Boris Johnson

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18 minutes ago, The Quim Reaper said:

 

The start of an article of hers from 2012:

 

 

Thanks.  So no reason why she couldn't have driven back to London then, and no need for his jaunt test drive to Barnard Castle.

[En Passant 3,740]

[Gooseberry Crumble 5,337]

1 hour ago, msc said:

Genuinely cant ever recall someone trying to go on TV and prove they followed guidelines they helped set by listing 5 different ways they broke it, and then the government going "Well now he's cleared that up..."

Utterly bizarre. It seemed to me that yesterday Boris Johnson virtually committed political suicide on national television. I can't see him recovering from this spending of political capital. 

[The Great Cornholio 902]

Did any of you notice that they're calling Dominic Cummings' isolation scandal Cumgate on Twitter? 

[CoffinLodger 1,248]

I wish I was Dominic Cummings neighbours so I could just walk up to him and punch him on the face!

[Paul Bearer 6,099]

1 hour ago, CoffinLodger said:

I wish I was Dominic Cummings neighbours so I could just walk up to him and punch him on the face!

You don't need to be his neighbour to do that. 

[JR976evil 905]

16 minutes ago, Paul Bearer said:

You don't need to be his neighbour to do that. 

The fact that he still insists on clinging on despite the events of the past several days I’d say was a strong indicator of masochistic tendencies 

[Toast 16,122]

Boris too.

[One shot Paddy 1,204]

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5 minutes ago, One shot Paddy said:

 

Yeah, it's a good one isn't it? 

 

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Don't worry, it's all been sorted now. Emily Maitlis's been chucked off tonights Newsnight after the government threw a huff at the BBC for her comments about Dominic Cummings breaking the law he broke.

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18 minutes ago, msc said:

Don't worry, it's all been sorted now. Emily Maitlis's been chucked off tonights Newsnight after the government threw a huff at the BBC for her comments about Dominic Cummings breaking the law he broke.

Absolutely fucking raging about this. The BBC’s DG and his politics department aren’t fit to lick her boots. 
 

This is what they describe as a breach of their ‘impartiality’ guidelines:

So this is unacceptable, and yet Laura Kuenssberg can openly frig herself off whenever Johnson’s about and act as a cheerleader for Cummings, making up sources to aid his side of the story? And Andrew Neil can carry on doing his thing despite being on the Barclay Brothers’ payroll?

 

Largely I love the BBC but when it comes to politics they can cunt off.

[En Passant 3,740]

3 hours ago, The Quim Reaper said:

Largely I love the BBC

I don't.

I believe in the principle of a publicly funded broadcaster but not this shower for a long long while.

You got a like anyway cause the rest is bang on my confirmation bias radar.

[Lord Fellatio Nelson 6,218]

13 hours ago, The Quim Reaper said:

Absolutely fucking raging about this. The BBC’s DG and his politics department aren’t fit to lick her boots. 
 

This is what they describe as a breach of their ‘impartiality’ guidelines:

So this is unacceptable, and yet Laura Kuenssberg can openly frig herself off whenever Johnson’s about and act as a cheerleader for Cummings, making up sources to aid his side of the story? And Andrew Neil can carry on doing his thing despite being on the Barclay Brothers’ payroll?

 

Largely I love the BBC but when it comes to politics they can cunt off.

Up to a point I agree.

I have said that I am no fan of Cumminglingus or Johnson, and the government in general, but.....

Seriously, anybody who thinks that the BBC isn't biased has been living with their head up their arseholes for way too long.

It isn't just the BBC either, the media is festooned with 'right on' left wing comedians, if you could actually call Nish Kumar, Adam Hills et al, comedians.

The Last Leg, The Mash Report, HIGNFY, and so on, all left wing, all lampooning the right of the political spectrum even though there is ample mileage in doing the same to the left.

It is now so unbalanced it is a fucking joke in itself.

I can remember those halcyon days when Spitting Image, at its best, ripped seven bags of shit of all sides and nobody was safe.

If they brought it back today, it would be, pretty much, bash the right and hold out the left as the planets only hope of saviour.

Nowdays you are not allowed to be moderate, if you are not on the left you are a baby eating, racist bastard who should burn in hell.

The problem with Maitlis is that she has expressed her 'personal' views too often on social media, all well and good if you are a bin man from Slough but not really the thing to do when you are fronting a well known, long standing news and current affairs programme.

Basically, if you want to make Political comments, jack your job in and do something else or shut the fuck up.

Andrew Neil? Did nobody see him rip everybody who was put in front of him to pieces? He did the same with Johnson, calling him out for not being interviewed, because he was too fucking scared to sit in front of him.

Neil is what Maitlis thinks she is and will never be.

Come back Kirsty Wark!

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44 minutes ago, Lord Fellatio Nelson said:

Up to a point I agree.

I have said that I am no fan of Cumminglingus or Johnson, and the government in general, but.....

Seriously, anybody who thinks that the BBC isn't biased has been living with their head up their arseholes for way too long.

It isn't just the BBC either, the media is festooned with 'right on' left wing comedians, if you could actually call Nish Kumar, Adam Hills et al, comedians.

The Last Leg, The Mash Report, HIGNFY, and so on, all left wing, all lampooning the right of the political spectrum even though there is ample mileage in doing the same to the left.

It is now so unbalanced it is a fucking joke in itself.

I can remember those halcyon days when Spitting Image, at its best, ripped seven bags of shit of all sides and nobody was safe.

If they brought it back today, it would be, pretty much, bash the right and hold out the left as the planets only hope of saviour.

Nowdays you are not allowed to be moderate, if you are not on the left you are a baby eating, racist bastard who should burn in hell.

The problem with Maitlis is that she has expressed her 'personal' views too often on social media, all well and good if you are a bin man from Slough but not really the thing to do when you are fronting a well known, long standing news and current affairs programme. 

Basically, if you want to make Political comments, jack your job in and do something else or shut the fuck up.

Andrew Neil? Did nobody see him rip everybody who was put in front of him to pieces? He did the same with Johnson, calling him out for not being interviewed, because he was too fucking scared to sit in front of him.

Neil is what Maitlis thinks she is and will never be.

Come back Kirsty Wark!

 

tbf BBC comedy is fed by the British comic circuit which has been predominantly left wing since the 80s when Alexei Sayle and Ben Elton became the big names to gravitate around. (Arguably you could go back further - Monty Python was clearly left in its agenda at the time - although I'm thinking of when Ben Elton and co started to mock the Bernard Manning generation. Also Sayle is a funny fucker whereas Elton is a git, but I digress.)

 

Last Leg spent equal amounts of time taking the pish out of Corbyn and Labour to be fair. There's not much politics to discuss right now except coronavirus. Not a fan of Kumar or the Mash, and not seen HIGNFY in yonks, although it did help launch the Mayoral career of the current PM!

 

Maitlis expresses her opinion on twitter as much as Neil does and hosts the show which has been the Analysis and Opinions on the News show for as long as I can recall. Paxman couldn't go 5 minutes with giving us his views on the days news. Andrew Neil is the boss at these sorts of shows, yes, but he's 71 now and winding down. She's not on that level but is an improving interviewer and is better than the awful Emma Barnett (too Paxman), Andrew Marr (clearly fucked by that stroke) and Robert Peston (losing his mind on ITV) as the other much used political interviewers on TV at the moment.

 

Also Kirsty Wark still presents Newsnight on a Friday iirc. Maitlis Monday and Tuesday, the dreadful Emma Barnett on Wednesday and Thursday and Wark on Friday nights, I think that's the current schedule.

 

PS Kirsty Wark is 65 now!!!!!

[Lord Fellatio Nelson 6,218]

I was about to run with you on this until you said that Sayle was funny....

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2 hours ago, Lord Fellatio Nelson said:

Up to a point I agree.

I have said that I am no fan of Cumminglingus or Johnson, and the government in general, but.....

Seriously, anybody who thinks that the BBC isn't biased has been living with their head up their arseholes for way too long.

It isn't just the BBC either, the media is festooned with 'right on' left wing comedians, if you could actually call Nish Kumar, Adam Hills et al, comedians.

The Last Leg, The Mash Report, HIGNFY, and so on, all left wing, all lampooning the right of the political spectrum even though there is ample mileage in doing the same to the left.

It is now so unbalanced it is a fucking joke in itself.

I can remember those halcyon days when Spitting Image, at its best, ripped seven bags of shit of all sides and nobody was safe.

If they brought it back today, it would be, pretty much, bash the right and hold out the left as the planets only hope of saviour.

Nowdays you are not allowed to be moderate, if you are not on the left you are a baby eating, racist bastard who should burn in hell.

The problem with Maitlis is that she has expressed her 'personal' views too often on social media, all well and good if you are a bin man from Slough but not really the thing to do when you are fronting a well known, long standing news and current affairs programme.

Basically, if you want to make Political comments, jack your job in and do something else or shut the fuck up.

Andrew Neil? Did nobody see him rip everybody who was put in front of him to pieces? He did the same with Johnson, calling him out for not being interviewed, because he was too fucking scared to sit in front of him.

Neil is what Maitlis thinks she is and will never be.

Come back Kirsty Wark!

Oh yes, they‘ve not been bias-free for as long as I can remember, but particularly since the build up to the last election their political team have been in the fucking toilet.

 

As msc said, the comedians lampooning the right is a by-product of most of them being left-leaning, but also probably because whoever is governing is clearly going to be more likely to absorb any satirical flak. Especially now Labour has gotten rid of the nutty bastard who was at the helm during the last couple of elections.

 

Though I completely agree with you about Nish Kumar. That show is all about his agenda, it’s not satire and it’s sure as fuck not funny, not even to a (slightly) left-leaning shit eater like me 

 

I have always been a fan of Maitlis’ style however, and, though at times she has let her own views peek through the BBC’s apparent anti-bias shield (predominantly on social media), this case on Newsnight is not one of them. She was merely stating facts and questions that need to be answered!

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2 minutes ago, The Quim Reaper said:

 

Though I completely agree with you about Nish Kumar. That show is all about his agenda, it’s not satire and it’s sure as fuck not funny, not even to a (slightly) left-leaning shit eater like me 

 

Bloody hell, who knew the one thing everyone would agree on in DL forum is bloody NIsh Kumar!

[Lord Fellatio Nelson 6,218]

1 hour ago, The Quim Reaper said:

Oh yes, they‘ve not been bias-free for as long as I can remember, but particularly since the build up to the last election their political team have been in the fucking toilet.

 

As msc said, the comedians lampooning the right is a by-product of most of them being left-leaning, but also probably because whoever is governing is clearly going to be more likely to absorb any satirical flak. Especially now Labour has gotten rid of the nutty bastard who was at the helm during the last couple of elections.

 

Though I completely agree with you about Nish Kumar. That show is all about his agenda, it’s not satire and it’s sure as fuck not funny, not even to a (slightly) left-leaning shit eater like me 

 

I have always been a fan of Maitlis’ style however, and, though at times she has let her own views peek through the BBC’s apparent anti-bias shield (predominantly on social media), this case on Newsnight is not one of them. She was merely stating facts and questions that need to be answered!

If you have  left leaning programme controllers, Director generals and a whole plethora of people upstairs that have a bias against right wing politics, it is inevitable that programmes will be made that will feature comedians that lean to the left, the far left much of the time.

Geoff Norcott doesn't get a look in, Lee Hurst ( did he go a bit bat shit crazy?) are on the right and plenty of others are conspicuous by their absence.

Whether this is because they are deemed not funny enough is a point to argue but, as we all agree, if some twat like Kumar can, not only get on TV and Radio, let alone host his own fucking shows then you have to concede, at some juncture, that those that get said shows and him onto the screen have no sodding clue and no sense of humour.

Yes, you lampoon the Government of the day, that has always been the case, TWTWTW was doing it before many of us were fertilised in our mums wombs but, tbf, 'alternative comedy' as we all know it was anarchic ,more than overtly political to the left side of politics. They hated everybody.

I accept that this government deserves a massive kick in, but they are all shit, left, right, centre, the fucking lot of them.

They all need fucking off so we can start all over again, maybe.

[Miracle Aligner 249]

1 hour ago, msc said:

 

Bloody hell, who knew the one thing everyone would agree on in DL forum is bloody NIsh Kumar!

 

I'm as lefty as they come and would happily shoot Nish fucking Kumar, people like him do more to undermine racial integration than UKIP candidates.

 

Also Brewdog have just released this...

 

https://www.brewdog.com/uk/barnard-castle-eye-test

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12 minutes ago, Lord Fellatio Nelson said:

If you have  left leaning programme controllers, Director generals and a whole plethora of people upstairs that have a bias against right wing politics, it is inevitable that programmes will be made that will feature comedians that lean to the left, the far left much of the time.

Geoff Norcott doesn't get a look in, Lee Hurst ( did he go a bit bat shit crazy?) are on the right and plenty of others are conspicuous by their absence.

Whether this is because they are deemed not funny enough is a point to argue but, as we all agree, if some twat like Kumar can, not only get on TV and Radio, let alone host his own fucking shows then you have to concede, at some juncture, that those that get said shows and him onto the screen have no sodding clue and no sense of humour.

Yes, you lampoon the Government of the day, that has always been the case, TWTWTW was doing it before many of us were fertilised in our mums wombs but, tbf, 'alternative comedy' as we all know it was anarchic ,more than overtly political to the left side of politics. They hated everybody.

I accept that this government deserves a massive kick in, but they are all shit, left, right, centre, the fucking lot of them.

They all need fucking off so we can start all over again, maybe.

Right-leaning comedians are rather pushed to the background, yeah. I do know one comedian (who I won’t name) who thinks Norcott is a prick even before he gets political, no idea whether that’s a widely held view but if it is that could explain his relative silence? I might be wrong here as I don’t watch it, but doesn’t he appear on Mash with Kumar?

 

As for Lee Hurst, I saw him last year. His set didn’t get political once and it was brilliant! But yes, he did go fucking mad and he still kind of is. 
 

In real terms though, there’s not actually that many known right-wingers in comedy nowadays. But then a huge number of comics are Poxbridge educated so largely hold pretty uniform views

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6 minutes ago, The Quim Reaper said:

Right-leaning comedians are rather pushed to the background, yeah. I do know one comedian (who I won’t name) who thinks Norcott is a prick even before he gets political, no idea whether that’s a widely held view but if it is that could explain his relative silence? I might be wrong here as I don’t watch it, but doesn’t he appear on Mash with Kumar?

 

From the little I've seen of Norcott (on, don't laugh, The Mash and Last Leg!) he seems like a mirror of Nish Kumar: here's his politics first and then trying to be funny. Doesn't work for me when anyone does that.

 

I mean, two of my favourite comics (Alan Coren and Kenny Everett) were right wing but you'd never know it from their main output. (Everett gave folk a clue with his routine for the young Tories people took surprisingly serious.) Because they focused on being funny. And were.

 

 

[maryportfuncity 10,630]

So, summat we can likely all agree on

 

A PS4 game that lets you drive to Barnard Castle as if you were Dominic Cummings, that's funny, right?

 

Link:https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/gaming/dominic-cummings-barnard-castle-ps4-game-a4451671.html?fbclid=IwAR3_kL4eoCFv1pqLRgxv5xoS2x-oMypWPJjuiiyx-WfBryaIaqlnFwL4yMU

[Toast 16,122]

Article in the Spectator yesterday by Alex Massie.  I've put it in spoiler tags as it's paywalled and quite long.  Well worth a read!

Remember Dominic Scummings's wife is an editor and columnist at the Spectator.

 

Boris Johnson isn't fit to lead
 

Spoiler

 

Danny Kruger, formerly Johnson’s political secretary and now the MP for Devizes, has – perhaps inadvertently – done the country some small service. In a note sent to newly-elected Tory MPs, Mr Kruger has reportedly advised his colleagues that ‘calling for Dominic Cummings to go is basically declaring no confidence in [the] prime minister.’

Well, yes, indeed. That is the point.

Because, in the end, this is not a story about Dominic Cummings but, rather, one about the Prime Minister. Even if we concede the possibility that he has not fully recovered from his own recent illness and, by making that concession, are tempted to afford him a greater measure of the benefit of the doubt than is traditionally granted to prime ministers, it remains mightily difficult to construct a coherent defence of the Prime Minister’s recent actions.

There is little escaping an obvious reality: this is a prime minister without clothes. The country can see this, even if cabinet ministers and Tory MPs pretend not to. He is what he is and he is not up to the job. In sunnier times this might not matter so very much but these are not the best of times and, right now, a significant portion of the Prime Minister’s responsibilities are wrapped up in his ability to inspire confidence. He is the captain of the ship and voters are entitled to think he is paying attention.

No such reassurance has been forthcoming. On the contrary, the manner in which the Prime Minister has sought to dismiss any and all concerns about Cummings’s behaviour has further undermined already fragile confidence in his government’s handling of this crisis. There is nothing to see here and the little people should know it is time to ‘move on’.

The prime minister should really watch his tone. His government’s response has turned a story into a scandal. A better, more empathetic, Downing Street regime would have appreciated the need for contrition at this moment. Instead the government has doubled-down on arrogant dismissal. As is so often the case, a notional demonstration of strength and resolve actually reveals the deep weaknesses at the heart of this government. It has a majority in the House of Commons but public confidence is palpably waning.

Again, Mr Kruger unwittingly shows us how. In his note to colleagues, he argues that ‘BJ and DC together are why we won the 2019 election and them together is the only way to GBD [Get Brexit Done], level up the regions and fix Whitehall - the only things which will win us the next election too. An arguable minor infraction of lockdown rules is totally secondary to that.’

But no mere advisor should ever be thought indispensable and any prime minister so wholly dependent on a single advisor, no matter how brilliant he or she may be, is a weak one. If Boris Johnson cannot function without Cummings he is not qualified to be prime minister. The price of defending Cummings is admitting Johnson’s inadequacy.

So treating the media with contempt is one thing but treating the public with an equal measure of lofty scorn is quite another. This, mystifyingly, is now the government’s preferred course of action. And this leads to some truly risible positions. Thus, Michael Gove tells LBC radio that, why, yes of course he too has hopped in his car to test his eyesight as though this was a perfectly normal thing to do and the only surprise, really, is that some people don’t think this entirely reasonable behaviour. The spectacle of intelligent people deliberately peddling nonsense is often aggravating but it’s rarely as enraging as it is now.

We now enjoy a situation in which the Prime Minister’s approval ratings appear to be correlated with his appearances in public. The more often he is seen, the lower his ratings go. That is both intolerable and unsustainable. Yesterday’s appearance before the House of Commons liaison committee once again revealed a prime minister painfully out of his depth.

That was bad enough but the situation was made worse by Johnson’s obvious impatience with the idea he appear before the committee at all. ‘The trouble is’ he whined, ‘it does take a huge amount of sherpa time, of preparation time’. Well, one can see why and how this might inconvenience the Prime Minister while also holding to the view that if the Prime Minister believes it’s a bore to be asked questions about his own government’s policies then perhaps he might rethink his desire to be prime minister. Such scrutiny, however tiresome it may be, has generally been considered part of the job.

The Prime Minister’s defenders argue he cannot function without Dominic Cummings. Perhaps this is the case but it is not obvious he can function with him either. I do not, in truth, know if this is a Black Wednesday or Poll Tax moment for this government but the mere fact those comparisons are now being made is another data point supporting the proposition that Johnson’s government is in deep trouble.

No matter how sympathetic one might be to the difficulties of government during an emergency there is now little opportunity to evade the fact that this government’s handling of the crisis has not been impressive. That is partly a matter of policy failure – for which blame can be shared by any number of actors – and partly a failure of communications, for which responsibility begins at the very top.

Public confidence in the government is not the same as liking the government. It is possible to dislike a government while thinking it broadly competent. I have every sympathy for the predicament in which Mr Cummings found himself and I suspect many voters might, had they faced a comparable situation, have liked to behave as he did. But many voters did face similar problems and they did not act as he did. They stayed at home because that is what the government had told them to do. No defence of Mr Cummings can defeat this obvious truth. From which it follows that even if the country one day agrees to ‘move on’ it will not forget. And nor, frankly, should it.