{"id":177496,"date":"2019-09-05T18:36:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T23:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/09\/05\/churchill-on-steroids\/"},"modified":"2019-09-05T18:36:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T23:36:00","slug":"churchill-on-steroids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/09\/05\/churchill-on-steroids\/","title":{"rendered":"Churchill on Steroids"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>I&#8217;ve always felt that Winston Churchill was overrated.<\/div>\n<p>His life was a string of failures, and he inexplicably failed up.  (His mismanagement of the Norway campaign led to his becoming Prime Minister, &amp; Gallipoli, for example)<\/p>\n<p>Boris Johnson sees himself to be a politician in the tradition of Churchill, and I&#8217;m inclined to agree.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fired for making sh%$ up at the <i>Times of London<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>A long history of racist statements.<\/li>\n<li>Fired as shadow arts minister for lying about an affair.<\/li>\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2019\/jul\/16\/stuck-zip-wire-boris-johnson-london-2012-olympics\">zip-line incident<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And now we have a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/uk-politics-49594793\">a senior party member quitting as MP and business minister<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>By Boris standards, this will normally not amount to a blip, only said MP and business minister is one Jo Johnson, Boris&#8217; little brother:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Jo Johnson, the younger brother of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is resigning as an MP and minister, saying he is &#8220;torn between family loyalty and the national interest&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The business minister and Tory MP for Orpington, south-east London, cited an &#8220;unresolvable tension&#8221; in his role.<\/p>\n<p>BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said it was &#8220;unbelievable timing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Johnson voted Remain in the 2016 EU membership referendum, while his brother co-led the Leave campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Johnson&#8217;s resignation follows the removal of the Tory whip from 21 MPs this week for supporting moves to prevent a no-deal Brexit.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Jo Johnson&#8217;s resignation also comes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-49591630\">as the government announced<\/a> it would give MPs another chance to vote for an early election on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>A Downing Street spokesman said: &#8220;The PM, as both a politician and brother, understands this will not have been an easy matter for Jo. The constituents of Orpington could not have asked for a better representative.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Former cabinet minister David Gauke, one of the MPs who lost the Conservative whip, tweeted: &#8220;Lots of MPs have had to wrestle with conflicting loyalties in recent weeks. None more so than Jo. This is a big loss to Parliament, the government and the Conservative Party.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Labour&#8217;s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said: &#8220;Boris Johnson poses such a threat that even his own brother doesn&#8217;t trust him.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is truly Churchillian, and not in a good way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve always felt that Winston Churchill was overrated. His life was a string of failures, and he inexplicably failed up. (His mismanagement of the Norway campaign led to his becoming Prime Minister, &amp; Gallipoli, for example) Boris Johnson sees himself to be a politician in the tradition of Churchill, and I&#8217;m inclined to agree. Fired &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[627,588,374,406,570,403],"class_list":["post-177496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-brexit","tag-fail","tag-politics","tag-stupid","tag-uk","tag-wanker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}