Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Has anyone worked with Boris? What’s he really like?

220 replies

Fleetheart · 13/06/2019 18:05

Surely he can’t be that bad??? Everyone seems to think he’s a complete tosser (me included), so how is he so popular? Does anyone know the truth?

OP posts:
Allthemistakesmade · 14/06/2019 18:30

Rory Stewart please please ...

Breaker did slightly cheer me up to read your experience of him though given that it's a given.

ChequersChequers · 14/06/2019 18:31

I had to NC for this from paranoia but my friend worked for him around 20 years ago for quite a while - she was very junior, definitely subordinate and she was not on his radar to try it on with and she said he was incredibly pleasant to her, good manners generally, made the office quite fun and extremely astute. Not as shambolic as he looked. He was also shagging everything that moved (not her) and not particularly secretive about it. She said men tended to want to dislike him when they first met him and he could generally win them round eventually. Long time ago though.

longwayoff · 14/06/2019 18:32

Harley, BJ is famously sexually incontinent, past mistresses, abortion, love child, etc. Its part of the reason that he's considered to be untrustworthy and unreliable, in addition to his political machinations. All a matter of record.

ADropofReality · 15/06/2019 10:09

With Trump you have a situation where the uneducated favour him because they see him as anti-establishment a person who breaks the rules and sticks it to the man and they're just not bright enough to understand what he's really doing

Oh for goodness sake. Anyone who votes for a candidate you approve of is thick. That makes politics easy, doesn't it? Feel good looking down on the Trump-voting plebs?

As for Boris. Tory member here; I will be voting for whoever isn't Boris in the final round. I think he's a very clever person (despite the shambling act) but lazy, no attention to detail and not very principled.

That said, the alternative at the next General Election is an anti-semitic terrorist fanboy, so I will stick with the lazy shambler over that when that choice comes.

applepieicecream · 15/06/2019 10:20

Not Boris but people who work with Jeremy Hunt speak very highly of him.

Fleetheart · 15/06/2019 15:36

Maybe the next question should be anyone who has gone out with Boris? Considering he has spread his favours so wide I bet there are a few who can shed some light 😂

OP posts:
Whosorrynow · 15/06/2019 17:16

Feel good looking down on the Trump-voting plebs?
no I'm appalled and horrified that people vote for trump and his ilk

Cilleen · 15/06/2019 17:16

I've met through DH's work someone who had an affair with Boris which was in the papers for some reason. I don't know her well, but while she seems very jolly and pleasant, she also strikes me as someone whose education, comparative privilege and success hasn't stopped her having a deeply fatalistic attitude to men -- as if they're rather like the weather, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but not a lot you can do about it.

PantsyMcPantsface · 15/06/2019 18:43

When I've met him - charming, charismatic, clearly very intelligent... But I met him in the context of it being in a room full of old Etonian types so very much a Tory in their native habitat. (I was in my role as token northerner from a council estate and state school so an interesting novelty)

Breathlessness · 15/06/2019 18:51

Jeremy Hardy said of him that Boris ‘comes across a a loveable moptop but you know he would have no problem corralling you into a football stadium and shooting you.’

Breathlessness · 15/06/2019 18:59

‘With Trump you have a situation where the uneducated favour him because they see him as anti-establishment a person who breaks the rules and sticks it to the man and they're just not bright enough to understand what he's really doing

Oh for goodness sake. Anyone who votes for a candidate you approve of is thick. That makes politics easy, doesn't it? Feel good looking down on the Trump-voting plebs?’

I think that in US politics being seen as ‘one of us’ is valued over being seen as highly intelligent or educated.

We seem to have a dynamic where being viewed as ‘posh’ and from a social elite doesn't stop you getting elected.

Fleetheart · 15/06/2019 19:31

I think actually our deeply ingrained class system means that elitist candidates have an advantage. People from the lower classes who look to lead are looked down on by the upper, middle and lower classes alike. If they succeed - ie Maggie - they have had to change quite a lot of their outward persona so they fit in more with the posh types.

OP posts:
Breathlessness · 15/06/2019 19:35

I agree.

dustyparadeground · 17/06/2019 08:46

I'm hoping Jeremy Hunt makes it ...Rory Stwart even better but I don't believe he has much chance. Slight experience of Boris he was on holiday in Sardinia same place as us. A long time ago but he was around a lot at Breakfast and Dinner. Behaved like an ass ....classic upper class twit dealing with Johnny Foreigner.

Fleetheart · 17/06/2019 14:39

Why do we have to have all these people from Eton as our leaders? Does no one else have any ambition?

OP posts:
Phare · 17/06/2019 20:28

I’m a foreigner, and I conclude that a lot of British people simply like kowtowing to the privileged. They actively prefer being ruled by plummy-voiced Bullingdon types.

Fleetheart · 17/06/2019 21:16

Unfortunately phare, I think that is correct. Our class system is well and truly inbred in us all.

OP posts:
HainaultViaNewburyPark · 17/06/2019 21:39

Why do we have to have all these people from Eton as our leaders? Does no one else have any ambition?

I didn’t go to Eton (or any other public school), and I don’t lack ambition. But why would I want to be PM? I earn more than they do doing a much less stressful job.

TeacupDrama · 17/06/2019 21:55

JRM has not been heard of for a while is he actively supporting any candidate? or just sitting in the wings waiting for the storm to blow over before he reappears

prettywhiteguitar · 17/06/2019 22:08

A friend of mine was at a charity event to raise money, she was sat with her friends all women in their forties and professionals in their field, Boris walked up to them and said to his mate loudly “are these the prossies then ?” Supposed to be a hilarious joke, my friend was absolutely astounded at his attitude.

The man is a disgusting misogynist with no respect for anyone other than those from his own class

ChicCroissant · 17/06/2019 22:14

I saw JRM on the news at the weekend, he's supporting Boris the invisible man Hmm

Gilead · 17/06/2019 22:20

Spends an awful lot of time looking busy whilst doing bugger all. Will ignore you if you’re not useful or part of the entourage. Rude, clever and is completely and utterly convinced that he is untouchable.

MitziK · 17/06/2019 22:32

Mate was at Oxford.

Detests Johnson, but is actually scared of Rees-Mogg. Won't say why, but is genuinely scared of him. Describes Gove much as the general consensus - an oleaginous little twerp who trots around like a dislikable child. Thinks Rory Stewart is the least potentially harmful of the lot, but even Johnson is preferable to the Haunted Pencil.

Quintella · 17/06/2019 22:34

I’m a foreigner, and I conclude that a lot of British people simply like kowtowing to the privileged. They actively prefer being ruled by plummy-voiced Bullingdon types.

Absolutely. Imagine if Rees Mogg had a Liverpool accent and Johnson spoke like a Brummie? We wouldn't even know their names. They's just be a pair of anonymous backbenchers.

Britain's devotion to the upper classes is so baffling.

justasking111 · 17/06/2019 22:43

Rees Mogg gives me the willies, something odd about the family as a whole I think.

Swipe left for the next trending thread