Boris's secret weapon: driving the left crazy
Fraser Nelson 10:28pm
The conventional wisdom is to regard Mayor Boris as a loose cannon and, ergo, a liability to Cameron. But he may help oust Brown by another skill that has only become apparent in recent weeks: he drives the left mad. By mad, I mean he drives them to inverted snobbery and making personal and ludicrous attacks which strike the onlooker as hysterical. His education and background just seem to flick a switch in a certain sort of Labour supporter – leading to behaviour that even that even their peers find distasteful. Just look at the comments to this Toynbee piece where she called Boris a “sociopath” or the language in this Labour attack video.
The problem the left face is a misreading of this country. Britain is not a bigoted country, therefore such bilious attacks repel voters. Most folk don’t care in the slightest where Boris was educated, but a section of the Labour party care very, very deeply. Boris’s very existence waves a red rag at Labour’s inner demons, which Blair tried so hard to keep at bay. Cameron’s strategy should be simple: let Boris play the matador, let the left rage and let the voters decide.
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Comments
CS
May 2nd, 2008 10:50pmExcuse me, but I've just hijacked CS' PC to protest. I firmly believe that Boris Johnson is evil and that only I should be allowed to send my children to ruinously expensive public schools.
Regards
Polly Toynbee
Sam Waterson
May 2nd, 2008 10:57pmPolly Toynbee may have been brought up in the Labour purple, so far as her family is concerned = but like so many Labour sentimentalists she was in fact was raised in a high degree of privilege in died-in-the-Tory blue rural England. The Toynbees lived in Kersey, to be precise - one of the most bijou villages you can imagine in an area which was governed by Tory Councils and returned a Tory MP for as long as anyone can remember.
Soon after the 1997 election Labour 'luvvies' pollster Philip Gould and his wife Gail Rebuck [who runs mega-publishers Random House] bought a fine weekend house in deeply Tory Lavenham, a small but exquisite Suffolk town with possibly the highest proportion of listed buildings in the country. Such people take every advantage of low-tax well run Tory localities while affecting to take the high moral ground.
For such people to criticise Boris for his 'posh' background is laughable. It's not just hypocritical - it's morally bankrupt.
TrevorH
May 2nd, 2008 11:48pmspot on -- lets hope labour do not wake up to their weak spot.
just watching SKY and Ian Dale is jousting with some gimboid lefty woman (independent/ Guardianista?) who is so addled it beggars belief. Utterly inept and uncomprehending.
And I am doing my best to be polite.
John
May 2nd, 2008 11:55pmLet's post a link to that vile and borderline insane attack by that horrid hypocrite, every chance we get.
Robert Williams
May 3rd, 2008 12:32amTrevorH "just watching SKY and Ian Dale is jousting with some gimboid lefty woman"
That was the Yazz monster, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, displaying the ridiculous attitude identified by Fraser. Boris is apparently "not one of us", as he represents Henley he is not a Cockerney.
Napoleon
May 3rd, 2008 1:24amA bit late now, but congrats to coffee house for your wonderful election cover!!!
Water
May 3rd, 2008 4:00amAhhh thats a wonderfult picture Nelson.
Paul B
May 3rd, 2008 9:53amLittlejohn deliciously wounded Toynbee on Question Time this week, when she was attacking him about what he knew about "ordinary people" he fired back with quip about her holiday home in Tuscany. Sublime moment, the poor lady was mortified. As my teenage children would say. Totally Owned.
Perry
May 3rd, 2008 11:08amSam Waterson offers helpful points. PollyTwaddle does indeed hail from rural areas where genuine hearts and minds, the salt of the earth, - and of society, used once to quietly live.
It’s a pity she did not absorb some of the fiercely independent earthy spirit that is so foreign to the affected liberal, fawning, patronising, cavorting oh-so-goody-goody lefties.
salieri
May 3rd, 2008 1:08pmA very perceptive observation, Fraser. The tone of wounded incredulity is palpable, not least on the BBC where (with some exceptions) you would have thought they had gone into mourning for the sovereign.
Any more of this ideological hysteria in the press is going to show up this 'goernment of the people' for what it truly is: a failed attempt to create a one-party State.
rightwingprof
May 3rd, 2008 2:10pmCongratulations from the USA!
Perry
May 4th, 2008 8:09am[Pollytwaddle et al]
However, Pollytwaddle et al DO serve a useful purpose, namely, affirmation.
As we noted at the beginning of the Boris campaign, every squawk of protest from MoneyPolley and her buddies is a cry of affirmation for Boris and his.