There are a lot of reasons (some to do with the underlying condition of the UK, some to do with race) that Rishi Sunak’s lies land worse with the public than Boris Johnson, but one of them is that Johnson lies like someone who wants to fuck you, and Sunak lies like someone who wants you to fuck off.
Or less crudely, one of them wants to be liked whereas the other just wants you to stop complaining. Struck with this watching Sunak talk about the national service policy tonight, a policy that obviously won’t happen but he clearly resents having to sell, versus Johnson’s many falsehoods.
One kind of lie requires paying close attention to what your audience wants, even if you don't care if they get it. The other kind only requires paying attention to your own desire that they shut up.
There is such a lesson for us here as voters. Very, very interesting lesson, if we want to avoid Farage attempting to do what Johnson did. He is much less likable if we make sure the electorate hears the key stories about him...
Johnson genuinely does seem to be a pathological liar. He lies without purpose and when he will be found out immediately. He once lied on camera about there being no cameras in the room. Such people are often weirdly convincing in a way people telling a specific lie for a specific
reason aren’t.
They are aren’t they. If people who are normally truthful tell lies they stick out. If someone is lying constantly it’s sort of seen as part of their nature. They take things so far and it’s so obvious that people assume they don’t mean it as a lie and interpret it differently.
Kevin Young’s “Bunk” seems to apply here—a joyful con where the people being conned know it’s a con but pay for the fun of the ride, like PT Barnum’s “real mermaid!”
Sunak's lies come across like the lies people have heard from managers at work, and which managers know they can get away with even though everyone knows they're lying, because of the power imbalance. This grates so, so, much coming from a politician.
The reason for this, of course, is that Sunak comes across as an insincere manager in everything he does - he comes across as wanting to manage you and push his opaque management plan on you, not to represent you and address your concrens.
There was one moment that struck me listening to him talk to the QT audience: him saying something like "You've all had a hard time" with regard to cost of living.
Not "it's been a hard time for everyone" or similar.
He often does seem to place himself apart from those he is talking to.
Are you newslettering on the debate today, Stephen? Having finally watched one - the gap in performance between the first 3 and the last one was quite something
If I was a Conservative strategist my biggest fear throughout the campaign would have been Rishi Sunak interacting with members of the public and last night we got half an hour of it
I broadly agree with you. Though on national service he may ultimately be correct about the necessity: if Trump is elected and pulls the US out of NATO, there may have to be national service in the UK (and many EU countries, Germany is talking about it again).
Germany is not talking about making some kids volunteer in a youth centre. Trying to make Sunak’s brainfart more reasonable than it is runs the risk of being so broadminded one’s brains fall out.
Also national service just does not equal preparedness for Russian attack in any meaningful sense. It can at most be one element of that strategy but there is a completely delulu midwit take floating around that implies it is somehow a massive force multiplier when it really, really isn't.
If the Russians have tons of artillery shells and Europe only has some then having a draft reintroduced will not change one goddamn thing because you can't win a modern war with bodies alone.
I'm not suggesting anyone is going to need to build up a huge infantry. Logistics win military conflicts. Maybe Europe will follow the model of outsourcing it all to private contractors and lots of US companies can make a fortune on it. I'll run and adjust my stocks!
Do you mean you had to test, or just register? I'm not sure when the physical test went out, but the written test was still going through most of the 80s and maybe 90s. Men in the US still have to register for the selective service at 18, but they haven't called anybody up in decades.
I agree. I'm absolutely not defending Sunak. I'm just saying that the world, in particular Europe, is going to get very strange if Trump wins, and while I haven't lived there for 20 years thus my finger isn't on its pulse, my friends there are very worried.
I'm very worried about what a Trump win would mean for Europe. While I would like to see one, I'm also quite aware of why a pan-EU military is not practical. So if the isolationists in the US take over, European countries are going to have to build up their own defence power, and überpronto.
Agreed. But AIUI, today's high-tech armed forces want highly motivated professional soldiers. They do not want resentful teenagers who will leave before they are sufficiently experienced to be useful.
I hope you are right. But I reckon that will depend very much on who is at the gates and what they are sending. Granted it was 1968, different army then, but my dad was a very resentful teenager who never wanted to talk to me much at all about his government-mandated time in Indochina.
Sunak always sounds defensive, whiney and frustrated, as if he's trying to excuse himself. He's trying to convince you that he hasn't been found out, but knows that you know.
The way he pointed repeatedly at someone asking about Rwanda on the Question Time last night also betrayed him as a bully.
