"What I care about more than anything else is people in power having power and doing things properly..."

"... and not just sort of in-fighting and dicking about. And so Boris Johnson lost me the minute he started fucking it all up. I was like: All right, fuck off. I don't care who's in charge, as long as they're actually in charge."

I was moved to transcribe that, from the "Go nuts for squirrels" episode of the podcast "Giles Coren Has No Idea."

The statement was made by the co-podcaster, Coren's wife, Esther Walker, and it's the closest I think I've ever heard to how I react to politics. Now, of course, it's hyperbole. I was thinking of saying I only feel like that up to a point, but she herself must only feel like that up to a point.

The last sentence is especially good, and she's squeezing it in as her husband is well into his next overlapping statement: "I don't care who's in charge, as long as they're actually in charge."

You might think it's hard to listen to, a husband and wife talking over each other and trying to get a word in edgewise, but Giles and Esther show how to do it right.

Putin "obviously isn't" a woman? Do we still talk like that? Come on, Boris, your effort to sound up to date is at least 5 years out of date.

"If Putin was a woman he would not have invaded Ukraine": British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the Russian invasion of Ukraine "a perfect example of toxic masculinity." pic.twitter.com/x8z858FL1n

— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 29, 2022

Somebody responded:

"British workers 'lead the world' in refusing to return to the office five days a week.... Well, it’s nice to lead the world in something."

And the good news doesn’t end there. Even criminals are now being allowed to 'work from home,' completing their community service not by picking up litter but making facemasks and greetings cards from bed. Which is fair enough if you think about it. After all, the WFH culture has decimated the burglary industry. How are they expected to break into Clive’s house when there’s Clive right there on the sofa, curtains closed, rewarding himself with ten minutes of Baywatch because he managed to answer an email between 10am and 10.03? It’s the least we can do to let burglars serve their sentence in their Y-fronts. But seriously, it seems WFH is not good for you and it wasn’t good for Boris Johnson. The prime minister said that when he did it 'you spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee... getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and then forgetting what it is you’re doing.'"

From "The real reasons British workers like WFH — and it’s not cheese, Boris" by Carol Midgely (London Times)(the "real reason" is the expense of living in London).

"A ban on 'buy one get one free' deals on unhealthy snacks and a 9pm watershed for junk food advertising have both been ditched..."

"...  as Boris Johnson aims to cut the cost of living and boost growth. The prime minister has delayed the policies for at least a year and may axe them completely as he aims to focus on creating jobs and scrapping 'un-Conservative' ideas. The U-turn was immediately condemned by health campaigners as failing children.... Johnson came to power deriding 'nanny state' measures but underwent a Damascene conversion after his brush with death from Covid, blaming his own weight problem for the virus hitting him so hard."

The London Times reports.

The politics of fat. We got very little of it here in America, despite the Covid connection, because we're ultra-sensitive. About some things. Surely, not all things.

We also rarely say "Damascene conversion," so it struck me. Not enough to change my religion/politics, but enough to make me want to end this post with a graphic depiction of Paul's conversion. There are so many. I'll just pick my favorite:

"When a single ceramic cockerel, sitting atop a kitchen cabinet, survived a bombardment of Borodianka, it became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance."

"So when Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelenskiy were given one each as a gift as they walked through Kyiv, it carried an added significance."

From "Ceramic cockerels surprise Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Kyiv walk/‘I’m from London’ says British PM. ‘I know, I’m from Kharkiv,’ says bystander proffering traditional jugs that in the war have come to symbolise Ukrainian resilience" (The Guardian). 

You can see the presentation of the cockerels at 0:57 here:

The video footage of the Cockerell. https://t.co/4DDeXOhQzT

— John DC (@manysmilesgod) April 9, 2022

"Could we have had a more unsuitable man in charge? Sloppy, lusty, blind to details..."

"... 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.

"Boris Johnson has pledged to introduce criminal sanctions for social media bosses who allow 'foul content' to be posted on their platforms...."

"The prime minister was responding to criticism from Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, who... pointed to media reports that 40 hours of hateful content [which] “The prime minister and the government could stop... by making it clear that directors of companies are criminally liable for failing to tackle this type of material on their sites....” Johnson responded: 'Of course we will have criminal sanctions with tough sentences for those who are responsible for allowing this foul content to permeate the internet.'"

From "Social media executives will be prosecuted for hatred and abuse online, says Boris Johnson" (London Times).

"Boris Johnson’s comments comparing Muslim women in veils to letterboxes gave people the impression that the Conservative Party 'are insensitive to Muslim communities'..."

"... an independent report has concluded.... The review, set up in 2019 and led by psychiatrist Swaran Singh... said that 'anti-Muslim sentiment remains a problem' in the party but concluded that there was no evidence of systemic discrimination.... In a statement to the commission, Johnson apologised for any offence caused by his letterboxes remark and said: 'I do know that offence has been taken at things I’ve said, that people expect a person in my position to get things right, but in journalism you need to use language freely. Would I use some of the offending language from my past writings today? Now that I am prime minister, I would not.' Johnson made the letterboxes comment in a Daily Telegraph column where he criticised a law passed in Denmark to ban the niqab, a full face veil with a slit for the eyes, and the burka, a full covering with a mesh over the eyes. He wrote that the law should not tell 'a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear in a public place,' but added that it is 'absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes.'"

The London Times reports.

Presumably, Johnson was picturing the English-style "pillar box":

It was a rude remark. He could have been more careful. In the words of the great Englishman John Lennon: Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox/They tumble blindly....

"Boris Johnson privately told US diplomats that Donald Trump was 'making America great again'..."

"... according to a cache of official notes taken during high-level UK-US meetings whose details have leaked to The Telegraph. The Prime Minister is quoted telling the US ambassador to Britain in August 2017, when he was foreign secretary, that Mr Trump was doing 'fantastic stuff' on foreign policy issues like China, Syria and North Korea. Other records show Mr Johnson claimed the US president was becoming 'increasingly popular' in Britain in 2017 and spoke warmly about how under his leadership America was 'back and engaged in the world.'"

The Telegraph reports.

"This is the moment for a Rooseveltian approach to the U.K. The country has gone through a profound shock. But in those moments, you have the opportunity to change, and to do things better."

Said Boris Johnson, quoted in "A Surprising Role Model Emerges for Boris Johnson: F.D.R./The British prime minister, trying to regroup in the coronavirus pandemic, wants to bury Thatcherism and embark on a program of ambitious public works" (NYT).

Mr. Johnson is a Conservative populist who ran on a platform of pulling Britain out of the European Union and had, until now, modeled himself on Roosevelt’s wartime ally, Winston Churchill....

One of [Johnson's] closest advisers, Michael Gove, recently [said]... “Roosevelt recognized that, faced with a crisis that had shaken faith in government, it was not simply a change of personnel and rhetoric that was required, but a change in structure, ambition, and organization”....

“F.D.R. was someone who had an extraordinary intuitive feel for where the public was and what the mood of the country was,” said Robert Dallek, an American presidential historian who published a biography of Roosevelt in 2017. “Does someone like Boris Johnson have that?”

From The Guardian, "Absolutely fanciful': Boris Johnson's new deal not Rooseveltian, say critics/The PM wants to be put on the same pedestal as Franklin D Roosevelt as he unveils £5bn capital projects":

“The notion that he’s going to turn himself into FDR seems absolutely fanciful,” said professor Anand Menon, of the UK in a Changing Europe thinktank. “FDR surrounded himself with experts, and drew on what they had to say, in a way that Boris Johnson so far has not.”

By the way, I'd avoid the figure of speech, "put on a pedestal." Things on pedestals are not doing well at the moment. They seem to be asking for a toppling.

But here in America, we don't put Franklin Roosevelt on a pedestal. Look, his statue is firmly planted on the ground, and he is seated in a wheelchair...



... not lording it over us at all.

"American Leftists Believed Corbyn’s Inevitable Victory Would Be Their Model."

A column by Jonathan Chait (at NY Magazine):

Both [Corbyn and Bernie Sanders] built youth-oriented movements led by cadres of radical activists who openly set out to destroy and remake their parties. Both lost in somewhat close fashion, Sanders in 2016 and Corbyn the next year. And fervent supporters of both men treated their narrow defeats as quasi-victories, proof of victory just around the corner....

There are many examples of this enthusiastic linkage of Corbyn and Sanders. Chait goes on:

Proceeding from the erroneous Marxist view that capitalism is growing more oppressive, and a working-class backlash is therefore inevitable, they glommed onto bits of data and ignored and large and growing array of evidence to the contrary....

Corbyn’s victory became a matter of faith, and its adherents continued to tout wisps of evidence for it even in the face of dismal polling....

Whether a more moderate Labour leader would have defeated Johnson – who is highly unpopular, yet still far less unpopular than Corbyn – is unknowable....

Funny when a "highly unpopular" person wins big.

"We broke the deadlock, we smashed the roadblock and a new dawn rises on a new day... getting Brexit done is the irrefutable, inarguable decision of the British people..."

"We will get Brexit done on time, by 31 January, no ifs, no buts, no maybes... put an end to those miserable threats of a second referendum," said Boris Johnson, quoted in The Sun, which has this front page displayed at Drudge:



Not sure what the dog symbolism there is, but don't let a dog put his tongue in your mouth. Does it have something to do with the non-Tories who crossed over and voted for Johnson to show they want Brexit? I understand the word "bollocks," and I'm guessing the "x" represents the x-mark on a ballot. If you listen to Johnson's speech (at the link) you'll hear him thank those nonconservatives who "lent" him their vote, and he talks about and gestures marking an "x" on the ballot. Is it The Sun characterizing these votes as saying "Bollocks!" to the resistance to Brexit? Still, why a dog?

I do some research. "Dog's bollocks" has an entry at Wikipedia. It's something irrelevant but interesting. It's this punctuation mark, which you can see in the Declaration of Independence:



Well... maybe the Declaration of Independence is a little bit relevant to Brexit, but there's no way the Sun's headline is about the old-timey punctuation mark.

Now, I see that there was a slogan "Bollocks to Brexit" in this last election. Obviously, that's the anti-Brexit side, the side that lost badly in yesterday's election. So the headline might want to express "Bollocks!" to the side that said "Bollocks to Brexit." Still, why a dog?

Maybe it's based on the idiom "a dog's breakfast." Fortunately, I have already done my research on "a dog's breakfast" — back in 2013. "A dog's breakfast" is just "a confused mess." But yesterday's election was very decisive, more a cleaning up of a confused mess than a confused mess. I abandon this line of thinking.

Googling, "dog brexit," I find "U.K. Holds A Pivotal General Election, And Voters Bring Their Dogs To The Polls" (NPR) and "Polling stations/Forget politics, focus on the puppies!" (Vox).

So, there you have it! Dogs are a symbol of voting in the UK, and that's been combined with the slogan "Bollocks to Brexit." The "dogs" (the people) voted for Brexit: — The "dog's" expression of "Bollocks!" went against those who were hoping to get the "dogs" to say "Bollocks to Brexit." The "x" drives home the idea that we're talking about voting.

IN THE COMMENTS: Nicholas said:

Ann, as an Englishman, let me help you out. The expression "the dog's bollocks" is pretty obscure and I cannot explain how it came into being, but sometime around the 90s, in laddish circles (i.e. typical readers of the Sun, which is like a simplified version of the NY Daily News) the expression began to be used as a term of approval and admiration. For example, a car that was "the dog's bollocks" was a car to be coveted and regarded as better than its competitors.

So... it's like "the bee's knees."

Attested since 1922, of unclear origin. There are several suggested origins, but it most likely arose in imitation of the numerous animal-related nonsense phrases popular in the 1920s such as the cat's pyjamas, cat's whiskers, cat's meow, gnat's elbow, monkey's eyebrows etc....

... the dog's bollocks.

It seems as though you can take any animal and add some body part (or — in the case of "the cat's pajamas" — an attribute that the animal doesn't even have).

“Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party appeared to be on course for a solid majority in the British Parliament...”

“... according to an exit poll. A victory in the general election on Thursday would cement Mr. Johnson’s claim to 10 Downing Street, paving the way for Britain’s exit from the European Union in less than two months. For the prime minister, whose brief tenure has been marked by legal reversals, scorched-earth politics and unrelenting chaos, it was an extraordinary vindication. Defying predictions that he would be tossed out of his job, Mr. Johnson now seems likely to lead Britain through its most momentous transition since World War II.”

The NYT reports.

"Footage appears to show world leaders joking about Trump at Nato summit" — ha ha ha... what a letdown!

I clicked on that Guardian headline and watched the video...



There isn't one audible/subtitled line that can be characterized as a joke. It's just Princess Anne, Boris Johnson, Justin Trudeau, and Emmanuel Macron talking — bellyaching? — about how he was late because he did a press conference.

Anyone running with the story of "world leaders joking" is taking a prompt from Russian government-owned media, Sputnik News, which is where the video was originally posted.  Fake news.

It's interesting that Princess Anne is in that group. In other Princess Anne news, she screws up getting in line with the Queen to meet Donald Trump. Now, this is the funny clip from The Guardian:



Side note: I love the colors Melania is wearing — a brilliant mustard cape-coat with magenta sleeves poking out. The idea seems to be to absolutely sear all eyeballs while being entirely dignified and elegant.

And as long as I've mentioned that, I need to give you this (so that you don't feel you have to show it to me): "Melania Trump’s Christmas decorations are lovely, but that coat looks ridiculous" by Robin Givhan (WaPo). The coat, in this video, is white, and what's "ridiculous"?



Givhan watches that video and sees a woman with "little affinity for the occasion" and "cold, dismissive aloofness."

Like the "jokes" among the world leaders, the "ridiculous"ness is in the mind of the reader.

That's The Washington Post, where the #1 most-read story right now is: "Candid video appears to show Trudeau, Macron and Johnson joking about Trump." No mention of Sputnik news. No quotation of anything that anyone neutral could label a "joke," but you do see these characters laughing, and they had said something that was probably about Trump, so there's circumstantial evidence that somebody said something that made laughing the socially lubricated thing to do.

"British Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered a devastating loss Tuesday on his first key Brexit vote, setting up a legislative battle Wednesday that could lead to a snap general election."

WaPo reports.

We take years to crank through an election and then stick with our choice for years. The British approach is nerve-wrackingly chaotic:

"No, Boris Johnson did not insult France by putting his foot on the table in front of Emmanuel Macron."

No, but he did put his foot on the table.

WATCH: Here’s the Reuters video of Boris Johnson putting his foot on the Elysee furniture. It seems President Macron was making small talk suggesting the table would work equally well as a footstool should the PM want to recline, which Johnson then jokingly does pic.twitter.com/dnv37t9mS4

— Tom Rayner (@RaynerSkyNews) August 22, 2019

Boris and the Queen.

After meeting with the Queen, Boris Johnson is the new UK prime minister. pic.twitter.com/jCXzg5F3Fz

— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) July 24, 2019

What's your favorite detail in that photograph? The Queen's handbag? The Dyson air purifier? The finger-clasp handshake? The pair o' parrots on the parapet??

"'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).

"I will set out a vision for Britain as the greatest place on Earth. The greatest place to be, the greatest place to live, to raise a family. The greatest place to send your kids to school, the greatest place to breathe clean air."

Said Boris Johnson.

Trump only proposed making America "great" (and only "again," that is, only as great as it was in the past). Boris goes for the superlative, "greatest," but he ties greatness to aspects of ordinary life — just living and having kids and breathing fresh air. That's not the mode greatness that characterized Britain's past. There's a smallness to the greatness.

""[Theresa May's] most likely successor, given the extent of rabid pro-Brexit sentiment among Tories, is Boris Johnson, the unscrupulous, ramshackle, flip-flopping, dissembling former foreign secretary..."

"... whose uncertain relationship with the truth and unwavering narcissism resemble Donald Trump’s. 'He’s got what it takes,' Trump, who will visit Britain early in June, has ominously proclaimed of Johnson. The adulation has been reciprocated. Both are men gifted in the dark arts. With Johnson as leader, the chances would increase of a so-called 'Hard Brexit' — Britain crashing out of the European Union at the new deadline of Oct. 31 without any arrangement to govern its future relationship with its neighbors."

From "Britain on the Brink of Boris Johnson and Chaos/Theresa May exits but the Brexit impasse will endure for the simple reason it makes no sense" by Roger Cohen in the NYT. Boldface added.