I haven't had a tosser for a while, the last was Quentin Letts, so it seems appropriate that this year's winner should be another joke Tory pol, Boris the Clown. For whom Satirists can’t f*cking type quick enough seems to have been written.
Having joined "Leave" purely for his own stupid selfish political gain, the bozo has taken fright at what's happened and ducked out of the Tory leadership race like the pathetic low-grade coward he is. I suppose he was a useful idiot to head the Leave campaign... but, really, what was the point?
He wasn't in "Leave" from conviction, he was in it for his own ends, which could only have been the PM job. Which he's now wimped out of. Much in the same way that many Leave supporters would now like to wimp out of actually leaving. Unlike them, he can change his mind.
[Via JR Nigel Farage resigns as Ukip leader: 'I have done my bit. Now I want my life back' (archive). Hmmm, shades of Boris's running away.]
[Update: for my favourite conspiracy theory around all this, see #4. Meanwhile Gove turned out to have no chance and has indeed lost, which makes him an utter wazzock.]
Refs
* BoJo in the bunker.
* Sir Alan Duncan: Boris Johnson didn't want Brexit win - Beeb, 2016 / 09 / 22. Have they only just realised?
* LAte update: Boris was a tosser in 2010, too.
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Have you seen the BoJo Bunker film yet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6HNXtdvVQ&feature=youtu.be
[Thanks; added -W]
But tell us what you really think :-)
At least the film mentions a weasel.
I think this is equal opportunity with Gove, in fact as far as I can learn, being a foreigner, Boris woud be better than Gove.
Meanwhile, for comic relief, do take a look.
A Bachelor Named Britain, Looking for Love
I think you're being monstrously unfair in singling out Bonking Boris for one of your rarely given tosser awards. Surely Gove is much more deserving, unless you deem to word "tosser" too mild for him. Boris was clearly shafted by Gove, and appears not to have seen it coming. Does anyone in the UK seriously believe that nonsense about Sarah Vine's email having been accidentally copied to an un-named member of the public, who then gave it to Sky News? It was obvious the instant the email was made public that Gove was going to knife Boris. The only question was whether in the back or the front. Both, as it turned out.
[Gove is "to blame" too; but I could also blame Farage, or many others. But I'm not blaming people for their sincerely held opinions which they'll honestly fight for. What marks Boris out as a tosser was that he had no strong opinion. He joined Leave just for his own advantage. He made a significant difference because he was known and liked by a substantial number (of misguided people). Gove could not have been the figurehead that Boris was. And now Boris, in reach of what he did all this for, has run away.
The "accidentally" sent email is indeed suspicious. But having said that... what's also suspicious is the "accidental" knifing. Does Gove actually want to win? He doesn't seem to have much chance. Getting really paranoid, perhaps he knifed Boris just to give Boris an excuse to pull out -W]
Here's another one for you, Doctor Connelley. Warning: NSFW.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/boris-johnson-downfall-hitler-vid…
There's a saying about a dog chasing a car: it wouldn't know what to do with one if it caught it. This looks to be the case with "Leave". They were a dog chasing a car and they caught it, and now don't know what to do with it.
["A dog chasing a car". Yes -W]
Susan, BoJo the Skary Klown ain't who people abroad think he is.
The bus with the advert about spending the GBP350M on the NHS instead of giving it to the EU was not exactly honest. And Farage's morning-after interview came off sounding, at least on the west side of the pond, a lot like, "You f---ed up. You trusted us."
But yes, Johnson does deserve a large share of the blame. And now we see that brave, brave Sir Boris has bravely run away.
[The bus wasn't an honestly held opinion. But it was just politics. So, in a sense I don't really "blame" the Leave side for that. I don't expect pols to tell me the truth about things like that, and anyone stupid enough to believe that kind of thing because it says it on the side of a bus shouldn't be allowed to vote... but let's not go there, as someone just said to me of the lock detect analogue macro design -W]
However much people may dislike Farage, you cannot blame him for that "GBP350M to the NHS"-lie. He wasn't part of the campaign team that spread that lie.
That also explains why he so easily could dismiss that campaign promise, whereas I haven't heard Gove or Johnson disown it (but maybe I didn't listen well enough).
[Indeed. But it did show how shockingly badly informed the journos are. I watched him interviewed on TV about it on the morning after, and those interviewing him were too ill-informed to know Farage hadn't been in on that, and too stupid to appreciate the distinction when he had painfully explained it to them -W]
Americans might smile at the surname, given the context.
While on the subject, I thought "catastrophic bellendery" (from the NewsThump link) hits the, um, nail on the head. Coincidentally, only yesterday and also in the Brexit context, I was introduced to "cockmuppet" (over at ATTP's, a well-known physics blog).
I really wish that here was a law that somehow made gross lying in a public capacity a criminal offence without dramatically curtailing freedom of speech. After all, if all public discourse ends up being different shades of rich people shouting lies at the top of their voice then that's not great for anything.
[Its a nice thought but... who will judge who is lying? -W]
However much people may dislike Farage, you cannot blame him for that “GBP350M to the NHS”-lie. He wasn’t part of the campaign team that spread that lie.
Isn't it strange how he chose the day after the poll rather than, for instance, the day before, to highlight this point?
BBD, it's "cockwomble", get a grip!
As in "Boris Johnson is a narcissistic faux-proletarian cockwomble" (an insult even better applied to Farage, incidentally).
If you're genuinely "shocked" at badly informed journos are, I can give you a bargain price on a bridge across the East River in New York City.
I'm a little surprised given your past life in climate.
[Well, maybe. Climate is Science, and I knew they were clueless about that. Politics is much closer to what they really ought to know -W]
"Isn’t it strange how he chose the day after the poll rather than, for instance, the day before, to highlight this point?"
Isn't it because only *then* he was specifically asked about this point? If the journalists had done so earlier, perhaps he'd already disowned it earlier. We will never know.
Marco,
I admire your ability to take Farage at face value. I won't, however be following suit.
From the Guardian.
"In a 5,000-word, policy-packed speech, which Gove said he had only started writing the day before,...."
#12 vtg
It's been a long day :-)
Boris looks like the love child of Dronald Drumpf and Rosie O'donnell. This is one case where it's appropriate to judge a book by it's cover.
OK, so now it's established that Boris is a tosser, can we ask if Gove is a Fucknugget. Seemed appropriate given the definition...
https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/a-few-brittish-swear-words…
Farage may not have instigated the bus ad, but he knew or should have known it was out there. That bus was featured on John Oliver's segment about the referendum the Sunday before the vote (and again on the following Sunday), so Americans who watch Oliver's show knew about it. I haven't seen any evidence that Farage made any effort prior to the vote to rebut that claim, as opposed to other people who noticed it was bogus. That could be considered lying by omission on Farage's part.
It's one thing to base a campaign on overly optimistic projections. It's a different matter to base a campaign on blatantly counterfactual claims. Democracy assumes an informed electorate, so this is not a good development for democracy. (The US isn't immune either--that's part of how Donald Trump won the Republican Presidential primary.)
"The “accidentally” sent email is indeed suspicious. But having said that… what’s also suspicious is the “accidental” knifing. Does Gove actually want to win? He doesn’t seem to have much chance. Getting really paranoid, perhaps he knifed Boris just to give Boris an excuse to pull out -W"
For my money, Gove (and Leadsom?) were aiming for posts in a Boris cabinet, and decided to stand themselves when/because they twigged that Boris might be bottling it.
Is any impressed by someone whomsaysnthey did almost everything they could not to stand for leader of the Conservative party, as Gove said? We now know that I did just about means I did precisely nothing. The only thing he needed to do not to run was not to run.
I was sympathetic to Leave before the referendum began but their disdain of reality and contempt for the voters made me sure I wasn't going to vote Leave and persuaded many I knew of the error of the Leave way. Sadly not enough.
Just be thankful the Bullers talked some sense into him.
UKIP's only sitting MP, Douglas Carswell, still has the bus NHS £50m a day as his banner, cropped to the slogan. You'd think his party leader, Nigel Farage, would have asked him to correct his error by now.
[Yeah: its pretty clear that Farage will do nothing positive to correct this error. Which makes it all the more a shame that no journo tried to pin him down on it *before* the referendum -W]
So Farage has stepped down from being Dear Leader. Carswell's refusing to stand for the job, so that probably leaves NHS-hating Paul Nuttall in the running (don't look for his blog posts on the NHS - he disappeared them before the last GE).
Actually, I have a watching brief and informed friends on the UK, but of course they too have opinions. My magic wand would put me inland from, say, Perranporth, far enough that metal in the house would not rust. BoJo is not Trump. Speaking of whom, this is rather fun and nicely rude:
Praise the (Time) Lord
He is everywhere, in the heavens and Earth.
He makes the stars shine, yet He cannot be seen.
He is noble, abundant and fills the universe.
He can lift you into the sky and bring you gently down.
He can take many forms.
He can help heal, He can help kill.
He can help create, and He can help destroy.
Praise be unto He
Helium
attribution for He:
https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience/posts/586087701412245
Did you know this Brexit Vote could be a tribute re-enactment of one of the greatest films, Aguirre, the Wrath of God?
Michael Gove: Aguirre
The EU: Ursua
The Remain voters: Inez
Boris Johnson: Don Fernando, King of El-Dorado.
The Brexit dream (Billions of Pounds saved by quitting the EU): El Dorado
Dominic Cummings: Gaspar de Carvajal
Nigel Farage: The simple-minded pan-piper
The land of England: Flores Aguirre
Cameron: Pizarro
The Leave voters: Perucho.
The immigrants: The black slave Okello.
The coming travails: The unseen native archers.
Britain's next PM: The little monkey Aguirre is holding up at the end of the film.
The Brexit campaign: The journey down the River.
SoundTrack by Popol Vuh. Filmed by Werner Herzog.