Why do people who loathe Boris Johnson loathe him quite as much as we do? Here’s the answer - and it’s not Brexit Jacob Rees-Mogg has been on the warpath for his old master this week, saying that the Partygate hearing yesterday was essentially Remainers taking revenge for Brexit. I love how Brexiters always play this “revenge for Brexit'“ card - if Brexit is such a wonderful idea, why do so many people still want to take revenge for it?
Nick, why so apologetic? Johnson is “a terrible human being” in the words of Rory Stewart, and for me worst of all a Fraud. Brexit is not the issue, as you rightly point out; it is just the best/worst example because he was prepared to throw away 40 years of all our hard work for something he didn’t even care about.
Just as the popular allure of Trump is incomprehensible, so Johnson's. Would you buy a used car from him? If you did, after hand on heart promises from him it was in excellent condition, and went back after the engine blew up and the wheels fell off, he would shrug, say caveat emptor, then move on to the next mug. Despite a superficial "charm", how could anyone like an untrustworthy, transactional, elitist, and arrogant selfish person? When his history shows all the evidence that he is all the foregoing, people still do. The excuses for him just keep coming, incomprehensibly for those who think like Nick. The cognitive dissonance must be overwhelming for his supporters.
This is a fascinating question. I definitely think you’re on the right lines with your second reason. I can’t stand how Johnson fools people - but I also think a lot of them know it and don’t care. They hate people like you and me more than they care about his true intentions.
Johnson is all the horrible men I have ever met in my life rolled into one. Inadequate in all areas, jealous, petty, peevish, vindictive, suffocating and menacing. His default position is to assume you are thick and smother you with what passes for charm in his boring world to get the outcome he wants but if you prove resistant and start making things difficult and showing him up he will act to gag and strangle you. Sorry to sound graphic but it’s a visceral thing for me.
Farage just makes me sick in a more manageable rancid old right-wing man kind of way - despite only being in his fifties. Jesus! He knows how to push people’s buttons with simple language. As for Gove, he’s a second-rate dullard and - this may be his redeeming feature - he knows and is haunted by it. His ideas only sound any good because he’s surrounded by people even more dull than him.
In any case they are all three so bloody outdated. It’s outrageous that any of them ever got to be so powerful.
Just to add, I also think Johnson is loathed because of his ambition and the possibility of him achieving it. I can’t stand David Frost for similar reasons. A man like Johnson in the top job offends our sense of what is right and wrong about the world and who runs it. Farage and Gove were never seriously in the running and burnt out but Johnson actually made it - and could conceivably again. When it’s clear his political career is finished, I think loathing will dissipate - although there’s a chance he will never give up on his comeback dream so we may be just doomed to loathe him forever.
Thank you! I’ve been saying something like this for a long time and felt like I was shouting into the wind.
It seems like a case of “the emperor’s new clothes” - people have fallen for his schtick despite his obvious track record of lies, nonsense and general unpleasantness (see for example the Stuart Collier / Darius Guppy incident).
Some while ago a comment in the Comments section of the Daily Telegraph from a Clinical Psychologist referred to him as,in all probability, exhibiting all the signs of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It fits in my opinion.
Nick, why so apologetic? Johnson is “a terrible human being” in the words of Rory Stewart, and for me worst of all a Fraud. Brexit is not the issue, as you rightly point out; it is just the best/worst example because he was prepared to throw away 40 years of all our hard work for something he didn’t even care about.
Just as the popular allure of Trump is incomprehensible, so Johnson's. Would you buy a used car from him? If you did, after hand on heart promises from him it was in excellent condition, and went back after the engine blew up and the wheels fell off, he would shrug, say caveat emptor, then move on to the next mug. Despite a superficial "charm", how could anyone like an untrustworthy, transactional, elitist, and arrogant selfish person? When his history shows all the evidence that he is all the foregoing, people still do. The excuses for him just keep coming, incomprehensibly for those who think like Nick. The cognitive dissonance must be overwhelming for his supporters.
This is a fascinating question. I definitely think you’re on the right lines with your second reason. I can’t stand how Johnson fools people - but I also think a lot of them know it and don’t care. They hate people like you and me more than they care about his true intentions.
Johnson is all the horrible men I have ever met in my life rolled into one. Inadequate in all areas, jealous, petty, peevish, vindictive, suffocating and menacing. His default position is to assume you are thick and smother you with what passes for charm in his boring world to get the outcome he wants but if you prove resistant and start making things difficult and showing him up he will act to gag and strangle you. Sorry to sound graphic but it’s a visceral thing for me.
Farage just makes me sick in a more manageable rancid old right-wing man kind of way - despite only being in his fifties. Jesus! He knows how to push people’s buttons with simple language. As for Gove, he’s a second-rate dullard and - this may be his redeeming feature - he knows and is haunted by it. His ideas only sound any good because he’s surrounded by people even more dull than him.
In any case they are all three so bloody outdated. It’s outrageous that any of them ever got to be so powerful.
Just to add, I also think Johnson is loathed because of his ambition and the possibility of him achieving it. I can’t stand David Frost for similar reasons. A man like Johnson in the top job offends our sense of what is right and wrong about the world and who runs it. Farage and Gove were never seriously in the running and burnt out but Johnson actually made it - and could conceivably again. When it’s clear his political career is finished, I think loathing will dissipate - although there’s a chance he will never give up on his comeback dream so we may be just doomed to loathe him forever.
Thank you! I’ve been saying something like this for a long time and felt like I was shouting into the wind.
It seems like a case of “the emperor’s new clothes” - people have fallen for his schtick despite his obvious track record of lies, nonsense and general unpleasantness (see for example the Stuart Collier / Darius Guppy incident).
Some while ago a comment in the Comments section of the Daily Telegraph from a Clinical Psychologist referred to him as,in all probability, exhibiting all the signs of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It fits in my opinion.