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The news story that really made me believe that the bumbling fool shtick is real and not just an act was when he went to a buddhist temple in Myanmar and starte

The news story that really made me believe that the bumbling fool shtick is real and not just an act was when he went to a buddhist temple in Myanmar and started reciting a colonial-era Kipling poem about a British soldier reminiscing about a Burmese girl that he kissed - until the ambassador intervened and told him it wasn't appropriate. If he understood the context of the poem (a lack of sensitivity to the three wars the British fought to suppress Burmese independence) then he would've never recited the poem. But he is a 'well-trained idiot' - he's had an English classical education, so he knows Kipling, but he doesn't understand what it actually _means_ ('oh yeah, I totally was going to shag a girl when we were fighting in Burma') or how it would come across to someone who wasn't also from a classically trained English background. So I think he is a clueless bumbling idiot. He, and Jacobs Rees-Moggs, are the British equivalent of a Texan politician who wears a cowboy hat and talks about their guns all the time. The story is available here - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/30/boris-johnson-caught-on-camera-reciting-kipling-in-myanmar-temple https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/30/boris-johns...

fiala__ 7y ago
"A Well-trained Idiot" describes the British Etonian elite so concisely I think it should become a technical term. Well done.
- verbify 7y ago
  I've borrowed it from someone else (who was actually educated in Oxford, but not Eton), wish it were my own though.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    For centuries a posh accent and certainty was enough for the class that ruled the UK. One thing Brexit has successfully done is illustrate to all sides just how mediocre our leadership actually is. Mediocre leaders are fine when the ship is sailing in calm waters to a known destination. At the moment it feels like half of them want to steer into the iceberg and the other half want to abandon ship, with a few lone voices pointing out we could have just turned to port and swerved it.
    - all2 7y ago
      It'll take an existential threat (war?) to sort the wheat from the chaff. Typically the best and brightest of a country trickle to the top when duty finally calls. Though, there are opportunists. Like Mao. Or Hitler.
drcongo 7y ago
> If he understood the context of the poem (a lack of sensitivity to the three wars the British fought to suppress Burmese independence) then he would've never recited the poem. That's exactly why he did it. He's a nasty, vindictive, racist colonialist.
- verbify 7y ago
  I'm not saying he's not racist/colonialist. You only have to read his article about 'flag-waving piccaninnies... tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief...' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3571742/If-Blairs-so-good-at-running-the-Congo-let-him-stay-there.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3571742/If.... Or his argument that Obama hated the UK because he was Kenyan and had an 'ancestral dislike of the British empire'. Or any of the other dozens examples. I'm just saying that if he's as smart as people claim, if the whole bumbling idiot is a calculated act, then there's not much to benefit from idiotically reciting that poem, it's not like there's some vast constituency in the British public who love The Road to Mandalay. It's an obscure reference, most British people have never heard of the poem... He seemed genuinely surprised that he shouldn't recite the poem. I think the bumbling idiot thing is genuine. That doesn't also exclude him from being a nasty vindictive racist colonialist.
  - dajomu 7y ago
    Isn't it much the same thing as Trump saying something racist that he can kind of get away with? Johnson can say it, incite some anger in people who won't vote for him anyway, get his name on the news again and appeal to his base. Many of his supporters are the kinds of people that want to "Make Britain Great Again". There isn't a vast constituency in Britain who love the poem, but there is a vast constituency who are mildly racist and look back to the "good old days".
    - ridewinter 7y ago
      Yes, Churchill said plenty of stuff that was racist/misogamist even back in those days. Bojo models himself after him. Btw I'm a big Churchill fan in spite of all that. The flawed hero.
pjc50 7y ago
But offending the locals doesn't matter to him. He's playing to the British right-wing audience, who then get to complain about "political correctness". > British equivalent of a Texan politician who wears a cowboy hat and talks about their guns all the time. Exactly. Pander to the prejudices of your voters.
pytester 7y ago
Precisely. The Boris Johnson who is acting off the cuff - reciting the myanmar poem or acting like a moron in portugal - is the real Boris Johnson. The Boris Johnson who uses "SEO tactics" has been programmed by advisors. Portugal: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-bbc-inside-foreign-office-documentary-watch-video-caroline-wilson-a8655511.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson...
hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
I always assumed that that was a dog whistle to that large part of British society that wants the empire back.
jdietrich 7y ago
"You can't rule out the possibility that beneath the elaborately-constructed veneer of a blithering idiot there lurks a blithering idiot" - Boris Johnson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoifaIEvC0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoifaIEvC0Q
gutta-percha 7y ago
This might change your mind: https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/my-boris-story/ https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/my-boris-story/
- verbify 7y ago
  I've read that story. I understand that his clownish behaviour is a performance - it's more the gaffes that I don't think are calculated.

fiala__ 7y ago

"A Well-trained Idiot" describes the British Etonian elite so concisely I think it should become a technical term. Well done.

verbify 7y ago
I've borrowed it from someone else (who was actually educated in Oxford, but not Eton), wish it were my own though.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  For centuries a posh accent and certainty was enough for the class that ruled the UK. One thing Brexit has successfully done is illustrate to all sides just how mediocre our leadership actually is. Mediocre leaders are fine when the ship is sailing in calm waters to a known destination. At the moment it feels like half of them want to steer into the iceberg and the other half want to abandon ship, with a few lone voices pointing out we could have just turned to port and swerved it.
  - all2 7y ago
    It'll take an existential threat (war?) to sort the wheat from the chaff. Typically the best and brightest of a country trickle to the top when duty finally calls. Though, there are opportunists. Like Mao. Or Hitler.

drcongo 7y ago

> If he understood the context of the poem (a lack of sensitivity to the three wars the British fought to suppress Burmese independence) then he would've never recited the poem. That's exactly why he did it. He's a nasty, vindictive, racist colonialist.

verbify 7y ago
I'm not saying he's not racist/colonialist. You only have to read his article about 'flag-waving piccaninnies... tribal warriors will all break out in watermelon smiles to see the big white chief...' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3571742/If-Blairs-so-good-at-running-the-Congo-let-him-stay-there.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3571742/If.... Or his argument that Obama hated the UK because he was Kenyan and had an 'ancestral dislike of the British empire'. Or any of the other dozens examples. I'm just saying that if he's as smart as people claim, if the whole bumbling idiot is a calculated act, then there's not much to benefit from idiotically reciting that poem, it's not like there's some vast constituency in the British public who love The Road to Mandalay. It's an obscure reference, most British people have never heard of the poem... He seemed genuinely surprised that he shouldn't recite the poem. I think the bumbling idiot thing is genuine. That doesn't also exclude him from being a nasty vindictive racist colonialist.
- dajomu 7y ago
  Isn't it much the same thing as Trump saying something racist that he can kind of get away with? Johnson can say it, incite some anger in people who won't vote for him anyway, get his name on the news again and appeal to his base. Many of his supporters are the kinds of people that want to "Make Britain Great Again". There isn't a vast constituency in Britain who love the poem, but there is a vast constituency who are mildly racist and look back to the "good old days".
  - ridewinter 7y ago
    Yes, Churchill said plenty of stuff that was racist/misogamist even back in those days. Bojo models himself after him. Btw I'm a big Churchill fan in spite of all that. The flawed hero.

pjc50 7y ago

But offending the locals doesn't matter to him. He's playing to the British right-wing audience, who then get to complain about "political correctness". > British equivalent of a Texan politician who wears a cowboy hat and talks about their guns all the time. Exactly. Pander to the prejudices of your voters.

pytester 7y ago

Precisely. The Boris Johnson who is acting off the cuff - reciting the myanmar poem or acting like a moron in portugal - is the real Boris Johnson. The Boris Johnson who uses "SEO tactics" has been programmed by advisors. Portugal: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-bbc-inside-foreign-office-documentary-watch-video-caroline-wilson-a8655511.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson...

hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago

I always assumed that that was a dog whistle to that large part of British society that wants the empire back.

jdietrich 7y ago

"You can't rule out the possibility that beneath the elaborately-constructed veneer of a blithering idiot there lurks a blithering idiot" - Boris Johnson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoifaIEvC0Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoifaIEvC0Q

gutta-percha 7y ago

This might change your mind: https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/my-boris-story/ https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/my-boris-story/

verbify 7y ago
I've read that story. I understand that his clownish behaviour is a performance - it's more the gaffes that I don't think are calculated.