Boris's Brain is missing

[roubaixtuesday]

Any bets on today's decisions in Parliament?

I'd like to see some sort of acceptance of the findings based on the principle of due process and the desirability of drawing a line and having it recorded for future reference. But I expect to see something quite different. Johnson has asked supporters not to oppose. Gove has said that he will abstain. The Head of Government might be emulating Macavity.

Jonathan

Prediction:

A vote will be forced by the opposition

A large number of cowardly Conservative MPs, including the PM, will abstain to avoid internal Conservative party conflict

Very few, if any will vote against, as there is almost no support remaining for Johnson in the parliamentary party - he knows this himself which is why he isn't trying to get a vote.

As a result the door will remain open for Johnson's baleful influence to continue, rather than drawing a line with a decisive show that his lies will not be tolerated. Ironically this guarantees the opposite of what those abstaining wish to achieve.

Overall: Party put before country, a reprise of Brexit referendum. I await being proved comprehensively wrong!

Sadly, that was just about spot on.

I wonder if any of Johnson's supporters on here will have the scales lifted from their eyes by this formal declaration of him as a liar?

Sadly, i doubt it.

[roubaixtuesday]

Daily Star nails it

[reohn2]

^^^probably the only time it's printed the truth

[roubaixtuesday]

^^^probably the only time it's printed the truth

Star has actually been irreverent but excellent on politics for a long time. Eg Liz Truss vs lettuce.

[reohn2]

Another example of how self interested the Tories can be. Only a handful voted against the result but many abstained or were absent, including Sunak.

What a self seeking,self centred,bunch schoolboys and girls too frightened of the truth

Sadly, because of the scales over their eyes, many voters will still vote Tory in the same old way and say Labour can't be trusted to run the country.

The long lost moronic and blinked faithful will always vote Tory because the cult is too ingrained,however there were many new Tory voters at the last GE and many will be rueing the day they did!

[reohn2]

^^^probably the only time it's printed the truth

Star has actually been irreverent but excellent on politics for a long time. Eg Liz Truss vs lettuce.

I wouldnt know I don't read it,AFAIA it's always been an alt Sun readers paper,a grown up's Dandy or Beano.I'd be loathed to use the word "news",in front of paper though,OK for lighting a fire with I s'pose.

[roubaixtuesday]

^^^probably the only time it's printed the truth

Star has actually been irreverent but excellent on politics for a long time. Eg Liz Truss vs lettuce.

I wouldnt know I don't read it,AFAIA it's always been an alt Sun readers paper,a grown up's Dandy or Beano.I'd be loathed to use the word "news",in front of paper though,OK for lighting a fire with I s'pose.

I think there's a very big difference between irreverent but truthful, and politically motivated deceit.

The Star is in the former, the Mail/Sun/Express in the latter.

Not all tabloids are the same.

[thirdcrank]

It seems to me that Boris Johnson's success as a politician has been through appreciating that people like being told what they want to hear, rather than the often harsh truth. I'm reminded that a few years ago our local Morrisons used to have strident and repetitive background music and one of the tracks was Fleetwood Mac's Little Lies.

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/fleetwo ... elies.html

I fancy that a lot of Tory MPs feel that wait and see is their safest option just now

[reohn2]

It seems to me that Boris Johnson's success as a politician has been through appreciating that people like being told what they want to hear, rather than the often harsh truth. I'm reminded that a few years ago our local Morrisons used to have strident and repetitive background music and one of the tracks was Fleetwood Mac's Little Lies.

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/fleetwo ... elies.html

There's one or two forum members who don't like hearing the truth!

I fancy that a lot of Tory MPs feel that wait and see is their safest option just now

There'll be quite a few more I should imagine who won't wait and see but see jumping ship before the next GE as being their best option.

[reohn2]

I think there's a very big difference between irreverent but truthful, and politically motivated deceit.

The Star is in the former, the Mail/Sun/Express in the latter.

Not all tabloids are the same.

I'll stick to my Dandy/Beano analogy of the Star
As for the Mail/Sun/Express dark,evil publications that might taint even a fireplace!

[Stradageek]

I think there's a very big difference between irreverent but truthful, and politically motivated deceit.

The Star is in the former, the Mail/Sun/Express in the latter.

Not all tabloids are the same.

I'll stick to my Dandy/Beano analogy of the Star
As for the Mail/Sun/Express dark,evil publications that might taint even a fireplace!

The tabloids, especially, made more sense to me when we saw what drove the demise of the NOTW. The NOTW died because the advertisers fled.

The purpose of the tabloids is to sell advertising space, they are therefore focused entirely on click-bait, not reporting the news

[simonineaston]

It's all very well trying to make light of the content of tabloid (and come to that, the 'serious' newspapers) but the fact is that they sell in colossal numbers and have an enormous influence on how we vote. Thus we have to put up with the fact that a handful of individuals have extraordinary power over our daily lives.
While we're at it, we might reflect on the time when piffle was the Telegraph's man in Bruxelles, which he knew well - his dad was a career EU bureaucrat and the family had lived in Bruxelles for years. Piffle cut his career teeth writing about the EU, making fun of it and learning to love the sound of breaking glass. Of that time he later said

Everything I wrote from Brussels, I found was sort of chucking these rocks over the garden wall and I listened to this amazing crash from the greenhouse next door … and it really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of power.

[Debs]

[reohn2]

I also enjoyed watching Harriet Harmon taking down JRM in the HofCs during yesterday's debate:- https://youtu.be/HUF9B5Z2cFo

[reohn2]

I think there's a very big difference between irreverent but truthful, and politically motivated deceit.

The Star is in the former, the Mail/Sun/Express in the latter.

Not all tabloids are the same.

I'll stick to my Dandy/Beano analogy of the Star
As for the Mail/Sun/Express dark,evil publications that might taint even a fireplace!

The tabloids, especially, made more sense to me when we saw what drove the demise of the NOTW. The NOTW died because the advertisers fled.

The purpose of the tabloids is to sell advertising space, they are therefore focused entirely on click-bait, not reporting the news

Yer not wrong!