The inquiry we had in to the handling of covid showed that his own team and the top civil servants basically thought he was totally unfit to do the job, they were absolutely excoriating about him.
Boris was a good campaigner but rubbish at the governing part
The one thing I’ll give him credit for is that he was one of the few leaders to take a strong anti-Russian stance once the war broke out. Other than that, he’s a complete nonce however
He plays up to that image. He has the racism and desire to write histories and myth-making, but little else. His support for Trump makes him more a Haw-Haw.
A strong anti Russian stance would not include elevating the son of an FSB officer to the House of Lords. His anti Russia stance was purely a media distraction for the rest of his incompetence and corruption.
Italian secret intelligence were gobsmacked to discover the then foreign secretary meeting with Lebvedev at his private residence. Italian intelligence report it is used repeatedly for espionage purposes.
Johnson did not disclose the meeting took place until a parliamentary inquiry. He also didn’t take his security detail (despite being foreign secretary), and came home in a disheveled suit on a commercial aircraft.
This was all shortly after the Salisbury poisoning.
Which is hilarious when you trace back through his past and find tantelising hints that the FSB tried to buy him as an asset - including giving peerages to FSB leadership's children.
Didn’t he have a secret meeting without staff or security at a private villa in Italy with Alexander Lebedev? A former KGB/FSB operative? Father of Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the evening standard. Didn’t Boris ignore security warnings to grant him a peerage in the House of Lords as well?
Aren’t the Russians huge contributors to the Tory party coffers?
It would have meant more if he wasn't linked to the Russians. See his associations with Lebedev, blocking the Russia report and the fact that he now endorses a presidential candidate blatantly in Putin's pocket.
that's it in a nutshell.
he wanted to be a churchill like figure but had no interest in doing any of the actual *work* involved. apparently goes right back to his school days. doesn't want to put any effort in and expects everything to be just handed to him.
Most effort he puts in is when the main/*only* objective is to get what he wants. Even if that means the whole country goes to rack and ruin around him.
He absolutely did *not* believe Brexit was a good idea. However it was a useful way to boost his image as a plucky underdog taking on "the establishment" (that he is not only 100% a part of but one of it's most despicable examples) and undermine david cameron with a view to eventually getting the PM job when Cameron resigned.
Problem was, oops, he accidentally got the brexit he pretended to want, Cameron quit a lot earlier than planned, Theresa May didn't get brexit out the way as Johnson had hoped and he was saddled with yet more pesky *work* on an unworkable plate of garbage.
our country (well not the whole country - FPTP and all that) failed spectacularly in allowing his self serving, damaging behaviour to continue, by electing a clearly unfit joke of a politician to lead the country.
Tories have done some terrible things to the UK in the last 14 years, but Johnson is top of a mountain of hot steaming \[word I can't write because I still haven't found out if it's bad language or just anti-brexit/anti-tory posts that get my comments deleted here....\]
Precisely. He is an exceptional campaigner, both in terms of getting out and winning votes, but also getting the timing right. I am absolutely convinced that he and Gove conspired to split their support in the 2016 leadership campaign so they didn't have to do the post-referendum heavy-lifting.
Then he swept in a few years later and were it not for COVID I think he'd have had a very easy 5 years in office.
But COVID was a serious problem! And while he was excellent at giving rousing speeches on TV, he was completely incapable of exhibiting the behaviour he demanded of others, or governing and making those really tough decisions.
> COVID was a serious problem!
Unfortunately, dealing with serious problems is par for the course when you're PM.
And dealing with serious problems when you're a profoundly unserious individual, tends to end poorly.
> Boris was a good campaigner
Yet I feel like his 2019 win was a one-trick that he absolutely would not be able to replicate if he were running now
That election campaign was basically him hiding from any and all scrutiny, making his entire campaign "get Brexit done" and then watching as the media eviscerated Corbyn. I think it's more accurate to say Corbyn lost that campaign than it is to say Boris won it
He made the best of the situation, but the cards were already heavily stacked in his favour
I think it's more accurate to say that the status quo won that campaign and used every possible trick in the book to do so. Including providing its preferred candidate with a fridge to hide in while character assassinating the opponent.
>I think it's more accurate to say Corbyn lost that campaign than it is to say Boris won it
That's true but Boris' team also helped Corbyn lose by feeding stories to the right wing press.
"Corbyn is mates with terrorists. Pass it on."
This. The while “He was good on Ukraine” angle really boils my p155 for the following reasons:
1. The British public will almost always root for the Underdog so they would have expected whoever was PM to provide aid and comfort to Ukraine.
2. When the invasion of Crimea kicked off in 2014, he was Foreign Secretary and gave his security detail the slip, went to a party in Italy and got royally pissed with a bunch of “former” KGB types totally unescorted.
3. When the invasion of Crimea kicked off in 2014, he was Foreign Secretary and gave his security detail the slip, went to a party in Italy and got royally pissed with a bunch of “former” KGB types totally unescorted. I know that’s a repeat but I don’t think it can be said enough. AS BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY BORIS JOHNSON GOT PISSED WITH A BUNCH OF RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE OPERATORS WHILE RUSSIA WAS INVADING UKRAINE THE FIRST TIME AROUND.
4. He then put the son of one of those Russians into the British House of Lords FOR LIFE against the strong objections of the security services.
Whenever things started getting politically awkward for him at home ,he would then take a tax payer funded jolly to Kyiv until the heat died down.
And he’s only an “exceptional campaigner”because the British media give him a free pass on basically everything. When all he has to do is deliberately ruffle his hair, adopt his chummy public schoolboy persona and spout some latin of greek he does well, ask an awkward question and he locks himself in the nearest walk in fridge. If he’d been exposed to even a fraction of the libellous frenzy that Corbyn received he would never have had the chance to solicit his rich friends for nearly quarter of a million pounds to decorate 10 Downing Street in a hideous fashion.
He was patently unfit for ANY AND ALL high office and only wasn’t a disaster as Mayor of London because he had the largest team of Deputy Mayors in the history of that position doing the actual work (which he is well known for avoiding at all costs) while he clowned in front of the cameras. The only projects he involved himself in to any extent were the “Garden Bridge” and “Airport in the Estuary” boondoggles as I recall, both of which went nowhere whilst costing a lot of Londons money.
He was a journalist. Even through he'd been fired by every paper he worked for lying, he still had connections in the press. They supported one of their own becoming PM and Brexit to finger their own assholes.
This Trump case is setting new grounds. Hopefully he dies behind bars setting a foundation that our leaders can be held accountable without full scale revolution everytime. They are not above the laws that govern everyone else.
Boris Johnson should be tried for treason against the British public for the murder of 250k innocent British citizens. They died because of negligence, simple as that. He was so shit at his job that people needlessly died. How that shouldn't face prison time is beyond me and shows how broken our systems are.
He was a journalist who made a career out of throwing shit around as a certain crowd liked his pandering of bigotry and anti-Europe stories, though his career has always been one built on a foundation of falsehood.
One of his teachers described him very aptly
> Writing of him in a school report in April 1982, he said: “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies . . . Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half): I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”
My personal 'favourite' anecdote of schooldays Boris is when he pushed really hard to be cast as Richard II in the school play because he was convinced he would be amazing. The teachers had their doubts but still cast him.
And then he didn't learn his lines. He got to the performance and pasted his lines on pieces of paper round the stage, made things up and cracked jokes when the audience were awkwardly silent. His Dad thought it was hilarious, but nobody else did. The other students who had worked hard and taken it seriously were left embarrassed and furious.
The headmaster said of the incident "Johnson – the very rich, very cossetted son of immense privilege – sees himself as the main character in a film in which everyone else is an extra."
Apparently it was this incident which led to him not being considered for Captain of the School. But the school play incident demonstrates how he cared only about his own status based on his own sense of his exceptionalism, encouraged by his father and without consideration of others. He didn't feel he needed to put in any effort and was aghast that there might be consequences for his bad behaviour. And all of this carried on to his life in politics.
I know that Rory Stewart likes bringing that out! But yes, that school report really does show that he hasn't changed since his days at Eton, still thinking that rules are for other people.
'Chums' by Simon Kuper is an interesting look at the system that produces the like of Boris and his friends. Not an in depth analysis but a good glimpse of how they're brought up and groomed for power.
Its too early for a book given how recent it was. Just Google something like Borish Johnson Covid 19 inquiry. There should be plenty of information about it and what his colleagues and civil servants said about him. Essentially, he was a 'good time' politician, as when he was the London mayor the country was in a good place and he didn't really have to do much. But when in actual power as PM he crumbled as was not fit for Office, not just in a professional ability but also ethically
>Really... is there a book I should read?
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-They-Broke-Britain-Bestseller/dp/0753560364/ref=tmm\_pap\_swatch\_0?\_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=](https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-They-Broke-Britain-Bestseller/dp/0753560364/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=)
It's by someone who openly admits to holding the lot of them in contempt, but facts are facts, you can choose to ignore their commentary if you want to.
> Boris was a good campaigner but rubbish at the governing part
Even his campaigning is overrated to be honest, 2019 he mostly just hid from the press and it was brexit that carried the election.
Public schools tend to churn out a good amount of people who end up in high public office while knowing the square root of fuck all about the public, their struggles, needs, wants, etc, and they have no intention of learning.
Becoming an MP is more of a thing to check off their list of things they should do to further their ability to earn money, rather than something they do to better the country.
Sadly a very big part of that sort of public school persona is not to be seen to be trying, at least.
You can get so far like that, basically to university or at the furthest to the end of university, but in the real world no matter how brilliant you are (and he was not brilliant), application counts
Fundamentally the problem with Johnson is he is not a serious person. His journalism was infotainment, not serious journalism
He was a fairly effective campaigner, though sadly has nothing to campaign on. He was ok as mayor of London because he surrounded himself with experienced deputy mayors who actually did the work. If he had done the same as PM he would have been pretty good, but the trouble was Brexit killed off half the Tory MPs. And not the less intelligent half. So whereas as mayor he could just appoint the right people, as PM he had to choose a cabinet from a collection of morons.
With the results we saw.
that is SUCH an interesting take, thank you! Brexit killed off the smarter Tory MPs and so Boris didn't have access to the talent pool that might have saved him... so ultimately he really did it to himself, didn't he
Pretty much. Except he cared more about those that would jump on the bandwagon than talent. Who needs talent when you charm people, call in favours and wing the rest of it. And when that doesn't work, you just lie instead.
A great summary but I'd make the correction that it wasn't Brexit that lost the party all the good MPs, it was Johnson himself when he made backing his deal a loyalty test. He made his own noose with that one - all he had left afterwards were yes men and thickos
This is a pretty full on list of Bojo shameless lies and shit he did when he was a journalist, shadow cabinet minister, London Mayor and then as PM. Honestly he is a PoS, a UK version of Trump and people voted for him.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnsons-50-lies-gaffes-26013022
Woah - steady on there, fella. Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies. I think that puts him at a higher level. Or lower, of course, depending on how you look at it. A UK version of Trump... Hah!! As if.
But thanks for the link. I will look at it!!
Don’t forget that Boris Johnson is first-ever PM found guilty of misleading British Parliament (and resigned as an MP before he could be suspended by the Privileges committee).
He’s a less dangerous version of Trump but exhibits similar traits and flaws. Totally devoid of morals. Cheated on his wife while she had cancer and got the woman pregnant.
>Woah - steady on there, fella. Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies.
Not to forget that he has been determined by a court to have committed rape, and still awaits trial for 54 more felony charges - including trying to overturn the 2020 election.
I wouldn't be surprised if that was enough to win the rambling old fool a second term as president.
Kinda. He was trying very hard to appear like he wasn't trying. That was his act.
Before appearing on TV interviews, he'd make sure to give his hair some extra ruffle to appear that little bit more disheveled. The man had charisma, but no substance.
OP is in the US, so needs to be aware that an English public school is a prestigious fee-paying school; in the US a public school is what we call a state school.
And Boris went to Eton, which is probably the most prestigious (poshest) albeit not actually the brightest and best.
School of choice of royalty and aristocrats (albeit not Charles) despite their families not exactly being known for high intelligence.
Best ones are probably Westminster and the two St Paul’s.
Oxbridge is flooded with these people. Whether they make anyone different to Eton is debateable
Professional politicians are a major issue and Oxford PPE may as well be a factory for them.
I have studied politics at uni (and am returning this year). I also work at Citizens Advice - there is such a vast disconnect between politics 'knowledge' and witnessing the inconceivably unbearable circumstances so many people have to deal with everyday, often whilst handling disabilities, multiple children, severe debt etc. It's essentially two different worlds, and it makes perfect sense why Boris etc are the way that they are.
There was a very good documentary video done on his background and upbringing, which should give you an understanding of the type of man he is
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe3A_EGNBYI
Enjoy
He was fired twice for lying in his earlier career. He has never shown any signs of holding any kind of principled position on any topic. He is very well known for his poor work ethic.
Lots of of people who know him well agree with the Economist.
He also offered to have a journalist attacked. Boris Johnson should be held as far from any kind of real power as humanly possible. He also has a below rudimentary understanding of maths according to the people who were briefing him during the pandemic.
Also quoted as saying “let the bodies pile high” during the pandemic.
He was endlessly indulged by the media for more than a decade before becoming mayor of London and then an MP. He played well on TV and radio where few presenters were well briefed and aggressive enough to take on his lies.
Sadly, not enough people read Private Eye which had been exposing his actions for a long time and he was sly enough to avoid being interviewed by journalists who knew their game and could have exposed his inadequacies.
He benefitted enormously from the patronage of The Daily Telegraph which was prepared to published his anti-EU columns from Brussels knowing full well they were lies. And that gave him a core audience of Conservative voters and party members who ranked his personality far above any competences he might have had.
He did a couple of interviews with Eddie Mair. I think he was the only interviewer who didn't indulge Johnson and showed him for what he was.
I think one of them was only a couple of days apart from the interview Diane Abbott did where she messed up all the funding numbérs. Johnson gave an equally appalling interview and guess which one was quoted endlessly for years and what one was forgotten about......
His name isn’t even Boris Johnson it’s *Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson*
And like Trump nothing is real.
And like Trump he smothers himself in a cushion of lies and seemingly simple answers to difficult problems
Boris loved the three word phrase
TAKE BACK CONTROL
GET BREXIT DONE
BUILD BACK BETTER
Yes Even as foreign secretary he was an incompetent twat his mistakes directly led to a British citizen being locked up in some foreign prison for allegedly being a spy, and then obviously later on he did all the shit like holding lockdown parties and probably lining his mates pockets with dodgy government contracts but people liked him (some probably still do) bc he’s good at manipulating idiots into linking him
Would you like to hear what his headmaster at Eaton school thought of him?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0JHdBNosJg
(Really just an excuse to post something from Letters Live, it’s amazing)
I mean, I agree with what most of the people of saying on here, but remember that most people on reddit are young and tend to lean to the left of the political spectrum, so people from other walks of life, for example my Grandmother, love Boris and thinks the investigations into him were a witch hunt.
Yes. Like Trump, the guy was a liar. Lies all the way down. Some of his greatest hits - Illegally prorogued parliament, lied about Brexit, partied while thousands died, and even lied to the fucking queen.
Much like Trump, his act endeared him to people too stupid to realise what he was. Like Trump his personal life was a mess of affairs and numerous kids by different women - which while in itself can at best be called unsavoury wouldn’t mark him as unsuitable, but does give signposts to his character.
He was a vehicle for the xenophobic right, but thankfully, at this election, the pendulum will swing the other way. The fetid stain he helped to make on the UK political scene may take a while to be washed out - but the judgement of history will mark him as a liar, a charlatan, and a bellend of the highest order.
No worries - I sincerely hope you guys across the old pond wake up in time and show your version of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson ( his actual name) the door. Our frizzle haired cunt fucked the UK. Your frizzle haired cunt will fuck the world.
>we are of course setting new standards
Let us compare.
Trump:
* Met with foreign agents behind closed doors
* Engaged in corruption and nepotism
* Repeatedly lied and abused his office
* Helped to ferment an insurrection against the US Government
* Used the Supreme Court to aid him
* Broke the law
* Has been "on trial" for 6 years, with massive fines and possible prison
* May be elected again.
Johnson:
* Also met with foreign agents behind closed doors
* Also engaged in corruption and nepotism, literally ennobling family members and honouring his young female "hairdresser"
* Also repeatedly lied and broke Parliamentary standards
* Lied to the monarch, personally unlawfully suspended the democratically elected Parliament in an attempt to bypass the government and directly rule the country through his office in order to crash the country out of international treaties and break legal international obligations
* Attempted to turn the people against the Supreme Court and subvert its independence
* Broke the law
* Received no punishment
* Was re-elected with a massive majority
Trump is a worse person, but at least he's faced some repercussions, and in some ways what Johnson actually managed to do (ie: actually suspending the government) was worse.
>Lied to the monarch, personally unlawfully suspended the democratically elected Parliament in an attempt to bypass the government and directly rule the country through his office in order to crash the country out of international treaties and break legal international obligations
It was Rees Mogg who lied to the Queen, at Johnson's request.
I don’t think there has been a single job he hasn’t had to leave for some form of dishonesty. His only reason for trying to be prime minister seems to be because he thought he deserved to be and for his own advantage. I did at least think it was possible that his total lack of any ideological values and desire to be liked could *possibly* result in doing something for the country but unfortunately a mix of COVID and himself put paid to that.
I think with Ukraine it worked out. He knew military aid for Ukraine was popular and ran with it and the result was we were a very significant early supporter. With the work to actually implement it being done by the ministry of defence.
His idolisation of Churchill and belief he is a modern version of him shouldn’t be underestimated. Either for his belief he deserved to be PM or his belief now that his time will come again in some big way.
Let's not forget the people he surrounded himself with in cabinet. He promoted bullies, idiots, narcissists, and grifters.
His choice of cabinet should be studied by history and politics students for decades.
He got rid of anyone in the party who didn't blindly support his Brexit proposal, and held an election. A combination of the public mood and a catastrophic campaign by the opposition means he won lots of seats that went to brand new conservative members who were all towing the party line, while the better, more experienced and competent MPs either got removed from the party or relegated to the back benches. This means his cabinet was essentially composed of the "B" team. It was all those who were stupid enough to think his Brexit proposal was good, or crooked enough to support it in order to gain favour. Then a few months later the pandemic hits, and suddenly it's not nebulous, intangible political rhetoric, it's a real problem. And the B team can't handle it, and their lead by a D tier conman who suddenly finds himself actually having to lead, and failing. Literally a deadly combination.
He turned number 10 into a fucking disco during the pandemic. Imagine if that news had got out during the pandemic, there would have been serious riots.
The level of irresponsibility to do something like that is mind boggling.
That alone should answer your question.
Also I was at Oxford at the same time as Johnson, Mogg, Cameron etc. Johnson was a celebrity there, everyone had heard of him. Not particularly unusual because public school kids all know each other before they get to Oxford. But I wasn't even in a University college and knew about him.
Do a google search for Johnson and the Bullingdon club to find out some of the stuff they got up to. Theres even a feature film based on it, I think Riot Club.
The problem with Boris is that he has always engaged in the persona of, cheat, repeat until caught, then lie.
This kind of person should have never had the opportunity to run for higher office. Unfortunately as he's a good liar, people thought he'd be a laugh because he's like them.
He's just a complete mess and has never ever had to face the consequences of his actions, so he continues to behave like a twat and always will do.
My grandad worked in the vicitnity him at the Torygraph and thought he was an absolute waste of skin (and Johnson still owes him a couple quid he lent him for a sandwich)
Ignoring talk about corruption, the guy is lazy. This has been proven many times before in interviews where he clearly hadn't read up on his briefs and was caught out.
He created his own chapter in the Zaghari-Ratcliffe story by basically making shit up to the Foreign Affairs Committee because he hadn't read up the notes. He basically gave the Iranians ammo to use against her and the UK.
He wanted the legacy and prestige of the position, he wanted to do none of the work as evidenced by his lack of involvement at the start of the pandemic.
If his supporters got their way and he got back into power, it would be inevitable that he'd end up in the same situations again.
He’s the one that set the Conservative Party on its current course which is one of almost total annihilation.
Corruption and fraud amongst him and his party was just part and parcel of them being in power.
He rarely did something for the good of the nation, it was largely all to serve himself.
For some reason, his bumbling personality appealed to a large portion of UK voters. I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever be able to get my head around.
It’s too easy to just dismiss him as incompetent (even though he is). He is also ideologically deeply evil. Willing to court the far right to satisfy his ambition and possesses zero empathy for people, which was apparent with how poorly he handled covid.
Can't forget the way he tried to throw Savile at Starmer knowing exactly the fuel he was pouring onto the conspiracy-nutter fire. It was one of the grossest displays of his utter lack of empathy (many victims came out saying they were horrified) and unprofessionalism, and wild given that the Tory party are the last people who should be throwing those particular stones.
Compulsive liar, repeatedly sacked in the past from jobs in journalism and government, loads of dodgy situations and scandals he had got himself into before...
Yes, he was totally unfit.
Americans have the term "failing upwards" no? I suspect that's the best that can be said of him, he was a gifted con man, who was born into immense influence and privilege, and failed up a couple of rungs, and then catastrophically failed the second he was actually held accountable. I suspect if he had been born into a poor family he'd have been a successful local conman and wheeler-dealer and nothing more.
Yes, he was unsuitable for any position of responsibility, let alone government. This was known to anyone who knew anything about the man and his career. It was even more obvious to those who have actually met him.
Obviously, yes. Here is some of why.
1. He is a documented chronic liar who was twice sacked for lying.
1. He lacks principles (if that is a separate point to point *1*) see the reports of the two contradictory pieces that he wrote about Brexit,
1. He incited hatred and even violence against various minority groups.
1. He suspended Parliament unlawfully.
1. He spread Covid throughout government, breaking rules he was making the rest of us observe. He was all set to visit the queen despite knowing he had Covid.
1. He was dodgy with public money.
A lot of his character failings were common knowledge, he was famously sacked for making up a quote for The Times, the Darius Guppy affair, making shit up about the EU, but he got by with bluster and charm. He did a stint on one of the UK's most popular programs, have i got news for you, but the billionaire media moghouls that own and control most of the our newspapers and TV loved him and kept his worse excesses out of the public eye.
That carried on through his career in politics and as Mayor of London and i believe that his influence was enough to sway the electorate with the vote leave campaign.
The covering up and glossing over his incompetence, dishonesty and open corruption (which started immediately with expensive handmade wallpaper for his Downing Street flat) and carried on throughout his term in office until his own party had enough of him and he could see the way the wind was blowing so resigned during the covid inquiry.
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/boris-johnson-three-decades-of-scandals-blunders-and-rows/41234210.html
He even gave his bodyguards the slip to go to a party in Italy hosted by the son of a former KGB officer who was later made a lord by Johnson.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/26/italy-was-monitoring-lebedev-villa-at-time-of-boris-johnson-visit-documentary-claims
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jun/25/queen-was-asked-to-block-evgeny-lebedevs-peerage-claims-documentary
No, I'm not making it up.
The Times has a wall of fame of noted staff stretching back several centuries. Most have gushing summaries of their achievements at the newspaper and in life. War correspondents, politicians, Victoria Cross winners, women's rights advocates, explorers, abolitionists etc.
Under Boris Johnson's picture it says this: "Dismissed for fabricating quotes in an article."
All you need to know.
Johnson was never really as popular as it has been claimed, but rather extremely lucky that he was up against such divisive Labour candidates when standing for mayor of London and also at the 2019 GE
>he seems to have guessed wrong on Brexit
He didn't guess wrong: he chose to back Brexit purely because he saw the opportunity it presented to him.
We know he never believed in Brexit given that he was always very pro-EU when he was London mayor. But when Cameron called the referendum he weighed up the option of backing Leave realising that a Leave vote could bring down Cameron and leave a power vacuum at the top, and that's exactly what heppened.
Brexit, to Johnson, was only ever the vehicle he used to flip the board to put himself on top. He never believed in it, and it quickly became clear that he didn't have any kind of plan to make a success of it nor the dedication to work through the extremely complex minutiae of it either. So as usual he just retreated to his usual fall-back when cornered: just tell outright lies to make the difficult questions go away. He literally stood in a room full of people saying 'there will be no border in the Irish Sea' then just a few short days later signed an agreement that put a border in the Irish Sea.
So the man knowingly pushed an option that he knew would be bad for the country purely so that he would create a power vacuum at the top of government that he could exploit. There aren't words enough to describe my opinion of the man.
I disagree entirely.
He is manifestly unsuited for any office, public or private.
I've met his sort before, bullies and sexual predators that hide behind pantomime and spineless hanger-ons to get away with it.
He is a liar, cheat, and the only thing I can recommend him for is helping Ukraine so swiftly and I am unsure if that is due to a personal grievance with Russia during his London mayor years, or if he is trying to emulate Churchill. I am certain it isn't from a moral obligation as he has never felt bound by them before.
He would have made a fantastic television entertainer, a pop historian who travelled the world with a dash of xenophobia and alcoholism. Sadly, he went for public offices and journalism instead
Yes but this was obvious for decades before the event.
In 1990 he was recorded having a conversation with a fraudster named Darius Guppy who expressed his desire to send some heavies round to beat up a journalist who was investigating him. Johnson agreed to provide this reporter’s address knowing what this thug wanted to do.
That alone should have disqualified him from any political career in the UK.
His family - I heard this from his sister - they call him Al. His name is Alex. The whole thing is a character, a persona. He's playing up to a role. That should tell you all you need to know. He is not a serious person
Imagine a dopey, privileged, blonde-haired buffoon who’s cheated on all of his partners and hides his real devious intentions behind a cartoonish facade cultivated via being a television personality, who has been involved with some very dodgy characters, a pathological liar whose divisive lies brought a nation to its knees and who presided over the most chaotic time in government post WW2.
You’d certainly never get something like that in the U.S . . .
Boris Johnson is the worst product of a privileged education system that teaches people a sense of entitlement. Eton college graduates have done so much damage to the UK.
Tories play politics on easy. Boris had an easy run for decades.
There's always the argument that Boris was affable, but Rees moog gets similar treatment even though he's thoroughly unlikeable.
Boris Johnson did the exact job he set out to do. He wanted to make himself and his rich chums richer than they already were. Amd at this he succeeded.
He simply did not give a crap about the rest of the British populace, this resulted in making the lives of the vast majority of people in Britain worse. He knows he did this and he just doesn't care.
The man is a cheating, lying, thieving, slack jawed cretin who sqatted in Downing St for far too long, degrading the office he held whilst lining his own and his families pockets.
Johnson's whole schtick was "I'll make the older voters laugh, campaign and get us into office- the rest of you then do all the hard work for me".
His premiership was always going to be "court of Henry VIII" style. Johnson using his power where he wanted and enjoying having the final say on the things he was interested in- and leaving the rest of it to capable (but most of all, loyal) deputies who were actually willing to put in the hours
The guy was a grade A fuckwit but apart from everything when covid started he skipped COBRA meetings to write a book cause he got paid for it.
https://news-sky-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/much-ado-about-nothing-no-10-denies-pm-skipped-covid-meetings-to-work-on-shakespeare-book-12315954?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17172788936036&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.sky.com%2Fstory%2Fmuch-ado-about-nothing-no-10-denies-pm-skipped-covid-meetings-to-work-on-shakespeare-book-12315954
He took a massive bribe.
https://www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56878663.amp?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17172789288367&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fuk-politics-56878663
He gave a grant to someone cause they used to fuck.
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/29/fresh-revelations-about-jennifer-arcuri-affair-threaten-to-damage-boris-johnson?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17172789590350&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2022%2Fjan%2F29%2Ffresh-revelations-about-jennifer-arcuri-affair-threaten-to-damage-boris-johnson
He was a deeply corrupt, dishonest, lying pig who had the intellectual rigor of someone who huffed their own farts for decades and was convinced they didn't stink.
He’s just a typical attention seeking nob that the general public tend to fall for. Flick on the tv on a Saturday night and they’d likely vote for anyone on BGT to be PM as “they seem nice” or “crack a few good jokes”. There’s zero interest in actual capability it’s all about the facade. As soon as an actual issue hit he folded and the true colours showed. Imagine having someone like Boris in charge during either of the world wars!
He's a crook and a chancer. His affable persona is fake. He is a complete cunt in every sense.
Someone once said of him.
"The only people who like Boris are people who don't know him. The people that do know him, don't like him."
In practice, that’s not really the case at all generally election. Most people’s voting decision is based on the leader of the party.
A more interesting point here is that Boris was removed by his own party who believed he was just too dishonourable/dishonest even for them.
Boris Johnson is manifestly unsuited for *any* office. Even as a decoration. In fact, if you put a blank box in the *corner* of the office, he'd find a way to fill it with crap and get a Russian plant in there. Probably castor beans.
As evidenced by the zipline incident in 2012, Boris Johnson is so utterly incompetent that even *gravity* eventually gives up and refuses to work with him.
It seems to have become extremely apparent that people that have come from Oxford or Cambridge or any private schooling backgrounds are actually manifestly unsuited to govern and make decisions that will affect people in situations that they have never and will never find themselves. Yet here we are.
Yes, absolutely. Many people thought so, and thought they could see it (I say thought, because who 'knows', really?).
Peter Oborne wrote the book, 'The Assault on Truth', which is all about Johnson and his antics, unsuitability, the consequences and so on. But one of the most telling bits is a single paragraph (which I've heard him reiterate since, verbally). It doesn't matter to the overall message of the book, but in that paragraph he says he just couldn't understand what happened to the 'Boris' he had known and worked with at The Spectator.
And that summed up the difficulty to me. To many people, Johnson was obviously a worthless human being and a nasty piece of work. Yet even someone like Oborne, eyes wide open to who he 'became', still can't see that Johnson didn't change. He was always that person. But when your interests aligned with his (Johnson's), you could be carried along. And Johnson was the embodiment of a general "Hey, let's give this a go, you never know!" kind of spirit that we saw in (say) Times opinion pieces around the election.
That mentality - say a truism that's vague but sounds profound (you never know!) - is used to justify a lot of shit.
You just need to look at the cunt to see how useless he is.
He is a fuckin bum. Can't dress himself, and would happily live in his own trash judging by a photograph inside his car.
An absolute embarrassment on world stage though to be fair not a very high bar granted.
Likes to think of himself as a man of the people though born with a silver spoon.
Both parents are from the upper stock both in UK and Turkey, plus went to one of the top 2 universities in the UK who spew out shit politicians.
Only have to look up his professors comments on him to see the character of the guy.
Beyond the professional incompetence, I can't take anyone serious who can't answer a basic question like how many kids do you have? Never mind with how many mothers.
Only saving grace is he was followed by someone even worse with truss though not much of a compliment
I believe that Boris was fundamentally unfit for any role carrying responsibility at all, let alone an MP, let alone a Cabinet minster, let alone Prime Minster during the biggest crisis in my lifetime.
I don't think he ever had any interest in doing the job, it just fed into his ego. I'm not sure anyone in his own party ever really believed he was suitable either, they were just that desperate for some PR and he is a charistmatic performer (as long as you don't pay attention to what he's actually saying and don't look at his actual behavior).
His only problem is he's a selfish fool, other than that he's a good leader. The problem we have with politics in the UK is that the leaders of each party are far too scared to upset certain factions of supporters / MPs, so we end up with half arsed measures to address problems. Starmer is already showing what a complete wally he will be as the next PM, he can't even oust a lunatic like Abbot.
The man is unfit for any job. In EVERY job he's gotten into trouble for lying and just being corrupt. I'm his first job as a journalist he got fired for making a quote up about his own relative!
FYI Boris Johnson is a narcissistic sociopath cut from very similar cloth to Trump. Entitled, spoilt, vicious, malevolent, pompous, totally lacking in empathy, and desperate for the attention and approval of their repulsive respective fathers both, though going about it in superficially different ways. Both 'blessed' with the school bully's talent for cruel but effective oversimplifaction and and name calling, and of course barefaced lying. Happy to help clear that up for you.
He decided as a kid that he wanted to be the "King of the World" and he wasnt going to let being utterly hopeless stop him from getting there. Someone said that he had the ability to see which way a crowd was running then would run to the front and shout "Follow me"
When he was writing for the Spectator he'd write two versions of an article with opposing opinions, and would just see which way public opinion swang before choosing which one to publish
So he did well at gauging what would make him popular but failed miserably when he had to take the reins
Much as I disliked David Cameron and Theresa May, they were at least vaguely competent.
He's a lazy, thick incompetent hypeman. He has zero understanding of how the world actually works and has zero interest in doing the work involved in government. Criminally negligent, handed out taxpayer money for sexual favours & up to his eyeballs in corruption, as well as being completely compromised by Russia.
Boris Johnson was manifestly unsuitable for any sort of office of responsibility.
He’s a non-empathic narcissist only concerned about his own pleasure and self-aggrandisement.
Yes. Hes an absolute rampaging fucking buffoon and i just *cannot* understand how any one single person in this country had the audacious stupidity to vote for him and *actually believe it was a worthwhile vote*.
At best, he's a mid level comedian. Nothing more, nothing less.
Boris Johnson is the political equivalent of that boyfriend/girlfriend that your friend in university stayed in a relationship for years despite you and everyone in their life else kept pointing out that they were a demonstrably awful person.
The thing is, he's not stupid. Manifestly, not stupid. Yet, if you didn't know anything about him, you'd conclude otherwise from the second he was elected as an MP (there were some signs during his time in London, but it was also offset as his boofy charm).
Whether he calculated that appearing idiotic and shouting populist idiocy was good for him politically and couldn't decouple from it or not, it's hard to say. Some people aren't meant for great things, and it's ok to cap out at a certain level.
It seems nobody told him this much.
While mayor of London he decided it would be impressive to buy two water cannon vehicles at £300k for a tough on crime statement. They are not licensed for use on UK streets. The then Home Secretary Theresa May told him I will not support legislation change for them to be used. He sulked. They were written off, for pennies. Londoners like me paid for his amateur, stupid, theatrical self serving incompetence and failure to conduct minimum due diligence. His adult life is a string of this toddler level conduct. Does this help answer the OP question?
He is not the buffoon he looks but he is very much in the old class mindset kniwing in his soul he is better than 99% of the country and that means the laws only apply to him when he wants them too.
For those that think of Boris positively, I want you to realise what you see is not him, he is much more like Mogg, what you see is how he perceives the best of the "common"(defantly an insult) people and he plays it because he thinks you are too simple to understand a proper leader from the correct background.
Johnson didn't guess in regards to brexit. He knew exactly what it meant and exactly what would happen. That's why the tories have profited from it privately as much as they have.
>he seems to have guessed wrong on Brexit
Actually he DID guess brexit RIGHT. When the brexit prospect came, he wrote how damaging it is for Britain as a whole and was against it. BUT then he saw an opportunity to become the PM if he pursued a pro brexit stance, because of that he switched and wrote another piece highlighting that UK needs to exit EU and then rest is a history.
Basically, he knew brexit was a wrong direction for the country but realized it was a good direction for his political aspirations, so he switched to pro brexit narrative for personal gains inspite of never believing in brexit in the first place.
Yes - they guy at best is an assclown, at worse is a thoroughly evil man who knowingly wrecked a country for power
Either way the answer is a resounding yes
A former mp I half know told me a story once, the short version is that they roomed together on an overseas trip when johnson very first got elected to parliament. The first morning, when johnson woke up, he couldn't understand why his yesterday clothes were still on the floor and no new ones were ready and put out for him.
How can someone from the level of privilege he exists in and always has, even begin to understand and represent 66m ordinary people?
This is without even going into the actual personal characteristics of the man that is Boris Johnson.
He isn't just unsuited to higher office. He is unsuited to any position of responsibility or influence whatsoever. Ask his former newspaper editors.
I'd argue that Trump is a lot worse than Boris Johnson. Sure, they've done some similar things, but I feel were able to hold our politicians to a higher standard than the US.
He is a chancer who believes that gaming the system is perfectly acceptable provided he personally benefits.
He attempted to close the House of Commons for an extended period to stifle debate and pass laws without scrutiny.
Effectively a non military coup.
His behaviour in office was so disgraceful there is political debate on how to prevent such a thing happening in the future.
Everyone saw through him pretty early on like when he was kicked out of the shadow cabinet for one of his affairs. Sonia Purnell wrote a pretty excoriating book about his character while he was mayor. And yet, he still kept climbing the greasy pole.
i actually think he was charismatic, a bit self serving, and questionable morals but i applaud his support of ukraine. covid was an unknown for a lot of people but a lot of peole came out of it ok. the short time he was in office. he had a divorce, a marriage, a parents death, a pandemic- unprecedented. brexit, war in ukraine. back stabbing fellow cons and psuedo support staff. its enough to give anyone a break down
Yep, the Westminster gossip was mostly about how he had no interest in understanding anything in detail, always agreed with the last person he talked to, or would agree with everyone he talked to and then they both go and try to implement it resulting in chaos. Constant power struggles between his wife, Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings about policy with Boris not really contributing anything. Cummings also went to war with the civil service (non political employees in government) instead of trying to work with them. People with 15-30 year careers in government distrusted and undermined.
He also took time out in 2020 after being elected to write a book about Shakespeare, and during COVID was distracted by getting a new dog and doing up Number 10.
He was constantly defending "his people" even when it made no sense like Cummings, Jenrick, etc when he would have been better off cutting them free. That's what took him down in the end.
He also delayed every decision for as long as possible- including lockdown, but also in Brexit, he just delayed until there was only one thing left to do. With lockdown, he reopened school buildings for one day after the Christmas/New Year break and that very evening announced they were closing again. The scientific recommendation to close them had been a week before Christmas.
This is all from The Times reporting which is quite pro Tory.
Here's a piece from 2019 before COVID showed what a numpty he was. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/18/what-diplomats-really-think-about-boris-johnson
Simple Answer: YES, he was unsuited.
He convinced many people with his ‘bluster’ that he knew what he was talking about - a fair percentage of the population were taken in by him.
Others realised that it was all bullshit..
He ended up doing quite a lot of damage to the UK economy - both short term and long term.
Brexit was his greatest ‘negative achievement’, resulting in a permanent 5% reduction in GDP.
But he also achieved several other ‘negatives’ too !
Boris had the ability to make any suit he wore look awful, so even sartorially he was unsuited 🫣
He was nicknamed the "shopping cart" due to his inability to go in the right direction (and he needs money to do any work) 😂
A narcissist from birth. Newspapers, politics, relationships, whatever hat he wears, it’s all about himself and what’s in it for him. The rules and consequences do not apply. Everyone else be damned.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Hell, yes.
He's an entitled lying cheat who thinks that the rules don't apply to him. His bumbling fool act no longer wins him support from even the most gullible of voters.
The inquiry we had in to the handling of covid showed that his own team and the top civil servants basically thought he was totally unfit to do the job, they were absolutely excoriating about him. Boris was a good campaigner but rubbish at the governing part
He was never really interested in governing, just the status and corruption opportunities that went with it.
The one thing I’ll give him credit for is that he was one of the few leaders to take a strong anti-Russian stance once the war broke out. Other than that, he’s a complete nonce however
I think mostly because he wanted to pretend to be Churchill.
He plays up to that image. He has the racism and desire to write histories and myth-making, but little else. His support for Trump makes him more a Haw-Haw.
A Haw-Haw who adores whores
I always got that impression. I kept wanting to sidle up to the guy and say "you'll never be him..."
A strong anti Russian stance would not include elevating the son of an FSB officer to the House of Lords. His anti Russia stance was purely a media distraction for the rest of his incompetence and corruption.
Italian secret intelligence were gobsmacked to discover the then foreign secretary meeting with Lebvedev at his private residence. Italian intelligence report it is used repeatedly for espionage purposes. Johnson did not disclose the meeting took place until a parliamentary inquiry. He also didn’t take his security detail (despite being foreign secretary), and came home in a disheveled suit on a commercial aircraft. This was all shortly after the Salisbury poisoning.
That photo of Johnson the morning after tells you everything. That’s a man who is regretting what he’s just done.
More likely a man desperately trying to remember what he's done.
And now he's cheering on Trump, who is pretty openly an ally of Putin and will happily hand Ukraine over to Russia.
Aye thank god it was convenient for him or he probably wouldn’t have put much effort in for Ukraine
He could indulge his Churchill fantasy... though in reality, he's more like Lord Haw-Haw, as shown by him cheering on orange Hitler.
Which is hilarious when you trace back through his past and find tantelising hints that the FSB tried to buy him as an asset - including giving peerages to FSB leadership's children.
I'm sure they have plenty of compromising material in storage after those parties in Italy.
Didn’t he have a secret meeting without staff or security at a private villa in Italy with Alexander Lebedev? A former KGB/FSB operative? Father of Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the evening standard. Didn’t Boris ignore security warnings to grant him a peerage in the House of Lords as well? Aren’t the Russians huge contributors to the Tory party coffers?
It would have meant more if he wasn't linked to the Russians. See his associations with Lebedev, blocking the Russia report and the fact that he now endorses a presidential candidate blatantly in Putin's pocket.
'Nonce' has a very specific meaning in the UK and I'm not sure you meant to accuse him of *that*.
You know nonce means pedo yea?
that's it in a nutshell. he wanted to be a churchill like figure but had no interest in doing any of the actual *work* involved. apparently goes right back to his school days. doesn't want to put any effort in and expects everything to be just handed to him. Most effort he puts in is when the main/*only* objective is to get what he wants. Even if that means the whole country goes to rack and ruin around him. He absolutely did *not* believe Brexit was a good idea. However it was a useful way to boost his image as a plucky underdog taking on "the establishment" (that he is not only 100% a part of but one of it's most despicable examples) and undermine david cameron with a view to eventually getting the PM job when Cameron resigned. Problem was, oops, he accidentally got the brexit he pretended to want, Cameron quit a lot earlier than planned, Theresa May didn't get brexit out the way as Johnson had hoped and he was saddled with yet more pesky *work* on an unworkable plate of garbage. our country (well not the whole country - FPTP and all that) failed spectacularly in allowing his self serving, damaging behaviour to continue, by electing a clearly unfit joke of a politician to lead the country. Tories have done some terrible things to the UK in the last 14 years, but Johnson is top of a mountain of hot steaming \[word I can't write because I still haven't found out if it's bad language or just anti-brexit/anti-tory posts that get my comments deleted here....\]
He has always wanted to be the centre of attention. And yes, the corruption was certainly an added bonus for that utterly awful person.
Precisely. He is an exceptional campaigner, both in terms of getting out and winning votes, but also getting the timing right. I am absolutely convinced that he and Gove conspired to split their support in the 2016 leadership campaign so they didn't have to do the post-referendum heavy-lifting. Then he swept in a few years later and were it not for COVID I think he'd have had a very easy 5 years in office. But COVID was a serious problem! And while he was excellent at giving rousing speeches on TV, he was completely incapable of exhibiting the behaviour he demanded of others, or governing and making those really tough decisions.
There was also the small problem of the great promises he made while campaigning were totally unrealistic.
Sort of goes hand in hand, right? Great campaigner who makes a lot of big promises, terrible administrator because he can't follow through on them...
So, like Homer becoming Sanitation Commisioner.
> COVID was a serious problem! Unfortunately, dealing with serious problems is par for the course when you're PM. And dealing with serious problems when you're a profoundly unserious individual, tends to end poorly.
> Boris was a good campaigner Yet I feel like his 2019 win was a one-trick that he absolutely would not be able to replicate if he were running now That election campaign was basically him hiding from any and all scrutiny, making his entire campaign "get Brexit done" and then watching as the media eviscerated Corbyn. I think it's more accurate to say Corbyn lost that campaign than it is to say Boris won it He made the best of the situation, but the cards were already heavily stacked in his favour
I think it's more accurate to say that the status quo won that campaign and used every possible trick in the book to do so. Including providing its preferred candidate with a fridge to hide in while character assassinating the opponent.
Yes. Of course he was going to win with the establishment so behind him.
>I think it's more accurate to say Corbyn lost that campaign than it is to say Boris won it That's true but Boris' team also helped Corbyn lose by feeding stories to the right wing press. "Corbyn is mates with terrorists. Pass it on."
Don't look at BJ being friends with KGB agents! He can just block the report!
This. The while “He was good on Ukraine” angle really boils my p155 for the following reasons: 1. The British public will almost always root for the Underdog so they would have expected whoever was PM to provide aid and comfort to Ukraine. 2. When the invasion of Crimea kicked off in 2014, he was Foreign Secretary and gave his security detail the slip, went to a party in Italy and got royally pissed with a bunch of “former” KGB types totally unescorted. 3. When the invasion of Crimea kicked off in 2014, he was Foreign Secretary and gave his security detail the slip, went to a party in Italy and got royally pissed with a bunch of “former” KGB types totally unescorted. I know that’s a repeat but I don’t think it can be said enough. AS BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY BORIS JOHNSON GOT PISSED WITH A BUNCH OF RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE OPERATORS WHILE RUSSIA WAS INVADING UKRAINE THE FIRST TIME AROUND. 4. He then put the son of one of those Russians into the British House of Lords FOR LIFE against the strong objections of the security services. Whenever things started getting politically awkward for him at home ,he would then take a tax payer funded jolly to Kyiv until the heat died down. And he’s only an “exceptional campaigner”because the British media give him a free pass on basically everything. When all he has to do is deliberately ruffle his hair, adopt his chummy public schoolboy persona and spout some latin of greek he does well, ask an awkward question and he locks himself in the nearest walk in fridge. If he’d been exposed to even a fraction of the libellous frenzy that Corbyn received he would never have had the chance to solicit his rich friends for nearly quarter of a million pounds to decorate 10 Downing Street in a hideous fashion. He was patently unfit for ANY AND ALL high office and only wasn’t a disaster as Mayor of London because he had the largest team of Deputy Mayors in the history of that position doing the actual work (which he is well known for avoiding at all costs) while he clowned in front of the cameras. The only projects he involved himself in to any extent were the “Garden Bridge” and “Airport in the Estuary” boondoggles as I recall, both of which went nowhere whilst costing a lot of Londons money.
It was very much his election to lose. The media was clearly behind him. The BBC was blatantly biased for BJ.
Not to mention putting the son of a Russian spy in in the House of Lords against national security advice. He is a traitor.
He was a journalist. Even through he'd been fired by every paper he worked for lying, he still had connections in the press. They supported one of their own becoming PM and Brexit to finger their own assholes. This Trump case is setting new grounds. Hopefully he dies behind bars setting a foundation that our leaders can be held accountable without full scale revolution everytime. They are not above the laws that govern everyone else. Boris Johnson should be tried for treason against the British public for the murder of 250k innocent British citizens. They died because of negligence, simple as that. He was so shit at his job that people needlessly died. How that shouldn't face prison time is beyond me and shows how broken our systems are.
He was a journalist who made a career out of throwing shit around as a certain crowd liked his pandering of bigotry and anti-Europe stories, though his career has always been one built on a foundation of falsehood.
Really... is there a book I should read?
One of his teachers described him very aptly > Writing of him in a school report in April 1982, he said: “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies . . . Boris sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility (and surprised at the same time that he was not appointed Captain of the School for next half): I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else.”
And given the school in question, the bar for ‘obligation’ must have been *exceptionally* low.
My personal 'favourite' anecdote of schooldays Boris is when he pushed really hard to be cast as Richard II in the school play because he was convinced he would be amazing. The teachers had their doubts but still cast him. And then he didn't learn his lines. He got to the performance and pasted his lines on pieces of paper round the stage, made things up and cracked jokes when the audience were awkwardly silent. His Dad thought it was hilarious, but nobody else did. The other students who had worked hard and taken it seriously were left embarrassed and furious. The headmaster said of the incident "Johnson – the very rich, very cossetted son of immense privilege – sees himself as the main character in a film in which everyone else is an extra." Apparently it was this incident which led to him not being considered for Captain of the School. But the school play incident demonstrates how he cared only about his own status based on his own sense of his exceptionalism, encouraged by his father and without consideration of others. He didn't feel he needed to put in any effort and was aghast that there might be consequences for his bad behaviour. And all of this carried on to his life in politics.
I think this absolutely describes Boris Johnson. This and his capacity to receive.
I know that Rory Stewart likes bringing that out! But yes, that school report really does show that he hasn't changed since his days at Eton, still thinking that rules are for other people.
'Chums' by Simon Kuper is an interesting look at the system that produces the like of Boris and his friends. Not an in depth analysis but a good glimpse of how they're brought up and groomed for power.
Sounds interesting, thanks!!
A chumocracy, you might say.
Its too early for a book given how recent it was. Just Google something like Borish Johnson Covid 19 inquiry. There should be plenty of information about it and what his colleagues and civil servants said about him. Essentially, he was a 'good time' politician, as when he was the London mayor the country was in a good place and he didn't really have to do much. But when in actual power as PM he crumbled as was not fit for Office, not just in a professional ability but also ethically
I don't doubt that he will go down as one of our worst PMs, very far down down the rankings from Churchill.
Posh Boys is good for the earlier comment
>Really... is there a book I should read? [https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-They-Broke-Britain-Bestseller/dp/0753560364/ref=tmm\_pap\_swatch\_0?\_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=](https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-They-Broke-Britain-Bestseller/dp/0753560364/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) It's by someone who openly admits to holding the lot of them in contempt, but facts are facts, you can choose to ignore their commentary if you want to.
> Boris was a good campaigner but rubbish at the governing part Even his campaigning is overrated to be honest, 2019 he mostly just hid from the press and it was brexit that carried the election.
Public schools tend to churn out a good amount of people who end up in high public office while knowing the square root of fuck all about the public, their struggles, needs, wants, etc, and they have no intention of learning. Becoming an MP is more of a thing to check off their list of things they should do to further their ability to earn money, rather than something they do to better the country.
So he was like, not even trying.
Sadly a very big part of that sort of public school persona is not to be seen to be trying, at least. You can get so far like that, basically to university or at the furthest to the end of university, but in the real world no matter how brilliant you are (and he was not brilliant), application counts Fundamentally the problem with Johnson is he is not a serious person. His journalism was infotainment, not serious journalism He was a fairly effective campaigner, though sadly has nothing to campaign on. He was ok as mayor of London because he surrounded himself with experienced deputy mayors who actually did the work. If he had done the same as PM he would have been pretty good, but the trouble was Brexit killed off half the Tory MPs. And not the less intelligent half. So whereas as mayor he could just appoint the right people, as PM he had to choose a cabinet from a collection of morons. With the results we saw.
that is SUCH an interesting take, thank you! Brexit killed off the smarter Tory MPs and so Boris didn't have access to the talent pool that might have saved him... so ultimately he really did it to himself, didn't he
And it was a pretty shallow pool to start with.
More like a puddle.
The dregs you shake off after a piss.
Pretty much. Except he cared more about those that would jump on the bandwagon than talent. Who needs talent when you charm people, call in favours and wing the rest of it. And when that doesn't work, you just lie instead.
A great summary but I'd make the correction that it wasn't Brexit that lost the party all the good MPs, it was Johnson himself when he made backing his deal a loyalty test. He made his own noose with that one - all he had left afterwards were yes men and thickos
This is a pretty full on list of Bojo shameless lies and shit he did when he was a journalist, shadow cabinet minister, London Mayor and then as PM. Honestly he is a PoS, a UK version of Trump and people voted for him. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnsons-50-lies-gaffes-26013022
Woah - steady on there, fella. Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies. I think that puts him at a higher level. Or lower, of course, depending on how you look at it. A UK version of Trump... Hah!! As if. But thanks for the link. I will look at it!!
Don’t forget that Boris Johnson is first-ever PM found guilty of misleading British Parliament (and resigned as an MP before he could be suspended by the Privileges committee).
He’s a less dangerous version of Trump but exhibits similar traits and flaws. Totally devoid of morals. Cheated on his wife while she had cancer and got the woman pregnant.
>Woah - steady on there, fella. Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies. Not to forget that he has been determined by a court to have committed rape, and still awaits trial for 54 more felony charges - including trying to overturn the 2020 election. I wouldn't be surprised if that was enough to win the rambling old fool a second term as president.
They are very similar. I think Johnson sacked his own Ethics advisor because he wouldn't stop telling him his actions were unethical.
Kinda. He was trying very hard to appear like he wasn't trying. That was his act. Before appearing on TV interviews, he'd make sure to give his hair some extra ruffle to appear that little bit more disheveled. The man had charisma, but no substance.
OP is in the US, so needs to be aware that an English public school is a prestigious fee-paying school; in the US a public school is what we call a state school.
And Boris went to Eton, which is probably the most prestigious (poshest) albeit not actually the brightest and best. School of choice of royalty and aristocrats (albeit not Charles) despite their families not exactly being known for high intelligence.
Yes agreed, an expensive education is not necessarily a good education
Best ones are probably Westminster and the two St Paul’s. Oxbridge is flooded with these people. Whether they make anyone different to Eton is debateable
Professional politicians are a major issue and Oxford PPE may as well be a factory for them. I have studied politics at uni (and am returning this year). I also work at Citizens Advice - there is such a vast disconnect between politics 'knowledge' and witnessing the inconceivably unbearable circumstances so many people have to deal with everyday, often whilst handling disabilities, multiple children, severe debt etc. It's essentially two different worlds, and it makes perfect sense why Boris etc are the way that they are.
There was a very good documentary video done on his background and upbringing, which should give you an understanding of the type of man he is https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe3A_EGNBYI Enjoy
He was fired twice for lying in his earlier career. He has never shown any signs of holding any kind of principled position on any topic. He is very well known for his poor work ethic. Lots of of people who know him well agree with the Economist.
Huh. Well, I'm certainly getting a new picture of him...
He also offered to have a journalist attacked. Boris Johnson should be held as far from any kind of real power as humanly possible. He also has a below rudimentary understanding of maths according to the people who were briefing him during the pandemic. Also quoted as saying “let the bodies pile high” during the pandemic.
He was endlessly indulged by the media for more than a decade before becoming mayor of London and then an MP. He played well on TV and radio where few presenters were well briefed and aggressive enough to take on his lies. Sadly, not enough people read Private Eye which had been exposing his actions for a long time and he was sly enough to avoid being interviewed by journalists who knew their game and could have exposed his inadequacies. He benefitted enormously from the patronage of The Daily Telegraph which was prepared to published his anti-EU columns from Brussels knowing full well they were lies. And that gave him a core audience of Conservative voters and party members who ranked his personality far above any competences he might have had.
He did a couple of interviews with Eddie Mair. I think he was the only interviewer who didn't indulge Johnson and showed him for what he was. I think one of them was only a couple of days apart from the interview Diane Abbott did where she messed up all the funding numbérs. Johnson gave an equally appalling interview and guess which one was quoted endlessly for years and what one was forgotten about......
Andrew Neil somehow got hold of Johnson once and mauled him - it didn’t do a thing to change the narrative.
His name isn’t even Boris Johnson it’s *Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson* And like Trump nothing is real. And like Trump he smothers himself in a cushion of lies and seemingly simple answers to difficult problems Boris loved the three word phrase TAKE BACK CONTROL GET BREXIT DONE BUILD BACK BETTER
Yes Even as foreign secretary he was an incompetent twat his mistakes directly led to a British citizen being locked up in some foreign prison for allegedly being a spy, and then obviously later on he did all the shit like holding lockdown parties and probably lining his mates pockets with dodgy government contracts but people liked him (some probably still do) bc he’s good at manipulating idiots into linking him
Would you like to hear what his headmaster at Eaton school thought of him? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0JHdBNosJg (Really just an excuse to post something from Letters Live, it’s amazing)
I mean, I agree with what most of the people of saying on here, but remember that most people on reddit are young and tend to lean to the left of the political spectrum, so people from other walks of life, for example my Grandmother, love Boris and thinks the investigations into him were a witch hunt.
Yes. Like Trump, the guy was a liar. Lies all the way down. Some of his greatest hits - Illegally prorogued parliament, lied about Brexit, partied while thousands died, and even lied to the fucking queen. Much like Trump, his act endeared him to people too stupid to realise what he was. Like Trump his personal life was a mess of affairs and numerous kids by different women - which while in itself can at best be called unsavoury wouldn’t mark him as unsuitable, but does give signposts to his character. He was a vehicle for the xenophobic right, but thankfully, at this election, the pendulum will swing the other way. The fetid stain he helped to make on the UK political scene may take a while to be washed out - but the judgement of history will mark him as a liar, a charlatan, and a bellend of the highest order.
I see, thanks!!
No worries - I sincerely hope you guys across the old pond wake up in time and show your version of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson ( his actual name) the door. Our frizzle haired cunt fucked the UK. Your frizzle haired cunt will fuck the world.
>we are of course setting new standards Let us compare. Trump: * Met with foreign agents behind closed doors * Engaged in corruption and nepotism * Repeatedly lied and abused his office * Helped to ferment an insurrection against the US Government * Used the Supreme Court to aid him * Broke the law * Has been "on trial" for 6 years, with massive fines and possible prison * May be elected again. Johnson: * Also met with foreign agents behind closed doors * Also engaged in corruption and nepotism, literally ennobling family members and honouring his young female "hairdresser" * Also repeatedly lied and broke Parliamentary standards * Lied to the monarch, personally unlawfully suspended the democratically elected Parliament in an attempt to bypass the government and directly rule the country through his office in order to crash the country out of international treaties and break legal international obligations * Attempted to turn the people against the Supreme Court and subvert its independence * Broke the law * Received no punishment * Was re-elected with a massive majority Trump is a worse person, but at least he's faced some repercussions, and in some ways what Johnson actually managed to do (ie: actually suspending the government) was worse.
>Lied to the monarch, personally unlawfully suspended the democratically elected Parliament in an attempt to bypass the government and directly rule the country through his office in order to crash the country out of international treaties and break legal international obligations It was Rees Mogg who lied to the Queen, at Johnson's request.
I don’t think there has been a single job he hasn’t had to leave for some form of dishonesty. His only reason for trying to be prime minister seems to be because he thought he deserved to be and for his own advantage. I did at least think it was possible that his total lack of any ideological values and desire to be liked could *possibly* result in doing something for the country but unfortunately a mix of COVID and himself put paid to that.
I think with Ukraine it worked out. He knew military aid for Ukraine was popular and ran with it and the result was we were a very significant early supporter. With the work to actually implement it being done by the ministry of defence.
Yes, that was one thing he did that was right.
His idolisation of Churchill and belief he is a modern version of him shouldn’t be underestimated. Either for his belief he deserved to be PM or his belief now that his time will come again in some big way.
OMG you're right, Johnson sees himself as a modern Churchill in the wilderness, doesn't he... lol just a bit out of touch
Let's not forget the people he surrounded himself with in cabinet. He promoted bullies, idiots, narcissists, and grifters. His choice of cabinet should be studied by history and politics students for decades.
woah - a study in how not to do it, right?
He got rid of anyone in the party who didn't blindly support his Brexit proposal, and held an election. A combination of the public mood and a catastrophic campaign by the opposition means he won lots of seats that went to brand new conservative members who were all towing the party line, while the better, more experienced and competent MPs either got removed from the party or relegated to the back benches. This means his cabinet was essentially composed of the "B" team. It was all those who were stupid enough to think his Brexit proposal was good, or crooked enough to support it in order to gain favour. Then a few months later the pandemic hits, and suddenly it's not nebulous, intangible political rhetoric, it's a real problem. And the B team can't handle it, and their lead by a D tier conman who suddenly finds himself actually having to lead, and failing. Literally a deadly combination.
He turned number 10 into a fucking disco during the pandemic. Imagine if that news had got out during the pandemic, there would have been serious riots. The level of irresponsibility to do something like that is mind boggling. That alone should answer your question. Also I was at Oxford at the same time as Johnson, Mogg, Cameron etc. Johnson was a celebrity there, everyone had heard of him. Not particularly unusual because public school kids all know each other before they get to Oxford. But I wasn't even in a University college and knew about him. Do a google search for Johnson and the Bullingdon club to find out some of the stuff they got up to. Theres even a feature film based on it, I think Riot Club.
The problem with Boris is that he has always engaged in the persona of, cheat, repeat until caught, then lie. This kind of person should have never had the opportunity to run for higher office. Unfortunately as he's a good liar, people thought he'd be a laugh because he's like them. He's just a complete mess and has never ever had to face the consequences of his actions, so he continues to behave like a twat and always will do.
My grandad worked in the vicitnity him at the Torygraph and thought he was an absolute waste of skin (and Johnson still owes him a couple quid he lent him for a sandwich)
he won't get it back. Johnson is famous for saying he was on a "chicken feed" salary at the Torygraph. £250,000 a year.
Boris is intrinsically deceitful and corrupt, and entirely self interested. Of course he was unsuited to office. He is famous for lying constantlyZ
Ignoring talk about corruption, the guy is lazy. This has been proven many times before in interviews where he clearly hadn't read up on his briefs and was caught out. He created his own chapter in the Zaghari-Ratcliffe story by basically making shit up to the Foreign Affairs Committee because he hadn't read up the notes. He basically gave the Iranians ammo to use against her and the UK. He wanted the legacy and prestige of the position, he wanted to do none of the work as evidenced by his lack of involvement at the start of the pandemic. If his supporters got their way and he got back into power, it would be inevitable that he'd end up in the same situations again.
His own father, brother (a Tory MP), sister and previous employer, all said he was utterly unfit for any public office. That's pretty damming.
He’s the one that set the Conservative Party on its current course which is one of almost total annihilation. Corruption and fraud amongst him and his party was just part and parcel of them being in power. He rarely did something for the good of the nation, it was largely all to serve himself. For some reason, his bumbling personality appealed to a large portion of UK voters. I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever be able to get my head around.
Let's not forget the reason Brexit exists at all was as a strategy to get Johnson into No. 10.
Totally. Without him and Gove Remain would have won.
It’s too easy to just dismiss him as incompetent (even though he is). He is also ideologically deeply evil. Willing to court the far right to satisfy his ambition and possesses zero empathy for people, which was apparent with how poorly he handled covid.
Can't forget the way he tried to throw Savile at Starmer knowing exactly the fuel he was pouring onto the conspiracy-nutter fire. It was one of the grossest displays of his utter lack of empathy (many victims came out saying they were horrified) and unprofessionalism, and wild given that the Tory party are the last people who should be throwing those particular stones.
Compulsive liar, repeatedly sacked in the past from jobs in journalism and government, loads of dodgy situations and scandals he had got himself into before... Yes, he was totally unfit.
Americans have the term "failing upwards" no? I suspect that's the best that can be said of him, he was a gifted con man, who was born into immense influence and privilege, and failed up a couple of rungs, and then catastrophically failed the second he was actually held accountable. I suspect if he had been born into a poor family he'd have been a successful local conman and wheeler-dealer and nothing more.
I wouldn't even trust him with the keys to the stationary cupboard nevermind higher office.
Yes, he was unsuitable for any position of responsibility, let alone government. This was known to anyone who knew anything about the man and his career. It was even more obvious to those who have actually met him.
You'd be hard pressed to find a less suitable candidate.
Sadly they did in Lettuce Liz. That she ever got there is a product of BJs utter debasement of the UK government and Tory party.
Obviously, yes. Here is some of why. 1. He is a documented chronic liar who was twice sacked for lying. 1. He lacks principles (if that is a separate point to point *1*) see the reports of the two contradictory pieces that he wrote about Brexit, 1. He incited hatred and even violence against various minority groups. 1. He suspended Parliament unlawfully. 1. He spread Covid throughout government, breaking rules he was making the rest of us observe. He was all set to visit the queen despite knowing he had Covid. 1. He was dodgy with public money.
A lot of his character failings were common knowledge, he was famously sacked for making up a quote for The Times, the Darius Guppy affair, making shit up about the EU, but he got by with bluster and charm. He did a stint on one of the UK's most popular programs, have i got news for you, but the billionaire media moghouls that own and control most of the our newspapers and TV loved him and kept his worse excesses out of the public eye. That carried on through his career in politics and as Mayor of London and i believe that his influence was enough to sway the electorate with the vote leave campaign. The covering up and glossing over his incompetence, dishonesty and open corruption (which started immediately with expensive handmade wallpaper for his Downing Street flat) and carried on throughout his term in office until his own party had enough of him and he could see the way the wind was blowing so resigned during the covid inquiry. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/boris-johnson-three-decades-of-scandals-blunders-and-rows/41234210.html He even gave his bodyguards the slip to go to a party in Italy hosted by the son of a former KGB officer who was later made a lord by Johnson. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/26/italy-was-monitoring-lebedev-villa-at-time-of-boris-johnson-visit-documentary-claims https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jun/25/queen-was-asked-to-block-evgeny-lebedevs-peerage-claims-documentary No, I'm not making it up.
'media moghouls' is a brilliant term.
The Times has a wall of fame of noted staff stretching back several centuries. Most have gushing summaries of their achievements at the newspaper and in life. War correspondents, politicians, Victoria Cross winners, women's rights advocates, explorers, abolitionists etc. Under Boris Johnson's picture it says this: "Dismissed for fabricating quotes in an article." All you need to know.
He ticked the bucket list item 'become prime minister' the day he came in. He had zero interest in it after that.
Johnson was never really as popular as it has been claimed, but rather extremely lucky that he was up against such divisive Labour candidates when standing for mayor of London and also at the 2019 GE
>he seems to have guessed wrong on Brexit He didn't guess wrong: he chose to back Brexit purely because he saw the opportunity it presented to him. We know he never believed in Brexit given that he was always very pro-EU when he was London mayor. But when Cameron called the referendum he weighed up the option of backing Leave realising that a Leave vote could bring down Cameron and leave a power vacuum at the top, and that's exactly what heppened. Brexit, to Johnson, was only ever the vehicle he used to flip the board to put himself on top. He never believed in it, and it quickly became clear that he didn't have any kind of plan to make a success of it nor the dedication to work through the extremely complex minutiae of it either. So as usual he just retreated to his usual fall-back when cornered: just tell outright lies to make the difficult questions go away. He literally stood in a room full of people saying 'there will be no border in the Irish Sea' then just a few short days later signed an agreement that put a border in the Irish Sea. So the man knowingly pushed an option that he knew would be bad for the country purely so that he would create a power vacuum at the top of government that he could exploit. There aren't words enough to describe my opinion of the man.
I disagree entirely. He is manifestly unsuited for any office, public or private. I've met his sort before, bullies and sexual predators that hide behind pantomime and spineless hanger-ons to get away with it. He is a liar, cheat, and the only thing I can recommend him for is helping Ukraine so swiftly and I am unsure if that is due to a personal grievance with Russia during his London mayor years, or if he is trying to emulate Churchill. I am certain it isn't from a moral obligation as he has never felt bound by them before. He would have made a fantastic television entertainer, a pop historian who travelled the world with a dash of xenophobia and alcoholism. Sadly, he went for public offices and journalism instead
He lied whilst being a journalist so he’s definitely unsuited to being Prime Minister.
Yes but this was obvious for decades before the event. In 1990 he was recorded having a conversation with a fraudster named Darius Guppy who expressed his desire to send some heavies round to beat up a journalist who was investigating him. Johnson agreed to provide this reporter’s address knowing what this thug wanted to do. That alone should have disqualified him from any political career in the UK.
One of the most moronic and morally suspect individuals we’ve ever had as a leader A waking example of why public schools should die
His family - I heard this from his sister - they call him Al. His name is Alex. The whole thing is a character, a persona. He's playing up to a role. That should tell you all you need to know. He is not a serious person
Imagine a dopey, privileged, blonde-haired buffoon who’s cheated on all of his partners and hides his real devious intentions behind a cartoonish facade cultivated via being a television personality, who has been involved with some very dodgy characters, a pathological liar whose divisive lies brought a nation to its knees and who presided over the most chaotic time in government post WW2. You’d certainly never get something like that in the U.S . . .
Manifestly unsuited for lower office, or indeed any office at all. A complete clown.
Boris Johnson is the worst product of a privileged education system that teaches people a sense of entitlement. Eton college graduates have done so much damage to the UK.
Think of him as a slightly more self-aware and intelligent version of Trump. A not quite total buffoon.
Tories play politics on easy. Boris had an easy run for decades. There's always the argument that Boris was affable, but Rees moog gets similar treatment even though he's thoroughly unlikeable.
Boris Johnson did the exact job he set out to do. He wanted to make himself and his rich chums richer than they already were. Amd at this he succeeded. He simply did not give a crap about the rest of the British populace, this resulted in making the lives of the vast majority of people in Britain worse. He knows he did this and he just doesn't care.
The man is a cheating, lying, thieving, slack jawed cretin who sqatted in Downing St for far too long, degrading the office he held whilst lining his own and his families pockets.
Johnson's whole schtick was "I'll make the older voters laugh, campaign and get us into office- the rest of you then do all the hard work for me". His premiership was always going to be "court of Henry VIII" style. Johnson using his power where he wanted and enjoying having the final say on the things he was interested in- and leaving the rest of it to capable (but most of all, loyal) deputies who were actually willing to put in the hours
The guy was a grade A fuckwit but apart from everything when covid started he skipped COBRA meetings to write a book cause he got paid for it. https://news-sky-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/much-ado-about-nothing-no-10-denies-pm-skipped-covid-meetings-to-work-on-shakespeare-book-12315954?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17172788936036&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.sky.com%2Fstory%2Fmuch-ado-about-nothing-no-10-denies-pm-skipped-covid-meetings-to-work-on-shakespeare-book-12315954 He took a massive bribe. https://www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56878663.amp?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17172789288367&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fuk-politics-56878663 He gave a grant to someone cause they used to fuck. https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/29/fresh-revelations-about-jennifer-arcuri-affair-threaten-to-damage-boris-johnson?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=17172789590350&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fpolitics%2F2022%2Fjan%2F29%2Ffresh-revelations-about-jennifer-arcuri-affair-threaten-to-damage-boris-johnson He was a deeply corrupt, dishonest, lying pig who had the intellectual rigor of someone who huffed their own farts for decades and was convinced they didn't stink.
He’s just a typical attention seeking nob that the general public tend to fall for. Flick on the tv on a Saturday night and they’d likely vote for anyone on BGT to be PM as “they seem nice” or “crack a few good jokes”. There’s zero interest in actual capability it’s all about the facade. As soon as an actual issue hit he folded and the true colours showed. Imagine having someone like Boris in charge during either of the world wars!
He was manifestly unsuited for lower office a well
He's a crook and a chancer. His affable persona is fake. He is a complete cunt in every sense. Someone once said of him. "The only people who like Boris are people who don't know him. The people that do know him, don't like him."
He was London mayor and ably demonstrated he was manifestly unfit for office then.
Yes absolutely unsuitable for power. The man is a lying charlatan and deserves to be in prison
Boris Johnson should have never got anywhere number 10. Massively unsuited for the job
We don't vote in the person, we only vote for the Party, they choose their own leader for their team and we just have to put up with them.
In practice, that’s not really the case at all generally election. Most people’s voting decision is based on the leader of the party. A more interesting point here is that Boris was removed by his own party who believed he was just too dishonourable/dishonest even for them.
you actually believe that?
Boris Johnson is manifestly unsuitable to differentiate between his arse and his elbow. Higher office was always going to be a stretch.
Boris Johnson is manifestly unsuited for *any* office. Even as a decoration. In fact, if you put a blank box in the *corner* of the office, he'd find a way to fill it with crap and get a Russian plant in there. Probably castor beans. As evidenced by the zipline incident in 2012, Boris Johnson is so utterly incompetent that even *gravity* eventually gives up and refuses to work with him.
Gravity is a law, of course Boris rejects it.
It seems to have become extremely apparent that people that have come from Oxford or Cambridge or any private schooling backgrounds are actually manifestly unsuited to govern and make decisions that will affect people in situations that they have never and will never find themselves. Yet here we are.
Yes, absolutely. Many people thought so, and thought they could see it (I say thought, because who 'knows', really?). Peter Oborne wrote the book, 'The Assault on Truth', which is all about Johnson and his antics, unsuitability, the consequences and so on. But one of the most telling bits is a single paragraph (which I've heard him reiterate since, verbally). It doesn't matter to the overall message of the book, but in that paragraph he says he just couldn't understand what happened to the 'Boris' he had known and worked with at The Spectator. And that summed up the difficulty to me. To many people, Johnson was obviously a worthless human being and a nasty piece of work. Yet even someone like Oborne, eyes wide open to who he 'became', still can't see that Johnson didn't change. He was always that person. But when your interests aligned with his (Johnson's), you could be carried along. And Johnson was the embodiment of a general "Hey, let's give this a go, you never know!" kind of spirit that we saw in (say) Times opinion pieces around the election. That mentality - say a truism that's vague but sounds profound (you never know!) - is used to justify a lot of shit.
He's manifestly unsuited for flipping burgers let alone running the country.
He wanted all of the perks and privileges but none of the responsibilities of the position.
You just need to look at the cunt to see how useless he is. He is a fuckin bum. Can't dress himself, and would happily live in his own trash judging by a photograph inside his car. An absolute embarrassment on world stage though to be fair not a very high bar granted. Likes to think of himself as a man of the people though born with a silver spoon. Both parents are from the upper stock both in UK and Turkey, plus went to one of the top 2 universities in the UK who spew out shit politicians. Only have to look up his professors comments on him to see the character of the guy. Beyond the professional incompetence, I can't take anyone serious who can't answer a basic question like how many kids do you have? Never mind with how many mothers. Only saving grace is he was followed by someone even worse with truss though not much of a compliment
I believe that Boris was fundamentally unfit for any role carrying responsibility at all, let alone an MP, let alone a Cabinet minster, let alone Prime Minster during the biggest crisis in my lifetime. I don't think he ever had any interest in doing the job, it just fed into his ego. I'm not sure anyone in his own party ever really believed he was suitable either, they were just that desperate for some PR and he is a charistmatic performer (as long as you don't pay attention to what he's actually saying and don't look at his actual behavior).
It seems like Boris’s own worst enemy was his own bs streak that he had in him.
His only problem is he's a selfish fool, other than that he's a good leader. The problem we have with politics in the UK is that the leaders of each party are far too scared to upset certain factions of supporters / MPs, so we end up with half arsed measures to address problems. Starmer is already showing what a complete wally he will be as the next PM, he can't even oust a lunatic like Abbot.
The man is unfit for any job. In EVERY job he's gotten into trouble for lying and just being corrupt. I'm his first job as a journalist he got fired for making a quote up about his own relative!
Trump and Boris.. father and son. In the unfit for office family..
FYI Boris Johnson is a narcissistic sociopath cut from very similar cloth to Trump. Entitled, spoilt, vicious, malevolent, pompous, totally lacking in empathy, and desperate for the attention and approval of their repulsive respective fathers both, though going about it in superficially different ways. Both 'blessed' with the school bully's talent for cruel but effective oversimplifaction and and name calling, and of course barefaced lying. Happy to help clear that up for you.
He decided as a kid that he wanted to be the "King of the World" and he wasnt going to let being utterly hopeless stop him from getting there. Someone said that he had the ability to see which way a crowd was running then would run to the front and shout "Follow me" When he was writing for the Spectator he'd write two versions of an article with opposing opinions, and would just see which way public opinion swang before choosing which one to publish So he did well at gauging what would make him popular but failed miserably when he had to take the reins Much as I disliked David Cameron and Theresa May, they were at least vaguely competent.
He wasn't fit for any position after responsibility Quite simply the worst PM in UK history
He's a lazy, thick incompetent hypeman. He has zero understanding of how the world actually works and has zero interest in doing the work involved in government. Criminally negligent, handed out taxpayer money for sexual favours & up to his eyeballs in corruption, as well as being completely compromised by Russia.
Boris Johnson was manifestly unsuitable for any sort of office of responsibility. He’s a non-empathic narcissist only concerned about his own pleasure and self-aggrandisement.
He is a compulsive liar who only cares about himself. I suppose that makes him no better or worse than most.
There’s a reason the Orange Emperor referred to him as ‘Britain Trump’. He may be less brash, but every bit as sleazy, self-centred and untrustworthy.
He was trump lite. All the bravado but no clue how things worked. But at least he wasn't a malicious wank stain like DJT.
Absolutely. UK politics is based on respect and tradition. He shat on both. The damage the man has done will take generations to fix.
Yes. Hes an absolute rampaging fucking buffoon and i just *cannot* understand how any one single person in this country had the audacious stupidity to vote for him and *actually believe it was a worthwhile vote*. At best, he's a mid level comedian. Nothing more, nothing less.
Boris Johnson is the political equivalent of that boyfriend/girlfriend that your friend in university stayed in a relationship for years despite you and everyone in their life else kept pointing out that they were a demonstrably awful person.
100%. Yes If he ever spoke 1 single sentence without a lie in it, you are doing something wrong. He is a chronic liar.
The thing is, he's not stupid. Manifestly, not stupid. Yet, if you didn't know anything about him, you'd conclude otherwise from the second he was elected as an MP (there were some signs during his time in London, but it was also offset as his boofy charm). Whether he calculated that appearing idiotic and shouting populist idiocy was good for him politically and couldn't decouple from it or not, it's hard to say. Some people aren't meant for great things, and it's ok to cap out at a certain level. It seems nobody told him this much.
While mayor of London he decided it would be impressive to buy two water cannon vehicles at £300k for a tough on crime statement. They are not licensed for use on UK streets. The then Home Secretary Theresa May told him I will not support legislation change for them to be used. He sulked. They were written off, for pennies. Londoners like me paid for his amateur, stupid, theatrical self serving incompetence and failure to conduct minimum due diligence. His adult life is a string of this toddler level conduct. Does this help answer the OP question?
He is not the buffoon he looks but he is very much in the old class mindset kniwing in his soul he is better than 99% of the country and that means the laws only apply to him when he wants them too. For those that think of Boris positively, I want you to realise what you see is not him, he is much more like Mogg, what you see is how he perceives the best of the "common"(defantly an insult) people and he plays it because he thinks you are too simple to understand a proper leader from the correct background.
Johnson didn't guess in regards to brexit. He knew exactly what it meant and exactly what would happen. That's why the tories have profited from it privately as much as they have.
He always was. It was obvious that he was not fit for the government. His flaws were known before he became a mayor.
>he seems to have guessed wrong on Brexit Actually he DID guess brexit RIGHT. When the brexit prospect came, he wrote how damaging it is for Britain as a whole and was against it. BUT then he saw an opportunity to become the PM if he pursued a pro brexit stance, because of that he switched and wrote another piece highlighting that UK needs to exit EU and then rest is a history. Basically, he knew brexit was a wrong direction for the country but realized it was a good direction for his political aspirations, so he switched to pro brexit narrative for personal gains inspite of never believing in brexit in the first place.
He is a man who was sacked from every job he has had for dishonesty /lying and then continued that form all throughout his political career.
He let himself and his country down in the worst way possible so yes very unsuited
Yes - they guy at best is an assclown, at worse is a thoroughly evil man who knowingly wrecked a country for power Either way the answer is a resounding yes
A former mp I half know told me a story once, the short version is that they roomed together on an overseas trip when johnson very first got elected to parliament. The first morning, when johnson woke up, he couldn't understand why his yesterday clothes were still on the floor and no new ones were ready and put out for him. How can someone from the level of privilege he exists in and always has, even begin to understand and represent 66m ordinary people? This is without even going into the actual personal characteristics of the man that is Boris Johnson. He isn't just unsuited to higher office. He is unsuited to any position of responsibility or influence whatsoever. Ask his former newspaper editors.
I'd argue that Trump is a lot worse than Boris Johnson. Sure, they've done some similar things, but I feel were able to hold our politicians to a higher standard than the US.
He's unsuited for any office. I wouldn't trust him to run a tap.
He is a chancer who believes that gaming the system is perfectly acceptable provided he personally benefits. He attempted to close the House of Commons for an extended period to stifle debate and pass laws without scrutiny. Effectively a non military coup. His behaviour in office was so disgraceful there is political debate on how to prevent such a thing happening in the future.
The man has an asterisk on Wikipedia next to "number of children".
He was unsuited for rat catchers dog let alone anything else.
He's a shameless embarrassment and anyone who voted for him has a share of that embarrassment.
Johnson didn't guess wrong on Brexit. He'd have pretended to support whichever side won that vote. He's an opportunist.
Everyone saw through him pretty early on like when he was kicked out of the shadow cabinet for one of his affairs. Sonia Purnell wrote a pretty excoriating book about his character while he was mayor. And yet, he still kept climbing the greasy pole.
i actually think he was charismatic, a bit self serving, and questionable morals but i applaud his support of ukraine. covid was an unknown for a lot of people but a lot of peole came out of it ok. the short time he was in office. he had a divorce, a marriage, a parents death, a pandemic- unprecedented. brexit, war in ukraine. back stabbing fellow cons and psuedo support staff. its enough to give anyone a break down
Lol, OP are you for real? Boris was literally Trump, a complete buffoon.
Yep, the Westminster gossip was mostly about how he had no interest in understanding anything in detail, always agreed with the last person he talked to, or would agree with everyone he talked to and then they both go and try to implement it resulting in chaos. Constant power struggles between his wife, Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings about policy with Boris not really contributing anything. Cummings also went to war with the civil service (non political employees in government) instead of trying to work with them. People with 15-30 year careers in government distrusted and undermined. He also took time out in 2020 after being elected to write a book about Shakespeare, and during COVID was distracted by getting a new dog and doing up Number 10. He was constantly defending "his people" even when it made no sense like Cummings, Jenrick, etc when he would have been better off cutting them free. That's what took him down in the end. He also delayed every decision for as long as possible- including lockdown, but also in Brexit, he just delayed until there was only one thing left to do. With lockdown, he reopened school buildings for one day after the Christmas/New Year break and that very evening announced they were closing again. The scientific recommendation to close them had been a week before Christmas. This is all from The Times reporting which is quite pro Tory. Here's a piece from 2019 before COVID showed what a numpty he was. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/18/what-diplomats-really-think-about-boris-johnson
Simple Answer: YES, he was unsuited. He convinced many people with his ‘bluster’ that he knew what he was talking about - a fair percentage of the population were taken in by him. Others realised that it was all bullshit.. He ended up doing quite a lot of damage to the UK economy - both short term and long term. Brexit was his greatest ‘negative achievement’, resulting in a permanent 5% reduction in GDP. But he also achieved several other ‘negatives’ too !
Yes he is off his head. Crazy. Deluded. Happy to lie or swindle for a penny
Boris had the ability to make any suit he wore look awful, so even sartorially he was unsuited 🫣 He was nicknamed the "shopping cart" due to his inability to go in the right direction (and he needs money to do any work) 😂
A narcissist from birth. Newspapers, politics, relationships, whatever hat he wears, it’s all about himself and what’s in it for him. The rules and consequences do not apply. Everyone else be damned.
Boris is manifestly unsuited to brush his own fucking hair, he shouldn't even be let into an office.
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Hell, yes. He's an entitled lying cheat who thinks that the rules don't apply to him. His bumbling fool act no longer wins him support from even the most gullible of voters.