Is Boris Johnson "woke"?

[CurtainRaiser]

It was a simple question but the terror it produced in the Prime Minister’s hollow eyes was deeply telling.

 

A man known for brazenly dodging the truth, Boris Johnson was stumped in an interview yesterday following the inauguration of Joe Biden as America’s new President.

 

A man known for brazenly dodging the truth, Boris Johnson was stumped in an interview yesterday following the inauguration of Joe Biden as America’s new President.

 

Asked whether he believes that Joe Biden is “woke” – a term taken to mean being alert to social injustice – Johnson said: “I can’t comment on that… What I know is that he’s a fervent believer in the transatlantic alliance, and that’s a great thing, and a believer in a lot of the things that we want to achieve together and, you know, insofar as… nothing wrong with being woke, but what I can tell you is I think that it’s very, very important for everybody to… certainly I would put myself in the category of people who believe that it’s important to stick up for your history, your traditions, and your values and the things you believe in.”

 

It was a compelling and bizarre watch. Not merely because it was a rare moment of a politician having a reporter’s trap descend around them, with no easy way to gnaw themselves free. Those watching could feel Johnson’s discomfort – that in some basic, palpable, physiological way he had been disturbed.

 

But it was more than mere dumbfounding. He seemed a man exposed; unable to manage his dissonant emotional state. In that moment, Boris Johnson – the great anti-woke crusader and sower of division – was caught out.

“woke guy”.

 

While the term has exploded in popular use in recent years, its origins can be found in American black culture – from where it has been co-opted, warped and weaponised by those on the right.

 

Well developed in America as an attack on “lefties”, academics, historians and activists raising awareness of structural ills such as racism and inequality, being ‘anti-woke’ was a cornerstone of Donald Trump’s presidency, in which he billed himself as standing up for ordinary (white) people against political correctness and reverse discrimination.

 

The narrative was there in Trump’s violent suppression of Black Lives Matter protestors following the murder last year of George Floyd by a white policeman, and can be seen in his Republican Party heirs – like Senator Josh Hawley who recently denounced as a “woke mob” the publishing house which cancelled his book contract over his actions around the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January.

 

Much of Trump’s divisive authoritarianism, premised on white supremacy and the stoking of far-right hate, was shaped by his former campaign manager and founder of the controversial data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, Steve Bannon – who Trump pardoned of federal fraud charges in the hours before he left the White House.

 

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie revealed that it was Bannon who encouraged Trump to promote policies such as ‘Build the Wall’. “Building the wall is not to stop immigrants – most come on a plane – it’s to embody separation,” Wylie told a Byline event in 2018.

 

This ‘divide and rule’ – already embedded in Britain’s imperial past, of which Boris Johnson is so beloved – was taken up readily by those on the right in the UK. As Nafeez Ahmed has documented for this newspaper, key lobbyists close to Johnson and Michael Gove were at the heart of a ‘white nationalist Trumpworld’. Carrying forward the divisions whipped up by Brexit, the Johnson administration is now on its own anti-woke crusade.

 

This is not surprising – far-right ideologue Bannon always saw the Trump and Brexit projects as intertwined and said on camera that he advised Johnson around the time he stepped down as Foreign Secretary and turned against then Prime Minister Theresa May over her Brexit approach.

 

But it does explain why Johnson was so flummoxed at the question of Biden being “woke”. The Prime Minister is well aware that the new US administration heralds a definitive break with the Trump era, despised by Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris – and that he is still playing from its rulebook. In fact, he said as much at the end of yesterday’s interview when he mentioned his need to “stick up for your history, your traditions”.

 

Apart from its divisive Brexit rhetoric and lies, as part of its ‘War on Woke’ the Government has publicly attacked the National Trust and sent a warning shot to other cultural institutions after the trust published a report on its buildings’ links to colonialism and slavery; amplified debates about whether Rule Britannia should be sung at the Proms; denounced the UK’s supposed teaching of “critical race theory” in schools; and emphasised that a review of race disparity – following last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests – would also focus on the under-achievements of white working-class boys. The list is endless.

 

Just this weekend, Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick – in a Telegraph article headlined ‘We Will Save Our History From Woke Militants’ – said that he would be changing the law to ensure that planning permission was now required for the removal of monuments in local areas, such as statues of slavetraders.

 

“There has been an attempt to impose a single, often negative narrative which, not so much recalls our national story, as seeks to erase part of it,” he wrote. “This has been done at the hand of the flash mob, or by the decree of a ‘cultural committee’ of town hall militants and woke worthies.”

 

The commentator James O’Brien was right when he recently observed that the Government’s full-on anti-woke attacks are the new ‘bendy bananas’.

 

Sam Coates held a mirror up to the Prime Minister.

 

Johnson knows that his Vote Leave project – both as a campaign and in Government – was won by the fuelling of people’s darker instincts: xenophobia, racism, othering, scapegoating, playing to fears about the loss of white supremacy.

 

Trump said Johnson was “Britain Trump”, while Biden has called Johnson Trump’s “physical and emotional clone”.

 

But, with Trump now gone, so has the Vote Leave project’s superpower enabler and protector. Biden, proud of his Irish roots, has already made clear that he is no fan of Brexit and the peril it creates for the Good Friday Agreement. He also has little time for Johnson’s neo-imperial fantasies.

 

Ahead of November’s Presidential Election, The Times reported diplomats as saying that “Biden will be cool towards Johnson because of his comments about Barack Obama during the 2016 Brexit Referendum, in which he criticised ‘the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire’.”

 

Meanwhile Lisa Nandy told the Guardian yesterday that “I wouldn’t underestimate how deep the strength of feeling about Boris Johnson goes, particularly with members of the administration who previously served under President Obama” and “the Democrats feel, in the conversations we’ve had with them, that it’s not clear what Britain wants out of the special relationship any more”.

 

The central message of Biden’s inauguration speech – a clear denunciation of the Trump presidency – was unity.

 

“Without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury, no progress, only exhausting outrage,” he said. “Recent weeks and months have taught us a painful lesson. There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit… We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal.”

 

These words are the very opposite of Britain’s ‘rump Trumpocracy’ under Boris Johnson, with its central policy of divide and rule.

 

With Brexit proving to be more costly and disastrous every day, and Britain isolated from the rest of Europe, Johnson can no longer look west over the Atlantic for relief convoys – only for an uncomfortable confrontation with the truth he does everything to avoid.

 

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/21/johnsons-woke-rambling-reveals-his-alt-right-alliance-with-trumps-culture-wars/

 

[jumpstart]

There isn't anyone in the cabinet who can answer a straight forward question.

[Barryd999]

An excellent piece. We are all alone now. Out of kilter with Europe and the US.

[StuartO]

jumpstart - 2021-01-23 8:58 AM

 

There isn't anyone in the cabinet who can answer a straight forward question.

 

These days I think all politicians have to tread on broken glass when they are being questioned by journalists, just as all journalists are looking to catch the politicians out in some way or another. It doesn't make for open and truthfull communication, that's for sure.

 

I worked in the nuclear power industry for a few years and was sent on a course about how to survive being interview - held by a journalist, who incidentally was very keen that his involvement was not publicsed. I remeber the first thing he said was don't waste time answering questions, have your prepared sound bite ready and get it in loud and clear and as quickly as possible. Use phrases like "first let me say this" or "that's a useful question" but then get your own message across. Amazing how often you see politicians using these techniques.

 

Sad but necessary I suppose. Have you noticed how all Boris's team are saying, first off, how jolly important that question was? I suppose the last thing Boris could be described as is "woke". Interestng that it is widely used as a term of contempt as well as a badge of honour.

[jumpstart]

StuartO - 2021-01-23 9:41 AM

 

jumpstart - 2021-01-23 8:58 AM

 

There isn't anyone in the cabinet who can answer a straight forward question.

 

These days I think all politicians have to tread on broken glass when they are being questioned by journalists, just as all journalists are looking to catch the politicians out in some way or another. It doesn't make for open and truthfull communication, that's for sure.

 

I worked in the nuclear power industry for a few years and was sent on a course about how to survive being interview - held by a journalist, who incidentally was very keen that his involvement was not publicsed. I remeber the first thing he said was don't waste time answering questions, have your prepared sound bite ready and get it in loud and clear and as quickly as possible. Use phrases like "first let me say this" or "that's a useful question" but then get your own message across. Amazing how often you see politicians using these techniques.

 

Sad but necessary I suppose. Have you noticed how all Boris's team are saying, first off, how jolly important that question was? I suppose the last thing Boris could be described as is "woke". Interestng that it is widely used as a term of contempt as well as a badge of honour.

 

Many years ago whilst working on London Underground we were at a contractors meeting,about 10 people.

A multi million £ contract and the fierce Contract manage asked each in turn why no works had been done at a station the night before. Each gave excuses and squirmed under his interrogation .When it came to my turn i just said...yep my fault we cocked up.... He just looked at me ,said nothing ,then moved on to his next victim.

The moral is ...tell the truth.

 

[John52]

jumpstart - 2021-01-23 10:01 AM

The moral is ...tell the truth.

 

BoJo didn't get where he is today by telling the truth.

He deselected those MPs who told the truth and they lost their seats.

I can see why BoJo does not go on radio and TV to answer unscripted questions like Nicola Sturgeon does most days.

[Barryd999]

Johnson can be anything you want him to be. He was quite a liberal mayor by all accounts but he chose at the 11th hour to become a Brexiteer and gander to the right. He will simply follow the side that he thinks is best for him at the time. No principles and no honesty whatsoever. Trouble is in order to do that, as said he has sacked off the best in the party and we are left with a rogues gallery leading a charge that the rest of the world is just bamboozled with. Just like they were with Trump. Britain because of it is now a rogue state not to be trusted.

[StuartO]

John52 - 2021-01-23 11:07 AM BoJo didn't get where he is today by telling the truth.

He deselected those MPs who told the truth and they lost their seats.

I can see why BoJo does not go on radio and TV to answer unscripted questions like Nicola Sturgeon does most days.

 

BoJo certainly has a track record from his earlier life of being unreliable but he's been under scutiny in recent years so much that I think he's learned that he will be caught out if he lies nowadays. At the very least he's now being careful!

 

Nicola Sturgeon is extremely articulate and presents herself and answers questions extremely well - although we do need to bear in mind that she has the bit between her teeth about the single issue of Scottish Independence (come hell or high water, never mind how she achieves it) and she is also still facing challenge about misleading her parliament over the Alex Salmond business, so she's being accused of lying too.

 

As far as answering unscripted questions is concerned I think they both do well, handling lots of them and carrying the necesary information to do so in their head.

 

It remains to be seen whether Nicola gets the repeat referendum she's itching for (and thereafter whether Scottish Independence works economically, as she hopes) and likewise whether Boris eventually (after coronovirus is over) delivers on the benefits of Brexit. In both cases these ventures look far from secure.

 

 

[CurtainRaiser]

StuartO - 2021-01-23 12:08 PM

 

 

BoJo certainly has a track record from his earlier life of being unreliable but he's been under scutiny in recent years so much that I think he's learned that he will be caught out if he lies nowadays. At the very least he's now being careful!

 

 

 

Johnson is still lying, so much so that like Trump there are websites monitoring his lies, here are his current top ten from one of them.

 

Think of spots and leopards. Boris Johnson became prime minister having been sacked twice from other jobs for telling lies – in 1988 from the Times for fabricating a quote from his godfather; and in 2004 from the Conservative front bench for lying to his party leader about an affair. His supporters must have hoped that he would put his errant past behind him when he entered 10 Downing Street.

 

 

He hasn't. Here, in reverse order as in a pop chart, are his 10 top tangles with the truth in the past 12 months. I would have included Johnson's corrections or apologies but haven't found any. The point is not that he makes mistakes: who doesn't? It's that he makes so many and never tries to put them right.

 

10. June 16, 2020: 'I talked to Marcus Rashford earlier today to congratulate him on his campaign, which to be honest I only became aware of very recently – well, today.'

 

For more than 24 hours, the news had been dominated by the Manchester United footballer's campaign for free school meals to be continued through the summer holidays. Ministers initially rejected the idea, only to give in. Challenged afterwards about his U-turn, Johnson insisted he had been unaware of the campaign throughout the previous day. We are asked to believe that while politicians and journalists were talking of little else, and ministers were sent to radio and TV studios to say why Rashford was wrong, Johnson was oblivious to the storm raging around him.

 

9. January 31, 2020: 'This country has reduced CO2 emissions already by 42% on 1990 levels while the economy, under this Conservative government, has grown by 73%'

 

The figure for emissions is broadly correct, but that for economic growth is wrong. Assuming that 'this Conservative government' refers to the period since 2010, the true figure is around 20% (prior to the current pandemic). The 73% refers to the whole period since 1990, 13 years of which were under Labour governments.

 

8. June 23, 2020. 'Yes of course it's perfectly true that it would be great to have an app, but no country currently has a functioning track and trace app'.

 

Johnson was replying to Keir Starmer in parliament, who raised 'very serious concerns about the gaps in the current system [for tackling Covid-19], including the absence of an app'.

 

As the Full Facts fact-checking website said at the time, track and trace apps were being used in France, Germany, Australia, Poland, Latvia, Denmark, Japan and Italy.

 

7. June 10, 2020. '97% of the [primary] schools that have submitted data are now seeing kids come back to school'.

 

This was Johnson's response to Starmer's accusation that 'parents have lost confidence in the government's approach' to school reopening. The Department for Education has since put the number for that day at 69%. In other words, 31% of primary schools had not reopened – 10 times the 3% indicated by Johnson. Twelve days later, Full Facts reported that it had 'asked Number 10 where Mr Johnson's 97% figure came from, and we have not heard back'.

 

6. November 29, 2019. 'The money going into the NHS as you know, it's the biggest increase in living memory, a £34 billion increase'.

 

In his pre-Covid response to a caller on LBC during the election campaign (and on other occasions) Johnson gave this figure for the planned increase in the NHS budget between 2018/19 and 2023/24.

 

The first problem with Johnson's claim is that he quoted the cash increase, much of which is needed to offset inflation and prevent the NHS shrinking. What matters is 'real' increase after taking account of inflation. This figure is £20.5bn, a little over half the amount Johnson cited.

 

Second, this is far from 'the biggest increase in living memory'. There were bigger increases – in both cash and 'real' terms – during the last Labour government. Indeed, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Johnson's planned increase of 3.2% per year in real terms is below the 3.6% average for the 70-year history of the NHS, and barely half the 6% a year achieved during the Blair-Brown years.

 

5. October 29, 2019: 'It is a week since this parliament voted, yet again, to force Brussels to keep this country in the European Union for at least another three months, at a cost of £1bn a month'

 

Twice Johnson told parliament that the delay in Brexit from last October to this January would cost the UK £1bn a month in extending its subscription to the EU. However, as the BBC's Reality Check pointed out at the time, his figure 'excludes any money the government gets back from the EU in grants for things like regional development or supporting farmers. When you factor these in, the figure comes down to about £744 million a month.'

 

More to the point, Johnson's own deal with the EU required the UK to continue paying its EU membership fee until December this year, when the transition phase ends. Parliament's decision to defer Brexit by three months did not delay the end of the transition period and hence made no difference at all to Britain's financial commitment to Brussels.

 

4. May 21, 2020: Starmer: 'Does the prime minister think it is right that careworkers coming from abroad and working on our frontline should have to pay a surcharge… to use the NHS themselves?' Johnson: 'Those contributions help us to raise about £900m. It is very difficult in the current circumstances to find alternative sources'

 

Many immigrants from outside the EU currently pay an annual surcharge to use the NHS. It's currently £400, rising to £624 this October. Johnson's £900m is the cumulative total of all such payments from all applicable immigrants, whatever their job, over the past four years.

 

How much would it cost to do what Starmer wanted? At the last count, 237,000 careworkers came from outside the EU. Many have settled in the UK and don't need to pay the surcharge. Suppose half of them do, and were now to be exempt. This would cost the government £47m a year at the current rate, and £76m a year from October.

 

3. December 6, 2019: 'There will be no checks on goods from GB to Northern Ireland or from Northern Ireland to GB'.

 

A leaked Treasury document listed the checks and controls that would apply to much of the trade across the Irish Sea once Britain had left the EU and after the transition phase was over. These included tariffs, customs union declarations, rules of origin and regulatory checks. HM Revenue and Customs says the extra paperwork alone will cost £15-£56 per consignment.

 

2. June 3, 2020: 'Of the tests conducted at the 199 testing centres, as well as the mobile centres, they're all done within 24 hours.'

 

Jeremy Hunt, chairman of the House of Commons Health Committee, had asked Johnson to 'tell us how many of the tests [for Covid-19] are currently being turned round within 24 hours'. Johnson's reply was contradicted by the NHS's official statistics, which found that in the week to June 3, the proportion of people in England receiving their tests result within 24 hours was 19% at regional tests sites, 5% at mobile testing units and 6% at satellite test centres.

 

1. June 17, 2020: Starmer: 'A report last week from the government's Social Mobility Commission concluded that there are now '600,000 more children living in relative poverty…'' Johnson: 'He is completely wrong in what he says about poverty. Absolutely poverty and relative poverty have both declined under this government and there are hundreds of thousands – I think 400,000 – fewer families living in poverty now than there were in 2010.'

 

The most widely accepted definition for poverty, not least in government reports, is where household income after housing costs is below 60% of the national median. This was used by the government's Social Mobility Commission, which said that the number of children living in poverty had risen by 600,000 since 2011.

 

What about Johnson's alternative figure? Downing Street has not provided a source. The BBC's Reality Check Team says it was 'unable to find any evidence for his claim that there are 400,000 fewer families living in poverty than in 2010'.

 

Anna Feuchtwang, chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition complained to the government's own watchdog, the Office for Statistics Regulation. On July 30, the OSR replied. It agreed that Johnson's statement was 'incorrect'.

 

 

 

[malc d]

Barryd999 - 2021-01-23 11:14 AM

 

Johnson can be anything you want him to be. He was quite a liberal mayor by all accounts but he chose at the 11th hour to become a Brexiteer and gander to the right. He will simply follow the side that he thinks is best for him at the time. No principles and no honesty whatsoever. Trouble is in order to do that, as said he has sacked off the best in the party and we are left with a rogues gallery leading a charge that the rest of the world is just bamboozled with. Just like they were with Trump. Britain because of it is now a rogue state not to be trusted.

 

 

I find the best way to keep up with what is going on is to avoid watching on listening to Johnson during the day - and wait for the grown-ups to explain what he's been waffling about, later in the evening.

 

;-)

[StuartO]

malc d - 2021-01-23 12:35 PM I find the best way to keep up with what is going on is to avoid watching on listening to Johnson during the day - and wait for the grown-ups to explain what he's been waffling about, later in the evening. ;-)

 

Well said! He does huff and puff rather a lot.

[Barryd999]

malc d - 2021-01-23 12:35 PM

 

Barryd999 - 2021-01-23 11:14 AM

 

Johnson can be anything you want him to be. He was quite a liberal mayor by all accounts but he chose at the 11th hour to become a Brexiteer and gander to the right. He will simply follow the side that he thinks is best for him at the time. No principles and no honesty whatsoever. Trouble is in order to do that, as said he has sacked off the best in the party and we are left with a rogues gallery leading a charge that the rest of the world is just bamboozled with. Just like they were with Trump. Britain because of it is now a rogue state not to be trusted.

 

 

I find the best way to keep up with what is going on is to avoid watching on listening to Johnson during the day - and wait for the grown-ups to explain what he's been waffling about, later in the evening.

 

;-)

 

Totally. I hardly ever watch him.

 

Here is another good link to his legacy of Bulls**t https://boris-johnson-lies.com/

 

The trouble is all this stuff is preaching to the Choir. His supporters do not want to know. They voted him in for Brexit and what happened next is the biggest disaster in UK history thanks to his total unsuitability for the job. The last thing his new "Brexit Baby Tory" supporters want to hear is the truth. Way too painful to accept.

[Bulletguy]

 

It's worth remembering Johnson was never really a Brexiteer and so indecisive he drafted a pro-EU article to Remain which never got published because typically he U-turned and stuck the knife in Cameron after spotting his chance to get on the ladder to become "World King", his childhood dream.

 

Johnson isn't interested in Brexit and he wasn't interested in Remain either. He just wanted the glory of the PM title but knew he'd have to appease Brexiteers to get it which is why he's been such an atrocious PM.

 

His pro-Remain article is in full here: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-s-article-backing-britain-s-future-in-the-eu-a3370296.html

[747]

CurtainRaiser - 2021-01-23 12:21 PM

 

StuartO - 2021-01-23 12:08 PM

 

 

BoJo certainly has a track record from his earlier life of being unreliable but he's been under scutiny in recent years so much that I think he's learned that he will be caught out if he lies nowadays. At the very least he's now being careful!

 

 

 

Johnson is still lying, so much so that like Trump there are websites monitoring his lies, here are his current top ten from one of them.

 

Think of spots and leopards. Boris Johnson became prime minister having been sacked twice from other jobs for telling lies – in 1988 from the Times for fabricating a quote from his godfather; and in 2004 from the Conservative front bench for lying to his party leader about an affair. His supporters must have hoped that he would put his errant past behind him when he entered 10 Downing Street.

 

 

He hasn't. Here, in reverse order as in a pop chart, are his 10 top tangles with the truth in the past 12 months. I would have included Johnson's corrections or apologies but haven't found any. The point is not that he makes mistakes: who doesn't? It's that he makes so many and never tries to put them right.

 

10. June 16, 2020: 'I talked to Marcus Rashford earlier today to congratulate him on his campaign, which to be honest I only became aware of very recently – well, today.'

 

For more than 24 hours, the news had been dominated by the Manchester United footballer's campaign for free school meals to be continued through the summer holidays. Ministers initially rejected the idea, only to give in. Challenged afterwards about his U-turn, Johnson insisted he had been unaware of the campaign throughout the previous day. We are asked to believe that while politicians and journalists were talking of little else, and ministers were sent to radio and TV studios to say why Rashford was wrong, Johnson was oblivious to the storm raging around him.

 

9. January 31, 2020: 'This country has reduced CO2 emissions already by 42% on 1990 levels while the economy, under this Conservative government, has grown by 73%'

 

The figure for emissions is broadly correct, but that for economic growth is wrong. Assuming that 'this Conservative government' refers to the period since 2010, the true figure is around 20% (prior to the current pandemic). The 73% refers to the whole period since 1990, 13 years of which were under Labour governments.

 

8. June 23, 2020. 'Yes of course it's perfectly true that it would be great to have an app, but no country currently has a functioning track and trace app'.

 

Johnson was replying to Keir Starmer in parliament, who raised 'very serious concerns about the gaps in the current system [for tackling Covid-19], including the absence of an app'.

 

As the Full Facts fact-checking website said at the time, track and trace apps were being used in France, Germany, Australia, Poland, Latvia, Denmark, Japan and Italy.

 

7. June 10, 2020. '97% of the [primary] schools that have submitted data are now seeing kids come back to school'.

 

This was Johnson's response to Starmer's accusation that 'parents have lost confidence in the government's approach' to school reopening. The Department for Education has since put the number for that day at 69%. In other words, 31% of primary schools had not reopened – 10 times the 3% indicated by Johnson. Twelve days later, Full Facts reported that it had 'asked Number 10 where Mr Johnson's 97% figure came from, and we have not heard back'.

 

6. November 29, 2019. 'The money going into the NHS as you know, it's the biggest increase in living memory, a £34 billion increase'.

 

In his pre-Covid response to a caller on LBC during the election campaign (and on other occasions) Johnson gave this figure for the planned increase in the NHS budget between 2018/19 and 2023/24.

 

The first problem with Johnson's claim is that he quoted the cash increase, much of which is needed to offset inflation and prevent the NHS shrinking. What matters is 'real' increase after taking account of inflation. This figure is £20.5bn, a little over half the amount Johnson cited.

 

Second, this is far from 'the biggest increase in living memory'. There were bigger increases – in both cash and 'real' terms – during the last Labour government. Indeed, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Johnson's planned increase of 3.2% per year in real terms is below the 3.6% average for the 70-year history of the NHS, and barely half the 6% a year achieved during the Blair-Brown years.

 

5. October 29, 2019: 'It is a week since this parliament voted, yet again, to force Brussels to keep this country in the European Union for at least another three months, at a cost of £1bn a month'

 

Twice Johnson told parliament that the delay in Brexit from last October to this January would cost the UK £1bn a month in extending its subscription to the EU. However, as the BBC's Reality Check pointed out at the time, his figure 'excludes any money the government gets back from the EU in grants for things like regional development or supporting farmers. When you factor these in, the figure comes down to about £744 million a month.'

 

More to the point, Johnson's own deal with the EU required the UK to continue paying its EU membership fee until December this year, when the transition phase ends. Parliament's decision to defer Brexit by three months did not delay the end of the transition period and hence made no difference at all to Britain's financial commitment to Brussels.

 

4. May 21, 2020: Starmer: 'Does the prime minister think it is right that careworkers coming from abroad and working on our frontline should have to pay a surcharge… to use the NHS themselves?' Johnson: 'Those contributions help us to raise about £900m. It is very difficult in the current circumstances to find alternative sources'

 

Many immigrants from outside the EU currently pay an annual surcharge to use the NHS. It's currently £400, rising to £624 this October. Johnson's £900m is the cumulative total of all such payments from all applicable immigrants, whatever their job, over the past four years.

 

How much would it cost to do what Starmer wanted? At the last count, 237,000 careworkers came from outside the EU. Many have settled in the UK and don't need to pay the surcharge. Suppose half of them do, and were now to be exempt. This would cost the government £47m a year at the current rate, and £76m a year from October.

 

3. December 6, 2019: 'There will be no checks on goods from GB to Northern Ireland or from Northern Ireland to GB'.

 

A leaked Treasury document listed the checks and controls that would apply to much of the trade across the Irish Sea once Britain had left the EU and after the transition phase was over. These included tariffs, customs union declarations, rules of origin and regulatory checks. HM Revenue and Customs says the extra paperwork alone will cost £15-£56 per consignment.

 

2. June 3, 2020: 'Of the tests conducted at the 199 testing centres, as well as the mobile centres, they're all done within 24 hours.'

 

Jeremy Hunt, chairman of the House of Commons Health Committee, had asked Johnson to 'tell us how many of the tests [for Covid-19] are currently being turned round within 24 hours'. Johnson's reply was contradicted by the NHS's official statistics, which found that in the week to June 3, the proportion of people in England receiving their tests result within 24 hours was 19% at regional tests sites, 5% at mobile testing units and 6% at satellite test centres.

 

1. June 17, 2020: Starmer: 'A report last week from the government's Social Mobility Commission concluded that there are now '600,000 more children living in relative poverty…'' Johnson: 'He is completely wrong in what he says about poverty. Absolutely poverty and relative poverty have both declined under this government and there are hundreds of thousands – I think 400,000 – fewer families living in poverty now than there were in 2010.'

 

The most widely accepted definition for poverty, not least in government reports, is where household income after housing costs is below 60% of the national median. This was used by the government's Social Mobility Commission, which said that the number of children living in poverty had risen by 600,000 since 2011.

 

What about Johnson's alternative figure? Downing Street has not provided a source. The BBC's Reality Check Team says it was 'unable to find any evidence for his claim that there are 400,000 fewer families living in poverty than in 2010'.

 

Anna Feuchtwang, chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition complained to the government's own watchdog, the Office for Statistics Regulation. On July 30, the OSR replied. It agreed that Johnson's statement was 'incorrect'.

 

 

 

If you are going to plagiarise other peoples work then at least have the decency to add a link to it.

[CurtainRaiser]

747 - 2021-01-24 5:53 PM

 

CurtainRaiser - 2021-01-23 12:21 PM

 

StuartO - 2021-01-23 12:08 PM

 

 

BoJo certainly has a track record from his earlier life of being unreliable but he's been under scutiny in recent years so much that I think he's learned that he will be caught out if he lies nowadays. At the very least he's now being careful!

 

 

 

Johnson is still lying, so much so that like Trump there are websites monitoring his lies, here are his current top ten from one of them.

 

Think of spots and leopards. Boris Johnson became prime minister having been sacked twice from other jobs for telling lies – in 1988 from the Times for fabricating a quote from his godfather; and in 2004 from the Conservative front bench for lying to his party leader about an affair. His supporters must have hoped that he would put his errant past behind him when he entered 10 Downing Street.

 

 

He hasn't. Here, in reverse order as in a pop chart, are his 10 top tangles with the truth in the past 12 months. I would have included Johnson's corrections or apologies but haven't found any. The point is not that he makes mistakes: who doesn't? It's that he makes so many and never tries to put them right.

 

10. June 16, 2020: 'I talked to Marcus Rashford earlier today to congratulate him on his campaign, which to be honest I only became aware of very recently – well, today.'

 

For more than 24 hours, the news had been dominated by the Manchester United footballer's campaign for free school meals to be continued through the summer holidays. Ministers initially rejected the idea, only to give in. Challenged afterwards about his U-turn, Johnson insisted he had been unaware of the campaign throughout the previous day. We are asked to believe that while politicians and journalists were talking of little else, and ministers were sent to radio and TV studios to say why Rashford was wrong, Johnson was oblivious to the storm raging around him.

 

9. January 31, 2020: 'This country has reduced CO2 emissions already by 42% on 1990 levels while the economy, under this Conservative government, has grown by 73%'

 

The figure for emissions is broadly correct, but that for economic growth is wrong. Assuming that 'this Conservative government' refers to the period since 2010, the true figure is around 20% (prior to the current pandemic). The 73% refers to the whole period since 1990, 13 years of which were under Labour governments.

 

8. June 23, 2020. 'Yes of course it's perfectly true that it would be great to have an app, but no country currently has a functioning track and trace app'.

 

Johnson was replying to Keir Starmer in parliament, who raised 'very serious concerns about the gaps in the current system [for tackling Covid-19], including the absence of an app'.

 

As the Full Facts fact-checking website said at the time, track and trace apps were being used in France, Germany, Australia, Poland, Latvia, Denmark, Japan and Italy.

 

7. June 10, 2020. '97% of the [primary] schools that have submitted data are now seeing kids come back to school'.

 

This was Johnson's response to Starmer's accusation that 'parents have lost confidence in the government's approach' to school reopening. The Department for Education has since put the number for that day at 69%. In other words, 31% of primary schools had not reopened – 10 times the 3% indicated by Johnson. Twelve days later, Full Facts reported that it had 'asked Number 10 where Mr Johnson's 97% figure came from, and we have not heard back'.

 

6. November 29, 2019. 'The money going into the NHS as you know, it's the biggest increase in living memory, a £34 billion increase'.

 

In his pre-Covid response to a caller on LBC during the election campaign (and on other occasions) Johnson gave this figure for the planned increase in the NHS budget between 2018/19 and 2023/24.

 

The first problem with Johnson's claim is that he quoted the cash increase, much of which is needed to offset inflation and prevent the NHS shrinking. What matters is 'real' increase after taking account of inflation. This figure is £20.5bn, a little over half the amount Johnson cited.

 

Second, this is far from 'the biggest increase in living memory'. There were bigger increases – in both cash and 'real' terms – during the last Labour government. Indeed, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Johnson's planned increase of 3.2% per year in real terms is below the 3.6% average for the 70-year history of the NHS, and barely half the 6% a year achieved during the Blair-Brown years.

 

5. October 29, 2019: 'It is a week since this parliament voted, yet again, to force Brussels to keep this country in the European Union for at least another three months, at a cost of £1bn a month'

 

Twice Johnson told parliament that the delay in Brexit from last October to this January would cost the UK £1bn a month in extending its subscription to the EU. However, as the BBC's Reality Check pointed out at the time, his figure 'excludes any money the government gets back from the EU in grants for things like regional development or supporting farmers. When you factor these in, the figure comes down to about £744 million a month.'

 

More to the point, Johnson's own deal with the EU required the UK to continue paying its EU membership fee until December this year, when the transition phase ends. Parliament's decision to defer Brexit by three months did not delay the end of the transition period and hence made no difference at all to Britain's financial commitment to Brussels.

 

4. May 21, 2020: Starmer: 'Does the prime minister think it is right that careworkers coming from abroad and working on our frontline should have to pay a surcharge… to use the NHS themselves?' Johnson: 'Those contributions help us to raise about £900m. It is very difficult in the current circumstances to find alternative sources'

 

Many immigrants from outside the EU currently pay an annual surcharge to use the NHS. It's currently £400, rising to £624 this October. Johnson's £900m is the cumulative total of all such payments from all applicable immigrants, whatever their job, over the past four years.

 

How much would it cost to do what Starmer wanted? At the last count, 237,000 careworkers came from outside the EU. Many have settled in the UK and don't need to pay the surcharge. Suppose half of them do, and were now to be exempt. This would cost the government £47m a year at the current rate, and £76m a year from October.

 

3. December 6, 2019: 'There will be no checks on goods from GB to Northern Ireland or from Northern Ireland to GB'.

 

A leaked Treasury document listed the checks and controls that would apply to much of the trade across the Irish Sea once Britain had left the EU and after the transition phase was over. These included tariffs, customs union declarations, rules of origin and regulatory checks. HM Revenue and Customs says the extra paperwork alone will cost £15-£56 per consignment.

 

2. June 3, 2020: 'Of the tests conducted at the 199 testing centres, as well as the mobile centres, they're all done within 24 hours.'

 

Jeremy Hunt, chairman of the House of Commons Health Committee, had asked Johnson to 'tell us how many of the tests [for Covid-19] are currently being turned round within 24 hours'. Johnson's reply was contradicted by the NHS's official statistics, which found that in the week to June 3, the proportion of people in England receiving their tests result within 24 hours was 19% at regional tests sites, 5% at mobile testing units and 6% at satellite test centres.

 

1. June 17, 2020: Starmer: 'A report last week from the government's Social Mobility Commission concluded that there are now '600,000 more children living in relative poverty…'' Johnson: 'He is completely wrong in what he says about poverty. Absolutely poverty and relative poverty have both declined under this government and there are hundreds of thousands – I think 400,000 – fewer families living in poverty now than there were in 2010.'

 

The most widely accepted definition for poverty, not least in government reports, is where household income after housing costs is below 60% of the national median. This was used by the government's Social Mobility Commission, which said that the number of children living in poverty had risen by 600,000 since 2011.

 

What about Johnson's alternative figure? Downing Street has not provided a source. The BBC's Reality Check Team says it was 'unable to find any evidence for his claim that there are 400,000 fewer families living in poverty than in 2010'.

 

Anna Feuchtwang, chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition complained to the government's own watchdog, the Office for Statistics Regulation. On July 30, the OSR replied. It agreed that Johnson's statement was 'incorrect'.

 

 

 

If you are going to plagiarise other peoples work then at least have the decency to add a link to it.

 

Yes its clear I was trying to plagiarise that is why I posted it with the preface I did.

 

"Johnson is still lying, so much so that like Trump there are websites monitoring his lies, here are his current top ten from one of them."

 

I notice that you overlooked the main part of the post? You know the bit about your hero the liar.