Now WHAT is Boris on?

[Zak33]

What is he on?

His boss has JUST spent time building bridges with Saudi... which is actually HIS job really....

and then he goes off piste again!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38255557

I should think May is just about fed up with it all by now and she's only just started!


Boris should go bowling with Farrage and Trump and let's hear ALL the rubbish is one session

I mean... come ON... it's my Country you lot are screwing with.

[Zak33]

sums it up really

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,he is not actually saying something many people already kind of didn't know anyway,but he is FM and he does need to consider the ME is a major purchaser of UK made weaponary,aircraft and ships which is essential to keeping 1000s of people in work.

[peterb]

sums it up really

Indeed, and it makes it our war by proxy (and in fact as we support the coalition attacking the Yemeni rebels). But Saudi Arabia doesn't have a particularly glowing human rights record.

But they do have lots of oil, and oil revenue.

[Saracen]

TBH,he is not actually saying something many people already kind of didn't know anyway,but he is FM and he does need to consider the ME is a major purchaser of UK made weaponary,aircraft and ships which is essential to keeping 1000s of people in work.

But here's the problem with that. Not that I entirely disagree with you, but that logic has a major problem.

The inference is that despite us knowing a despotic regime is killing people in large numbers, we'll be nice about them because they're an ally, and a major arms customer.

So .... we'll criticise and oppose Putin, and Iran, and North Korea, etc, for being despotic, or murderous etc when we don't sell them arms, but shock, horror that we should criticise Saudi Arabia for doing much the same.

And then we wonder why many parts of the world don't respect us or our criticisms of others. Maybe it's because we can apparently be bought, either by large arms deals, or by currying geopolitical influence with despotic regimes because it serves OUR best interests.

And, after all, we have 'previous' on that. One (of many) examples would be supporting the Shah of Iran, an act that at the least contributed to the hardline attitude of the revolutionary Islamic uprising - the "great powers" supporting a brutal regime that suppressed its own people because, never mind what happened to the people at the hands of the Shah's secret police, it was in our geopolitical interests. The same could be said about backing Saddam until it bit us, and Colonel Ghadaffi until it hit us, then backing him again, then not.

The first line of the article Zak linked made a critical point -

Few would disagree with the foreign secretary when he says that Saudi Arabia and Iran are engaging in proxy wars in the Middle East.

No, most of us wouldn't, but God forbid he should be honest and say it?

How many billions do we have to earn, how many arms jobs do we have to protect, to turn a blind eye to what the regimes buying those arms are doing? What, in deaths of civilians in Yemen, are 100 jobs here "worth"?


And in the end, it comes down to being a large part of WHY we hold politics, and most politicians, in contempt - we KNOW we can't believe a word many, or indeed most, of them say.

Ask ourselves why "populist" movements are growing in power and success all over the place. Be it UKIP, Trump, Le Pen and the Front Nationale, Five Star, Syriza, Gert Wilders in Holland, and so on, they all have one thing in common .... whether right or left, or even hard right or hard left, they appeal because they show every sign of saying what they think.

Would we have had "Leave" in the Brexit referendum if john Major had had the guts, and decency, to put Maastricht to a referendum? We'll never know, because he bottled it. Would we have voted Leave if Blair/Brown had put, like they promised Lisbon to a referendum? Again, two-faced politicians promised us one thing (and the original EU constitution and Lisbon are fundamentally, bells and whistles aside, the same thing) then found some weasel-worded way of squirming out of it.

I'd suggest politicians are largely held in contempt because they've spent the last few decades ignoring and evading questions, using "clever" political phraseology to appear to say one thing, while covering themselves because they actually meant something else. That is, treating us, the public, with contempt.

Just maybe, politicians would find themselves with better support if they stopped conning us, started advocating what they actually think and believe instead of either what they think we want to hear, or what party dogma tells them they have to say.

Maybe our opinion as a country would carry most respect, even with political opponents, if .... just for a change .... we started saying what we thought was right, even or especially when it was contrary to our vested interest or financial gain.

Ever heard the old joke about "an honest politician"? One that stays bought.

Or the definition of a "political promise"?

Who actually believes politicians any more?

Another old joke How do you know a politician is lying? His lips are moving and words are coming out!


All Boris did was say what so many people think and believe. If we believe government spin, even they have been saying this, to the Saudis, quietly, behind closed doors, in more diplomatic terms.

But never should we "offend" allies, and worse, embarrass them or hurt their egos, by saying publicly what we allegedly say privately and regard as true. It's political whoring, and all we need to discuss now is whether "government policy" makes our country a high-class whore or a cheap streetwalker. Personally, I'd rather our government didn't whore us out at all than argue over the price, even if it does offend a large arms purchaser.

So Boris, call it as it is, and stop fluffing Saudi egos.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

But here's the probkem with that. Not that I entirely disagree with you, but that logic has a major problem.

The inference is that despite us knowing a despotic regime is killing people in large numbers, we'll be nice about them because they're an ally, and a major arms customer.

So .... we'll criticise and oppose Putin, and Iran, and North Korea, etc, for being despitic, or murderous etc when we don't sell them arms, but shock, horror that we should criticise Saudi Arabia for doing much the same.

And then we wonder why many parts of the world don't respect us or our criticisms of others. Maybe it's because we can apparently be bought, either by large arms deals, or by currying geopolitical influence with despitic regimes because it serves OUR best interests.

And, after all, we have 'previous' on that. One (of many) examples would be supporting the Shah of Iran, and act that at the least contributed to the hardline attitude of the revolutionary Islamic uprising - the "great powers" supporting a brutal regime that suppressed it's own people because, never mind the people it was in our geopolitical interests. The same could be said about backing Saddam until it bit us, and Colonel Ghadaffi untul it hit us, then backing him again, then not.

The first line of the article Zak linked made a critical point - No, most of us wouldn't, but God forbid he should be honest and say it?

How many billions do we have to earn, how many arms jobs do we have to protect, to turn a blind eye to what the regimes buying those arms are doing? What, in deaths of civilians in Yemen, are 100 jobs here "worth"?


And in the end, it comes down to being a large oart of WHY we hold politics, and most politicians, in contempt - we KNOW we can't believe a word many, or indeed most, of them say.

Ask ourselves why "populist" movements are growing in power and success all over the place. Be it UKIP, Trump, Le Pen and the Front Nationale, Five Star, Syriza, Gert Wilders in jolland, and so on, they all have one thing in common .... whether right or left, or even hard right or hard left, they appeal because they show every sign of saying what they think.

Would we have had "Leave" in the Brexit referendum if john Major had had the gurs, and decency, to put Maastricht to a referendum? We'll never know, because he bottled it. Would we have bote Leave if Blair/Brown had put, like they promised Lisbon to a referendum? Again, two-faced politicians promised us one thing (and the original EU constitution and Lisbon are fundamentally, bells and whistles aside, the same thing) then found some weasel-worded way of squirming out of it.

I'd suggest politicians are largely held in contempt because they've spent the last few decades ignoring and evading questions, using "clever" political phraseology to appear to say one thing, while covering themselves because they actually meant something else.

Just maybe, politicians would find themselves with better support if they stopped conning us, started advocating what they actually think and believe instead of either what they think we want to hear, or what party dogma tells them they have to say.

Maybe our opinion as a country would carry most respect, even with political opponents, if .... just for a change .... we started saying what we thought was right, even or especially when it was contrary to our vested interest or financial gain.

Ever heard the old joke about "an honest politician"? One that stays bought.

Or the definition of a "political promise"?

Who actually believes politicians any more?

Another old joke How do you know a politician is lying? Hus lips are moving and words are coming out!


All Boris did was say what so many people think and believe. If we believe government spin, even they have been saying this, to the Saudis, quietly, behind closed doors, in more diplomatic terms.

But never should we "offend" allies, and worse, embarrass them or hurt their egos, by saying publicly what we say privately and regard as true. It's political whoring, and all we need to discuss now is whether "government policy" makes our country a high-class whore or a cheap streetwalker. Personally, I'd rather our government didn't whore us out than argue over the price, even if is does offend a large arms purchaser.

So Boris, call it as it is, and stop fluffing Saudi egos.

Yes,I am quite aware of the hypocracy of this country being best mates with Pinochet,etc whilst destroying Libya and pushing that country into instability just because we have had a feud with Gaddafi or how we have a go at Iran but the US and UK sold loads of weapons to the Shah,etc. The Shah had weapons(or was going to have weapons) that not even most Western European countries would have.

Then how many civil wars have we tacitly supported the rebels in,etc,when they are no better than the "oppressive regimes" we support. Look at US support for UNITA in the Angolan civil war. The war ended when UNITA was defeated,and not before 500000 people died and the US had supplied Stingers,etc to them and Europe gladly allowed those shipments through its airspace IIRC.

However,as shown by Brexit,etc there are a lot of people who don't give a damn about the rest of the world since they are angry that they have no jobs and they feel they have been economically left behind. This is because to put it bluntly multiple UK governments made us prance around the world as some "superpower" probably wasting hundreds of billions of pounds in the process which could have been spent in more deprived areas of the country and helping create more sustainable jobs. But they didn't and its all coming to bite them back in the arse.

Plenty of people here and in Europe don't want refugees in wars we helped stoke (Syria is one of them,as we allowed certain nations to arm sides with our weapons),and you can see the disdain a vocal minority are showing against even Western Europeans in the UK,so do you honestly think they care when they are unemployed or under threat of their jobs, what Saudi Arabia does??

This is a sentiment running through the whole of Europe - Trump won in the US down to this too.

I predict that this country will care less and less about human rights in other countries as long as UK businesses can make money and keep jobs in this country. Do you honestly think parties like UKIP give a monkies about the rest of the world?? They were the third biggest party in the UK in the last election.

Because in the end we can all beat about the bush,but Saudi Arabian arms sales have maintained 1000s of jobs in the UK,via the massive arms contracts for things like the sale of 72 Eurofighters and 80 Tornados alone helped keep production lines open in this country. Add the last 40 years of arms contracts and you will see that it was Middle Eastern arms sales which actually kept many UK based defence companies in business and they were no better 40 years than they were today.

Then you have metric ton of UK expats being employed in the Middle East - something like 100000 people IIRC being employed to do well paid jobs.

Then add to the fact we have multiple conglomerates and companies backed by Middle Eastern money which actually are responsible for investments in the UK.

Saudi Arabia is trying to set up a two trillion dollar investment fund,and some of the other ones are backed by tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars.

You are talking probably stupid amounts of money.

Unfortunately money talks and the Middle East has LOTS of money. This is why the government is so scared of criticising the Middle East,they want MORE foreign investment in this country.

Have you not noticed how the UK is criticising China less and less,and India less and less as the level of investment increase in the country??

Yes,it is a Faustian bargain but remember politicians at the top care more about their ego and try to "beat the other parties" than actually do something good for the country. Instead of accepting responsibility for the #### ups they either blame another political party or find some minority to act as a scapegoat.

If the parties instead of fighting worked together longterm,a lot of the issues we have here would probably not have been as bad. Instead,what we saw after Brexit did not surprise me at all,with all the major political parties literally imploding with in-fighting and stabbing each other in the back. We need leadership now and all we got is bunch of upper class ##### each trying to twist the knife in the back of another upper class #### since is all a bloody game for them. We can't even build a sodding Nuclear power plant in this country by ourselves anymore - the Chinese need to build it for us. What a joke.

Why do they care - they are all stinkingly rich. Their kids don't need to care about being in debt or affording a house,etc.

So we are now in a situation where we need to choose between jobs and morals as we don't have that luxury anymore,and you will see where most governments will go,because for every government who says no,there are 10 which would gladly say yes.

[Saracen]

So we are condemning Boris for the egregious sin of actually being honest?

[Andy14]

So we are condemning Boris for the egregious sin of actually being honest?

Keep it up Boris. At least the news is less dull with you around !

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yes,I am quite aware of the hypocracy of this country being best mates with Pinochet,etc whilst destroying Libya and pushing that country into instability just because we have had a feud with Gaddafi or how we have a go at Iran but the US and UK sold loads of weapons to the Shah,etc. The Shah had weapons(or was going to have weapons) that not even most Western European countries would have.

Then how many civil wars have we tacitly supported the rebels in,etc,when they are no better than the "oppressive regimes" we support. Look at US support for UNITA in the Angolan civil war. The war ended when UNITA was defeated,and not before 500000 people died and the US had supplied Stingers,etc to them and Europe gladly allowed those shipments through its airspace IIRC.

However,as shown by Brexit,etc there are a lot of people who don't give a damn about the rest of the world since they are angry that they have no jobs and they feel they have been economically left behind. This is because to put it bluntly multiple UK governments made us prance around the world as some "superpower" probably wasting hundreds of billions of pounds in the process which could have been spent in more deprived areas of the country and helping create more sustainable jobs. But they didn't and its all coming to bite them back in the arse.

Plenty of people here and in Europe don't want refugees in wars we helped stoke (Syria is one of them,as we allowed certain nations to arm sides with our weapons),and you can see the disdain a vocal minority are showing against even Western Europeans in the UK,so do you honestly think they care when they are unemployed or under threat of their jobs, what Saudi Arabia does??

This is a sentiment running through the whole of Europe - Trump won in the US down to this too.

I predict that this country will care less and less about human rights in other countries as long as UK businesses can make money and keep jobs in this country. Do you honestly think parties like UKIP give a monkies about the rest of the world?? They were the third biggest party in the UK in the last election.

Because in the end we can all beat about the bush,but Saudi Arabian arms sales have maintained 1000s of jobs in the UK,via the massive arms contracts for things like the sale of 72 Eurofighters and 80 Tornados alone helped keep production lines open in this country. Add the last 40 years of arms contracts and you will see that it was Middle Eastern arms sales which actually kept many UK based defence companies in business and they were no better 40 years than they were today.

Then you have metric ton of UK expats being employed in the Middle East - something like 100000 people IIRC being employed to do well paid jobs.

Then add to the fact we have multiple conglomerates and companies backed by Middle Eastern money which actually are responsible for investments in the UK.

Saudi Arabia is trying to set up a two trillion dollar investment fund,and some of the other ones are backed by tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars.

You are talking probably stupid amounts of money.

Unfortunately money talks and the Middle East has LOTS of money. This is why the government is so scared of criticising the Middle East,they want MORE foreign investment in this country.

Have you not noticed how the UK is criticising China less and less,and India less and less as the level of investment increase in the country??

Yes,it is a Faustian bargain but remember politicians at the top care more about their ego and try to "beat the other parties" than actually do something good for the country. Instead of accepting responsibility for the #### ups they either blame another political party or find some minority to act as a scapegoat.

If the parties instead of fighting worked together longterm,a lot of the issues we have here would probably not have been as bad. Instead,what we saw after Brexit did not surprise me at all,with all the major political parties literally imploding with in-fighting and stabbing each other in the back. We need leadership now and all we got is bunch of upper class ##### each trying to twist the knife in the back of another upper class #### since is all a bloody game for them. We can't even build a sodding Nuclear power plant in this country by ourselves anymore - the Chinese need to build it for us. What a joke.

Why do they care - they are all stinkingly rich. Their kids don't need to care about being in debt or affording a house,etc.

So we are now in a situation where we need to choose between jobs and morals as we don't have that luxury anymore,and you will see where most governments will go,because for every government who says no,there are 10 which would gladly say yes.

So we are condemning Boris for the egregious sin of actually being honest?

Read what I said and comment.

You can make it look all nice and black and white. I would rather we didn't get involved in the Middle East at all anyway,but the country can't live on idealism.

His personal views,your personal views and my personal views are irrelevant to what a government has to do for its people. This is a country which went around the world and made an empire,etc and did pretty nasty things. If we try to criticise too much of the world they can remind us of what this country did and you know what it has happened when we started trying to play the moral high ground.

In the end this country needs the money,and no amount of sticking it to the man changes it,as we are going around the world literally asking countries like China and India for investment and to buy our products,and that is to create jobs in this country.

Plenty of people don't care anymore about human rights or refugees and you can see the rise of populist parties.

Its OK for you and me sitting comfortably here,to play as champagne socialists when millions of people are using food banks in this country.

None of those people care for what is happening in Saudi Arabia,China or India.

Those countries have 100s of billions of dollars which they can invest in this country and to many the Faustian bargain is worth it. If you want to moan at why we have gotten to this stage,you need to blame the last 60 years of UK governments and businesses which have repeatedly failed to invest in this country,whilst places like Germany have(hence why they have so many more jobs in manufacturing and a better set of labour laws to boot despite all the costs of reunification and propping up the Euro). Plus even the French don't need to go to China to build a nuclear power plant. This is how bad things have gotten here.

Boris Johnson should realise that as FM,he needs to worry more about the interests of the UK,then his own personal views and if he can't do that he should give it to somebody who will do the job.

Because if he pisses those countries off too much,they will say fine,we will invest $50 billion in France instead and buy a whole load of French aircraft and Italian ships instead. So yes we stuck it to the man,but 1000s of people in Europe will get those jobs, and it will be more people out of work here who will find some scapegoat instead.

I am sure both of us will be fine,but then are you willing to say that we had the moral high ground to somebody who just lost their job since a company mothballed their production lines or a company which cut back on jobs since they didn't get enough investment??

So yes I agree with what he said personally but I don't agree with what he said as a FM.

[Saracen]

Champagne socialist? Me?

You, I don't know, but I'm not much of a Champagne and absolutely no form of a socialist.

What I am is someone who has little time for ANY politicians. I also share the view of those that are heartily sceptical about how democratic this country really is, with about the only thing recommending it being that it's better than most of the alternatives, and especially better than socialist and communist regimes.

But our "politicians" claim a democratic mandate based on a system where one half of Parliament consists of sone 900 unelected busybodies with no more of a mandate thsn about 90 of them having the correct dperm donor, and the other 810 having kissed the tight butts .... or greaded the right party coffers with donations. Oh, and then there's the political has-beens whose ONLY qualification is having climbed the greasy pole of the lower house, got tumbled and booted out by our farce of an electoral system only to get 'enobled' (HAH!!!) and booted upstairs where we, the people, can't fet the <bleeps> out of our governmental system, despite gaving voted them out.

Then, there's a lower house where the SNP get less than 1.5m votes and 56 seats, out of 650. Yet, UKIP get nearly 4m (3.88) and get one. That's hugely democratic. And the LibDems, among others, could have made the same complaint for decades, though probably not that overtly on numbers.

And our MPs proudly proclaim they're "representative", not delegates, and that they're there to make decisions for us? Cobblers. It's the hovernment that makes most decisions, and which individuals are in power is often, as now, decided by a handful of marginal seats. Eachnof those marginals may, and oftrn is determined by a few hundred, or even sometimes a few dozen, votes. Right now, the conservative majority is what? 10 or 11? Half a dozen marginals going the other way in 2015 and Corbyn would be PM and Boris wouldn't be FM at all. A few thousand votes determines that.

But even then, who gets to pick these individuals that proudly claim they can decide for us, these "representatives" that, once elected, get to vote either as they wish or as their party tells them, and we, the people can't even get rid of them for five years even if they don't represent us at all. And we didn't even get to pick these people that are going to decide for us. Instead, usually, it's a handful of senior party officials selecting candidates.

So, a handful of party officials in a handful of marginals get to pick who makes decisons for us, regardless of whether it's our wishes or not. FPTP gives us a grossly distorted system, oftrn resulting in a candidate selected by half a dozen officials in the biggest single minority group, and which may acyually only be wanted by 20% - 30%of voters in a constituency, and nay be acyively opposed by the other 70% - 80% who just don't agree on which alternative.

And then, when these unrepresentative individuals that we, the people, generally had absolutely no say in selecting, get themselves elected via a conjuring trick we call an electoral system, they feel free to go about lyjng their backsides off to us, telling us one thing and then doing something completely different behind closed doors, and justify it as "cabinet responsibility", or "the national interest".

One of the reasons forcthe rise of various flavours of populism is that so many politicians, in so many countries, have spent so long lying to us tgat we no longer believe a word they say, and hold them in contempt. The examples ars legion, but just one .... the MPs expenses scandal. Because the srlf-righteous elitists felt they were worth more money tgan they were paid, despite already being better paid than the vast majority of us, they decided to rig the system snd get a back door pay rise via "expenses". Then, they started to believe their own PR campaigns, that they were better than us, that they don't have to justify themselves either to us or to Commons authorities over expenses, and naturally, hunsn nature being what it is, a very substantial number took outright liberties, some to the extent of overt fraud. And all because these elitists, whether socialist or not, regard themsrlves as better than us, so that not only can they defraud us, but when supposedly "representing" us, they feel free to lie to us about what they say and do on our behalf.

I'm not a champagne socialist. What I am is very, VERY angry with politicians, most of whom I wouldn't cross the road to relieve myself on if they were on fire.

They aren't chosen by us, are elected by a hugely flawed and often wholly unrepresentative system, they cheat us, they lie to us, contemptuously dodge questions when asked to explain their position, and then pretend surprise when we don't trust them.

If you want somebody to blame for the rise of populism, and the somewhat undesirable results it may produce, you could do worse than start with those in the fixed, loaded conjuring trick they've been telling us, for decades, is "democracy".

They're actually rather lucky that, SO FAR, at least in the West, it's been non-violent, but we only have to look at the methods of the French revolution, or the Bolsheviks overthrowing Czarism, or countless other examples up to and including contemporary attempts from Libya to Syria to see what can happen when elites treat the people with contempt for too long .... mobs start looking for ropes and trees.

[wazzickle]

Do you see this as a problem getting worse, or better?

[Xlucine]

FPTP is here to stay, we've had that discussion before
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...ferendum,_2011
If everyone was sick of the current state of affairs then we would have voted yes