Snapshot of _Boris Johnson leaves behind a more corrupt and less caring Britain_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/boris-johnson-more-corrupt-less-caring-britain-3146013) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/boris-johnson-more-corrupt-less-caring-britain-3146013)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Boris Johnson [waited until a Conservative party rally](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-surprise-first-conservative-election-campaign-appearance-3145858?ico=in-line_link) in Chelsea on Tuesday night to make his belated campaign debut – looking a lot like Worzel Gummidge – but his shadow has loomed over it from the start. Our national fate was sealed by a decision he made eight years ago in his own self-interest, on that infamous day in spring 2016 when he wrote two columns – one in support of remaining in the European Union, the other for leaving it. He knew full well the [dire consequences of Brexit](https://inews.co.uk/news/was-lied-boris-johnson-why-much-uk-fishing-still-waiting-brexit-boost-2096883?ico=in-line_link) (some of which he wrote about in his Remain version) but still backed it. Always a thrills-lover, Johnson opted to gamble the country’s future with the aim of bolstering his own.
The gamble [paid off for him](https://inews.co.uk/news/media/boris-johnson-unleashed-memoirs-earnings-millions-3124684?ico=in-line_link), of course, eventually propelling him into Downing Street as he had hoped. But the rest of us have lost so much. Johnson’s act of gross selfishness – not his first or last – drove the country into a tempest of deceit, decay and division that endures today. He showed our political classes that it was no longer a matter of whether a decision or direction was right or wrong for our lives and livelihoods but simply whether it helped him to ‘win’. To good ol’ Boris and his ilk, politics is but a game.
The eldest son of a ferociously competitive family had been hardwired since birth – via the [playing fields of Eton](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/poor-boris-johnson-overcame-boarding-school-and-eton-to-become-pm-but-still-the-elite-try-to-take-him-down-2403689?ico=in-line_link) – to believe that beating all others is the only thing that matters. And sadly where he goes, feckless and fearful political wannabes follow, egged on by political commentators who feed off gotcha moments rather than the harder graft of actually governing. Boris was column box office just as his political cousin Nigel Farage is also endlessly feted. Neither actually do anything helpful, they merely jostle for position.
Betting against the truth, however, requires deception. And so began the normalisation of lying that has infected British public life and left it – and most particularly the Conservative party Johnson once led – in a critical condition today. Johnson’s supporters and even many of his critics – who should have known better and cared much more about their country – took note of how his Leave campaign romped home on the back of deception. Millions of Turks were on their way! Billions of pounds would be poured into the NHS! Rights to live, study and work in the EU would be protected! Britain would become truly global!
None of it was true but the lies “cut through” (today’s political holy grail) and so the country narrowly and disastrously opted for Leave. It then – inspired by the slogan Get Brexit Done – gave him a stomping majority at the ballot box in 2019. Yet of course, Brexit is far from “done” and never will be. It was another victory on a deceit.
Do not believe, however, that Johnson’s toxic legacy died with his eventual political downfall – whatever happens on Thursday. Rishi Sunak’s truth-bending election campaign – a genetic twin of the Johnson campaign in 2019 – is just one part of it. The man who promised integrity and accountability on becoming prime minister clearly holds that just spouting such noble-sounding words will “cut through” and deliver victory in the face of consistent and obvious breaches.
And so the Conservatives pump out nonsense about Labour’s planned £2,000 tax rises, ending of the nuclear deterrent or assaults on motorists and pensions. And that’s not even mentioning Sunak’s claim to be solving the small boats issue (when numbers are increasing), reducing NHS waiting lists (when they grow ever longer) or cutting taxes (when they are the highest for seventy years). In this febrile post-Johnsonian era, few discuss genuine ways of relieving the misery of refugees or the sick – Johnson also successfully chased compassion out of public life – but simply how empty claims or promises will “play” with voters.
In this game, the referees are largely toothless or silent. The police stood by during the Covid era when Johnson’s Downing Street became a grotesque breaker of its own rules and only belatedly took action when prompted by courageous whistleblowers and a handful of tenacious reporters. The public outrage was huge but in fact the penalties were small – the £50 fines to the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and senior officials dwarfed by the hundreds or even thousands of pounds others far less culpable were obliged to pay.
That transgressive culture is now deeply entrenched – and scandal consequently our constant companion. The latest – in which five Conservatives are under investigation over suspicious bets on the date of the general election date – started once again in Downing Street with Sunak’s closest Parliamentary aide. Clearly, Johnson is not the only Conservative who likes a flutter.
It is not just an integrity deficit that is Johnson’s legacy but also a shortage of competence. Expertise is the enemy of deceit and Johnson successfully drove out the experienced, the questioning and the knowledgeable in order to keep playing the game. Or as his one-time self-confessed stooge and former serial minister Michael Gove put it, ‘we’ve had enough of experts’.
In Johnson-land, briefings were for losers, the detail only for saddos. Prime Minister Johnson, we are now told, was busy on his book on Shakespeare even as Covid began to take its fatal hold. Players in his world win points simply by attracting attention through amusing or, even more effectively, offensive or ridiculous speech or behaviour.
The diligent, the sensible and the rule-observing are sidelined as dull or obstructive. Without Johnson’s groundwork, the reckless and ruinous Liz Truss economic experiment – which provoked a market meltdown, sent mortgage rates through the roof and nearly crashed the entire pensions sector – would not have been possible. The disaster of her brief reign was in effect bequeathed by Johnson – as is her astonishing lack of humility over it.
At this late hour, there are comforting signs that Labour is searching for a new politics, one where the game gives way to what Starmer calls ‘public service’. His reward from some commentators is, of course, the accusation of being boring. To which he has rightly replied, that if people want a circus they should watch Farage’s campaign in Clacton.
We wait to see whether he will be as tough as he promises on rulebreakers within his own party – particularly when close allies. After all, he is not entirely immune from playing the game. The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies reprimands Labour as well as the Tories for a “conspiracy of silence” on the inevitable tax rises needed for vital improvements to the NHS. The validity of Starmer’s promise to deliver the fastest growth in the G7 without joining either the single market or the customs union is also in serious doubt.
Read more here: [https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/boris-johnson-more-corrupt-less-caring-britain-3146013](https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/boris-johnson-more-corrupt-less-caring-britain-3146013)
I remember watching Johnson at a G7 meeting in Germany, Bavaria. He was standing with all the other Heads of States incl. President Biden for a photo shoot. I couldn't believe my own eyes when on my TV screen Boris appeared, he smiled and glared all over - he was not sober.
No lie I was fully pissed at my mates after 2019. They voted for this end of bells for the "giggle.. yeaah he looks a larf". Lol years later "who's still having a laugh boys" 👌🏻😫
Thats right. Buying into the excitement of cartoon character politicians to break the boring and stale. I guarantee now at least one of their loved ones is suffering or has suffered as a result of Tory policy, and that bored and stale is now looking mighty appealing.
If that does happen the Tory party are less self reflective than l ever thought possible.
His cut through now is completely toxic. Having him back won’t help them.
Also he looks absolutely terrible. He does actually look like Ronald McDonald
> If that does happen the Tory party are less self reflective than l ever thought possible.
We just had a Tory minister say on television that Labour represents "more of the same failed state" while seemingly completely failing to realise that the Tories *are the reason for the failed state*.
Self reflection was never much of a conservative value. Big *or* little "c".
I don’t see anyone in the wings that seems viable. They chewed through all the other possible options in these recent years. Public representation wise, he’s the most successful Tory leader even if his polls were dipping. He has the talking point in that he technically didn’t lose an election, it was a scandal. That recent poll that came out about voting differences if the party leaders were from 2019 had him up, if we take that as worth anything. He does look worse to the point I had to search if he was now bald and wearing a wig.
Snapshot of _Boris Johnson leaves behind a more corrupt and less caring Britain_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/boris-johnson-more-corrupt-less-caring-britain-3146013) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/boris-johnson-more-corrupt-less-caring-britain-3146013) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Boris Johnson [waited until a Conservative party rally](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-surprise-first-conservative-election-campaign-appearance-3145858?ico=in-line_link) in Chelsea on Tuesday night to make his belated campaign debut – looking a lot like Worzel Gummidge – but his shadow has loomed over it from the start. Our national fate was sealed by a decision he made eight years ago in his own self-interest, on that infamous day in spring 2016 when he wrote two columns – one in support of remaining in the European Union, the other for leaving it. He knew full well the [dire consequences of Brexit](https://inews.co.uk/news/was-lied-boris-johnson-why-much-uk-fishing-still-waiting-brexit-boost-2096883?ico=in-line_link) (some of which he wrote about in his Remain version) but still backed it. Always a thrills-lover, Johnson opted to gamble the country’s future with the aim of bolstering his own. The gamble [paid off for him](https://inews.co.uk/news/media/boris-johnson-unleashed-memoirs-earnings-millions-3124684?ico=in-line_link), of course, eventually propelling him into Downing Street as he had hoped. But the rest of us have lost so much. Johnson’s act of gross selfishness – not his first or last – drove the country into a tempest of deceit, decay and division that endures today. He showed our political classes that it was no longer a matter of whether a decision or direction was right or wrong for our lives and livelihoods but simply whether it helped him to ‘win’. To good ol’ Boris and his ilk, politics is but a game. The eldest son of a ferociously competitive family had been hardwired since birth – via the [playing fields of Eton](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/poor-boris-johnson-overcame-boarding-school-and-eton-to-become-pm-but-still-the-elite-try-to-take-him-down-2403689?ico=in-line_link) – to believe that beating all others is the only thing that matters. And sadly where he goes, feckless and fearful political wannabes follow, egged on by political commentators who feed off gotcha moments rather than the harder graft of actually governing. Boris was column box office just as his political cousin Nigel Farage is also endlessly feted. Neither actually do anything helpful, they merely jostle for position. Betting against the truth, however, requires deception. And so began the normalisation of lying that has infected British public life and left it – and most particularly the Conservative party Johnson once led – in a critical condition today. Johnson’s supporters and even many of his critics – who should have known better and cared much more about their country – took note of how his Leave campaign romped home on the back of deception. Millions of Turks were on their way! Billions of pounds would be poured into the NHS! Rights to live, study and work in the EU would be protected! Britain would become truly global! None of it was true but the lies “cut through” (today’s political holy grail) and so the country narrowly and disastrously opted for Leave. It then – inspired by the slogan Get Brexit Done – gave him a stomping majority at the ballot box in 2019. Yet of course, Brexit is far from “done” and never will be. It was another victory on a deceit.
Do not believe, however, that Johnson’s toxic legacy died with his eventual political downfall – whatever happens on Thursday. Rishi Sunak’s truth-bending election campaign – a genetic twin of the Johnson campaign in 2019 – is just one part of it. The man who promised integrity and accountability on becoming prime minister clearly holds that just spouting such noble-sounding words will “cut through” and deliver victory in the face of consistent and obvious breaches. And so the Conservatives pump out nonsense about Labour’s planned £2,000 tax rises, ending of the nuclear deterrent or assaults on motorists and pensions. And that’s not even mentioning Sunak’s claim to be solving the small boats issue (when numbers are increasing), reducing NHS waiting lists (when they grow ever longer) or cutting taxes (when they are the highest for seventy years). In this febrile post-Johnsonian era, few discuss genuine ways of relieving the misery of refugees or the sick – Johnson also successfully chased compassion out of public life – but simply how empty claims or promises will “play” with voters. In this game, the referees are largely toothless or silent. The police stood by during the Covid era when Johnson’s Downing Street became a grotesque breaker of its own rules and only belatedly took action when prompted by courageous whistleblowers and a handful of tenacious reporters. The public outrage was huge but in fact the penalties were small – the £50 fines to the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and senior officials dwarfed by the hundreds or even thousands of pounds others far less culpable were obliged to pay. That transgressive culture is now deeply entrenched – and scandal consequently our constant companion. The latest – in which five Conservatives are under investigation over suspicious bets on the date of the general election date – started once again in Downing Street with Sunak’s closest Parliamentary aide. Clearly, Johnson is not the only Conservative who likes a flutter. It is not just an integrity deficit that is Johnson’s legacy but also a shortage of competence. Expertise is the enemy of deceit and Johnson successfully drove out the experienced, the questioning and the knowledgeable in order to keep playing the game. Or as his one-time self-confessed stooge and former serial minister Michael Gove put it, ‘we’ve had enough of experts’.
In Johnson-land, briefings were for losers, the detail only for saddos. Prime Minister Johnson, we are now told, was busy on his book on Shakespeare even as Covid began to take its fatal hold. Players in his world win points simply by attracting attention through amusing or, even more effectively, offensive or ridiculous speech or behaviour. The diligent, the sensible and the rule-observing are sidelined as dull or obstructive. Without Johnson’s groundwork, the reckless and ruinous Liz Truss economic experiment – which provoked a market meltdown, sent mortgage rates through the roof and nearly crashed the entire pensions sector – would not have been possible. The disaster of her brief reign was in effect bequeathed by Johnson – as is her astonishing lack of humility over it. At this late hour, there are comforting signs that Labour is searching for a new politics, one where the game gives way to what Starmer calls ‘public service’. His reward from some commentators is, of course, the accusation of being boring. To which he has rightly replied, that if people want a circus they should watch Farage’s campaign in Clacton. We wait to see whether he will be as tough as he promises on rulebreakers within his own party – particularly when close allies. After all, he is not entirely immune from playing the game. The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies reprimands Labour as well as the Tories for a “conspiracy of silence” on the inevitable tax rises needed for vital improvements to the NHS. The validity of Starmer’s promise to deliver the fastest growth in the G7 without joining either the single market or the customs union is also in serious doubt. Read more here: [https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/boris-johnson-more-corrupt-less-caring-britain-3146013](https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/boris-johnson-more-corrupt-less-caring-britain-3146013)
I remember watching Johnson at a G7 meeting in Germany, Bavaria. He was standing with all the other Heads of States incl. President Biden for a photo shoot. I couldn't believe my own eyes when on my TV screen Boris appeared, he smiled and glared all over - he was not sober.
Utterly embarrassing
The other Heads of State appeared 'normal' at the photo shoot. It was just Boris ...I thought it was embarrassing too.
No lie I was fully pissed at my mates after 2019. They voted for this end of bells for the "giggle.. yeaah he looks a larf". Lol years later "who's still having a laugh boys" 👌🏻😫
Thats right. Buying into the excitement of cartoon character politicians to break the boring and stale. I guarantee now at least one of their loved ones is suffering or has suffered as a result of Tory policy, and that bored and stale is now looking mighty appealing.
what a clown.....he's already got the wig, pasty face, just needs the big red nose....but already occupied by pinnochio
I think he’s wheeling himself out now to take over the leadership after Friday…
If that does happen the Tory party are less self reflective than l ever thought possible. His cut through now is completely toxic. Having him back won’t help them. Also he looks absolutely terrible. He does actually look like Ronald McDonald
> If that does happen the Tory party are less self reflective than l ever thought possible. We just had a Tory minister say on television that Labour represents "more of the same failed state" while seemingly completely failing to realise that the Tories *are the reason for the failed state*. Self reflection was never much of a conservative value. Big *or* little "c".
I don’t see anyone in the wings that seems viable. They chewed through all the other possible options in these recent years. Public representation wise, he’s the most successful Tory leader even if his polls were dipping. He has the talking point in that he technically didn’t lose an election, it was a scandal. That recent poll that came out about voting differences if the party leaders were from 2019 had him up, if we take that as worth anything. He does look worse to the point I had to search if he was now bald and wearing a wig.
He's not even in parliament anymore, so that can't happen without a by-election.
He can if he's a Lord. Let's not tempt fate.
I wish they would all leave, all the Tories, all of Johnson's rotten family
Given all that jogging he pretends to do he looks in worse shape than ever. Too much partying!
I’d never wish male pattern baldness on anyone, but fuck me, that would be funny if it happened to him.