I'm not going to tear strips off him because there's no point and I don't want to. He has certain qualities which is why he got elected: He's extremely affable, he tends to be nice to people when he speaks to them, which is no bad thing. He is able to deal with criticism, often severe and sometimes unfair personal criticism, without it affecting him. Miles better than I can. He has a certain amount of charm and charisma, old school, bumbling and eccentric, but warm and affectionate, and people like that. For very good reason, it's comforting and friendly. He's not stupid, he might not be a genius, but he's way above, for instance, Donald Trump. He's not thick. We spot thick people a mile a way and he's not that. He's normal, he's very well educated, which helps him, and he's not so stupid that you just humour him, but not so sharp that you wonder what he's up to and don't trust him. He has flaws, but so do we all, he's done very questionable things that can court serious examination and criticism, but this post isn't about that. We're not all born leaders. Seldom few of us are. Boris Johnson isn't. At this point in time we need clarity of thought and expression. We need a decisive plan and decisive action. We need someone to lead us through this. Someone to take control, to make the decisions, to articulate them and to carry them through. Boris Johnson is not capable. None of that makes him a bad person. But it makes him a poor choice for Prime Minster. And with what we're dealing with, it makes him a terrible Prime Minister.
Agree completely. Problem is, who from the Tory leadership contest is a born leader? I don't know that any of them was, to be honest. Possibly Hunt? The one I've been most impressed with through all this is Rishi Sunak, he seems like a strong and decisive person, who is able to speak clearly and passionately. I think he'll be PM one day, but It's difficult to see him being chosen by the Tories any time soon, isn't it? Then again, many would have said that about a female leader 50 years ago.
Johnson is a work shy chancer who got lucky. He's out of his depth like most of his cabinet and his main adviser Cummings only cares about Brexit and removing anybody in the civil service who doesn't agree with him. I'm no Corbyn fan I dislike his politics although I'm a labour voter and didn't think he'd make a good PM but if he'd handled this like Johnson the media in this country would be demanding his head on a plate Johnson is getting an easy ride and it needs to change. W
He is a dangerous man - threatening to have someone's legs broken - and unsure of his convictions (the pro-and-anti EU articles.) The superficial charm hides a megalomaniac who was apparently amusing on a quiz show back in the day. The racist, Empire-loving hard Brexit mob have given him such a majority that he can do as he likes. All we can hope is that the job wears him out. Had I been close to dying from the 'rona and survived I would be reassessing what is important to me. I don' t think he will stand down, though. The fact he is already back at work means he has amazing determination and can climb out of his bed to do his job when I would still be recuperating and not thinking about work. We are stuck with him, and his lack of gravitas, I fear.
Didn’t say I liked him, I really don’t, but IMO he’s the only one from the leadership contest that you could look at and say he looks like a leader.
I do wonder how the world as a whole would look if Obama was still in power. I know that there are people that don’t like him, but he communicated in such a way if exuded calmness and knowledge that we had someone in charge that knew how to get us out of this mess. If he was still in power it would have shown the other leaders how to do it. His replacement is Trump. The world is going effing mad.
Obama was of a level so high that Johnson, Trump etc could only dream about. All while being hamstrung by conservative reactionaries. Just to listen to him weigh every word before it came out of his mouth was a joy compared to the crap most politicians spew out.
I would examine the facts in front of you if I were you. He plotted and schemed his way to be leader and Prime Minister. The only reason he took up the vote leave mantle was because Cameron chose the remain one. He voted against Brexit on a number of occasions, and then got voted in on the soundbite "Get Brexit Done". Try telling the women he has used and abused that he is nice to people - he has a number of children with several different partners. If he was a woman who had betrayed partners in the way he has she would have no chance to be PM. He is a conman, and can only be trusted to do anything to further his own interests above everybody else's. Without doubt the worst Prime Minister we have had.
Currently second worst. Earl Russell let 1 million people starve while allowing food to be taken and sold at a profit, destroying the Whigs as a political force and nearly doing the same to the Liberals in his second term!
Regarding the pandemic, he wasn't dealt the best of hands but he hasn't half played his cards badly thus far. Before the virus hit us, he was avoiding meetings, delaying critical decisions and was preoccupied with personal and political pet projects. As the pandemic crashed over us he was bumbling around, behaving exactly as he told us not to and came down with the ******* virus. And so he has missed most of the crunchdown and misery caused while his ministers soldiered gamely on. He now has a chance, as the next phase is beginning to play out, to make a difference and redeem himself. So far, he is the same Boris in terms of his poorer traits; avoiding scrutiny, few appearances and wafflingly indecisive. He has got lots of positive qualities including warm, affable and approachable. They just aren't what we need right now. He needs to get shut of Cummings and be his own man imho.
He was dealt a suited 10/Queen. Not the best hand, but better than what most other players (aka. countries) were dealt. He then went all in and folded at the same time.
I've read a lot about Boris, and in some ways he is unfairly criticised. I don't personally think he is as clever as he is meant to be. Using a thesaurus to write his speeches so he finds unusual words like "autarky", quoting classic literature and badly repeating Ancient Greek or Latin are done to make him seem more intelligent that he is. But really, his main problem is that he is a narcissist. He has got everything he every wanted, without actually having to work for it and just wants to be liked. That is the main problem with the reaction to COVID. We need a strong leader to make tough decisions, and he won't do that because he doesn't want anyone to not like him. Compare how he has dealt with the crisis with the other world leaders, and with the exception of Trump, maybe only the leaders of Belarus and Brazil are doing worse. Look at Jacinda Ahern, Mette Frederiksen or Tsai Ing-Wen and how they have dealt with the crisis (morale of that story is that female left-leading leaders are better in a pandemic situation!) or even Merkel, Macron and Varadkar in Europe - not the most popular with their people but have been clear and decisive with actions and words - although their countries have done terribly really.
A racist clown. A funny, racist clown. A funny, racist, bumbling clown. A funny, racist, bumbling, clueless clown. But he's funny and affable, so yeah, there is that. Let's not be too hard on the man.
