Up to a point, Dave, I agree with you. My personal beef about Johnson is the 'bumbling buffoon' image that he projects. Either it's A) real, or B) fake. Both are dangerous. If it's real he is, genuinely, a loose cannon & who knows where he'll end up. If it's fake, he's not loose at all, but he is every bit as dangerous. For reasons which are too obvious to need explanation!

I wouldn't put him in the same box as Farceage or Trumpetty. Whatever he may be after, he is not the self-absorbed one-trick pony that they are. Boris believes in... something (no, I don't think it's just 'himself', though I would agree he has an ego!). One thing that I always find repellent in the left, when expressed (as it all too often is), is the notion that only the left have morals, ethics, principles. The Tories are all just selfish greedy bast... No they're not! They believe in what they believe in just as much as der lef' duz! I think 'trickle-down economics' is complete bullshit (primarily because it doesn't recognise a difference between 'value / wealth' and 'money'), but that doesn't entitle me to label someone who does believe in it, does it? It just means we differ.

The fact remains that if BJ is replaced, he is only replaced with A.N.Other. Other will be attacked regardless. If Other doesn't have the baggage that is attached to BJ, the attacks will be that they are just a party mouthpiece, doesn't have experience, something based upon their past utterances, etc. Other is no more likely to be upstanding & honest; it will only be that they are less known. I stand by my point - it makes fuck all difference who is FS, because it will still be a politician. And there is, still, no proof that Boris deliberately lied - he is, quite possibly, stupid & bumbling enough to have thought that he was told...