Shard

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.

scrubbedexpat133

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!

BritInParis

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.

BristolUK

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

dbd33

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?

BritInParis

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

BritInParis

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.

DaveLovesDee

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.

dbd33

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.

dbd33

"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.

BritInParis

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.

BritInParis

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

dbd33

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.

dbd33

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.

dave_j

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.