Re: PM Boris
 

Why would Johnson spread all those lies when he was reporting on the EU as a journalist? Because he wants to make a name for himself, in this case as the man who drove Brexit. The harder the Brexit, the cheaper UK PLC will be to buy when Tory Party donors reap the rewards, and don't forget the EU anti Tax Avoidance legislation about to come in.

Re: PM Boris
 

I'm afraid that's the nature of the beast. Especially politicians, Blair for example was prepared to take his country to war by spreading lies to ensure his legacy, and journalists on all colours selectively cherry pick information to promote their personal agenda. Let the reader beware.
Pure speculation without evidence. As I've said, it might be true, but you're playing the Journalist Johnson game by supporting rumour simply because you'd like it to be true.

Re: PM Boris
 

Johnson spreading lies about the EU as a journalist is a documented fact, not a rumour.

Re: PM Boris
 

Boris has a change of heart and wants a new referendum. :sneaky:

Re: PM Boris
 

It appears that Boris will have his election on 12 December, but the Lords might yet throw their teddy out of the pram.
I did find it strange that a bid to get an election under the Fixed Term Parliament Act requires a two thirds majority but this can be readily set aside by the simple expedient of passing a short bill requiring only a simple majority. So what was the point of requiring two thirds in the first place?

Re: PM Boris
 

And then it got the two-thirds anyway. :lol:

Re: PM Boris
 

Better late than never. :yield:

Re: PM Boris
 

The thing is that the act that fianlly suceeded CAN be amended by anyone getting a majority, and the vote regarding the fixed Parlaiment act can't, so far there have been several attempts to amend it, and it still has to pass the House of Lords, where it can also be amended.

Re: PM Boris
 

In true Boris style of hippocracy and bs he is going to campaign on undoing all the things that his party has been inflicting on the country over the last 9 years. I really hope that the British voting public see him for what he is.

Re: PM Boris
 

They do not. At least half do not. They see him as the guy who will get Brexit done and then shake the money tree for a golden future.

Re: PM Boris
 

I thought it was today do or die? :rofl:

The problem that I have with him is that it doesn't matter what his policies are and whether or not you can agree with them. It is that he has been proven time and time again to be a complete and utter liar. Barefaced and blatant. When pressed on this he just lies all the more. His political career being dead in a ditch would be a good thing. I am genuinely at a complete loss as to why anyone would support him.

Re: PM Boris
 

What was it that Thatcher said?
Oh yeah... 'There is no alternative'
Whilst there are others out there straining at the leash, they've all shown themselves unable to put anything above their personal wants.. Parliament's shown itself to be like a three year old at dinner.. 'Whaaahhh don't want that!'
The public are fed up to the back teeth with it, like they are with the EU.
ps.
What happened to those rumours about JRM et al and the hedge fund - no deal conspiracy. All gone a bit quiet hasn't it.

Re: PM Boris
 

He went to Addenbrooks Hospital in Cambridge, who were promised extra money in his '40 new hospitals' deal, he met carefully selected people and visited areas which were carefully screened and vetted. However he had to walk out past staff and visitors, he was greeted with a chorus of boos, so much that his bodyguards hurried him past and out the door.

Re: PM Boris
 

Thatcher was lying 😉

Parliament actually doing exactly what it is designed to do is acting like a 3 year old at dinner? :rofl: give your head a wobble mate.

Re: PM Boris
 

:lol:

Re: PM Boris
 

It's the same as Trump. People just don't seem to care about lies or boasts. I find him amusing and he has a good turn of phrase, but I am under no illusions about how disastrous he is for the country. Reckless really.

Re: PM Boris
 

It is alarming when you look at the parallel. Until recently I honestly thought that people were brighter on average. I don't think that Boris is half as thick as Trump. I think that he is basically taking the same tact and just seeing how far he can push it. Amusing yes as a sideshow or writing rubbish in a newspaper but anywhere near government? Nope!

Re: PM Boris
 

Boris ceased to be the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent in 1994. The EU referendum was 22 years later. That’s quite the long game he’s playing there.

Re: PM Boris
 

Anything freelance in between time? For any journal? I think there's a fair chance there was.

Re: PM Boris
 

I don't see a claim that he has stopped being a journalist (though "columnist" would be more accurate) nor one that he's stopped telling lies about the EU. Surely he both are still true and are unrelated to his being in Brussels.

Does writing lies on busses count as a journalism?

Re: PM Boris
 

His reputation for spreading untruths about the EU - bent banana ban, et al - were from his Telegraph days.

Re: PM Boris
 

There was no lie on a side of a bus and thanks to a now-bankrupted Remainer’s vanity lawsuit against Boris we now have a High Court ruling confirming that.

Re: PM Boris
 

Isn't politics a long game? And Boris was the start, to be followed by others. Boris Johnson peddled absurd EU myths – and our disgraceful press followed his lead

If someone lied about you at every opportunity, and because there were no consequences for the person lying, it encouraged others to join in for 20+ years, would you agree that it's likely that a fair percentage of people who don't know the truth about you to believe many of these lies?

Agreed.

Re: PM Boris
 

If I understand the ruling correctly, it was that lying in the course of an election campaign is not misconduct in public office. It doesn't matter that you know what you have plastered on busses or billboards isn't true; it's an election campaign, lies and distortions are accepted and the public and/or one's opponents should discount campaign promises due to the context. One might think that Mr. Johnson's well established reputation as a man unable to speak a word of truth helps him in this case.

Note that he didn't try to defend the truth of the claim on the bus, just his right to peddle any old crap to those stupid enough to fall for it.

Re: PM Boris
 

"The judges said that allegations that Mr Johnson knew Vote Leave’s £350m-a-week claim was false would not amount to neglect of duties or the abuse of state power."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a9056871.html

Of course one might argue that Johnson's reputation was not so well established at the time of the bus labelling that everyone who saw the buses would think "Johnson's behind that, it can't be true" the way they would now. Perhaps it's only the publicity around the lies on the busses that have brought his defrauding the taxpayer to fund his bonking, his abandonment of numerous children and his history of making shit up, to the fore.

Re: PM Boris
 

I think you are giving Boris far too much credit. A little context may prove useful. Boris’ columns were aimed at an already Eurosceptic audience. You may recall a certain amount of kerfuffle leading up to the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. People who read his columns already didn’t like the EU; he merely played to their confirmation bias.

Re: PM Boris
 

It would be useful for you to qualify what you think was untrue about the bus pledge before we continue.

Re: PM Boris
 

The slogan was:

"Let's give the NHS the GBP350 million the EU takes every week"

I suggest that this untrue because:

1. The EU does not take 350 million pounds from the UK each week. The number is wrong (as an expression of the net cost of membership, the implication here). The suggestion that monies flowing to the EU are "taken" is also wrong. Money flows back to the UK in support of the various regions and, in any case, the UK is part of the EU, contributions are just money going from one pocket to another. (Granted the EU does waste some, for example on employing Nigel Farage).

2. The Leave campaigners have no intention of bolstering the NHS. In fact they'd like to enter into a trade deal with the US and that would sink it. Some of the leave campaigners have had roles in government, none of them have a history of championing social services.

Whether or not it's true is, according to Mr. Johnson's counsel irrelevant. There's no suggestion that Mr. Johnson believed it at the time nor that he thought others would believe it. The defense, in short, is that it's just Boris being Boris - punt a load of old bollocks at the public and giggle at those who fall for it. We should believe Mr. Johnson's highly paid lawyer.

Re: PM Boris
 

I missed a bit. There's a subtitle to the slogan "Tale Control". That's also a lie. The Leave campaign would, if victorious, break up the UK, rekindle a war in Ireland and cede control of the economy to Donald Trump. None of that offers greater control of anything to the person at the bus stop.

For the sake of balance, I should say that I have no issue with the font. Nice clear font.

Re: PM Boris
 

Perhaps I'm missing something here.
I don't remember the Leave campaign's promise to break up the UK, nor do I remember seeing a pledge to declare war on Eire. As for the claim that that the Leave campaign was going to 'cede control of the economy to Donald Trump', well that's simply a rant from the bottom of a glass of bad wine.
What I do remember reading are threats from the likes of the SNP to throw their teddy, once again, from the pram and cry foul if England votes leave, as it did in 2016, and drag Scotland into the North Sea to drown without trace.
What I also remember are threats from Irish thugs to increase their murderous conflict, that have never gone away, and revel in the exciting business of blowing arms and legs from innocent people.
The argument that the UK should vote Remain because there are minority factions who threaten mayhem if they don't get their own way is something that's muttered by shadowy people in dark places where none can hear lest they be found out.

Re: PM Boris
 

Of course.

Re: PM Boris
 

Here's documentation of some recent Johnson lies about the EU:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/06/brexit-has-made-britains-problems-worse-says-juncker

Re: PM Boris
 

Johnson was briefed on declaring friendships before he met Jennifer Arcuri
Innocent until proven guilty and all that but people have been stood down - at least temporarily - for less even in these shameless times.

Re: PM Boris
 

The Leave campaign didn't promise to break up the UK, but given that two parts of the UK wanted to,stay, then that's what it turned out to be. Also the fact that trade relations have been forefront in the discussions, with the US saying that the NHS would be part of the deaal, despite Johnsons denials, but the redacted document the government provided as an answer to a FOI request by Labour, where almost every line was redacted certainly made it seem that the NHS DID feature prominently in those discussions, Johnson and Trump are cut from the same cloth where truthfulness is concerned, and both have proved it. I wouldput the chance of the NHS not being for sale in the same class as he wasn't shagging Acuri

Re: PM Boris
 

As an example of how poor the Brexit debate is in the UK (amongst the media and politicians) when assertions are made about the US buying the NHS, very little real analysis is done. Wouldn't it be better for the debate to consider how Canada, for example, is able to provide public healthcare without the US buying up the entire system.

Re: PM Boris
 

Just the phrase “selling off our NHS”, whilst working wonderfully as an anti-Tory/Brexit soundbite, is pretty meaningless. It conjures up ideas of wholesale privatisation when the actual risks are more like potentially higher drug prices.

Re: PM Boris
 

Can anyone provide an example of how the average UK citizen might benefit if US firms were allowed access to the NHS?

Re: PM Boris
 

Probably not ...

Re: PM Boris
 

If independent health specialists were allowed to set up in the UK, not specifically American ones but ones using an American approach, then an average citizen in need of specialized care, who is willing to pay for it, could access that care directly. The sort of thing one sees in Canada is franchised heart care and, in the US, providers of capital intensive care such as scans by MRI machines. One would have the choice of waiting for service under the NHS or selling the car and having it now. This would be something like going to Cuba for an operation but onshore.

It's a benefit to the few, those who can pay, and it makes things worse for the many as the government would doubtless use the providers as an excuse to run down the NHS, but "from the many to the few" is the crux of modern Conservatism.

Re: PM Boris
 

Exactly. t'll be just like the education system in the UK. You can buy the best if you can afford it, and if you can afford to buy the best, why would you want to pay taxes to fund the rest of the plebs? I wouldn't be surprised if new private health facilities set themselves up as charities, just like private schools do, to avoid tax.

But... blue passports!!!