Rory Stewart lied big time by claiming to be a Conservative, he told this lie to his constituency party in order to secure a nomination and then repeated the lie to the electorate to become an MP. His lie has since been exposed and he is now persona non grata in the Conservative party. Good riddance.

Well, I think most of you can’t see past your noses. Stewart is a rare thing. A man with honour and principles who stands little chance of getting anywhere in the festering stew of contemporary politics. His analysis of B Johnson, more Loki than Pericles, is the best I’ve seen. Read that book review. Please. And get over your remainer phobia. Rory has moved on.

Of course BoJo tells lies – he is a politician. I think Rory Stewart would (and could) make a much better PM but he was not prepared to leave his principles behind and jump on the Brexit bandwagon.
[on edit] Once the dust has settled and if Rory accepts that we will stumble onwards on our present path he might try again. I would pay a tory party sub just to vote for him.

I read Rory Stewart’s review in the TLS (via a link to the Spectator I think). I was most struck not by the argument about ‘lying’ as such, though Boris Johnson does it far too much in his private as well as public life. Most politicians need to dissemble to some extent, and some fudging of issues and changing tack is necesary if we are to not live in a permanent state of civil ward, or alternatively a dictatorship, because there are always political divides in all socities.

But for many politicians there is some purpose and direction behind this. RS cites Lyndon Johnson (grubby politics to get through the Civil Rights Act), Alberto Fujimori (economic reform in Peru), or we could add Tony Blair (changing the Labour Party to make it more a mainstream European Social Democratic party), or many other cases.

But RS makes an all-too convincing case Boris Johnson really doesn’t seem to have any core principles at all, or at least if he does they do not mean enough to him for any long-term attention. (He cites several examples from their days together in government where Johnson expressed interest for about 5 minutes, such as in conserving ‘megafauna’ but then lost it again). His main politcal attribute is that is, or at least can be entertaining and popular with the public , though I thnk that is fading rapidly now.

As London Mayor he faffed around with absurd and, ironically for a so-called Conservative, expensive policies like a bus that costs at least twice as much as one bought on the open market, and a ludicrous cable car that he claimed was an essential part of London’s infrastructure.

What is worse than his ‘lying’ is a much deeper dishonesty. For example what does ‘levelling up’ mean? That idea is already falling apart under the first gunfire in the undoubtedly difficult situation of covid. He could instead about the need to rebalance the country in a serious way acknowledging it would have to be a project over many years. And even with Brexit – either the Withdrawal Agreement is a reasonable compromise to get a deal with the EU, or it is an unacceptable infringement of sovereignty. But a certain Mr B Johnson seems to have held both positions over a period of a single year!

In this ongoing covid fiasco Boris Johnson has unequivocally demonstrated the faults many thought he had all along. I’m not glad to have come to this conclusion and was hoping he’d rise to the occasion. However he has shown himself to be the the very opposite of a Churchillian natinal leader – with misplaced bluster and boasting dominating. Can’t he see that endless promises have to be followed by action with at least some success – or else they become worthless? Even his language sounds preposterous: ‘squashing the sombrero’ anyone?

Instead he governs by sloganeering, has no grasp of the details and is simply proving himself not up to the job. I am sure that is what most Tory MPs now believe, if not openly so.