Boris Johnson has outdone himself in offensiveness and hyperbole.
Boris Johnson has outdone himself in offensiveness and hyperbole, writes Jenny Jones
Although it’s part of my elected role to scrutinise Boris Johnson, I try not to read his Telegraph articles as they sometimes bring me to the brink of despair that someone so talented, so clever and so funny can write such utter drivel on so many important issues.
And I’d have hoped that if Johnson were to write about Nigeria and the Boko Haram, he’d have mentioned the kidnapped girls, the world’s outcry, and the lacklustre efforts of the Nigerian government to find them.
But instead, he chose to compare the BBC to Boko Haram – for sacking a DJ:
“In our own modest way, we live in a Boko Haram world, where it all depends on the swirling rage of the internet mob, and where terrified bureaucrats and politicians are borne along on a torrent of confected outrage.”
Being abducted by a religious death squad, probably raped and beaten and sold as a ‘wife’ in a market, is the same as getting into trouble for saying the notorious N word, according to the Mayor of London.
Johnson has indeed outdone himself in offensiveness and hyperbole.
I might agree that the BBC is losing the plot and lacks consistency, but his writing that “In our own modest way, we live in a Boko Haram world” is absurd, even if it is (hopefully) being written tongue in cheek. The kidnapping of Nigerian girls by a religious death squad (Boko Haram) is plainly not comparable to the plight of a DJ being sacked by the BBC, nor to Jeremy Clarkson.
Boris Johnson likes to shock and outrage. I’m just irritated. I wish he’d concentrate on the day job of running London and making our lives better.
26 Responses to “No Boris, the BBC are not Boko Haram”
Alec
Oh, right… they were going to ask him to play the piece again and tell the complainant on air to stop being a twunt.
Of course they were going to bollock him. In such a position following such a peccadillo, I for one would have been filled with sheer bloody anger at management’s abject failure to treat me an employ with respect instead of pandering to vexatious complaints.
~alec
Bill Ellson
Why do you make things up?
There was one complaint, that management proposed to deal with quietly. The DJ wanted to make an on-air issue of the matter and when management said no he resigned.
Alec
Point to something I made up. You know, like Jenny “hehe, wimpy rozzers” Jones did when she juxtaposed Lowe with the claim he’d said the word.
I bet they did! Because publicizing it would have shown just how badly their organization had handled Clarkson, and they preferred to leave it hanging over Lowe like a bad smell.
The complaint had no merit. It couldn’t even get his name right.
The complainant should have been told to fuck off.
Are you a BBC manager?
~alec
Kathryn
U mad
Kathryn
Nailed it.