Boris Film Review Fail

Ahead of local Government elections next Thursday, in which the Tories are expected to do badly, London’s occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has used his Maily Telegraph column, for which he receives a trifling £5,000 of “chicken feed” each and every week, to proclaim to conservatives that Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his pals at UKIP are not such a bad thing after all.

It was Face/Off, wasn't it chaps? Oo-er! Cripes!!

“Keep calm, everyone – now is not the time to do a Nicolas Cage” says Bozza, apropos of the idea that Tories are now in a state of loud panic. And why should they keep calm? “Far from being bad news, the rise of Ukip is actually a good sign for the Conservative Party”. Yes, a fringe party that abstracts votes from all parties, but mostly from the Tories, is supposedly a good thing for the Tories. Yeah, right.

Bozza is clearly not going to be diverted by mere reality, though, as he claims UKIP is the Tories doppelganger, then says this means the Tories are in reality actually very popular, because those voting UKIP are embracing Tory ideas. This is weapons grade bullshit: many of those attracted to the Farage fringe are projecting their own agenda onto a party that is currently offering very little real policy.

And what policy UKIP is offering makes little sense: spending more on defence while cutting tax means racking up eye-watering levels of debt and a currency going down the chute in short order, for starters. That’s before the finance houses decide Frankfurt am Main is not so bad after all, and the car plants see the merits of helping the Spanish and Portuguese with their unemployment problem.

See no cluelessness ...

How does Bozza propose getting to grips with the Tories’ UKIP problem, then? Ah well. Here he manages to bodyswerve the question, instead asserting that the Tories are the only mainstream party that is offering a referendum on EU membership, although they aren’t. He blusters about the Human Rights Act and political correctness. He accuses Labour of allowing mass illegal immigration.

... hear no cluelessness ...

The impression is given that Bozza has made a few selections from a menu of right-leaning bogeymen. But some of the routinely clueless have lapped it up: the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines proclaimed “BoJo nails it”. Tim Montgomerie agreed that Farage was a conservative. And currently not Tory MP for Mid Bedfordshire (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries applauded “Brilliance from Boris”.

... speak no cluelessness

None of them saw the schoolboy error: Bozza’s Nic Cage reference included this summary of Face/Off “in which he somehow contrives to have his face surgically removed and swapped with that of one of the world’s nastiest super-criminals, played by John Travolta”. Except that Travolta was the good guy and Cage was the criminal. We should applaud someone who can’t bother to do two minutes’ research.

His column is in the same vein. And it makes no sense. No change there, then.