Boris Johnson

Boris has a personality? Yes, but a totally fake one. Lovely.

trisher. It's got nothing to do with class. Corbyn has had a personality bypass and Boris has one. Simple as.

I didn't say anything about Corbyn. If he was as entertaining and likeable as Boris I'd like him in the same way. I don't dislike him now. He's OK with me but that's all. Class doesn't come into it.

So Boris chatting and acting the fool is charming but Corbyn riding his bike and behaving perfectly naturally makes him unsuitable for PM. Mmm I suspect there is a bit of class distinction going on here.

Same here Jane10. He was at a fete local to me a year or two back. He was very sweet, laughing and chatting to everyone, and buying himself a cake from the cake stall.

I reckon that he must possess that elusive attribute: charm. Otherwise I simply don't understand what it is about him that makes him so likeable. It certainly is refreshing to have a politician with a sense of humour. What might he do for a laugh though?! I can't help it btw. I just like him.

Not sure I agree that he'd be excused silliness, j10. I think he could be a serious and effective politician, with a daft side, obviously. I think it's his daft side that people find refreshing. Can you imagine Cameron or Osborne doing anything just for the fun of it? I can't. Nor Corbyn, come to that. Politicians are a humorless bunch on the whole. Someone with a wicked grin has a certain 'charm'.

(no, I don't find Boris charming in the usual sense; and I do think he talks sense sometimes).

Its hard to understand why anyone would want to be PM. At any one point more than half the population doesn't like you and on any issue they are damned if they do something and damned if they don't.
I can't see Boris as PM but if he ever was I reckon all the other countries would excuse him almost anything as they would smilingly say "oh what's old Boris up to now?" Could be in our interests.....

Very few say I want to be PM, they wait for a leadership bid , check their number of supports and only then speak out.

Has he actually ever said he wants to be PM? Its hard to believe that anyone would want that particular poisoned chalice. Boris's incredible popularity makes him more of a 'celeb' than a serious politician somehow. The nation just seems to have an inexplicable soft spot for him.

www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2016/02/26/pick-of-the-week-bad-arguments-and-broken-promises

Boris has done some good things, but the list of broken promises is longer.
Not all his promises could be found, because it's difficult to find out what he said; intentionally, I presume.

Baffling, last year Michael Foot was declared not suitable for PM because of the coat he wore on a Remembrance Sunday - by some right wingers here, - yet Zac and Boris , one a hope to be mayor and one a desperate to be PM have had their characters assassinated . Seems inability for a man to keep his trousers on in the company of a certain type of woman is understandable but a disabled man wearing a coat - expensive and new but not an overcoat- is mocked

Aww poor Boris and Zac people aren't being nice about them. They are sensitive souls and it isn't their fault they are stinking rich. Hang on though it is their fault they don't put their money to good use and work for charitable purposes but are putting themselves up for positions of power and pursuing policies that make poorer people suffer. So say what you like about them. If you stand in the firing line expect to get shot at!

Boris Johnsons character, affairs during his first marriage one resulted in the birth of a daughter,

Affairs in second marriage, the four year affair with petronella Wyett resulted in a miscarriage and an abortion , perhaps second wife didn't have time to be a loving wife due to having their five children, I expect Boris is just misunderstood

Character assassination ? Criticising a multimillionaire MP who speaks of life style choices whilst voting to take the poorest in this country even into deeper poverty is character assassination?

Well stand by because Hunt's character is about to undergo an assassination ,

As for Boris , one needs to be of good character before any assassination can be carried out , Boris is not of good character

Durhamjen

You should try and watch Ed Balls talking about Non Dom Status during the 2015 General Election Campaign. He is going against Labour Policy to scrap Non Dom Status saying "It would cost Britain money". I should put a link up , must learn how to do it , it was a classic comment .

You are correct in what you say Durhamjen but whilst it is fair to point out such matters it would achieve more agreement from a wider audience if the valid points you raise were not continually apportioning blame to just one group of people you dislike so much.

For the purpose of non partisan politics all parties have those who can be named and shamed for their tax dodging affairs , I think we are acutely aware of names that could be listed for the sake of parity , some are very high profile names to.

At least,from some posters, should I say.

They are not safe from the Gransnet character assassination.☠???

Unfortunately they are quite safe, unlike the poor, sick and homeless whom they are glad to make poorer, while making their rich friends richer.

First Boris, now Zac Goldsmith, nobody is safe from Gransnet.?????? especially those with money.

Scrapping nondom status altogether was in Labour's manifesto.

"Sometimes it’s hard not to feel some sympathy with the super rich. In a Newsnight interview with Evan Davis, the Conservative candidate in the London mayoral election, Zac Goldsmith, was almost in tears at the suggestion he might not pay his full whack of tax on his estimated £300m nest egg. The whole reason money had been stashed away in Geneva on his behalf was purely to make sure that he could pay as much tax as possible. The same thing applied to his financial affairs in the Cayman Islands. If he didn’t have things set up this way there was a serious danger the chancellor might be shortchanged. Curiously, Google had used an almost identical argument to explain their tax affairs to the public accounts committee the week before.

Google was gagging to pay as much UK tax as possible, Mark Brittin, Google’s European president, had assured everyone. Unless their money had been diverted to Ireland in a “double Irish’’ manoeuvre and thence to Holland – “the Dutch sandwich” – it was possible the Treasury would have received even less. And what about Bermuda? Meg Hillier, the public accounts committee chair inquired. Don’t worry, Brittin said. Bermuda was just there to avoid US taxes. And how many employees did Google have in Bermuda? None. A true Bermuda triangle into which cash and staff disappear and are never seen again."
From the Guardian.

Zac Goldsmith said he'd always lived in London and always paid all his taxes.
That was from 2010 onwards. He was actually given his dad's nondom status in 1997. He hasn't said what happened in those years.

www.blplaw.com/expert-legal-insights/articles/summer-budget-2015-significant-changes-uk-tax-non-domiciled-individuals/

Although it doesn't come into force until next year.

Changed the law about what?

Zac Goldsmith was challenged to publish his tax returns . He has now published them , it is reported his tax rate was at 46 per cent. Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone published theirs also during the 2012 Mayoral Election. I believe they paid 40.3 per cent and 33.3 per cent respectively.

Will Sadiq Khan ? He said he will do so. What will George Galloway and Sian Berry do I wonder.

I have no argument with the fact non Dom status is/was plainly wrong. I do however find it a bit rich that no Labour government ever attempted to change the law yet the Conservatives have , if I am not mistaken in last years July Budget. Happy to be proved mistaken.