soulfinger wrote:DzM wrote:"Boris Johnson says he won't run for Prime Minister."
What the hell? YOUR head-buffoon is NOT running for head of state?
Yes indeed. Make a big fucking mess and then leave someone else to sort it out. He didn't have much choice though; once the loathsome Gove had done his Brutus routine. I'm not sure not sure if, post Brexit, we're still allowed to do schadenfreude, but it's joyful to watch the buffoons turn on each other.
Indeed so. Boris Johnson's press conference yesterday has provided the only moment of mirth in this poor benighted country in the last week. Oh, that and the England team being knocked out of the European football championship by Iceland.
So I think it goes like this. Boris Johnson didn't really ever want Brexit, but decided that backing that campaign was a better career move for him, with the aim of undermining Cameron, who had the job he ultimately wanted. Johnson didn't expect the leave side to actually win the vote, so when it happened he had no plan for what to do next. Johnson (a regular columnist in the Tory-supporting
Daily Telegraph) wrote a column after the vote indicating that there might be a case for a second referendum at a later date, after negotiations with Europe about the exit terms. There are rumours that Gove advised him on the content of this Torygraph column.
Meanwhile Rupert Murdoch decided that he didn't much like Johnson, and more particularly that he didn't trust him to put Brexit into operation. Paul Dacre, editor of the right-wing
Daily Mail, had come to the same conclusion. Gove's wife, Lady MacGove, works for Dacre and wrote a column critical of Johnson; there was also the "leak" of an email from her to her husband (for they communicate mostly electronically, obviously) basically stating that Murdoch/Dacre didn't trust Johnson and wouldn't support him.
And so Gove, having disposed of the political career of his former best friend Cameron, did the same to his colleague Johnson. For whom politics had always been a secondary career to his media interests and a bit of a game anyway.
Anyway, it's all gone very
House of Cards. But more like the original British version from the early 90s (which, strangely, we rewatched on DVD last month). In other words cheaper and less glossy, mostly featuring posh people, with less believable characters and with everyone overacting. In which context it might be worth noting that Gove, having been demoted from his job as Education Secretary before the 2015 election because every teacher, student and parent in the country hated him, became Cameron's Chief Whip. Like the song goes, Gove will tear us apart.
Though I don't think Gove will get the job this time, anyway. Murdoch/Dacre only really wanted him to get rid of Johnson. They will now back right-wing Home Secretary Theresa May as Tory leader, and most of the Tory faithful will imagine they've got a new Thatcher at last. So, they'll think, yay! - we've got rid of those unelected foreign elites telling us what to do. And yay! - now we'll do what Rupert Murdoch tells us to do.
Constitutional note for non-UK readers: The UK Prime Minister is not actually head of state. That's the monarch's sort of job.
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 6:54 pm
