The man who wanted to be king of the world when he was a boy, but has subsequently rolled back his vaulting ambition to just the premiership of a small island, has written his usual Monday piece for The Telegraph (HERE). The thing about the dreams of a small child is that awkward stuff like reality can always be glossed over but BoJo has never grown out of it, so in his columns things always look how he would like then to be rather than how they actually are.
The article's title speaks of the UK being 'enslaved' and appears at the same time that Nicky Morgan MP, on Conservative Home (HERE) is asking MPs to 'sign up to a Code of Conduct about the language we are using in the current Brexit debate'. Obviously the memo hasn't reached BoJo yet.
On the same day Johnson was criticised (HERE) by the Commons Standards watchdog for failing to declare an interest in a property in Somerset that he had bought jointly with his brother, Jo. It's the second time he has been found on the wrong side of the rules, to which the committee said he had an 'over-casual' attitude.
“The committee found it particularly regrettable that Mr Johnson gave the commissioner an assurance that his registration of interests was up to date, and within a very short period it proved not to be.”
But back to the article. This childhood habit of writing fiction is a serious drawback to being a leader although as yet most of the Conservative membership don't realise the putative emperor has no clothes.
His theme is about the customs union and keeping Corbyn out of No 10, which is of course reserved for BoJo himself, plus some rousing stuff about Britain being 'one of the most dynamic places on earth'. He says:
"If the UK were to commit to remaining in the Customs Union, it would make a total and utter nonsense of the referendum result. We would be out of the EU, but in many ways still run by the EU. It would be the worst of both worlds, not just now, but forever – and that is why I find the news so appalling that I don’t really believe it".
His solution is of the time honoured with-one-bound-Jack-was-free type, all finished in a single paragraph and designed to appeal to Telegraph readers. It's the 'managed no-deal' Malthouse compromise already rejected by MPs (422 - 139) and the EU. Although he thinks of himself as totally different to Theresa May, they are in fact very similar. Just keep demanding the impossible:
"There is still time to sort out the problems in the PM’s deal, and to escape the backstop; of course there is. It would still be far better to get out with a standstill arrangement – a managed no deal – that would give us time to negotiate an FTA and to solve the issues raised in Northern Ireland. But to agree to be non-voting members of the EU, under the surrender proposed by Jeremy Corbyn – it cannot, must not and will not happen".
However, this is as nothing compared to Johnson's assertion in the article where he makes some claims about Britain's roles in developing lithium-ion batteries, obviously something that caught his attention for a split second when his fingers were poised over the keyboard:
"You may have forgotten that the key breakthrough in Lithium-ion batteries took place in Oxford in 1980, but more importantly you may not be aware – amid the Brexit hubbub - that this country now leads the world in battery technology".
Wikipedia (HERE) describe the development time-line from 1973 to 1996 and whilst Oxford does appear it seems to me it played a very minor role in 1980 in hosting part of some joint research with Stanford University in the US. The leaders were a German born American professor and a Japanese researcher. This is the only fleeting reference to Oxford, most of the research over twenty years and more took place in the USA.
As for Britain leading the world in battery technology, I invite you to read this (HERE) from 2017, on a European energy website which said:
"At a national level, there are three countries: China, South Korea and Japan which dominate over 90% of global lithium ion battery production, which is the chosen technology for electric and hybrid automobile manufacturers".
Or this one (HERE) from May last year explaining how a Chinese manufacture had acquired a $4 billion shareholding in a Chilean lithium mining company giving it control over 'most' of the world's supply of lithium.
Note the three countries listed China, Korea and Japan didn't include the USA itself but I already knew that Tesla had a huge plant in Nevada called the Giga Factory (HERE), said to have the largest footprint of any building in the world. Tesla manufacture both lithium-ion batteries and vehicles on the site.
So, if China, Korea and Japan control 90% of the world's production and Tesla have a huge plant in Reno, Nevada, it doesn't leave an awful lot for us.
Where he gets the idea we 'lead the world' in battery technology, I really do not know. It's another delusion but nobody will challenge him on it.
