Skip to main content

The ghost of Jefffrey Archer

"Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad" Euripides

The ecstatic reaction of the Tory bloggers to the possible selection of Boris Johnson as their candidate for Mayor of London is bizarre.

I do recall the last time the Conservatives went for a well known but slightly "eccentric" candidate. Of course that was Jeffrey Archer.

Boris has a whole cemetery of skeletons in his cupboard, and may yet end up being found in bed with a camel or something equally inappropriate. His persona of dotty bafflement hides an ambitious but rather undisciplined character.

So the choice is set to be the corrupt and thoroughly nasty Ken Livingstone or the demented Boris Johnson.

If the Liberal Democrats can find anyone who is not a gargoyle we might just end up being in with a chance!

Comments

Peter Mc said…
Boris' last appearance on Question Time was remarkable - blithering, rude, sneering, frivolous. How Shirley Williams didn't threaten to slap his legs I don't know. There lah been a lot of London media darlings onanising over one of their own in this. Maybe he will emerge from his oafish chrysalis as a profound, serious politician but I suspect what we see it what we get. It'll be great to see his shtick being seen through.
Jock Coats said…
It's worse of course. He hasn't been selected. All that's happened so far is that the deadline for nominations to be the Tory candidate passed on Monday and he had said he would run for said nomination.

It would be *so* funny if after the hysteria he was beaten by someone to the nomination!
Peter Mc said…
Erratums
There has been...

Cat used keyboard as sharpening post.
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Popular posts from this blog

Post Truth and Justice

The past decade has seen the rise of so-called "post truth" politics.  Instead of mere misrepresentation of facts to serve an argument, political figures began to put forward arguments which denied easily provable facts, and then blustered and browbeat those who pointed out the lie.  The political class was able to get away with "post truth" positions because the infrastructure that reported their activity has been suborned directly into the process. In short, the media abandoned long-cherished traditions of objectivity and began a slow slide into undeclared bias and partisanship.  The "fourth estate" was always a key piece of how democratic societies worked, since the press, and later the broadcast media could shape opinion by the way they reported on the political process. As a result there has never been a golden age of objective media, but nevertheless individual reporters acquired better or worse reputations for the quality of their reporting and ...

Liberal Democrats v Conservatives: the battle in the blogosphere

It is probably fair to say that the advent of Nick Clegg, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by our Conservative opponents. Indeed, it would hardly be wrong to say that the past few weeks has seen some "pretty robust" debate between Conservative and Liberal Democrat bloggers. Even the Queen Mum of blogging, the generally genial Iain Dale seems to have been featuring as many stories as he can to try to show Liberal Democrats in as poor a light as possible. Neither, to be fair, has the traffic been all one way: I have "fisked' Mr. Cameron's rather half-baked proposals on health, and attacked several of the Conservative positions that have emerged from the fog of their policy making process. Most Liberal Democrats have attacked the Conservatives probably with more vigour even than the distrusted, discredited Labour government. So what lies behind this sharper debate, this emerging war in the blogosphere? Partly- in my ...

One Year On

  Head vabariigi iseseisvuspäeva! Happy Estonian Independence Day! It is one year since I stood outside the Estonian Parliament for the traditional raising of the national flag from Tall Hermann tower. Looking at the young fraternities gathered with their flags, I was very sure that Estonia too would soon be facing the aggression of the criminal Russian regime. A tragic and dark day. 5 eyes intelligence had been clear: an all out invasion was going to happen, and Putin´s goals included- and still include- "restoration" of Russian imperial power across Europe, even to the Atlantic. Yet there was one Western intelligence failure: we all underestimated the guts of the Ukrainian armed forces, the ZSU, and its President and people. One year on, Estonia, and indeed all the front line states against Russia, knows that Ukraine saved us. Estonia used that time to prepare itself, should that "delayed" onslaught ever be unleashed, but equally the determination of Kaja Kallas, ...