The Lemon Fool

"Let us suppose you are losing an argument. The facts are overwhelmingly against you, and the more people focus on the reality the worse it is for you and your case. Your best bet in these circumstances is to perform a manoeuvre that a great campaigner describes as “throwing a dead cat on the table, mate”.

That is because there is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table – and I don’t mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout “Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!”; in other words they will be talking about the dead cat, the thing you want them to talk about, and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief."

Boris Johnson, March 2013

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... ction.html

Scott.

When I learned to play Go, one of the basic lessons is that every move should serve at least two purposes.

Now we have another, rather more bizarre, thing to think about when buses enter political discourse.

Paint this bus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmaIsE2nLZk

AiY

swill453 wrote:"Let us suppose you are losing an argument. The facts are overwhelmingly against you, and the more people focus on the reality the worse it is for you and your case. Your best bet in these circumstances is to perform a manoeuvre that a great campaigner describes as “throwing a dead cat on the table, mate”.

That is because there is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table – and I don’t mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout “Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!”; in other words they will be talking about the dead cat, the thing you want them to talk about, and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief."

Boris Johnson, March 2013

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... ction.html

Scott.

Article finishes "But as any campaign strategist will tell you, it won’t work for long."

I was speaking with a bus driver the other day. He told me that to relax after a hard day at work he likes to make detailed brexit plans.

paullidd wrote:I was speaking with a bus driver the other day. He told me that to relax after a hard day at work he likes to make detailed brexit plans.

You've been looking at Matt's cartoon in the Telegraph today:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/0 ... n-june-27/

Sadly behind the paywall.

TJH

tjh290633 wrote:paullidd wrote:I was speaking with a bus driver the other day. He told me that to relax after a hard day at work he likes to make detailed brexit plans.You've been looking at Matt's cartoon in the Telegraph today:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/0 ... n-june-27/Sadly behind the paywall.

Let me google that for you
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=teleg ... u3775bqzVM:

The Last Leg on Channel 4 last Friday developed the "Dead Cat" logic a little further.

After this impromptu chat by Boris about painting busses the Google search algorithm has been disrupted.

Now, if you search Boris and Bus you get this non-story rather than the Brexit Millions to the NHS bus slogan photos.

I'll adjust my tinfoil hat and crawl back under my rock.