To think that a personality cult has developed around Boris Johnson?

[Applejaxx]

I know this sounds completley ridiculous but have a quick look around social media and in particular Twitter, and you will see a disturbing number of people with lots of union flags in their twitter handle name who effectively think that the sun shines out of his arse, that he can do no wrong and that any justifiable criticism of his or his governments handling of the current crisis is part of a massive 'leftie' conspiracy against him.

They are terrified of 'lefties's and 'liberals' and think all of the media are out to get Boris and his government, it is just bat shit. Its not just Twitter either, I had to unfriend someone on Facebook after they told me that I should 'show Boris some fucking respect' a few weeks ago. This was after I'd shared something criticising his handling of the pandemic. Thankfully it was somone I don't really know that well and never have to see again, but still!

If im honest it all a bit disturbing. Its reminscent of a personality cult IMO, 'how dare you disrespect our glorious leader'.

I have been impressed with Sunak also. I am hoping hard that Starmer will develop the LP as a credible opposition again but he has much work to do in dealing with the Momentum issue. Fingers crossed though because every government of any colour needs holding to account robustly.

I am quite sure that local to me are perfectly respectable Tories who are horrified that the best their party could put up was a liar and a serial adulterer. They have better standards, and will be relieved when he's gone.

This is what I hear from Tory-voting friends. I don’t agree with Cendrillon that Conservative supporters ‘like winning’ above all else - that’s an unintelligent position to take, in any case. I do think that right-wingers tend to be less squeamish than left-wingers. In the last election there were so many Labour supporters refusing to vote because of Corbyn - for very good reasons - when Tory supporters who hate Johnson were much more likely to take a deep breath and vote Tory anyway. A lot of lefties are too idealistic, in my view.

accusing Sadiq Khan of being a terrorist

A terrorist ???
You mean he's slightly annoying with a nasal voice.

My money is on Sunak as well.

I don’t agree with Cendrillon that Conservative supporters ‘like winning’ above all else - that’s an unintelligent position to take, in any case.

Ah, yes, I forgot that winning untrammelled political power was the unintelligent position for a political party to take. The Labour / Lib Dem / Green approach of getting knocked back to the Stone Age is much more sophisticated

I’m still laughing that someone referred to the upcoming economic recession as ‘the rough’ with the implication that dealing with a global pandemic and almost dying was ‘the smooth’.
Utterly brilliant.
I attended a lecture on the morning after the GE where Tony Blair was elected. It was nothing to do with politics but the lecturer essentially turned it into a celebration rally where our Tone was held up as the saviour and creator of the new world.
Politics is ALL personality cults, surely. Shouldn’t be, obviously, but we only ever get grey managerial types when all the heroes don’t want to get their hands dirty cleaning up the mess they made.
I blame the electorate, obviously. Democracy is most unwise.
The utter inability to allow focus on other colours of political personality cult is vair telling.
Bravo for demonstrating your very specific issue with very specific personality cults op.

I had forgotten that Rishi Sunak was head boy at Winchester College - I think he has a very good chance of being Conservative Party leader in the future.

Tony Blair was elected. It was nothing to do with politics but the lecturer essentially turned it into a celebration rally where our Tone was held up as the saviour and creator of the new world

To be fair, we’d had an 18 year wait for that. Anyone who wasn’t a Tory was ecstatic that morning. It’s hardly evidence of cult.

@AlsoHuman we generally agree I feel but many of us socialists were very much NOT celebrating when Blair was elected.

Slight relief that the tories were finally out yes, but many of us were distrustful even then of Blair.

I've told this story before but I had only just in the lead up to that election managed to persuade my ex to learn about politics, he was quite confused as to why a previously stanch labour person like myself wouldn't vote for him.

I agree idealism is generally overrated and we vote for the party we feel most closely aligned to though no party will meet all the desires of any voter.

But even then I didn't trust Blair, I was mocked and questioned for several years especially by other labour voters until the later years of his leadership when who he was at heart was more apparent. At which point those who'd mocked me went curiously very quiet.

There was also an element of political grief from those of us devastated by John smiths passing just prior to Blair ascending to leadership of the Labour Party.

Even if we take out - to some degree - partisanship and take a more pragmatic view, look at the state of the country?! Hardly doing well and had in effect the same political ideology for over 40 years.

We need a change, to try something new. Even if that's not labour.

We do usually agree @Graphista. On this occasion absolutely not. I worked at the Cambridge count that night. It was like a party. The Mayor grabbed me at one point and told me we were watching history being made. The next day dawned gloriously sunny, for many of us the weather reflected our joy.

@Alsohuman

I agree with you. I was a student at the time, a mature student doing my second degree. I remember watching the election results all through the night with a group of other students. It really was history in the making, and for me it came home to me what an extraordinary night it was when the town where I grew up became a Labour seat for the only time in its history. (It turned blue again at the next election, which shows how extraordinary that was.)

I forgot that winning untrammelled political power was the unintelligent position for a political party to take

Their power isn’t untrammelled. And ‘winning’ is getting into government - great. Then they have to govern. The government right now is not doing an especially good job at that. One reason is that the cabinet has been denuded of a lot of talented ministers. Another is that they won the election with a soundbite (get Brexit done) and not a lot else.

That’s not great for any party. They need policies, values, MPs who have talent and ability. As they’ve recently discovered, they need experts, they need trust and buy-in from the population.

Voters who support a party just for the sake of ‘winning’ are fools.

Johnson is the man who put the N into cult.

they need trust and buy-in from the population.

We can disagree about the rest, but that one they most certainly have. Not on Twitter or MN, but in real life:

Election Maps UK
@ElectionMapsUK
Westminster Voting Intention:

CON: 55% (+2)
LAB: 29% (-1)

Via
@OpiniumResearch
, 7-9 Apr.
Changes w/ 1-3 Apr.

Government Approval Rating:
61% (+9)

Oh Christ, you’re at it again Cendrillon. How long will it take you to get the message that the only time voting intentions mean anything is when there’s an imminent election? They’re a complete irrelevance the rest of the time.

Alsohuman

Another poster said the government needed trust and buy-in from the population, implying that it had neither. So I quoted a recent poll to indicate that Government approval is in fact very high (Tory support specifically at an all-time high with Opinium).

100% relevant. Especially since if you only read MN and Twitter you’d imagine that the government had no public support whatsoever.

You seem to be under the impression that if you pretend you know nothing of this stuff (i.e Zack Goldsmith running his campaign on accusing Khan of being involved in terrorism, huge underfunding of the NHS) then nobody else will find out about it, Clavinova

Looks like the knives are out for Johnson in the Sunday Times

Boris Johnson skipped five Cobra meetings on the virus, calls to order protective gear were ignored and scientists’ warnings fell on deaf ears

Failings in February may have cost thousands of lives

Boris Johnson had been absent from the Cobra meeting. He had found time that day to join in a lunar new year dragon eyes ritual as part of Downing Street’s reception for the Chinese community, led by the country’s ambassador

This investigation has found Britain was in a poor state of readiness for a pandemic. Emergency stockpiles of PPE had severely dwindled and gone out of date after becoming a low priority in the years of austerity cuts

Johnson may well have been distracted by matters in his personal life. Aides were told to keep their briefing papers short and cut the number of memos in his red box if they wanted them to be read. Read the full investigation here:
It took just an hour on January 24 lunchtime to brush aside the coronavirus threat. Matt Hancock bounced out of Whitehall after chairing the meeting and breezily told reporters the risk to the UK public was “low”.

Any inquiry may also ask whether the government’s failure to get to grips with the crisis in those early days had the knock-on effect of the national lockdown being introduced days or even weeks too late, causing many thousands more unnecessary deaths

Should be an interesting read. And an interesting investigation once all this has cleared.

Well no, the government clearly has a reasonable degree of trust and buy-in over the pandemic (which is a good thing).

They need to retain it. They need to do things other than ‘winning’.

Info on voting intentions during a pandemic, when the opposition has just elected a new leader, the PM has been seriously ill, and the next election is years away, probably isn’t very useful when trying to assess the longer term prospects of the government.

and the next election is years away, probably isn’t very useful when trying to assess the longer term prospects of the government

Doesn't stop certain people talking about opinion polls though...

My post was in reply to Cendrillon

Hideously arse licking article in this comic today:

www.thesun.co.uk/news/11428473/boris-lead-uk-out-of-lockdown/

Lead us out of lockdown indeed, like the hero he is. While nearly 900 are still dying each day and the amount of NHS staff killed already stops 55

*tops

Damning article in the Sunday Times on the government's appalling handling of the pandemic. Subscription. only but hopefully other outlets will report it soon.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-38-days-when-britain-sleepwalked-into-disaster-hq3b9tlgh

Doesn't stop certain people talking about opinion polls though...

When they’re quite this favourable (40-year highs with some pollsters!), you bet I won’t. Of course the longer term is unpredictable, but when is it ever not?

Especially since Labour is attempting to counter Boris’ personality cult with a leader whose most obvious characteristic is a complete lack of personality...

Just read that Sunday Times article. Still using Symonds's immature Instagram photos - but to good effect. Their childishness against the irresponsibility of Johnson seems more stark. She thought she could sell him as, what? Young (ha), modern, virile? Vacuous.