BoJo

[gryffron]

It would be fun to do the same list for American presidents.

Easier in some ways as I was not so personally affected by them. My shot:

Just before Dubya was elected, I heard a US observer comment "He appoints competent people. And then leaves them to get on with it." IMO that proved to be absolutely true. And is a rare and laudable quality in a manager. So I'd move him up the list somewhat. Certainly higher than Obama, who despite being hero worshipped by the European media, actually achieved very little.

Gryff

[servodude]

Well at least you didn't think his hairstyle was rubbish. You should vote for him.

Seems you and Johnson think hairstyle is important. I don't.

It shouldn't be. But in the televisual age, I'm afraid it is.

Have we ever had a PM with a syrup?

V8

May's merkin notwithstanding? (I'm assuming from the ridiculous walk)

[stewamax]

Just before Dubya was elected, I heard a US observer comment "He appoints competent people. And then leaves them to get on with it." IMO that proved to be absolutely true. And is a rare and laudable quality in a manager.

Running a country may not be quite the same as running an army, but Wellington was the opposite, He gave precise written orders, and those of his immediate reports who didn’t follow them to the letter were given hell or sent home. And with Marlborough – who was a better politician – he was outstandingly competent.
Only perhaps at Waterloo was he prepared to delegate a little bit more, but this was because he had some handpicked old-stager generals that he knew he could trust.

Whether there is an optimum degree of delegation or decentralization is salient in business organization as well – q.v. decomplexity for example

[AsleepInYorkshire]

He's done reasonably well on Covid.

Umm..... 140,000 people from the UK would strongly disagree with you on that, if they were able to.

Well I can't argue with that one . I think BJ was slow out of the blocks. I suspect he knew that once he closed us down the meter would be running and the costs would be huge. A difficult decision to make, for anyone, in my opinion. On the other hand 65,000,000 people have survived and we have lead the way with vaccinations. And I'm happy to give BJ some of the credit for that.

AiY

[dionaeamuscipula]

...plus the opinions of Max Hastings and Rory Stewart.

You'll have to "unpack that", as they say.

Max Hastings:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ty-britain

(and several others, Hastings *really* dislikes Johnson)

Rory Stewart:

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit ... on-6062590

DM

[XFool]

...plus the opinions of Max Hastings and Rory Stewart.

You'll have to "unpack that", as they say.

Max Hastings:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ty-britain

(and several others, Hastings *really* dislikes Johnson)

Rory Stewart:

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit ... on-6062590

Thanks for that.

In relation to Rory Stewart's comments, it did rather align with a long term fear of mine over public attitudes to politicians. That is the automatic, universally expressed loathing and distrust in politicians; so predictable and similar in form, from anybody and everybody ever asked, that it feels almost sinister in its unthinking, mechanical, robotic quality. I have long thought that, if the population hold to this thinking over time - they have - it cannot fail, eventually, to become an actual fact of practised political life.

Looking at the USA and perhaps the UK too, I guess we have now arrived.

[didds]

I suspect for many people BJ's main attribute is that he is not Corbyn. So if he achieves nothing it will still be perceived by some to be a better outcome than the alternative.

FTFY

I have no dog in this fight FTR

[bluedonkey]

Just before Dubya was elected, I heard a US observer comment "He appoints competent people. And then leaves them to get on with it." IMO that proved to be absolutely true. And is a rare and laudable quality in a manager.

Running a country may not be quite the same as running an army, but Wellington was the opposite, He gave precise written orders, and those of his immediate reports who didn’t follow them to the letter were given hell or sent home. And with Marlborough – who was a better politician – he was outstandingly competent.
Only perhaps at Waterloo was he prepared to delegate a little bit more, but this was because he had some handpicked old-stager generals that he knew he could trust.

Whether there is an optimum degree of delegation or decentralization is salient in business organization as well – q.v. decomplexity for example

I enjoyed your history references.

Wellington as PM apparently complained that after giving his instructions to the Cabinet, they wouldn't leave and get on with it but hang around wanting to query the "orders". As general he complained that controlling the cavalry was impossible once they had set off on a charge.

Both Trump and Johnson have the flaw that they rarely appoint on the basis of anything approaching merit or competence (Bingham being an exception).

Various posters have tried to summarise Johnson. Perhaps a simple way to do this is to think of him as exactly like Trump on the inside. The outside is a mask.

The banal reality I think is that the majority of voters, unlike posters here, do not give much thought to the "Johnson question", but judge in a vague way whether he will deliver what they want. Character hardly counts at all in that calculation. He will eventually come unstuck, he is too chaotic and disregarding of laws.

[Lootman]

It would be fun to do the same list for American presidents.

Easier in some ways as I was not so personally affected by them. My shot:

Just before Dubya was elected, I heard a US observer comment "He appoints competent people. And then leaves them to get on with it." IMO that proved to be absolutely true. And is a rare and laudable quality in a manager. So I'd move him up the list somewhat. Certainly higher than Obama, who despite being hero worshipped by the European media, actually achieved very little.

Fair comment. The criticism of Obama that he did not achieve much legislatively is one that can also be levelled at Clinton, whose only major new law that he got passed, as I recall, was some kind of family leave act. With Obama it was just the much-diluted ObamaCare and little else.

Both had to deal with hostile Congresses for most of their two terms of course. But then Dubya passed quite a lot of laws, often with Democrat support, which does indicate a level of competence he often is not given credit for.

[GoSeigen]

It would be fun to do the same list for American presidents.

Easier in some ways as I was not so personally affected by them. My shot:

Just before Dubya was elected, I heard a US observer comment "He appoints competent people. And then leaves them to get on with it." IMO that proved to be absolutely true. And is a rare and laudable quality in a manager. So I'd move him up the list somewhat. Certainly higher than Obama, who despite being hero worshipped by the European media, actually achieved very little.

Gryff

Funny how quickly some people forget about "bipartisanship"**. If he achieved little, guess who held him back?

Obama also had a hell of an economic crisis to deal with and approached it far better than the UK coalition/tories. S&P trebled from 2009 lows to 2016. FTSE up just 85% same period.


GS
(**)Yes he shouldn't have bothered with bipartisanship I know...
Also, LOL, you would not think he did nothing if you counted all the Obama achievements Trump gleefully reversed during his 4 years!!!

[Dod101]

He will eventually come unstuck, he is too chaotic and disregarding of laws.

All politicians come unstuck or as Enoch Powell said 'All political lives end in failure' so there is nothing peculiar to Boris in that comment.

Dod

[bluedonkey]

He will eventually come unstuck, he is too chaotic and disregarding of laws.

All politicians come unstuck or as Enoch Powell said 'All political lives end in failure' so there is nothing peculiar to Boris in that comment.

Dod

I mean unstuck by his own doing rather than "events", though I'm certainly not saying this aspect of Johnson is unique to him.

[Dod101]

He will eventually come unstuck, he is too chaotic and disregarding of laws.

All politicians come unstuck or as Enoch Powell said 'All political lives end in failure' so there is nothing peculiar to Boris in that comment.

Dod

I mean unstuck by his own doing rather than "events", though I'm certainly not saying this aspect of Johnson is unique to him.

In that case I doubt it because he has that great knack of being able to slip out of the apparently most difficult situations. He is a consummate politician whatever else he may be.

Dod

[Arborbridge]

Well at least you didn't think his hairstyle was rubbish. You should vote for him.

Seems you and Johnson think hairstyle is important. I don't.

Scott.

Whatever happened to your sense of humour?

[Arborbridge]

I think a lot of that is studied indifference. I am not saying I would trust him but that is different from being an effective politician.

Kate Bingham had of course a very discreet and relatively straightforward task unlike almost everything else to do with the pandemic but she certainly did a very effective job. As we have said before Ministers on the other hand are more or less picked off the street and appointed say Health Secretary and so on. No previous experience required.

Dod

It sounds like you are damning Kate Bingham with faint praise, hopefully not because she is a woman

I think the point is that Boris is the buffoon in charge and couldn't have achieved anything without some really serious people, both technical and administrative behind him, who actually made things happen - and that included competent people such as Kate Bingham.
Boris could have slowed things down and got in the way, that's true, but merely waving people on in his rather bumbling and diffident way to do their jobs is hardly an epic contribution.

Arb.

[Dod101]

I have no intention whatever to damn Kate Bingham with faint praise or anything else. Of course she did a great job and my opinion has nothing whatever to do with her sex.

However, as I said, she had a discreet technical job with easy, measurable outcomes and she came out with flying colours, but Boris and his ministers have almost the exact opposite tasks before them. Everything is a judgement in an untried environment. It is a bit like comparing a mathematician or an engineer with a medievalist historian or maybe a clergyman. I am sorry if you cannot see that.

Dod

[tjh290633]

Well at least you didn't think his hairstyle was rubbish. You should vote for him.

Seems you and Johnson think hairstyle is important. I don't.

Scott.

Whatever happened to your sense of humour?

There was a classic moment on the News Quiz, when one of the comedians (the one with unruly hair) said that he had run into Boris at the hairdressers.

TJH

[Arborbridge]

I have no intention whatever to damn Kate Bingham with faint praise or anything else. Of course she did a great job and my opinion has nothing whatever to do with her sex.

However, as I said, she had a discreet technical job with easy, measurable outcomes and she came out with flying colours, but Boris and his ministers have almost the exact opposite tasks before them. Everything is a judgement in an untried environment. It is a bit like comparing a mathematician or an engineer with a medievalist historian or maybe a clergyman. I am sorry if you cannot see that.

Dod

We can agree that all decisions made have to have political judgement at their heart. I just don't believe that Bojo is or was particularly good at it, though he has been very good a advancing his own career by blowing with the wind.

I would refer you to some of his faults as listed in this thread, and reassert that I believe the man is a cad unfitted to be our PM. I'm not alone in this: almost none of the Tory top rank came out to support him as leader first time round, and some said "over my dead body" or words to that effect. They later had to rationalise why they voted for him: what a bunch of charlatans!
Matthew Paris may have been wrong, but he was wrong for the right reasons.

Arb.

[Arborbridge]

Seems you and Johnson think hairstyle is important. I don't.

Scott.

Whatever happened to your sense of humour?

There was a classic moment on the News Quiz, when one of the comedians (the one with unruly hair) said that he had run into Boris at the hairdressers.

TJH

That was a memorable News Quiz: how lovely to see Boris squirming with embarassment.

BTW, I think Bouleversee it was, who wondered why women find him attractive: I think one answer is this boyish bumbling, dishevelled appearance, might appeal to the instinct to look after someone. The money might help too - as with the other classic, the question on Mrs Merton to Debbie McGee "And what was it that first attracted you to Paul Daniels?".

Arb.

[1nvest]

Clearly the reds out to critique BJ when in return offering up the likes of Corbyn, Diane Abbot and SKS as being the so much better alternatives.

Not a fan of BJ myself, but at least he gets things done rather than just throwing spanners in the works, running the UK down or critiquing how others did things wrong.