Boris Johnson

Emily Thornberry doesn’t want to ban the burkha, but isn’t a fan.

Boris Johnson doesn’t want to ban the burkha, but isn’t a fan.

One of them used insulting language to describe women who wear the burkha.

That’s the difference.

(Note: writing as no great fan of my constituency MP.)

Pretty much by definition such women are unlikely to be on a theatreboard because their religion also disapproves of most of the arts (but hello, if you are!). Have you ever seen a woman in a burqua or niqab in a theatre? I haven't. The only time I even saw headscarves - not face coverings - were on the schoolgirls at a preview of The Jungle. I lived in several very multiethnic streets in London where I tried to talk to covered women - not veiled, but mostly covered - and they would turn their faces away if a 'westerner' (for want of a better word) tried to talk to them. Even in the corner shop - the man, from North Africa, was very very chatty but his wife, a white British convert from Lancashire - rarely said a word apart from hello, tended to avert her eyes and when she started having babies didn't come in the shop at all. And no, in case you are wondering - this wasn't a reflection on me and the way I look - generally the areas were like Mr Benn with shopkeepers and locals saying hi when I was on my shopping trips or bike rides. My mother taught English and 'settling in" to Somalian refugees in Liverpool and women did not turn up for classes - only men. And these were classes taught by a woman.

My friends from Muslim backgrounds are not very religious - they go to pubs etc.. One had a religious phase after 9/11, when he had got verbal abuse in the street, though around the same time he'd had other issues (job loss and an ex). I was talking about this to a friend yesterday who came here from Iran after the revolution, where she was forced to cover up. She often posts pictures of pre-revolution Iran and it could be any country in the Med in the 70s - normal looking women in floral dresses, swimsuits and so on. She is very frustrated by the pussyfooting around the issue here.

Btw I have noticed another friend (not Muslim but similar - won't identify in case she reads this!) becoming more religious which I do find surprising and worrying. Another neighbour has moved to Israel, while one of Mum's friends isn't allowed to see her grandchildren because she isn't deemed religious enough to visit by her daughter, who has gone hardcore. Society seems to fragmenting into little compartments. When I was at school or university I don't ever remember giving a thought to what religion people were but now it seems so many people want to be hyphenated by their religion, sexuality etc..

You have the entire internet at your finger tips to educate yourself in this subject if you don’t feel you know anything about it.

Can we get back to politics yo. 

Or in this case, 'what has this particular lil sh*t got up to this week' cos I am HERE for that part of this thread. 

Johnson is positioning himself as a populist, this means saying inflammatory things so that he attracts the sad group who think they have been stopped from saying what they want when, in fact, we’ve just become more polite. Being rude and arrogant is apparently a vote winner with some people.

Would it go to by-election though? Surely he'd just remain as an independent MP, unless his constituency somehow forced a by-election in the same way as Ian Paisley Jr's constituents will hopefully do in the next few weeks. But for that to happen Parliament would have to declare he had committed misconduct (which, to be fair, they probably could find a way of doing).

Boris is definitely a Marmite politician.

Can he be elected to run the country - possibly.

BUT within the Conservative Party he has a lot of support and I can't see him ever being deselected, even if the occupant of No 10 called for it.

I had a somewhat depressing conversation about Boris Johnson today (as if such a conversation could be anything else), with someone who was well aware that BJ plays to the audience to get them on his side but somehow imagined that this only applied to other people. I couldn't get across the idea that if you think he's on your side then you're one of the ones who have been played,

It's like the fake news problem: for far too many people, fake news is the stuff those other idiots believe.

Not everyone in the Foreign service found him so appealing:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-41453375/boris-johnson-reciting-kipling-in-myanmar-temple-not-appropriate
inews.co.uk/news/politics/good-riddance-anguilla-boris-johnsons/

Interestingly, I've seen Sadiq Khan in person more than I ever saw Boris (or Ken, come to that). I assume some of that is because I tend to go to events that Sadiq supports and Boris was more lukewarm about, like Pride, but it may also be because Boris's efforts to meet ordinary people were generally connected with stunts like zipwires designed to get column inches and TV coverage, so Sadiq's tend to be rather lower key and not noticed by people other than the attendees.

The only time I met Boris in person was at the LGBT Hustings for the 2012 mayoral election. At that meeting he denied that he'd ever written “If gay marriage was OK – and I was uncertain on the issue – then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog.” in his 2001 book - despite someone having a copy of the book at the hustings.

Oh I rather like Sadiq. He's like a little pocket Mayor. One you can pick up and take anywhere to any event. I'm sure you could fit him in a bag if need be, like a little chihuahua.

The favourite victim of a professional con man is always a 'mark' he's successfully defrauded before. Most people refuse to believe they were conned, so successfully do they buy into the story, hence they are ripe for the taking a second and subsequent time.



Read David Maurer's The Big Con.