’t have the backbone to upset Carrie on one of her pet topics.
Totally agree – I’ve actually seen Carrie referred to as Boris’s mistress in more than one media article this week. Would these remarks be made about a female PM with a male partner? Of course not, misogyny is well and truly alive in UK journalism – unfortunately. Cummings is a serial liar, the press were all over him on his stupid trip to Barnard Castle. Now he has been sacked he is clearly the fount of all knowledge and truth in the eyes of the media.
Strange how people are queuing up to be nasty about Carrie. The “climate emergency” is indeed a scam but Boris was fully bought into it long before he met Carrie. He gets it from his father.
If you believe the Staggers, then it was Cummings who started the war with Carrie by fabricating a story in Feb last year about them falling out and then claiming that Saj’s Treasury Spads had leaked it, thus cunningly triggering Saj’s resignation.
And while Cummings undoubtedly has intelligence, he has no emotional intelligence and therefore was absolutely the wrong person to effect change from within No. 10, as opposed to coming up with proposals for change that a talented manager could implement.
Looking at this from Austria I cannot help but snigger a bit. If you live here, you just kind of assume that business is in bed with politics and that there’s a certain amount of graft going on. And you read about it, think “for Christ’s sake, this is what I pay my taxes for?” But then you realise that you can’t really do anything about it and get on with your life.
Over the past few years, we’ve had the Ibiza scandal which took down the conservative-far right coalition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibiza_affair), a finance minister signing off a budget where more than a couple of noughts were missing, the same finance minister having dodgy ties to a big gambling company, serious state security lapses regarding the jihadist that committed the terror attack last year and the über-dodgy connections between the BVT (Austria’s intelligence agency) and Jan Marsalek of Wirecard. And did I mention we’re being led by a 34-year-old university drop-out? (see: https://www.politico.eu/article/house-of-sebastian-kurz/).
So, you’ll forgive me if I look at the pseudo-drama being whipped up in Whitehall and think: “try harder.”
I didn’t realise it was quite that bad in Austria, which one generally thinks of as a sensibly run country.
Hahahaha! Austria a sensibly run country? No. Things are quite nice and neat and tidy here and stuff works (public transport is world-class). That creates quite a good-looking appearance. Under that, stuff can be really quite scuzzy. Politics is a venal and ridiculous mess.
To be honest I’d settle for a neat and tidy country where stuff works but the politicos are a bit more corrupt. All we seem to have had for 40 years is incompetence and bureaucracy.
Yeah, I’m quite happy here. It’s a good life. You just enjoy it and don’t look too closely at what’s going on behind the scenes.
Poor old Austria. Adolph & Apple strudel.
Edited to say…
Doh! I need to get out more, and enjoy the sun!
Sorry for accusing you of being blinded by party allegiance. I’ll not derail this bit of the discussion further.
I was aware that there had been some problems in Austria in recent years, and a number of scandals etc. But this seems to happen whoever is in power.
For the record, I do not have a party and you might be surprised to learn that on one of the vanishingly rare occasions I voted in a GE it was for the Lib Dems.
And that misses off the accounting mess. ie. Where the biggest debt, pensions isn’t even reported.
What a delightful attitude and reality check for Britain. It makes the our media-vs politics-vs-business scenaario look so childish and pathetic.
It is no coincidence surely that there are elections next week. If you can’t play the ball try to take out the man.
Yes, but this pathetic attempt at a power grab is the kind of transparent overreach I have come to expect from Remainiers who thought they owned the political discourse, only to have it snatched away by the deplorables of the electorate.
Oh leave us alone, we lost, we don’t much care anymore….find someone else to blame….. your “Remainiers” are just a random tag to point your ire at…….
You prefer Remoaner? Remaniacs?
I’m mostly preferring not name calling tbh…. haven’t had a good moan about remaining more than a year or more… so not moaning, not being a maniac, not hating on those of you loving the Brexit… just working, paying taxes and getting on with stuff..
You won – get over it!
And I as an atheist kafir, won’t be voting for Khan. Don’t want London streets renamed and statues depicting both the good and the bad in British history pulled down.
True enough – but the most disturbing thing about this is the role of the BBC in deliberately amplifying and exaggerating the significance of a number of utter non-stories.
The most egregiously stupid is the Dyson nonsense. I have even seen idiot “journalists” in one newspaper describe it as an attempt at tax evasion.
It is a very simple situation: Imagine you are asked to volunteer to work on a critical project in another country for 4 1/2 months. However, if you volunteer, there is a chance that the country you go to help will try to tax you (at double your normal tax rate) on your entire year’s earnings – including income earned in the country where you normally live.
Would you volunteer? If the answer is “no,” then you understand why Dyson needed assurances before he could ask his Singapore-based staff to work on the ventilator project.
It is time the BBC was brought to heel.
Its time the BBC was brought to heel by all their editorial staff and reporters being replaced en mass. Despicable bias.
Same old tories same old sleaze
Please explain how the Dyson tale is “sleaze”
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He can’t. He can only throw tired cliches around.
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Original thought is beyond him.
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And as for making a case for ‘his’ views – well, forget it!
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You mean like selling peerages and passports?
Like the line in the Hokey Cokey: ‘……..And that’s what its all about’
These stories don’t matter because there isn’t a credible opposition. Voters would rather have Boris running the country rather than the people that thought a terrorist supporting racist should be PM. Until such times that changes these stories won’t change voters minds. The cash for honours and the dodgy dossier didn’t put a dent in Tony Blair for the same reason
The opposition is not credible because it is fragmented. The Conservative’s successfully unified the Brexit vote, which is the most important schism in British politics today. There is a realignment going on and one cannot know where it will lead. The most well-off households in Britain are now less likely to vote Tory than the average person. This is an almost incomprehensible development compared with even 10 years ago. The reverse is true of uneducated and unskilled labourers who are now more likely to vote Tory than the average person. British politics is not delineated between left or right in the sense of big versus small government. The primary difference between people is their sense of identity, in essence, British sovereignty first versus global cooperation. Right now, the group supportng British sovereignty first are voting exclusively for the Tory’s but the globalists while broadly a majority – more people voted Labour, Liberal and Green than Tory in 2019, 2017 and 2015 – are fractured between various political parties. It’s not hard to envisage a new faction or leader in politics quickly changing the status quo and managing to coalesce the remain vote around a set of core values and aspirations. Minority party rule cannot last forever. Even more so when you examine changing demographics across England as graduates and ethnic minorities move out of cities and begin to influence politics in the surrounding commuter hinterland.
Self deluding nonsense. Brexit is a symptom of the left’s problem not the reason. The middle class metropolitan left is actively hostile to main stream views in the country. It had a moral choice and it chose an Iranian supporting racist while calling anyone who disagreed with been ruled by unaccountable incompetent bureaucracy racists. Until the metropolitan left work that they might actually be wrong Boris will be in power. Nobody cares that you all agree over quail and claret at high table.
Brexit is a reaction against the perceived assault on national sovereignty arising from the forces of globalisation and an increasingly multi-ethnic nation. Brexit has little to do with the traditional left-right split. There’s lots of polling data in regards people’s changing attitudes that bares this out. Electoral Calculus is particularly good. By all means, keep your head buried in the sand but the status quo will not last.
So you all didn’t tell everyone to vote for a terrorist supporting racist because he was against Brexit. Hint the fact the a terrorist supporting racist was elected twice to the leader of a self avowed anti racist party might be a problem. Every time the left wonders off into Bennism, the working class vote tory. They did it in the 80s and now they do it again. It wasn’t Margo and Jerry from the golf club that kept the tories in power for 18 years.
Most working class people voted Labour even in the 1980s. Mondeo man was a media trope and not the rule. Again, go and read the historical election and polling data for yourself. The point is that 2021 is not 1981. There are key differences between the two eras and you’re failing to grasp the new schism in British politics, in my opinion. We are in the midst of a great political realignment.
Here’s historical data that back up my argument: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2011/05/16/labour-not-just-party-working-class
It’s no skin off my nose, you can believe what you want, just don’t be surprised if the tories are still in power in in another 15 years.
Does the evidence not fit with your point of view? Considering our rigid electoral system I certainly would not be surprised if we had another 20 years of minority party rule. Nonetheless, the system is unstable and the ongoing realignment may take us in a direction that no one can predict.
Hint they have been in power 10 years and have just increased their majority.
As I say, they have our unfair and unrepresentative electoral system to thank for that.
What a dim argument. It’s a breath of stale air that takes me back to 1983, and to outraged student lefties fulminating about how 56% “voted against” Fatcha. Of course by those lights, 72% “voted against” the cretin Foot and 74% “voted against” the SDP. Likewise in 2019, 70% “voted against” the terrorist-fe||ating Iran-smooching anti-Semite Corbyn.
If you think Lib Dem and Green voters have more common with a Brexit Tory Party you’re seriously deluded. One wonders how long this forum will be moaning about Corbyn and using his name as an excuse for Johnson’s corruption.
The boundary changes will certainly level the playing field and benefit the tories in the next couple of elections when compared to the past couple of elections.
I like bares it out (sic). Market research has got a lot more exciting since I was involved in it, obviously.
Sharia will become the dominant law as the Muslim demographic is racing ahead of the white indigenous Brits. Political Islam is clever. The womb is also seen as a weapon and where women are seen as the tool of Allah for making soldiers for Allah.
I am looking at a Muslim prayer mat start up. Want to invest?
Wait until you experience it. I have had loads of times. Don’t play music it’s against my religion I was told by an imam at a wedding. Go and research political Islam. They have 1400 years experience and are winning. Pleased I won’t be around to see the result having been to Islamic lands.
I’ve lived in Bethnal Green, have Muslim friends and my girlfriend comes from a Muslim family. Nothing sinister at all. They are all amazing people, moderate and committed to mainstream secular values. You are blinded by bigotry.
The overwhelming majority of Muslims are NOT terrorists BUT the overwhelming majority of terrorists are Muslims.
There are a plethora of non-state violent groups in the world using terror as a tactic. Some Muslim and many not. Do you have a citation for your assertion? In the UK circa 30% of referrals to Prevent are white supremacists or alt-right fascists. The proportion is increasing year-on-year.
I talk not of thinkers or talkers, but of DOERS. And I make no apologies for considering only Europe, my (& probably your) home, not elsewhere.
In Ireland, most of the terrorists are not muslim. I wouldn’t call them particularly christian either, mind. As one old local put it, they are no great prop to either community.
Maybe I should have said England, instead of Europe. Anyroad, Ireland is a special case. And, circumstances there do seem to change.
Ever spent time in the Middle East?
Your argument here appears to be, if everyone who didn’t vote for the party that had the most votes, had all voted for the same alternative, then that alternative would have won.
The key problem with that argument is that the last time any party got more than 50% of the vote was 1935, before that 1931 – and both of those were Conservative majorities.
Minority party rule cannot last forever – this proves it. But one (or even 2) occurance of it doesn’t fundamentally change the political system.
The voters are fractured, smaller parties will always get a small percentage of the vote and the larger parties will incorporate their policies to attempt to woo those people who voted for them. Thinking of politics more as a series of pressure groups rather than the left vs right might help
FPTP only works in a solidly 2-party state and even then I believe it forces far too broad a church on the main political parties and leads to far too many votes counting for nothing.
A majority of votes in 2019 were for political parties advocating for a second referendum on Brexit. It’s funny how a narrow majority in a referendum is enough for massive constitutional change and the removal people’s EU citizenship but when it comes to General Elections we are perfectly happy with a minority winner takes all approach. If Labour had a backbone they would immediately champion a more proportional voting system. The Tories will not because they are quite happy with minority rule.
If we go proportional representation, in any one of the available formats, we will end up with more or less permanent coalitions. Which may or may not be a bad thing, but carries two big problems. First, the loss of the constituency MP. Secondly, no-one will know when they go to the polls how much of whose manifesto will survive the coalition horse trading. If we go that way, we should do it with a total constitutional re-think, put to a referendum, on the basis that it will need more than a Commons majority of one to overturn it.
Good summary. I’d add that the actual result depends a lot on political culture in addition to the voting system (consider Denmark v. Italy v. Israel), and that it is hard to predict what political culture would evolve in the UK post-FPTP. The big advantage of a proportional system is that voters have choices (!), so it becomes very hard to govern against a strongly held majority opinion. In a proportional system, Corbyn would never have a chance of being in full control of a parliamentary majority, for instance.
The voting system in Scotland is a mixture of a proportional list and larger constituencies with a direct representative. I’d favour the introduction of the AMS system that works well in the devolved assemblies being used for future general elections. If it’s part of a winning manifesto pledge then there’s no reason for a referendum.
So the removal people have EU citizenship, but the rest of us don’t? Is it something to do with packing cases?
I think your arguments would be more persuasive if you could be bothered to read them before posting.
“British sovereignty first versus global cooperation…”
With respect, this is nonsense. NATO is one of the most successful inter-governmental; alliances ever. It has mostly kept us safe for decades, despite the best efforts of idiot eurocrats to undermine it. Being a member of NATO entails absolutely no surrender of sovereignty.
We’re not allowed to declare war on the French though. Some may consider than an unacceptable sacrifice…
🙂
But, that was a sovereign agreement at the start of the NATO treaty. We did not confer on NATO the powers to make changes to the rules that we were subsequently obliged to follow.
It is akin to the difference between signing a contract to join a gym versus giving the gym power of attorney over your life.
They’re broad categories but nationalism vs globalism is the key divide in British politics as opposed to fiscal conservatism vs tax and spend.
Nationalism scale
Anti-EU / suspicious of sharing sovereignty / critical of climate change accords / critical of immigration
Globalism
Pro-EU / positive about multiculturalism / concerned about climate change
I don’t think the above broad categories negate the benefits of NATO. There are going to be elements of cross-over between the two but I think the overall picture is useful for understanding British politics in 2021.
No, the difference is between people who do real work for a living, who now all vote Tory, and students, welfare queens and those with bulls*** jobs who vote Labour.
One wonders what ‘real’ is subtext for but whatever you really mean there’s no point discussing politics with someone pushing such baseless stereotypes.
Who really gives a toss about a measly £58K?
The real question is what the hell has happened to the £37 billion, yes billion, that has been squandered on this “Trick & Trace “ nonsense?
That’s how much was budgeted for 2 years. As I understand less than one sixth of that has been spent.
What £6 billion already!?
That’s the cost of one Ski Jump Aircraft Carrier and its American planes!
Time to “cut & and run”, and save the other £31 billion.
Thank you.
And most of that was spent on testing – tens of millions of tests – not T & T.
Thank you.
I wonder who owns the Testing monster?
There are days when I wish someone would destroy the British media. It is badly informed, prone to hysterics, and cannot be held to account.
The media will always win. If the media becomes corrupted, it cannot be stopped.
Not sure you could build a bonfire big enough 🙁
Well it’s doing a pretty good job of destroying itself. Very few people people believe it any more, and more and more people refuse to pay for it.
Becomes?? Has been for a long time.
Yesterday you were singing the praises of Herman and I was rather curious.
Herman got fairly savagely criticised for numerous errors in ‘To Rule the Waves’…. including the upside down Union flag on the cover.
Is he up to the standard of N.A.M. Rodger or Andrew Gordon for example
He is an excellent single-volume introduction to the 18th century. Even though he may be wrong on stuff, there is no other popular work that mentions the War of Austrian Succession or Suffren’s exploits in one volume, etc etc etc. The general stuff is all there and is pretty A OK. Some of his WW2 stuff is a bit off, and his Jutland account is so hilariously romanticised that it isn’t real history at all.
…but then that’s weirdly ok. You KNOW it’s so off you’ll look for the real thing elsewhere. Where he gets it right, he’s very good. Going from the 14th century up to the Falklands while avoiding the usual stupid pitfalls like “battleships obsolete off Malaya”, or “Nelson invented everything” is a pretty good achievement.
If you want the full detail, go NAM. Herman’s a good introduction to the RN’s history for a 14 year old…. which I was when I first read it. Herman provides the context that you can place NAM’s detail in.
I’d vote for that as long as the destroying starts with the BBC.
Carrie is the weak spot that Boris Johnson can ill afford, for whatever reasons she appears to be a lightening rod for a lot of the turmoil in downing street.
True, but I do wonder just how valid it all is. Who is leaking this, and why? To discredit Boris?
Honey trap. Profumo, Christine Keeler comes to mind.
come on,boris discredits himself.the man is a proven liar,no denying.
Perhaps you’ll hear “get out of my flat” once again, only this time from no. 10.
I’m afraid that many in the media are just as narcissistic as the politicians. They all think that they amount to something, or that their vacuous witterings are worth listening to. After all, these are people who appear to think that Twitter is real life – and that it matters, even one tiny bit. How deluded can people be?
Meanwhile out there in the real world, the 99.9% of us just get on with our lives, and occasionally look in through the little Westminster window and chuckle wryly at the preening self-obsession, narcissism and self-absorbtion on display.
The Oscars this year had about a fifth of its audience of 4 years ago – a steepening of a years-long decline. And this in a year when we were all at home with not too much to do! That says better than anything I can say, about the utter disconnect between us, and the world’s luvvies, politicos and their-hangers on.
It is worryingly reminiscent of the American media’s behaviour during the Trump administration, which was to exaggerate, or entirely fabricate, a new scandal or outrage every week in the hope that one of them would bring him down or that the sum of them all would damage his image with enough voters. God help us if that is what the British media is turning into. Plenty of them seem to really hate Boris, largely for making fools of them over Brexit. I agree that none of the current stories will do much harm. I could care less what he says in private or who nearly paid for the number 10 redecorations.
Yes, that’s an insightful point. The Remainer press haven’t forgiven him, or voters, for Brexit.
The Daily Mail is a brexiteer paper
It used to be. It’s current editor was a prominent campaigner for Remain ( as soon as the owners changed their minds)
Compared to say, Trump’s sincerity, honesty and integrity on display during press interviews on a weekly basis. He so corrupted basic human values that honest reporting was deemed lies. A sorry state of affairs.
Is it a disgusting example of greed and believing they are worth it, yes
Is it immoral, yes
Do we as individuals and a country have more important things to worry about, yes
Saying a politician is suspect and a bit grubby is like saying fish swim in the sea, no s**t Sherlock!
Next you will tell me that the labour say they love the NHS and the Tories want to sell it to the highest bidder, never heard that before.
Your only there for a few years so just do your job, running the country and helping us don’t worry about pleasing your girlfriend, your probably dump her for a younger model soon anyway
I agree nobody should care that much about a few thousand spent refurbishing Number 10. But we should all be concerned when the PMs go-to response when asked about it is to lie and to send his Cabinet out to dissemble on his behalf.
He should have owned up and shrugged it off, so we could all have moved on. Instead of which we are all tangled up in the web of deceit he has spun.
Decorations don’t matter. Lies do.
he s an expert.
If it looks like a gossip article (ie nothing to substantiate facts; or clearly deliberate misrepresentation, I don’t waste time reading it). What galls me is the way we have surrendered to expediency in order to promote a binary view: that is, there is no longer any pang of conscience about deliberately misrepresenting or misquoting to bring someone down. We probably no longer notice how many headlines are encased in quotes which is the nearest they get to owning up to gossip.
The MAIN issue is that the prime minister is increasingly influenced by his girlfriend.
Messalina comes to mind.
58K is a lot, to be sure, on the other hand there must be plenty of proles living in Third World countries shocked that the leader of a G7 country lives in a flat, while their own leaders occupy presidential palaces. Erdogan’s stately pile is a prime example.
Apologies, but Turkey is not a ‘Third World’ country. The rest of your point is certainly valid, though.
The politics are – attempted military coup springs to mind
Bozza isn’t head of state though – why should he be given a palace? Surely 10 Downing St and Chequers are enough for him.
You might equally well ask why our Head of State has (I think) two palaces and multiple estates while the person who actually runs the State gets a poxy flat above the shop and a comparatively modest weekend retreat.
Doesn’t he own a couple of houses already?
not using public purse afaik–thats not the issue.
The actual sum isn’t the point. Is lying not the point? Once someone has lied, how do you know when to believe them?
And Putin and Modey
The prime minister of the UK receives a good but not over generous salary. Someone doing such a high pressure job, on behalf of us all, deserves to have a space where they can relax. Given the vast sums of money involved in government, surely it would be reasonable to allocate a sum of money to each incoming PM to decorate the Downing Street flat.
It’s a good wage but really when you stack the numbers, not sure what they get now is it 175k?
Run the country – 175k
Run bet365 – 465 million
I would much rather pay politicians “industry standard” wages BUT they be held much more accountable and have the best possible credentials for the roles. Higher pay might even attract far more competent people into the jobs that know how business, science, health, education work along with a keen sense for getting value for our money.
I know the argument pay peanuts, get monkeys but a highly paid monkey is still a monkey. The idea that someone who can earn 100s of millions elsewhere is going to enter into the cauldron of public life for 300k a year is laughable.
Isnt the idea that ANYONE earning hundreds of millions for doing a role laughable 🙂 but yes beside the point I guess.
I was thinking of paying sensible industry standard wages in the hope of attracting better more accountable and qualified talent.
I would do it for way less but I will have to save up to buy a smart suit and get a haircut. Don’t need tha latter. Got the PM look.
But that hasn’t worked.
That was Shirley Williams’s argument – except that our politicians became better paid, but certainly not higher calibre.
they get £ 30 K each year whilst in office.
Could you imagine any other developed country kicking up so much fuss over spending £58k on the presidents’ apartments? It’s like the outrage over the cost of renovating the Speaker’s apartments and The Palace of Westminster. They’re Grade 1 Listed Buildings which means everything about them is prescribed in minute detail and such stuff costs a lot of money.
They do, it’s £30,000. The £58,000 is an overspend.
As Dolly Parton said “It cost a lot of money to look this cheap”.
The Head of the London Fire Brigade gets £240K. That’s the power of ‘collective bargaining’ for you.
Does the Head of the London Fire Brigade get provided with a London town house, country estate, chauffeur driven Range Rovers to take the family to the pub on a Sunday lunchtime, £115K to run an office in retirement etc etc??
Or the personal protection team even?
No, I think not, but a damned good pension of about £16OK pa.
Well written.
India isn’t the story here.
The story is that we’re sleepwalking into a totalitarian state while the political elite argues over wallpaper.
“have sleepwalker into…” I’m afraid. The only question is, will we ever be allowed out, and what totalitarian control measures will they leave in place if/when some restrictions are eased?
Alison, from where do you get all this inside information; do you work in Downing Street? I ask because you state things as fact?
Pro-EU media attack pro-Brexit PM – hardly news, is it?
I totally agree, after all, it was only that famous Europhile publication The Daily Mail that broke the ‘bodies piled high’ story.
I guess journos generally focus on writing articles which get major responses. I was appalled this am to see the quality (lack of, generally) of comments under an article in the Times attacking Boris. It doesn’t appear to matter what he does, he is always attacked in the same way by the same people in large numbers & that phenomenon will continue to drive these ridiculous articles ..
This is it though, it’s entirely people who already hate him, whether for Brexit or lockdown or consigning Corbyn to the dustbin of history, just grabbing at whatever story comes along that is supposedly bad for him. I doubt there is one person in the country who is genuinely angry that a Tory donor nearly paid for the redecoration rather than Boris. If there is, they should seek help.
Does depend which Tory donor it is, (Dyson? Lex Greensill? Nicola Sturgeon? One of Putin’s tame oligarchs? Huawei? ..) and what he expects to get in return. Well, we do not know till we are told, do we?
Who gives a shit about any of them while trying to survive on a lousy state pension.
Can’t even begin to articulate the contempt that I harbour for the MSM and their vulture “fake news” style of journalism
Glad I am not the only disgusted by this pointless non-scandal.
I don’t care about Westminster gossip. I don’t care how the PM paid for redecorating his mistress’s boudoir.
I do care that Johnson is an awful, authoritarian Prime Minister who has trashed the economy, public finances, civil liberties and children’s education in response to a virus that doesn’t present a very big risk for most of the population.
Tell that to India!
This comment was going so well right up until the last line there.
You obviously missed the bit about ‘bodies piled high’ specifically because he did NOT want to close the country down.
I didn’t miss it. I don’t care what was said in the discussions leading up to lockdown #2. I care that he implemented lockdown #2.
he was sold to us as a Conservative.what happened there?
I’m not sure I remember quite as much fuss over Bercow’s wallpaper. Even with the possibility it might have been chosen by his wife.
Seldom have I read such drivel. Pick 3 historical ‘bad-guys’; add the lad Boris to the witches’ brew (as a piquant foil) and hey presto- you have the makings of a mid-week article for the ‘herd’ community. It will take better writing than this to get me to financially subscribe to Unherd.
If the matter is so trivial, why doesn’t Johnson give straight answers to straight questions? If it were trivial, then that would be easy to do, right?
Why has he let this story string out over so many days, and who can tell when it will end? All he has to do is follow the ministerial code of conduct, or if he thinks it needs changing then he should change it. We have had these stories coming over for many years now. I recall the scandal over a Labour minister’s wallpaper. We didn’t hear the Tories then claim it was a minor matter. The ministerial code is meant to stop this kind of thing. If you don’t like it, don’t be prime minister. There was no shortage of other candidates.
Oh dear, my recollection about Pugin wallpaper seems to have been taken down. For balance I could mention Sir Michael Heseltine and the deputy priministral carpet. My point is politics has its share of venality, like every other area of human contest. When parties attack soft furnishings, its a sure sign of frustration.
Vaccines take time to administer and work. It would probably be of much more help to the Indian health services today to receive immediate supplies of oxygen and the unused equipment from our unused Nightingale hospitals.
“One after another, the big names of British political journalism puffed themselves up to express their moral indignation.” I was amazed (and shocked) by this. Every time one of them spoke I was expecting the killer shot to launched at the open goal. ‘Mr Cummings, maybe I misheard, please confirm that you drove 60 miles to check your eyesight.’ The killer question never came, they all droned their statements of moral indignation.
20 bedsteads, 600 concubines? 30 concubines to a bed? Too crowded!
In my view the state should pay for the redecoration of the flat that is in the head of government’s official home.
Sadly the PM and his friends are not on your side, Peter. Whatever the subject, they conspire to push their personal foibles to the fore because they imagine they can carry on as they like. People will come to believe it’s endemic and any other Government would be better. Time to get a grip.
Boris has got Brexit Done and won the phoney war against a virus. So now all the ‘difficult’ things are out of the way, the knives are out.
The fact is Boris is unfit to lead. Fact(er) is that so is the whole of Westminster.
Exactly, well said.
NO ONE CARES!!
Peter writes: “Covid, however, made politics heavy again. Suddenly it became impossible to prevail through rhetorical means alone. The politicians who tried, such as Donald Trump or Ursula von der Leyen, came badly unstuck.” He shouldn’t try to rewrite history. Trump made a lot of mistakes in dealing with the pandemic, but he was also responsible for Operation Warp Speed. These drive-by sneers at Trump are becoming habitual on Peter’s part. I suggest he write two or three columns that will represent his full Trump takedown, and then we can judge his arguments on their merits. What does he think of Trump’s making the C-CPI-U the escalator for elements in the US income tax?
I’ve all but lost interest in the news and daily politics for exactly the reasons expressed here by Peter Franklin. The empty puerile nature of almost everything put int front of me is insulting, and yet papers sell. The bottom of the barrel is nearly worn through.
And yet people continue to click click click… where does the problem really lie? Is it the professions of politics and journalism or the audience? I’ve not settled on an answer yet.
But don’t forget that last autumn, the media were more interested in attacking Kate Bingham for who she’s married to and who she went to school with, than understanding her vital work with the Vaccine Taskforce
As far is it goes this is fair enough. But without transparent systems for determining how people like Bingham or Dido Harding get appointed it does look as though roles are given out based on personal friendships and the result can be positive (as with vaccines) or negative (as with Test and Trace). These issues are too important for the outcome to be determined by whether or not your mate’s wife turns out to be a good egg or a bad one.
Yes, the £58k may seem unimportant but has to be seen in context of all the things that are important that are brushed aside – inquiry into handling of Covid, illegal prorogation of parliament, ministers breaching their own code, EHRC finding Home Office broke race laws over hostile environment, VIP procurement streams. The £58k is important because of all the other more important things that this government shrugs aside or slips out of dealing with.
When you have a few months to mess around with going through a nice selection process (multiple panels, psychometric testing etc) is brilliant. However, when the house is on fire ….
Well said Alison. Since Boris became PM I have assumed that he lied to his family when he was having adulterous relationships and would therefore definitely lie to those he has never met such as the electorate. Consequently what he says is of little interest to me.
That has to be one of the daftest comments.
If you accept that someone who lies to their spouse about an affair will automatically lie to everyone else around them, then you must assume that, something like, 25% of the population lie to everyone all the time.
As for wallpapergate. I don’t care – as long as the taxpayer didn’t pay.
The apparent fact (no proof as yet) that Carrie spent £200000 disgusts me, but then again, it is a listed building and belongs to the nation.
I do wonder who else has re-decorated, and how much they spent. Mrs Blair?
The fact he is a liar matters more to me than how much he spends on wallpaper.
He’s a politician, therefore he lies.
Surely a get out of jail free card no matter how egregious their behaviour? Politicians are just people, therefore, they are not all the same.
Politicians are all the same, shits.
I am less inclined to trust serial philanderers and proven liars in my personal life, as I am sure you are too.
And the Blair’s bad taste. Costs more to cover it up!
“In this country we now have a choice…” Do we? Do we really? I’d be very grateful if someone – anyone – could explain to me how I exercise that choice.
Bar shooting yourself, absolute nothing I’m afraid.
You have to wonder why politicians don’t fight back against the media. Answers that mislead or change the subject does make politics pathetic and reviled profession
Yet I think there are justifiable reasons why politicians choose to mislead or not be transparent with public or media:
1) Politicians have a right to personal privacy. Journalists (supposedly on behalf of the public) demand the right to check a politician’s integrity or morality. There needs to be a reason of substance to overrride giving a politician the benefit of the doubt.
2) When politicians are negotiating a deal for the beneit of the countryor at least for mutual benefit, to give in to the deamd for transparency can hand the advantage to the other side whose interests are for their country, not ours.
3) Companies entering into an arrangement with government have a right to personal and commercial privacy, with their ethics given benefit of the doubt. It is up to government to become familiar and comfortable with business rather than for business to learn how to tread on eggs when dealing with government.
4) Media abuses transparency by reporting selectively, ambiguously, with innuendo and with “quotations” unsourced. The agenda seeks to sensationalise a situation or harm a government whose politics a given media doesn’t subscribe to, or a politician whose scalp they are after for no good discernible reason. It is hard to imagine such reporting is inept or careless. There is wilful distortion that makes it almost impossible for politicians to tell it the way it is.
5) In almost any field, directors, executives or clerks have qualifications or experience that, if dissatisfied, can be taken to another employer. For a politician, there is no other employer in their field of expertise (such as it is!), so they must seek a new career, just like a doctor being struck off. This makes the insatiable demand for transparency insidious.
But he didn’t pay for it himself, did he? He hasn’t got any money. Somebody else paid for it, and we don’t know who. That’s the point.
We sure are grounded in the real. Internal passports on the way . First time ever an Englishman has ever been faced with such a thing in peacetime .. Freedom of movement and assembly on a knife edge and at the whim of the misery guts of sage and Robespierre’s mini me Hancock. I hope it is the little things that do for this government in the end. Like wallpaper and sofas.
I am not voting again .A pointless exercise which by taking part means that I half condone this assault on my way of life.
The financial future is horrendous and now this build back better drivel. It will all be made in China like these electric cars with batteries which need raw materials only buyable if China says so. Truth is the lot of them panicked last March. The NHS was not up to the job so the country had to be shut down for three weeks .That was a joke .It is still shut down and looks to be staying that way if sage is allowed zero covid.,
Yes it does matter that Carrie Antoinette and Johnson spend money like water on tacky designer gear for that tacky house in Downing St. The small businesses ruined, lives put on hold, children kept out of school and he and her spend thousands. It gets up our noses. It ‘s got up mine. I want him gone .
.
Why does the media hate Boris Johnson?
Four reasons:
Envy and political hatred. Hence the hysteria about curtains. It won’t ever stop as long as he is PM. The media really are lower than vermin. Anyone disagree?
The Medieval Court comes to my mind.
These self serving careerists are not heavy in real politics but heavy in unreal power games.
OK, nasty intemperate remarks, and self-indulgent, semi-corrupt personal finances are not in themselves the biggest problem. If you had a prime minister who was otherwise honest, or competent, or had useful ideas, or cared about the country he is governing, or promoted good colleagues and practices, you could shrug your shoulders at some entitlement. Since what we have is Boris Johnson, we should instead consider that even Mobuto Sese Seko started small. It may be only the first time he is proroguing parliament to exclude it from important decisions, or hands out bucketloads of contracts to government chums, or finances his personal lifestyle by ‘loans’ from rich businessmen, but once we establish that this behaviour is OK for the prime minister – and his friends – it is unlikely to be the last.
Had to disagree here with you, a lot of very broad things you’ve thrown at the man here. I personally think the man does care for the country, is as honest as he can be in his position, and has done as good a job with the pressures of COVID, Brexit, the Union issues with Scotland as anyone can reasonably measure.
If he’s truly as honest as he can be in his position, we’re doomed.
Surely basic honesty should be the minimum.
Oh for heavens sake – whatever happened the refurbishment was never going to cost the taxpayer anything so who cares.
My major problem is the peanuts we pay the PM (whoever it is) to run the country. Compared with the CEO of major companies the salary is ridiculous.
Perhaps the quality we get is our own making.
As for the honesty issue, the next time I hear a politician give an honest answer I’ll fall out of my chair. The problem however is the media – any honest answer would be accompanied by howls of derision and immediate demands for a resignation.
Sure, we ought to up the PM’s salary to £100 millon a year or so. Who knows, we might even get Philip Green to apply, if we are lucky!
I think even Fishwife gets more than him, with her 5m people and wee Pretendy Parliament
I agree. Ads I wrote above, I assume he lied to his family when he was a serial adulterer and therefore he would lie whenever expedient to people he has never met – most of the electorate.
In politics – Shirley you must be joking.
‘Let them eat cake’ comes to mind.
Shows a lack of ambition 🙂
Johnson’s usefulness, such as it was (Get Brexit Done etc.) has long passed its sell-by date. He’s a liability in more ways than one, and now needs to be discredited. He’s known for some time that he’s trapped in this role, that he thought would be such fun – the cornered, hunted look of recent weeks says it all. He was easily snared by his narcissism, but he has the intelligence to realise that the end is nigh. He thought he could rely on his popularity, but there are far more powerful forces controlling the agenda. I almost feel sorry for him, except that he absolutely brought it on himself in his absurd pride. It’s like a Shakespearean tragedy, but with a terrible script.
A band of pundits opportunistic greedy people,,if you aadministered a country with corrupted actions ,down the road are citizens that will do the same ,results are ,the jungle.
Thoughtful&brilliant observations..& a superb piece of writing.
Am I the first to come up with ‘Carrie Antoinette’?
“ruled by super-persons who consider themselves above the details of governance and are much more interested in fleeting moods and shifting narratives then anything concrete”
How does one become a super-person by pursuing what is titillating but lightweight and insignificant?
I fear the answer is that such a pursuit meshes with the interests or fascinations held by the majority of citizens
The implication then becomes that any politician who attempts to dismiss or rise above a self-entitled mischief-making media (eg by telling them in an interview where to get off) will face even more virulent character-assassination from a baying media mob, supported by its readers or viewers who preach but don’t practice a higher order of things.
***
“Covid, however, made politics heavy again. Suddenly it became impossible to prevail through rhetorical means alone”
Don’t bet on it. Well, not until the current politicians get a brain or personality transplant or until the voting masses are prevented from choosing candidates whom they can identify with.
.
this across the board standing behind boris johnson is sickening.writer after writer in the telegraph and times have done the same knowing full well that the pm is at it and wouldn t know the truth if it bit him on the arse.maybe they re frightened of who would take over.
I’m “at it” too
Don’t we all want to be “at it”?
I don’t know if I want truth that bites me on the arse