Tag: Boris Johnson

Googling Boris

Google turned 21 the other day. According to a Google search, Boris Johnson is 55.

Is Boris Johnson really trying to game Google search results?
One theory is that Johnson is trying to downplay negative news coverage of events by seeding news stories into Google search results by using similar phrases and key terms that are more positive. For instance – the hypothesis goes – by saying he was the “model of restraint”, Johnson was attempting to divert attention from stories detailing his alleged affair with former model Jennifer Arcuri, which became less visible in search results for “Boris Johnson model”.

His speech in front of the police was meant to distract from reports that the police were called to the flat he shared with girlfriend Carrie Symonds following an alleged domestic dispute, while the kipper incident was meant to downplay connections with UKIP (whose supporters are called kippers). The claim about painting buses, finally, was supposedly intended to reframe search results about the contentious claim that the UK sends £350 million to Europe branded on the side of the Brexit campaign bus.

“It’s a really simple way of thinking about it, but at the end of the day it’s what a lot of SEO experts want to achieve,” says Jess Melia of Parallax, a Leeds-based company that identified the theory with Johnson’s claim to paint model buses.

But, as that article from Parallax goes on to explain, this could all be coincidental nonsense.

Boris Johnson: the unlikely SEO strategist
And yet, all that being said, perhaps we’re giving him too much credit here. Maybe, when questioned, he was merely grasping for something other than “running through a field of wheat”. Or maybe he was simply staring out of the window and saw a bus go past. Or perhaps he really does enjoy making model buses out of crates.

Complete and utter genius, or an accidental fluke? Whatever you think, it’s certainly made one thing happen for Boris – we’re all talking about him. Again.

Damn. Now I am, too.

A brief moment of clarity

In all the muddle and obfuscation swirling around the Brexit miasma, the judgment of the supreme court on the legality of Boris Johnson’s prorogation provided welcome evidence of intelligence and crystal-clear language.

From the full judgment:

JUDGMENT R (on the application of Miller) (Appellant) v The Prime Minister  Respondent) Cherry and others (Respondents) v Advocate General for Scotland (Appellant) (Scotland)
55. Let us remind ourselves of the foundations of our constitution. We live in a representative democracy. The House of Commons exists because the people have elected its members. The Government is not directly elected by the people (unlike the position in some other democracies). The Government exists because it has the confidence of the House of Commons. It has no democratic legitimacy other than that. This means that it is accountable to the House of Commons – and indeed to the House of Lords – for its actions, remembering always that the actual task of governing is for the executive and not for Parliament or the courts. The first question, therefore, is whether the Prime Minister’s action had the effect of frustrating or preventing the constitutional role of Parliament in holding the Government to account.

56. The answer is that of course it did.

Loving that ‘of course’.

61. It is impossible for us to conclude, on the evidence which has been put before us, that there was any reason – let alone a good reason – to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament for five weeks, from 9th or 12th September until 14th October. We cannot speculate, in the absence of further evidence, upon what such reasons might have been. It follows that the decision was unlawful.

And from the summary:

R (on the application of Miller) (Appellant) v The Prime Minister (Respondent) Cherry and others (Respondents) v Advocate General for Scotland (Appellant) (Scotland)
This Court has already concluded that the Prime Minister’s advice to Her Majesty was unlawful, void and of no effect. … The prorogation was also void and of no effect. Parliament has not been prorogued. This is the unanimous judgment of all 11 Justices.

A day without Brexit news? Nope.

I thought I had found some interesting news about the government today.

No 10 request for user data from government website sparks alarm
While officials insist the move to share user data from the Gov.uk website is simply intended to improve the service and that no personal details are collected, campaigners raised concern about the urgency of the task, and the personal involvement of Boris Johnson and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings.

But then something else caught my eye.

Brexit: Scottish judges rule Parliament suspension is unlawful
[T]he Court of Session judges were unanimous in finding that Mr Johnson was motivated by the “improper purpose of stymieing Parliament”, and he had effectively misled the Queen in advising her to suspend Parliament.

Scottish judges decide Boris Johnson misled the Queen
In effect, though not in express terms, the Scottish court has held that Mr Johnson lied to the Queen. Not only was the advice false, but it was known by the prime minister to be false. Mr Johnson acted in bad faith.

‘This is a huge thing’: Labour Brexit chief Keir Starmer reacts to parliament suspension being ruled unlawful after being told of news while live on stage
He told delegates: “It was obvious to everybody that not only was shutting down parliament at this crucial time obviously, the wrong thing to do, we should be sitting each and every day to resolve this crisis.

Brexit latest news: Downing Street criticised for calling into question impartiality of Scottish judges

I wonder if this turn of events has been considered in these already mind-boggling charts.

These Brexit flowcharts show just how messy UK politics is
Overall, these Brexit charts range from professional-looking diagrams by media outlets and commentators, to, in some cases, non-linear cosmoses that move in a mystifying range of directions.

But for most of us, I think, this is all starting to get a little tedious.

Brexit: how the people are using ‘news avoidance’ to escape the post-truth world of politics
The term “news avoidance” suggests that these people are avoiding reality. The underlying principle of public journalism is that readers are also citizens whose actions in the real world are based on the reality they have come to know from the news. While acknowledging that this “reality” is put together by journalists, in line with the Frankfurt School’s concept of the “culture industry”, many academics accept that “not to know” is to retire from reality.

Yet this way of thinking about journalism and its role in society fails to address the recent experience of Harris’ interviewees and millions more. For them, journos and politicos have combined to produce the “unreal”, distant world of the “Westminster Village”, a world that many ordinary people feel disconnected from, the “post-truth” world. Seen from this perspective, avoiding the news may be an attempt to escape the unreality concocted exclusively by residents of that gated community.

Please leave. All of you.

The weather’s decidedly autumnal, but the political atmosphere got a little hotter up here yesterday.

Boris Johnson politely told by man to ‘please leave my town’ in viral exchange during PM’s Yorkshire visit
The Prime Minister was setting the scene for a “people versus Parliament” election strategy during a visit to Leeds, where he was confronted on Thursday. In footage captured by the BBC, Mr Johnson was seen shaking hands with the member of the public before the PM was simply told: “please leave my town”. Mr Johnson promptly replied: “I will very soon”.

#PleaseLeaveMyTown: Johnson’s Yorkshire walkabout goes awry
On the same day, he was castigated by another member of the public, who was not appeased by the PM’s assurances that his government is seeking a deal. “You should be in Brussels, negotiating,” the man told him. Johnson replied that the government has “been negotiating” but the man, undeterred, shot back: “You are not. You are in Morley, in Leeds.”

This headline from RT feels made up, but no, he actually said that.

Johnson says he’d rather be ‘dead in a ditch’ than ask EU for Brexit delay
It was not immediately clear how Johnson plans to deliver on his bold promise, given the string of defeats he has suffered, which resulted in the loss of the parliament majority and the adoption of a bill that actually obliges him to go and seek a new three-month extension to prolong the Brexit process.

At least there’s something good on the telly these days.

BBC Parliament: the ratings hit that’s Big Brother meets 24 – with added Bercow
True, there’s more than a whiff of disaster capitalism about BBC Parliament’s success – you can bet your bottom dollar that the figures would be much lower if the country hadn’t become a perpetual bin fire – but that isn’t to say that it isn’t extraordinarily entertaining.

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s slouch: how it compares to art’s great recliners
From Modigliani’s voluptuous nudes to Henry Moore’s laidback bronzes, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s now notorious slouch joins a long tradition of horizontal posing.

Great, now look what you’ve done

Who gave this clown the keys?

Artists fearful about the future under new UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson
“When Boris Johnson campaigned to become mayor of London first time, one of his pledges involved cutting budgets for art projects like the Fourth Plinth; that was until he realised that culture for London was actually a good [thing]. Typically, he had strong opinions about subject matters he didn’t have any clue about, and then later he had to change his mind when he was finally confronted with the facts. However, that didn’t really make him interested in the arts,” Elmgreen adds.

It’s still 1984, and always will be

It’s 2019, but are we any further on?

Nothing but the truth: the legacy of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four
Orwell was both too pessimistic and not pessimistic enough. On the one hand, the west did not succumb to totalitarianism. Consumerism, not endless war, became the engine of the global economy. But he did not appreciate the tenacity of racism and religious extremism. Nor did he foresee that the common man and woman would embrace doublethink as enthusiastically as the intellectuals and, without the need for terror or torture, would choose to believe that two plus two was whatever they wanted it to be.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is about many things and its readers’ concerns dictate which one is paramount at any point in history. During the cold war, it was a book about totalitarianism. In the 1980s, it became a warning about technology. Today, it is most of all a defence of truth.

Speaking of liars.

Boris Johnson may be the UK’s next Prime Minister, but he’s up on criminal charges for Brexit “Battle Bus” lies
Ball’s complaint claims that Johnson knew that his NHS promises were lies, and as evidence, cites instances in which Johnson used accurate figures. The complain calls for a criminal sanction as remedy for these lies, because “lying on a national and international platform undermines public confidence in politics.”

There will be preliminary hearings tomorrow, and then one of four things may happen: Johnson may appeal, the Criminal Prosecution Service may allow Ball to continue with his own private proceedings, or the CPS may take over the proceedings, or they may shut them down on the basis that the prosecution is not in the public interest.

George Orwell jumped ahead 36 years. With his new TV series, Years and Years, Russell T. Davies only leaps from five to 15 years ahead, but his vision of the future feels likelier and far scarier as a result. Why do we, the audience, keep doing this to ourselves?

From Years and Years to Bird Box: why we turn to dystopian dramas in a crisis
Right now, it’s hard to think of a more prescient film than the 2006 thriller Children of Men with its depiction of environmental catastrophe and xenophobia; call me naive but not in a million years did I think we’d get so close to Alfonso Cuarón’s vision. Great art is supposed to reflect life, or so we are told. For me, the power of Years and Years lies not in its moments of high drama but in its more subtle drawing of the growing tensions between families, generations and cultures, and the line the series draws between now and the years to come. The future is here on TV, but the question is: have we got the stomach for it?

Years & Years (2019): Official Trailer