Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

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  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    Putting his feet on Macron's table was sheer bad manners . Macron must be congratulated for not rising to the bait.

    He did think the better of it. The video shows that his foot was there for a moment only. I think he just didn’t think - putting his feet on the table is quite normal for him. At least the foot came down quickly.

    The still photo makes very poor optics for him, so that’s a good thing.

    The longer he’s around the fewer supporters he’ll have. No bully can ‘charm’ forever - can they?

  • Although it sounds as if they were joking about tables being used as footstools, so Macron was in on the joke.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Putting his feet on Macron's table was sheer bad manners . Macron must be congratulated for not rising to the bait.

    No, it's a Trumpian strategy for diverting attention from substantive content. Journalists love this since news has become entertainment first and foremost. The BBC has a whole article on how it wasn't really rude.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    Putting his feet on Macron's table was sheer bad manners . Macron must be congratulated for not rising to the bait.

    No, it's a Trumpian strategy for diverting attention from substantive content. Journalists love this since news has become entertainment first and foremost. The BBC has a whole article on how it wasn't really rude.

    Very true.

    1. It keeps his name in the news, front and centre.
    2. It distracts from his real intentions.

    We have become a world of ‘the entertained’ and even deep thinkers and experts play into that. Despicable tRumps and de Pfeffels use this to their full advantage.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Yes, I can see what you're getting at - all the more congratulations to Macron then, as a response from him would have diverted the press even more.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »
    It's disturbingly appropriate that this priapismic tangent should be on this of all threads.

    It's difficult to laugh these days, and laughing where Mr de Piffle Johnson is involved leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, but 😜

    Totally agree (but I'd include the de Piffle in that).
  • FFS, it was a joke by Macron that started it, acc to Sky News.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited August 2019
    Yes, and all the media can talk about is the joke, how it played out on social media, how this was a ministerpretation, etc. etc., all accompanied by photos of Boris playing the buffoon. Who can tell me what was said in the discussions?
  • I'm not a fan of Boris, but the video shows them joking around, although I can't tell what they're saying. But misinterpreting it as Boris having a power play over Macron seems barmy to me.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited August 2019
    The point is that Boris, with the collusion of journalists, has put his face front and centre and successfully diverted attention from the substance of the issues with a silly and photogenic gesture - which was not required by Macron's chitchat. This is straight out of the Trump playbook. Any speculation on who won which power play is just more of the same tactic.
  • I think a significant part of the point is that the anti-Boris crowd are so eager to jump on anything and everything they can portray as negative about him that they're perfectly happy to ignore the facts in order to do so.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    I think a significant part of the point is that the anti-Boris crowd are so eager to jump on anything and everything they can portray as negative about him that they're perfectly happy to ignore the facts in order to do so.
    @Marvin the Martian if you can find something positive to say about him, please tell me. I can't see anything positive or favourable that can be said about this disgusting specimen. It is difficult to find any adjective that can truthfully and politely be used of him in circles where we are supposed to love our neighbour and not speak ill of them.

  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    The
    I think a significant part of the point is that the anti-Boris crowd are so eager to jump on anything and everything they can portray as negative about him that they're perfectly happy to ignore the facts in order to do so.

    Boris is perfectly happy to jump on any bandwagon saying negative things about people he doesn’t like. He is very happy to simply tell a lie with a smile on his face. He is only getting backlash for what he does
  • I think a significant part of the point is that the anti-Boris crowd are so eager to jump on anything and everything they can portray as negative about him that they're perfectly happy to ignore the facts in order to do so.

    This isn't the anti-Boris crowd. The BBC devoted an entire article to how this putting-foot-on-the-table was alright really, but completely failed to mention the substance of the discussions. It's entertainment, nothing more, nothing less, and Boris plays this card all the time: just like Trump.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Yes, and all the media can talk about is the joke, how it played out on social media, how this was a ministerpretation, etc. etc., all accompanied by photos of Boris playing the buffoon. Who can tell me what was said in the discussions?

    We all knew how the discussion was going to go before they met, so it's not news. We didn't know that there was going to be goofing around with tables, which makes it something to talk about which isn't a repeat of things repeated a thousand times already.

    For the record, the discussion summary:

    Fiffler: The UK is leaving the EU, we want to negotiate a deal in the next few weeks which gives the UK everything I want, and dismantles the foundations of the EU.

    Macron: Non
  • Why, M. Macron sounds just like his predecessor, the late, great, Charles de Gaulle!

    Maybe the good General was right, after all...
    :grimace:
  • Enoch wrote: »
    I can't see anything positive or favourable that can be said about this disgusting specimen.

    That doesn't mean you should make shit up about him though.
  • There is no need to make it up.
  • I think it's true that Boris plays the entertainer, and probably always has. However, right now, I don't think the opposition can deal with him. If he is on an election track, which looks very likely, he is winning hands down. Just calling him names helps him.
  • All one can say is that he let himself be wrongfooted, this time. Boom-boom!
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »
    I can't see anything positive or favourable that can be said about this disgusting specimen.

    That doesn't mean you should make shit up about him though.
    I haven't done. What are you accusing me of making up? As many shipmates have already pointed out, there's a vast amount of proven detritus already out there in the public space.

    @Marvin the Martian I was asking you the opposite question. What can you say about him that's good?
  • Enoch wrote: »
    @Marvin the Martian I was asking you the opposite question. What can you say about him that's good?

    I liked the “Boris Bikes” idea from when he was London Mayor.
  • Increasing availability of bikes is great. Practically useless if it's not also accompanied by a programme of vastly improving the infrastructure for cyclists. Proper cycle lanes, segregated from pedestrians and motor vehicles, properly maintained - and reducing capacity for cars if needed.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Why, M. Macron sounds just like his predecessor, the late, great, Charles de Gaulle!

    Maybe the good General was right, after all...
    :grimace:

    He was.
  • Weren't Boris Bikes Ken Livingstone's idea, in fact?
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Eirenist wrote: »
    Weren't Boris Bikes Ken Livingstone's idea, in fact?
    That is my understanding. They appeared almost immediately upon his election, which is usually a sign that the previous regime did the work.

  • AndrasAndras Shipmate
    Yes, Piffle has the nasty habit of claiming other people's successes as his own while denying responsibility for his own numerous foul-ups, like the illegal water cannon he bought and which later had to be scrapped having proved a total waste of public money.

    He's a thoroughly nasty piece of work, and a man who gives the adjective charming a bad name. And yes, I have met him, many years ago, in one of the Commons' tearooms, where he was busily showing off to a couple of his constituents.
  • I hate to tell you this but the idea of bicyles for hire in London was first proposed by LibDem Lynne Featherstone (remember her, sometime candidate for Mayor?) was back in 2001.

    Then the conservatives took up the idea in early 2007 - I think February, could have been March.

    Ken "the newt" Livingstone jumped onto the crossbar in August of that year.
  • And, none of those in a position to actually push the idea through did anything about making the streets of London safer for the riders of those bikes. To introduce a policy without introducing other complementary policies that would make that work looks very much like gesture politics - something that gets political leaders onto the front pages but actually makes very little difference. ABdPJ is, of course, a master at doing that.
  • As, alas, are most 'successful' Polly Titians.

    A plague, and a pox, and a murrain, on them all.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    So-called Boris bikes looked suspiciously like the ones the French had a couple of years earlier. Just saying.
  • BBC News headlines say the Boris has admitted that a Brexit deal with the EU is 'touch and go', also that a deal with the US is more likely to take 5 years than a year. Amazing! Can the man be starting to tell the truth, at last?
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited August 2019
    Maybe - but, in that case, unlike one of the Sunday 'newspapers', which today is loudly declaiming that the UK-US Trade Deal (aka the sale of the UK to potus Blump) was 'done', as in 'signed, sealed, and delivered'...
    :rage:

    Can't recall which of the shite-rags it was (I caught a glimpse of the thing whilst shopping, and then hurriedly averted my eyes), but it was probably the Wail on Sunday , or the Sunday Distress.
  • And, none of those in a position to actually push the idea through did anything about making the streets of London safer for the riders of those bikes. To introduce a policy without introducing other complementary policies that would make that work looks very much like gesture politics - something that gets political leaders onto the front pages but actually makes very little difference. ABdPJ is, of course, a master at doing that.

    But the lack of proper planning, the taking into consideration knock-on effects (for example, increasing the number of students and not thinking about how the vastly increased demand for rental accommodation was going to be met or the affect on rents) has been the hall-mark of British officialdom for the past 50+ years.

    Things are either over-engineered or just lashed together, there is no happy medium. Pick any policy idea from any party that has been in government and you quickly come up against a complete Horlicks, aka unintended consequences.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    @TheOrganist, I’d put the blame squarely at the door of FPTP elections. There is never any need for compromise or working together.
  • You could be right. As I said up-thread, what you need is for the country to be run by organists. People who are used to having amateur employers, to having "employees" at least half of whom are perpetualy bolshy and huddling together muttering dark thoughts, with a principal employer who doesn't really understand or value what you do, and with 99.9% recurring of the people you exist to serve convinced they could do a better job with one hand tied behind their back.

    Furthermore, people with training and expertise who can expect at any moment to be replaced on a whim by others with no training, expertise or aptitude and to get no support from their employer, who could well be the person behind the putsch.
  • Oh, I'd agree entirely. British politicians make a career of grandstanding, putting through policies that a) give good photo opportunities and b) can be achieved within the 3-4 years they have before they next need to stand for election. That does mean that joined-up thinking that leads to sensible big picture policies gets left behind. It's putting self ahead of country, something that the Tories aren't unique for let alone ABdPJ.
  • AndrasAndras Shipmate
    You could be right. As I said up-thread, what you need is for the country to be run by organists. People who are used to having amateur employers, to having "employees" at least half of whom are perpetualy bolshy and huddling together muttering dark thoughts, with a principal employer who doesn't really understand or value what you do, and with 99.9% recurring of the people you exist to serve convinced they could do a better job with one hand tied behind their back.

    Furthermore, people with training and expertise who can expect at any moment to be replaced on a whim by others with no training, expertise or aptitude and to get no support from their employer, who could well be the person behind the putsch.

    The common joke with more than a hint of truth to it is that you can negotiation with a terrorist but not with an organist.

    (And I must allow that Mrs. Andras is an excellent organist; also that the joke does indeed apply to her, especially when it comes to choosing the 'right' tune. But Lord, she'd make a grand PM.)
  • I am amused by the ES going into bat for Johnson, evidently Osbourne really wants that post as head of the IMF.
  • AndrasAndras Shipmate
    Breaking news - Piffle is reportedly asking the queen to prorogue parliament almost as soon as MPs return from the summer break. Just the regular procedure before a new session, allegedly, nothing in which the courts have any locus at all. What a bastard he truly is.
  • HugalHugal Shipmate
    He really is a bastard yes
  • Until HMQ issues a statement, or Parliament is prorogued, we won't know the truth of it.

    I think the current bunch of MPs, from PM down, should be treated as over-tired and fractious children of other people: we cannot ggive them a smack or send them to bed, so the best thing to do is ignore them.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    The government is selling it as ‘business as usual’. But there is no ‘usual’ about this whole sorry mess.

    I’d like to pop forward twenty years to look back on the outcome to all this.

    History will not be kind to de Pfeffel.

  • Surely the Queen would not prorogue Parliament simply at Piffleglum's request, without being advised (hopefully by people more in touch with reality than the Truthmangler)?

    Are we now anticipating some sort of coup d'état?
  • The Queen is in a very difficult position. Convention dictates that she acts on the advice of her ministers / Privy Councillors (as I understand it).

    This is a very cunning move by Boris-the-Bastard unless you think the timing is coincidental...

    I think he's made a VoNC more likely and made it possible that he will lose it.

    What-the-hell happens next is anyone's guess!

    AFZ
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Like it or not, if the PM of the day advises the Queen to take a particular course of action, she should accept that advice. The alternative is that she would end up like John Kerr, acting on the advice of the opposition and knowing that the opposition does not command a majority in the lower house. The most she could do is strongly advise him to seek the approval of the Commons to his proposal.
  • She calls a full meeting of the Privy Councillors (all 700 of them) and sees if there are any contrary opinions.

    Sorted.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    Like it or not, if the PM of the day advises the Queen to take a particular course of action, she should accept that advice. The alternative is that she would end up like John Kerr, acting on the advice of the opposition and knowing that the opposition does not command a majority in the lower house. The most she could do is strongly advise him to seek the approval of the Commons to his proposal.

    This makes sense to me. I suppose the alternative is to knock BJ back, which would presumably trigger an election? And if he won that - then what happens?

    Bloody hell, what a mess.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited August 2019
    Seems as though President Piffleglum has got his way:
    https://bbc.co.uk/news

    :rage:

    As I've remarked before, the term 'British Government' is an oxymoron.

    Hopefully, @alienfromzog is right, and a VoNC will occur soon. Yes, I know the President (POTUK?) might win it, but that won't make matters any worse than they are already...
  • I think Boris hopes to lose a VONC. Corbyn will not get enough support, hence an election, which Boris should win.
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