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
I love the way you cannot answer a straight question! The minimum criterion for a lie is for it not to be true.
Jenny “silly po-po” Jones presented Youn… no, Lowe as having said the n-word. I presented the BBC as being ready to express their disapproval towards Lowe.
One was mendacious and false. The other was, as no-one apart from a mendacious purveyor of falsehoods could say, plainly what happened.
You make Lowe’s point about the totalitarian control of language – not to mention contempt for employee’s rights – over and over again.
~alec
Bill Ellson
What are you prattling on about?
Alec
Twat. You are trying to define a lie not only as a colloquial description of what happened but also as synonymous with poor spelling.
D’you either not know or not care?
~alec
Alec
You understood a moment ago. Stop playing dumb.
The BBC screwed-up. They didn’t even follow their own guidelines, and – post-Savile – tried to hold it in camera.
I’m quite happy to call a bollocking the unequal and disproportionate – and cowardly – treatment of an employee in response to a vexatious complaint.
Bill Ellson
The ‘treatment’ of the employee is all in your mind. As stated above the DJ resigned in the mistaken belief that management would beg him to stay.