If he really feels the need to get back to work so soon, then he can’t have much faith in the rest of his cabinet. There again, that’s one area where you can’t really fault his judgment.
Not necessarily. One area where the UK genuinely leads the world is in "presenteeism". We applaud women who are back in the office, stomach flat as a board, within weeks of giving birth. We express approval when people boast of being back at the desk after major illness. There is an overwhelming fear, at every level, that absence for any reason will be seen as weakness by colleagues and incompetence/ skiving by "management".
As a society we demand of our leaders that they dispense with normal reactions to illness, bereavement or family crisis and be very publicly "in harness". Remember those headlines when our monarch tried to put family first when her grandsons lost their mother? Never mind that she was endeavouring to comfort two traumatised children, the press and members of the public were savage in their condemnation of her absence from London. No British leader will ever feel comfortable behaving "normally" or as common sense should dictate after that.
Is it society or is it the media? It seems to me that a segment of the press hitched their wagon to the Diana train and stoked a previously unseen level of public emotion. Blair rode it, as he rode so much else, but I think the negative headlines were media driven, not societal.
Where I think you have a point is that Johnson was going to get criticised whether he was back at work or not, partly because different people will prioritise things differently, but partly because a lot of folk want the bastard away from the levers of power, by hook or by crook.
If he really feels the need to get back to work so soon, then he can’t have much faith in the rest of his cabinet. There again, that’s one area where you can’t really fault his judgment.
Not necessarily. One area where the UK genuinely leads the world is in "presenteeism". We applaud women who are back in the office, stomach flat as a board, within weeks of giving birth. We express approval when people boast of being back at the desk after major illness. There is an overwhelming fear, at every level, that absence for any reason will be seen as weakness by colleagues and incompetence/ skiving by "management".
As a society we demand of our leaders that they dispense with normal reactions to illness, bereavement or family crisis and be very publicly "in harness". Remember those headlines when our monarch tried to put family first when her grandsons lost their mother? Never mind that she was endeavouring to comfort two traumatised children, the press and members of the public were savage in their condemnation of her absence from London. No British leader will ever feel comfortable behaving "normally" or as common sense should dictate after that.
Is it society or is it the media? It seems to me that a segment of the press hitched their wagon to the Diana train and stoked a previously unseen level of public emotion. Blair rode it, as he rode so much else, but I think the negative headlines were media driven, not societal.
<snip>
Not sure you're right about it being just the media: if you look at TV coverage of the days between the death and the funeral there were many, many vox-pop interviews with members of the public saying where is the queen and she should be here. Newspapers quoted the same opinions.
Some people were genuinely upset by Diana's death. Some people were a bit sad and that was all. It doesn't take a BA in Journalism to work out who was going to get on the news.
Yes, the media reaction to the death of Diana was a time when I didn't recognise the country I was seeing on TV. It was very different from what was around me.
I was upset by Diana's death. I was also analysing my own reaction and other people's, in so far as I was able. No doubt the media bigged it up, but I thought there was something real going on, but quite complex, o/t here.
Another zinger from John Crace's column today: "His persona that has been carefully constructed over 55 years to protect himself from the pain of being himself is falling apart. Yet still he can’t quite access the humility that might go some way to healing himself."
We are watching Johnson (almost as much as Trump) unravel before our eyes. He keeps mouthing the same sub-Churchillian shit, but there may be some genuine fear about how long people will keep buying it. And he's got nothing else to offer.
Another zinger from John Crace's column today: "His persona that has been carefully constructed over 55 years to protect himself from the pain of being himself is falling apart. Yet still he can’t quite access the humility that might go some way to healing himself."
We are watching Johnson (almost as much as Trump) unravel before our eyes. He keeps mouthing the same sub-Churchillian shit, but there may be some genuine fear about how long people will keep buying it. And he's got nothing else to offer.
Yes, Crace keeps hitting hard. My fear is that Boris will manage to bullshit people, and of course the Tory press will headline, hero, father, god. I almost thought he was going to say what a triumph, we will fight them on the beaches, etc., but I suppose the care homes are a reminder that the virus is not a bunch of Nazis. Good point about humility, not to say, grief.
I almost thought he was going to say what a triumph, we will fight them on the beaches, etc.,
The whole point of how we fight the virus is that we don't go to the beaches!
Hmmm....
<putting on best Churchillian voice>
We shall fight Covid not on the beaches, we shall fight not on the playgrounds, we shall fight by not being in the fields and not the streets (unless we are key workers), we shall fight in the hills for our socially-distanced, once-daily exercise; we shall never surrender...
Some people were genuinely upset by Diana's death. Some people were a bit sad and that was all. It doesn't take a BA in Journalism to work out who was going to get on the news.
I was bemused by the reaction. Yes, OK, a bit sad at her death and felt sorry for her children, but the whole circus around her funeral was just really strange. And that song! You could not get away from The Song! (aargh)
Normally at this time of year we'd be considering trips to the beach or various beauty spots in the National Park we live right next to, but so far we have resisted the temptation. The dog is getting very bored with walks around the village, but it could be worse... at least we live in a nice semi-rural area.
I live a few miles from the sea but whether I'm allowed to go there at the moment is somewhat unclear. Rumour has it that people driving there need to find an out-of-the-way parking spot (most car parks are barricaded anyway) as the locals don't take kindly to visitors. It's all getting a bit League of Gentlemen.
I could cycle to the beach and call it my daily exercise (rather more than the statutory hour), but I've decided to make do with the garden and the park for the time being. I'm better off than most.
Could you imagine a woman getting to any position of authority with a personal life as chaotic as Johnsons?
Good point. I suspect that the tabloids would be hounding her to kingdom come, and getting saucy snaps for their lubricious front pages.
Isn't that how you want the tabloids to be treating Johnson?
Quetzalcoatl has spoken for himself.
Personally, I'd rather the tabloids would simply stick to facts. Just as I'd rather the Johnsonites would be consistent with the quality of worship they expect the public to afford their great Leader.
My wife's reaction was 'She was a little minx.' My own was 'Sad, but . . .' And as for making the children walk behind their mother's coffin . . . .!
Isn't that a normal thing? Now I know that the whole semi-state funeral thing wasn't exactly 'normal'. But that aside, it's fairly usual for family members of whatever age, including kids, to walk behind the coffin on the way to the church, if there is a walk to church. Maybe not uniformly across the British Isles where traditions have moved on. But I didn't think there was anything unusual in that.
It's about the local customs. There are similar customs vis-a-vis wearing white clothing and headbands and who knows what among the Vietnamese, and standing up in front of the coffin while everybody comes by and hugs you (yeesh, just had a social distancing moment!) and while I think I'd hate that, it seems to be a real source of comfort for the people I know from that culture.
Not in my part of the world. Yes, follow the coffin into church or crem from the street, if you're reasonably adult or with your family around you. But to have the eyes of the world on you, and in the context of a family break-up, and being made to do this as a semi-political ploy. We have it on the authorityof the people inquestion that the whole event was a traumatic experience for them.
Not in my part of the world. Yes, follow the coffin into church or crem from the street, if you're reasonably adult or with your family around you. But to have the eyes of the world on you, and in the context of a family break-up, and being made to do this as a semi-political ploy. We have it on the authorityof the people inquestion that the whole event was a traumatic experience for them.
Yeah, well, that's where we count on adults to take the needs of the children into account as they should. it doesn't always happen, which is awful.
Of course, when such things start up again, he will have to go to the registry office to be added to the birth certificate, as he is not married to the child's mother. I must admit that I did think that there will be child maintenance claim number X coming in the next few years.
Depends how close you live to a beach and how crowded they are.
I'm within a handful of miles of being literally as far from the sea as it's possible to get in the UK!
Sucks to be you then, I guess.
Not at all. This must place Marvin in Warwickshire, the most beautiful county in the kingdom! (Not that I'm biased at all....)
Technically I’m in the county called West Midlands, and have been for as long as I can remember. But where I am now was historically Worcestershire (or Shropshire if you go back far enough, and Worcestershire again if you keep going back another few hundred years from there!).
I live a few miles from the sea but whether I'm allowed to go there at the moment is somewhat unclear. Rumour has it that people driving there need to find an out-of-the-way parking spot (most car parks are barricaded anyway) as the locals don't take kindly to visitors. It's all getting a bit League of Gentlemen.
I could cycle to the beach and call it my daily exercise (rather more than the statutory hour), but I've decided to make do with the garden and the park for the time being. I'm better off than most.
As I understood it, the "rules" (such as they are, given it's mostly in the form of advice rather than specific instructions - something more specific would have probably been more useful) is that exercise should be taken from home (and, for example, not include an extended pause to eat a picnic lunch or take selfies of where you've got too) and that driving should only be for essential journeys - to work (for those who need to travel to work), to buy groceries or medical treatment. Therefore, people should not be driving to take their permitted exercise somewhere else - including going to the beach.
I am suddenly reminded of something my mother told us once about the war, when Brighton was in the sea adjacent zone closed off from the rest of the country, and contained her friends, while she lived inland a bit. She would cycle seawards, then leave the road before she reached the check points, and push her bike over the Downs. I don't know how often she did this. Of course she knew she was not up to no good and damaging the war effort.
No one has anything against the poor baby, but the media coverage is 'pass the sickbag' like a royal baby and sucks up air from scrutinising a government whose mistakes are likely killing frontline health staff, so maybe give it a miss on lecturing those of us who don't have the luck to live in a well-governed country at the moment that we're not being suitably deferential to our betters and their media coverage.
No one has anything against the poor baby, but the media coverage is 'pass the sickbag' like a royal baby and sucks up air from scrutinising a government whose mistakes are likely killing frontline health staff, so maybe give it a miss on lecturing those of us who don't have the luck to live in a well-governed country at the moment that we're not being suitably deferential to our betters and their media coverage.
I totally agree, especially with the UK on track for the worse death rate in Europe, in large part down to the government’s ineptitude and hubris.
No one has anything against the poor baby, but the media coverage is 'pass the sickbag' like a royal baby and sucks up air from scrutinising a government whose mistakes are likely killing frontline health staff, so maybe give it a miss on lecturing those of us who don't have the luck to live in a well-governed country at the moment that we're not being suitably deferential to our betters and their media coverage.
So far as I can see, thinking up new nicknames for a kid who has no responsibility for their parents' choices distracts from the very issues you mention and plays into the very coverage you (and I) detest. Presumably he's fair game to be bullied at school, too?
Sure Alan and Bishop's finger are actually going to go to Eton and whisper in kids' ears ten years hence from now to be sure to be mean to the Johnson sprog and they're about to be on WATO on Radio 4 going on about it too to the exclusion of anything else. How dare they mock the reverential media coverage of our celeb political overlords!
Oh, give me a job at Eton. I'm sure I can develop a means of teaching Physics with a Socialist twist to get the spoilt little brats an education that opens their eyes to both the wonders of the physical universe and the impact of their privilege on the millions they share this country with.
The question is whether parents' kids are fair game for their misdeeds.
In my view, deciding they are amounts to eagerly grabbing on the populist playbook with both hands, and the more that's done, no matter the format, it's legitimising the tactic, including for those who might not have the inclination to address the more serious issues. But fire away, this is Hell.
Fawning media coverage about Royal births is a well known genre and is totally fair game for satire when it's expanded to politicians, and people can tell the difference between that and actual baby-hating. I think you're missing a big old slice of context.
I don't think mockery of the parents' naming choices actually has much connection to the child. I think, for another example, mockery of little baby Moon Unit's name was entirely focussed on Frank and Gail Zappa.
That mockery was because the name was outlandish by any standards, rather than due to misdirected anger about the effect they believed the Zappas were having on their lives.
Have you never heard a BBC announcer lead the bulletin in reverential tones with announcement of a new royal baby name? "Prince George Alexander Louis" etc. That's exactly how they did the Boris baby names. And yes people who laugh about that and imagine outre names are sending up the birth coverage and not the child.
Comments
Is it society or is it the media? It seems to me that a segment of the press hitched their wagon to the Diana train and stoked a previously unseen level of public emotion. Blair rode it, as he rode so much else, but I think the negative headlines were media driven, not societal.
Where I think you have a point is that Johnson was going to get criticised whether he was back at work or not, partly because different people will prioritise things differently, but partly because a lot of folk want the bastard away from the levers of power, by hook or by crook.
Not sure you're right about it being just the media: if you look at TV coverage of the days between the death and the funeral there were many, many vox-pop interviews with members of the public saying where is the queen and she should be here. Newspapers quoted the same opinions.
We are watching Johnson (almost as much as Trump) unravel before our eyes. He keeps mouthing the same sub-Churchillian shit, but there may be some genuine fear about how long people will keep buying it. And he's got nothing else to offer.
Yes, Crace keeps hitting hard. My fear is that Boris will manage to bullshit people, and of course the Tory press will headline, hero, father, god. I almost thought he was going to say what a triumph, we will fight them on the beaches, etc., but I suppose the care homes are a reminder that the virus is not a bunch of Nazis. Good point about humility, not to say, grief.
The whole point of how we fight the virus is that we don't go to the beaches!
Depends how close you live to a beach and how crowded they are. The beaches are among the few things maintaining our sanity.
Hmmm....
<putting on best Churchillian voice>
We shall fight Covid not on the beaches, we shall fight not on the playgrounds, we shall fight by not being in the fields and not the streets (unless we are key workers), we shall fight in the hills for our socially-distanced, once-daily exercise; we shall never surrender...
Yeah, kinda works...
AFZ
I'm within a handful of miles of being literally as far from the sea as it's possible to get in the UK!
I was bemused by the reaction. Yes, OK, a bit sad at her death and felt sorry for her children, but the whole circus around her funeral was just really strange. And that song! You could not get away from The Song! (aargh)
Normally at this time of year we'd be considering trips to the beach or various beauty spots in the National Park we live right next to, but so far we have resisted the temptation. The dog is getting very bored with walks around the village, but it could be worse... at least we live in a nice semi-rural area.
Sucks to be you then, I guess.
I could cycle to the beach and call it my daily exercise (rather more than the statutory hour), but I've decided to make do with the garden and the park for the time being. I'm better off than most.
Quetzalcoatl has spoken for himself.
Personally, I'd rather the tabloids would simply stick to facts. Just as I'd rather the Johnsonites would be consistent with the quality of worship they expect the public to afford their great Leader.
Isn't that a normal thing? Now I know that the whole semi-state funeral thing wasn't exactly 'normal'. But that aside, it's fairly usual for family members of whatever age, including kids, to walk behind the coffin on the way to the church, if there is a walk to church. Maybe not uniformly across the British Isles where traditions have moved on. But I didn't think there was anything unusual in that.
Not at all. This must place Marvin in Warwickshire, the most beautiful county in the kingdom! (Not that I'm biased at all....)
Yeah, well, that's where we count on adults to take the needs of the children into account as they should. it doesn't always happen, which is awful.
More than you could possibly know.
Technically I’m in the county called West Midlands, and have been for as long as I can remember. But where I am now was historically Worcestershire (or Shropshire if you go back far enough, and Worcestershire again if you keep going back another few hundred years from there!).
That’s more than enough clues, I think
Under Likely to Be Reasonable:
"Driving to countryside and
walking (where far more
time is spent walking than
driving). "
https://www.college.police.uk/What-we-do/COVID-19/Documents/What-constitutes-a-reasonable-excuse.pdf
Pip, Squeak and Wilfred which I know and use as a warm up game for PE.
Following that thought, maybe his Pater should change his name to Fly-Fornication?
I thought politicians' kids were off-limits, even for Hell, but I guess this is the new normal.
Yes, the lad's third given name is Nicholas
I'm fairly sure that there have been previous posts mocking Rees-Mogg's children's names.
I totally agree, especially with the UK on track for the worse death rate in Europe, in large part down to the government’s ineptitude and hubris.
So far as I can see, thinking up new nicknames for a kid who has no responsibility for their parents' choices distracts from the very issues you mention and plays into the very coverage you (and I) detest. Presumably he's fair game to be bullied at school, too?
Hopefully de Pfeffle will emerge from both the hospital and the new family state with a smidgen of humanity.
Or is this too much to ask......
In my view, deciding they are amounts to eagerly grabbing on the populist playbook with both hands, and the more that's done, no matter the format, it's legitimising the tactic, including for those who might not have the inclination to address the more serious issues. But fire away, this is Hell.
I don't think mockery of the parents' naming choices actually has much connection to the child. I think, for another example, mockery of little baby Moon Unit's name was entirely focussed on Frank and Gail Zappa.