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“Everyone says it's going to be Snapcase at the palace. He listens to the people."
"Yeah, right," said Vimes. And I listen to the thunder. But I don't do anything about it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“If the surprise outcome of the recent UK referendum - on whether to leave or remain in the European Union - teaches us anything, it is that supposedly worthy displays of democracy in action can actually do more harm than good. Witness a nation now more divided; an intergenerational schism in the making; both a governing and opposition party torn to shreds from the inside; infinitely more complex issues raised than satisfactory solutions provided. It begs the question 'Was it really all worth it' ?”
― Alex Morritt, Impromptu Scribe

“It turned out that in the governance of a nation’s security, many absurd situations had to be worked around: a toxic clown in the Foreign Office [Boris Johnson], a state visit by a narcissistic bed-wetter [Trump], the tendency of the electorate to 'jump off' the occasional cliff [Brexit].”
― Mick Herron, Joe Country

“I hear that there are plans afoot to produce a remake of Hans Christian Andersen's classic - 'The Emperor's New Clothes'. Who better to star in the leading role than recently defrocked Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson ? A narcissist with such naked ambition; an opportunist with such threadbare morals; a disgraced politician with such thinly veiled contempt for the British electorate, and judging by the sycophantic praise they heap on each other, arguably cut from the very same cloth as Donald Trump. Despite laughable pretensions of having the stature and fortitude of a modern day Churchill, he cuts a now lonely figure, a mere insignificant shadow. Boris, you can't hide anymore. Your warts and all are exposed for the whole world to see.”
― Alex Morritt, Lines & Lenses

“Frustrato, Doug tentò un’altra strada. “Ascolta, supponiamo che la maggioranza voti per la Brexit e noi...��
“Scusami se ti interrompo,�� disse Nigel. “Supponiamo che la maggioranza voti per cosa?��
“B����澱��.��
Nigel lo guardò sbalordito. “Come mai salti fuori con questa parola?��
“Non è così che la chiamano tutti?��
“Credevo che si dicesse Brixit.��
“Cosa? Brixit?��
“Noi diciamo così.��
“Noi... chi?��
“Dave e tutto il gruppo.��
“Tutti dicono Brexit. Da dove viene Brixit?��
“Non lo so. Pensavo che si dicesse così.�� Di nuovo prese un appunto sul taccuino. “Brexit? Sei sicuro?��
“Sicurissimo. È una parola composta. British exit.��
“British exit... Allora dovrebbe essere Brixit?��
“Be��, i greci l’hanno chiamata Grexit.��
“I greci? Non sono usciti dall’Unione europea.��
“No, ma hanno valutato la possibilità di farlo.��
“Noi non siamo i greci. Dovremmo avere una parola che sia unicamente nostra?��
“Ce l’abbiamo. Brexit.��
“Ma noi continuiamo a dire Brixit.�� Scuotendo la testa, Nigel continuò a scrivere. “Sarà una notizia bomba nel prossimo consiglio dei ministri. Spero che non tocchi a me comunicarlo.��
“A che ti serve avere una definizione se sei sicuro che la cosa non succederà?�� gli domandò Doug.
Nigel sorrise felice. “Naturale... hai ragione da vendere. Non succederà e quindi non ci serve definirla.��
“Ecco, vedi.��
“Dopotutto, tra un anno, nessuno si ricorderà più di questa stupida faccenda.��
“E�����ٳٲ�����Գٱ�.��
“Nessuno si ricorderà che qualcuno voleva la Brixit.��
“Proprio così. Però, sai, alcuni di loro...�� Si chiese come dovesse metterla. “Sono personaggi da prendere sul serio, no? Boris Johnson, per esempio. Un vero peso massimo.��
“Non infierire sul suo aspetto fisico,�� disse Nigel. “Anche se Dave è molto arrabbiato con lui.��
“Non si aspettava che si pronunciasse a favore dell’uscita?��
“No, non se l’aspettava.��
“Gira voce che la sera prima che il ‘Telegraph�� andasse in stampa, Boris avesse preparato due articoli �� uno in cui sosteneva l’uscita e l’altro in cui si dichiarava favorevole a restare nell’Unione europea.��
“Non ci credo per niente,�� disse Nigel. “Boris avrebbe preparato tre articoli: uno per uscire, l’altro per restare e il terzo perché non riusciva a decidere. Gli piace essere sempre pronto.”“E poi c’�� Michael Gove. Un altro attaccante che si è pronunciato a favore dell’uscita.��
“Lo so. Dave è arrabbiatissimo con Michael. Per fortuna rimangono molti conservatori leali e di buon senso che apprezzano i benefici di restare membri della UE. Credo che tu vada a letto con una di loro. Ma prova a immaginare cosa pensa Dave di Michael e di alcuni altri. Insomma, è andato a Bruxelles, è tornato con un accordo assai vantaggioso, e questi non sono ancora contenti.��
“Semplice: a molti non va giù la UE,�� disse Doug. “Pensano che non sia democratica.��
“Sì, ma uscirne sarebbe un male per l’economia.��
“Pensano che la Germania comandi a bacchetta su tutti.��
“Sì, ma uscirne sarebbe un male per l’economia.��
“Pensano che dalla Polonia e dalla Romania siano arrivati troppi immigrati che spingono i salari al ribasso.��
“Sì, ma uscirne sarebbe un male per l’economia.��
“D’accordo,�� disse Doug. “Credo di avere appena capito quali saranno i tre punti strategici della campagna di Dave.�� Adesso era il suo turno di prendere appunti. “E come la mettiamo con Jeremy Corbyn?��
Nigel inspirò con un lungo sibilo e sobbalzò visibilmente. “Jeremy Corbyn?��
“Se il quadro è questo, lui dove si colloca?��
“Preferisco non parlarne.��
“Perché no?��
“Perché no? Perché è un marxista. Marxista, leninista, trotzkista, comunista. Maoista, bolscevico, anarchico, di sinistra. Un socialista fondamentalista, anticapitalista, antimonarchico, pro-terrorismo.��
“Ma è anche uno che vuole rimanere nella UE.��
��ಹ���������?��
“Così dice.��
“Allora, naturalmente, saremo felici di averlo a bordo. Ma non credo che Dave sarebbe pronto a condividere alcunché sul piano politico.��
“Non sarà necessario. È Jeremy il primo a respingere un accordo di questo tipo.��
“B��Ա�.&�����ܴ�;
― Jonathan Coe, Middle England

“There was always trouble, and he always rose from the resulting miasma looking a lovable scamp: lovable, anyway, to that gratifyingly large sector of the populace to whom he'd always be a figure of fun: breathing a bit of the old jolly into politics, and where's the harm in that, eh? As for those who hated him, they were never going to change their minds, and since he was in a better position to fuck them up than they were him, they didn't give him sleepless nights.”
― Mick Herron, Real Tigers

“Boris & Co must have downed so much beer at that party at Number 10 beer-Downing Street.”
― Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

“The lies are of a scale and of a nature that in modern political life I think you can only compare to Donald Trump. I don't think anybody has lied or can lie as casually and as cooly and as completely as Boris Johnson does - except Boris Johnson. We have learned over the last few weeks that his closest colleagues thought he was diabolical. The cabinet secretary that Boris Johnson appointed because he would prove to be, or he was believed to be, a soft touch has described Boris Johnson as being utterly unfit for the job. The advisor that he brought in as a sort of mastermind - having overseen Brexit - Dominick Cummings has described Johnson in terms that you would reserve for your worst enemies. These are the people working closest by him. The only person who's had anything vaguely warm to say about him is Matt Hancock and let me tell you why. They've shaken hands on it. I'd bet my house on some sort of gentleman's... let's rephrase that... I'd bet my house on some sort of charlatan’s agreement behind the scenes that they won't slag each other off because everybody else is telling the truth about them - about Johnson and about Hancock. Hancock's uselessness facilitated and enabled by Johnson's uselessness, by Johnson's moral corruption effectively. And now the lies begin. 5,000 WhatsApp messages. ‘No idea. No, no, no, no idea. Don't know. Don't know technical people. Uh... factory reset. Don't know. Bleep, bleep.��

And then the classic: the flooding of the Zone. With so much manure that it's hard to know where to start. ‘We may have made mistakes�� is one of the latest statements to come out. Turns up 3 hours early so that he doesn't have to walk the gamut of people congregating to remember their lost loved ones and to share their feelings with the man that they consider to be partly responsible for their death. Absolutely extraordinary scenes, truly extraordinary scenes. How does he get away with it? Hugo Keith is a much tougher inquisitor than Lindsay flipping Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons. He's a much tougher inquisitor than any of the interviewers that Boris Johnson deigns to have his toes tickled by on a regular basis. He's a much tougher interviewer or scrutineer than the newspaper editors who have given him half a million pounds a year to write columns or already published articles about why he's the real victim in this story. Philip Johnston in the Daily Telegraph today writing an article before Boris Johnson has given a single syllable of evidence, claiming that Boris Johnson is the real victim of this. I'd love him to go and read that out to the Covid families assembled outside the inquiry. And remember it was Daily Telegraph columnists and former editors that convened at the Club with Jacob Rees-Mogg and others to launch the Save Owen Paterson Society after another one of these charlatans was found to have breached parliamentary standards. Their response of course was not to advise their ally to accept the punishment that was coming his way but to attempt to get him off the hook and rip up the rule book under which he'd been found to be guilty.”
― James O'Brien

“And of course, [Boris Johnson will] never get questioned like this over at the BBC while the political editor remains a fully paid-up member of the Boris Johnson Admiration Society. So how does he get away with it? Andrew points out that factory resets obviously weren't covered in the technology lessons that Boris Johnson received from Jennifer Arcuri. Again, it's a funny joke. It's a good line, but he was the Prime Minister, and everyone knew he was a liar. Is it all about that guy that rang in when Donald Trump was here. That I always remember saying ‘but you must know he's lying��. Donald Trump was giving a speech in London about the size of the crowds outside the building he was in. And we had a camera outside the building he was in. We were looking at no crowds. And that simple juxtaposition of rhetorical claim by a politician with observable reality was chilling. It was spine tingling. I can claim that there are huge crowds, huge crowds, the biggest crowds, the greatest crowds outside this building. And I said, ‘how does it work? How does that happen?�� And someone rang me and said, ‘I know he's a liar, but it really upsets people like you and Sadiq Khan.�� And at the time I laughed but maybe that's all there is. Maybe your life - and sorry this is going to sound quite rude - but maybe your life is so weird, and your personality is so twisted that you find the frustration of people who care about the truth the closest you ever get to feeling joy. Is that it? Nadine Dorries watches Boris Johnson lie and claims that he's the most trustworthy person on the planet. What is wrong with her? It's not really a question about what's wrong with him; what's wrong with her?

Whatever transpires at this inquiry or whatever emerges during these hours of evidence, I can tell you this: there will be a significant number of people who think that Boris Johnson has done nothing wrong or that he is somehow the victim of another witch hunt. You remember? It was a witch hunt when he was caught banged to rights by a parliamentary committee containing a majority of conservatives after even Chris Bryant had stepped down to avoid any accusations or allegations - false allegations �� really, of impartiality. And they still called it a witch hunt. It would have been a witch unless the committee consisted entirely of 14 Nadine Dorries clones. That's the only circumstances in which those people would have claimed that he could receive a fair trial.

Where do you even begin today? Do you begin with the 5,000 WhatsApp messages that a man who was in charge of the nuclear code somehow doesn't understand and can't find? I don't know. So, what is your theory now because I don't think I've got one any more. I watch him now, and I feel something very new, very different to what I thought when he was in power because when he was in power there is an urgency to the situation. There is a desperate need to share with the population the awfulness that they apparently can't see. Just now that he's not in power any more, it's almost as if I've allowed the full horror of what he represents to bubble to the surface. It’s now that he can't actually break anything, it's a retrospective reflection upon the abject awfulness of him. I mean the unbelievable awfulness of this man, the things that he's done. You can begin with Brexit. The lies that he's told, the damage that he's done. The contempt in which he holds all the things we're raised to believe are important: rules, obligations, standards, behaviours, fidelity, honesty, kindness, friendship, loyalty, all of these things we teach our children matter. And Boris Johnson teaches us that you can become the most powerful person in the country by treating all of those things with absolute contempt.”
― James O'Brien