pwa wrote: ↑1 Jul 2022, 9:36am
While I agree with some of what you are saying, Boris did not bring about the Brexit referendum result. All sorts of things did, going back a decade or more. Boris's main contribution was getting Brexit over the line when he became PM, with the NI fudge.
I may be overestimating his influence slightly but he was the major promoter of Cumming's '350 million to the NHS' lie, which, in 2018, 42% of the UK public still believed to be true; and he was the one prosecuted for lying:
In February 2019, Johnson faced a £570,000 crowd-funded private prosecution by Marcus Ball over the lie. Mr Ball’s lawyers accused Johnson of being aware the Vote Leave claim was false and used the amount to “mislead” the public. Initially a judge ordered Johnson to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in May 2019, but this was overturned by a Divisional Court in June, 2019.
He also tried to get this lie off the internet with his silly 'painting buses' story:
In June 2019, in an interview with Talk Radio, Johnson was asked what he does to switch off from politics. Johnson replied that he painted buses on wooden crates, including the passengers enjoying themselves. The Guardian claimed it was “a pointless, obvious lie. One there had been no need to tell.” Johnson’s answer did gain a substantial amount of media coverage. As a result it pushed the Vote Leave bus lie down Google and other search engine rankings. At the time a number of commentators thought it was a deliberate attempt to reduce the ranking of the boris bus lie. Creating a positive story around chosen key words is a common reputation management SEO strategy used to hide negative stories on the web.
To quote the New Statesman
And by Cummings’s own admission, that £350m promise, more than anything else, determined the result of the most momentous UK vote for decades. In a binary referendum on the horribly complex issue of Britain’s EU membership, a campaign that was supposed to be championing ordinary people against a self-serving establishment elite deliberately deceived them. At a moment of supreme national importance it played a deeply cynical political game. How patriotic was that?
Or this could just be me being grumpy because I've broken a tooth and can't get a dentist appointment because all the European dentists at our surgery fled the country after Brexit and we have just one part-time dentist left
The Tories have always claimed to be the party of low taxation and spend.
Increased spending for the armed services but no mention of how it's to be paid for.
As all government spending comes from taxation
I suspect health and education may lose funding to pay for it.
francovendee wrote: ↑1 Jul 2022, 1:50pm
The Tories have always claimed to be the party of low taxation and spend.
Increased spending for the armed services but no mention of how it's to be paid for.
As all government spending comes from taxation
I suspect health and education may lose funding to pay for it.
If it actually happens. Even pledges that cost nothing seem to get dropped without good reason these days (e.g. "banning Conversion Therapy"). Johnson has always been very free and easy about pledges but actually doing what was pledged is a very different matter.
Caroline Nokes is no fan of Johnson and was one of the first to hand in a letter of no confidence
The letter wasn't withdrawn and she is an outspoken critic of Johnson.
I believe she made a complaint about Stanley Johnson's sexual behaviour at some Tory party bash some time back.
Acorns never fall far from the tree.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/01/scandal-timeline-tory-sleaze-boris-johnson wrote:Scandal after scandal: timeline of Tory sleaze under Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson’s premiership has been characterised by a string of scandals since he entered No 10 in 2019. From “Pestminster” to “Wallpapergate”, the prime minister has sought to ride out every storm during his two and a half years in charge. Here is a timeline of the sleaze so far:
...
What realy highlights the poor judgement by Conservatives in Westminster is that they should have acted at the same time as the resignation was announced/published. So many reasons to have acted immediately but even from a strategy, all they've done in delaying is to allow Labour to make demands and highlight more Conservative sleaze, even allow their own to raise objections. Withdraw the whip immediately and you close-off much of the news coverage. If they can't get the easy obvious stuff right what hope for the more complex, more crucial stuff.
(Without knowing the detail (or only having read 3rd hand from people who were not present) I've not commented on what he actualld did ...)
Stradageek wrote: ↑1 Jul 2022, 9:12am
So it takes one man (Putin) to cause international chaos by starting a war (just to bolster his ego and prove to himself how important he is), another, (Trump) to cripple women's rights for the next 40 years by installing his right wing cronies in the Supreme Court and another (Johnson) to destroy the British economy just to get himself elected to the role of Prime Minister that he (and he alone) has always felt he deserved.
"The UK's trade performance has fallen to its worst level since records began in 1955, placing pressure on the falling value of the pound even further, the Financial Times reports. The paper says the "weak performance" of exports and a significant growth in imports "highlight the economic effects of Brexit" on the economy."
When will people see that a 'strong leader' is just a disaster waiting to happen and instead bring in the representative democracy that the rest of Europe enjoys
The problem is that people are in love with figureheads
-----------------------------------------------------------
"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
Stradageek wrote: ↑1 Jul 2022, 9:12am
So it takes one man (Putin) to cause international chaos by starting a war (just to bolster his ego and prove to himself how important he is), another, (Trump) to cripple women's rights for the next 40 years by installing his right wing cronies in the Supreme Court and another (Johnson) to destroy the British economy just to get himself elected to the role of Prime Minister that he (and he alone) has always felt he deserved.
"The UK's trade performance has fallen to its worst level since records began in 1955, placing pressure on the falling value of the pound even further, the Financial Times reports. The paper says the "weak performance" of exports and a significant growth in imports "highlight the economic effects of Brexit" on the economy."
When will people see that a 'strong leader' is just a disaster waiting to happen and instead bring in the representative democracy that the rest of Europe enjoys
The problem is that people are in love with figureheads
thirdcrank wrote: ↑1 Jul 2022, 10:15am
Perhaps the principal here is "you can fool some of the people quite a lot of the time." If I were looking for info on what the UK has done about the invasion of Ukraine, Boris Johnson wouldn't be on my list of sources
The credit I give him on that subject is in the very narrow area of arms supplies and his urging NATO to strengthen its stance. In that specific area the UK has outdone most Western nations. So even Boris can get something right. Very occasionally.
...
The difficulty I have with Boris & Ukraine is how the Johnson sycophants seem to believe that Johnson is the only PM who can do this. The assumption that anybody else as PM would be doing little or nothing. I can't see that Johnson has done anything particularly clever or strategic that any other PM would do - except maybe any othe rPM would have ensured fewer barriers to Ukrainian refugees coming to UK and maybe more checks that they didn't end-up with "unsuitable" hosts.
Ian
If you are comparing him with Starmer, then you may be right. Certainly regarding refugees. But what if Corbyn had been PM? Would Jeremy have been so quick to send arms to Ukraine? He would have been better on the refugee front, but his pacifist leanings might have reduced his willingness to give Ukraine arms to defend themselves.
Boris getting the arms supplies bit right does not make him a genius in my book. Getting one thing right after getting ten things wrong is not a cause for celebration.
pwa wrote: ↑2 Jul 2022, 6:26am
If you are comparing him with Starmer, then you may be right. Certainly regarding refugees. But what if Corbyn had been PM? Would Jeremy have been so quick to send arms to Ukraine? He would have been better on the refugee front, but his pacifist leanings might have reduced his willingness to give Ukraine arms to defend themselves.
I remain ambivalent. If Ukraine had just let the Russians walk in think how many lives would have been saved, military and especially civilian.
Putin cares not a jot about Russian soldiers lives so the sanctions that would have still been imposed may have stood the same chance of success as they do now and nobody would have died.
pwa wrote: ↑2 Jul 2022, 6:26am
If you are comparing him with Starmer, then you may be right. Certainly regarding refugees. But what if Corbyn had been PM? Would Jeremy have been so quick to send arms to Ukraine? He would have been better on the refugee front, but his pacifist leanings might have reduced his willingness to give Ukraine arms to defend themselves.
I remain ambivalent. If Ukraine had just let the Russians walk in think how many lives would have been saved, military and especially civilian.
Putin cares not a jot about Russian soldiers lives so the sanctions that would have still been imposed may have stood the same chance of success as they do now and nobody would have died.
I feel the same way about the Falklands war.
Or does this make me a pacifist nutter?
Genuine question
No, it doesn't make you a pacifist nutter. But I question the wisdom of just letting Putin take what he fancies. Where would he stop? What would he take next? Estonia? Moldova? And if the West rolls over and lets him do as he likes, what message will that send to China about Taiwan and other territorial claims? At the moment the Chinese government will be looking at the mess Putin has got into and hopefully noting that taking territory this way is slow, messy, problematic and disruptive.
Stradageek wrote: ↑2 Jul 2022, 7:57am
I remain ambivalent. If Ukraine had just let the Russians walk in think how many lives would have been saved, military and especially civilian.
...
...
Or does this make me a pacifist nutter?
Genuine question
I disagree with you, but I'd much rather people were ambivalent or uncertain than unquestioningly believing in their own position.
From a purely short term and practical question, the experience of occupying troops murdering and raping around Kyiv makes the argument that surrender equals a reduction in suffering far from definite.
Then there's the question of generations to come under that occupation.
And what Russia might be further emboldened to do next.
So I do believe helping the Ukrainians have the option to decide for themselves whether to fight or not is right
But I certainly would not characterise other positions as nutty.
Last edited by roubaixtuesday on 2 Jul 2022, 4:35pm, edited 1 time in total.
Stradageek wrote: ↑2 Jul 2022, 7:57am
I remain ambivalent. If Ukraine had just let the Russians walk in think how many lives would have been saved, military and especially civilian.
...
...
Or does this make me a pacifist nutter?
Genuine question :?
I disagree with you, but I'd much rather people were ambivalent or uncertain than unquestioningly believing in their own position.
From a purely short term and practical question, the experience of occupying troops murdering and raping around Kyiv makes the argument that surrender equals a reduction in suffering far from definite.
Then there's the question of generations to come under that occupation.
And what Russia might be further emboldened to do next.
So I do believe helping the Ukrainians have the option to decide for themselves whether to fight or not is right
But I certainly would characterise other positions as nutty.
Is there a "not" missing from the bit I highlighted?
Last edited by thirdcrank on 2 Jul 2022, 12:41pm, edited 1 time in total.
pwa wrote: ↑1 Jul 2022, 10:19am
The credit I give him on that subject is in the very narrow area of arms supplies and his urging NATO to strengthen its stance. In that specific area the UK has outdone most Western nations. So even Boris can get something right. Very occasionally.
...
The difficulty I have with Boris & Ukraine is how the Johnson sycophants seem to believe that Johnson is the only PM who can do this. The assumption that anybody else as PM would be doing little or nothing. I can't see that Johnson has done anything particularly clever or strategic that any other PM would do - except maybe any othe rPM would have ensured fewer barriers to Ukrainian refugees coming to UK and maybe more checks that they didn't end-up with "unsuitable" hosts.
Ian
If you are comparing him with Starmer, then you may be right. Certainly regarding refugees. But what if Corbyn had been PM? Would Jeremy have been so quick to send arms to Ukraine? He would have been better on the refugee front, but his pacifist leanings might have reduced his willingness to give Ukraine arms to defend themselves.
Boris getting the arms supplies bit right does not make him a genius in my book. Getting one thing right after getting ten things wrong is not a cause for celebration.
You are right. To clarify when I said "... seem to believe that Johnson is the only PM who can do this" I did not mean that any/every PM would do it, rather that many others could and would. PMs go through a "selection process" (at be that not always a very democratic one and not involving the electorate). But one assumes that part of that selection process is that people who get a vote consider their policies and likely action on a range of issues.
If Johnson was thrown out then candidates would stand and I'd assume most if not all would include "I would continue/increase our assistance to Ukraine" and that any candidate standing with "I would cut our aid to Ukraine" would probably not get the position.