Do the Tories really want a massive coward like Boris Johnson as prime minister?
On his bike: Boris Johnson starts pedalling the instant anyone comes near him with a question about his Tory leadership campaign.
News coverage of the Conservative leadership race this morning (June 17) is amazing – TV news types seem desperate to crown Boris Johnson a month before the result is announced… and he’s a complete and utter coward.
Where was he at the televised leadership debate on Channel 4 yesterday? Empty-chaired because he was afraid to face the public.
Where is he at the media press conferences today? Nowhere to be seen because he’s “too busy doing debate prep to be able to attend”.
He is the absentee candidate.
Clearly he and his team are terrified that his campaign will fall apart the instant it comes into contact with anyone other than compliant Tory-supporting press bods in the BBC and elsewhere.
The risk aversion of @BorisJohnson is something to behold. Every other Tory candidate is taking questions from newspapers, TV and radio in a 4th estate or “lobby” hustings. The only one who has refused such scrutiny is the one who still makes a living writing for @Telegraph.
— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 17, 2019
He is leaving it to other candidates – and ex-candidates – to state his case. And they’re doing it, for crying out loud!
Consider Michael Gove on the BBC’s Today programme, defending Mr Johnson’s appalling morals:
How important is morality in a new PM?
Tory candidate @michaelgove says "all of the candidates who are standing are capable of being the PM" #r4today https://t.co/02LfvZXERj pic.twitter.com/Rqw3eRzgam
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) June 17, 2019
He continued: “I will happily defend Boris on this. There have been various attempts to to mount personal attacks against him and against some other candidates. I think that is wrong. Look, in the past, I have had my criticisms and differences with Boris. But I believe he is somebody who is capable of being prime minister.”
There was a slight barb, however: “But the key question is – who do we believe is the person with the best record in office, and the clearest vision for the future?”
That won’t be Mr Johnson, then! His vision for the future is to say whatever will get him into 10 Downing Street.
David Gauke, a soon-to-be-former cabinet minister if Mr Johnson wins, made this abundantly clear when he criticised the candidate’s latest unfunded spending promise, made in a column in the Daily Telegraph. After Mr Johnson promised to give every home in the UK access to superfast broadband by 2025, Mr Gauke tweeted:
If Boris wins, good luck to whoever becomes his Chancellor. It would be a noble act of self-sacrifice to accept the job. Who’d do it? 🤷♂️
— David Gauke (@DavidGauke) June 17, 2019
He’s backing underdog candidate Rory Stewart – alongside a rising number of other Conservative MPs.
Despite failed candidate Matt Hancock having declared for Mr Johnson, it seems his supporters are splitting between the absentee favourite and Mr Stewart, who is making a strong showing at every public event he attends. The contrast could not be clearer.
But Mr Stewart will never be allowed to test his version of Conservative government, and perhaps we should be grateful for that.
The groundswell of support for Mr Johnson is a rush towards political suicide by the Conservative Party as a whole.
Conservatism has been an abject failure and the UK will be better-off without it, so perhaps the rest of us should welcome him too.
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What comes over loud and clear is the Tory disdain for integrity and honesty and their acceptance of total dishonesty and stinking corruption. The whole nasty Tory Party is rotten to the core.
I see that Rory Stewart has said that he is willing to use nuclear weapons.
“There’s only one answer, which is yes because this is a deterrent and if people don’t believe you would use it it’s not a credible threat.”
But he was not asked the following:
1 Under what circumstances?
2 Who would your targets be?
3 How many people would you be prepared to kill?
4 What would you do if you launched a nuclear missile and it went off course and hit another country, or this country?
“British Trident missile test veered off course towards the US”
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42104.0
These are questions that the supporters of nuclear war have managed to avoid for so long.
I’m not sure that “cowardice” is really Johnson’s motivation to stay out of the debates. He is just being sensible. He knows that his policies, including his Brexit position, are built on shifting sands and this would soon become clear in a debate. But, like Donald Trump, he knows that his best plan is to loudly express whatever prejudices his followers hold. Regardless of whether they are moral or even consistent. Many Tories are so desperate to keep Labour out of power, and so invested in their notion of Britain’s special nature that they would vote for any idiot who echoed their particular brand of Churchill/Thatcher/Dunkirk/Falklands-flavoured pop-patriotism. A long as he doesn’t get bogged down in detailed examination, he is home and dry.
“Pop-patriotism” – that’s a very good name for it.
Boris Johnson continues to show himself not fit to be leader. He’s a Snowflake Chicken! If he cannot face the public to be scrutinised then he shouldn’t be allowed to stand in leadership challenge.
Why shouldn’t they? The Labour party has got one
The Labour Party doesn’t have a prime minister at all – and the leader of that party most certainly is not a coward. If he was, he wouldn’t have remained leader after the silly so-called “chicken coup” of 2016. Please, be realistic.
What worries me is Lynton Crosby operating his strings and training him up for when he does appear on TV with the other candidates.