Boris Johnson tries to unhappen Saturday with sociopathic unreasoning | John Crace | Politics | The Guardian
One common definition of insanity is repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result. While Boris Johnson has yet to be clinically certified as insane, it’s also true that no one has yet gone out on a limb and certified him as sane. He falls into a murky sociopathic limbo of reasoned unreasoning. The rest of us are just in purgatory.
In Bozzaworld, Saturday’s vote on his Brexit deal never happened. Parliament didn’t sit, the Letwin amendment didn’t pass, the letter he sent to the EU asking for an extension didn’t get sent, and Spurs cruised to a comfortable 4-0 win against Watford. Crisis averted all round. So for Boris Johnson it seemed entirely plausible to unhappen the thing that definitely didn’t happen, even if it did happen.
Little more than 48 hours after having his big day out spoiled by a bunch of girly swots, who wanted time to go through dreary stuff such as legal text and impact assessments, the prime minister tried to bring back a meaningful vote on his deal so that he could then unsend the letter that he didn’t send. Though if he had sent it, which he definitely hadn’t, he would definitely have flicked V signs at it. Take that EU. And then he could undie himself from the ditch he had said he would die in if the UK didn’t leave the EU by 31 October, by bringing no deal back into play.
Entirely predictably, John Bercow chose to see things definitely. He distinctly remembered the details of Johnson’s “Lost Weekend” and wasn’t planning on wasting parliament’s time by letting the government go through the motions all over again. Just as predictably, the Speaker took a huge amount of pleasure in telling the government it was taking the piss and devoted the best part of 40 minutes to his own self-congratulation. Even when he’s doing the right thing by sticking up for parliament, his amour propre doesn’t leave much room for anyone else’s amour. Bercow is going to really miss himself when he’s gone.
“I have considered both the substance and the circumstances of the request,” Bercow said gleefully. And on both counts the government had failed abjectly to meet the necessary criteria.
Cue howls of rage from the Tory benches via interminable points of order. It was almost as though the government had only wasted everyone’s time in order to feed a narrative of the people versus parliament. Peter Bone got the ball rolling by suggesting there had been substantive changes. The Letwin amendment had only been tabled because no one had trusted the prime minister to abide by the law and send the extension letter. So now that the Incredible Sulk had gaslighted the nation by appearing to be trustworthy, surely all bets on Saturday’s debate should be off? We should be celebrating the fact that we have a man in Boris who can’t even be trusted to be reliably untrustworthy.
Man of the people Sir Bernard Jenkin – that elevation to the Lords is proving annoyingly elusive – just wanted to have a sulk of his own. The Speaker had it in for Brexiters, he insisted. A fair Speaker would have been unfair by allowing the government to break any rules in pursuit of a glorious future where everything was a bit more authentically British and tulip.
David TC Davies also cried bias. But as he is right up there with Chris Grayling as one of the dimmest people in parliament – even the sheep in his Welsh constituency have a higher IQ – not even his fellow Tories paid attention.
Next up was Stephen Barclay, to answer an urgent question from Jeremy Corbyn. The last week has not been kind to the Brexit secretary as it has given him endless opportunities to show off his mediocrity. Earlier in the day, he had committed a scientific faux pas by telling a Lords committee that frictionless trade would contain some friction – he still hasn’t quite grasped the principle that customs declarations forms can’t be filled in with friction-free pencils – and now he was forced to deputise for the prime minister.
Barclay ended by saying there was no need for any economic impact assessments because you couldn’t put a price on people’s democratic right to lose their jobs. Just so long as it didn’t interfere with his democratic right to keep his job by not telling the truth. Not for the first time, we were several miles the other side of the Brexit looking glass. Long live the Confederacy of Dunces.
In Bozzaworld, Saturday’s vote on his Brexit deal never happened. Parliament didn’t sit, the Letwin amendment didn’t pass, the letter he sent to the EU asking for an extension didn’t get sent, and Spurs cruised to a comfortable 4-0 win against Watford. Crisis averted all round. So for Boris Johnson it seemed entirely plausible to unhappen the thing that definitely didn’t happen, even if it did happen.
Little more than 48 hours after having his big day out spoiled by a bunch of girly swots, who wanted time to go through dreary stuff such as legal text and impact assessments, the prime minister tried to bring back a meaningful vote on his deal so that he could then unsend the letter that he didn’t send. Though if he had sent it, which he definitely hadn’t, he would definitely have flicked V signs at it. Take that EU. And then he could undie himself from the ditch he had said he would die in if the UK didn’t leave the EU by 31 October, by bringing no deal back into play.
Entirely predictably, John Bercow chose to see things definitely. He distinctly remembered the details of Johnson’s “Lost Weekend” and wasn’t planning on wasting parliament’s time by letting the government go through the motions all over again. Just as predictably, the Speaker took a huge amount of pleasure in telling the government it was taking the piss and devoted the best part of 40 minutes to his own self-congratulation. Even when he’s doing the right thing by sticking up for parliament, his amour propre doesn’t leave much room for anyone else’s amour. Bercow is going to really miss himself when he’s gone.
“I have considered both the substance and the circumstances of the request,” Bercow said gleefully. And on both counts the government had failed abjectly to meet the necessary criteria.
Cue howls of rage from the Tory benches via interminable points of order. It was almost as though the government had only wasted everyone’s time in order to feed a narrative of the people versus parliament. Peter Bone got the ball rolling by suggesting there had been substantive changes. The Letwin amendment had only been tabled because no one had trusted the prime minister to abide by the law and send the extension letter. So now that the Incredible Sulk had gaslighted the nation by appearing to be trustworthy, surely all bets on Saturday’s debate should be off? We should be celebrating the fact that we have a man in Boris who can’t even be trusted to be reliably untrustworthy.
Man of the people Sir Bernard Jenkin – that elevation to the Lords is proving annoyingly elusive – just wanted to have a sulk of his own. The Speaker had it in for Brexiters, he insisted. A fair Speaker would have been unfair by allowing the government to break any rules in pursuit of a glorious future where everything was a bit more authentically British and tulip.
David TC Davies also cried bias. But as he is right up there with Chris Grayling as one of the dimmest people in parliament – even the sheep in his Welsh constituency have a higher IQ – not even his fellow Tories paid attention.
Next up was Stephen Barclay, to answer an urgent question from Jeremy Corbyn. The last week has not been kind to the Brexit secretary as it has given him endless opportunities to show off his mediocrity. Earlier in the day, he had committed a scientific faux pas by telling a Lords committee that frictionless trade would contain some friction – he still hasn’t quite grasped the principle that customs declarations forms can’t be filled in with friction-free pencils – and now he was forced to deputise for the prime minister.
Barclay ended by saying there was no need for any economic impact assessments because you couldn’t put a price on people’s democratic right to lose their jobs. Just so long as it didn’t interfere with his democratic right to keep his job by not telling the truth. Not for the first time, we were several miles the other side of the Brexit looking glass. Long live the Confederacy of Dunces.
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