Day: 11 July 2019

Johnny Marr: “People should refer to Boris as That Wanker Boris Johnson”

Former Smiths man hits out at those who think the ex-foreign secretary is “some cuddly fun character”

The former foreign secretary is often called “Boris” by his fans and Tory Party members.

But the controversial Conservative Party leadership contender has been heavily criticised for his remarks in the past saying Muslim women wearing burkas “look like letter boxes” despite recently claiming that he was defending their right to wear burqas at a Tory hustings event in Nottingham.

Johnson was also recently heavily criticised by the husband of a British-Iranian woman imprisoned in Tehran after previously telling a Commons committee when he was foreign secretary that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was “teaching people journalism” in Iran.

Now, Marr has hit out at those for describing Johnson as a figure of fun in a post on Twitter in which he wrote: “I wish people would stop referring to ‘Boris’ like he’s some cuddly fun character. They should refer to him by his full name; ‘That Wanker Boris Johnson’.

Britain’s Populist Death Spiral

British news has been gripped by the rather bizarre process of the governing Conservative party choosing a new leader. It was always likely to be Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, but to avoid the appearance of a coronation, the party gradually reduced a crowded field of candidates down to two people: Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, a former health minister.

It is a strange process. Technically it is democratic, because 160,000 Conservative Party members will decide between the two candidates, as is mandated. However, to many it seems wrong that the next prime minister is being appointed by a tiny group of people while the rest of the country just sits by and watches.

With Johnson’s rise, British politics is now defined by the emergence of a populist right-wing the likes of which this country has not really seen before. But the danger to the U.K. is that each step to the right will worsen the situation for the very people supporting the right-wing populists, driving them yet further to the extreme.

The Times view on the next prime minister: Boris Johnson at No 10

As the ballot papers hit the doormats of Conservative Party members this weekend, the choice that lies ahead of them is momentous. They are picking not just a party leader but a prime minister, and a prime minister who will take office at the head of a minority government at a moment of acute political crisis. Britain is due to leave the European Union on October 31, just 100 days after the new prime minister arrives in Downing Street. There will be no honeymoon. Decisions taken in those first days and weeks will set the course of the country for years if not decades to come. Get those decisions right and there is a chance to end the uncertainty that is suffocating the economy…