Boris Johnson: Why is a proven liar in power?

[reohn2]

cant be blamed for not knowing how to spell a word you have never used? Not as if words have a structure that from which you can assemble the spellings? So Boris dad just like his son

You mis the point,he's rubbing people's noses in the faeces of the "upper" and corrupt classes and doesn't give a damn who knows it,such are these people's cocksure belief that they can continue to lie and cheat their way to power.


Corbyn OTOH for whatever faults he may have is most definitely and most unequivocally a true man of the people.I can only hope enough people will,before the 12 Dec,see that,and will not swallow the absolute guff and lies spouted by BoJo and his entitled father,

[Vorpal]

I think that most people just accept that politicians lie to get where they are, and we are simply picking between brands of lies.

Therefore, people vote according to the brand they prefer, or don't vote at all because they see little point in picking between brands of lies.

I can certainly understand that view.

TBH when Boris was mayor of London, I think lots of folks thought it was kind of funny. They don't expect honesty from the mayor of London, and Boris' projected persona of affable eccentric was kind of amusing. Furthermore despite some blatant cockups, he was seen as reasonably effective. My conservative friends greatly preferred him to the current incumbent.

I do know that the friends & family members who had the opportunity to do so, regret not voting in the Conservative leadership selection. And a friend who let her membership lapse last year regretted doing so because it left her ineligible to vote. She doesn't know how she is going to vote in the coming GE. She is opposed to Brexit and really doesn't want Boris as PM, but she has always voted Conservative, and her mum was a long standing member & local organiser. I have to admit I have little sympathy for her angst, but we seldom talk politics and I was interested to hear this from her.

[Cunobelin]

Don't know about his spelling, but the editors certainly spent a lot of time correcting his articles!

This one was earlier this month. A simple error or another downright lie?

[reohn2]

This is the PM on the NHS:- https://youtu.be/5qWnHEEKZIQ

[bovlomov]

I think that most people just accept that politicians lie to get where they are, and we are simply picking between brands of lies.

Therefore, people vote according to the brand they prefer, or don't vote at all because they see little point in picking between brands of lies.

I can certainly understand that view.

That's stretching it a bit. Most politicians lie or mislead. Johnson says any old thing all the time. If it is picking between brands of lie, it is also picking the quantity. There has never been a successful UK politician that has been so empty of belief and so full of BS. There have been MPs similar to Johnson - swindlers and fantasists like Horatio Bottomley and Trebitsch-Lincoln - but they were never permitted near high office.

TBH when Boris was mayor of London, I think lots of folks thought it was kind of funny. They don't expect honesty from the mayor of London, and Boris' projected persona of affable eccentric was kind of amusing. Furthermore despite some blatant cockups, he was seen as reasonably effective. My conservative friends greatly preferred him to the current incumbent.

That was wearing a bit thin. Johnson was increasingly dismissive and insulting towards anyone at the GLA who attempted to scrutinise his actions. The only reason he may have been seen by some as reasonably effective is the same reason people are prepared to vote for him today. That is, a supportive press. Whatever he did, Johnson could always depend on the Evening Standard to provide complimentary coverage (and damning coverage of Livingstone). Interestingly, the fawning editor at the time (Veronica Wadley) became a senior adviser to Johnson when he returned to Parliament. Her husband, hatchet biographer Tom Bower, is planning a book about Johnson. Will it be out in time? And will it be informed by his wife's pally relationship with the subject?

[mercalia]

There's lies , damn lies and Boris

[Cugel]

I think that most people just accept that politicians lie to get where they are, and we are simply picking between brands of lies.

Therefore, people vote according to the brand they prefer, or don't vote at all because they see little point in picking between brands of lies.

I can certainly understand that view.

(snip)

This is the post-modern age. It's defining characteristic is the constantly downloaded message - via mass media of every description, in all sorts of formats - that there is no absolute truth and therefore anyone's made-up story or description of "reality" is as good as anyone eles's. Moreover, since Wittgenstein told the world that even logical constructions are merely tautologies (propositions repeated as conclusions) the notion has bled into every cultural nook and cranny, so that any kind of "reasoning" has become legitimate, including the sort that (by the more traditional definition of reason) is utterly irrational.

These days most people do reverse reasoning. One begins with a conclusion one prefers to be true and works backwards to construct the propositions that will make it so. When the preferred "truth" is just a mad and inchoate wish for the impossible or non-extant, the backwardly-got propositions tend to be of the same flavour. There are several posters in the Brexit thread who perform this exact backward reasoning time after time after time.

This is basically Boris's style (and Trump's). But they picked it up from a style long established in the philosophy departments of any number of Western universities then leaked out like a toxin from a virtual chemical plant into all sorts of cultural artefacts, from novels to plays to popular music to art galleries - you name it. It informs modern "journalism" which now consists of articles spewing various crazy made-up opinions playing to humans' lowest common denominators of the unconscious. In the process, "facts" of the alternative variety are also made up in support.

People love this stuff. They can think every nasty thing they ever wanted to think; indulge in every dark imagining they ever had and make it in some sense real, as it becomes one sort of behaviour or another that gradually reforms reality into what they want it to be. A prime example is Nazi Germany; but there are a hundred others. Consider Yankland, where events are more and more indistinguishable from some antic Hollywood cartoon or CGI movie.

And this is the biggest problem of all with this post-modernist mode of thinking and behaving. Technology of a thousand kinds allows large and dangerous untruths to flourish not just in people's heads but in the social institutions and other arrangements that they make. Look around and see if you can spot much that was once considered truly natural (as in unmediated by some human artificer into artificial constructs or every kind). Look at yourself and see how much of the human animal you can recognise as opposed to the queer things we act as - various kinds of biological automata performing a whole range of often self-harming acts that we're induced to perform by all sorts of mass media "realities" that we believe in with the fervour of a 2 year-old in the hands of a jesuit.

Cugel

[pete75]

My conservative friends greatly preferred him to the current incumbent.

They'd have preferred Ivan the Terrible long as he wore a blue rosette.

[bovlomov]

And this is the biggest problem of all with this post-modernist mode of thinking and behaving. Technology of a thousand kinds allows large and dangerous untruths to flourish not just in people's heads but in the social institutions and other arrangements that they make.

Yes, I think this is true.

What I find most frightening, however, is not whether what people believe is untrue or unreasoned; it is the speed that the beliefs change. In this case, just about every reason given for supporting the Conservative Party has been abandoned in the space of three years, and been replaced by a revolutionary nationalism. All that we were ever told about national security, international standing, sensible fiscal policies, the rule of law, the British way of doing things has been forgotten in a moment, and the Tory voters have constructed a new set of reasons (Will of the People, anti-immigrant, xenophobia, kicking the liberal elite, inward-looking...)

[dodger]

Interesting to see Professor Curtice saying we should treat the professed Tory lead in the polls with some care.
This is the guy who got it right when everyone else didn't, so I like to watch out for his views.
The main thing is that, whatever you think of Johnson and Brexit, the last years of Tory misrule have seen horrible deficiencies in funding of education, policing, welfare, normal infrastructure (i.e. not Grossrail or HS2) and a significant drop in job security.
It's a scandal that a supposedly wealthy country like ours has so many foodbanks and homeless/rough sleepers.
Particularly galling too where I live (Cornwall) to see so many local homes being snapped up by wealthy businesspeople paying cash, whilst young people can't afford a home and often can't even afford the escalating rents.
SO, does anyone really believe that a Tory government will actually address this with any urgency/at all??

[bovlomov]

SO, does anyone really believe that a Tory government will actually address this with any urgency/at all??

No, but Corbyn!!! is the answer to all questions about the failures of Tory governments over the past decade.

The Tories have no plan beyond 12th December. No Brexit plan. No domestic plan. Nothing.

[Tangled Metal]

I think that most people just accept that politicians lie to get where they are, and we are simply picking between brands of lies.

Therefore, people vote according to the brand they prefer, or don't vote at all because they see little point in picking between brands of lies.

You've got it nailed there. My view exactly. We're in a period of time where the two main parties that have a chance at a majority and forming a government are all about the lies. It's about which party you can hold your nose and vote for.

In my case I can't hold my nose and vote for anyone. So after discussing who my partner is voting for I am voting for three opposite side. One for labour, one for Tory. I'd rather not vote but it kind of feels acceptable to cancel each other's vote out.

I think if you can't vote for someone but believe in voting then a vote cancelling pact might be the solution.

[bovlomov]

In my case I can't hold my nose and vote for anyone. So after discussing who my partner is voting for I am voting for three opposite side. One for labour, one for Tory. I'd rather not vote but it kind of feels acceptable to cancel each other's vote out.

I think if you can't vote for someone but believe in voting then a vote cancelling pact might be the solution.

If you trust your partner, why not both agree not to vote. It seems to be a purer option, with the same effect. The benefit being that the winning party won't be able to claim your or your partner's vote as a ringing endorsement of all their policies.

[Oldjohnw]

SO, does anyone really believe that a Tory government will actually address this with any urgency/at all??

No, but Corbyn!!! is the answer to all questions about the failures of Tory governments over the past decade.

The Tories have no plan beyond 12th December. No Brexit plan. No domestic plan. Nothing.

The Tories have a plan ok!

Most of the current cabinet are involved with think tanks which are themselves funded by billionaires, mostly from the US, including fossil fuel beneficiaries like the Koch brothers and various media owners. They desperately want to frustrate any environmental legislation because it will limit their activities. They want to stop any restriction in or regulation of their activities which is why they really promoted Brexit. They want to dismantle the state to its bare minimum. The evidence is out there widely available. Trump is their success story, despite his stupidity, and he, in turn, wants a UK government run by Johnson and Farage. Farage is a real believer but Johnson is run by others. He was not allowed to appear on the environment debate.

Ever wondered why the effort is to be made to have strong commercial inks with the US and Australia when logically trade with Europe makes much more sense?

The last 9 years they have made significant efforts to dismantle the state, frustrated by the lack of a conservative majority. This is why they keep having stupid elections. And why Corbyn is so hated rather than the tolerance there used to be between parties. Johnson says Corbyn's proposed corporation tax will be the highest in Europe. No it won't.

Johnson, Javid, Gove, Truss, Fox, Hancock, Rees-Mogg, Raab, Patel, Hannan all have strong links with these think tanks and each have written or co-written papers endorsing reducing the state including removing the NHS. They now say they won't sell the NHS, which is probably rather deviously true. Rather, they will get rid of areas of it a bit at a time, leaving just enough to provide some basic stuff which would not be profitable. Just like they did with probation - and their new plan after the failure of Grayling's last plan still involves flogging it off - and prisons. Schools are on the way. Utilities have already gone, mostly owned by foreign corporations or even foreign state owned companies. Welfare is privately assessed. Hence the horror at Corbyn's suggestion that he might nationalise some of BT and why it is called communist, when it is nothing of the sort: just like in most EU countries. The proposed Labour spending plan is condemned as communist when it's significantly less as a percentage of GDP than in Germany.

And not to mention a supressed report into Russian interference, widely understood to include evidence of Russian donations to the Tories.
Getting Brexit done is essential to the current Tory hierarchy, not for the reasons they give but for the above. The are desperate not to have another referendum, not because they care about 'the people have spoken' or democracy but in case a different decision is made and their cause is set back.

[Polisman]

This is the post-modern age. It's defining characteristic is the constantly downloaded message - via mass media of every description, in all sorts of formats - that there is no absolute truth and therefore anyone's made-up story or description of "reality" is as good as anyone eles's. Moreover, since Wittgenstein told the world that even logical constructions are merely tautologies (propositions repeated as conclusions) the notion has bled into every cultural nook and cranny, so that any kind of "reasoning" has become legitimate, including the sort that (by the more traditional definition of reason) is utterly irrational.

This is basically Boris's style (and Trump's). But they picked it up from a style long established in the philosophy departments of any number of Western universities then leaked out like a toxin from a virtual chemical plant into all sorts of cultural artefacts, from novels to plays to popular music to art galleries - you name it. It informs modern "journalism" which now consists of articles spewing various crazy made-up opinions playing to humans' lowest common denominators of the unconscious. In the process, "facts" of the alternative variety are also made up in support.

People love this stuff. They can think every nasty thing they ever wanted to think; indulge in every dark imagining they ever had and make it in some sense real, as it becomes one sort of behaviour or another that gradually reforms reality into what they want it to be. A prime example is Nazi Germany; but there are a hundred others. Consider Yankland, where events are more and more indistinguishable from some antic Hollywood cartoon or CGI movie.

Cugel

I agree that speed and universal availability of the delivery of lies has changed dramatically. All fuelled by cheap Internet access and a lot of conspiracy guff spouted, seemingly unchecked on youtube and other 'entertainment' portals. A broadcaster would never be afforded such amoral free for all devoid of rules.

Fact Checking websites are important, but I think these big news dissemination outlets like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube ect should be heavily licensed, and fact checking a cornerstone of their business. Punished by huge fines and tax penalties if they over step the mark on truth. The BBC et al must roll their eyes when they see this nonsense monetised and widely distributed without any critique or legal backstop.

Massive fines? Proper broadcasting regulations? One things for sure, while it helps turn the UK into a deregulated free for all 51st state of the US, ain't gonna happen. I hope its one of the 1st policies of any new government or coalition to fight this massive wrong in Great Britain. The buck for democratic process has to stop somewhere. I sincerely hope its here.

A pox on this lying Tory bordello of a government. Out with them!