boris, london and the actually conservative UK (1 Viewer)

[broken arm]

interesting.

i actually liked boris but only because he's funny.

 

[oh shit]

what's funny about him

 

[broken arm]

what's funny about him

 

[pete]

what's funny about him

Uncombed and often awkward, Johnson is known both his wit and for remarks that are have offended minority communities and others.
He labeled members of the Commonwealth "piccaninnies" -- a derogatory term for black people, referred to Africans as having "watermelon smiles," and likened his party's internal conflicts "to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing."
Johnson's scorn has also been directed at gay marriage, which became legal in Britain in 2005. In his book "Friends, Voters, Countrymen," he said that if homosexuals could marry then why not "three men, as well as two men; or indeed three men and a dog."
Ex-party leader Michael Howard ordered Johnson to visit the northern city of Liverpool in 2004 to apologize after he wrote an editorial accusing the city's people of "wallowing" in victimhood after Liverpudlian Ken Bigley was taken hostage in Iraq and beheaded.

but hey - we've got jackie healy rae and willie o'dea, so....

 

[classic seanc]

Should be good craic.

 

[Rachel666]

look him up on Have I Got News for You on youtube... he is ver witty.

 

[Franco]

He's a funny footballer anyways.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOivzoRc0I8&feature=related"]YouTube - Boris Johnson Spear Gore[/ame]

 

[oh shit]

he's a horrible bastard and it's sickening that a lot of people are so taken in by his absurd persona. he's a racist, toff bastard.

fucksake i just moved here
disaster

 

[broken arm]

he's a horrible bastard and it's sickening that a lot of people are so taken in by his absurd persona. he's a racist, toff bastard.

fucksake i just moved here
disaster

ha ha. true.

at least wales only just about fell for the lib dems.

 

[ernesto]

we're all fucked over here if a terrorist attack happnes or something.
actually, if anything remotely serious happens to London, Boris is going to call them everyone a coconut picker and just make things worse. Fucking Tory party Mayor. Fuck sake!

 

[flashback]

He seems like a tosser alright.
How much damage can he actually do?
Fuck up the Tube?

I'd say Londoners would cease to see the funny side if their trains get bollixed.

It might not be a terrible thing though. Labour need to get their fucking house in order. They got a couple of solid digs to the guts there. That might focus them a little bit for the next general election.

I dunno. Trying to see a silver lining here.


edit, he might be smart though.
Despite talking shite all the time. And being a racist toss pot. He might have the occasional ok idea. Wait and see I suppose.


edit, essentially, what i mean is, he's not Bush.
He's not guaranteed to be a fucking massive huge cunting disaster for the planet.
Ken, for all his radical shoutings, was not really as radical in action as he liked people to think. Boris has some sort of intellect. He might do a similar trick, from the other direction.

fuck it.
Who knows.

 

[pete]

He's a funny footballer anyways.

YouTube - Boris Johnson Spear Gore

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[Wobbler]

actually, if anything remotely serious happens to London,

Something very serious just has happened to London

Fucking Tory party Mayor. Fuck sake!

There are worse things then having a Tory for mayor. Tories essentially believe in small government and low taxation. It's not a point of view I'd subscribe to but I don't think that there's anything wrong with having those views or being a Tory. This particular Tory is a racist. Now that's a massive problem.

 

[flashback]

look, nothing can be done now.
Borris has the job.
Part of what I failed completely to clearly say above there is : there is no point in setting your mind to *hate*, and waiting for the evidence. Judge him on his actions rather than the bollix that comes out of his mouth.

I dont think he is guaranteed to be terrible.
What is he anyway? Basically the minister for London transport it seems.

Having said all that, if he continues to come out with his charming olde worlde racist nonsense, its going to be tricky to not hope someone goes to work on his knees and ankles with a scaffold pole.

 

[oh shit]

you're talking as though it had nothing to do with politics! it's not about personal dislike, hate is hardly why we're upset.

you've got no idea what the mayor actually does, so here's an example.
london is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, ken was trying (with limited success) to increase the number of affordable homes by making developers commit to building a certain number of affordable houses in all new developments. boris will not pursue that.

here's another -
already he's talking about crime and security. crime is down in the capital but boris is creating and exploiting a moral panic about knife crime and gangs to justify zero-tolerance policing and increases in survellience and public order enforcement.
that's very nice if you live in a genteel suburb somewhere, like boris's voters, or want to gentrify entire districts for commercial development - for example the current king's cross st pancras development which is displacing and alienating the area's community - but for people living on the margins of society, it means life is about to get a lot harder.

meh i could go on

the only possible good is that a genuinely progressive party will emerge to the left of the lumbering corpse of 'new labour'

 

[flashback]

Fair enough.
I dont have much of an idea what the Mayor of London does. Because the Mayor of London did not exist until 2000.
And at its inception it was given a pretty nebulous role.
Since only one person ever had the role, by definition Ken defined the role. I do have an idea of what Ken did as mayor though.

He did a number of things that weren't bad, like you pointed out. He also did some things that could be considered authoritarian and oppressive (ie the all touching Big Brother people monitoring system that not only watches almost everything, but can talk to you).

I have a bit of a weakness for Ken's rhetoric because it coincides with how I feel about a lot of things. But the fact of the matter is that as Mayor of London he was not that radical at all. If Boris had put that surveillance system in place there would be fucking outrage, Ken did an interesting series of Shiny Thing speeches for people to get worked up about while they quietly put thousands of cameras up all over the place, privatised the Tubes and put a former CIA man in as transport Commissioner.

Its all very right on to be reactionary and full of righteous indignation about the person now elected to this position.

What I am saying is, judge Boris on his actions, not on the Shiny Things he says.

From the things he has said and the positions he has held until now, I agree, he doesn't look like the best guy for the job.

But the only thing that matters is what he actually does.
So far he has done nothing other than talk some shite about dealing with crime.
Ken would have probably said precisely the same thing had he got his position back.

 

[Cara]

Does Boris have any babies? I bet they'd be really cute if he did. Bigoted to the point of revulsion, but they'd look lovely

 

[Doctor Muscles]

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