London Mayor Boris Johnson (on the left above with David Cameron) is a throwback. He’s a bona fide, genuine toff with all the proper upper class credentials: Eton, Oxford, yadda, yadda, yadda. I can never quite decide whether Boris is a dimmer version of Evelyn Waugh or a brighter Bertie Wooster. It’s quite easy to picture Boris and his old school chum and fellow posh boy Prime Minister David (Call me Dave) Cameron toddling off to the Drones club for a G and T with Bingo Little and Gussie Fink-Nottle. What ho, Boris. What ho, Dave.
Besides wearing an old school tie, Johnson is also an old school Tory. His pal the Prime Minister likes to present a centrist, green friendly facade to the world. Yesterday, Boris wandered off the coalition government reservation by denouncing President Obama for“anti-British rhetorice, buck passing and name-calling.” Obama’s real offense has been to finally toughen his rhetoric against the multi-national oil company responsible for the oiltastrophe, BP. We Yanks are pleased that Obama sounds more passionate but Boris and the right wing British media think Obama’s ass kicking comment isn’t cricket. That’s why Boris Johnson, who is one of the whitest people on the planet, is malaka of the week. He’s also bloody fun to mock in general.
Johnson’s downright silly critique has led the right-wing UK press and Tory troglodytes to jump on the Obama bashing, pro-BP bandwagon. For his part, David Cameron is trying a difficult straddle:sympathizing with Obama and deploring the spillon the one hand whilepandering to his base by whispering sweet nothings in BP’s ear.
If there was ever that proverbial tempest in a tea cup this is it, which makes it a case study in malakatude. BP is a multi-national corporation that is bespoiling the Gulf Of Mexico including international waters. This has nothing to do with nationality whatsoever. It could just as easily be a multi-national oil company based in Saudi Arabia, Holland or the US and A. I don’t think that the oily Pelicans and Sea Turtles consider themselves American, after all. They’re just screwed as is the entire eco-system thanks to BP and its ilk.
Boris Johnson has always been known as a bomb thrower and loose cannon in his dual roles as a politician and right wing journalist. This bomb may well blow up in his chum the Prime Minister’s face; at least I hope so. Of course, relations between British Conservative governments and Democratic administrations have been fraught for years. In 1992, the Tories helped Poppy Bush’s minions root around in Bill Clinton’s travel records and senior Democrats helped Labour secure its landslide victory in 1997. The sole recent exception came in 2004 when Tony Blair privately pulled for a Bush re-election fearing that Bush’s ouster could lead to his own downfall. Blair was on his own: the rest of the Labour Party was pulling for John Kerry.
So, Boris, bugger off, shut the fuck up and remember that oil doesn’t carry a frakking passport. I am, however, grateful to Boris for giving me an excuse to write about his toffishness and egregious malakatude.I’d also like to thank Boris for reminding folks what the Tories are really like: a bunch of Tony Hayward loving, budget cutting Thatcherites. Boris and his ilk deserve a proper handbagging but I can only give him a virtual one by dubbing him Sir Malaka.
What ho, readers.
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Please, any Wodehousian-generated club that would have Bertram Wooster and Gussie and Bingo would NOT tolerate Boris. As a former member of The Drone Rangers (a P.G. Wodehouse Society chapter in Houston), I take great umbrage in this tosser being accorded such an honor as to be associated w/the Drones Club.
However – in the spirit that you meant – I will allow myself to share this nugget o’joy from Pelham Grenville Wodehouse as it does apply to whatsisname:
“This was a sinister, leering, Underworld sort of animal, the kind that would spit out of the side of its mouth for twopence.”
And this one, well, it just was funny even if it isn’t applicable:
He had a pair of shaggy eyebrows which gave his eyes a piercing look which was not at all the sort of thing a fellow wanted to encounter on an empty stomach.
The Inimitable Jeeves (1923)
Cheery bye!
Oh, and what’s this Cameron doing his best Chandler Bing impression?!?? He wishes, wanker!
Bring back Red Ken!
After what Red Ken just said about Hitler, no, please don’t. I’m so embarrassed about him. You can’t somehow erase Mein Kampf just because the Transfer Agreement was a thing for a little while; calling Hitler a Zionist is as much ideological revisionist history as Holocaust denial.
he’s a corporatist.
Red Ken is running. I’d love to see him back. He was a damn fine Mayor.
In the picture above, Johnson looks like the dictionary definition of “pasty faced.” And Cameron really does look like a posh boy…
Actually, you don’t get into Oxford (whatever school you went to) if you’re stupid. Lives with his foot in his mouth, yes. Dim, no. I disagree with his politics but am not fooled by the attempted disarming act – because that’s what it is.
Actually, Ruth I didn’t call Boris dim I just said he might be a “dimmer Evelyn Waugh.” Waugh was whip smart and Boris is reasonably smart but people who constantly insert their feet in their mouth aren’t thinking carefully.
Where the hell is Roderick Spode when he’s needed?
A dimmer version of Evelyn Waugh is a injustice to Waugh, non?