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”
Bill Ellson
I think most people reading this page can spot the irony in you calling somebody “a semi-literate troll”
Alec
And they did when they were compelled to answer for their conduct in public rather than skulking behind closed doors. Well, they’re a public service organization and media broadcaster… they damn well should do it in public.
The complaint shouldn’t have been rejected straight away. But Lowe, being such a nice man, offered to efface himself in public. The managers didn’t want that because they knew they’d shown no discernment in the face of their own guidelines, and that it was plain as a pikestaff that Clarkson – not to mention loutish rappers – was being treated as a special case.
I am quite sure you realize you don’t have a point hence your snarling this thread up with a protracted non-point about the use of one word. Bollocking means an expression of disapproval by someone in authority as you well know.
You can have a severe bollocking, a mild bollocking, even a friendly bollocking. I could just as easily have said “rapped on the knuckles” and you’d be simpering about that.
The case is closed. You don’t have a point.
Now, what about that bollocks are Lowe having said the n-word?
~alec
Alec
A: most people are not you.
B: semi-literate means semi-literate. You’d have to be semi-literate not to know that.
~alec
Bill Ellson
The idea that the BBC should address every single complaint on-air is impractical and absurd.
Alec
Why?