the boris project: slouching blond beast who can or shrunken cowardly lump who was never going to

my line since the referendum has firmly been the second: he utterly flinched at destiny's moment and will not recover

now? i still say him nay but the selectorate has also shrunk and is cowardly

A much needed sequel

definitely the latter imo. Ken Clarke misspoke him as Doris earlier, causing much hilarity.

What stops him from here? I mean assuming there is no God.

the stop boris contingent need to get their hands to the pumps or whatever more suitable metaphor!

I always assumed the stop boris contingent is a big enough proportion of the Con party to make sure he never gets to a members vote?

And you all thought May was bad? Hold my beer etc

Yeah I sort of assumed that too, xpost, but the analysis and odds seem to suggest otherwise?

Weird that the illegitimate daughter he had with one of his mistresses is never mentioned - try to imagine if Corbyn had done the same, Jezza was getting pelters for eating cold baked beans, which were not Heinz baked beans, out of tin.

It's a pity the Jeremy Kyle Show has been canned, our future Prime Minister was a natural for it.

johnson's infraction was good red-blooded alpha-male fare. this man will fuck the uk to the top

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/InexperiencedShockedGerbil-size_restricted.gif

i've played cricket with two of his sons and they are very quiet, almost shy young men, weird eh

the underlying shape and dynamics of the tory selectorate has been so extremely distorted by may's sequence of moves and decisions since the end of last year that i trust current analysis and odds even less than i usually do (which is actually very little these days)

maybe once we know who else is standing and how all the usual kingmakers-of-dwindling-affect are responding? today is a day for centrists to be showing their whole asses by hurrying to feel performatively* sorry for the toppled deporter

(xp) Competitive Dad syndrome.

neighbours said cricketing mass slayer was shy, quiet, kept self to self

I imagine a lot of this went on:

https://img2.thejournal.ie/inline/2390363/original/?width=623&version=2390363

'Can't get to a member's vote' requires that there's enough organisation that two other candidates rise above him in the MPs votes - this is new magic* and it's hard to see some backroom expert getting it exactly right.

* "If not for Leadsom's withdrawal, Conservative Party members would have directly elected a new Prime Minister for the very first time." - but I can't easily find when it changed.

as a slouching blond beast myself i resent this line of attack

dude it says "you can"

The thing that is most likely to hurt him is if the Brexit field is overcrowded and pro-Brexit-stop-Boris MPs coalesce around another candidate.

I'm assuming there will be only one Remain Tory in the field and that might be enough to get them to the final two (where they will promptly lose).

A thing about him is that he is roughly half a Trump - not a details person by choice but can put on his glasses if necessary, fond of vanity projects but doesn't stick has name on everything, has shit blonde hair but not an affront to the human eye.

banter timeline is that he is elected and turns out to be not really pushed about a hard Brexit.

I'd definitely pick him over Raab.

another element that makes prognostication tricky right now is the 1922 committee's evident willingness (per wednesday's declaration) just to change their rules behind closed doors to get the result they want, which has implications for the contest except who knows what they're going to be yet

jesus fvck he's younger than me how had i not dealt with this already DRACARYS! DRACARYS!

i think it'll be a soft brexit/compromise/former remainer like hunt, rudd, hancock, javid or truss vs a big brexiter

What are the rules for the contest now?

they might need to parachute drop Rudd into a tory safe seat, but I could imagine her as a shock winner.

Britain needs an experienced, pragmatic leader to take us through the next stages of our journey post-Brexit. We are #Avid4Javid.

Getting an uptick of followers for @Avid4Javid👨🏽‍🦲!
Go check it out!#Trexit #PoliticsLive pic.twitter.com/dMXDKlpLMp

— Ameme Hack (@AmemeHack) May 24, 2019

Why have a leader when you can have a captain?...#bbcqt #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/AYh6ECzOYL

— Avid For Javid (@Avid4Javid) May 23, 2019

absolutely cursed account

mark francois just said he would back a steve baker bid. lol STEVE BAKER!

#cuntsforhunt

#whobutstewart

part of the dark topsyturvy energy of the last contest was that may vs leadsom was some kind of counter to the failson political hegemony of the omnipresent mediocre white man -- a social fact that i suspect may reached for any tiny time she doubted herself (she treated all the cameroon ascendency as idiots bcz -- vicar's daughter beset by toffs -- she knew they WERE idiots)

anyway i think this tories-are-the-real-feminists energy is now again dispersed and the hegemony back with a vengeance = just a flood of EVEN MORE USELESS TWATS convinced they can do this bcz look at the idiots who were already given the job

also i think it will be hunt #bantz #huntz #secretweapon #weapon

Boris is in no way a hard Brexiteer, he only decided to support Leave at the last minute.

He’s and unprincipled opportunistic cunt and will support whatever benefits him most.

^^^^ this absolutely. Ed will remember all the times that idiot wound up in the pub, playing table football with the cycle couriers while waiting to score in other ways.

Except the genie's out of the bottle now, it has to be Hard Brexit or nothing, else he'll be eviscerated by his own backbenchers. Or his own Cabinet if he stuffs it with headbangers.

"this guy has no principles at all, this could work out well for us"

i mean obviously a lot of ppl are going to be resting their full weight on this in days to come but it is not going to work out well for them IMO

Also "he's the one PM Jeremy Corbyn would love to face at an elections" hmmmmm if only there were any recent examples of this line of argument having gone badly wrong.

man of no principles vs man with all the principles: a nation decides

despite no majority for no deal, it seems fairly likely if boris acts the bollocks for a while the eu will stop giving extensions, right?

I would think Boris (or whoever) would have to call a general election as soon as they got into Tory leadership, as they'll have to face the numbers like May has.

I still don't believe it will happen. YouGov poll has something like 50% of people think Boris is a useless cunt, 24% believe he'd do a good job. The headline: 1 in 4 Britons think Boris would make good pm.

Would a new leader really risk an election? If you want no deal why do you need the numbers?

cometh the time, cometh the grayling

new zugzwang: it's even zugzwangier

post

Boris could really fuck things up. Whatever his personal beliefs are (if he even has any), he's certainly painted himself into a hard brexit corner now. It's pretty much no deal or revocation at this stage of the game, and while no deal would be a disaster, to even get to no deal he'd have to fuck things up even further. This parliament won't deliver no deal so he'd have to consider calling an election and go into cahoots with Farage or something.

Yes that's assuming a new leader would want to go through parliament for this rather than - if you are a hard brexiteer - just crashing out the country. That's the one thing that Boris would be qualified for.

xposts

It doesn't seem hard to make ridiculous demands repeatedly then wait for the EU not to extend and no deal by default happens, thenbblame the EU, not least given Macron and others seem fairly close to this.

There's a paper from the Institute of Government to the effect that parliament might not have further chances to block No Deal:

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/new-prime-minister-intent-no-deal-brexit-cant-be-stopped-mps-0

The main counterargument aiui is John Bercow is craaazy:

New:

Whips are tonight alarmed about *this* exchange involving John Bercow

The Speaker hints he could enable votes on Brexit alternatives such as Customs Union by allowing neutral motions to be amended so they are substantive

'It's massive,' a source said pic.twitter.com/CIwLpJUIlc

— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) March 18, 2019

Except a crash would unleash...all the stuff we have talked about. Food, medicine shortages, border chaos in NI. It's too unstable a situation that could destroy the Tories.

An election could give a Tory leader the numbers for a more orderly Brexit and a full term.

Genuinely what planet do you live on.

I find it hard to believe that if there is a clear majority against no deal (as there is), parliament can't find a way to handcuff a government and force it to revoke if there is no deal at the deadline.

I think that would be a perfectly reasonable line from some quarters.

xp

that article seems fairly alarmist given it concludes that yes, a vonc would stop no deal and force an election. so there is a way.

Let's see what happens in the Euro elections before making any bold claims about the Tories rolling the dice on an election.

Dutch results are encouraging.

Brexit: Boris Johnson vows to let UK crash out of EU without a deal if necessary

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-brexit-no-deal-uk-eu-talks-theresa-may-conservative-leader-resigns-a8928876.html

But he vowed that people would “hear more than you want to hear” about his bid to replace her over the coming days.

Yes, and they were completely out of the blue. Where our Tory pm picked the new far right douche on the block as his main challenger, the media followed this narrative, and no poll got even close to this result. Labour walked it, pro-EU won, Wilders' party obliterated.

xp

think i've reached that point already

xpost

Sounds a lot like no deal is better than a bad deal to me

how does the incoming tory leader (if not cronus) persuade HER MADGE* that they have command of the commons? doesn't a new PM have to pass a queen's speech? i know the fucker's "unwritten" and a LOT can be handwaved but…

not forgetting that may literally lied to E2R abt having secured DUP backing -- yes she did afterwards secure it but…

*yes i realise she died on 29 dec 2016 and they've been waiting for a nice quiet moment to tell us

HM can’t automatically send for the Tory leader without confidence that they have ; May lied about having secured DUP backing to be appointed. The next PM needs to pass a Queen’ speech. How will that happen?

can her madge really be said to have 'died' on 29 dec 2016 when it's generally accepted that we all died on dec 21 2012, more than four full earth years earlier

Assume the Tory leader would get DUP backing in a another billion thanks confidence and supply basis.

she is not from earth do keep up

is there a breakdown anywhere of just what may's super soaraway spending bonanza actually won her in the way of support from the dup

that is a very big assumption comrade plus it's not just the DUP at issue now

xp to xyzzzz__ : I assume so - he spoke at their conference a few years ago and AFAIK has managed not to drop any clangers (though it's safe to assume they'd be broadly on-side with any of his usual material).

mark, I can't find anywhere that he'd _have_ to get a Queen's speech in. He'd have to get a budget passed at some point though - I agree that the traditional "Tories will row in behind power" has seemed pretty shaky of late, but it's been mostly confined to Brexit (though that is possibly because there is nothing else that the government has been doing).

This has spread, including to the Spectator! https://www.facebook.com/1691455784407633/posts/2449074521979085/

Says Gove's brother-in-law (i know, i know)

lol we’re all gonna die

Is Boris as as ruthlessly self-serving, as utterly incompetent, as thoughtless and cruel as Trump? Yes. But is the British establishment as willing to roll over and give in to him? Also yes.

I have decided to embrace Boris as the victor because whoever wins this contest will be out by Christmas as they fail to deliver on their election promises. None of them are changing the EU position or the parliamentary arithmetic, and none of them imo represent either a banhammer for the whips to use or a seductive enough prospect for opposition defectors. And being humiliated by being such a short lived PM is exactly what the deflating football deserves, because he is one of the most incompetent politicians to have held a front bench post for some time, on either side and by Christ there's stiff competition.

With an attempt at an impartial eye, it's easy to understand why he's popular with the party though. Professional politics is almost solely about charisma, leadership to a lesser degree so, and it's unquestionable that he does possess a large amount of it. What the party recognise is that it's needed to challenge the charismatic alternative, which even people within the Labour party sometimes refer to as a cult. I have no doubt there will be large elements of overlap in the 'BORIS HE IS A LEGERND' and people singing 'ooh Jeremy corbyn' at glasto Venn diagram and maybe the trick is to get them to identify with the first group again.

Just thinking, it has been quite a while since I encountered any "Boris is a total ledge" types. They seem to have either changed their minds, shut up, or been filtered out of my bubble.

Yeah, I was just thinking of a an ex-coworker (and friend of a friend) had basically voted for lolboris for Mayor.

Sorry but Corbyn is NOT charismatic, at all. He’s literally a granddad pottering around on the allotment and the “cult” label is thrown about by people who’ve never understood the source of his appeal. Otherwise good analysis

Not that I would want to puncture this particularly innovative twist on Horseshoe Theory but 11 years have passed since peak lol Boris legernd. That's several political lifetimes and most of the people involved are probably running start-ups now and pretending that they're going to vote LibDem next time.

JC is basically a british archetype familiar to anyone who has 1 ever been on an allotment or 2 been on holiday in britain in those areas where people go on “walking holidays” ie very much not charismatic

You can sing "ooh bloke on allotment" to Seven Nation Army as well.

He's not Jesus but he has the same initials

thing about lol Boris legernd voters is that they're... a bit dim, and pretty impervious to acual political developments, so I think a lot of that support will still be there through sheer inertia.

"he's just like a geography teacher" was a colossal snobbery as well as a tell, really -- so important to hate and despise and sneer at teachers in the coming settlement, let me just write that down

the geography teacher has always been a slightly confused archetype

Idk I’m definitely sure he’s been tarnished by the last few years.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Jeremy_Corbyn - re Corbyn, check out his correlations lol

His VSO posting: teaching geography in Jamaica.

Specifically geography as well, which conveys its own frumpiness even if it isn't especially accurate.

The Parliamentary arithmetic will be different under a new leader, one way another. Shifts in allegiance, antipathy, degree of trust, desperation to avoid an early general election. I've no idea how the fallout will go down, but the arithmetic will be different because some of the actors are going to act differently.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Boris_Johnson

Slightly less well thought of than Boris, it appears

Xpost

And May.

OTHER THINGS LIKED BY JEREMY CORBYN FANS: Discogs

OTHER THINGS LIKED BY BORIS JOHNSON FANS: Shandy Bass

"Other things liked by Boris Johnson fans" reads like a list of references to be incorporated in the next Alan Partridge series.

Arithmetic only different by single figures imo unless an option which gets cross bench support emerges. Three years on nobody has changed opinion substantially and certainly not to the point where they're going to shift to hard leave from soft remain.

Biggest chance of changing the arithmetic is Rory who is at least honest about flogging the WA again. The centre ground is the only place to get the numbers because it's the only one where you can sell the idea of influence over phase 2 - either to achieve a least worst outcome to bring in soft remain or a free trade model which might get some outliers on leave.

OTHER THINGS LIKED BY JEREMY CORBYN FANS: Karl Marx

Checkmate, tankies.

boris is going to hastily put a few biro marks on TM's WA, and somehow enough head-bangers will buy it in parliament. Then starts a new chapter of his legend and everything is almost reset to 2010 only this time flea olympics!

Good that Ian Blackford went in on Johnson directly calling him racist in the Commons and refusing to retract when Bercow advised him to.

IB is himself a nasty piece of work of course

His muslamic grandfather would be amazed to see him rise to being called a racist in the House of Commons

a few years ago I was reading about how Turks didn't even get surnames until the Ataturk era when they could choose their own and lots of people choose daft ones like Testicle and Stupid for the laugh. Unfortunately Boris senior would have been already moved to the UK by then, and I think a Boris Tasak (testicle) might have anglicised his name.

His real name's not far off though!

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jun/19/zaghari-ratcliffe-husband-says-boris-johnson-made-mistakes

I like how 120 and counting Tory MPs are cool with the whole Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe think and the racism, why would they be impediments to leading the government?

I can remember FS boris with some hero talk about how her situation would be sorted soon and any additional misunderstandings with Iran would be jolly well sorted out next week .. erm about 2 years ago.

Didn’t take long for the wheels to fall off the Boris bus https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/21/police-called-to-loud-altercation-at-boris-johnsons-home

All cool and normal

The neighbour said they recorded the altercation from inside their flat out of concern for Symonds. On the recording, heard by the Guardian, Johnson can be heard refusing to leave the flat and telling Symonds to “get off my fucking laptop” before there is a loud crashing noise.

Symonds is heard saying Johnson had ruined a sofa with red wine: “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.”

The neighbour said: “There was a smashing sound of what sounded like plates. There was a couple of very loud screams that I’m certain were Carrie and she was shouting to ‘get out’ a lot. She was saying ‘get out of my flat’ and he was saying no. And then there was silence after the screaming. My wife, who was in bed half asleep, had heard a loud bang and the house shook.”

what would the former housing czar, the honorable Sir Roger Scrutton, say about this.

she could have had a knife. appropriate measures imo

When contacted by the Guardian on Friday, police initially said they had no record of a domestic incident at the address.

*hmm emoji*

Hang on is that the woman the Daily Mail told me last week had turned Boris into an avatar of Jesus?

Huge profile of her in the Times this week, too.

it's almost as if

well we know, don't we? we know

In recent weeks the couple have been sharing a flat in a converted Victorian house. It has been reported that they intend to move into Downing Street together if he is elected leader.

"Police were today called to an address in Westminster over concerns for the welfare of etc etc"

Larks a-plenty coming our way once this pitiful turd ascends to his slippery throne.

xp
stop moaning about how our presumed right-wing elective dictatorship is being presented to us and give us a loud phwoah!

Johnson's neighbour for Chancellor imo - will help keep him on his toes

ah Symonds neighbour that should be

"she's been given credit for… his new hairdo"

Yesterday: Boris is the beloved former London mayor, who made a Labour city love him through his easy charm and wit.
Today: perfectly normal bits of London are ‘hostile territory’ where the former mayor can’t safely reside. https://t.co/4EfR241s4o

— [Restricted] Animal (@politic_animal) June 22, 2019

He needs a safe space like 10 Downing street.

'Love' this bit too: "She’s seen as his conscience on the environment… pro Brexit for animal welfare reasons."

sounds like Gove got to her first

Tory remedy for a red wine stain: take a glass of club soda and beat your mistress

— Crowsa Luxemburg (@quendergeer) June 22, 2019

"I can’t think of anyone after the Crash in 2008 who stuck up as much for the bankers as me. I stuck up for them day in and day out." - Boris at the hustings earlier, I know he's just talking the dead-eyed membership, but gl running into a GE on with this type of speak - which didn't sound very prepared.

"I can’t think of anyone after the Crash in 2008 who stuck up as much for the bankers as me. I stuck up for them day in and day out." - Boris Johnson today

Says it all.

— Labour Press Team (@labourpress) June 22, 2019

get this on a big vote labour poster

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/boris-johnson-prime-minister-tory-party-britain

Churchill’s self-obsession was tempered by a huge compassion for humanity, or at least white humanity, which Johnson confines to himself.

Blinding double zing from Max Hastings

he's such a silly old cunt and a complete waste of space as a historian.

Who, Hastings, Churchill or Johnson?

Hastings, but that it isn't bad for him!

Stopped clock dude, stopped clock.

Just chucking the link to the classic Eddie Mair interview in here for anyone who hasn’t seen it
https://youtu.be/ZAxA-9D4X3o

woke max hastings, welcome to the #resistance

FULL TRANSCRIPT - Boris

- Refuses 4 times to say where 'staged' photo came from
- Refuses 5 times to say if he knew it was being put out
- Refuses 3 times to say when it was takenhttps://t.co/QXjcHMK5OQ

— Dan Bloom (@danbloom1) June 25, 2019

lol @ Max Hastings coming out with Boris as disaster and yet enabling his career at The Telegraph - a paper where he could now not be allowed to publish this piece. 'Sleepwalker' applies to him as much as anyone in his elite rank.

the absolute state of this cunt

NICK FERRARI: [If you're concerned for your privacy,] why the picture today?

BORIS JOHNSON: Newspapers will print whatever they're going to print

NF: Where it come from?

BJ: What I want to do is talk -

NF: Boris Johnson, where did the picture come from?

BJ: The longer we spend on issues -

NF: We'll come to that, don't worry. We've got 20 minutes to do this. Where did the picture come from?

BJ: The longer we spend on things extraneous -

NF: Did you know of its publication?

BJ: The longer we spend on things extraneous to what I want to do -

NF: Is it actually you, or is it Ed Sheeran?

BJ: [Laughs] The bigger the waste of time -

NF: Where has the picture come from?

BJ: Look, I'm not going to ask the -

NF: Are you happy with it on the majority of the front pages?

BJ: Actually as I've been saying... I haven't seen the majority of the front pages

NF: Well I'm showing it to you now. Are you happy with that?

BJ: I think the longer we spend - I can't determine what the newspapers decide to -

NF: But you knew the picture was being put out there?

BJ: I can't determine what the newspapers -

NF: Did you know the picture was being put out there, Mr Johnson?

BJ: There are all sorts of pictures of me out on the internet, which, er, pop up from time to time -

NF: Did you know this picture was being put out?

BJ: I am aware of alls sorts of pictures of me out on the internet. And it is entirely up to newspapers to decide what they want to print. But the longer we spend on this -

NF: Did you know this picture was out there?

BJ: Of course I knew that there was a picture like that in existence, whether it was the decision of the, er -

NF: When was it taken?

BJ: I don't want to go into...

NF: So that's a state secret, when the picture was taken? When was it taken?

BJ: It's not a state secret. It just happens to be something I don't want to get into.

NF: You won't even tell me when the picture was taken?

BJ: No! Why should I?

NF: Because it's not recent, is it? Your hair in this photograph is not your hair currently, is it?

BJ: If I may say so this conversation is now descending into farce...

NF: This is quite an old picture isn't it?

BJ: I'm not going to comment on -

NF: It's before the haircut you had from the Turkish chap

BJ: No you're wrong about that, I no longer have my hair cut by the Turkish chap, I have my hair cut by a very nice person called Kelly or possibly Tamara

NF: When did you last have your hair cut?

BJ: You'd have to ask Kelly or Tamara, it was quite recently actually. Anyway... this is beyond satire... I am not going to comment on the antiquity of provenance of some photo that the newspapers decide to put on their front pages. This is about a far more important agenda.

BJ: … Anyway... this is beyond satire...

Hmmm…

Read a tweet that says Johnson is "a consequence of postmodernism" and I really want to fucking die now.

Pre-pomo politicians were blissfully unaware of the theatrical sophistry their trade requires.

Also: BoJo confirmed cultural Marxist.

There's a straight line from Lenin to Adorno to Derrida to Johnson (only non-Philistines will get this).

lol, you are going to have to do a lot more work than you are atm on this. Thorwing names and hoping they stick is just lazy.

What?

Were your posts a joke?

lol it's sad that you have to ask.

jesus stand down, julio, you're not the only person on the internet who deploys irony

How do you know my questions to pom were not irony?

posting normally humidly

Out-danking pomo memes.

BJ: … Anyway... this is beyond satire...

― pomenitul, Tuesday, 25 June 2019 10:34 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

most things don't need satires -- most things are bad enough!
- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 25 July 2018

Kelly or possibly Tamara

It's a good job for Boris the membership of the Tory Party is 90% undead cryptofascists because his blithering incompetence at campaigning would shame Theresa May.

standard casual dehumanisation of the lower orders in pretending not to rememember their names

Of course.

i'm sure it'll pale next to his blithering incompetence at doing the job of prime minister

my seven year old insists on calling boris "joris bonson"

He might not get to do that for very long if he can't carry Parliament.

This level of evasiveness would be a terrible look in an election campaign because all it does is create space for rivals parties to set out their stalls. It didn't work for May in 2017 and it definitely won't work now that the field is more crowded. It'll work this time because no one who matters cares about Jeremy Hunt.

(xpost there's almost certainly a DJ called Joris Bonson)

https://soundcloud.com/mc-loud-3

BJ has appointed IDS his campaign lead

the quiet man is back

IDS knows a thing or two about being a successful leader of the Tory party. Boris can rest easy at last.

if only I could find that online txt file of the IDS spy-thriller novel again. it was an absolute peach.

the architect of universal credit takes on another huge project destined for similar success, jeremy cunt must be shitting it

jeremy cunt must be shitting it

Jeremy Cloaca

I might still have the IDS book saved somewhere, i'll check the computer later

https://bookos-z1.org/book/1503308/5f367d

you can get it here as a txt file!

Found it

She looks in the mirror and stares at the wrinkles
That weren't there yesterday
And thinks of the young man that she almost married
What would he think if he saw her this way?
She picks up her apron in little girl-fashion
As something comes into her mind
Slowly starts dancing remembering her girlhood
And all of the boys she had waiting in line
Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see everywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me
The photograph album she takes from the closet
And slowly turns the page
And carefully picks up the crumbling flower
The first one he gave her now withered with age
She closes her eyes and
Touches the house dress that suddenly disappears
And just for the moment she's wearing the gown
That broke all their minds back so many years
Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see everywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me
Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see everywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me
Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see everywhere any time of the day

John Grande, art dealer, lover, international man of mystery, tough bastard. possibly a character based on a composite of himself and boris

"Yeah," Laura Buckley replied. She continued to watch John as he
climbed up the track, "You know, Alice, he looks kind of sad, don't you
think?"

"I don't know about that; he's good-looking anyway." Alice van Buren
laughed, then laid her towel out. "Even if he was a bit skinny." She
took a magazine out from her bag and put on her dark glasses and lay
down.

Laura continued watching John as he walked up the path and over the
ridge. "A sad-looking guy .. ." she muttered, her voice trailing away
as she sat down.

the ladies love a complex character...

idsky idsky him sad

Beautiful.

Am I dreaming it or did Boris write a novel too. Two great literary titans together at last

do not want

Seventy Two Virgins
by Boris Johnson
HarperCollins £17.99, pp336

A gang of comedy terrorists penetrates the heart of Parliament. A Tory MP's researcher is to blame for the worst security breach in centuries. Ministers look on aghast as Westminster is defended by grand old men in silk stockings, breeches and ceremonial swords.

The determination of our times to trump the best fiction can conjure was illustrated again last month when protesters burst into the House of Commons, comprehensively scooping the plot of Boris Johnson's novel, Seventy Two Virgins, for sheer effrontery and farce.

The author imagines a group of Islamic militants pulling off an equivalent coup de theatre in the adjacent Westminster Hall, just as the US President is delivering a tiresome speech. A bicycling Tory MP whose buffoonery masks acute intelligence and a classical education - he might sound familiar to some readers - is the last, unlikely hope of the free world. One should not spoil the ending but you might just be able to guess.

I was so sure you'd made that up i had to google it. Didn't realise HarperCollins was a vanity publisher.

This is postmodern fiction

short, predictably awful thread on boris' novel here

I am looking again Boris’s novel 72 Virgins (that’s the title not the readership). Sex between two characters is described as the man “do[ing] that wonderful thing to her again”.

— Marina Hyde (@MarinaHyde) June 13, 2019

I understand Boris wrote this on holiday. Presumably it was quite a short holiday. pic.twitter.com/ruxcgwcYIg

— Anna Mazzola (@Anna_Mazz) June 13, 2019

"As buxom as all get out"

I was so sure you'd made that up i had to google it. Didn't realise HarperCollins was a vanity publisher.

"A sad-looking guy .. ." she muttered, her voice trailing away as she sat down.

LOL, this making buses from crates thing is gobsmacking.

he's barely there any more you know

when he starts building replica scale model panzer tanks out of wood there will be a stout defence of the Wehrmacht by the english media.

I hope these buses he makes out of wine crates are properly ventilated unlike the mobile saunas he foisted on the poor sweltering commuters of London during his tenure as Mayor (aka the Most Successful Politician In the History of Humanity).

Jeremy Corbyn is thinking about the bus lie as he flicks through his Big Book of Manhole Covers tonight and giggling.

Speaking of manhole covers WHY are yours all still RECTANGULAR? it is absurd

Ask Jeremy Corbyn, he's the expert.

*more giggling*

i'll have you know, some of these manhole/drain covers have very interesting foundry origin stories ... fascinating stufzzz zzzz!

Full disclosure here: i always look for dates and origin of steel!

UK needs to up its game. In japan manholes are an expression of local pride:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xi94oab5yvplgqb/IMG_3118.JPG?raw=1

I wonder if Jeremy knows about Drainspotters on NHK world?

the bus interview reaction is yere "delete your account" moment

normal country that is calm and posting like it usually does

A spokesman for Boris Johnson denies he has been wearing the same pair of socks since Saturday and insists he has "multiple" pairs

— John Stevens (@johnestevens) June 25, 2019

xxp nailed on, if he didn’t know before he def googled “Japanese manhole covers” after he got asked about his hobby on the one show.

(some of the ones around here are hexagonal, as well as the standard round and rectangular)

Don't let Boris see or a whole bunch of perfectly functional but bendy manhole covers will be replaced by some retro manhole covers that cost 5 time the price and disappear pensioners.

LOL, this making buses from crates thing is gobsmacking.

― Orpheus Knutt (Tom D.), Tuesday, 25 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's "wheat fields" level. I wouldn't be so sure he'd win his own seat, never mind a general election.

I guess he can't discuss his real hobbies in public

All this rampant BJ stupidity is giving you all false hope. Bitter recent experience all over the world shows no matter how fucking obviously incompetent, crooked and laughable someone is, they'll still get hold of power, keep hold of power, and make everything worse. He'll be in for years.

IDS has apparently been brought in to "inject some discipline" into the campaign and some unimpressed insider was quoted on R4 as saying his only claim to fame was presiding over one of the worst periods of modern tory history. lol, you can only work with the tools available, and they are missing out a couple of his accomplishments there.

I don't really believe he makes those fucking buses. Just a misjudged attempt at cultivating his idea of charming "eccentricity" imo.

Theres no false hope because if he drops out then Hunt comes in. There's no discernible difference, once you get past the headlines

Just a misjudged attempt at cultivating his idea of charming "eccentricity" imo.

He cba

"Bitter recent experience all over the world shows no matter how fucking obviously incompetent, crooked and laughable someone is, they'll still get hold of power, keep hold of power, and make everything worse."

Our recent experience is Theresa May and she lost her majority. It's true she still did a lot of damage, and hasn't yet left but still. Quite a few differences between Australia (where the left appears to be the End Mil type) and here.

End Mil = Ed Mil, autocorrect otm

still no BBC coverage of the hope not hate yougov poll. funny, they usually love yougov polls

Is this his ‘Churchill was a brickie”?

Thing is, even if actually does make buses out of crates with happy people in them, he looked like he was making it up as he went along. The Great Communicator!

a lifetime of lying will have that effect of rendering you not even being able to tell the truth with any conviction.

There's nothing inevitable about Johnson being around for years because his own constituency is unstable and diminishing, but i'm pretty sure nobody on this thread is given to much in the way of false hope

Also i think I'll scream if I see another one of his stooges trotting the PR line about him already being the most scrutinized politician in the UK when no-one knows for sure how many children he's fathered, for instance.

And, now that Jeremy Kyle's off air, we might never know.

VONC then becoming the *first sitting PM to ever lose his seat in a General Election would be a dream

(*citation needed)

The bus thing was the equivalent of going into an exam having memorised a particular essay only to find the relevant question doesn't appear on the paper, so you pick the nearest one and try and crowbar it in. He'd revised "Boris Johnson's achievements in lowering carbon emissions during his time as Mayor of London" and was determined to use it.

does boris paint blatant lies on the sides of his wine crate buses

buses parked in the boris bay

Not sure how much of this is paranoia, but

24 hours ago, if you Googled “Boris Bus” or checked out a #BorisBus hashtag you’d get the photo of him in front of the bus with the “We give £350m per week to the EU, Let’s spend that on the NHS” lie on it.

Now you get this: pic.twitter.com/KBVRvGBK1i

— Bethany Black (@BeffernieBlack) June 26, 2019

finally a cunning plan.

I mean, apart from anything else, "Boris bus" would have previously gotten you a picture of an actual Boris Bus.

Which are also widely loathed

Quite a few differences between Australia (where the left appears to be the End Mil type) and here.

hahahahahaha @ the idea of Scott Ludlam being opposition leader

Think Johnson's brains trust probably is capable of coming up with "say something eyecatchingly daft but basically inconsequential about buses to make the SEO more favourable"

I don't really believe he makes those fucking buses. Just a misjudged attempt at cultivating

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_cat_strategy

absolutely otm

dead cat ate my homework

i feel nervous for alive cat larry

Larry is bad, Palmerston and Gladstone are superior government cats.

all cats are bad not good - this is ilxpol canon

i love the badness of larry

Estela -

Drama at Downing Street this morning - Larry the cat has a face off with Palmerston from the Foreign Office. Fur and collar ripped off in the cat fight. @GMB pic.twitter.com/xGWUwZwlmO

— Nick Dixon (@NickDixonITV) February 16, 2018

Jeremy Corbyn’s Xmas card! Is this El Gato? pic.twitter.com/8sgxgdWNzb

— steve hawkes (@steve_hawkes) December 14, 2018

@pestononsunday had to go outside to take picture of El Gato as he's not too impressed with your guest pic.twitter.com/OOa6vWzeWU

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 22, 2016

deselect the member of parliament for islington north please

thank you gyac

larry is a ruffian<3

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/06/lenins-disguise-little-seen-photos-of-soviet-leader-go-on-show

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blondi

Now the Treasury has got a cat and he's called Gladstone https://t.co/Ja6OMglCL8 pic.twitter.com/FncmiTqren

— BuzzFeed UK Politics (@BuzzFeedUKPol) July 29, 2016

He can always change its name to Cripps.

he rested his case first

i rest mine

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9_Cj_NXYAIXniH.jpg

wtf i love jeremy hunt now

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D9-saT2XUAArq5W.jpg

Johnson after seeing Hunt's bold new "tell it like it is" tactic.

So....

Bip Ling, huh?

was this affair during his current affair or while he was married? - i can't keep up?

genuinely part of the campaign strategy

Isn’t he still technically married?

Yes, he is not yet divorced.

I definitely know who bip ling is

I thought it was a spoonerism at first!

Bip Ling: Classic or Dud?

I thought it was a spoonerism at first!

― calzino, Thursday, June 27, 2019 10:29 AM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol same

Is Boris ready to assume the mantle of Lembit Öpik?

he is a cheeky boy tbf

Boris and Bip delivering the lolz.

https://www.france.tv/image/carre/255/255/p/c/4/72995ef0-phptjx4cp.png

http://www.thechestnut.com/bleep/book/bleep-cover-front.jpg

lynton gaming the alg again (= hiding bleep and booster annuals from google)

BLOBIS be thy name

did you know that in his spare time lynton crosby makes carved dog whistles?

all the blip-boop-blobby-bozzer chat made me think "pour one out for tiggy legg-bork!" except then i checked and she's still with us and i was thinking of tara palmer tomkinson RIP

so pour one out for tara, likeable coked-up socialite from dunty's lost golden age

Yep, the Bip Ling thing makes a lot more sense if you think of her as part of a continuum with It Girls of yore.

bring back Lady Bienvenida Buck while we're at it

the it man and er

whither lady victoria hervey nowadays

ogmor reading this thread and fuming

what a thrilling sign of progress it is tho when our slocuhing blond beast is caught out knobbing someone called 'bip ling' rather than 'countess araminta cholomondely-smythington' or whatever

tbf "cholomondely-smythington" is pronounced ling and "bio" is what her friends called araminta at finishing school

ok lol

boris has a 2:1 lead over hunt in CH membership poll and row revelations “have not harmed his standing”

lmao no shit - shame doesn’t work on these people

What if he's bippled tho?

jeremy cunt 'frantically trying to have an affair' in order to boost his standing in tory leadership contest, insiders say

Does anyone have Tiggy-Leggy-Bourkey's number?

if it's a former aide to princes william and harry you're after, jeremy, rory stewart is hot, ready and legal

Curious researching tells me that Tiggy's sister married someone called Captain Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, although neither she nor any of her siblings appear to have written novels - unlike Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, sadly. And Boris Johnson.

guys did you see bojo's socks?? absolute flangespaniel

Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax is Mp for South Dorset - though, alas, no longer the husband of a Legge-Bourke.

Disgraceful amount of posho fanfic itt. Can’t wait for comrade alphabet to emerge from his cocoon and roll tanks on you all.

did you know that in his spare time lynton crosby makes carved dog whistles?

Boris Johnson has declared his cabinet, should he become Prime Minister, would just be comprised of people committed to leaving the EU on October 31 https://t.co/N1yFwTGrQt

— Telegraph Politics (@TelePolitics) June 27, 2019

the conservative party, folks, they're not sending their best

starting to think Johnson only wants to be PM to hard Brexit on Oct 31st and will announce resignation on Nov 1

Hard Brexit is the only thing he can "achieve" tbh

Christ, it's going to be Raab at DExEU, isn't it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWSuEFYRDBg

boris achieve much hard one

*obtain

FUCK

sonned by imago in a boris' hard one beef

Coincidence?

Lingling, lingling.
Be their maggies in all.
Chump, do your ephort.
Shop!
Please shop!
Shop ado please!
O ado please shop!
How hominous his house, haunt it?

— Finnegans Wake (@finnegansreader) June 27, 2019

21 12 2012 = finnegansday

adam bienkov is the only lobby hack worth following

“When I make a promise I keep that promise,” Boris Johnson told the first Tory hustings.

Last week Boris Johnson promised to hold an inquiry into Islamophobia in the Conservative party.

Today he revealed that he won't. https://t.co/YIgifhEWNO

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) June 27, 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/03/boris-johnson-cash-splurge-election-voters

Mildly interesting piece on how Boris could do it. No deal getting only a line is my problem with it.

We need to get much more serious and imaginative, show that staying in the EU is the best way to end austerity...

not sure about this - and is kinda undermined by the rest of his piece

best way, not only way, I guess...

The gilts market has been remarkably buoyant since the financial crisis despite every dire Tory warning and credit rating downgrade but that state of affairs might not necessarily survive a bad Brexit and would affect the government's ability to borrow freely. In general ending austerity is the best way to invest for growth but there's more room for movement without the constant instability that Brexit is inflicting upon the country.

A Soft Brexit might calm a lot of investor nerves and business groups would probably be fairly happy but it's looking increasingly obvious that a Soft Brexit won't end up pleasing enough people within Westminster for very long and we'll be back on this merry-go-round of stupidity soon enough.

really tho, if we imagine a soft Brexit happened where would the ERG nutters have to go? trade war? actual war? build a wall down the middle of the Channel?

speaking of the ERG, this was a small piece of good news yesterday: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/tax-funded-research-by-rees-moggs-erg-must-be-released-tribunal-rules/

It's not just the ERG nutters (although Farage is still evidently able to put major pressure on the Tories). It's the Remain-at-all-Costs group as well - I doubt there are the numbers in Westminster or the country at large to support a Soft Brexit and neither side seems especially interested in compromising. Even if a deal was somehow hammered into place and managed to carry Parliament it feels like a centre that can't hold for long, any WA is just the beginning of the process after all.

i guess but i'm not sure what form the pressure from the Brexit side could take, once we're "out" it's a question of arguing about trade deals and that's not going to command public attention in the same way as "the EU are our evil overlords".

hadn't thought about the melt side and you've a point there but again it only really applies to the current Parliament? the Lib Dems would no doubt be free to reap the hundreds of seats that their "rejoin immediately" policy would command and the Labour party would have to thrash out a position but from the relative comfort of dodging the betrayal narrative and campaigning from some kind of ground zero

nb i'm just pondering hypotheticals i agree that there is no soft Brexit outcome actually visible from here

and a hard Brexit option is only marginally more visible

so i wrote up the fintan o'toole piece:

.@POTUS just now @BorisJohnson: "Good man. He's tough and he's smart. They're saying Britain Trump. They call him Britain Trump."

— Cordelia Lynch (@CordeliaSkyNews) July 23, 2019

boiling down that i think's wrong with it to two lines of attack:
1: it wastes much elegant time close-reading the faint fine line between the "real" boris and boris the performer (as if getting this right will somehow mitigate the public affect of the performance: it won't)
2: it doesn't do much more than handwave at the milieu which enables and empowers and uses him: using cliched shorthand derived from 1 to obscure (a) its scale and nature and (b) its dynamics

i'm tempted to simplify this almost into a diagram

"boris :: churchill" as a decoy mask for "empire 2.0 :: empire 1.0" -- meaning that every time someone says e.g. "boris thinks he's churchill, lol he's no churchill" and brays some (no doubt deservedly) venomous gag abt etonians or putin or silicon valley billionaires or whatever you think the centre of darkness is, we get *less* purchase on the second bit of the diagram

empire 2.0 is indeed "not like" empire 1.0 –– and maybe words like akratic and stuplime can help diagnose how the disguise functions from day to day -- but what IS it like? what is the shape being disguised? how far is it evolved? does it still manifest as hard-to-credit chaos bcz it is still mutabler and merely emergent? and (more to the point) how to we get good at fashioning a politics* from its unmasking and its overthrow?**

*i'm a writer and an an editor and a critic, so this is definitely going to include how we write about it (lol at some point)
**also (not exactly irrelevantly) it is too hot for me to think well abt anything, let alone matters of urgency

I was thinking of reviving this last night to speculate on how Boris could do it.

I read James Butler's piece in the NY times yesterday (which did a speedier mining of Johnson's literary ouevre) and it seemed to be focusing on Johnson (as Freedland on Newsnight last night, although Butler is a higher class of analyst) as something of a dark day for British democracy in which this liar and vulgar person has been appointed to the job, as if the Tories wouldn't ever resort to the lowest of the low if it could save them. They'd totally have Farage in there if they could.

That brings us to the things which he could do. Cummings as appointment could be interesting, although there will be a lot more of a focus on him and his activities. Its also about what kind of deal Boris strikes which makes the Brexit Party go away - and whether that deal means a No deal manifesto pledge, which is pretty much unpopular. Seems like the key thing on which an election could depend on although the numbers are precarious (and Charlie Elpicke being charged yesterday was as big a story really) for him and he might not have a choice. The depressing Newsnight discussion on whether he could revive May's deal with cosmetic changes I think underestimates the damage she did to it - we'll see on that, but trying to revive that dead dog is a huge risk as he could lose votes - and more of his mind - on the attempt.

i can't tell what the "it" is that you think he might do

But, to focus on personality for a sec there was a Michael Cockerell profile last night -- doing as he usually does. I do wonder whether the Boris boosters are recalling a person who did have that ugly charisma (which was charm to many of his friends) and whether a recollection is what it remains. Its probably fancilful to think this will be noticed but I wonder beyond the (again) ugly affairs (which were being written off as MPs behaving like human beings, like we've forgotten there is a tape of him out there having an argument or worse with his current gf), the number of people he has pissed off, is the thing that really sinks him.

xp = you mean to revive the deal?

total thermonuclear war or gtfo afaic xp

xp = you mean to revive the deal?

why are you asking me what you meant?

I put in a couple of things he might try an do so was wondering if you were being more specific.

the "could do it" was going back to the "who can" of the title you set up. I assumed that was about how he might be successful as PM/get out of the hole he has dug for himself.

He did the 'can' yesterday, the question in the thread title has been settled.

yes as andrew says, at the time the thread began, "blond beast who can" really just meant "can become PM" (i think i had in the back of my mind the little engine that could) -- so i re that query YES HE CAN and there's nothing more to debate really :(

as to the specific projects before him, i'm increasingly inclined to see "deal brexit" and/or "no deal brexit" as alternative routes towards a much larger asset-stripping and firesale and social reconfiguration, which may well be a medium-term success even if he fails to deliver some specific version of whatever ppl are claiming will satisfy them today -- trump's deals aren't functional in old-school technocratic terms, but they don't even slightly have to be for the ppl that benefit to recognise they're benefiting

(i do actually continue to think of him as much more of a hollow scarecrow figure emptied of personal agency and will than he was before he flinched in the clinch)

innarestin' to wonder where we'd be now if he hadn't flinched back then

all dead, probably

Ok I saw it as a sequel to the Theresa May thread, which iirc was about how good was she really at her job -- getting Brexit through, winning people over, that kind of thing.

Winning the Tory Party contest was -- to me anyway -- a nothing sort of achievement. xp

i guess my sequence of thought is:

a (basic assumption) : there is actually a complex machinery of state that needs delicate steering to pull this off
b (TM thread thesis): TM thinks she's the dedicated and focused technocrat who can pull it off (but IMO she isn't and can't)
c (this thread when it started): BJ bottled it then bcz he's daunted by the "complex machinery of state" and his judgment (that he's not up to it) is widely shared
d (belated realisation)**: the "complex machinery of state" has been massively damaged by may in the process of delivering her version of brexit (without it being delivered), its own structures are no longer part of the landscape we're passing through
e: whatever exists now -- SHAPE TO BE DETERMINED, THE ACTUAL IMPORTANT AND INTERESTING QUESTION -- is no longer daunting to BJ, bcz it's basically hired him and is pointing him in the direction it wants us all to go

**this shd probably not have taken me so long to realise maybe, i'm conflicted abt it bcz its dismantlement is in principle a good thing but as a consequence i think a lot of bad things are going to happen first, just bcz there's very little now slowing them down

its dismantlement is in principle a good thing

i'd be inclined to agree were it happening as a careful taking-apart with a clear view of how it will be reassembled and to what end rather than boris' inevitable approach of kicking over the sandcastle and hope the free market shores it up before the rising tides (quite literally) carry it all away

he can only kick anything over because it's already entirely hollowed out (like him)

for better or worse careful taking-apart with a clear view to reassembly never happens anyway so let's just enjoy this brief pause for breath and the wreckage of the ancien regime before the Terror starts

the terror is when you look in the mirror and realise you are actually trapped in Toby young's body and have to go through and endless loop of him writing that piece where he imagines Boris "with his broad Germanic forehead" wearing lederhosen.

although it was a relief to see he was trending for that fawning piece of homo-erotica rather him being unveiled the minister for eugenics and prevention of undesirable reproduction.

still time yet

here's sociologist and twitter-user @philbc3 rooting things in the decline of the tory party as an institution: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4391-the-meaning-of-boris-johnson

i don't disagree with this as sociology but it goes hand-in-hand with the hollowing out since the 70s of many key state institutions, plus the transformations in media since the 80s

shrunken
hunched
cowardly
lump who is never going to

i mean he's prime minister i guess, but is he going to? is he?

he's trying as best he can to channel his slouching beast, but the cowardly shrunken lump can never be fully exorcised.

my theory (for it's worth) (= nothing, i'm posting it on ilx) is that he actually really truly realised he didn't want it when the first clinch came, and flinched as everyone saw

but in the interim, during the may years, a *lot* of ppl with a lot of clout (= money and pet media-outlets) came to him and said, "no, go for it, we're behind you" -- and he still didn't really want it but he went for it, bcz at least all this gave him some kind of comfortable fallback and support network, and, well, time spent in rooms being gladhanded by toadies and the slick liaison ppl of various billionaires, and he began to convince himself it could and would work out, so here we are

very cool that we’re all gonna die because this priapic sack of rancid mayonnaise was stupid enough to be flattered by parasites, idiots, and his own throbbing ego into grabbing power he never wanted or ever had the faintest idea how to wield

this priapic sack, etc., no longer commands a majority

bg... welcome to the club

I'd never noticed his horrible little yellow-grey teeth until yesterday.

he is rotting from within iirc

"The EU.. to force us.. that's what they want, the EU, to force us..."

He's saying it all but it sounds so forced, so unconvincing. After today I am resigned to believe he doesn't have a clue. Which is a relief tbh, with all the "but he's smart not dumb, he's got a cunning plan just you wait!" comments. He's out of his depth, throwing the dice without having a plan, hoping for the best. Knowing that at the very least he'll be on wikipedia under the 'past MP's' header.

(relief for me obv not relief for the uk ppl)

But but Dominic Cumberbatch is the brains of the operation...

His name is now Quentin Taranchemo, do keep up!

i know too many columnists like him. He embarked on this wheeze after deciding the 800 words he had cranked out for "leave" were funnier than the "remain" draft and that's about all there is to it.

It's sort of beautiful that May spunked all the valid options they had away, so now they're actually in charge and they have little left to do but bluster over the dregs.