There was a real eye opener yesterday when Johnson told ITV that he had never knowingly lied in his political life. It's hard to know how to take this. Everyone who has ever known him seems to think he is a 'congenital', 'habitual' or 'pathological' liar. Was he lying about not telling lies? Did he actually believe what he was saying himself? I suppose only he knows. I don't think there is any doubt that he says plenty of things that aren't true but he claims "I may have got things wrong, I may have been mistaken, but I've never tried to deceive people".
The problem with this notion is that he often persists with an untruth even when someone points out what he's saying is wrong. The head of the UK statistics authority once wrote to warn him the £350 million a week figure was 'misleading' but he continues to repeat the claim anyway.
Is there even a difference between deceiving and misleading? Is a lie and asserting something as true that you simply aren't certain about the same thing? These are academic points for me. He is cavalier with the truth at all times because he doesn't value it. Johnson is certainly good at writing interestingly about a subject without checking his facts. This is why he was fired by The Times. It is enough that his speeches and articles are entertaining - facts come a rather poor and distant second.
I am not sure even he knows whether he is telling the truth or not. Unlike most people who are careful about telling lies, he doesn't see a real distinction between the two. They are just a means to an end. Personally, if someone tells me something I (and I suspect they) know to be untrue it always seems as if they hold me in contempt, take me for a fool. The privileged Old Etonian Johnson has such an exalted opinion of himself that he does this all the time without realising it.
Johnson does not do detail at all. Either it bores him or he can't understand technical stuff so he gives up. He is also unable to say 'I don't know', something a lot of people with large egos are guilty of. So he wings it. Usually this has no consequences because he is speaking in a small group. I bet the cabinet secretary has to put him right quite often. But answering questions on topics you know little or nothing about on national TV, especially when you're expected to have it all at your fingertips, is not easy. Nobody wants to be humiliated.
This is why he didn't want to do the Channel 4 climate debate yesterday and sent Michael Gove and his dad Stanley instead. The broadcaster said the debate was for leaders only - not unreasonable in my opinion - but Johnson, like some ancient monarch, wanted to send a champion in his place. In this case, former Environment Secretary Michael Gove. Nothing like tilting things in your favour is there? Channel 4 refused the substitute and put an ice sculpture in Johnson's place (and Farage's too). This has prompted a complaint by The Tories to OFCOM.
A bit rich you might think coming from a party which has doctored videos and used fake fact checking and other websites to fool voters about Jeremy Corbyn. The Conservatives are even threatening to review Channel 4's broadcasting license - a move which would put us on the same road as Nazi Germany in the early 1930s.
Now Johnson also seems to be running away from being interviewed by Andrew Neil. Sturgeon and Corbyn have already gone through the ritual grilling by Neil, on the understanding all the leaders would do it, but Johnson is now refusing to confirm a date.
This does not surprise me at all. Big set piece interviews with the main party leaders have been a feature of British general elections for years. Paxman famously eviscerated the men and women who put themselves forward for the top job. In the main they showed themselves able to stand up to it. But Johnson is a cheat, liar and charlatan who has used that trademark smirk to get out of many an awkward spot without answering a question. Neil is extremely tenacious and knows his stuff as well, so he can follow up a mendacious or misleading reply. The TV audience will not be so forgiving. Some believe Johnson to be clever but I don't think he is and he is afraid this will be revealed to the world. His secret will be out - he is nothing but a fool.
He may not do the Neil interview at all, figuring he has less to lose by avoiding it than demonstrating beyond doubt he is unfit for high office. His cupboard is crammed full of skeletons.
We now learn that his friend and mentor, Donald Trump is coming to Britain for an awkward NATO summit in Watford between 2nd and 4th December. According to Tom Newton-Dunn, the Tories are concerned that Johnson will be pictured with Trump who is hugely unpopular in this country:
Trump is always a loose cannon with many connections to Brexit, something he encouraged, Farage and Vladimir Putin, a man he studiously and oddly refuses to criticise but who is clearly the very reason NATO continues to be needed. This is not to mention all the Russian oligarchs who donated to the Tory party and appear in the blocked ISC report, plus all the baggage around a future trade deal with the USA and of course, how it might impact the NHS. The visit could be a game changer.Excl: Worried Tory campaign chiefs are trying to ensure Boris Johnson and Donald Trump don’t appear in public together at NATO summit in London next week. POTUS seen as toxic to Tory campaign.https://t.co/VD9gZd71yL— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) November 28, 2019
Let us hope it is. We need all the help we can get.
