Skip to main content

Who Boris Johnson is

Further to my earlier post on this, a little more detail:
I went to Balliol with Boris, studying philosophy with him there and working with him at the Oxford Union, and I have touched base with him off and on in the years since. What most people who don't know him don't realise is Boris's ruthlessness (as well as opportunism) as a politician. Much of what Boris does, if my experience is anything to go by, is very calculated; his self-presentation as slightly buffoon-like is mostly deliberate. He does what he thinks will bring him publicity and affection. And he is not at all averse to deceiving people in the process. For example: At Oxford, I was [for my sins...] President of the O.U Social Democratic Club; Boris sometimes presented himself as sympathetic with the SDP in order to curry favour with sections of the student body http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/pandora/a-youthful-flirtation-comes-back-to-haunt-boris-410843.html . His self-presentation nowadays as green-leaning is, I fear, a piece of equally opportunistic and calculated spin.
  I hope that Londoners will vote Sian Berry 1, Ken Livingstone 2 on May 1st. A victory for Boris would yield a few laughs, but would be a dreadfully-regressive step back in time for our nation's capital city.
  

Comments

Anonymous said…
I can't begin to understand how any observant English person could possibly believe that Boris is actually cuddly / dumb blond / thick or any of that.

Just googled Boris ruthless right-wing and got a few hits.

Apparently he is like Tony Benn, at least in so far as they both seem to think that being Muslim is genetic;

http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/conservative-party-general-issues/45206-i-m-proud-my-muslim-ancestry-says-tory-london-mayor-candidate-boris-johnson-mp-3.html

His great sense of humour is, of course, his most dangerous weapon of all in our modern frivolous age.
2 April 2008 at 10:48
ingo said…
Boris Johnson, thanks to the Greens in London stating their political preference, is now the underdog, thats regrettable but inevitable from a relatively unknown Green candidate who just joined five years ago and reflects the large majority of Greens who like democracy, but have been brought up in a FPTP system. Eventually these characteristics will taint their every doing. ingo
7 April 2008 at 10:19
ingo said…
Boris Johnson, thanks to the Greens in London stating their political preference, is now the underdog, thats regrettable but inevitable from a relatively unknown Green candidate who just joined five years ago and reflects the large majority of Greens who like democracy, but have been brought up in a FPTP system. Eventually these characteristics will taint their every doing. ingo
7 April 2008 at 10:20
Raphael said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
9 April 2008 at 16:57
Raphael said…
I deleted the previous one because the link did not work.

My question was, do you think that Sian could win a few more votes?

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/
blog/article.php?id=1802

Also read the comments there.
9 April 2008 at 17:00
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post-Growth: A new vision for a fairer and more sustainable Britain

Post a Comment
Read more

More on why 20's plenty -- without need for any further 'trials'...

There are a number of reasons for setting a default speed of 20mph throughout the 'unclassified' road network in residential parts of a city such as Norwich. Most important perhaps is that of driver recognition as to what the speed limit is. If you have 20 mph as the default then you not only establish this limit clearly, but you also adjust the driver's recognition as to what is the "normal" speed in such residential areas. The most important aspect is that drivers set 20 mph as the norm with those 30 mph areas or roads being seen as 50% faster, rather than seeing 30 mph as the norm with 20 mph as 33% slower. The psychological adjustment of normal speeds in residential areas is key to the success of reducing speeds and therefore danger to pedestrians and cyclists. Therefore any trial, pilot or whatever, that only implements 20 mph in a tiny proportion of the city is not modelling 20's Plenty in any realistic manner.   When considering the val...
2 comments
Read more