Boris Johnson - disgusting or what?

[beansprout]

What an insulting idiot. Shame on him.

Well, I work in Liverpool and TBH I don't recognise the "inappropriate public outpourings of grief" described. I work opposite the Catholic Cathedral (where the books of condlece are held) and there hasn't been a significant increase in the number of visitors-just the usual grannys and Japanese tourists.

Yes, there may be a valid debate about the change in british reactions to death but comparing the Ken Bigley thing to Diana was ridiculous. People are horrified but not grieving (i.e. not standing around bawling as they did post-Diana).

It was also felt that a show of solidarity with the bigley family may lessen the potential increase in attacks on muslims in the city (which are an issue still).

As for Boris' visit-well, he carefully avoided meeting any scousers.....

I agree that Boris is great - funny, witty and very very clever in a way I think some people find hard to understand (obviously not clever enough!!)

I thouhgt the whole Diana thing was completely over the top and found the Bigley thing awful but really only because of the barbaric way he was killed not really that he was killed if you know what I mean - he chose to go knew the risks and to him money came first!!

I don't think that media interest helped his cause in any way. It was totaly understandable that his family wanted to do whatever they could to try to free him. However he was being held by terrorists who's primary interest is to spread terror in the West. Showing the case over and over played right into their hands. I think that they have now become so media savvy they played the stituation to gain maximum benefit for their cause and then they killed him in a way that people in the West would find most abhorant.

Just to make a point, I think non-publicised deaths are often respected in the same way but on a smaller scale. When my sister died, she worked in an office/shop in the middle of a town (she die there obv) Whe it was her funeral, the funeral procession went through the hiogh street of where she worked and all the traders lined the streets. I remember feeling quite embarassed about it at the time, as i was full of greif but its what people want to do as a mark of respect for 'one of us' if that makes sense. Was just agreeing with jan really i dont find it mawkish, but on a bigger scale, it seems somewhat unusual

Am finding some things on this thread hard to swallow if I'm honest.

Why should the people of Liverpool be criticised for showing respect to one of thier 'people' who died a horrible and unnessasary death. IMO it's a great display of humanity.

So what if KB chose to work out there? Many people chose to take drugs and many woman chose to walk home alone at night but this does not give us the right to insinuate that they somehow deserved their fate.

But I would assume that these were people who knew her, and that makes it a wonderful recognition of a life. The same thing happened with my father and we found it very suppotive. But this was done by people who knew him.

Totally agree with you Northerner. And what about just respecting that we don't all make the same choices or have the same emotional responses to situations? Intolerance is the thin edge of a very problematic wedge...!

meant she didnt die in the shop! I dont think evrybody knew her at all, she was a very private person at work.

The son of someone who lived close to us was one of the youngest victims of the war in Iraq. His family asked for people to line the streets to pay respect to him. i actually vaguely knew his Mother but people who had never met him payed their respects. It does happen!

I have to agree with Twinkie on this one. There are alot of horrible, hideous things going on in the world at the moment. I can't help feeling that this has been blown out of proportion following media attention.
I'm a proud Boris constituent and I love him!!
Good on 'im to go up and take the flack!

I have to say I have been more disturbed by the kidnapping of the Care charity worker.

Why is that Mrs D? Is it because she works for a charity rather than business?

I don't honestly know beansprout, you may be right!

Maybe because she is out there and has been for years doing good work not to line her pockets but to help others and she has done a bloody good job too.

Agree with you Northerner.

When my mother was buried in her home city of Liverpool, the vast majority of people we drove past in the funeral cortege, didn't know her. But, most of people bowed their heads quietly as we passed by. I appreciated that mark of respect which I don't see really happening in London.

Ok, so Ken Bigley chose to be in Iraq and not for humanitarian reasons. But the day I stop feeling sympathy for people like his Mum and If I am able to,try to express it (I did sign a book of condolence on the Liverpool Echo website) is the day when cynicism has overtaken me and I hope that never happens.

Twinkie - I don't know what KB's set up was out there, but I would assume he was making a living rather than exploiting anyone? The charity worker is earning money too!

Yes the charity worker is earning too but she has chosen to go for a far nobler cause than that of KB who just wanted a nest egg for his retirement - don't get me wrong I feel sorry for him and his family but it doesn't go any further and again the only thing that turns my stomach is the manner in which he was killed.

My husband works for the defence sector and is a good man. i dont think it is any of business to judge someone who works as an engineer.

maybe i should tell him to stop working as we wont need a pension when we are old will we

Margaret Hassan, as a citizen of the country, is presumably on a local wage rather than a market-forces contract fee for expat workers.
This has been such an interesting debate, a good read for those of us who haven't yet seen the Boris Johnson article - thanks to all who have posted, especially hmb. And Caligula too - was trying to explain the significance of Charing Cross to ds just the other week!
I think Boris ruined a fundamentally worthwhile point about the public grief culture in the UK with inaccurate and offensive assertions about the people of Liverpool, from the sound of things. You would honestly think a clever man, a politician and a journalist, would know better in terms of both manners and political nous.
We have hot debates about him in our house as it is - dh thinks he's amusing and harmless, I don't.

snmum, you could well argue that until his monstrous death KB and other skilled workers were doing more to rebuild Iraq than the armed forces, who seem to be 100% occupied in fighting rebels and not cracking on with the infrastructure repairs we were told would be their main ongoing work in Iraq. Personally I think KB was wrong to pass on the safe accommodation and bodyguards, but right to be there trying to make a difference.

Is it known yet if Boris actually wrote the article?
Not sure that an MP should also be a magazine editor, as seems to be a conflict of interest.

KB was out there building an American Airbase - that is why he was being paid so much!! He also passed up lots of security that was offered to him - I have no idea why - maybe because it costs??

My best friends brother went out there for 3 motnsh - he is x sas and has done private security work for years and her take on it is well if he gets killed it will be terrible traumatic for him and his family but he is making a choice and knows the risks!!

What has your husband being an engineer and a good man got to do with anything - my DP is a fund manager and a good man but thats nothing to do with this?

Our soldiers aren't actually the ones that are occupied with fighting rebels thats the Americans but we can't get on with any of the rebuilding until the rebels are sorted as they keep attacking and blowing up the repairs and the people carrying them out!!

I think the idea that one life is somehow 'more worthy of remembrance' than another, whether on the basis of the manner of their death or how they lived their life, is wrong. What I understand of the Spectator article (and no, it wasn't written by Boris, although presumably signed off and approved by him as editor] is pointing out the fundamentally phoney nature of this collective grief whipped up by the media.
I remember hearing, around the time of the Soham murders, which obviously were shocking and horrific, about a young teenager who'd been killed apparently by his friends in quite horrific circumstances, but ? perhaps because he'd dabbled in petty crime and drugs ? his killing only merited a mention on one of the inside pages of the newspaper, wheras those girls were on the front pages for months. I feel there's something a bit dodgy about a media which seems to milk certain crimes for all they're worth, just because the victims, or the story or the particular circumstances make better pictures or headlines, somehow implying that one life is more valid than another.

zubb, it's very unlikely that he wrote the editorial himself however, as he is the editor, he is 100% responsible for that editorial so whether he wrote it or not, it is 'seen' as his work.

I also agree that MPs, certainly front bench, should not have any media involvement. It's far too much of a conflict of interest.

no comment

The rebuilding is an essential part of getting things back to normal in Iraq. The terrorists are cynically singling out those who are involved, in charity or buisness, since they know two things. One, the western media are only interested if westerners are kidnapped and killed, so to spread terror they kidnap westerners. Two, if people have decent services they are far less likley to support radical causes. Dh was telling me about an area in Iraq which is getting a sewage system for the first time, not being re-built these people have never had one before. As conditions improve the support for radical clerics is fading away. the terrorists don't want this so they will do whatever they can to delay the re-building.

Ken B wasn't 'wrong' to be there, he wasn't a sinner or a saint, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The people who killed him didn't care what he was earning, and neither should we.

What happened to him was shocking and sickening, but the response isn't, I think, the simple immediate response of people affected, but rather is being whipped up by the western media. In doing so it making things more dangerous for westerners in Iraq.

Not sure I understand why Boris being an MP is a conflict of interest. Could someone please explain?