They have called him a buffoon, a toff, a racist, an adulterous fraud. They once dismissed his EU scepticism as a political deceit to propel his naked ambition; they have joked about his competence and his work-rate.
But they were not laughing yesterday when the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill was thumpingly passed — at least not on the Labour benches...
STEPHEN ROBINSON: His enemies called him a buffoon... they're not laughing anymore
By Stephen Robinson For The Daily Mail
21 December 2019
They have called him a buffoon, a toff, a racist, an adulterous fraud. They once dismissed his EU scepticism as a political deceit to propel his naked ambition; they have joked about his competence and his work-rate.
But they were not laughing yesterday when the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill was thumpingly passed — at least not on the Labour benches.
There is nothing like a good old-fashioned election landslide to burnish a prime minister’s standing, and watching Boris Johnson hold the chamber in the palm of his hand yesterday merely underlined the scale of the political earthquake that upended our politics last week.
Boris Johnson, while Mayor of London got stuck on a zip line in August 2012 ahead of the Olympic Games. Yet now he has transformed himself in a matter of a few months from one of the most hapless Commons performers to a master in the making
Three-and-a-half years of paralysis and rancour exploded in a cathartic spasm of a 124-vote majority. Getting Brexit Done is no longer a tired election slogan, but a fact of our political life.
Johnson has transformed himself in a matter of a few months from one of the most hapless Commons performers to a master in the making.
We must hope that the next Labour leader keeps him on his toes, unlike the dismal, sullen figure of Jeremy Corbyn yesterday, who merely repeated his doomed election mantras to a silent chamber, flanked to his left by an ashen-faced Sir Keir Starmer, who looked like he had a winter vomiting bug that might force him to vacate the frontbench in a hurry.
What is so striking about listening to the Prime Minister talk about the EU is that his firmness is leavened by a human assertion that with Brexit done, we can build upon what he termed ‘the warmth and natural affection’ we feel for our European neighbours. Unlike almost all of the Opposition MPs, who brand him a xenophobe, Johnson is comfortable speaking in foreign languages, a point not lost on those with whom he will be negotiating in the coming months.
What is so striking about listening to the Prime Minister talk about the EU is that his firmness is leavened by a human assertion that with Brexit done, we can build upon what he termed ‘the warmth and natural affection’ we feel for our European neighbours
Many in Westminster had assumed Johnson would retreat, and revert to a more conventional attitude of Tory defensiveness after last week’s evisceration of Labour’s working-class vote.
But they were wrong, because they do not understand the mood of the nation that Johnson tapped into during the campaign. Nor do they detect the flintiness of the man who is now certain to be our most important PM since Tony Blair, with the prospect of challenging even Margaret Thatcher in terms of political legacy.
As a former journalistic colleague of his, I can assure you that Boris Johnson will not be worrying much today about the next election in 2024. Rather, he will be thinking about the coming Johnsonian era — the ‘new golden age’ as he grandiloquently styles it — and in his mind this will last at least a decade or two
As a former journalistic colleague of his, I can assure you that Boris Johnson will not be worrying much today about the next election in 2024.
Rather, he will be thinking about the coming Johnsonian era — the ‘new golden age’ as he grandiloquently styles it — and in his mind this will last at least a decade or two. Nothing less than a legacy as one of the most important political leaders in our history will satisfy him now.
As a result of the Johnson mayoralty in London, we have tourists weaving along the capital’s streets on rented ‘Boris Bikes’. Forget that — Johnson will now be thinking in terms of London’s first Boris Bridge over the Thames, or even the sea to Ireland.
Anyone who doubts the Johnsonian ambition should remember that the Prime Minister went to the trouble a few years ago of writing a biography of a brilliant rising Tory star who was initially distrusted by his party but who went on to save the nation in its hour of need. Johnson’s opus was called The Churchill Factor, and it’s not one of those politicians’ books that is difficult to decode.
Like Blair, like (dare one say?) Churchill, Johnson has the knack of speaking over the heads of his party to political opponents, and snaring their allegiance. For unlike Thatcher, Boris is very comfortable with working-class voters from the North and Midlands.
This has given him a unique opportunity to reshape British politics permanently by correcting the Conservative Party’s historic indifference to the condition of the struggling classes in our cities and towns.
In many ways, Johnson’s position at the head of the Tory Party is even stronger than Margaret Thatcher’s in May 1979. Having wielded the knife in his first few weeks in office, he will not be tormented by Tory Wets as she was, and he has settled the European question for the Conservatives on his own terms
In branding terms for the party, it is even more significant — and difficult — than what Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair did in putting a red rose on the Labour crest before the 1997 landslide.
Johnson dare not bungle it because he, and the party, will not be forgiven if he betrays the hopes of those who voted blue for the first time last week.
In many ways, Johnson’s position at the head of the Tory Party is even stronger than Margaret Thatcher’s in May 1979. Having wielded the knife in his first few weeks in office, he will not be tormented by Tory Wets as she was, and he has settled the European question for the Conservatives on his own terms.
Johnson has met British troops in Estonia, serving them Christmas dinner
Almost 30 bills were laid out this week in the Queen’s Speech, and now with a Commons majority of 80, these cannot be dismissed as ambitions. They are destined to become legislative fact, and if they do not, they will come to represent Tory failure.
It is certainly difficult to see where Labour goes from here. Boris Johnson has not just occupied their territory, but eaten their lunch (and was I the only one watching yesterday who wondered if he had filled out a bit since entering No 10?).
There are two obvious problems for Downing Street coming into view. One glaring omission from the Queen’s Speech was social care, beyond a waffly pledge to seek cross-party support. But Johnson now owns this policy; he cannot blame gridlock on disloyal backbenchers or a mendacious Mr Speaker (and what a blessed relief is genial, self-effacing Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the chair after ten years of that verbose poltroon, Bercow).
Johnson will be judged in the new Tory seats such as Wakefield and Grimsby by how he tackles key issues like this. If his battalions of ‘fantastic new nurses and doctors’ don’t improve hospitals, if northern commuters have no prospect of easier trips to work, if parents and grandparents face selling the family home for their care, the Tories will take the blame.
Remain supporters have worried legitimately that Brexit might reduce our influence in the world, but that is to overlook how things have changed in the EU, and beyond. This is the second great challenge he faces. Past failure of British diplomacy in Brussels conceals how the EU bungled its dealings with David Cameron and Theresa May, when compromise could have seen off the referendum and secured a softer deal for Mrs May.
For all the hostile briefing from Brussels officials assiduously reported by the BBC, there is in fact quiet respect for Boris on the Continent, and he must exploit this. If the EU continues to act with arrogant intransigence, then Boris will have to say: no deal it is.
Donald Trump has been impeached this week by the House of Representatives. President Macron seems to be coming off second best against reliably obdurate French trade unions, while the powers of Europe’s pivotal leader, Angela Merkel, drain away as worrying indications of a resurgent Right-wing extremism surface even within her CDU party.
There is a huge opportunity for instantly recognisable Boris Johnson to fill this power vacuum. He has not merely won a triumphant domestic mandate, he has absorbed and de-fanged the repellent types who operated on the fringes of the Brexit and Ukip parties. In Paris, Berlin and Rome, they will be looking on and wondering how on earth he pulled that one off.
Watching the Prime Minister yesterday, it was easy to forget that in mid-October it seemed quite likely he would not survive until Christmas. His bounce back is testimony to qualities his opponents often mistake for flaws. He has shown courage, not recklessness. His ambition is huge, as it should be for a person seeking the highest office.
All his life Johnson has aimed high, so he can be forgiven his rhetorical flourishes about a new golden age.
But the electorate will be unforgiving if he shows unnecessary weakness in Brussels, or if he fails to tangibly ease their burdens using the new Johnson majority after the quite extraordinary victory he has won.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...-called-buffoon-theyre-not-laughing-more.html
But they were not laughing yesterday when the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill was thumpingly passed — at least not on the Labour benches...
STEPHEN ROBINSON: His enemies called him a buffoon... they're not laughing anymore
By Stephen Robinson For The Daily Mail
21 December 2019
They have called him a buffoon, a toff, a racist, an adulterous fraud. They once dismissed his EU scepticism as a political deceit to propel his naked ambition; they have joked about his competence and his work-rate.
But they were not laughing yesterday when the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill was thumpingly passed — at least not on the Labour benches.
There is nothing like a good old-fashioned election landslide to burnish a prime minister’s standing, and watching Boris Johnson hold the chamber in the palm of his hand yesterday merely underlined the scale of the political earthquake that upended our politics last week.
Boris Johnson, while Mayor of London got stuck on a zip line in August 2012 ahead of the Olympic Games. Yet now he has transformed himself in a matter of a few months from one of the most hapless Commons performers to a master in the making
Three-and-a-half years of paralysis and rancour exploded in a cathartic spasm of a 124-vote majority. Getting Brexit Done is no longer a tired election slogan, but a fact of our political life.
Johnson has transformed himself in a matter of a few months from one of the most hapless Commons performers to a master in the making.
We must hope that the next Labour leader keeps him on his toes, unlike the dismal, sullen figure of Jeremy Corbyn yesterday, who merely repeated his doomed election mantras to a silent chamber, flanked to his left by an ashen-faced Sir Keir Starmer, who looked like he had a winter vomiting bug that might force him to vacate the frontbench in a hurry.
What is so striking about listening to the Prime Minister talk about the EU is that his firmness is leavened by a human assertion that with Brexit done, we can build upon what he termed ‘the warmth and natural affection’ we feel for our European neighbours. Unlike almost all of the Opposition MPs, who brand him a xenophobe, Johnson is comfortable speaking in foreign languages, a point not lost on those with whom he will be negotiating in the coming months.
What is so striking about listening to the Prime Minister talk about the EU is that his firmness is leavened by a human assertion that with Brexit done, we can build upon what he termed ‘the warmth and natural affection’ we feel for our European neighbours
Many in Westminster had assumed Johnson would retreat, and revert to a more conventional attitude of Tory defensiveness after last week’s evisceration of Labour’s working-class vote.
But they were wrong, because they do not understand the mood of the nation that Johnson tapped into during the campaign. Nor do they detect the flintiness of the man who is now certain to be our most important PM since Tony Blair, with the prospect of challenging even Margaret Thatcher in terms of political legacy.
As a former journalistic colleague of his, I can assure you that Boris Johnson will not be worrying much today about the next election in 2024. Rather, he will be thinking about the coming Johnsonian era — the ‘new golden age’ as he grandiloquently styles it — and in his mind this will last at least a decade or two
As a former journalistic colleague of his, I can assure you that Boris Johnson will not be worrying much today about the next election in 2024.
Rather, he will be thinking about the coming Johnsonian era — the ‘new golden age’ as he grandiloquently styles it — and in his mind this will last at least a decade or two. Nothing less than a legacy as one of the most important political leaders in our history will satisfy him now.
As a result of the Johnson mayoralty in London, we have tourists weaving along the capital’s streets on rented ‘Boris Bikes’. Forget that — Johnson will now be thinking in terms of London’s first Boris Bridge over the Thames, or even the sea to Ireland.
Anyone who doubts the Johnsonian ambition should remember that the Prime Minister went to the trouble a few years ago of writing a biography of a brilliant rising Tory star who was initially distrusted by his party but who went on to save the nation in its hour of need. Johnson’s opus was called The Churchill Factor, and it’s not one of those politicians’ books that is difficult to decode.
Like Blair, like (dare one say?) Churchill, Johnson has the knack of speaking over the heads of his party to political opponents, and snaring their allegiance. For unlike Thatcher, Boris is very comfortable with working-class voters from the North and Midlands.
This has given him a unique opportunity to reshape British politics permanently by correcting the Conservative Party’s historic indifference to the condition of the struggling classes in our cities and towns.
In many ways, Johnson’s position at the head of the Tory Party is even stronger than Margaret Thatcher’s in May 1979. Having wielded the knife in his first few weeks in office, he will not be tormented by Tory Wets as she was, and he has settled the European question for the Conservatives on his own terms
In branding terms for the party, it is even more significant — and difficult — than what Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair did in putting a red rose on the Labour crest before the 1997 landslide.
Johnson dare not bungle it because he, and the party, will not be forgiven if he betrays the hopes of those who voted blue for the first time last week.
In many ways, Johnson’s position at the head of the Tory Party is even stronger than Margaret Thatcher’s in May 1979. Having wielded the knife in his first few weeks in office, he will not be tormented by Tory Wets as she was, and he has settled the European question for the Conservatives on his own terms.
Johnson has met British troops in Estonia, serving them Christmas dinner
Almost 30 bills were laid out this week in the Queen’s Speech, and now with a Commons majority of 80, these cannot be dismissed as ambitions. They are destined to become legislative fact, and if they do not, they will come to represent Tory failure.
It is certainly difficult to see where Labour goes from here. Boris Johnson has not just occupied their territory, but eaten their lunch (and was I the only one watching yesterday who wondered if he had filled out a bit since entering No 10?).
There are two obvious problems for Downing Street coming into view. One glaring omission from the Queen’s Speech was social care, beyond a waffly pledge to seek cross-party support. But Johnson now owns this policy; he cannot blame gridlock on disloyal backbenchers or a mendacious Mr Speaker (and what a blessed relief is genial, self-effacing Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the chair after ten years of that verbose poltroon, Bercow).
Johnson will be judged in the new Tory seats such as Wakefield and Grimsby by how he tackles key issues like this. If his battalions of ‘fantastic new nurses and doctors’ don’t improve hospitals, if northern commuters have no prospect of easier trips to work, if parents and grandparents face selling the family home for their care, the Tories will take the blame.
Remain supporters have worried legitimately that Brexit might reduce our influence in the world, but that is to overlook how things have changed in the EU, and beyond. This is the second great challenge he faces. Past failure of British diplomacy in Brussels conceals how the EU bungled its dealings with David Cameron and Theresa May, when compromise could have seen off the referendum and secured a softer deal for Mrs May.
For all the hostile briefing from Brussels officials assiduously reported by the BBC, there is in fact quiet respect for Boris on the Continent, and he must exploit this. If the EU continues to act with arrogant intransigence, then Boris will have to say: no deal it is.
Donald Trump has been impeached this week by the House of Representatives. President Macron seems to be coming off second best against reliably obdurate French trade unions, while the powers of Europe’s pivotal leader, Angela Merkel, drain away as worrying indications of a resurgent Right-wing extremism surface even within her CDU party.
There is a huge opportunity for instantly recognisable Boris Johnson to fill this power vacuum. He has not merely won a triumphant domestic mandate, he has absorbed and de-fanged the repellent types who operated on the fringes of the Brexit and Ukip parties. In Paris, Berlin and Rome, they will be looking on and wondering how on earth he pulled that one off.
Watching the Prime Minister yesterday, it was easy to forget that in mid-October it seemed quite likely he would not survive until Christmas. His bounce back is testimony to qualities his opponents often mistake for flaws. He has shown courage, not recklessness. His ambition is huge, as it should be for a person seeking the highest office.
All his life Johnson has aimed high, so he can be forgiven his rhetorical flourishes about a new golden age.
But the electorate will be unforgiving if he shows unnecessary weakness in Brussels, or if he fails to tangibly ease their burdens using the new Johnson majority after the quite extraordinary victory he has won.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/...-called-buffoon-theyre-not-laughing-more.html