Alexandole Boris de Pfeffel Johnson

Gabriel said:
They’re both intelligent, in different ways, but govern similarly.

Johnson is the first prime minister to have read Classics at Oxford since MacMillan, and a knowledge of Aristotle and Cicero should help any politician govern. However, Johnson is not a details person and told the British public that before they elected him. He floats in the clouds and deals in the abstract, which is where his bluster serves him best, and then devolves responsibility for implementation to his ministers.

That type of governance depends on having capable ministers who understand their briefs and plenty of reserves to replace them with should they fail. As we have seen in recent weeks, though, that pool of reserves is evaporating in the summer sun, which means he simply has to remain loyal to those whom he has appointed, even when they are failing him. In turn, because he has to remain loyal to them and they cannot be replaced, public ire will increasingly turn on him and hold him responsible for every political failure.
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Are you saying it isn't his fault?
 
Manc in London said:
The more intelligent students read PPE. :)

He would have been better off focusing on Socrates/Plato rather than Aristotle who was more of a scientist and was a disciple of Plato, who himself was a follower of Socrates.
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Like Heath and Cameron…

Johnson would have read all of those doing Greats, including Aristotle’s Politics, but had he done PPE. he might have had to read Nicomachean Ethics in his first year, which may not have appealed.
 
Gorton_Tubster said:
Are you saying it isn't his fault?
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What I’m talking about is the style of governance. If we use the metaphor of an artist, then Johnson freely admits that he only deals in the broad strokes and painting the bigger picture; he then relies on his ministers to come and paint the finer details so as to complete the work. That style of governance can work but it requires certain things. Firstly, it requires highly competent ministers in each department; however, because he has drawn his cabinet almost exclusively from one political wing of his party, he has automatically diluted that quality. Secondly, it requires everyone to know what the finished picture is supposed to look like; however, because he only uses airy expressions (getting Brexit done, levelling up), it’s extremely difficult for ministers and civil servants to know where and what they should paint. Thirdly, it requires vast amounts of money to meet the ambition of the work; however, the state of the country’s finances were and are parlous, so there’s no hope that his ambitions can be realistically met.

Fault lies with him, his ministers, and, more gravely, the English electorate.
 
Gabriel said:
Like Heath and Cameron…

Johnson would have read all of those doing Greats, including Aristotle’s Politics, but had he done PPE. he might have had to read Nicomachean Ethics in his first year, which may not have appealed.
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Ha. I really enjoyed philosophy of ethics and Greek philosphers my favourite writers. Aristotle less so. Of course, he is the father of science and remains one of the greatest minds of all time.

Harold Wilson was a PPE graduate too.
 
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