As to Gish Gallop how is one lone person to put up a reasonable defence of a centre-right liberal Prime Minster on a thread infested with rabid socialists who have decided he is a fascist?
You really think Johnson is centre-right and liberal? Really?
I'm waiting for some details about why Johnson is much worse than Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. If indeed he is.
I suppose for some socialists, all the above will be equally as bad (or equally as fascist perhaps).
@yohan300 I've been resisting getting embroiled in this because although I don't agree with you about much else, I do agree with you that the electorate had an appalling choice last December. When it comes to your list, though, there are two fundamental reasons why Johnson is much worse than any of the other names you mention.
The first is that whether you like or agreed with those other people or not, each of them had some core element of character, integrity, ethical awareness, what was once called 'bottom'. Some of them had more of it than others. Both you and other shipmates will disagree as to which had more or less than their predecessors or successors. For most of them, if not all, there were some odd lacunae.
As far as one can see, Mr de Pfeffel Johnson has none, no character, no integrity, no ethical awareness, no bottom. On the evidence, there is genuine doubt whether he is even aware that there is a difference between truth and falsehood, or that that difference might matter.
The second, is that the Cabinet reshuffle in February and what has happened this week appear to indicate that he has handed over the management of the country to his hired man. His protection of him cannot be regarded as an indicator of loyalty to his dependents. He does not have the reputation for fidelity for that. So it must be that he now regards his man as unsackable.
I do not think any of the other names in your list would have done that.
I'm waiting for some details about why Johnson is much worse than Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. If indeed he is.
I suppose for some socialists, all the above will be equally as bad (or equally as fascist perhaps).
@yohan300 I've been resisting getting embroiled in this because although I don't agree with you about much else, I do agree with you that the electorate had an appalling choice last December. When it comes to your list, though, there are two fundamental reasons why Johnson is much worse than any of the other names you mention.
The first is that whether you like or agreed with those other people or not, each of them had some core element of character, integrity, ethical awareness, what was once called 'bottom'. Some of them had more of it than others. Both you and other shipmates will disagree as to which had more or less than their predecessors or successors. For most of them, if not all, there were some odd lacunae.
As far as one can see, Mr de Pfeffel Johnson has none, no character, no integrity, no ethical awareness, no bottom. On the evidence, there is genuine doubt whether he is even aware that there is a difference between truth and falsehood, or that that difference might matter.
The second, is that the Cabinet reshuffle in February and what has happened this week appear to indicate that he has handed over the management of the country to his hired man. His protection of him cannot be regarded as an indicator of loyalty to his dependents. He does not have the reputation for fidelity for that. So it must be that he now regards his man as unsackable.
I do not think any of the other names in your list would have done that.
I agree with you on both of those points. Prior to voting for Johnson, I was aware of the first, but as you say there wasn't much choice, and I was prepared to judge him on his actions in office rather than his character. The Borgia pope Alexander VI can be similarly criticised for his moral character, but arguably he was exactly the person needed to ensure the survival of the Church of Rome during that period.
As to the second, I've already stated that it concerns me how much he apparently continues to rely on one advisor, especially after the election was won. But again I'm prepared to judge him by results.
As to judging him by results, many are pointing to the current pandemic, but as I've argued before when looking at the scientific advice and modelling that was presented to him, it's not clear that any previous PM would have acted differently with regards to the lockdown. Perhaps someone else might have done a better job with PPE or even testing, but I really think that's debatable, and certainly doesn't make him evil incarnate. Let's see what the public inquiry discovers.
Pandemic aside I was very much looking forward to his proposed agenda for government, but that's all up in the air at the moment.
Pandemic aside I was very much looking forward to his proposed agenda for government, but that's all up in the air at the moment.
Agenda for government?
You really are funny.
AFZ
You know, the manifesto, with all those fascist policies such as increasing NHS funding by 29% by 2023, raising starting salaries for teachers to £30K, massive investment in transport across the country...that sort of agenda.
As to Gish Gallop how is one lone person to put up a reasonable defence of a centre-right liberal Prime Minster on a thread infested with rabid socialists who have decided he is a fascist?
Translation; having flown in and started shitting in all directions you want to try and claim the moral high ground.
Pandemic aside I was very much looking forward to his proposed agenda for government, but that's all up in the air at the moment.
Agenda for government?
You really are funny.
AFZ
You know, the manifesto, with all those fascist policies such as increasing NHS funding by 29% by 2023, raising starting salaries for teachers to £30K, massive investment in transport across the country...that sort of agenda.
I have previously tried to engage with your pathetic defences of our moronic Prime Minister but I really can't be bothered right now. It's Friday and I'm working tmrw and Sunday and more importantly in your arguments with Alan, you showed that you can't even understand basic logic.
I will write this much though. The cost of Brexit is huge and the figures used in the Tory manifesto are pure fantasy.* The 29% figure is a multiply debunked lie and accounting trick.*
So what's the point?
Agenda for government. Still makes me laugh.
AFZ
*happy to give you references for both of these but your previous record of ignoring inconvenient facts makes me think it would be a waste of time.
I will write this much though. The cost of Brexit is huge and the figures used in the Tory manifesto are pure fantasy.* The 29% figure is a multiply debunked lie and accounting trick.*
So what's the point?
Agenda for government. Still makes me laugh.
AFZ
*happy to give you references for both of these but your previous record of ignoring inconvenient facts makes me think it would be a waste of time.
The cost of Brexit is irrelevant, the people had already voted for it.
If Labour had won the election, would you have been happy for the Conservatives to attempt to annul the result because they felt it would lead to a reduction in economic growth?
I will write this much though. The cost of Brexit is huge and the figures used in the Tory manifesto are pure fantasy.* The 29% figure is a multiply debunked lie and accounting trick.*
So what's the point?
Agenda for government. Still makes me laugh.
AFZ
*happy to give you references for both of these but your previous record of ignoring inconvenient facts makes me think it would be a waste of time.
The cost of Brexit is irrelevant, the people had already voted for it.
If Labour had won the election, would you have been happy for the Conservatives to attempt to annul the result because they felt it would lead to a reduction in economic growth?
Quick question: Do you realise that's a really stupid post?
I will write this much though. The cost of Brexit is huge and the figures used in the Tory manifesto are pure fantasy.* The 29% figure is a multiply debunked lie and accounting trick.*
So what's the point?
Agenda for government. Still makes me laugh.
AFZ
*happy to give you references for both of these but your previous record of ignoring inconvenient facts makes me think it would be a waste of time.
The cost of Brexit is irrelevant, the people had already voted for it.
If Labour had won the election, would you have been happy for the Conservatives to attempt to annul the result because they felt it would lead to a reduction in economic growth?
Quick question: Do you realise that's a really stupid post?
I meant without leaving office first, of course. Boris ensconced in number 10, saying he won't see the Queen because Corbyn will lead to a reduction in GDP growth over the next five years.
I will write this much though. The cost of Brexit is huge and the figures used in the Tory manifesto are pure fantasy.* The 29% figure is a multiply debunked lie and accounting trick.*
So what's the point?
Agenda for government. Still makes me laugh.
AFZ
*happy to give you references for both of these but your previous record of ignoring inconvenient facts makes me think it would be a waste of time.
The cost of Brexit is irrelevant, the people had already voted for it.
If Labour had won the election, would you have been happy for the Conservatives to attempt to annul the result because they felt it would lead to a reduction in economic growth?
I would expect that in the event of a Labour election victory the tories would use every means at their disposal to oppose Labour's policies. That's how democracy works. I'd think they were wrong to oppose the policies because I (in general) think the policies are a good idea, not because I think a vote is the end of the debate. For example, I think the tories were wrong to protest against the ban on hunting with dogs, but that's because I think the ban is the right policy, not because I think a Labour election victory means that everyone should just lie down and accept whatever they do. Democracy doesn't mean one person, one vote, once.
As to judging him by results, many are pointing to the current pandemic, but as I've argued before when looking at the scientific advice and modelling that was presented to him, it's not clear that any previous PM would have acted differently with regards to the lockdown.
You have been presented by counterfactuals from other countries - so unless you want to argue that there is something unique about 'british science' - which would be somewhat ironic - then it is fairly clear that other people - when presented with the same epidemiological evidence acted differently. The choice to privilege the workings of the nudge unit above the medical evidence was a political one.
I will write this much though. The cost of Brexit is huge and the figures used in the Tory manifesto are pure fantasy.* The 29% figure is a multiply debunked lie and accounting trick.*
So what's the point?
Agenda for government. Still makes me laugh.
AFZ
*happy to give you references for both of these but your previous record of ignoring inconvenient facts makes me think it would be a waste of time.
The cost of Brexit is irrelevant, the people had already voted for it.
If Labour had won the election, would you have been happy for the Conservatives to attempt to annul the result because they felt it would lead to a reduction in economic growth?
Quick question: Do you realise that's a really stupid post?
I meant without leaving office first, of course. Boris ensconced in number 10, saying he won't see the Queen because Corbyn will lead to a reduction in GDP growth over the next five years.
That doesn't make it any better. The Tory manifesto promised a few things. None of them are possible because of Brexit. It's irrelevant whether you think Brexit is a good idea or not. It is irrelevant whether you think there is a democratic mandate for it or not. The effect of Brexit is to make the rest of it impossible and thus irrelevant. Johnson does not have an agenda for government. His only policy is 'Get Brexit Done' which means we are now in transition and likely to have No Deal at the end of the year. Interestingly, that's not what the manifesto said. Nor is there any plan for what to do next.
Either way, my point had nothing to do with Brexit itself. The reality is simple, if you take Brexit in these terms, then the rest of it is fantasy.
I would expect that in the event of a Labour election victory the tories would use every means at their disposal to oppose Labour's policies. That's how democracy works. I'd think they were wrong to oppose the policies because I (in general) think the policies are a good idea, not because I think a vote is the end of the debate. For example, I think the tories were wrong to protest against the ban on hunting with dogs, but that's because I think the ban is the right policy, not because I think a Labour election victory means that everyone should just lie down and accept whatever they do. Democracy doesn't mean one person, one vote, once.
No, it means the result of a vote is implemented straight away. Only then can the losing side think about what they want to do next. Attempting to stop the result of a vote being implemented, by fruitless chicanery in parliament and the courts that drags the nation through years of highly divisive infighting is not very nice. If the justification for doing so is "lost billions of potential economic growth", then one could apply that same justification to an outgoing government who lost an election, and decided to remain in power and challenge the result.
"The cost of Brexit was huge" is like saying "The cost of a Labour government was huge".
Voters are perfectly capable of taking cost into the equation.
As to Gish Gallop how is one lone person to put up a reasonable defence of a centre-right liberal Prime Minster on a thread infested with rabid socialists who have decided he is a fascist?
Translation; having flown in and started shitting in all directions you want to try and claim the moral high ground.
If this thread was in Heaven and not Hell, you'd all have to agree with me
As to judging him by results, many are pointing to the current pandemic, but as I've argued before when looking at the scientific advice and modelling that was presented to him, it's not clear that any previous PM would have acted differently with regards to the lockdown.
You have been presented by counterfactuals from other countries - so unless you want to argue that there is something unique about 'british science' - which would be somewhat ironic - then it is fairly clear that other people - when presented with the same epidemiological evidence acted differently. The choice to privilege the workings of the nudge unit above the medical evidence was a political one.
Every single country (even those who literally lost the plot to start with like Iran and Italy) have a lower per-capita death toll than than the UK. Every. Single. Country.
If your argument is that May and Cameron and Brown and Blair would have been just as bad then, frankly, that's an appalling run of bad luck for the UK. (I would defend Brown here - he was confronted by two crises, the global financial crash and Foot and Mouth, and his response to both was sure-footed and decisive.)
The alternative is that Johnson is actually worse than every other leader in the country, elected or otherwise. I'm going with this one, because there's actually evidence to back this up.
Brown was supposedly good a crisis, that's true. He was a miserable, rage-filled control freak though, which might not have served him well in the current crisis.
Brown was supposedly good a crisis, that's true. He was a miserable, rage-filled control freak though, which might not have served him well in the current crisis.
Are you ever going to address the substantive point though? Will you concede that literally every single other country on the planet has done better than the UK, and that we do actually have data points that we can compare and contrast our government's handling of the situation with every other governments'?
Brown was supposedly good a crisis, that's true. He was a miserable, rage-filled control freak though, which might not have served him well in the current crisis.
Are you ever going to address the substantive point though? Will you concede that literally every single other country on the planet has done better than the UK, and that we do actually have data points that we can compare and contrast our government's handling of the situation with every other governments'?
I did already by saying the following on the reasons for the UK death toll: "It could be anything from Boris Johnson's deviousness through to the UK being a global hub through to Rich Tea biscuits making care home residents more susceptible to the virus."
We don't know what the reasons are yet, and what particular characteristics of the UK have led to this. There are even problems making comparisons at this stage, with Spain just jumping ahead yesterday by adding 12K excess deaths. What proportion of UK deaths are due to the action or inaction of the government, and what proportion due to our population density or some other factors?
To put them all on the government is just ridiculous at this stage. But apparently if that fits someone's existing political outlook then that's what will happen.
To put them all on the government is just ridiculous at this stage. But apparently if that fits someone's existing political outlook then that's what will happen.
It's just a shame that the medical literature disagrees with you, isn't it?
It's just a shame that the medical literature disagrees with you, isn't it?
Now it's my turn to laugh. Go on, go on to PubMed and find a paper that analyses all the possible contributory factors to the UK's excess death toll and finds that it is entirely due to the government.
It's very convenient that we can ignore the causes of the UK death toll. Let's come back to it in a few years, and hopefully people have forgotten. But Corbyn!
It's very convenient that we can ignore the causes of the UK death toll. Let's come back to it in a few years, and hopefully people have forgotten. But Corbyn!
I'm sure we can't ignore them. We can certainly start analysing them as we await the full picture.
Do you have any evidence that there aren't multiple causes, and that we should be attributing them all to the government?
I will write this much though. The cost of Brexit is huge and the figures used in the Tory manifesto are pure fantasy.* The 29% figure is a multiply debunked lie and accounting trick.*
So what's the point?
Agenda for government. Still makes me laugh.
AFZ
*happy to give you references for both of these but your previous record of ignoring inconvenient facts makes me think it would be a waste of time.
The cost of Brexit is irrelevant, the people had already voted for it.
I . Must . Resist . Must . Resist . must ...
Oh bugger, I can't resist. When did the people of Britain get to vote for a no-deal Brexit? When? I distinctly recall Mr Johnson at the end of the year as we went to the polls talking about a "good deal" for leaving the EU. May certainly was talking about a deal (probably a different one) before we went to the polls in 2017. And, the 2016 opinion poll didn't specify anything with those advocating a vote to leave promising a deal that included retaining membership of the single market and customs union.
Until someone puts the question of accepting, or not, leaving on the terms under discussion the people haven't voted for anything.
I'm waiting for some details about why Johnson is much worse than Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. If indeed he is.
Have you heard the man speak? He doesn't know what he's doing, and can't explain himself. Ask him a question that requires an actual answer, and what you get is evasion and waffle.
Blair and Thatcher - agree with them or not - had actual competence. John Major I think is generally underrated. Even Gordon Brown, who I don't much rate, would do a decent job when faced with the current circumstances. So would Cameron, who had the opportunity for competence, but threw it away playing stupid games with the anti-European wing of his party. Theresa May? I don't think much of her, but even she isn't as much of a bullshit merchant as the current Prime Minister.
Prior to voting for Johnson, I was aware of the first, but as you say there wasn't much choice, and I was prepared to judge him on his actions in office rather than his character. The Borgia pope Alexander VI can be similarly criticised for his moral character, but arguably he was exactly the person needed to ensure the survival of the Church of Rome during that period.
He certainly did. His was a thoroughly populist rule deeply embedded in the Renaissance values of the time; warfare, simony, nepotism, patronage of the arts and education and savage repression of opposition. All of which, I grant you, was par for the course in those days. I'll leave it to others to suggest that it might have been better for the Church of Rome to have survived in a different form from that which Alexander VI whipped it into. But he did - at least initially - institute a greater stability to the mechanism of papal rule which might have helped the exercise of a more settled parochial ministry. And being a populist, and a popular man - clever, witty, intelligent - he would've been an attractive icon for the loyalty of the faithful. I, personally, would struggle to draw much of a parallel between the two Alexanders in that respect, frankly!
There was also, famously, a huge shadow over his 'election' as Pope, where it was thought he had made promises of a lucrative nature in exchange for the votes of fellow cardinals. Don't know how he got on with fulfilling his promises.... But he was not the man to concern himself with such trifles, as we know! Quite a character.
Brown was supposedly good a crisis, that's true. He was a miserable, rage-filled control freak though, which might not have served him well in the current crisis.
Are you ever going to address the substantive point though? Will you concede that literally every single other country on the planet has done better than the UK, and that we do actually have data points that we can compare and contrast our government's handling of the situation with every other governments'?
I did already by saying the following on the reasons for the UK death toll: "It could be anything from Boris Johnson's deviousness through to the UK being a global hub through to Rich Tea biscuits making care home residents more susceptible to the virus."
But we know enough to make some reasonably certain statements. None of those involve Rich Tea biscuits. You're simply dissembling at this point. Have we or have we not done worse than every single country on the planet? Can we (like the government was doing up to about a week ago when they realised it was making them look bad) compare our performance with other countries?
It's just a shame that the medical literature disagrees with you, isn't it?
Now it's my turn to laugh. Go on, go on to PubMed and find a paper that analyses all the possible contributory factors to the UK's excess death toll and finds that it is entirely due to the government.
Ooooh, aren't you clever.
I apologise. All is obviously causing you a problem. Then again you knew what I meant and are just being pedantic to avoid the point.
But here's the thing. There's a lot of evidence to support the notion that the UK's response to this pandemic has been terrible. Here's a simple review article from the New England Journal of Medicine that summarizes it all very well for you. Furthermore, because the mathematics of pandemics is well understood, you can calculate with a high degree of accuracy the effect of such missteps. No one can ever prove a counterfactual, of course, but the truth is that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the deaths in the UK were avoidable (several models show this but here's a good example.)
So I have no problem with asserting on that basis - given that the primary responsibility of government is to protect the people - that Mr Johnson's government is a total failure. (Probably 40,000 deaths worth of failure).
And your defence of Mr Johnson so far:
1) It's someone/something else's fault
2) Everybody else would have been the same
3) Corbyn is a communist.
(please tell me if I am misrepresenting you)
So, no, it can't possibly be that your arguments are piss-poor, it's that the Lefty Snowflakes are bullying you for having a different opinion. As is so often the case your problem is the one so beautifully expressed by the late Senator Moynihan: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts.
The fact is that Boris Johnson is a terrible Prime Minister. I'm sorry you don't like that fact but I can't help you there. I am even more sorry that he's a terrible Prime Minister.
Let me just spell out the logic for you coz I know you struggle with logic:
1. Government should protect its citizens (as far as is practical)
2. Government decisions (primarily not shutting down earlier) costs tens of thousands of lives.
Therefore Johnson's Premiership is a failure.
Please note that no one is saying he's not the PM, no one is denying that he won an election.
So, have you got anything sensible to say? You know, maybe you can explain to me how actually, I'm wrong and Boris is leading us brilliantly. But even in Hell, people expect you to support your assertions. Or do you want to explain why I should be relieved 'coz Corbyn would have really been even worse - I mean it's obvious given that he's a communist?
But you can't can you, coz you've got nothing.
OTOH, just keep telling yourself it's the Lefty Snowflakes bullying you because we cannot cope with different opinions if it makes you feel better but don't expect to be taken seriously until you can manage a serious argument.
One thing is most likely true: it would have been worse under Corbyn because the right-wing press would have encouraged mass civil disobedience to any lockdown he might have wanted to impose.
That it was Johnson, and they didn't, and we're still the worst is simply another sign he fucked up big time.
The problem with the "it's too early to tell" / "let's wait until we have the full picture" kind of statement is that it's like the team that's rock bottom at Christmas and haven't won a game all season saying, "no need to worry, we might win all the rest of our games and do quite well this year. Let's wait and see where we are at the end of the season."
Except that instead of fun meaningless sport, it's loads of people dying unnecessarily.
A football club would have sacked the manager by now.
1. Government should protect its citizens (as far as is practical)
2. Government decisions (primarily not shutting down earlier) costs tens of thousands of lives.
Therefore Johnson's Premiership is a failure.
I don't think a single error - even a large one - is sufficient to doom Mr. Johnson as a failure. But he has not made merely a single error. He continues to fail. A competent leader would own his mistake. Johnson dissembles and evades.
People make mistakes. What they do after making a mistake - there is where you really take someone's measure, and that, in my mind, is the thing than condemns Boris Johnson the most.
1. Government should protect its citizens (as far as is practical)
2. Government decisions (primarily not shutting down earlier) costs tens of thousands of lives.
Therefore Johnson's Premiership is a failure.
I don't think a single error - even a large one - is sufficient to doom Mr. Johnson as a failure. But he has not made merely a single error. He continues to fail. A competent leader would own his mistake. Johnson dissembles and evades.
People make mistakes. What they do after making a mistake - there is where you really take someone's measure, and that, in my mind, is the thing than condemns Boris Johnson the most.
Well put. But, as you say, it wasn't one mistake, it was a serious of missteps that they still keep lying about.
I can forgive mistakes made in good faith. What's not forgivable is lying about said errors because then it becomes nigh-on-impossible to avoid repeating them.
Equally, the delay in locking down was not so much one error as 14. Each day they could have changed course but didn't for 14 days (or 11, depending on where you count from).
Ultimately, Johnson is not so much Churchill as Chamberlain except it's October '39 and he's still waving a piece of paper and claiming it means 'peace in our time.'
FWIW, I agree with your wider point and could have phrased my post better but it felt quite long already.
I've said several times that at some point he'll come back from Brussels waving a piece of paper and claiming it's a good deal. Though even that's looking optimistic at the moment.
Boris’ history as a politician proves he is unfit. His time as London Mayor and Foreign Secretary all show this. I have explained why before so will not again. As leader and PM he has proved Ruthless and self centred. No one sacks all those who disagree with them.
He won the election on Brexit. That is it. People admit to lending him their vote to get Brexit sorted and will vote as normal next time. It is not that they voted for the Conservatives or Boris. They voted for Brexit.
The problem with the "it's too early to tell" / "let's wait until we have the full picture" kind of statement is that it's like the team that's rock bottom at Christmas and haven't won a game all season saying, "no need to worry, we might win all the rest of our games and do quite well this year. Let's wait and see where we are at the end of the season."
Except that instead of fun meaningless sport, it's loads of people dying unnecessarily.
A football club would have sacked the manager by now.
It is noticeable how groups like the BNP have all but disappeared since the tories started adopting their Islamophobia, anti-ziganism and so on.
IMO that’s more to do with them all joining UKIP/Brexit Party in the hope of finding a more electable group to be aligned with.
And then defecting to the tories at the 2019 election. Johnson succeeded in capturing the far right vote - most of the so-called red wall votes came not from Labour supporters but former BNP/UKIP types.
It's just a shame that the medical literature disagrees with you, isn't it?
Now it's my turn to laugh. Go on, go on to PubMed and find a paper that analyses all the possible contributory factors to the UK's excess death toll and finds that it is entirely due to the government.
Ooooh, aren't you clever.
I apologise. All is obviously causing you a problem. Then again you knew what I meant and are just being pedantic to avoid the point.
But here's the thing. There's a lot of evidence to support the notion that the UK's response to this pandemic has been terrible. Here's a simple review article from the New England Journal of Medicine that summarizes it all very well for you. Furthermore, because the mathematics of pandemics is well understood, you can calculate with a high degree of accuracy the effect of such missteps. No one can ever prove a counterfactual, of course, but the truth is that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the deaths in the UK were avoidable (several models show this but here's a good example.)
So I have no problem with asserting on that basis - given that the primary responsibility of government is to protect the people - that Mr Johnson's government is a total failure. (Probably 40,000 deaths worth of failure).
And your defence of Mr Johnson so far:
1) It's someone/something else's fault
2) Everybody else would have been the same
3) Corbyn is a communist.
(please tell me if I am misrepresenting you)
So, no, it can't possibly be that your arguments are piss-poor, it's that the Lefty Snowflakes are bullying you for having a different opinion. As is so often the case your problem is the one so beautifully expressed by the late Senator Moynihan: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts.
The fact is that Boris Johnson is a terrible Prime Minister. I'm sorry you don't like that fact but I can't help you there. I am even more sorry that he's a terrible Prime Minister.
Let me just spell out the logic for you coz I know you struggle with logic:
1. Government should protect its citizens (as far as is practical)
2. Government decisions (primarily not shutting down earlier) costs tens of thousands of lives.
Therefore Johnson's Premiership is a failure.
Please note that no one is saying he's not the PM, no one is denying that he won an election.
So, have you got anything sensible to say? You know, maybe you can explain to me how actually, I'm wrong and Boris is leading us brilliantly. But even in Hell, people expect you to support your assertions. Or do you want to explain why I should be relieved 'coz Corbyn would have really been even worse - I mean it's obvious given that he's a communist?
But you can't can you, coz you've got nothing.
OTOH, just keep telling yourself it's the Lefty Snowflakes bullying you because we cannot cope with different opinions if it makes you feel better but don't expect to be taken seriously until you can manage a serious argument.
AFZ
Well, you started this thread before he was even PM with the words "blond, lazy, racist, misogynist, lying arrogant, incompetent" and have since claimed he's leading a neo-fascist government. It really isn't going to be worth the effort to try and convince you of anything.
FWIW I never claimed he's doing a good a job, just that he seemed the least worse choice last year, and that he might not be a fascist mass murder.
And, now we have the government stepping up the fascist-appearing (is that a better phrase, @yohan300 ?) agenda by significantly curtailing democratic representation by removing the video-conferencing and socially-distanced voting options in the Commons. With less than 10% of the House able to participate in debates in the chamber, and no method defined to allow votes this is not a good thing for democracy.
Comments
You really think Johnson is centre-right and liberal? Really?
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Thank you, I needed a good laugh.
The first is that whether you like or agreed with those other people or not, each of them had some core element of character, integrity, ethical awareness, what was once called 'bottom'. Some of them had more of it than others. Both you and other shipmates will disagree as to which had more or less than their predecessors or successors. For most of them, if not all, there were some odd lacunae.
As far as one can see, Mr de Pfeffel Johnson has none, no character, no integrity, no ethical awareness, no bottom. On the evidence, there is genuine doubt whether he is even aware that there is a difference between truth and falsehood, or that that difference might matter.
The second, is that the Cabinet reshuffle in February and what has happened this week appear to indicate that he has handed over the management of the country to his hired man. His protection of him cannot be regarded as an indicator of loyalty to his dependents. He does not have the reputation for fidelity for that. So it must be that he now regards his man as unsackable.
I do not think any of the other names in your list would have done that.
I agree with you on both of those points. Prior to voting for Johnson, I was aware of the first, but as you say there wasn't much choice, and I was prepared to judge him on his actions in office rather than his character. The Borgia pope Alexander VI can be similarly criticised for his moral character, but arguably he was exactly the person needed to ensure the survival of the Church of Rome during that period.
As to the second, I've already stated that it concerns me how much he apparently continues to rely on one advisor, especially after the election was won. But again I'm prepared to judge him by results.
As to judging him by results, many are pointing to the current pandemic, but as I've argued before when looking at the scientific advice and modelling that was presented to him, it's not clear that any previous PM would have acted differently with regards to the lockdown. Perhaps someone else might have done a better job with PPE or even testing, but I really think that's debatable, and certainly doesn't make him evil incarnate. Let's see what the public inquiry discovers.
Pandemic aside I was very much looking forward to his proposed agenda for government, but that's all up in the air at the moment.
Agenda for government?
You really are funny.
AFZ
You know, the manifesto, with all those fascist policies such as increasing NHS funding by 29% by 2023, raising starting salaries for teachers to £30K, massive investment in transport across the country...that sort of agenda.
Translation; having flown in and started shitting in all directions you want to try and claim the moral high ground.
I have previously tried to engage with your pathetic defences of our moronic Prime Minister but I really can't be bothered right now. It's Friday and I'm working tmrw and Sunday and more importantly in your arguments with Alan, you showed that you can't even understand basic logic.
I will write this much though. The cost of Brexit is huge and the figures used in the Tory manifesto are pure fantasy.* The 29% figure is a multiply debunked lie and accounting trick.*
So what's the point?
Agenda for government. Still makes me laugh.
AFZ
*happy to give you references for both of these but your previous record of ignoring inconvenient facts makes me think it would be a waste of time.
The cost of Brexit is irrelevant, the people had already voted for it.
If Labour had won the election, would you have been happy for the Conservatives to attempt to annul the result because they felt it would lead to a reduction in economic growth?
Quick question: Do you realise that's a really stupid post?
I meant without leaving office first, of course. Boris ensconced in number 10, saying he won't see the Queen because Corbyn will lead to a reduction in GDP growth over the next five years.
I would expect that in the event of a Labour election victory the tories would use every means at their disposal to oppose Labour's policies. That's how democracy works. I'd think they were wrong to oppose the policies because I (in general) think the policies are a good idea, not because I think a vote is the end of the debate. For example, I think the tories were wrong to protest against the ban on hunting with dogs, but that's because I think the ban is the right policy, not because I think a Labour election victory means that everyone should just lie down and accept whatever they do. Democracy doesn't mean one person, one vote, once.
You have been presented by counterfactuals from other countries - so unless you want to argue that there is something unique about 'british science' - which would be somewhat ironic - then it is fairly clear that other people - when presented with the same epidemiological evidence acted differently. The choice to privilege the workings of the nudge unit above the medical evidence was a political one.
That doesn't make it any better. The Tory manifesto promised a few things. None of them are possible because of Brexit. It's irrelevant whether you think Brexit is a good idea or not. It is irrelevant whether you think there is a democratic mandate for it or not. The effect of Brexit is to make the rest of it impossible and thus irrelevant. Johnson does not have an agenda for government. His only policy is 'Get Brexit Done' which means we are now in transition and likely to have No Deal at the end of the year. Interestingly, that's not what the manifesto said. Nor is there any plan for what to do next.
Either way, my point had nothing to do with Brexit itself. The reality is simple, if you take Brexit in these terms, then the rest of it is fantasy.
But you don't care do you?
AFZ
No, it means the result of a vote is implemented straight away. Only then can the losing side think about what they want to do next. Attempting to stop the result of a vote being implemented, by fruitless chicanery in parliament and the courts that drags the nation through years of highly divisive infighting is not very nice. If the justification for doing so is "lost billions of potential economic growth", then one could apply that same justification to an outgoing government who lost an election, and decided to remain in power and challenge the result.
"The cost of Brexit was huge" is like saying "The cost of a Labour government was huge".
Voters are perfectly capable of taking cost into the equation.
If this thread was in Heaven and not Hell, you'd all have to agree with me
Every single country (even those who literally lost the plot to start with like Iran and Italy) have a lower per-capita death toll than than the UK. Every. Single. Country.
If your argument is that May and Cameron and Brown and Blair would have been just as bad then, frankly, that's an appalling run of bad luck for the UK. (I would defend Brown here - he was confronted by two crises, the global financial crash and Foot and Mouth, and his response to both was sure-footed and decisive.)
The alternative is that Johnson is actually worse than every other leader in the country, elected or otherwise. I'm going with this one, because there's actually evidence to back this up.
You're the one who laughed at the idea that the winning party's election manifesto was not an agenda for government, and then mentioned the B-word.
So yes, indeed.
Are you being deliberately stupid?
Are you ever going to address the substantive point though? Will you concede that literally every single other country on the planet has done better than the UK, and that we do actually have data points that we can compare and contrast our government's handling of the situation with every other governments'?
I did already by saying the following on the reasons for the UK death toll: "It could be anything from Boris Johnson's deviousness through to the UK being a global hub through to Rich Tea biscuits making care home residents more susceptible to the virus."
We don't know what the reasons are yet, and what particular characteristics of the UK have led to this. There are even problems making comparisons at this stage, with Spain just jumping ahead yesterday by adding 12K excess deaths. What proportion of UK deaths are due to the action or inaction of the government, and what proportion due to our population density or some other factors?
To put them all on the government is just ridiculous at this stage. But apparently if that fits someone's existing political outlook then that's what will happen.
It's just a shame that the medical literature disagrees with you, isn't it?
Now it's my turn to laugh. Go on, go on to PubMed and find a paper that analyses all the possible contributory factors to the UK's excess death toll and finds that it is entirely due to the government.
I'm sure we can't ignore them. We can certainly start analysing them as we await the full picture.
Do you have any evidence that there aren't multiple causes, and that we should be attributing them all to the government?
Oh bugger, I can't resist. When did the people of Britain get to vote for a no-deal Brexit? When? I distinctly recall Mr Johnson at the end of the year as we went to the polls talking about a "good deal" for leaving the EU. May certainly was talking about a deal (probably a different one) before we went to the polls in 2017. And, the 2016 opinion poll didn't specify anything with those advocating a vote to leave promising a deal that included retaining membership of the single market and customs union.
Until someone puts the question of accepting, or not, leaving on the terms under discussion the people haven't voted for anything.
Have you heard the man speak? He doesn't know what he's doing, and can't explain himself. Ask him a question that requires an actual answer, and what you get is evasion and waffle.
Blair and Thatcher - agree with them or not - had actual competence. John Major I think is generally underrated. Even Gordon Brown, who I don't much rate, would do a decent job when faced with the current circumstances. So would Cameron, who had the opportunity for competence, but threw it away playing stupid games with the anti-European wing of his party. Theresa May? I don't think much of her, but even she isn't as much of a bullshit merchant as the current Prime Minister.
He certainly did. His was a thoroughly populist rule deeply embedded in the Renaissance values of the time; warfare, simony, nepotism, patronage of the arts and education and savage repression of opposition. All of which, I grant you, was par for the course in those days. I'll leave it to others to suggest that it might have been better for the Church of Rome to have survived in a different form from that which Alexander VI whipped it into. But he did - at least initially - institute a greater stability to the mechanism of papal rule which might have helped the exercise of a more settled parochial ministry. And being a populist, and a popular man - clever, witty, intelligent - he would've been an attractive icon for the loyalty of the faithful. I, personally, would struggle to draw much of a parallel between the two Alexanders in that respect, frankly!
There was also, famously, a huge shadow over his 'election' as Pope, where it was thought he had made promises of a lucrative nature in exchange for the votes of fellow cardinals. Don't know how he got on with fulfilling his promises.... But he was not the man to concern himself with such trifles, as we know! Quite a character.
But we know enough to make some reasonably certain statements. None of those involve Rich Tea biscuits. You're simply dissembling at this point. Have we or have we not done worse than every single country on the planet? Can we (like the government was doing up to about a week ago when they realised it was making them look bad) compare our performance with other countries?
Ooooh, aren't you clever.
I apologise. All is obviously causing you a problem. Then again you knew what I meant and are just being pedantic to avoid the point.
But here's the thing. There's a lot of evidence to support the notion that the UK's response to this pandemic has been terrible. Here's a simple review article from the New England Journal of Medicine that summarizes it all very well for you. Furthermore, because the mathematics of pandemics is well understood, you can calculate with a high degree of accuracy the effect of such missteps. No one can ever prove a counterfactual, of course, but the truth is that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the deaths in the UK were avoidable (several models show this but here's a good example.)
So I have no problem with asserting on that basis - given that the primary responsibility of government is to protect the people - that Mr Johnson's government is a total failure. (Probably 40,000 deaths worth of failure).
And your defence of Mr Johnson so far:
1) It's someone/something else's fault
2) Everybody else would have been the same
3) Corbyn is a communist.
(please tell me if I am misrepresenting you)
So, no, it can't possibly be that your arguments are piss-poor, it's that the Lefty Snowflakes are bullying you for having a different opinion. As is so often the case your problem is the one so beautifully expressed by the late Senator Moynihan: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts.
The fact is that Boris Johnson is a terrible Prime Minister. I'm sorry you don't like that fact but I can't help you there. I am even more sorry that he's a terrible Prime Minister.
Let me just spell out the logic for you coz I know you struggle with logic:
1. Government should protect its citizens (as far as is practical)
2. Government decisions (primarily not shutting down earlier) costs tens of thousands of lives.
Therefore Johnson's Premiership is a failure.
Please note that no one is saying he's not the PM, no one is denying that he won an election.
So, have you got anything sensible to say? You know, maybe you can explain to me how actually, I'm wrong and Boris is leading us brilliantly. But even in Hell, people expect you to support your assertions. Or do you want to explain why I should be relieved 'coz Corbyn would have really been even worse - I mean it's obvious given that he's a communist?
But you can't can you, coz you've got nothing.
OTOH, just keep telling yourself it's the Lefty Snowflakes bullying you because we cannot cope with different opinions if it makes you feel better but don't expect to be taken seriously until you can manage a serious argument.
AFZ
That it was Johnson, and they didn't, and we're still the worst is simply another sign he fucked up big time.
The problem with the "it's too early to tell" / "let's wait until we have the full picture" kind of statement is that it's like the team that's rock bottom at Christmas and haven't won a game all season saying, "no need to worry, we might win all the rest of our games and do quite well this year. Let's wait and see where we are at the end of the season."
Except that instead of fun meaningless sport, it's loads of people dying unnecessarily.
A football club would have sacked the manager by now.
I don't think a single error - even a large one - is sufficient to doom Mr. Johnson as a failure. But he has not made merely a single error. He continues to fail. A competent leader would own his mistake. Johnson dissembles and evades.
People make mistakes. What they do after making a mistake - there is where you really take someone's measure, and that, in my mind, is the thing than condemns Boris Johnson the most.
Well put. But, as you say, it wasn't one mistake, it was a serious of missteps that they still keep lying about.
I can forgive mistakes made in good faith. What's not forgivable is lying about said errors because then it becomes nigh-on-impossible to avoid repeating them.
Equally, the delay in locking down was not so much one error as 14. Each day they could have changed course but didn't for 14 days (or 11, depending on where you count from).
Ultimately, Johnson is not so much Churchill as Chamberlain except it's October '39 and he's still waving a piece of paper and claiming it means 'peace in our time.'
FWIW, I agree with your wider point and could have phrased my post better but it felt quite long already.
AFZ
He won the election on Brexit. That is it. People admit to lending him their vote to get Brexit sorted and will vote as normal next time. It is not that they voted for the Conservatives or Boris. They voted for Brexit.
IMO that’s more to do with them all joining UKIP/Brexit Party in the hope of finding a more electable group to be aligned with.
West Brom, 2004/5. It can happen 😁
For values of "electable" which stretch the semantic space of the word until it ruptures.
And then defecting to the tories at the 2019 election. Johnson succeeded in capturing the far right vote - most of the so-called red wall votes came not from Labour supporters but former BNP/UKIP types.
That combination of poster, subject, and verb had me read the post twice and thus deserves to be preserved for posterity.
Only because of FPTP. I seem to recall the Brexit Party got The third-highest total number of votes at the last election.
Euro elections. Big protest vote along the lines of "why are we still electing MEPs?"
And they did get quite a few MEPs, ironically.
Ukip managed 13% in the 2015 GE but only 1 MP. Perhaps your memory is confusing these two?
Well, you started this thread before he was even PM with the words "blond, lazy, racist, misogynist, lying arrogant, incompetent" and have since claimed he's leading a neo-fascist government. It really isn't going to be worth the effort to try and convince you of anything.
FWIW I never claimed he's doing a good a job, just that he seemed the least worse choice last year, and that he might not be a fascist mass murder.
btw some of my best friends are blond