Re: Boris Johnson's persona

C'mon, folks. How is it possible to *not* like this guy? Everything he does and says is donnish self-parody. We get mad at Trump because he doesn't know the difference between Iraq and Iran, and then we get mad at the Great Somerset Stork because he didn't get the Fourth Lateran Council quite right.

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On Jul 30, 2019, 20:20, at 20:20, "DANIEL P. Tompkins" <[email protected]> wrote:
>If we get bored with BoJo, there's also Rees-Mogg, e.g. in this recent
>send-up
><https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lrb.co.uk%2Fv41%2Fn15%2Fjames-meek%2Fthe-two-jacobs&amp;data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40LSV.UKY.EDU%7Ce963874e37d146f308fe08d7154f522a%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C1%7C637001302740827198&amp;sdata=h8%2BsUzepW6j8dCfx32%2BBRE3wLqV%2FKazdlgzXd81wR8I%3D&amp;reserved=0>
>by James
>Meek:
>
>He made it into Parliament in 2010 as Conservative MP for North East
>Somerset and has been there ever since, stiffening the already
>near-rigid
>sinews of the Faragist party within a party.
>
>His maiden speech in Parliament invoked ‘three great Somerset men’ as
>his
>models: Alfred the Great, ‘the first Eurosceptic’; the 11th-century
>anchorite St Alphege, who in Rees-Mogg’s exegesis was England’s first
>tax
>martyr; and John Locke, whom he characterised with cynical vagueness as
>a
>champion of the people against government. That speech set the key for
>his
>parliamentary excursions into history and literature, armed with the
>*kind
>of cute patriotic simpleness one might have found in a child’s nursery
>library from the 1890s*. He hovers on the edge of self-mockery without
>committing to it:
>
>
>I was thinking initially of Achilles sitting in his tent and about
>whether
>that was a first example of industrial action …
>
>
>Let me start with that sad day in March 1603, when our beloved
>sovereign of
>blessed memory, Elizabeth, died …
>
>
>I was concerned about my hon. friend’s attack on the Victorian age,
>which
>was one of the finest ages in British history, when most employers were
>benevolent, kindly, good …
>
>
>I know that sometimes I bore the House with historical examples, but on
>this occasion I thought that I would go back to Odysseus …
>
>
>Queen Elizabeth I … did not need special measures, advancement and
>protection to get her going; she did it through her own vim and vigour
>…
>
>
>Does the lord chancellor recall that in the reign of Henry VIII it was
>made
>high treason to take an appeal outside this kingdom? …
>
>
>I think one can take back the divergence between our legal system and
>that
>of the continent to the Fourth Lateran Council.
>
>
>At times he seems to fall into an eerie timelessness, as if he hadn’t
>merely been born but was summoned from his enchanted prison on the
>mantelpiece in the photograph of your grandfather and friends dressed
>up
>for a night on the town in 1935.
>
>LRB 41.15
>
>Best,
>
>Dan
>
>On Tue, Jul 30, 2019 at 5:19 AM Mark Davidson <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>> Here's a wonderful story about Boris Johnson that gives some insight
>into
>> his public persona.
>>
>> Keep reading, and you'll never see Boris Johnson in quite the same
>way
>> again.
>>
>> My Boris Johnson story
>> by Jeremy Vine
>>
>>
>>
>https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fblogs.spectator.co.uk%2F2019%2F06%2Fmy-boris-story%2F&amp;data=02%7C01%7CCLASSICS-L%40LSV.UKY.EDU%7Ce963874e37d146f308fe08d7154f522a%7C2b30530b69b64457b818481cb53d42ae%7C0%7C1%7C637001302740827198&amp;sdata=WYTEdORM7eYsgYoVAgUAQKIHb2o593dQy8hkIKP32oU%3D&amp;reserved=0
>>
>> Mark D.
>>