In this footage of @BorisJohnson from 2013, the then London mayor says that, in politics, you can “make a case for any course of action”.
He also admits that he isn’t really “bumbling”.
He’s “hard as nails”.
“They cover up crime with scandal & covers up malice with incompetence. They want to project an image of being inept, instead of as having a cruel & well-defined plan.” @sarahkendzior
His ‘bumbling’ persona is a carefully constructed disguise
“This morning’s police raids are a blatant attempt to intimidate a journalist who has made clear his intention not to be silenced by the designation last week of his publication as a ‘foreign agent’
“Greek authorities have been using tear gas and rubber bullets to repel the hordes.”
Language matters
Words such as “hordes”, “invasion”, “flood”, “swarm” are used widely - & for more a century
3/ Orwell’s 1984 opens with Winston Smith writing in his diary about a film he’s seen
“One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him”
Twice a year he reads the courtroom scene in “The Fountainhead”, where the hero says he’d rather go to jail than submit to the collective will b/c the individual can bend the arc of history to their will.
“What Javid admires in Rand’s novel is the portrait of a steel-willed individual for whom tooth-&-claw capitalism is the best system because it places the fewest restrictions on such individuals. If illegal or unethical methods are required, what of it?” westcountrybylines.co.uk/sajid-javid-he…
On hot summer's day some years back I marinaded some chicken for a BBQ, filled the empty chicken boxes with water & put them outside my house with a "thirsty dogs" sign
That night, the old lady downstairs phoned
Wizzy, her pooch, who'd drank some water, was ill
“Did you wash the chicken containers very thoroughly?” the old lady asked
“Of course,” I said
I’d given them a good rinse. That was all
I didn’t get much sleep that night & in the morning I lay in bed listening out for Wizzy’s usual barks from the garden