The congenital liar masquerading as our foreign secretary other wise known as BoJo has now entered into an argument with the head of the studiously impartial and widely respected head of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir David Norgrove (HERE). Sir David wrote an open letter describing Boris' use of the £350m a week figure as a "clear misuse of official statistics" and Johnson, instead of apologising has complained that the head of UK Statistics has "wilfully misunderstood" his article and demanding a retraction.
This is the usual reaction of the habitual liar, particularly those who have gotten away with lies in the past. Admit nothing, use the power of your position to browbeat someone into accepting your lie is the truth. Double down, and double down again. It's high risk but, hell, it's worked in the past and it will again - until it doesn't and the mask slips so that the liar is revealed for what he is. If he gets away with it this time it will embolden him to become another Trump. A candidate for leader who defied the ridicule and used mendacity again and again to fight his way to the top job.
The Guardian has a great editorial that should be required reading for every person in this country (HERE). It describes Johnson's article as a "pitch" and a "ludicrous fantasy", which it is. In a powerful piece they say:
Being frightened by the idealism and the generous impulses of young people who declare their allegiance to a European ideal is not true patriotism but the last resort of the scoundrels who inflicted on us this catastrophe. It is reminiscent of the Daily Mail’s demand before the election that Mrs May “crush the saboteurs”; and it is laying the foundations for a new legend of the stab in the back, which will be ready when the old stories about how Britain was the second greatest power in the world, bled dry by the envious leeches of Germany, lose their power to enchant.
In this new version of the myth, the humiliations and impoverishment that must follow Brexit will still be the fault of wicked foreigners, but resentment and denial of reality feed on one another, and can never be satisfied. New villains will be needed. The catastrophe will be blamed on everyone who foretold it. We have no need to accept this. The task for all those who believe that Brexit will be a disaster is first to mitigate it and second to ensure responsibility and blame are pinned to the irresponsible clique of Bullingdon boys who brought us to the cliff edge of the referendum and then pushed us off – chief among them Mr Johnson himself.
He has really done his prospects no good at all. There are calls for him to be sacked (HERE) by his own colleagues and others dismissing it as an attempted relaunch of his PM ambitions.
He has his dwindling band of lunatic supporters with Daniel Hannan writing (HERE) that remainers despise him because of his "irrepressible cheerfulness" as if cocky optimism and cracking jokes on The Titanic might endear him to other passengers. Charles Moore says if Mrs May won't communicate (Moore code for telling the public Brexit will be a success when you know it's a disaster) she can't blame Johnson for doing it (HERE) for her. What?
