UK - Boris messes up again

Personally, I think the Foreign Office needs a good kick up the pants. I don't know anything about that Matthew Rycroft at the UN but he keeps making silly remarks there like Assad has killed half a million of his own citizens without mentioning that any Syrian government forces have been killed by anti-Christian religious fanatics. Or that the anti-Houthi government in Yemen is supposed to be a legitimate government, while the Syrian government is not a legitimate government. A political transition to what?

It was Turkey who broke the truce with the Kurds a couple of years ago.

At least the Russians have a clear policy and they are not trying to kill Syrian soldiers, like the Americans and Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Turkey and America, and even Israel. They don't support the Isis occupation of Palmyra, or the looting and vandalizing of historical monuments, and they do something about it. Qatar is suspected of fraud and bribery in obtaining the football world cup tournament.

The UK Defence Secretary, Fallon, said yesterday that Syria need a plural government, whatever that means. it sounds a bit daft to me. I suppose part of the trouble is the Foreign Office is still Arabist and full of public school twits. It still has the Eden legacy from Suez, where the Gulf states, and even Jordan, were historically British protectorates.

I don't support these head choppers and beheaders of Christians, and suicide bombers, even when they operate in far off countries which most people have never heard about, or even in Nigeria.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
A Government Minister follows Government Policy. As Foreign Minister it's his job in concert with the Prime Minister, Cabinet and Party Manifesto to formulate and enact the Foreign Policy of the Government.

If he doesn't want to do that he needs to resign.
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Appointment as Foreign Minister is the classic means of neutering a rival. It's one of the three great offices, but the one with no voice of its own.

He is in Saudi Arabia at the weekend for follow up meetings leading on from the PMs recent visit. What is he going to say?
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That he was mis-reported by malignant forces in thrall to a (oh the horror!) woman.
 
Ian Osborne said:
Boris Johnson is rapidly turning into Britain's Donald Trump.
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Into a dumbed-down version of Donald Trump, at any rate. Trump is many things, but dumb isn't among them. I can't say the same about Boris Johnson.

McHrozni
 
angrysoba said:
Personally, I am happy he said this about Saudi Arabia. Brexit may be an omnishambles, but if the government policy is immoral then I am happy to see someone, whoever that is, speak out about it.
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I agree with the sentiment, Saudi Arabia will have to be held accountable someday. It's still not what Boris Johnson is supposed to be doing these days.

McHrozni
 
McHrozni said:
Into a dumbed-down version of Donald Trump, at any rate. Trump is many things, but dumb isn't among them. I can't say the same about Boris Johnson.

McHrozni
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I disagree, or more specifically disagree depending on what you mean by "dumb". Trump has demonstrated time and again that he is ignorant and unwilling to learn. He may have a high IQ - I've seen no evidence one way or the other.

Boris on the other hand is most assuredly smart as a tack and exceptionally well informed. He chooses to hide this behind a "himbo" facade - a technique no doubt learned early in life. Sometimes the facade drops and you see the erudite intelligent individual lurking beneath.
 
The Don said:
I disagree, or more specifically disagree depending on what you mean by "dumb". Trump has demonstrated time and again that he is ignorant and unwilling to learn. He may have a high IQ - I've seen no evidence one way or the other.
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Trump knows what to say and to whom to get what he wants. That's not a sign of low intelligence. I do agree he often comes up short when it comes to general knowledge, but that too isn't necessary a sign of being dumb. He's too arrogant for his own good, certainly, but he has demonstrated his willingness to shift positions when it suits him - in just four weeks, mind you. This plus arrogance suggests to me he is a master manipulator first and foremost. You can't do that if you're dumb.

I do agree Trump isn't highly intelligent, I'd rate him about average given what we've seen so far. He's far from a genius, but far from dumb as well.

Boris on the other hand is most assuredly smart as a tack and exceptionally well informed. He chooses to hide this behind a "bimbo" facade - a technique no doubt learned early in life. Sometimes the facade drops and you see the erudite intelligent individual lurking beneath.
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Dunno, maybe. I'm sure you're better informed about him, given that he's about to destroy your life and all. That said, being learned and being intelligent are two starkly different things. They often go hand in hand, true, but one does not prove the other. Some of his arguments reminded me of those made by primary school students though. Facade, or lack of intelligence? A combination of both perhaps?
Well, he did threaten Italians will face doom if they don't agree UK should have access to EEA for free, because they will sell less Prosecco to UK, so I'll go with dumb for now :)

McHrozni
 
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McHrozni said:
Dunno, maybe. I'm sure you're better informed about him, given that he's about to destroy your life and all. That said, being learned and being intelligent are two starkly different things. They often go hand in hand, true, but one does not prove the other. Some of his arguments reminded me of those made by primary school students though. Facade, or lack of intelligence? A combination of both perhaps?
Well, he did threaten Italians will face doom if they don't agree UK should have access to EEA for free, because they will sell less Prosecco to UK, so I'll go with dumb for now :)

McHrozni
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Boris has an upper second class degree from Oxford in classics - IMO a clear indication of both intelligence and being learned. Like I say he has carefully cultured a public image of being a bit of a buffoon and his disheveled appearance is deliberate.

I would wager that the "Prosecco" argument was made with a clear eye on the British press who were certain to repeat it and give the impression that here was good old Boris giving Giuseppe Foreigner one in the eye.
 
The Don said:
Boris has an upper second class degree from Oxford in classics - IMO a clear indication of both intelligence and being learned. Like I say he has carefully cultured a public image of being a bit of a buffoon and his disheveled appearance is deliberate.
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In my experience you don't have to be highly intelligent in order to obtain a respectable degree. You are able to compensate for a lot with basically studying your guts out. You're likely to get quite good grades too.

His education at Oxford was, according to Wikipedia, in Literae Humaniores, study of ancient Rome, Greece, Latin, Greek and philosophy. It's something you can do well in with adequate study. Having a scientific background I could be somewhat biased, but I think that having the ability to learn Latin, Greek and the ability to memorize the history of Rome and ancient Greece do not equal an unusually high level of intelligence. Boris studied ancient literature and classical philosophy, which fit the overall pattern.

That is not to say a high level of intelligence wouldn't help of course. I'm just saying that the nature of his degree is such that you can adequately compensate inferior intelligence with superior work ethics (or a harsh parent).

I would wager that the "Prosecco" argument was made with a clear eye on the British press who were certain to repeat it and give the impression that here was good old Boris giving Giuseppe Foreigner one in the eye.
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It's possible, but consider the fact he had absolutely no backup plan in the event he won the referendum too. That isn't a sign of good strategy or high intelligence.

McHrozni
 
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McHrozni said:
In my experience you don't have to be highly intelligent in order to obtain a respectable degree. You are able to compensate for a lot with basically studying your guts out. You're likely to get quite good grades too.

His education at Oxford was, according to Wikipedia, in Literae Humaniores, study of ancient Rome, Greece, Latin, Greek and philosophy. It's something you can do well in with adequate study. Having a scientific background I could be somewhat biased, but I think that having the ability to learn Latin, Greek and the ability to memorize the history of Rome and ancient Greece do not equal an unusually high level of intelligence. Boris studied ancient literature and classical philosophy, which fit the overall pattern.
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I wholeheartedly disagree. When I left university at around the same time as Boris, I joined, the consultancy arm of Arthur Andersen which became Andersen Consulting and then Accenture. At the time they recruited around 200 people a year and at the salaries the offered they had the pick of the litter.

They only entertained applications from the "top" universities, Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and Brunel and successful candidates studied engineering or natural sciences (Physics was particularly favoured). The one exception to this general rule were classicists. Of my 20 person start group, 3 were classics graduates, the rest a combination of engineering, maths and physics.

My later experience on project teams was similar, 10-15% classicists. Wphen I was later involved in the recruitment process (the "milk round" as it was termed), I learned why. Apparently classicists were very good at abstract reasoning, logical modelling and problem solving - all skills that were prized by a management consultancy business.

McHrozni said:
That is not to say a high level of intelligence wouldn't help of course. I'm just saying that the nature of his degree is such that you can adequately compensate inferior intelligence with superior work ethics (or a harsh parent).
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I disagree (for empirical reasons noted above).

McHrozni said:
It's possible, but consider the fact he had absolutely no backup plan in the event he won the referendum too. That isn't a sign of good strategy or high intelligence.

McHrozni
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I'm not sure you can make that leap
 
The Don said:
I wholeheartedly disagree. When I left university at around the same time as Boris, I joined, the consultancy arm of Arthur Andersen which became Andersen Consulting and then Accenture. At the time they recruited around 200 people a year and at the salaries the offered they had the pick of the litter.

They only entertained applications from the "top" universities, Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and Brunel and successful candidates studied engineering or natural sciences (Physics was particularly favoured). The one exception to this general rule were classicists. Of my 20 person start group, 3 were classics graduates, the rest a combination of engineering, maths and physics.

My later experience on project teams was similar, 10-15% classicists. Wphen I was later involved in the recruitment process (the "milk round" as it was termed), I learned why. Apparently classicists were very good at abstract reasoning, logical modelling and problem solving - all skills that were prized by a management consultancy business.
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I'm not saying classicists can't be highly intelligent people, on the contrary, I'm sure many are. That is not to say all will be though. Your own experience shows that 10-15% of the top picks were classicists, but 85-90% were from an engineering or scientific background - where hard work really can't compensate for lack of intelligence all that well.

Or to put it the other way, all mathematicians and physicists who graduated from a reputable university with honors will be strong in logic and problem solving and other skills that require high intelligence, but not all classicists will. You can't compensate inadequate intelligence with hard work if you study math. You can do so with classicism. That's the extent of my argument, really :)

I'm not sure you can make that leap
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A highly intelligent strategist, as Boris would be if he was just playing a bimbo for many years, would be expected to have a plan B. Boris Johnson did not have one and was unable to provide one in the six months that followed. That's not a sign of high intelligence. From here to "he isn't highly intelligent" isn't a particularly huge leap, more like a small hop. There are other such incidents, like the one discussed in this OP, that don't really paint a picture of a cunning strategist. He's probably smarter than he wants us to think, I agree with you on that, but not by a whole lot.

McHrozni
 
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McHrozni said:
I'm not saying classicists can't be highly intelligent people, on the contrary, I'm sure many are. That is not to say all will be though. Your own experience shows that 10-15% of the top picks were classicists, but 85-90% were from an engineering or scientific background - where hard work really can't compensate for lack of intelligence all that well.
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That company hired a far greater proportion of available classicists than it did available scientists or engineers. There were a few hundred Oxford and Cambridge classicists, many thousands of scientists and engineers from the short list of universities they would recruit from.

I think your lack of knowledge about what a classics degree from Oxford or Cambridge entails (though I cannot fill you in there either - I was a physicist) and/or some kind of bias has clouded your judgement. You've clearly decided that you can memorise your way through a classics degree where a science or mathematics requires a higher level of intelligence and absolutely nothing will shake you from that belief.

All I'm saying is that my experience of working with, and recruiting, Oxbridge classicists is different and they were every bit as intelligent as the scientists and engineers they were working alongside. Now you could counter that with "well they're the top few percent of classicists" (which may or may not be true - after all the very best likely stayed in academia) but in any case they were being compared to an even more rarefied group of scientists and engineers (although again the very best likely stayed in academia).
 
Classics has always been the way to go if you want to get on in the upper reaches of society.
Scientists are no better than mechanics to those that run the country.
 
McHrozni said:
Trump knows what to say and to whom to get what he wants. That's not a sign of low intelligence. I do agree he often comes up short when it comes to general knowledge, but that too isn't necessary a sign of being dumb. He's too arrogant for his own good, certainly, but he has demonstrated his willingness to shift positions when it suits him - in just four weeks, mind you. This plus arrogance suggests to me he is a master manipulator first and foremost. You can't do that if you're dumb.

I do agree Trump isn't highly intelligent, I'd rate him about average given what we've seen so far. He's far from a genius, but far from dumb as well.
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The issue with Trump isn't about intelligence or not, I don't know, it is that he doesn't seem to have grasped that there is a world outside of him. He really doesn't get why what he says to one group causes another group to dislike him. He wants everyone to love him for being him so he will try to be what everyone wants for him to be. He just really does not like it when this fails.

So he doesn't bother to learn or think things through. That is not necessarily a mark of being uninteligent in the abstract but he has found he can make the world bend to what he thinks it is and so doesn't need to learn about how the world really is.
 
The Don said:
I think your lack of knowledge about what a classics degree from Oxford or Cambridge entails (though I cannot fill you in there either - I was a physicist) and/or some kind of bias has clouded your judgement. You've clearly decided that you can memorise your way through a classics degree where a science or mathematics requires a higher level of intelligence and absolutely nothing will shake you from that belief.
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You can memorize yourself through many science degrees as well. Not all of them - mathematics is a prime example, and so is physics - but certainly through many: biology for example, and don't even get me started on medicine.

Even so, you're overstating my point. I'm sure that most classicists who graduated with high honors from top British universities are highly intelligent and adept at problem solving. That doesn't mean all are, because the nature of the studies is such that hard work can significantly compensate for a lack of extraordinary intelligence. It can't do so in anything requiring a high level of proficiency of math (math, physics, chemistry to some extent, etc), and you certainly have no way to compensate a lack of talent in any artistic course (music, painting, architecture, ...) and so on. It's not a distinction between science and humanistic classes at all, some things can be learned adequately from books, and others can't. Classicism appears to me to be something that can be learned from books to a large extent. That doesn't imply it's worth less than a course that can't, but simply that making a conclusion based on an observation of a sample of classicists can't be used to make a prediction on every single classicist.

All I'm saying is that my experience of working with, and recruiting, Oxbridge classicists is different and they were every bit as intelligent as the scientists and engineers they were working alongside. Now you could counter that with "well they're the top few percent of classicists" (which may or may not be true - after all the very best likely stayed in academia) but in any case they were being compared to an even more rarefied group of scientists and engineers (although again the very best likely stayed in academia).
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You worked with a sample of classicists that decided to work in the private field that involved problem solving. Boris Johnson opted for journalism and then turned into a professional politician. I daresay you can't judge him by the sample you had experience with.

McHrozni
 
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