The Sceptics’ Case For Boris

2 min read

We’re publishing an original article today by an academic economist writing under the name of John William O’Sullivan setting out the case for the defence of the Prime Minister. Inevitably, it begins with a bit of throat clearing in which the author shares his reservations about Boris.

I am as hardcore a lockdown sceptic as they come. I was early to the game, and I question quite literally everything about the Government response – from face masks to lockdowns to vaccines. Nor am I fan of Boris. I am pro-Brexit, but I suspected that Boris was probably more clown than effective leader – more Beppe Grillo than Winston Churchill.

When he was nominated, I had concerns not just about his public persona, but about his private life. I know that this is unfashionable in Britain, but it should not be. In our professional lives we all know that if someone’s private life is a car crash, this is usually reflected in their professional competencies. Based on this simple and obvious wisdom, the taboo in Britain about questioning public officials based on their private lives – which, so far as I can tell, is purely a post-Profumo phenomenon – should be re-examined. It seems to me that the refurbishment scandal hanging over Boris and his newly minted wife confirms this impression.

But having got that out of the way, he then comes to the nub of the argument.

So, why would I defend old Boris? For the simple reason that the revelations that have come from Dominic Cummings speak volumes. Prior to these revelations I bought into the predominant narrative: that Boris had been a sceptic but then he was hospitalised for COVID-19 and the experience left him lobotomised and compliant. But this view is no longer tenable.

Cummings’ accusations are credible because they come from a hostile source. Everything that he pumps into the media ecosystem is designed to harm Boris. These accusations have been confirmed by others involved. They meet, as the ancient historians say, the flipside of the ‘criteria of embarrassment’.

Yet the accusations paint a picture of a committed sceptic and social libertarian fighting against a mob of technocrats. Cummings, himself being a mediocre technocrat, cannot see that his accusations play in Boris’s favour – but they do. Boris’s Cabinet – a hot mess of career Tories, stuffed shirts, and closet authoritarians – appear to have bullied him into becoming the ‘lockdown-zealot Boris’ that we have all come to know and hate.

Worth reading in full.

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220 Comments
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bagpusskitty
bagpusskitty
5 years ago

pig dictator

PIG.jpg
Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
5 years ago

Next from John William O’Sullivan:

The case for Cristiano Ronaldo never scoring any goals.

The case for Mike Tyson never punching anybody.

The case for Roger Federer never winning at tennis.

The case for Christina Hendricks being an ironing board.

Hester
Hester
5 years ago

I don’t doubt the analysis, however the man is head of the organisation and he gets to decide who is in the cabinet and who isn’t, so bullying doesn’t really make for a sound excuse because he has the power to sack. Johnson is all the things and more said above, however it provides no comfort to the population who have to live under this tyrants psychotic rule

Susan
Susan
5 years ago

I too would find a pseudonym if I were to write in defense of this wrecking ball.

imp66
imp66
5 years ago

There can be NO defence for Bozo! Buffoon? Maybe. Libertarian? FU*K OFF!! Nuremberg 2 can’t come soon enough. The P.M. has to be at the front of the queue for the firing squad.

Iain McCausland
Iain McCausland
5 years ago

Have people forgotten the first thing Johnson did after being elected PM was to prorogue Parliament?

Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
5 years ago

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has imposed three lockdowns, accompanied by communist propaganda.

That one sentence destroys the entire claim.

I am Spartacas
I am Spartacas
5 years ago

Johnson runs this country like a third world African dictatorship – he is a like a white version of Idi Amin.

Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
5 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

He is Kim Jong Johnson

tom171uk
tom171uk
5 years ago

I judge people on what they actually do rather than what they. The self-proclaimed libertarian has robbed us of self-determination, forced us to wear demeaning masks for absolutely no benefit to anybody, sidelined parliament, damaged personal relationships and mental health and all the rest of it. He is the Prime Minister and the buck stops with him.

Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
5 years ago
Reply to  tom171uk

Correct

ellie-em
ellie-em
5 years ago

What a load of c**p. Johnson knows full well what he is doing.

crisisgarden
crisisgarden
5 years ago

Naive and silly. It seems to me that Dominic Cummings has been allowed to give public testimony because his performance reinforces the idea that there is or ever was a pandemic. Nothing more. He was propping up the lie at a time when it needed to be reinforced i.e. when the pandemic is not visible to even the most gullible acolytes.

Noumenon
Noumenon
5 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

His job was to set up the spectacle of opposition. That “opposition” happens to be pro-lockdown and pro-vaccine.

crisisgarden
crisisgarden
5 years ago
Reply to  Noumenon

Agree. They’ve all clearly been offered a seat at the table, and it’s our job to make sure they end up in prison.

Bill Grates
Bill Grates
5 years ago

People need to understand this story and most of the others with hancock cummings and fatso are all part of the diversion.

We are being comprehensively lied to over and over, and as they get more confident the fictional stories become more entrenched and easier to expand.

You need to FINALLY UNDERSTAND this isn’t about national politics.

This is about the construction of a totally new world order based around communitarianism.

Sounds nice and friendly doesn’t it ? Well I have some bad news .
It’s communism rebranded combined with population control via digital mechanisms and forced conformity and eugenics.

Life isn’t going back to normal , it’s going to get much worse. Forget about the sham government .

Resist the Agenda forget about the fat idiot and the political circus. We have the politicians we have because they are selected for us to choose from.

Wake Up and stop being so naive,

Garfy1967
Garfy1967
5 years ago

Johnson. Gove. Hancock. Whitty. Valance.
Piano wire. Lampposts. Enough said.

Noumenon
Noumenon
5 years ago

Why would you place so much emphasis on focusing on private live. Private life publicity is just part of the ridiculous spectacle. As if his public life isn’t already bad enough.

dismalswamp
dismalswamp
5 years ago

There is NO case to support Boris. I don’t care if he is surrounded by, and being advised by fools. I don’t care if Woodentop Starmer is worse. I don’t care if his own personal experience destroyed his objective viewpoint. I don’t care if he doesn’t want to be seen as being callous by doing nothing (which would have been better than these fuckwitted actions). I don’t care what pressure the Fake News Media have put on him. Leaders lead, simple as. This man is not a leader. Whatever your thoughts on Thatcher, how do you think she would have acted? Not like this cretin, that is for sure.

Annie
Annie
5 years ago

Lazy, insincere, immoral, cowardly, ignorant and complaisant.
That’s my summary of his less detestable qualities.

Bill Grates
Bill Grates
5 years ago

Any sceptic who still supports this fat oaf and his panto routine isn’t a sceptic but a gullible fool

Skeptical_Stu
Skeptical_Stu
5 years ago

To be honest, I try not to go down any route that I cannot back-up. However, here is my intuition on the whole Cummings affair. A pantomime. Done for exactly the reasons you provide. Is he a hostile source, or a Boris loyalist? Acting out a role (which he is very capable of) to portray Boris just as you have done?

I normally wouldn’t go down that route, except for the sensational lunacy that has come out of No10 since this all began. He hasn’t followed the science. He ignores it all. if anyone was in a position to point out the lunacy of lockdowns, and the rest of it, it was Boris.

I am sorry, but I don’t buy the Cummings show. He played his part to legitimise criminal acts by the government on what is really just a bad flu strain. And the logical conclusion is that this vaccine will be opened for children, and then will be mandatory. All of what has happened so far suggests that this is where it goes..

Boris being a libertarian clown just doesn’t cut it. That’s exactly the thinking these Cummings ‘revelations’ were intended to generate.

Deborah T
Deborah T
5 years ago

If he really felt as the writer describes, why didn’t he sack Hancock and replace him with…Graham Brady or similar? Why didn’t he replace SAGE with Sunitra, Carl Heneghan et al? (There again, Boris, THERE’S STILL TIME!) I wish I could buy this view of Boris, as I had liked him, had been pretty much ‘sold’ before the election, and loved that ‘We borrowed your votes’ speech, but I suppose someone else wrote that for him…When I voted for Boris (as I did…) I remember saying to my Dad that he ‘could just be the greatest leader we’ve ever had, but I could also be very wrong’. I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my life!!! I’ve often theorised about why Boris has acted as he has – spineless idiot? Controlled by those who have something on him? Really a Communist who has been planning this for decades and has taken us all in? Or had he been replaced by a doppelganger? (I’m NOT joking.) Really, I still don’t know.

Deborah T
Deborah T
5 years ago
Reply to  Deborah T

When I said I wasn’t joking, could I just point out that the word I should have used was ‘lookalike’! Had forgotten that ‘doppelganger’ actually means something rather different…

Julian
Julian
5 years ago

I wonder what the writer and TY hope to gain by trying to convince a few ornery sceptics that the PM can somehow be rehabilitated

It seems like a hopeless and thankless task

Laicey
Laicey
5 years ago

Boris is a big fan of Churchill who did a great job as leader in WW2. Churchill did a load of stuff before becoming PM. He made a lot of mistakes and presumably he learned something from them.

Boris came through Oxford direct to politics. He has made no mistakes as they would have been politically difficult. I met people at Cambridge training to be politicians and none of them were my friends.

We have a political system that allows the PM to destroy the country in preference to admitting a cock up or even questioning anything. Even in good times I never understood why we should have politicians running the country. Sensible people running the country would surely be a lot better.

Mark
Mark
5 years ago
Reply to  Laicey

“Even in good times I never understood why we should have politicians running the country.”

Kind of follows on from representative, elective democracy.

Though in truth, the events of the past two years have made a very strong argument for a sortition system instead, where a citizen is chosen by lot to represent his constituency. Its hard to see how a bunch of more or less randomly chosen people could have done much worse than the present bunch in the Commons and Downing St.

Ossettian
Ossettian
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark

We need a complete separation of the executive and the legislature.

For MPs, I’d go for a combination of choosing by lot and election: for each constituency 5 volunteers who meet some basic criteria – having lived in the constituency for 10 years, being aged between 40 and 75, being UK citizens from birth, not having citizenship of any other state – chosen by lot and then a vote to choose between them.

JayBee
JayBee
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Sortition is one solution.
Alternatively the other solution is to a) mandate a basic political knowledge test of each potential voter and b) weigh votes according to taxes paid, employment created, benefits/pensions received etc..
A young carpenter’s vote should have at least twice the weight of that of an old civil servant, doctor or any other benefit recipient.

JayBee
JayBee
5 years ago
Reply to  Laicey

The Greeks had it right from the start: sortition aka a lottery amongst everyone who wasn’t an idiot (then meaning who wasn’t interested in politics). Bring it on, I say.

Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
5 years ago
Reply to  Laicey

Kim Jong Johnson is the enemy.

DJ Dod
DJ Dod
5 years ago

Imagine for a moment that you are the newly elected Prime Minister. A Conservative Prime Minister, whose party has always been accused of failing to care about ‘our’ NHS. Before you have even had time to choose your new wallpaper a ‘killer’ virus appears and is greeted by hysterical reporting in the media. Your Machiavellian spin doctor calls:

‘Have you seen the pictures of the hospitals in Italy? We can’t let that happen here – the press will crucify us…’ But what to do? ‘Get rid of the bed blockers! Free up capacity.’

Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that sending the elderly from hospitals to care homes has spread the virus amongst the most vulnerable and caused thousands of deaths. What now? Clearly you can’t admit what you have done – that would be political suicide. Fortunately, your friends in Big Pharma can help.

‘Of course, we can have a vaccine ready in record time. But we’ll need complete indemnity.’

Sounds good. But what to do in the meantime?

‘Obviously you have to ramp up the fear. And keep the ‘lockdown’ going. Unprecedented measures, to deal with an existential threat’.

So you keep the nation under house arrest… Read more »

Alexei
Alexei
5 years ago

The shame of this piece.

The author and his ilk were the target audience for the imagery from the G7. Strutting Lords engorging themselves while masked eunuchs look on.

The author enjoys being dominated by his master, and has learned to love his abuser.

What a sick, degenerate country this has become. Truly a nation cast in the image of its leader.

Rowan
Rowan
5 years ago

I don’t buy for a moment that Johnson is the victim here. Johnson is a eugenicist, whose eugenicist father has made a living out of advocating global depopulation for sixty years or so.

Johnson is a huge part of the Covid scam and he is a key player in the pushing of the undoubtedly dangerous Covid vaccines that are far more likely to be bioweapons, intentionally designed to rid the world of its great masses of humanity.

We live in the most dangerous of times and articles like O’Sullivan’s are designed to give Johnson some cover, should things begin to unravel and the scam perpetrators are called to account for their very highest level of criminality.

Mayo
Mayo
5 years ago
Reply to  Rowan

Johnson is a huge part of the Covid scam and he is a key player in the pushing of the undoubtedly dangerous Covid vaccines that are in reality bioweapons, intentionally designed to rid the world of its great masses of humanity.

Right! And I suppose the scientists at Oxford Universtiy, Astrazeneca, Pfizer, Moderna and J&J, plus the entire mainstream media and 80% of parliament are in on this Covid scam are they?

What really worries me is that Reiner Fuellmich is persuaded by this line of argument. He’s clearly been spending too long with mad Dolores.

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

I don’t believe there is a co-ordinated plot, but that doesn’t mean it is not a scam. Many actors have seized the opportunity to advance their agendas and grab power and other good stuff for themselves, knowing very well what the truth is

Mayo
Mayo
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Since I have no idea what the intended end game is, I’m prepared to entertain all sorts of theories but to suggest that Johnson, who was still a back bench MP this time 2 years ago, has somehow played a leading role in a world-wide plot by the super-rich elite is ridiculous.

Will
Will
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

How many women who have had the vaccine have conceived and given birth to a child subsequently?

Mayo
Mayo
5 years ago
Reply to  Will

I don’t know – nor do you.

Will
Will
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Someone somewhere must know whether a woman in the trials has conceived and given birth to a child after having the vaccine. The silence is deafening.

Mark
Mark
5 years ago
Reply to  Will

Not sure they’ve been around long enough to have conceived and carried to term yet, have they?

JayBee
JayBee
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Which in itself is a scandal and very sloppy ‘science’.

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

I tend to agree. I think they have just grown used to having a lot of easy power and choose to keep it going.

Ossettian
Ossettian
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

I do believe that it is a co-ordinated plot, but one that was supposed to happen in a few years time.

But they’re impatient, so jumped on the opportunity supplied by this virus and disease: whether it came from the wet market or was accidentally released doesn’t make any difference.

But Johnson is clearly owned and an order-taker rather than a decision-masker

Susan
Susan
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

If not a coordinated plot, how do you explain governments all over the world at the same time with the rationale imposing the same restrictions, mandates, tests, and vaccinations, and banning known effective treatments?

JayBee
JayBee
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

You remind me of the German Jews who refused to leave the country in the late 1930s.

Emmerich
Emmerich
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it

helenf
helenf
5 years ago

To understand the man, perhaps you only need to look as far as his father, population reductionist and hypocrite father of 6.

Mayo
Mayo
5 years ago
Reply to  helenf

And how exactly do you think Johnson is planning to reduce the population?

helenf
helenf
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Time will tell if the “vaccines” cause problems around fertility, miscarriage and stillbirth, and/or around child development. I’m sure there are other ways of reducing populations – just ask Stanley, he’s written all about it.

Mayo
Mayo
5 years ago
Reply to  helenf

Boris Johnson wasn’t even PM this time 2 years ago yet somehow, since taking over from May, he’s managed to orchestrate a world-wide plot to de-populate the world.

Impressive stuff.

helenf
helenf
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Ok, where exactly did I say this idiot orchestrated a world-wide plot to de-populate the world? He couldn’t organise how to get out of a paper bag. But he’s from the right stock, probably got the job because of it. And a complete narcissist, compulsive liar, devoid of morals and eminently blakmailable to boot. Perfect credentials for a PM during a fake pandemic.

Will
Will
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

10% fall in babies being born in a year would be a good place to start, I imagine. That might just disguise the fertility issues with the prophylactics but, eventually, women will work out they aren’t conceiving at the rate they expect and then the shit really will hit the fan….

You can deprive a human being of their Liberty but deprive a woman of her ability to conceive a child…..

Mayo
Mayo
5 years ago
Reply to  Will

Since there is no evidence yet that there is any reduction in fertility due to the vaccine, there’s quite a bit of speculation in your comment. But even that fails to provide a link back to Johnson.

Will
Will
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

Similarly, there is no evidence that the prophylactics don’t reduce fertility. As far as we know, there isn’t a single woman on the planet who has conceived and given birth to a child after having a vaccine. The precautionary principle has been waived because such a side effect would be desirable.

helenf
helenf
5 years ago
Reply to  Will

I seem to remember in the early days they were telling women not to get pregnant shortly after being “vaccinated”. What we do know is that a lot of women are reporting problem around their periods since being injected. That in itself should cause alarm bells to ring. But not for the MHRA, so it seems.

Tillysmum
Tillysmum
5 years ago
Reply to  Mayo

How could there possibly be any evidence yet of the vaccine causing infertility? There has hardly been enough time since the start of vaccination.

iane
iane
5 years ago

“a committed sceptic and social libertarian”?

Good god, is this writer stark, staring mad or just a bought and paid for shill???

If Bozo was any of that, then why should he not show it. For heaven’s sake, he is (god help us) Prime Minister. It is unnecessary to add anything further – just as the above account is far more than we need to see: certainly it would NOT be worth reading in full!

isobar
isobar
5 years ago

When I read this I had to check my calendar to make sure that it wasn’t April the 1st. As Prime Minister BJ has a duty of care to protect the Health, Wealth, and Security of the British People. He has failed miserably on all counts. Quite frankly the slugs in my garden have more backbone than he has and almost certainly more intelligence. At the end of the day the buck stops with him and, knowingly, he has destroyed the country that we knew on the altar of Covid. That in itself is a crime against humanity.

JayBee
JayBee
5 years ago

This drivel sounded very much like the preparation of the ‘insanity’ defense when in court for mass murder.
CYA, done by his mates from school and uni, I reckon.
Maybe because the ‘successful vaccine programme’ is starting to go pearshaped now (or rather as planned by those who pull Johnson’s strings).
https://humansarefree.com/2021/06/vaccinated-600-percent-more-likely-to-die-from-covid-variants.html
But I have to say and agree that while he shouldn’t get away with it, the lazy court jester Johnson is probably the only world leader who really doesn’t have a clue, is not in the loop with regard to the real agenda and was and is just someone elses lapdog.
Still, even then, the proper reaction would have been to resign rather than to help executing the plan.
The Eichmann defense won’t fly for anyone anymore.

Mark
Mark
5 years ago

1 If you want to discuss this seriously use his name, not his propaganda pet name.

2 “Prior to these revelations I bought into the predominant narrative: that Boris had been a sceptic but then he was hospitalised for COVID-19 and the experience left him lobotomised and compliant. But this view is no longer tenable.”

No, that was never tenable. The crucial decisions were made in mid-March. Johnson didn’t test positive until 27th March and didn’t go into hospital until April, by which time most of the disastrous precedents had been set and the harms, if not all already incurred, at least set in train.

3 When you fight your way to the top of the greasy pole, you have no right to expect sympathy. The only thing Johnson could do now that would redeem him at all in my eyes, would be to retire to his study with a revolver and a bottle of whiskey and do the decent thing, old school.

To make apologies for Johnson in this way is unacceptable – it trivialises the harm he has done, and the profound breach of duty he committed in his failure to stand for reason, sense and decency. We… Read more »

Squire Western
Squire Western
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark

As bad as Remainers, the whole lot of them.

Mark
Mark
5 years ago
Reply to  Squire Western

Worse, imo. And I was a Brexiter before there was an EU to Brexit from (argued for leaving the EC/EEC)

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark

aka ‘fanatic’.

Mark
Mark
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

If you are in the habit of assuming anyone who disagrees with you must be a fanatic.

But one man’s idealist or committed campaigner is another’s fanatic.

X - In Search of Space
X - In Search of Space
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Come on, really?

iane
iane
5 years ago
Reply to  Squire Western

Remainers were/are arguably mistaken, but many were/are honest humans who weigh things up differently to equally honest (and arguably correct) humans such as you and I!

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  Squire Western

There were honourable positions on both sides of the Leave/Remain debate. There are no honourable positions among the leadership who have waged war on the people whom they were elected to serve. Please don’t muddy the waters – I don’t think there’s any comparison in magnitude between the Brexit issue and this one.

Draper233
Draper233
5 years ago
Reply to  Squire Western

Oh dear, so not only were you brainwashed about the glorious new Britain post-Brexit, but believe the perpetrators of the criminality ensuing now are no worse than those who thought – correctly – that, on balance, leaving the EU would be bad for businesses in the UK, especially SMEs.

Well there we have it, the logic and intelligence of the average Brexit zealot laid bare.

DanClarke
DanClarke
5 years ago

Johnson is a Professional Delegator, who has delegated responsiblity to the communists in Sage. He is now looking forward to leaving, having some money and fun (his words)

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

You delegate execution, not responsibility.

DanClarke
DanClarke
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

disagree

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

I don’t think it’s a matter of opinion

If you are in charge, the buck stops with you

If the people to whom you delegate cock it up or do something you wouldn’t have done, it’s your fault not theirs

That’s what leadership is

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  DanClarke

Oh dear – here we go off to fantasy land again – it’s all a communist plot!

DanClarke
DanClarke
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

You don’t think their objectives have the communist touch, call it what you will, its all about control for Sage

Emmerich
Emmerich
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Wasn’t the SAGE lady who said we should all be wearing masks forever an open and committed communist? Not to mention the entire lockdown strategy was all borrowed from China, a communist country. In what way is this not a communist plot?

Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Lockdown is communist, imported from a communist dictatorship that has concentration camps and it’s supported by the entire Labour party.

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