"... just look at the piteous footage of Boris Johnson as he apologised to the Queen last week, nearly weeping, entirely out of self-pity. Nobody, he moaned, told him the massive party he had personally attended was 'against the rules.' If it wasn’t a 'work event,' he said, he couldn’t 'imagine why on earth it would have gone ahead.' I can tell him why: it went ahead because no one at Downing Street ever gave a toss about the rules. Not a single one of the scores of entitled, cashmere-hoodie-toting Tinder-swiping gin-in-a-tin-chugging junior staffers who flocked to the basement disco gimpfest the night before Prince Philip’s funeral gave a second thought about what was happening in the rest of the country. It says everything that even when Johnson came out of hospital, one of the earliest things he did wasn’t to tell Carrie to tone down the fire-pit heart-to-hearts; he went to what one MP described as a 'welcome back' party in his garden. He ignored Covid and nearly died from it but came back and still ignored it and licked everything. Who does that?"
From "Keeping up with the Johnsons is exhausting — life is lived at 10,000 miles a minute" by Camilla Long (London Times).
I do enjoy reading The London Times. The writing is different from what we get here in America. Apparently, in the U.K., a classy paper will print the word "gimpfest." And every other sentence makes me want to diagram.
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53 comments:
Covid shaming is both a winter and summer olympics sport now, innit?
"Could we have had a more unsuitable man in charge? Sloppy, lusty, blind to details..." Winston Churchill. Sometimes you need someone in charge who won't let you distract him or dissuade him. WWII. Brexit was like that.
Could be they need someone else now. Is Neville Chamberlain available again?
The Times has a paywall, so I'm not sure if "licked" has a literal or figurative (as in attaining victory) context.
It almost doesn't matter- Boris finally pulling the covid restrictions is what he should have done a year ago. Maybe he'll survive the fallout: maybe not.
"And every other sentence makes me want to diagram."
Somebody needs to Miranda the prof.
"If it wasn’t a 'work event,' he said, he couldn’t 'imagine why on earth it would have gone ahead.'"
Love that. It's the same thing Gavin Newsom said when caught dining at The French Laundry. And what Pelosi said when she hosted her fête down the road in Napa. And what Michigan Gov. Whitmer said as her husband opened up their Northern Michigan cabin when the people in Michigan were to stay home and not open up their northern cabins, and when she vacationed in Florida- and everyone knows how dangerous that can be. And when Reps. AOC and Swalwell left their respective shut down homes of New York and California to vacation in Florida- mask free.
It's good to be above it all.
Instead of complaining and condemning, maybe people should follow his example?
You're right. No "maybe" about it. Everyone go back to living a life.
It seems very English to have a PM who resembles an amiable sheepdog and discourses in Greek.
That said, a dog is going to be a dog. All these people have known each other since they were twelve and they knew he'd be PM someday. Well, here we are.
“Could we have had a more unsuitable man in charge? Sloppy, lusty, blind to details..."
It sounds like a request.
I've said it before - I love British slang.
When I read the headline I thought the article was going to be about Slow Joe.
That said, a dog is going to be a dog. All these people have known each other since they were twelve and they knew he'd be PM someday. Well, here we are.
Agreeable Parliamentary mumble here…
Temujin beat me to it. The differences are that it’s Britain, and Boris Johnson leads the Conservative Party. So of course he comes in for criticism. Over on this side of the Atlantic people like Newsom, Whitmer, Pelosi, et. al., are prominent Democrats, so of course the stories are quickly buried.
I will say that it takes a special degree of chutzpah to travel 1300 miles down to Florida, then bitch about the policies that make Florida a worthwhile destination.
People are people. Whatever force motivates Newsom to take off his mask, acts upon Johnson the same way. Whatever force that causes us to criticize or support Newsom should similarly cause us to criticize or support Johnson in the same way. Let the parsings begin.
“Could we have had a more unsuitable man in charge? Sloppy, lusty, blind to details..."
Do they mean Joe Biden? Then the answer is NO. Except for the lusty. The lusty really should be pervy.
Borises partying
I too think that the elites in charge need to live by example. No matter right or left.
Partying with the fancy pants crowd while your nation sits in lock-down and economic misery is really a bad move.
Perhaps pretty boi Newsom can give Boris some pointers?
You see, that’s the trouble with the politicians of today. They just can’t grasp Noblesse oblige.
If all our leaders were Obama - it would not matter.
Party and golf all you want!
Politicians are hired for their judgment.
It comes as a big surprise to most.
there is a reason, andrew marr had him as a transitional figure, johnson has done one good thing, brexit and has gone in on every other idiotic thing, including lockdowns, under feely ferguson and handsy hancock
"Downing Street ever gave a toss about the rules."
Because they knew the rules were pointless.
"he went to what one MP described as a 'welcome back' party in his garden."
Trying to keep life as normal as possible.
"He ignored Covid and nearly died from it"
Did he ignore it? Evidence?
"but came back and still ignored it and licked everything. Who does that?"
Someone who calculates his risk sensibly. He came back. He licked everything. Good man.
Except, of course, that like self-righteous elites everywhere he and his buddies presume to impose pointless rules, perpetuate illusions about "stopping" Covid, and use fear to expand power.
"I do enjoy reading The London Times. The writing is different from what we get here in America.
I've run into this repeatedly when working with Brits. They are just way better at Englishing. They make me feel like Fred Flintstone chiselling words on a slab of rock when I write, and they make me feel like Dino when I talk.
Johnson, Newsom, Whitmer, AOC, Pelosi, etc. all demonstrate the same thing- all the mandated policies were nonsense from the start, and they all knew it, too. Eugyppius has been collecting the various stories from the people who figured it out early on that it was all bullshit.
It sounds like a request.
Well, the answer is "yes, try ours."
I like Boris. Especially when he makes people upset with his slapstick shenanigans.
"Could we have had a more unsuitable man in charge?"
Why, yes, yes you could.
See: current occupant, Oval Office.
The Times has gone a bit down market since the days when Harold Evans was the editor, but it still has great columnists. The Telegraph (also known as the "Toriegraph") also is very lively. Both the Times and the Telegraph are center-right (the Times is owned by Murdoch), unlike any major US newspaper except the Wall Street Journal. Free market economics clearly influences both papers. The Financial Times worships at the feet of J. M. Keynes, who was not a Marxist, but is the patron saint of state interventions
The Guardian, the Observer (the Guardian's weekend stablemate), and the Independent are all in thrall to Left-think, but still occasionally commit legitimate journalism.
We lived in London for a while, and one of the delights was the liveliness and intelligence of the top-end (then called broadsheet) newspapers. However, we quickly learned that liveliness is the daughter of speculation--it was a mistake to believe whole-heartedly anything you read in any newspaper.
"Knew they were nonsense from the start."
I disagree.
The sense I get from these actions is much more "rules for thee but not for me"
Or perhaps more accurately, "quod licet jovi, non licet bovi."
It's the "private jets to Davos for very important discussions about limiting air travel because Climate Change" crowd, after all.
Temujin as usual both has a point and is spot on. But a slightly different reaction on my part is that Boris Johnson seems to combine the worst qualities of Obama (arrogance and self entitlement) with Biden (cluelessness) in a single person.
I myself was a violator of Covid mandates for the time between Austin's asshat mayor attempt to stop the world and our Governor Abbott overruling such nonsense for many fields of business. Just a few days of continuing our construction work to meet a closing deadline, but I felt piratical the entire time. And that experience has guided my behavior since.
I suspect that "mandate violation" by pols is simply their normal modus operandi exposed more starkly and undeniably. Fire the whole lot as an example to the next bunch.
Was everyone supposed to hop on the wagon for a week because Prince Phillip died? It wasn't like he was struck down tragically in his youth - the man had a good run, RIP and all, but come on. I guess the Brits haven't heard of Irish wakes.
Sloppy, lusty men got you the empire, love, though I can see where "blind to detail" could be a problem. Blackadder may have made them sloppier than they really were, but they were mighty lusty, and BoJo needs a few more wives before he matches Henry VIII.
People have come to think of fraud, deception, and hypocrisy as a big part of politics -- an essential part in the era of COVID. It was expected that somebody as much a big baby as Boris would violate his own rules, just as Newsom, Pelosi, diBlasio, Lightfoot, Breed, Murphy, Raimondo, Raskin, Whitmer, Bowser, and many others did.
I don't know what Yes, Minister says about this, but it might be something along the lines of "It's not what you do, it's who you are, and whether your moment has come." COVID coincided with the US 2020 election and was used to get Trump out. These stories come when everybody is tired of Boris and is looking for an excuse to get rid of him.
Still a big baby wall always land on his feet (or on all fours, which is much the same thing for a baby), especially when he has Eton, Oxford, and a stint as Prime Minister on his resume. Bertie Wooster got along just fine, and presumably Billy Bunter didn't starve after Greyfriars.
Eugyppius has been collecting the various stories from the people who figured it out early on that it was all bullshit.
I have no idea who that was, but as the ancient Greeks were right about everything else, I trust them on COVID.
All these people have known each other since they were twelve and they knew he'd be PM someday.
---------
Government as class re-union and food fights. [aren't they all same age cohort?!]
better than USA version with /Principal and hall monitor/ gazing minatorily <> octogenarian leaders
This is some great writing...the Brits really do seem to write better take-downs than we do.
Johnson's apology reminds me of Newsom visiting the LA train yards.
He all but said, 'What's going on here? Who is in charge of this mess?'
: )
"If it wasn’t a 'work event,' he said, he couldn’t 'imagine why on earth it would have gone ahead.'"
Of course I was having orgies with the secretary pool girls...sometimes four or five at a time.
But they are all employed by me, so ipso facto it was a work event : )
Random fun fact:
Boris Johnson (PM, leader of the Conservative party) Kier Starmer (Labour Party leader) and Andrew Sullivan were at school together.
That fact courtesy of Mark Steyn.
I do enjoy reading The London Times. The writing is different from what we get here in America. Apparently, in the U.K., a classy paper will print the word "gimpfest." And every other sentence makes me want to diagram.
That last sentence, to me, sort of argues against the rest.
At least, if you feel the need to diagram every other sentence in order to figure out what it means, that's really bad writing
Sloppy? As in appearance? BoJo's hairstyle takes a lot of effort. No one has hair that has that look all the time with out a professional doing it.
You had me at "entitled, cashmere-hoodie-toting Tinder-swiping gin-in-a-tin-chugging junior staffers".
The leaders suitable to women like this tend to be the terrible, destructive leaders that cry ‘all is well’ at the sight if the suffering they’ve created…
I think I am getting to the point of wanting any columnist to demonstrate competence in any useful field besides running his or her jaw before accepting their criticism of what any other person does. I don't know British politics all that well, but the elite media there seems like the same as ours, and really needs to grasp that the people are not happy.
Apparently, in the U.K., a classy paper will print the word "gimpfest."
Ah, not exactly "three reporters and a gentleman from the Times" anymore perhaps. Still more respectable than the Daily Mail, probably.
On topic, as Lurker21 notes above, this is basically indistinguishable from all the other numerous incidents in which advocates of draconian lockdowns in the US have been caught flagrantly flouting their own rules. They haven't paid any price for their hypocrisy in the US, and I will be surprised if Johnson pays a price in the UK. But the difference, I suppose, is that an establishment paper like the Times is actually criticising Johnson, while American journalistic lickspittles have generally been happy to downplay these stories and attack opposition critics in defence of the hypocrites. That Johnson is a Tory while the most flagrant hypocrites in the US have generally been Democrats probably explains the difference, but it may have an effect on his political fortunes nevertheless.
Who is "we" in the headline? Unless it is the queen writing the headline, BoJo is not their Prime Minister.
BoJo was not elected to the post. He was appointed by Queen Elizabeth to the post. Sure, she rubber stamps whoever the majority party recommends. But if they nominated Nigel Farage, someone on Elizabeth's staff would have a quiet word saying "I say, old boy. This Nigel, Farage is not quite the thing you know. Could you please recommend someone else?" And someone else would be recommended.
BoJo did not swear any oath to the British people, the British Constitution (such as it is), Britain in general or even "The Queen" as an abstract figure.
He swore:
I, Boris Johnson, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.
British soldiers swear a similar oath.
You know who else swore an oath to a specific person?
Wehrmacht Oath of Loyalty to Adolf Hitler
"I swear to God this holy oath that I shall render unconditional obedience to the Leader of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath."
But that's different, of course because....uuummmm ... reasons.
Maybe we could get our troops to start swearing a new oath, especially now that Psaki has let slip who the real president is:
I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend Barack Obama against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of Barack Obama and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
Or am I taking it too far?
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Continuing in the Life imitates Seinfeld:
George: Was that wrong? Should I have not done that? I tell you I gotta plead ignorance on this thing because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing was frowned upon, you know, cause I've worked in a lot of offices and I tell you people do that all the time.
But now, having been educated by Lem in the tatoo thread, I have to ask was he pleading ignorance in the sense of not knowing it was wrong? Or ignorance in the sense that he he knew the rules and was ignoring them?
Seems to me that he originally did it via meaning 2. Ignoring the rules.
But now he is trying to weasel out of it by claiming ignorance meaning 1.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
About a year and a half ago BoJo caught kung flu and spent time in the hospital. Something happened. This is not the same BoJo that we knew and loved before the alleged illness. The original was much more fun, somewhat Trumpian even.
The new one, is just another bland brit politician.
Did Queen Lizzie have him thrown down an oubliette in the Tower of London or some such?
Where is the REAL Boris Johnson?
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Looks like BoJo chucked away his chance at a knighthood, unlike the simpleton Blair...
The only real problem is optics. If Johnson had covid and recovered, he gained natural immunity, which is performing better than our vaunted vaccines.
On the other hand, the hypocrisy is pretty blatant. Going in front of cameras and advising "sheltering in place," wearing masks, social distancing, etc. and then hopping off to a shindig is infuriating to us proles straining under the imposed mandates and policies.
he was replaced by a zygon,
If I may bring to bear a little learning from the far side of the Atlantic on Boris Johnson, who I knew well at an earlier stage in life, his weakness as Prime Minister is that, despite his prodigious capacity for reciting Greek Hexameters, he is impatient of details, a major weakness in a relentlessly technocratic age. On the other hand, as Howard's affectionate comment shows, Boris attracts admirers from the most unlikely quarters, hence the Conservative Party's indulgence towards him for his vote winning capabilities. Although his demeanour, in private as well as in public, is that of an 18th century squire who has been dragged through a hedge backwards into the 21st century, don't be fooled - he is the most relentlessly ambitious person I know.
It is his bad luck that he climbed to the top of the greasy pole, as I think Benjamin Disraeli called it, shortly before Covid emerged. The advantage of a substantial Parliamentary majority was offset by the fact of the BBC and most of the press (including the Times) hating him for having put his charisma behind the Brexit campaign. Although they were to some extent quietened by the Left's capture of Covid policy, with Boris not daring to face down The Blob (as we call the Beltway people here) a substantial number still wanted revenge for Brexit and demanded perpetual obeisance to the cult of Covid (which as in the US, suits the Zoom classes very well).
A curious aspect of the present imbroglio over parties at Downing Street during severe Covid restrictions is that the event Boris is most deeply implicated in occurred in May 2020 and would have been known of by at least a hundred people. Even more curiously, the event insensitively timed for the eve of Prince Phillip's funeral was for a departing press officer and was attended by journalists - so why is news only breaking now? It may be because a discontented former staffer (Dominic Cummings) was a strong proponent of Covid restrictions and in December, Boris finally shook off the grip of The Blob and rejected advice to shut the country down for Christmas, correctly reading the mood of the country and the less than dramatic data about the Omicron variant. Very soon thereafter, a drip feed of stories about parties at Downing Street started to appear. Are these belated revelations the revenge of the Covidians? Maybe.
In any event, the political problem for Boris is that he has enraged both ends of the Covid spectrum - those who piously made sacrifices for the greater good (as they saw it) and those who went to parties when they could, but did so in furtive fear of fines if caught. Both groups feel played for fools by those who made the rules, but both are overlooking the fact that we are concerned here with a very limited category of people who were required to work in close proximity in the warren of offices in Downing Street, and whose gathering in the garden therefore represented no increased Covid risk at all. We'll see what happens, but I think the idea that whether our Prime Minister stays in office or not should depend on the classification of a gathering in the Downing Street garden as a party or as a continuation of work is no way to run a country.
One correction to Michael Gillespe's random fun fact: although Mark Steyn is usually accurate on these matters, Boris Johnson, Kier Starmer and Andrew Sullivan were not at school together, at least not in the English sense of "at school" - Boris was at Eton and the other two were somewhere far less exalted. If by "at school" Mark Steyn means University, although Keir Starmer did a postgraduate year at Oxford, that was the year after Boris had graduated, so no overlap.
Thanks Nicholas.
Prof: "I do enjoy reading The London Times. The writing is different from what we get here in America.“
You’ll like “The Spectator” too, then. The UK version. Boris used to edit it. I believe it’s the oldest continuously published mag in the world.
By the by, I’m rather partial to Boris for all his flaws. I agree with Nicholas’ point above, last sentence of penultimate para…
Okay, Boris frequently comes off as a slapstick buffoon. He still has two major achievements (1) getting the UK out of the EU (2) ending the Covid restrictions. Those are two real achievements. Most politicians have zero achievements.
Today's lesson: don't trust your memory.
I stand corrected...
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