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

[Fleetheart]

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?

[Breathlessness]

‘is actually scared of Rees-Mogg. Won't say why, but is genuinely scared of him.’

Someone who would name their child Sixtus is capable of anything. I was raised Catholic (Irish) but pious, English Catholics frighten me. It’s not so much the whiff of incense as the lingering whisper of smoke from the last heretic they burnt.

[ChicCroissant]

Off-topic here, but the press are taking a keen interest in the number of children that he has. I am wondering if that is a way of getting around a legal issue if he has something in force that would stop them asking about a specific child. Pure speculation on my part, but it is coming up a lot at the moment.

[JuliusNicholson]

He did previously try and get an injunction didn’t he? How many children does he have?

[SquishySquirmy]

I think it's believed he has one more child then can be legally acknowledged?
Eg, his "legitimate" children, (sorry, horrible terminology), a child from an affair that is public knowledge, plus at least one more that isn't.

Which makes politicians like JRM seem so hypocritical for lining up to support him... Single mothers and absent father's are a sign of broken society if they come from the lower orders, but someone like Boris can father as many kids by as many women as he likes and still be considered a "top chap"

[SquishySquirmy]

I think that some MPs publicly offering their support are not doing so because they like him, but because they think that he has the best chance of becoming PM and they want to curry favour. They see which way the wind is blowing, but are not loyal to him.

Which does make his position fragile - if something happens to make his support crumble, it will crumble fast. Boris knows this, which is why he has been flying under the radar recently and keeping his mouth shut.

Of course I am sure there is also a core of MPs that genuinely want him as PM, but many don't really.

[OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow]

My dsis had to deal with him when he was mayor. Got very mardy about a perceived slight and almost ran her over on his bike (more than once)

[Phare]

I was raised Catholic (Irish) but pious, English Catholics frighten me. It’s not so much the whiff of incense as the lingering whisper of smoke from the last heretic they burnt.

For me, it's less the smoke from recently burned heretics (most old English Catholic families are obsessed with their martyred recusant ancestors and how Edmund Campion said Mass in their house, n my experience) than their unfeigned horror that they might have to attend a Mass said by an Irish priest from the lower orders, who might drop his the and refer to th 'toilet'. God forbid anyone would lump them in with the bog Irish or Poles.

[Knitwit99]

I knew him socially (I am good friends with the wife of one of his friends) and came across him many times. He would consider me to be several classes below him and he was uncomfortable around me, it was weird. He didn't know how to behave around me, was nervous almost, so said stupid things, lots of jokes about job centres and the like, newspapers under our clothes to keep the chill out in winter, I can't remember. I didn't choose to spend much time with him. (And I probably acted up my poor roots because his poshness annoyed me).

When he was with his 'own people' he was very different. Smart, had a huge general knowledge, had well thought out opinions on lots of things, listened to what other people had to say, asked good questions, very charismatic, you could see people were drawn to him.

But out of his comfort zone, when he had to make small talk with his friend's wife's working class friend he was just an idiot. It was strange.

I'm still pals with her but I haven't heard her mention him for a long long time and I've never asked, I'm really not very interested.

[Mishappening]

In other words he has no concept about entirely normal people - i.e. the bulk of the population.

[Bluntness100]

A friend of mine worked for him. Apparantly he is excellent at bringing in the right people to do the job and leaving it to them. Which is actually a leadership skill.

I don't know about personality but from what I've been told he is good at understanding what's required and making sure the right people are in place to do it.

[RageAgainstTheVendingMachine]

Rory Stewart for me followed by Sajid Javid.
Gove - nope because of his stint as Education Secretary
Hunt - nope because of his stint as Health Secretary
Bojomofo - nope because he was not man enough to step up to the plate three years ago

[RageAgainstTheVendingMachine]

But in actual fact give me Tom Watson any day of the week

[Quintella]

@Phare, I always thought Rees-Mogg was one of those Catholics, an Old English one whose ancestors could be traced back to noble martyrs who were hung at Tyburn, but he's not. His Catholicism comes via.....an Irish-American grandmother! Not that he'd broadcast that fact. He's a big old fraud.

[justasking111]

@Quintella really roflmao.

[RageAgainstTheVendingMachine]

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/the-empty-promise-of-boris-johnson

[Carpediem1]

RageAgainstTheVendingMachine
**^^Hunt - nope because of his stint as Health Secretary
I agree. Plus add toadying up to Murdoch when at Culture, Media and Support...

[PinguDance]

The thing is, people can say stuff like:

He is smart, can process information and make a good decision really easily

Apparantly he is excellent at bringing in the right people to do the job and leaving it to them. Which is actually a leadership skill.

But where is the evidence of this? I followed the garden bridge debacle quite closely which seemed to scratch the surface of -essentially- the corruption going on in his office, it was, by any measure, an absolutely massive fuck up. I only know personal reports of him through a very tenuous telegraph connection, which have basically been surmised already on this thread, but I find it really hard to believe he can actually be surviving on anything other than privilege and charisma.

[Fleetheart]

I don’t think he came over at all well in the leadership debate just now. My Muslim great grandfather would have been proud of me- his only contribution to the talk on Islamophobia

[SisterMaryLoquacious]

He’s got 4 children in wedlock (one of them only just, thanks to a very hasty divorce and remarriage). One child of an affair which he tried and failed to keep secret. And it’s heavily rumoured that he has one or possibly two other children. Not to mention his mistresses’ abortions.

His original sacking from the shadow cabinet was due to the fact that when the papers printed rumours of one affair he looked his colleagues in the eye and insisted it was all “piffle”. It was of course completely true and Michael Howard (who I’ve always thought was not too bad for a Tory) decided that he wasn’t prepared to work with a man who was prepared to tell such barefaced lies.

[LiveandBreathe]

Is it not common knowledge he was caught pants down before he split from his wife? Someone told me this and I believed their sources.

[Quintella]

I think he's been caught with his pants down many times with women who weren't his wife. All these women who want to fuck Boris Johnson. Mind boggling. Would be like shagging a hairy blancmange.

[JuliusNicholson]

‘... the foreign secretary, Boris “Puccini” Johnson, who used to go around the streets of north London snogging Petronella Wyatt to a recording of Wyatt singing opera in the back of a black cab.’

Lovely image for you all there.

[Fleetheart]

Someone who can’t keep his pants on is not who we want for our PM surely?

[Whydoesitalwaysdothis]

Having read these threads, I am throughly dismayed that this man will be our next PM.
Boris sounds like a typical Public school entitled, ignorant arsehole.

[AnneElliott]

I've not engaged with him directly but have been in the same meetings. He's definitely clever - the bumbling idiot is an act.

I've also seen him with the public. He was very tolerant of selfies/autograph requests etc. But then so was Jeremy Corbyn and it's probably key to being a politician.