“Johnson is … the most accomplished liar in public life – perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister,” he said. “He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equ

We get the PM we deserve, if voters believe the lies and half truths they deserve the consequences, for anyone who paid attention to the diatribe it was pretty obvious that it was the emotional card was being played.

What about policies Shelbel? What do you think of them?

Sadly, we seem to be in the era of the Narcissist. I had voted tory for years but stopped with DC and I cannot abide BJ and his now wife. I always felt he was misleading people. I would vote for Rory though, he always seemed a very decent and intelligent man.

So many lies have been told to 'get Brexit done' and more will be revealed as time goes on.

I've mostly given up on politics, its just as much of a swamp as the PC brigade imo.

While people were dying of Covid-19, your government used the crisis to rip you off. Watch this film

It’s less than seven minutes long and you need to know what it has to say.

The information in it is accurate – as far as it goes. This Site has published some of the facts before.

But this film, which was apparently projected against the walls of Parliament, puts it all in a nutshell.

? This is a story that everyone in the country should hear. (In collaboration with Good Law Project, location: Parliament

twitter.com/ByDonkeys/status/1425372141868961796?s=20

I was tthinking more of Italy's long history of frequent changes of governments and disorganisation and corruption rather than any individual leader.

Apologies Mazied , perhaps MOnica could explain why she considers it OK to insult the current leadership of Italy in comparing Draghi with Johnson.

It's not just Rory Stewart, Dawn Butler and Peter Stefanovic who are calling out Johnson's lies.

Peter Oborne is building a website which will record, sift and analyse the numerous lies, falsehoods and misleading statements of Boris Johnson and his colleagues.

www.gofundme.com/f/website-to-record-the-lies-of-boris-johnson

M0nica

Well, of course it is my opinion Maizie, why would I espouse opionions that are not my own? [confused} Isn't the exchange of opinions what GN is all about?

Not always, MOnica.

Sometimes it's about calling out lies and misinformation.

Well, of course it is my opinion Maizie, why would I espouse opionions that are not my own? [confused} Isn't the exchange of opinions what GN is all about?

vegansrock

Maizied “ I would think we have now sunk to the leadership levels of Italy. ”
- I think this is an insult to the current leadership of Italy - Prime Minister Mario Draghi, was a university academic, Director General of Italy’s national bank and President of the European Central Bank. He is seen as a unifying force and a safe pair of hands after a period of instability. Compared to our PM who was a newspaper hack and after dinner speaker I think Italy have the superior leader at this time. I guess you could compare Johnson to Berlusconi, but I think Italy have the better leader this time around.

I hope you didn't think that I said that, did you,*vegansrock*?

You've stuck my name on it but it was MOnica's judgement

VEgansrock. I agree, friends in Italy are amazed that those in high office here are akin to theirs until recently!

Maizied “ I would think we have now sunk to the leadership levels of Italy. ”
- I think this is an insult to the current leadership of Italy - Prime Minister Mario Draghi, was a university academic, Director General of Italy’s national bank and President of the European Central Bank. He is seen as a unifying force and a safe pair of hands after a period of instability. Compared to our PM who was a newspaper hack and after dinner speaker I think Italy have the superior leader at this time. I guess you could compare Johnson to Berlusconi, but I think Italy have the better leader this time around.

Lytton Strachey also wrote about Eminent Victorians (only 4 compared with Rees Moggs' 11).

Here's a comment from Bertrand Russell who wrote from Brixton Prison (where he was imprisoned for his anti-war campaigning) to Gladys Rinder on 21 May 1918

" It is brilliant, delicious, exquisitely civilized. I enjoyed as much as any the Gordon, which alone was quite new to me. I often laughed out loud in my cell while I was reading the book. The warder came to my cell to remind me that prison was a place of punishment."

Followed by a comment from Edmund Wilson who wrote
in the New Republic of 21 September 1932, not long after Strachey's death,

"Lytton Strachey's chief mission, of course, was to take down once and for all the pretensions of the Victorian age to moral superiority... neither the Americans nor the English have ever, since Eminent Victorians appeared, been able to feel quite the same about the legends that had dominated their pasts. Something had been punctured for good."

I suspect that people admire Rees Mogg because of his education and demeanor and not for whatever intelligence he may have.

GillT57

lemongrove

So, you weren’t prepared to vote for Corbyn or Johnson...in that case you were part of either the election of Corbyn or Johnson.
Being saintly about it ? doesn’t butter any parsnips.

Sigh. Unlike some, I was not prepared to go against my beliefs, my moral code, to elect a person who I consider despicable, but each to their own lemon. I did not like Corbyn as he did not represent my beliefs either so sadly, like hundreds of thousands of people, my vote did not count under the FPTP system. My vote may have come to nothing, but I can sleep at night knowing that I had did not put this vile administration in place. I live in a constituency where a goat with a blue rosette ( or more likely a horse) would be elected, quite ironic really as all the farmers are beginning to realise what a catastrophe Brexit is, but that is the subject for another thread.

So? many people live in constituencies where a goat or a pig with a red rosette would get in.
there is still a point in voting....but not in throwing your vote away when it's a two horse race and you back a third horse limping down the field.
you didn't want Labour or Conservatives to get into power, yet one of them had to.
strangely enough, I can sleep at night too, taking the moral high ground gets you nowhere.
if you thought Corbyn was the lesser of two evils that's where your vote would have been more useful. Still, your choice.

M0nica

MaizieD PMS:Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson.
Leaders of the Opposition: William Hague, Ian Duncan Smith, Harriet Harman (briefly) Ed Milliband, Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer.

Of that list only William Hague and Harriet Harman were what I call leaders with any substance to them. The rest are all incompetent, inadequate or deeply flawed and sometimes all three.

Thatcher, Kinnock, Smith, Attlee, Wilson, Eden, Churchill, McMillan stand head a and shouders above those we have had since 2000, even Callaghan, Major, and Douglas -Hume, in my opinion stand higher. None of them were perfect, and some were flawed, but they knew how to run the country and they were all respected overseas.

I would think we have now sunk to the leadership levels of Italy.

The current set of leaders and their immediate predecessors are to put it mildly, third rate.

Just your opinion, MOnica

Blair was a perfectly good PM, lots of good things achieved during his tenure.

Thatcher was appalling, destroyed our heavy industry, plunging people into poverty, fl*ming Falklands War, sold off council housing... A strong woman, yes. Good PM, No.

Apart from that, I think you're just succumbing to 'everything was better when I was young' syndrome...

lemongrove I was giving examples of populist leaders in the genre of Johnson- I didn’t state they were liars or better or worse than Johnson- I doubt if Nicola Sturgeon is in the same league somehow, the poster who claimed she was a liar should have given some examples or started a thread about her in particular.

MaizieD PMS:Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson.
Leaders of the Opposition: William Hague, Ian Duncan Smith, Harriet Harman (briefly) Ed Milliband, Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer.

Of that list only William Hague and Harriet Harman were what I call leaders with any substance to them. The rest are all incompetent, inadequate or deeply flawed and sometimes all three.

Thatcher, Kinnock, Smith, Attlee, Wilson, Eden, Churchill, McMillan stand head a and shouders above those we have had since 2000, even Callaghan, Major, and Douglas -Hume, in my opinion stand higher. None of them were perfect, and some were flawed, but they knew how to run the country and they were all respected overseas.

I would think we have now sunk to the leadership levels of Italy.

The current set of leaders and their immediate predecessors are to put it mildly, third rate.

lemongrove

I admire his use of the English language too, but read it and then imagine Rees Mogg writing it ( he uses similar sort of language at times) would many on here ( apart from Monica) have read it with such pleasure I wonder?

Really? He knows some uncommon words but goes out of his way to use them inappropriately in the hope that it will impress.

And - it may just be me - but his accent always reminds me of an American faking an English accent who can't quite hide his drawl.

He’s not bad though…

An esteemed biographer himself, Wilson wrote books on Sir Walter Scott, John Milton, Hilaire Belloc, Leo Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Iris Murdoch, Victoria, and Charles Darwin, among others. His popular histories included God’s Funeral (1999), The Victorians (2002), London: A Short History (2004), After the Victorians (2005), and The Elizabethans (2011). Wilson also composed essays on religion and contributed regularly to several London newspapers.

Lucca

Total digression but …

Aah yes, this AN Wilson, no more historian than I am
www.britannica.com/biography/A-N-Wilson

lemongrove

So, you weren’t prepared to vote for Corbyn or Johnson...in that case you were part of either the election of Corbyn or Johnson.
Being saintly about it ? doesn’t butter any parsnips.

Sigh. Unlike some, I was not prepared to go against my beliefs, my moral code, to elect a person who I consider despicable, but each to their own lemon. I did not like Corbyn as he did not represent my beliefs either so sadly, like hundreds of thousands of people, my vote did not count under the FPTP system. My vote may have come to nothing, but I can sleep at night knowing that I had did not put this vile administration in place. I live in a constituency where a goat with a blue rosette ( or more likely a horse) would be elected, quite ironic really as all the farmers are beginning to realise what a catastrophe Brexit is, but that is the subject for another thread.

Total digression but …

Alegrias1

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/19/jacob-rees-mogg-book-the-victorians-12-titans-who-forged-britain

Just leaving this here....

Yes I remember that, and the mockery it drew at the time.

He is a very silly little man I think.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/19/jacob-rees-mogg-book-the-victorians-12-titans-who-forged-britain

Just leaving this here....

My point about Rees Mogg isn’t petty at all, just pointing out that many intelligent people can use language in a certain way, but it wouldn’t be appreciated unless it was rubbishing BJ.