Opinion: Boris... Just Boris

Boris Johnson is a phenomena.

Yesterday he was being touted by the Telegraph as a strong candidate to Usurp David Cameron before the 2015 Election, having wooed party Donors his way with a 'Strong Pro Business' stance.

Did I say strong? I meant utterly frenzied, even going to the utterly 'Balls Out crazy' move of inviting Rupert Murdoch to be his personal guest at the Olympics... 

To appreciate just how 'Strong' a 'Pro Business' gesture this is, just remember, A) This Billionaire Mogul isn't exactly at his most popular at the moment and B) Boris is responsible for the Met Police, who are currently in the middle of investigating News Corp (amongst others) over various things, and are themselves under pressure, having been accused of complicity in some of the things they are now investigating...

So... Yesterday he seemed unstoppable. The city had their boy, willing to perform a very very PDA with one of the most divisive figures in U.K business, they were misty-eyeing at him like the nerdy library kid gawping the pretty girl who wouldn't speak to him*... potentially it was just a matter of getting the public to fall for him in the same way...

Today...
Well Today... This:

Now some people are writing off his chances. Guffawing at him...
'Oh look at the Silly Dangling Man'
'He can never win... Look at him... He is a Silly... a Silly...'

Be warned though, don't write him off... This is Meat and Gravy to this man...
Don't forget he was swept to victory as Mayor of London on a Platform of: 'Being Quite Funny on Panel Shows' and being 'Less Sickeningly Odious than Ken Livingstone'
Now you may not think that is an adequate enough skillset to lead a country... and you'd be correct...
But that doesn't mean it couldn't happen...

Even Cameron was forced to admit it: "If any other politician got stuck on a zipwire it would be disastrous. With Boris it's a triumph."


...and I imagine that quote was uttered through teeth so gritted that the merest agitation would have caused them to shatter into microscopic fragments. Whilst it is true that Duncan praised Macbeth before the regicide, it is slightly more unusual for him to cheer him on between stabbings.

Before the Mayoral Election I begged London to not vote for him. I obviously didn't have as much influence as I hoped... I should also note that I begged them to avoid voting for Livingstone, but it would be a bit suspect to call what happened a win for me...

I feel there is a genuinely worrying trend to put personality before ability in politics these days. Tories will lay the blame at the feet of Tony Blair, Labour will claim that Thatcher did it first, (Like so many of the 'Things Tony Did')... The Lib Dems... well they'll say.. something... probably something that sits between the two and means nothing...

Could the Country do this on a larger scale? Would they gamble the future of our nation on a man who most closely resembles Wurzel Gummage before he became an enchanted scarecrow?

Well... People like Boris... He is a surprisingly good public speaker for someone who has a default setting of 'Incoherent'. He knows how to get a crowd going, witness his 60,00 person bitchslap of Mittens Romney... and he can laugh at himself, evinced by his sterling buffoonery/recovery whilst hanging over his city like something from a rejected line of Bullingdon christmas decorations...

Will they vote for him?

Of course.. they voted for him in London... and he is clever.. he is one of the few to take an important lesson from American Politics, the 'Dubya' lesson that nobody else has ever been brave enough to utilise: In times of crisis, people tend to have more trust in those who they feel are less intelligent than themselves.

Of course, anyone who thinks this about Boris, but doesn't happen to work at CERN, is utterly wrong. He is highly educated, strategic and has cultivated this persona for years... and besides, he has advisors for any of the really hard stuff... by any measure he is more intelligent than most. But the perception is unthreatening: How could he possibly be tricking us? He'd forget and blurt out any nefarious plans before tripping over and grabbing the breasts of a female assistant in a 'hilarious carry-on' Manner...

So, he has the vote of the 'Banter' brigade... even if anyone who uses that word in the positive is arguably so witless as to not deserve oxygen, let alone any deciding power over the future of our country.

... and The 'Average Tory' voter?
Well... he does poll well amongst the rank and file. He is seen as being more Tory than the Neo-Blair Conservatism of Cameron... and besides.. Cameron is just that bit too shiny and airbrushed (Both in real life and in campaign literature)... He's a middle manager... lift muzak... the human equivalent of an Ikea shelving unit... perfectly functional and well designed, but nothing too exciting...

Boris on the other hand is a Rocket Powered Union jack painted Grandfather Clock, almost a caricature of 'Dribblingly Insane Ruling Class'. Where Cameron wouldn't follow a 'Conservative' idea out of the door if Public Opinion was raining too heavily, Boris... Well Boris would throw himself straight out of the window... and with his luck he'd land squarely on his feet, the idea in his hand and a rose in his teeth... and Public opinion... well it would Laud him... because he's Boris... and that's just what he does...

...and Labour... what can they do?

Well. They can only hope that the Public fall out of love with him... because, with the ammo they're currently packing, they aren't going to win the battle of personalities any time soon... and any attempt to ridicule Boris or conventional attempt knock him off his pedestal will only increase his 'Clown-Shoe' Cache.

So what do they have left?
They need to find their own Lovable chap who doesn't take himself too seriously, who can raise a crowd into a US style woop and who doesn't mind cultivating a ridiculous persona, whilst using it to cloak a genuinely astute political brain...

... to me that sounds like only one other Political Figure...

So... who else is up for Bojo Vs Prezza in 2015?

(*Yeah... I mean me here... Obviously)

Opinion: Cash for Cameron punctures the Teflon Knight like a scraping knife on a non-stick pan.

Remember what I said about The 'Teflon Knight' just a couple of blogs ago? It was in the hideously sexualised 'Budget' review that gave me the most amusing 'search terms' report I've had so far?
(based on some of them, I'm pretty sure the readers who found it on Google were disappointed that it wasn't a piece of parliamentary, watersports-based 'slash fiction'... Surely a growth area in literature...)

Anyway, throwing bizarre sexual imagery aside, I made a dig about the 'non-stick' boss of the Cons, missing out on the derision that was heaped on 'Poor George O'... Well looks like someone has incinerated some sausages in Cameron's pans and tried to scrape them off with an angle grinder.

Putting Teflon metaphors aside, it seems the bad publicity has finally hit the top. #CashforCameron has been trending all night, well since the Sunday Times released the footage of the Hugely rich treasurer of the Conservative party offering access to the PM to undercover Reporters under the mistaken assumption that they too were massively rich, and able to pay £250,000 for the 'pleasure'

Of course it isn't only that... I mean, if you have that much money to waste on a meeting, Cameron might well know you socially and forego any charge for a sit down, a chat, and a sip of peasant's tears. What seemed to be on offer for that fee was actual 'influence'... This meeting would be 'amazing' for your business and put you in the 'premier league' of Tory donors... Truly the dullest 'league' of any kind in the History of everything ever...

The Treasurer responsible, well, Co-treasurer... It's important to be accurate with such things... Apparently. Is Peter Cruddas... A name which may have invited such juvenile bullying he would have had to become the local thug to survive. Luckily for the world he was insulated from this fate by him 'not growing up where I did' and becoming a boy scout, which he says 'Gave him the discipline to suceed'

Now, here is the problem with any Media Strategy involving this fine gentleman. He is rich. Very rich. In fact he was the richest man in the 'city of London' so... Toppest of the top bankers... Shrewdest of the shrewd customers...

How do you make him into a patsy? I mean the footage shrieks 'Bang to rights' so you can't blame the journalists. He is intelligent and ultra successful, so 'conventional corruption' will be hard to pin on him, and he's clearly not simply thick... And he's so much 'their type' that he wouldn't be stitching them up for reasons of ideology...

So... It's top down... It came from the Boss... And it seems he knows it. His tetchy soundbite to the BBC looked like the actions of a guilty child caught stealing biscuits and blaming the babysitter for spying... Sadly the BBC, who I love with a passion have towed an odd party line, reporting the PMs anger at Cruddas as the story, avoiding the 'dodgy donor' aspect... Well... They have the license fee to think about don't they... *shakes head in tormented sadness*

Luckily the Sunday Times have been excellent on this, proving the value of true public interest journalism... This 'scoop' exemplifies everything great about the profession... Sadly though it may be Cameron's main 'Get Out' weapon... And it's been handed to him by some commentators on the left... (The right are all crowing about the fact that this happened while the Guardian were serving ice cream on their open weekend)

The narrative goes like: this is Murdoch's 'revenge' for Cameron turning his back on Newscorp.
Now aside from the insult to the reporters, this also mildly excuses those involved.
If this becomes a battle of two 'Baddies' nobody is expected to behave any better. Maybe this story would have been diminished slightly in times gone by (Even in the most psychotically pro-Cameron newsroon, I doubt that anyone would spike such an important story, and if they did, it would immediately have been leaked by the Journos who had put in such sterling work)

It isn't nasty Mr Murdoch throwing mud back at the Nasty ol' Tories. It's undercover reporters being offered influential access to our elected Prime Minister for cash money... And maybe sacrificing and smearing the 'message-boy' won't be enough this time...

So hats off to the Sunday Times, and hopefully this is the answer to all those Tabloids who dare to use a 'Public Interest' excuse to run nonsense hacked from a D-listers phone.

And for Cameron... I am very interested to see how you deal with this one... If the list of Cruddas appointments includes many 'Private Healthcare' companies you could well be in for a rough ride for a while... But remember, if the deal was 'access to David Cameron' then the buck must stop at David Cameron.

And for Ed... Get your house in order and Publish it... Because if you have any skeletons knocking about, vultures will be circling now for the tiniest morsel... If your knickers aren't clean, be ready for them to be waved in the country's face...

And Clegg... Well do whatever you want. Nobody cares any more.

Opinion: ....as bad as each other?

This morning I noticed a strange thing on Twitter. A lot of people were posting disappointed messages that a Twitter rumour about an old Man meeting his demise were untrue and wishing upon him various painful outcomes.

I also read back through the 'Greeting' messages sent to another older gentleman who has very recently joined Twitter. There was a lot of artless abuse, much of it excitedly discussing the older man's death.

The interesting thing about these two unconnected tales of Twitter bile is that they generally split down political lines. Those who regretted the survival of an old man tended to be on the Right, those wishing death upon the old man tended to be on the Left.

Ok... Explanation time, and how you feel about this will probably place you somewhere in that Left/Right spectrum.
The man who was rumoured to have died was Fiedel Castro. It was a false rumour.
The Man who joined Twitter and was artlessly flamed is Rupert Murdoch. It is a verified account.

Now I do tend to veer left slightly, but I do not agree with Castro's method of rule, and his lack of transparent government is likely to cover shocking abuses of power. Still I would not gloat in his death.

Despite my politics I love some of the things Murdoch has brought us, not least the Simpsons. That said I still hate his other policies, his systematic attacks on the BBC etc... But still I would not wish death on him...

They have undoubtedly committed acts that are sickening to the sensibilities of those outside the 'circles of power'. But is 'death' even a good punishment for this... How about loss of staus? Intelligent mockery... Loss of the respect they so obviously craved.

Now looking back at that you may think I am attacking one group more than the other. 'Oh but he deserves it for......'
...and I'm sure they both do... Is it my place to give it to them?

I have made jokes on Twitter about Murdoch, and would undoubtedly do some 'Castro material' if I knew enough about him to be funny, that's the jocular, if slightly cruel egalitarianism of Twitter (Something Murdoch should love, given his mistrust of 'elites')

Wishing death on someone, or to someone, is a bad argument. Being rude is bad argument. Twitter is place for discussion, and even insults, but why so thoughtless, dull and vicious?

If you find yourself about to tweet 'I hope you die' to an old tycoon who you disagree with, or 'I wish you'd died' to an ageing statesman you'd rather hadn't gained power, here's a helpful hint.

Lefties: say to yourself, I'm not like those 'Righties' mocking the death of an old man, I will not post that, instead I will post something a lot wittier, that gets my point across without veering into the artless spite of 'The Enemy'

Righties: say to yourself I'm not like those 'Lefties' wishing death on an old man, I will not post that, instead I will post something a lot wittier that gets my point across without veering into the artless spite of 'The Enemy'.

...this advice is free... You're very welcome.