We certainly live in strange times. Boris' campaign launch yesterday was seen as a success simply because he got through it without making a gaffe! The Tories are in full self-destruct mode. Their flagship policy is so fiendishly complex it makes the Schleswig-Holstein question seem like a doddle. Getting the policy off the ground has just defeated the clever and determined woman elected three years ago and her replacement is probably going to be a man who is famously indolent and thinks details are small detachments of troops.
It is akin to having taken an intricate timepiece to a well qualified horologist who can't fix it, you rush off to a clumsy myopic blacksmith with a big hammer and an anvil. The whole thing was a triumph of delusion.
His official campaign launch yesterday morning looked a bit like prize fighter's weigh-in. I half expected someone to rush in to towel him off. He was so animated at times it appeared he was on speed - and perhaps he was. Who knows? He kept jumping around on the balls of his feet and punching the air with a chubby Alan Sugar sort of finger.
His official campaign launch yesterday morning looked a bit like prize fighter's weigh-in. I half expected someone to rush in to towel him off. He was so animated at times it appeared he was on speed - and perhaps he was. Who knows? He kept jumping around on the balls of his feet and punching the air with a chubby Alan Sugar sort of finger.
He described the no deal option as a 'vital tool' of the government in the negotiations. It was the button to detonate the explosive belt strapped to the Tory party and the nation.
And in a fantasy packed speech, clearly written under the influence of something, he piled one unlikely statistic on another until the whole crazy pile was topped off with the claim that Britain is forecast to go neck and neck with Germany at some date far into the future. Who made the forecast we were not told and no one had the nerve to ask.
It was the fantasy of a fantasist delivered to adults who still believe in Santa Claus. It was a speech full of delusion and wishful thinking - where it wasn't a flat out lie. Basically, he took all the promises made by Theresa May three years and made them even more glittering to a credulous, slack-jawed mob that clung to his every word. The man who doesn't do detail used an ultra-wide roller to paint a bright optimistic picture of a future under him - a bit like Rolf Harris.
He wants to create a new sense of 'Europeanism' - after doing his best to break the EU. He wants to 'intensify' our trading relationship with Europe - by leaving the single market without a deal. He even claimed the EU would renegotiate the deal with him in a 'new sense of optimism'. Earlier, they had closed the windows against Steve Bray's booming voice shouting 'stop Brexit' outside and this would have prevented them hearing the laughter from Brussels, where he is absolutely hated.
"We can get Brexit done and we can win", he declared, looking like a man who didn't believe a word of what he was reading.
When the questions came his answers were always a bit too long, too rambling. Reporters could have gone outside for a drag and missed nothing it was so bland, and he kept up the bobbing and weaving as if physically as well as metaphorically, sidestepping the questions.
Some years ago apparently (HERE), he told GQ magazine he took Cocaine at university and when asked about it yesterday, he ignored the questioner and gave us a discourse on something entirely different. The same with a question on his anglo-saxon worded business policy which again he didn't answer. They are not going to end. These questions will haunt him forever. And the reporters were too polite to remind everyone he had twice been sacked as a liar.
He wouldn't commit to resigning if he didn't meet the October 31st deadline, which is just as well since he isn't going to. If MPs block no deal they will face 'mortal retribution,' he said. I assume this means he will send his friend Darius Guppy to personally duff them up a treat (HERE) if they do.
Asked about calling Muslim women letter boxes and looking like bank robbers he said it was important for politicians to speak their mind and say what they genuinely thought. This was an amazing answer. We now know he thinks veiled Muslim women look like letter boxes and bank robbers.
He is going to fall flat on his face. And sooner rather than later.
BoJo looks like a man who is unable to face reality in whatever form it appears. Not only does he not do detail he's doesn't do much in the way of self-awareness either.
In my lifetime, the House of Commons was a place where you always got a few wild eyed extremists on both sides while No 10 was always an oasis of restraint whichever party was in power. The PM acted as a moderating influence, calmly steering the nation on a centralish course. We now have the extraordinary spectacle of the Commons trying to restrain No 10 to avoid a catastrophic no deal Brexit. The extremists are either in government or on the opposition front bench.
Yesterday MPs narrowly failed to take control of the parliamentary agenda and so the Tory party led convoy continues its way to the cliff edge. The foot that had been hovering above the brake pedal is now back on the throttle.
And in a fantasy packed speech, clearly written under the influence of something, he piled one unlikely statistic on another until the whole crazy pile was topped off with the claim that Britain is forecast to go neck and neck with Germany at some date far into the future. Who made the forecast we were not told and no one had the nerve to ask.
It was the fantasy of a fantasist delivered to adults who still believe in Santa Claus. It was a speech full of delusion and wishful thinking - where it wasn't a flat out lie. Basically, he took all the promises made by Theresa May three years and made them even more glittering to a credulous, slack-jawed mob that clung to his every word. The man who doesn't do detail used an ultra-wide roller to paint a bright optimistic picture of a future under him - a bit like Rolf Harris.
He wants to create a new sense of 'Europeanism' - after doing his best to break the EU. He wants to 'intensify' our trading relationship with Europe - by leaving the single market without a deal. He even claimed the EU would renegotiate the deal with him in a 'new sense of optimism'. Earlier, they had closed the windows against Steve Bray's booming voice shouting 'stop Brexit' outside and this would have prevented them hearing the laughter from Brussels, where he is absolutely hated.
"We can get Brexit done and we can win", he declared, looking like a man who didn't believe a word of what he was reading.
When the questions came his answers were always a bit too long, too rambling. Reporters could have gone outside for a drag and missed nothing it was so bland, and he kept up the bobbing and weaving as if physically as well as metaphorically, sidestepping the questions.
Some years ago apparently (HERE), he told GQ magazine he took Cocaine at university and when asked about it yesterday, he ignored the questioner and gave us a discourse on something entirely different. The same with a question on his anglo-saxon worded business policy which again he didn't answer. They are not going to end. These questions will haunt him forever. And the reporters were too polite to remind everyone he had twice been sacked as a liar.
He wouldn't commit to resigning if he didn't meet the October 31st deadline, which is just as well since he isn't going to. If MPs block no deal they will face 'mortal retribution,' he said. I assume this means he will send his friend Darius Guppy to personally duff them up a treat (HERE) if they do.
Asked about calling Muslim women letter boxes and looking like bank robbers he said it was important for politicians to speak their mind and say what they genuinely thought. This was an amazing answer. We now know he thinks veiled Muslim women look like letter boxes and bank robbers.
He is going to fall flat on his face. And sooner rather than later.
BoJo looks like a man who is unable to face reality in whatever form it appears. Not only does he not do detail he's doesn't do much in the way of self-awareness either.
In my lifetime, the House of Commons was a place where you always got a few wild eyed extremists on both sides while No 10 was always an oasis of restraint whichever party was in power. The PM acted as a moderating influence, calmly steering the nation on a centralish course. We now have the extraordinary spectacle of the Commons trying to restrain No 10 to avoid a catastrophic no deal Brexit. The extremists are either in government or on the opposition front bench.
Yesterday MPs narrowly failed to take control of the parliamentary agenda and so the Tory party led convoy continues its way to the cliff edge. The foot that had been hovering above the brake pedal is now back on the throttle.
