For those despairing at a general election campaign

[nineveh_uk]

Day 1 has involved Boris Johnson getting booed as he left his surprise visit to Addenbrookes* hospital, and a five minute impromptu speech to the media by a medical student who suddenly found herself confronted with him (and of course moved away for not playing along). 23 year old Julia Simons was definitely someone who knew what she was talking about.

You can watch both here.

Schadenfreude as such incidents bring, there is a serious point, and that is that a general election campaign doesn't allow the PM to hide. He can shirk PMQs, he can shirk parliamentary committees, but a PM in an election period has to expose himself to the public and to the TV cameras. He can't do it solely in controlled conditions, because that is obvious too. And as we've already seen, for all he may have been the toast of the Eton sixth form common room**, without that adoring audience, Johnson doesn't do especially well.

*The Cambridge university hospital, a major teaching facility.

**The very definition of an easy crowd, it seems.

Comments

[philomytha]

Wow, that student was ON FIRE. Thanks for linking that!

[ankaret]

He's an arse. I hope he has a visibly miserable time and that his attempts at charm and his attempts at scoring himself a Trump-style fanbase of deplorables both fail at every turn.

[ruric]

She was magnificent!

[nineveh_uk]

I was very impressed! Totally unprepared, but full of specific information, citations etc. As far from Johnson's bluster as you could get.

[nineveh_uk]

Absolutely! I want him to be slumped and rattled and look exhausted. Both because every little helps, but also because I want him to feel it.

I note that Farage is still trying to keep the UK in the EU!

[nineveh_uk]

She was! Articulate, well-informed, engaging.

[azdak]

CambridgeshireLive appears to be doing a better job of reminding us punters that the PM lied about getting the UK out of the EU by Oct 31 than the larger media outlets are doing. And I appreciate any publication that considers "Click here to see Boris Johnson getting booed out of Addenbrookes Hospital" to be clickbait.

[nineveh_uk]

I definitely warmed to them. The dead ina ditch jokes article may have silly, but it still stated the pointer clearly that Johnson lied/failed.