Boris Johnson is out

source

Johnson allies Nigel Adams and Nadine Dorries also resigned.

We should be so lucky with Trump.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Brits have a new Prime Minister

Pretty sure that's why Parliament chose Liz. So when the eventual calamity happens, a man won't get the blame.

Well, there it is. The UK’s third prime minister in just over three years is Liz Truss.

[...]

Boris Johnson, a terminally immoral liar who turned out to be a terminally immoral liar, is no longer in office today.

[...]

[He] left Downing Street this morning after an arrogant, lie-heavy speech, in which he displayed his character development after three years in office – precisely zero. [...] He remains a short king over the water for any number of Conservatives who somehow still yearn to be shackled to a wildly underachieving narcissist who openly despises them.

  Guardian

She's talking about MAGA, in case you missed the "over the water" descriptor.

Elsewhere, This Morning has pivoted its Spin to Win competition in the direction of “full dystopia”, with desperate viewers now offered the chance to have the peppy morning magazine show pay their apocalyptic energy bills.

[...]

Nigel Farage has just launched a personal red-white-and-blue gin range – a reminder that 40% proof spirits are the perfect accompaniment to the ongoing fallout of his political philosophy. He says his gin is “a taste of Brexit”; certainly, the blue liquid is the precise shade of the contents of a chemical toilet.

[...]

Nevertheless, former Tory leaders have been weighing in with good wishes for Truss. There may well be a day when my reaction to any vanilla interjection from David Cameron is not to shout to an empty room: “You did this! You’re the reason we all live in the upside-down! YOU OPENED THE GATE!”

[...]

Truss flew to Balmoral to meet the Queen, who she once wanted to abolish but now finds it more personally convenient to revere.

So maybe she deserves to be blamed for a calamity.

It’s always good when people explain what the Queen’s outfits mean; I assume that today’s choice telegraphed amused relief that she could be the only person spared having to hear Truss butcher a reading from Ecclesiastes at her funeral.

[...]

It’s always good when people explain what the Queen’s outfits mean; I assume that today’s choice telegraphed amused relief that she could be the only person spared having to hear Truss butcher a reading from Ecclesiastes at her funeral.

[...]

Incidentally, if any of this feels somewhat downbeat, do consider that polls indicate a full 50% of the UK are disappointed that Truss is the new PM, against 22% who say they are very or fairly pleased.

[...]

The current bookies’ favourite to replace Liz Truss as Tory leader is … Boris Johnson.

Jesus. Apparently the same virus that attacked the GOP has attacked the Tories. Maybe the World Health Organization should be working on that.

....but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Wow

I figured he'd have to be carried out on a pike.

Lies and a brazen contempt for the rules powered his rise; lies and a brazen contempt for the rules brought his fall.

[...]

The last, fatal lie was his claim that he had not been told directly of complaints of sexual misconduct committed by the former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher, a claim rapidly exposed as false in a rare intervention from a former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, Simon McDonald. It turned out that Johnson had indeed been briefed about Pincher, and that once again Johnson had not told the truth.

[...]

But though that newest dishonesty was the last straw first for Sajid Javid, then minutes later for Rishi Sunak, and, over the dizzying 36 hours that followed, dozens of others, triggering a wave of resignations and withdrawals of backbench support that ultimately brought Johnson’s removal, it was hardly what broke the Johnson premiership.

Instead it was the pattern of repeated mendacity that proved too much to bear both for Johnson’s previous chancellor and his hastily installed successor, his health secretary and a slew of more junior colleagues, a pattern so firmly established in the public mind that even his closest lieutenants could deny it no longer.

[...]

None of this was a surprise, because dishonesty has been the one constant through Johnson’s career. Famously, he was sacked from his first job, at the Times, for making up a quote, and later he was sacked from Michael Howard’s frontbench for lying to the then party leader about an affair.

[...]

Yet for Johnson it proved no obstacle at all. On the contrary, his route to No 10 was smoothed with lies. How come? What were the forces that propelled a man whose flaws were so clear and well documented into the most powerful job in the land?

  Guardian

I think we in the U.S. can understand.

Bored with a leader who was dutiful, diligent and deathly dull – whose wickedest youthful transgression had been running unauthorised through a field of wheat – Conservatives were ready for someone with some swash to his buckle.

That was bound to be Johnson. For more than two decades, ever since he had stolen the show on Have I Got News for You, Johnson had been the Tories’ guilty pleasure. They would mob him at party conference, giggling at his every scripted gag, delighting in every studied ruffling of the hair.

[...]

For this form of populism Boris Johnson was a perfect fit. His personal brand had long been a breezy disdain for the worker bees and “girly swots” who felt duty-bound to go through their papers, to read their briefs and master the details. He had long been a familiar English archetype, the gentleman amateur offering fluency, confidence and swagger in place of effort, experience and attention to detail, and Brexit-era populism lent what had been mere character flaws – arrogance and laziness – a patina of ideological intent.

[...]

In the age of Trump and Brexit, to be a congenital bullshit artist – as Johnson always had been – was to define yourself as a man of “the people” and their “instincts”, unrestrained by pettifogging niceties, heedless of the boring naysayers and their tedious facts, ready instead to take a stand against the know-all elites, establishment and experts.

[...]

According to the election analyst Peter Kellner, “Johnson’s victory in 2019 owed less to his popularity than Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity.”

[...]

It might even have worked, for a while at any rate. But then came coronavirus. Populists have no answer to a pandemic, for it requires the very things Johnson and his ilk lack and despise: hard work, a forensic grasp of detail, the wisdom of experts, human empathy, a spirit of self-sacrifice and, above all, rules. Of course, he would not follow them. He never had. It had once been part of his appeal.

[...]

He turned the Tory party away from the values it once held dear, so that Johnson’s party cheerfully jeopardised the union, tramped on parliamentary sovereignty and even insulted the monarchy. He purged it of some of its best people and debased several of the great offices of state by filling them with obvious incompetents. Above all, he drained what remained of the public reservoir of trust.

Whoever was writing the story of Johnson's trajectory, plaigerized it for Trump's. Or vice-versa.

Sir John Major, the former Conservative prime minister, has intervened in the debate about how long Boris Johnson should be allowed to remain in Downing Street. In a letter to Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, Major says it would be “unwise” to let Johnson hang on until the autumn.

[...]

Major says he can see two possible solutions. One would be for Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, to take over as acting prime minister until a new party leader is elected. The other would be for the rules to be changed so that only MPs elect the party leader (the system that used to be in place until William Hague changed the rules). Major says MPs could choose a leader who could then be endorsed by party members.

Major accepts that neither solution is ideal. But he says with so many critical issues facing the country “an imaginative response - even at the risk of some bruised feelings within the party - is most definitely in the public interest”.

  Guardian

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Meanwhile in England

More ministers have resigned today from government than have ever done before in a single day, higher than the previous record of 11 ministers quitting in September 1932.

Fourteen have left Boris Johnson's government today, and since 6pm yesterday evening when then Chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid resigned, seventeen ministers have left in total.

More junior, non-ministerial Conservative MPs have also quit, meaning several dozen members of the government have now gone.

[...]

As well as the resignations from within Mr Johnson's cabinet, several international trade envoys and parliamentary private secretaries have left their posts, while other backbench Conservative colleagues have publicly stated their lack of confidence in the prime minister.

[...]

Only Theresa May's time in charge of a Brexit-split Conservative Party saw more ministers quitting in shorter time over the first three years of governing.

[...]

Mr Johnson won a vote of no confidence from his parliamentary party in early June, but it resulted in 41.2% of his Conservative MPs voting against him. A number of MPs who said they voted for the PM at the time have since announced they would vote differently if the ballot were held again.

  Sky News

Really? A month made a change?

At Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon Boris Johnson vowed to "keep going", despite the growing calls from his colleagues for him to step down.

Definitely Britain's Trump.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Fuck you, Boris

What's the matter with Germany, and what would Boris know about appropriateness? Ask him about partying after Covid lockdown.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Hypocrite.

What a twit

First he denied even being there.  Now he says he was there, but he thought it was a work event.  Bullshit.  How long did it take him to figure it out?

The world is ruled by dickheads.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Lords of the earth meet virtually

"America is back. I speak to you today as president of the United States at the very start of my administration, and I'm sending a clear message to the world — America is back," [US president Joe] Biden said in what could be a summary of his speech [to the Munich Security Conference].

[...]

"Competition with China is going to be stiff. That's what I expect. And that's what I welcome," Mr. Biden said, adding the U.S. and European partners can "own the race of the future."

The president also spoke of Russia as an adversary, something that threatens the freedom of its people. That's why the U.S. must stand up for Ukraine, and stand against hacking and other Russian tools, he said.

[...]

Mr. Biden also spoke of Iran as a threat to the safety and prosperity of the Middle East.

  CBS

So, back to the status quo: West vs. East.

Earlier Friday, the president participated virtually in the G7 COVID-19 meeting with world leaders and announced the U.S. would contribute $4 billion to COVAX, emphasizing the administration's stance that the coronavirus must be fought around the world.

The Biden administration is also officially reentering the Paris climate accords later Friday afternoon.

Joe Biden, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Boris Johnson topped the bill on Friday in a virtual version of the world’s top gathering on foreign affairs and defense — the Munich Security Conference.

  Politico

Did Australia get booted out of the "Five Eyes" intelligence group, or just snubbed for this meeting?

The online event presented a first opportunity for the new U.S. president to set out his foreign policy agenda to Europe since he took office last month. John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, also addressed the conference — a scaled-down rejig of the gathering that normally fills Munich’s Hotel Bayerischer Hof every February.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel and U.N. chief António Guterres were among the other big names on the program.

[...]

Boris Johnson (who has a reputation as a political chameleon) pulled off the trick again. The man Joe Biden once called a Trump “clone” gave a Munich speech that positioned him as the optimistic champion of the transatlantic alliance Trump so often scorned.

[...]

Johnson highlighted the U.K.’s role in standing up to Beijing on human rights over the Munich Security Conference, as he was the only national leader to mention Xinjiang and Hong Kong during the event.

Interesting.

It's “not acceptable for countries to think they can go to Glasgow and simply put out big numbers” for decades into the future, [U.S. climate envoy John Kerry] said. “We are absolutely clearly … now inside the decisive decade.”

Oh, we're way past the decisive decade. We're now in the desperate one.

Scientists have warned that governments need to drastically cut emissions and drop fossil fuel use by 2030 to keep warming in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Which Joe Biden has officially rejoined as of this meeting.

NATO needs to step up efforts “to fully understand the security consequences” of climate change [noted NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg].

[...]

Stoltenberg warned that climate change has a direct impact on military operations and infrastructure, with rising sea levels raising questions over where to built military bases, especially naval bases, and the future of organizing military missions as temperatures are going through the roof.

[...]

“In the future, we will need even more cooperation,” particularly when it comes to dealing with China.

“Neither NATO nor the European Union have all the tools you need to address the consequences of the rise of China,” he argued.

Indeed, a climate pact that leaves out China (and Russia) seems like a huge disadvantage.

In her speech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put the regulation of internet platforms front and center — together with fighting climate change — of a new transatlantic agenda.

“The storming on the U.S. Capitol was a turning point for our discussions on the impact social media have on our democracies,” the Commission president said.

“Imposing democratic limits on the uncontrolled power of the big tech companies alone will not stop political violence but it is an important step.”

I wonder what "democratic limits" are.

“I don’t think that TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] will be revived because we are not there where the United States left us four years ago,” she said. “The world has changed, the United States has changed, and Europe has changed.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

British PM in intensive care

Karma

I'm willing to bet Trump and Pence both tested positive, too. Why doesn't Downing Street just lie about it?

UPDATE:  Johnson accused of Covid-19 complacency

Wouldn't surprise me

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Fascist frenzy

Four bodies representing news photographers have accused No 10 of excluding them from events – the latest in a succession of complaints that Johnson’s government is attempting to mimic Trump’s attacks on the media and reduce press scrutiny.

No independent photographers were allowed to witness Johnson signing the EU withdrawal agreement, or the moment the UK left the EU on 31 January, when the prime minister banged a ceremonial gong.

Usually these events are covered by two rota photographers from regional or national newspapers or newswires. But the only images from Downing Street were taken by Johnson’s official photographer, Andrew Parsons.

  The Guardian

Despot rule #1: control the media.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Friday it would be “best” if U.S. President Donald Trump does not get involved in Britain’s election when he visits London for a NATO summit next week.

  Reuters

What's number two on Johnson's list of requests? Because that one isn't going to happen.

On Friday, a senior Trump administration official told reporters that Trump is “absolutely cognizant of not, again, wading into other country’s elections.”

Sure, but cognition isn't the same as adherence.

The U.S. president, who is due to arrive on Monday, has cast Johnson as “Britain’s Trump.”

Goes without saying.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Who HASN'T he called?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Pence's trip just keeps going haywire

Vice President Pence on Thursday met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London and discussed brokering a bilateral trade agreement between the United States and United Kingdom post-Brexit.

Johnson said it would be “fantastic” to deepen economic ties between the two countries but noted that the National Health Service (NHS) would not be up for sale as part of a bilateral trade deal.

Johnson also joked that the U.K. is not “keen on that chlorinated chicken” — referring to the American process of washing chicken in chemicals that is banned in the U.K. — and goaded opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over his opposition to Britain’s plans to leave the European Union.

Pence offered support for Johnson’s plans to exit the EU and described the relationship between the two countries as “historic and special” and “embodied in the very warm and personal relationship that you have forged with President Trump, with myself, and with our administration."

  The Hill

That chlorinated chicken remark could cool the relationship down.

Vice President Pence was greeted by a series of rainbow flags this week as he arrived in Reykjavik to meet with President Guðni Jóhannesson of Iceland.

Pence met with Jóhannesson on Wednesday at Hofdi House, across the street from the IT company Advania, which had lined its entrance with several rainbow flags, according to The Guardian.

And a nearby office housing the headquarters for the Efling trade union swapped out the flags typically flying outside to display rainbow ones.

“We just felt the need to celebrate diversity today and wanted to show that by flying the flags,” Ægir Már Þórisson, Advania’s director, told the news outlet Iceland Monitor.

  The Hill

But that's not all...

Photos of Pence’s meeting with Jóhannesson show the president wearing a rainbow bracelet on his right hand, which was visible when he shook hands with Pence.

Getting the message, Pence?

Britain's Trump is a flop, too

“Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, brothers in chaos,” read a headline in the Los Angeles Times over the weekend.

Chaos, indeed. The two right-wing soul mates seem to be competing with one another to see who can do more damage to the political, economic, and social fabric of their respective countries.

[...]

“On Tuesday, Parliament voted, 328 to 301, to seize control so it could debate a bill that would attempt to prevent the United Kingdom from leaving the European Union without a plan in place on October 31,” Vox explained. “The vote was greeted with cheers, and cries of ‘not a good start, Boris!’”

In the space of a few hours, the new British prime minister lost his first-ever vote in the House of Commons and his parliamentary majority too.

[...]

The similarities between the two leaders really are striking — and I’m not just referring to their ridiculous blond hairstyles.

[...]

Like Trump, Johnson likes to make grandiose and populist pledges — but then fails to deliver on them. His demagoguery is perhaps matched only by his incompetence.

[...]

Both men came to power after demonizing immigrants. [...] Johnson was one of the leaders of the pro-Brexit, anti-immigration “Vote Leave” campaign and repeatedly suggested that the U.K. would be flooded with millions of Turkish migrants if it remained a member of the European Union.

Both men are also card-carrying Islamophobes.

[...]

Both of them fail to command popular support.

[...]

Both have cynically disregarded democratic norms.

[...]

Both are notorious liars. Trump, according to the Washington Post fact-checkers, has told more than 10,000 untruths since coming to office less than three years ago; Johnson was fired from his job at the Times of London for falsifying quotes, while his former editor at the Daily Telegraph has referred to his “contempt for the truth.”

Both have a long and sordid history of infidelity.

Both are elitists masquerading as populists. Trump received $413 million from his father’s real estate empire and lived in a gold, three-story penthouse in Manhattan; Boris is a graduate of the upper-crust schools Eton and Oxford and, of course, a former member of the infamous Bullingdon Club.

On Tuesday, though, one key difference emerged between the men: Johnson still faces resistance on the right. Conservative Member of Parliament Phillip Lee, for example, deprived the prime minister of his razor-thin majority when he walked across the floor of the House of Commons and defected to the Liberal Democrats, the third party of British politics, while Johnson was mid-speech. Then, 21 Conservative MPs, including two former finance ministers and the grandson of Winston Churchill, voted with the opposition to wrest back control of the parliamentary agenda and try and delay Brexit, for which they were promptly expelled from the party.

[...]

Compare and contrast such behavior with that of the congressional Republican Party, which has been shamefully complicit in all of Trump’s open bigotry, dishonesty, corruption, and authoritarianism.

[...]

These are the spineless sycophants who have allowed a former reality TV star to hijack their Grand Old Party.

[...]

In the coming days and weeks, as the Brexit saga continues and a possible general election is held, Johnson could find himself out of a job (which would make him, incidentally, the shortest-serving prime minister in U.K. history). If he’s ousted, leading British Conservatives can justifiably take some credit for it.

As former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes tweeted Tuesday: “Conservative MPs in UK finally standing up to Boris sadly underscores how much conservatives in the US have been cowardly in the face of Trump.”

“Cowardly” might be an understatement.

  The Intercept

Very Trumpian.

Meanwhile in Britain

Members of the British parliament on Tuesday gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson a rowdy response at a parliamentary meeting in which Johnson's Conservative Party lost its majority in the governing body.

"Britain is on the verge...of taking back control of our trade policy and restoring our independent seat in the [World Trade Organization] for the first time in 46 years," Johnson said, which was met with shouts from members of parliament (MPs).

The criticism follows an attempt by Johnson to suspend parliament as he aims to limit its ability to block a no-deal Brexit.

During Tuesday's meeting, MP Phillip Lee, who was a Conservative, crossed the House to join the Liberal Democrats, which stripped the prime minister of his majority.

[...]

Queen Elizabeth II last week granted Johnson's request to suspend parliament and the royal court said in a statement that the body would "prorogued" between Sept. 9 and Oct. 14, which would give lawmakers just 17 days to negotiate a Brexit deal before the Oct. 31 deadline for the country's exit from the European Union.

Johnson, a leading advocate for leaving the EU, became prime minister through a conservative party election last month after Theresa May stepped down.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Britain got their Donald Trump

"It would be funny if it wasn't real."  That's what we said. 

They'll be fighting for publicity, and it's not certain they'll work well together.  Two supremely narcissistic assholes.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Brits have taken their cue from the bind we're in

MPs have easily passed a backbench amendment which seeks to block any attempt by a future government to prorogue parliament to ensure a no-deal Brexit, in what is likely to be seen as a pre-emptive strike against Boris Johnson’s authority.

  Guardian

They mean to put the hobbles on Johnson BEFORE he gets hold of the reins. Wise.

One of those to support the measure was culture, media and sport minister Margot James, who resigned from her post to do so.

[...]

Johnson, the clear favourite to be declared winner of the Conservative leadership contest against Jeremy Hunt next week, and thus replace Theresa May as prime minister, has repeatedly refused to rule out using prorogation to ensure a no-deal Brexit on 31 October.

[...]

When the bill was first considered by the Commons MPs passed by a single vote an earlier amendment by Grieve intended to make it more difficult for a future government to prorogue, or suspend, parliament to prevent MPs blocking no deal.

Wouldn't Trump just love to suspend Congress?  Will somebody please explain the urgency to Nancy Pelosi?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another thug running for high office

A journalist who Boris Johnson secretly discussed helping a friend to have beaten up has demanded an apology from the Conservative leadership candidate as he stands on the brink of Downing Street.

  Guardian

Two things. 1) All this man wants is an apology? 2) The fact that Boris Johnson is this close to being elected Prime Minister should be altogether unacceptable. Sometimes it seems the Nazis are winning again.

In 1990, Johnson was secretly recorded agreeing to provide the address of the News of the World reporter Stuart Collier to his friend Darius Guppy, who wanted to arrange for the journalist to have his ribs cracked as revenge for investigating his activities.

[...]

Guppy attended Oxford University with Johnson, where the pair were members of the Bullingdon Club. Guppy was jailed in 1993 after staging a fake jewel robbery in New York three years earlier and fraudulently claiming £1.8m from insurers.

Mobsters.

The discussion never came to fruition, while Guppy ended up being jailed for a separate £1.8m fraud and Johnson later dismissed the call as a joke.

Textbook.

During the call, Johnson told Guppy he had tried four contacts to obtain the reporter’s details but was fearful his role in the plot would be uncovered.

[...]

After expressing some reservations over the severity of the beating, Johnson is heard saying at the end of the call: “OK, Darry, I said I’ll do it. I’ll do it, don’t worry.”

Sound like a joke to you?

A bureaucrat who found himself on the wrong side of one of Johnson’s stories said: “He was the paramount of exaggeration and distortion and lies. He was a clown – a successful clown.”

Perhaps why they call him Britain's Donald Trump.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Speaking of Britain...

Boris Johnson has resigned as foreign secretary, becoming the third minister in 24 hours to walk out of the government rather than back Theresa May’s plans for a soft Brexit.

[...]

His resignation follows that of the Brexit secretary, David Davis, and his No 2 at the Department for Exiting the EU, Steve Baker.

[...]

[I]t emerged that Johnson had referred to attempts to sell the prime minister’s Brexit plan as ‘polishing a turd’.

  The Guardian

Get some pointers on that from Fox News.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.