The Boris Johnson thread

   #1  

Mike@Gendan

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So it's finally happened.
BoJo has been elected as a the new UK Prime Minister, so we have an American president whose name is a British euphemism for a fart, and a British PM whose name is an American euphemism for penis.

Blond-haired fart and penis running the world.

It got me thinking though, in the US you probably have an inkling of the British perception of Trump (hint - it's not good).

So I wonder, what's the US perception of Boris? Do you know who he is?
 
   #2  

Andy

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My source for info:

 
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DV52

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Mike: what's happening to politics on this fragile blue planet? Why has the world suddenly confused entertainment with good government?

I can understand (well not really) how populist Presidents get elected when the vote is from the common man (bread & circuses) - but in your country, the Prime Minister is voted by the honorable members in the House of Commons. These are hardened politicians (I assume) with at least a modicum of political nous (I assume) - and still they elect a populist!! Has the world gone bonkers - or is good government these days simply a form of TV reality show? If so, when do I get to vote on who to evict?

Don
 
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Mike@Gendan

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the Prime Minister is voted by the honorable members in the House of Commons

I can see the mistake you made there :p

Seriously though, the Conservative party leadership election process is a series of votes cast by MPs in the party, gradually whittling down the pool to 2 candidates.
Then there is a postal ballot of all Conservative party members (not MPs or elected people - members pay to join the party to have a say in its governance) to decide between the final 2.

So while the final choice of candidates was down to MPs, the ultimate deciding vote was cast by thousands of party members.

(In every stage of the vote though, Boris was ahead by a landslide)
 
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DV52

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Arrrhhh............ OK my bad!! That explains it - the broad membership in the Conservative party needs to be entertained!!
 
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Uwe

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I can see the mistake you made there :p
Surely the mistake is thinking that any politician anywhere is "honorable"? :o

Personally I've never understood why any European country would possibly want a whole 'nother layer of bureaucracy on top of their own, where they're required to codify "directives" from an un-elected supra-national "commission" into their own laws. So from that perspective, I'm sympathetic to BoJo's main position, which is: We're leaving the EU, deal or no deal.

Other than that, my perception is that he's a bit of a clown who doesn't take himself too seriously. But I could be all wet on this?

-Uwe-
 
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Mike@Gendan

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If we were looking at entering the EU now, I can see a lot of arguments against it.
Leaving when we are so entrenched in the system, and without a solution to the Irish border issue is just going to case more problems though.

We've already seen a huge slump in the value of the currency, and if we leave with the "backstop" in place we can't really strike trade deals with other nations as we'd still be tied into a deal with the EU.

If we can get a no deal break it frees us to make other deals, but then the EU aren't going to play nice unless the "divorce bill" is settled, so we'd still need to strike some kind of deal.
The rest of parliament meanwhile is trying to legislate to prevent a no-deal exit.

All a bit of a mess really.
 
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PetrolDave

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The rest of parliament meanwhile is trying to legislate to prevent a no-deal exit.

All a bit of a mess really.
Parliament has consistently voted against the only deal the EU says is possible AND against no-deal, which as I see it only leaves no Brexit - so without actually saying it directly parliament is attempting to ignore the will of the people as expressed in the referendum to leave the EU :banghead:
 
   #12  

Mike R

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I know I don't have anything at stake, nor do I grasp the inner machinations of current British Politics, but I'm still in favor of Brexit for one reason. You guys had a referendum, and what does it say if that just gets ignored. It sets a bad precedent if you can actually have such a referendum and it ultimately is meaningless.

Is actually Brexiting the right move for the UK? I don't know.
 
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Mike@Gendan

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I know I don't have anything at stake, nor do I grasp the inner machinations of current British Politics, but I'm still in favor of Brexit for one reason. You guys had a referendum, and what does it say if that just gets ignored. It sets a bad precedent if you can actually have such a referendum and it ultimately is meaningless.

Playing Devil's Advocate for a minute though, the referendum outcome was 52 vs 48%, which is almost close enough to be within a statistical margin of error.
The question was arguably too simplified, and neither side really knew how it was going to work, so a lot of untruths were used in the campaigns.
The opposition are moving towards the idea that we should have a second vote, either to reconfirm whether the nation still want Brexit, knowing what they do now, or a vote on whether to accept whatever deal is agreed.

Unfortunately after 3 years of stalemate any option seems a bad option at the moment, as not enough thought was put in to what the results would mean before the referendum was called.
 
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DV52

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^^^ Mike (squared) hmm...... I'm reminded of the apocryphal saying often attributed to Stalin (definitely, my favorite Megalomaniac): It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes!! ;)

Don
 
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Uwe

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bojo_cartoon-tina-toon.jpg


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-Uwe-
 
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