Like everyone I am pleased the British Prime Minister's mistress has been delivered of a healthy son and congratulate the couple. Boris now becomes one of the three fathers of six in the House of Commons, according to the Leader of the House, Jacob Rees-Mogg, another of them.
But how strange that the papers don't talk about Mrs. Johnson, who might still be Boris's wife. Has there been a divorce absolute yet? The papers are silent.
But how strange that the papers don't talk about Mrs. Johnson, who might still be Boris's wife. Has there been a divorce absolute yet? The papers are silent.
I feel sorry for her, having suffered and recovered from cancer after her husband left her.
On the other hand, as Melanie McDonagh pointed out, those who live by the sword die by the sword. There was a First Mrs Johnson until a fortnight before his second marriage.
On the other hand, as Melanie McDonagh pointed out, those who live by the sword die by the sword. There was a First Mrs Johnson until a fortnight before his second marriage.
How strange that the tabloids say nothing, except for one story in the Mirror back on 1st March, headlined
Boris Johnson's estranged wife 'in pieces' and children 'furious' over engagement
Even odder the bishops say nothing about it either but bore on instead about climate change and economics. They don't even talk about death and the four last things, despite the virus.
It's fun to hear you indulge in a little gossip. Isn't there some noise out there about a seventh unacknowledged child? Or is it an eighth?
ReplyDeleteBoris is a busy man -- a national leader facing a time-consuming world pandemic and a Brexit Gordian knot. He has a hyperactive personal life and has recently been very ill. Do you think his six (or seven) kids see much of him? How nice that he's having yet another child he can saddle with a twee name and walk away from after he finds the next starstruck, foolish woman to impregnate. Then he can bounce out once again, adding one more woman to the three who are raising multiple children essentially by themselves.
Situations like these make me glad that most people are having fewer children and not more.
I like gossip. The Telegraph obituaries are good places for it. http://pvewood.blogspot.com/2012/05/funniest-piece-of-writing-i-ever-read.html
DeleteI LOVE Aubrey's Brief Lives - I recommend the Oliver Lawson Dick edition very highly.
DeleteEngland and Europe very badly need more children. Prime Ministers must perforce be remote fathers, as most fathers used to be until recently. Now both parents are often remote. Lord John Russell was the only PM until recently who -as far as was known - became a father while PM, but suddenly, after a very long wait, three come long like buses: David Cameron, Tony Blair and Boris Johnson.
ReplyDeleteMany have said that the problem is the number of childless leaders in recent times including Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Theresa May, Italy’s Paolo Gentilon, Holland’s Mark Rutte, Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon, Sweden’s Stefan Lofven
ReplyDeleteLuxembourg’s Xavier Bettel and Ireland’s Leo Varadkar. A Romanian political figure who is now Mayor of Bucharest was condemned by the anti discrimination council for saying being childless made the current Romanian President less fit for the job than his fecund opponent. Romania laughed at her but I was horrified at the limits put on free speech.
Mark Steyn no doubt is happy that a child will be running around No 10. He said in 2017: “The European political class is barren. In a sense, it exemplifies the barrenness of the general population, which is true in Western Europe.”
ReplyDeleteSince returning to work, he seems to be falling into the same rabbit hole that swallowed the likes of Edward Heath and Theresa May, that of trying to win the approval of institutions that will always hate you, in his case the public health blob, the BBC and those at the top of the NHS unions.
ReplyDeleteIn pursuit of this, Boris and colleagues keep changing their story on the lock-down. Originally, it was to "protect the NHS" (shouldn't it be protecting us?), then it was to get us through the peak of infection, then this week we learned we were indeed through the peak (hurray!) but the PM added that this made it the period of maximum danger. Sorry?
A true freedom lover would, daily, demand justification from the Whitehall bureaucrats as to the repressive measures being imposed on the rest of us, instead of which Boris Johnson appears to be demanding justification for any easing of them.
Many seem to have confused someone being a libertine with being a libertarian, or even a liberal. They are now learning the error of their ways.
Dan Atkinson
May 2, 2020
https://blogs.thisismoney.co.uk/2020/05/saturday-ps-.html
I agree with this except last paragraph.
ReplyDeleteI can see why you disliked Keir Starmer so much. Starmer is made of much sterner stuff than poor old Jeremy Corbyn -- his interrogations of Boris leave Boris looking defensive, unprepared, and sheepish. Boris will have to up his game to deal with what Starmer brings to the table.
ReplyDeleteI agree except that my dislike Sir K Starmer is partly instinctive and partly because he unforgivably persuaded Mr Corbyn to promise a second referendum. He is one of the architects of Labour's defeat but they had no-one else. What is terribly sad is that many Labour supporters did not want him to be leader because he is not only a man but a white man.
ReplyDeleteThey also didn't want him because he is middle class and went to grammar school, even though he is the son of a nurse and a toolmaker who named him after the first Labour leader, Keir Hardie. Once Labour people liked working class boys who worked hard and got on, but remained socialists. Not now.
ReplyDeleteHe does look a very boring man with little culture but perhaps he reads Ronsard in the evenings, as the very boring Eden did.
ReplyDelete