Mister Bump UK

Cheap

Just watching the News here. The main items, of course, are UK news.

Boris Johnson.

They knew about him before he became mayor of London. They certainly knew about him afterwards. Like his cousin in the US, former advisors made small fortunes with their revelations. Unable to grasp the detail. A bit of a buffoon.

But he has charisma. Oh, the applause he received when he promised to lie in front of the bulldozers if they started digging at Heathrow Airport.

When he happened to campaign on the right side in the Brexit referendum (and it was a margin call) he became impossible to ignore. He was promoted to the cabinet, and was a part of the government which… approved the new runway at Heathrow. But no matter, talk is cheap. Say one thing, do another. Talk is cheap.

But he has charisma. Conservative MPs elected him their leader. He has charisma. He unified the party. With a straightforward message on delivering Brexit, he won a General Election. Decisively. He has charisma. He’s now trying to row back on the original Brexit agreement, but no matter. Talk is cheap.

COVID. Takes us all by surprise. We appreciate the value of Test and Trace. We will test some more. 10,000 per day, by the end of the month. We miss that target. So we increase the target to 25,000. We miss that target, too. Early on, Johnson promises a “world-beating” Tracing App. Nothing materialises, world-beating or otherwise. But no matter, talk is cheap. But over the months, testing increases, quickly at first, but more slowly between May – September. The “second wave” has been promised since July.

Testing is being shown as woefully inadequate. “Nobody could have predicted the need”, says a Johnson supporter. “We predicted it in March”, say the WHO. But no matter, talk is cheap.

But it is worldwide. Peru’s president: we will defeat the virus. Echoes of Winston Churchill. I bet their public love them for it.

Now tell us how. Talk is cheap. India has a says it has a refreshingly low death rate. Because it isn’t counting them all. Talk is cheap.

13 comments

  1. I must admit I found Bojo quite fun as Mayor or London. Something completely different with his blond version of a Beatles Haircut, but without the straight fringe on top. Then he became Prime Minister. Really something unique, a joke figure, perhaps in the sense of black humour. And then he managed to become a covid patient with many thanks to his New Zealand and Portuguese nurse that got him back to the government. His daily appearances in the evening were then quite a thing to support the nation. Since the second wave and threat of new lockdown he has mysterious disappeared from the TV screens, and only to be seen now and then in the news. He is no longer a joke and I am really wondering if he is the right man in the right place, but who am I to judge, as an exPat and today probably more Swiss than english

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  2. Talk IS cheap, but when you have charisma, like Johnson and Trump apparently have, it’s effective. And, especially in Trump’s case, when you combine that charisma with a narcissistic personality disorder, it’s explosive.

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