Could Boris be anymore of a legend?
Discussion
Derek Smith said:
Johnson is sucking up to Mudoch for support in his bid for the conservative leadership. He's repeated the anti BBC rant of little Jimmy Murdoch's McTagart lecture and has even taken Murdoch senior to the Olympics when he's got some responsibility for overseeing the hacking enquiry.
He's the same as everyone else who's after promotion. They are only interested in their own interests. They are dangerous, very much so. Johnson is not the saviour of the tories but he might push them back to the days of Balir with the infighting that has been a hallmark of the tories for so many years.
Anybody who is prepared to say the blindingly obvious about the biased BBC is part of the solution not part of the problem.He's the same as everyone else who's after promotion. They are only interested in their own interests. They are dangerous, very much so. Johnson is not the saviour of the tories but he might push them back to the days of Balir with the infighting that has been a hallmark of the tories for so many years.
In general the suspicion has to be that your post contains a high dose of wishful thinking on your part. Here's some of mine
Boris is clearly very popular and as per his recent demonstration involving Red Ken, he can defeat the left of whatever flavour, even in its own backyard.
For the future, after he completes his mayoral career, Boris as an MP and a future PM is a realistic scenario and one which Lib Dems and Labour would have only the usual futile name-calling to offer in return.
Boris has some of the less desirable traits present in any politician, the problem for his opponents is that he has far more popular positives than they do.
So the coalition falls at the next election, Milliband is Prime Minister, Cameron is replaced by Boris.
Boris as Mayor of London is entertaining, but he does very little, so he doesn't upset many people.
If he becomes leader of the Conservatives, he'll have to take a stand on various issues: EU membership, Defence spending, NHS, etc. It's likely the Conservatives will be split between the liberal and more right-wing, and will need someone who can unify them. Is this Boris?
And he was useless debating in the Commons, so Milliband won't fear him at PMQs.
Boris as Mayor of London is entertaining, but he does very little, so he doesn't upset many people.
If he becomes leader of the Conservatives, he'll have to take a stand on various issues: EU membership, Defence spending, NHS, etc. It's likely the Conservatives will be split between the liberal and more right-wing, and will need someone who can unify them. Is this Boris?
And he was useless debating in the Commons, so Milliband won't fear him at PMQs.
B Huey said:
The future is hardly looking golden.
That's really of their own making, the conservative party has (and represents) a greater diversity of opinion on prominent issues like EU membership and budgetary reform. That's why those fractious issues can't be dealt with by a conservative government (much less one in a coalition with a pro-EU party).If the conservatives want to win elections either they have to pull voters to the right or make their policy more palatable to ordinary voters. I'm not seeing them making progress in enticing voters further right and being more mainstream seems akin to asking their current members to walk barefoot over broken glass. So, short of a Falklands war type intervention, they seem destined to walk in the political wilderness (again).
turbobloke said:
Anybody who is prepared to say the blindingly obvious about the biased BBC is part of the solution not part of the problem.
You miss the point by miles.Whether the BBC, the envy of friends of mine from America, Italy and Australia, is a problem or not is immaterial and of no concern to Johnson. The only, and it is the only, reason he just merely repeated what little Jimmy Murdoch said in his McTaggart lecture was to such up to Murdoch and to get his support for the leadership.
Johnson has shown that he will do anything and associate with the Murdochs just to gain a bit of an advantage.
There is no way I'd vote for the tories if they had another clown in charge.
Johnson will follow Thatcher, Blair and Cameron and attack the BBC if he becomes PM but will shy away from doing anything substantial. If, as is likely, the Murdoch press loses its influence then Johnson will do nothing. Zilch. He is a consummate politican and you can't say worse than that.
From The Guardian late last week. Boris's star is rising, his numbers are on the up.
A YouGov poll found 36% of people thought the London mayor was suited to the job of prime minister, up 12 percentage points on YouGov poll findings in May (24%).
The poll, conducted for the Sun newspaper, reveals that 34% of people would vote for a Cameron-led Tory party, while 40% would vote for Labour under Ed Miliband's leadership. If the current Mayor of London were party leader, on the other hand, support for the Tories would rise to 37%, while Labour's would fall to 38%
A YouGov poll found 36% of people thought the London mayor was suited to the job of prime minister, up 12 percentage points on YouGov poll findings in May (24%).
The poll, conducted for the Sun newspaper, reveals that 34% of people would vote for a Cameron-led Tory party, while 40% would vote for Labour under Ed Miliband's leadership. If the current Mayor of London were party leader, on the other hand, support for the Tories would rise to 37%, while Labour's would fall to 38%
turbobloke said:
The poll, conducted for the Sun newspaper, reveals that 34% of people would vote for a Cameron-led Tory party, while 40% would vote for Labour under Ed Miliband's leadership. If the current Mayor of London were party leader, on the other hand, support for the Tories would rise to 37%, while Labour's would fall to 38%
Q.E.D. for my argument I feel.Trommel said:
crankedup said:
Bog off, this is not your patch, keep your tomfoolery in London, thanks
If the capital city is being crippled by a lack of airport capacity, that's everyone's problem.Or are you too short-sighted to see that?
Or had you not thought about that?
crankedup said:
A hearty slap on the back for Boris then, not from me though. His unwanted interference regarding the 'proposed' Estuary airport, his vision in determining the Stansted airport needs another runway. Bog off, this is not your patch, keep your tomfoolery in London, thanks.
He's right on both scores.You dont fly much into or out of the UK. If you did you would understand.
crankedup said:
Trommel said:
crankedup said:
Bog off, this is not your patch, keep your tomfoolery in London, thanks
If the capital city is being crippled by a lack of airport capacity, that's everyone's problem.Or are you too short-sighted to see that?
Or had you not thought about that?
Is there anymore in this debate you wish to shower us with your ignorance about? Have you been taking lessons from the Fister?
Trommel said:
crankedup said:
Or had you not thought about that?
Birmingham is 100 miles from London. Or had you not thought about that?
t poor as well. What is the fascination of this continued nonsense of pile everything into the S.E. about (well almost S.E.) Its simply not sustainable to continue expanding onto a creaking infrastructure. Whats wrong with using a high speed rail link from Birmingham into London, its certainly going to be a faster route in than if a journey had to be made from Southend into London or Stansted into London. I think Boris is, as usual just shouting out without any thought to reality in this instance.No, its a daft idea to extend Stansted, its why it will never happen and the reason the high speed rail link is going ahead. Southend estuary airport is simply a diversion, the cost alone would be on the wrong side of unaffordable.
Derek Smith said:
You miss the point by miles.
Whether the BBC, the envy of friends of mine from America, Italy and Australia, is a problem or not is immaterial and of no concern to Johnson. The only, and it is the only, reason he just merely repeated what little Jimmy Murdoch said in his McTaggart lecture was to such up to Murdoch and to get his support for the leadership.
turbobloke enjoys missing the point. He does that on purpose if seeing the point fails to suit his bias. Whether the BBC, the envy of friends of mine from America, Italy and Australia, is a problem or not is immaterial and of no concern to Johnson. The only, and it is the only, reason he just merely repeated what little Jimmy Murdoch said in his McTaggart lecture was to such up to Murdoch and to get his support for the leadership.
It's interesting you mention the BBC, only right wing UKIP voters have a hatrid for the BBC when what many of us don't realise is the BBC is one of the most popular broadcasters in the World. I've worked with people who have come from America, Australia etc and when they go back they make sure they can get the BBC wherever they're going because they love its output.
Is it's content biased? Not really. It's impossible to make fully unbiased content, no matter what they put out there'll always be someone somewhere (on here probably) who doesn't like it. The BBC's mainstream programming is aimed at a general audience so it tries to portray the news from the perspective of the majority. So they're not going to run stories on how magnificent bankers are or how the Labour Party are supposedly economic terrorists. Sky News is clearly biased towards the Conservatives but nobody here seems to mind that
Adam Boulton couldn't have expressed joy at Cameron becoming PM any stronger if he danced naked in Downing Street.Plenty confuse 'bias' with 'not being Tory.tv'
turbobloke said:
Boris is clearly very popular and as per his recent demonstration involving Red Ken, he can defeat the left of whatever flavour, even in its own backyard.
For the future, after he completes his mayoral career, Boris as an MP and a future PM is a realistic scenario and one which Lib Dems and Labour would have only the usual futile name-calling to offer in return.
In your mind maybe, but perhaps not in reality. Boris Johnson beat Ken Livingstone by only 3% after needing a second round. Livingstone is one of the most hated politicians around with even most Labour voters disliking the man and Johnson only just scraped it in what was an awful week for the Tory party. The fact is Labour would've won that election with anybody other than Ken Livingstone. A dummy would've done, a scarecrow, maybe even Gordon Brown.For the future, after he completes his mayoral career, Boris as an MP and a future PM is a realistic scenario and one which Lib Dems and Labour would have only the usual futile name-calling to offer in return.
Brown brings me on to another point, he was one of the most disliked Prime Ministers in living memory and after 13 years, the Tories had a lot of ammunition with which to attack Labour. Cameron can't claim he didn't have a good hand, yet he still couldn't beat Brown when he was supposedly fish in a barrel and Cameron should frankly be ashamed of himself.
DJRC said:
crankedup said:
A hearty slap on the back for Boris then, not from me though. His unwanted interference regarding the 'proposed' Estuary airport, his vision in determining the Stansted airport needs another runway. Bog off, this is not your patch, keep your tomfoolery in London, thanks.
He's right on both scores.You dont fly much into or out of the UK. If you did you would understand.
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