July 23, 2019

"'Pifflepafflewifflewaffle,' said Johnson to yet more confected shrieks and giggles. Given that Boris had had six weeks to write his acceptance speech..."

"... you might have expected something more than the usual glib, off-the-cuff bollocks. But Johnson is nothing if not predictably slapdash and he appeared to have dashed it off in a couple of minutes in the back of the car on the way to his coronation.... Johnson... dissolved into campaign patter. People have said the incoming leader has never faced such daunting problems, he declared. But are you daunted? Silence. Boris looked puzzled. He had expected everyone to shout 'No.' Maybe they weren’t quite as stupid as he had always imagined them to be. 'You don’t look daunted to me,' he continued, hesitantly. But they did to everyone else. Some were just beginning to realise they had made a hideous mistake. Then the race to the end. Pifflepafflewifflewaffle. Brexit would be delivered if only everyone closed their eyes and believed.... He concluded by saying he would be working flat out. Or two hours a day, whichever was the longer. His ambition is not matched by his work ethic."

From "Smug, needy, desperate: Johnson's coronation is a shameless Tory jobs fair" by John Crace (The Guardian).

90 comments:

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

You cannot escape the universe, dear Boris. The universe will find you, and force you to submit to the borg.

Big Mike said...

Makes one wonder about the slugs who lost to him.

rehajm said...

It’s wankers from the Guardian peeing their pants cause they didn’t get their way. They’ll end up with no deal Brexit, The Guardian will pee their pants for a few weeks then they’ll move on to whinging about something else, like Donald Trump.

Wankers...

Automatic_Wing said...

Well sure, that's easy for you to say.

chuck said...

The Guardian! I don't know where they are published, but it isn't anywhere in this world. Spatial rift?

Sam L. said...

The GRAUNIAD Strikes Again!!!1111!!!!!

TRISTRAM said...

Dashed off on the way there? People will little note, nor long remember anything done like that.

rehajm said...

Boris was a master debater at Oxford.

Tank said...

Covfefe

richard mcenroe said...

Anybody quoting the Guardian to the rest of the world is no friend of England.

chuck said...

Richard North isn't happy either. Looks like Boris will be a great unifier :) We will see.

Clyde said...

I see that the media are the enemy of the people in places besides the U.S.

J. Farmer said...

Toby Young has a decent write up about Boris in Quilette.

Rob said...

So mark Crace as "undecided,"

Bay Area Guy said...

The stuffy old Tories are taking a page outta Trump's American ascent - well played!

narciso said...

I didnt see north proffering an alternative, no garage is not a Tory, so he doesn't count.

robother said...

A "Tory jobs fair?" What's so bad about a jobs fair? I say, better a jobs fair than welfare!

Browndog said...

All I know is, if U.K. leaves the EU without a deal, George Soros will short the British currency making billions, then use that money to undermined western democracies to create a one world order.

Drago said...

Bay Area Guy: "The stuffy old Tories are taking a page outta Trump's American ascent - well played!"

Nope.

Boris took a page outta Trump's American ascent.

There are still plenty of Tories going full "Ryan/Romney-British style" and will work diligently to serve their Brussels masters and try to defeat British independence.

traditionalguy said...

Boris was born in NYC and has American citizenship, but like Kamala he is not natural born Alice both parents were only Brits with no green cards.

As for his being Churchillian, we will see. He has a gift for communicating by showmanship and plain speech. But he will need Nigel to achieve much.

Sprezzatura said...

F them. With thur fancy talkin' gov.

We can do good over here too:

"Just got back only to hear of a last minute change allowing a Never Trumper attorney to help Robert Mueller with his testimony before Congress tomorrow. What a disgrace to our system. Never heard of this before. VERY UNFAIR, SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED. A rigged Witch Hunt!"

'Murica!

Sprezzatura said...

'He has a gift for communicating by having what used to be called bastards.'

narciso said...

And his grandfather Ali kemal was a crusading Turkish dissident.

Sprezzatura said...

Q of the day: will Boris last long enough to have an affair (or multiple) that result in a kid (or kids) while he's still PM?

IOW, will he last nine months.

narciso said...

Zebley was justin coopers atty the keeper of hillarys server, conflict of interest much?

Laughing Fox said...

Tristram wins the thread! "Fourscore and seven years ago . . . . "

Michael K said...

if U.K. leaves the EU without a deal, George Soros will short the British currency making billions,

Or losing same. See Paul Krugman for evidence.

rcocean said...

If the Guardian doesn't like him, he must be OK. But the only Brit Pol I really like is Nigel Farage. Get Britain out of the EU. It started out as a common market and its ended up as a Super-state with EU Judges and Bureaucrats telling the English people what to do.

If Boris actually gets the UK out, without some dishonest Brexit that's not really Brexit, then he'll be re-elected in a landslide. If he's another liar like Theresa May, he's done for.

Sprezzatura said...

Narc,

That name sounds Mexican = CONFLICT!

narciso said...

He was the carrier of the Brexit movement till Gove knifed him at the finish line, as a favor to Theresa May, hes had to face two major challenges in leadership one from deep stater Stewart and most recently Jeremy hunt,

rcocean said...

Really? George Soros only makes money by doing what everyone else is NOT doing. Everyone will short the Pound if it looks like a NO DEAL BREXIT. And they will lose their shirts when the Pound RISES when it has little or no economic impact.

People don't get it. The elites don't want the EU because of the $$$ - they want it because they are globalists.

Sprezzatura said...

Filling in the blanks: Gove thought that he was a loon w/ no capacity fer the job.

I wonder why?

Bay Area Guy said...

If the Brits had a Constitutional Republic, they could make Nigel Farage vice-president. Johnson-Farage would be a great ticket!

Sprezzatura said...

BTW, wasn't Boris a big fan of the Iran deal?

What was really going on w/ him? People are talking conspiracy.

“Some people say it’s worse than stupidity. There’s something going on that we don’t know about,” Trump said in Hilton Head. “And you almost think — I’m not saying that, and I’m not a conspiracy person. . . . Half the people in this room are saying it. I’m trying to be — you know, I’m just hoping they’re just stupid people, okay?”

StephenFearby said...


J. Farmer said...
"Toby Young has a decent write up about Boris in Quilette."

I disagree. Outstanding seems a much better description than decent. Unless, of course, you're inclined to British understatement.

Thanks for posting this.

A small snippet from Young's marvellous piece:

"...It is that saturnalian streak in the British character that Boris appeals to and helps explain his popularity with ordinary voters. Orwell expands on his theme—contrasting the unlettered masses with the sanctimonious “Europeanized intelligentsia”—in The Lion and the Unicorn:

One thing one notices if one looks directly at the common people, especially in the big towns, is that they are not puritanical. They are inveterate gamblers, drink as much beer as their wages will permit, are devoted to bawdy jokes, and use probably the foulest language in the world.

Another quote that’s often dragged up by Boris’s enemies to discredit him is from a Conservative campaign speech in 2005: “Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3.” In their minds, this is appallingly sexist, as well as environmentally suspect. But if Orwell is right about the enduring appeal of the “overwhelming vulgarity,” the “smuttiness,” the “ever-present obscenity,” of Britain’s seaside postcards you can see why constantly reminding people of Boris’s politically incorrect remarks won’t necessarily hurt his electoral chances. It just serves to embed him in the public imagination as a stock British character whom many people still feel an instinctive affection for: the lovable rogue, the man with the holiday in his eye.
He’s the guy that tries to persuade the barman to serve one more round of drinks after time has been called, the 14-year-old who borrows his father’s Mercedes at two o’clock in the morning and takes it up to a 100mph on the motorway with his friends shrieking in the back. He’s Falstaff in Henry IV..."

"Orwell concludes his essay by praising this rebellious, licentious streak in the British character. In his view, it’s an important bulwark against the censoriousness of our would-be governors and regulators:

I never read the proclamations of generals before battle, the speeches of flihrers and prime ministers, the solidarity songs of public schools and left-wing political parties, national anthems, Temperance tracts, papal encyclicals and sermons against gambling and contraception, without seeming to hear in the background a chorus of raspberries from all the millions of common men to whom these high sentiments make no appeal...."

https://quillette.com/2019/07/23/cometh-the-hour-cometh-the-man-a-profile-of-boris-johnson/

narciso said...

Young is very sharped tongue, it cost him more than a little agita and hes provoked as much.

Michael K said...

Blogger J. Farmer said...
Toby Young has a decent write up about Boris in Quilette.


Thanks, Farmer. I loved it.

stephen cooper said...

Boris Johnson is very "pro-choice" and he has no hope of succeeding because of his evil lack of compassion for the poor children who would
LOVE TO BE BORN IN ENGLAND MY GOD THEY WOULD BE SO PROUD TO BE ENGLISH
but Boris, like most of his previous loser fools from the days of Thatcher on,
just does not care,
those babies will never get to spend a single day in the England that selfish people like Boris and Corbyn want them to have not a single happy day in .....

Poor England is doomed until they repent in their heart.

Sally327 said...

I got a kick out of this line: "Here in the hall every pathology was on view. The smug, the needy, the desperate, the amoral and the deluded. And that was just Boris Johnson."

The Brits, they are so good with the English language.

Sprezzatura said...

Do you folks think that this is the thread where men jabber about their emotional deficits? Jabber about how yur suckers for cons?

If so, please stop. Go to the Harvard law prof thread.

Thnx

stephen cooper said...

think of the sad look on their faces when they realize that, although they were born to English mothers, the GOVERNMENT had decided they would not get to spend a single day, alive in England, while the pro-choice people tried their best to enjoy every day of their lives and to think as infrequently as they could of the children whom they had decided just did not get to enjoy a single day of being an English baby .....

THEY WOULD HAVE LOVED TO BE LITTLE ENGLISH BABIES BUT INSTEAD THEY WERE ABORTED

they were people too


sad!
they did not even get to be babies ....

Corbyn and Johnson don't care

MountainMan said...

traditionalguy said: "Boris was born in NYC and has American citizenship".

He renounced his American citizenship it due to getting burned on US capital gains taxes due to FATCA.

J. Farmer said...

@StephenFearby:

I disagree. Outstanding seems a much better description than decent. Unless, of course, you're inclined to British understatement.

Haha. You are right. "Decent" was much too small a word. I stand corrected.

narciso said...

The UK is probably where the us will probably have been if the top men candidates (Bush kasich et al) might have won

J. Farmer said...

@Michael K:

Thanks, Farmer. I loved it.

Welcome. Now let's all keep our fingers crossed that Boris can deliver on Brexit. Having a Remainer like May at 10 Downing was always an absurdity.

narciso said...

Fron their point of view the EU affords them rhd authority the germans couldn't acquire in two wars

Sprezzatura said...

"Now let's all keep our fingers crossed that Boris can deliver on Brexit."

He built a good chunk of his "journalistic" career by trashing the EU. I'm sure they're gonna return the favor.

IOW, however shitty you may have thought the May deal was.......

Lydia said...

Another Guardian piece, "The 10 ages of Boris Johnson: a guide to his road to power", in which we learn that his family calls him "Al".

Narr said...

Fearby! What means "flirher"? (Sorry, the editor dies hard.)

God bless the British rebellious streak--for all their differences GKC, Orwell, Amis, Burgess and others saw that as the heart of decency. The greatest political leader of the 2Oth C (IMHO) Churchill knew how to appeal to that too.

Narr

Britain didn't get great because of Europe

Lawrence Person said...

Boris has two things going for him: He actually wants Brexit and isn't Theresa May.

TJM said...

Sally327,

That line describes either Obozo the Magnificent or Hildabeast, you pick

J. Farmer said...

For another perspective on Boris, here is my favorite British curmudgeon Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column.

stephen cooper said...

Peter Hitchens gets lots of things wrong.
What does he say in the column, is it worth reading?

J. Farmer said...

@stephen cooper:

Peter Hitchens gets lots of things wrong.
What does he say in the column, is it worth reading?


Well I think everything Peter writes is worth reading. He's a national treasure. But basically, he points out that Boris is left-wing. It's not very surprising, since he has long considered the Tories a Blairite party. Hitchens considers the UK a doomed society. I am drawn to his irascible pessimism.

Lydia said...

A taste of that linked Hitchens piece:

Mr Johnson, who shamefully thought the answer to street disorder was water cannon, has no serious conservative opinions or policies on anything important, such as immigration, crime, education or drugs. ...

Because he is genuinely bamboozled by Green cultists, he will cheerfully wreck the economy and subject us to power cuts, a mad policy even on its own terms. ...

Al Johnson perfectly embodies the hard and ancient truth that optimism is about the most dangerous attitude in life and politics, always has been and always will be.

narciso said...

The EU is like the Borg, it was originally presented as a common market, a commercial zone, but that wasnt what also spinelli intended.

Michael K said...

Jabber about how yur suckers for cons?

Peanut needs allies. Where are Garage and Inga ?

buwaya said...

The Harvard law prof thread is about the kind of thing soap operas include - that is, reality, mostly, but strictly private dramas, and madness which is of course quite real.
It certainly isn’t about law, which is a purely imaginary thing.
Now, this one is about politicians being mean to each other, which is also realistic.

Somewhere I think someone is talking about markets, equities and currency I think.
These are not imaginary, quite, but most talk about them is fictional, or at least ritualistic.

buwaya said...

Britain has the RN and the RAF.
Which are still in better shape than the equivalent of any military on the continent.
If Brexit gets difficult, Britain can still effectively blockade the continent.

In any controversy consider the possible final arguments.
Nobody wants to go there, but everyone needs to know, what that would be like, if you do.
The last Trump, so to speak.

John henry said...

Trad guy,

Doesn't matter who his parents were, as long as they were not diplomats. Doesn't matter how long the parents were here or their legal status.

BoJo is a 14th Amendment, constitutional citizen, same as someone whose ancestors came over on the mayflower. As is anyone else born on in the "United States" all are "Natural Born"

The ONLY other kind of citizenship is statutory, like Cruz, McCain or some else who becomes a citizen by statute. That includes being born to a citizen mother outside the "United States" or jumping through the hoops to be naturalized.

United States in quotes above because it is defined in detail in the CFR for citizenship purposes.

John Henry

buwaya said...

The Bourbon monarchs used to inscribe all their cannon “Ultima ratio Regis”, the last argument of kings.
Just a friendly reminder. Sadly this custom was abandoned at least 150 years ago.

Ultimately the EU has nothing to hold over the British but words.
And this will become quite clear before anyone starts looking at the ultima ratio.

John henry said...

Mountain man,

Had not realized he had renounced his citizenship.

Change is to was as appropriate in my comment

John Henry

narciso said...

Well they dont want the leading financial and industrial concerns to decamp from Frankfurt paris et al, that much is true.

buwaya said...

The not-quite ultima ratio is the fact that Britain runs a large trade deficit vs pretty much everyone on the continent.
If you want someone’s money, well, there’s a limit to how much of a pain you can make yourself.

Let’s say the British are remarkably well placed for this argument.

buwaya said...

The real Brexit argument isn’t between the British and the Euros, but of the British with each other.

And THAT argument is a very interesting illustration of a fight between concentrated and diffuse interests.
Brexit feelings are by nature diffuse; remain is quite concentrated.

narciso said...

That's why they've been threatening a blockade in the event of a no deal.

Joe said...

Boris Johnson is nuts, but was still a better mayor than Khan and will be a better PM than May, though a deceased lab rat would be better.

NEO-FIDO said...

Well, when I want unbiased, objective analysis of Trump, I go to Rachael Maddow.

In that light, I guess when Althouse wants unbiased analysis of Tories or Brexit, she goes to the Guardian.

narciso said...

Or watches years and years on hbo:

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/266412?fbclid=IwAR0z6lGyW18rBDjNCtPUC1A8cDdngaCPo6tLyKi9GMDczx6n_AE2_SVi5jc

McCackie said...

The guardian, all the new fit to wipe one's netherland with.

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

“Peanut needs allies. Where are Garage and Inga ?”

He used to write stuff other than the babbling nonsense he writes now, but every time he would make a “factual statement,” you know, bring something breathlessly here that he just read in the NYT or heard on NPR, he would get a royal spanking, never having heard the other side of the argument, since the MSM so carefully curates what he knows. The one thing I have admired about him though, is that he is the only lefty here who admits he voted for Hillary and still thinks this would be a better country if she had won.

Imagine the kind of blinders you would have to wear to maintain that opinion! So here he is, reduced to a babbling fool.

Temujin said...

Jesus...the press. Let's see what he does. Not what the Guardian says he'll do. I suspect this will be much like Trump's time here, with the media beating him up at every turn, and his fellow Tories beating him up behind his back.

But he'll do his thing and if he's strong enough and the people get behind him, it doesn't matter what the Guardian writes. Honestly- what's their other choice? Socialist/anti-Semite Jeremy Corbyn.

Eerily similar to the US and our choices.

BJM said...

Forget it, Althouse. It's the Guardian.

iowan2 said...

Tuned into morning schmoe, just to get my heart rate up. The dejection felt by Dems when Mueller is done today will be indescribable. All this time digging in the shit, and no pony.

I know they think they are going to get sound bites out of Mueller. And so? The media and the Dems are so stupid, they think President Trump will allow them any portion of the news cycle to get the sound bites in front of the people.
The sound bites generate by questions from Republicans, will be President Trumps twitter fodder. Getting way more attention than anything Maddow or Lemon are going to misrepresent

Biotrekker said...

I listened to Boris's speech on Bloomberg Radio. My experience was very different from the journalist's report. Boris was well received. He spoke very quickly and naturally. There was no pregnant pause after the "are you daunted?" question? It was said very tongue and cheek and he asked and answered it himself. I see time and again that "journalists" are shilling for someone or something. In this case, I gather the Remainers are out to stop Boris from completing Brexit and may soon have Boris Derangement Syndrome.

Robert Cook said...

"Toby Young has a decent write up about Boris in Quilette."

Very interesting. My take: Boris is supposedly brilliant, but also demonstrably deceptive and amoral, having no compunctions about making up quotes or fabricating stories while working as a journalist (a maker of fake news!), prone to racist expectorations (which he disingenuously passes off as "satire"), and unable to work competently or well with others if he is not in charge, driven as he is by a life-long urge for power.

Oh, boy. I can't see anything going wrong with him in office.

MikeR said...

Seems there are people who don't like Boris Johnson. Who knew?

MikeR said...

Brexit is a game of chicken. As long as May was there, the EU could say, We are absolutely not reopening negotiations - you deal with your people. Now Johnson can say something like, Oh. Well, see you in November.
I don't know if Ireland is going to appreciate the EU hanging them out to dry.
Interesting times.

tim in vermont said...

It’s funny Robert, how you can address the power implications of wealth chapter and verse, but you don’t ever seem to have any insights to share for us about the power economy which is socialism. I thought you might yesterday, but you just veered right back into talking about wealth.

A good place to start would be to explain how the Castros have come to be one of the richest families in the world, and how Chavez got so rich, that would be another.

dreams said...

I'm pretty sure he'll be an improvement over Theresa May, hard to see how he could be worse.

narciso said...

Hes holding for the stb asset Jan corbyn to assume downing street

Hagar said...

He is no Churchill, but then who is.

Fernandinande said...

Toby Young has several great articles @Quillette, also a nice write-up on progressive anti-science witch-huntery, AKA Liberal Creationism.

Craig Howard said...

If nothing else ,he will be fun to watch.

When criticized years ago for trying to maintain a career in journalism while also serving as a Member of Parliament, he observed, “My policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it.”

tcrosse said...

Too bad Thackeray isn't around to write about this guy: The Way We Live Right Now.

Michael McNeil said...

Bad link, Fernandistein. You've butted Althouse's URL up against the intended one. E.g.:

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2019/07/www.dcscience.net/Toby-Young-2018-Intelligence.pdf

Here's a fixed link.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

It's about time a leader stood up to the Pifflepafflewifflewaffling.

Michael McNeil said...

Hm, I see that's not a secure link, and browsers may reject it as a consequence. Here's a version stripping the ‘s’ (secure) from the ‘http’: link.

Narr said...

Thackery was a RACIST!

Narr
Look it up