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(Bloomberg Opinion) — Britain’s Dec. 12 election has been described as its most consequential in the postwar era, and that’s probably no exaggeration. But the interview question no U.K. leadership contender can escape has nothing to do with Brexit or the future of state health care. It’s simply: “What is the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done?”Speaking to Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson (hardly a paragon of good behavior) did the wise thing and refused to incriminate himself. “No, no, no. I’m not telling you,” he shot, as soon as it was clear where Ridge was going. It might be “terminally politically damaging.”He was right to spot the trap. Answer honestly and the candidate is bound to disappoint or scandalize. Lying is worse; there’s little that escapes tabloid scrutiny in Britain. Either way, the candidate has said something he or she probably didn’t want to and changed the conversation from policy to personality.Yet it’s not an entirely trivial question either. Despite the contradictory evidence from the U.S., character does still usually matter in politics (which is why Tory politician Jacob Rees-Mogg’s noxious comments on the Grenfell disaster were so damaging), perhaps even more so at a historical cross-roads. What a candidate has done before the klieg lights were trained on them says something. A youthful willingness to break rules might turn out to be a useful trait during times of gridlock or high-stakes negotiations, such as the Brexit endgame. A pattern of recklessness and self-indulgence, not so much. So what can we learn from how a politician answers the question? Quite a lot.The obsession with this particular interrogation started with Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, who was interviewed in June 2017 days before a general election in which she lost her governing majority. She’d been talking about growing up as a bookish vicar’s daughter and the question caught her off-guard. “Nobody is ever perfectly behaved, are they?” she stalled. “I have to confess, when me and my friend, sort of, used to run through the fields of wheat, the farmers weren’t too pleased about that.”The answer became an internet meme. There were briefly concerns that crops could be damaged after thousands signed up to an event in Norfolk to run through fields of wheat. The trolling was endless, from “Thatcher in the Rye” jokes to a mock video game called Come Wheat May. Her answer doubled down on the errors of a campaign that was built around her persona as a “strong and stable” leader. In fact she was a wooden campaigner, clearly uncomfortable bringing her leadership pitch to voters. Her field-of-wheat answer underscored a suspicion many had: that she was unrelatable. May later admitted that answering the question was “one of the silliest things I ever did.”Every Conservative candidate was put through the same wringer during this summer’s leadership campaign. Andrea Leadsom, seeking to be the anti-May female candidate, told of a cross-country trip on the back of a motorbike when her parents thought she was on the bus. Sajid Javid, underscoring his ethnic roots and his ability to fight back, recounted punching a kid who’d picked on him with racial slurs. Rory Stewart said he’d smoked opium in Iran. Michael Gove was bogged down by his apologies for cocaine use.The idea of “naughtiness” evokes a very British idea of childhood disobedience; largely behavior without serious consequence. That’s how Johnson fielded the question when he was running for Tory leader. He scanned his unblemished early years and came up with a time when he and his sister filled a row of boots with water. He was nine.Now that he’s prime minister running in an election, it was bound to come back with greater insistence. Of course, the real question — what’s the worst thing you’ve done — is one few of us would be comfortable answering publicly. And it’s particularly fraught for Johnson, whose past includes a string of infidelities and recent accusations of sexual misconduct (which Johnson denies). When Ridge pressed him, Johnson could have buckled and used the question to show he’d learned from his indiscretions, or struck a defiant Trumpian pose to rally those attracted to his mold-breaker persona. He did neither. A master of deflection, he stated that he wasn’t going there “because I would improvise an answer which I had not cleared with my handlers and I would bitterly regret it.” He also promised Ridge that if he could think of an answer that was both “interesting” and not terminally damaging he would give it to her on their next meeting. Disarmed, Ridge moved on. Johnson is better than any of his contemporaries at using self-deprecating humor to get himself out of trouble.What did the voter learn? Johnson, as all are aware, has exhibited behavior that extends beyond juvenile high jinks. For some, that’s already testament to a character unfit to lead. For others, it has no bearing on whether he can deliver Brexit or govern effectively. Johnson knew the first group would not be convinced by anything he said and the latter not deterred.Not long ago, Johnson would probably have taken the bait, going for the laugh line or striking a defensive pose. But he showed he’s developing a new muscle as a leader: a sense of restraint in the service of a bigger purpose.And what about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Johnson’s chief rival? He once insisted that his worst thing is “far too naughty to say.” But he did say: “I’m totally shocked that anyone would run through a wheat field and damage wheat. It’s a terrible thing to do.” Like Johnson, this somewhat arch deflection is pretty canny. Corbyn is behind in the polls, but he’s no ingenue when campaigning. To contact the author of this story: Therese Raphael at [email protected] contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at [email protected] column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Therese Raphael writes editorials on European politics and economics for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
November 6, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg Opinion) — Britain’s Dec. 12 election has been described as its most consequential in the postwar era, and that’s probably no exaggeration. But the interview question no U.K. leadership contender can escape has nothing to do with Brexit or the future of state health care. It’s simply: “What is the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done?”Speaking to Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson (hardly a paragon of good behavior) did the wise thing and refused to incriminate himself. “No, no, no. I’m not telling you,” he shot, as soon as it was clear where Ridge was going. It might be “terminally politically damaging.”He was right to spot the trap. Answer honestly and the candidate is bound to disappoint or scandalize. Lying is worse; there’s little that escapes tabloid scrutiny in Britain. Either way, the candidate has said something he or she probably didn’t want to and changed the conversation from policy to personality.Yet it’s not an entirely trivial question, either. Despite the contradictory evidence from the U.S., character does still usually matter in politics (which is why Tory politician Jacob Rees-Mogg’s noxious comments on the Grenfell disaster were so damaging), perhaps even more so at a historical crossroads. What a candidate has done before the klieg lights were trained on them says something. A youthful willingness to break rules might turn out to be a useful trait during times of gridlock or high-stakes negotiations, such as the Brexit endgame. A pattern of recklessness and self-indulgence, not so much. So what can we learn from how a politician answers the question? Quite a lot.The obsession with this particular interrogation started with Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, who was interviewed in June 2017 days before a general election in which she lost her governing majority. She’d been talking about growing up as a bookish vicar’s daughter and the question caught her off-guard. “Nobody is ever perfectly behaved, are they?” she stalled. “I have to confess, when me and my friend, sort of, used to run through the fields of wheat, the farmers weren’t too pleased about that.”The answer became an internet meme. There were briefly concerns that crops could be damaged after thousands signed up to an event in Norfolk to run through fields of wheat. The trolling was endless, from “Thatcher in the Rye” jokes to a mock video game called Come Wheat May. Her answer doubled down on the errors of a campaign that was built around her persona as a “strong and stable” leader. In fact, she was a wooden campaigner, clearly uncomfortable bringing her leadership pitch to voters. Her field-of-wheat answer underscored a suspicion many had: that she was unrelatable. May later admitted that answering the question was “one of the silliest things I ever did.”Every Conservative candidate was put through the same wringer during this summer’s leadership campaign. Andrea Leadsom, seeking to be the anti-May female candidate, told of a cross-country trip on the back of a motorbike when her parents thought she was on the bus. Sajid Javid, underscoring his ethnic roots and his ability to fight back, recounted punching a kid who’d picked on him with racial slurs. Rory Stewart said he’d smoked opium in Iran. Michael Gove was bogged down by his apologies for cocaine use.The idea of “naughtiness” evokes a very British idea of childhood disobedience: largely, behavior without serious consequence. That’s how Johnson fielded the question when he was running for Tory leader. He scanned his unblemished early years and came up with a time when he and his sister filled a row of boots with water. He was 9.Now that he’s prime minister running in an election, it was bound to come back with greater insistence. Of course, the real question — what’s the worst thing you’ve done — is one few of us would be comfortable answering publicly. And it’s particularly fraught for Johnson, whose past includes a string of infidelities and recent accusations of sexual misconduct (which Johnson denies). When Ridge pressed him, Johnson could have buckled and used the question to show he’d learned from his indiscretions, or struck a defiant Trumpian pose to rally those attracted to his mold-breaker persona. He did neither. A master of deflection, he stated that he wasn’t going there “because I would improvise an answer which I had not cleared with my handlers and I would bitterly regret it.” He also promised Ridge that if he could think of an answer that was both “interesting” and not terminally damaging he would give it to her on their next meeting. Disarmed, Ridge moved on. Johnson is better than any of his contemporaries at using self-deprecating humor to get himself out of trouble.What did the voter learn? Johnson, as all are aware, has exhibited behavior that extends beyond juvenile high jinks. For some, that’s already testament to a character unfit to lead. For others, it has no bearing on whether he can deliver Brexit or govern effectively. Johnson knew the first group would not be convinced by anything he said and the latter not deterred.Not long ago, Johnson would probably have taken the bait, going for the laugh line or striking a defensive pose. But he showed he’s developing a new muscle as a leader: a sense of restraint in the service of a bigger purpose.And what about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Johnson’s chief rival? He once insisted that his worst thing is “far too naughty to say.” But he did say: “I’m totally shocked that anyone would run through a wheat field and damage wheat. It’s a terrible thing to do.” Like Johnson, this somewhat arch deflection is pretty canny. Corbyn is behind in the polls, but he’s no ingenue when campaigning. To contact the author of this story: Therese Raphael at [email protected] contact the editor responsible for this story: James Boxell at [email protected] column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Therese Raphael writes editorials on European politics and economics for Bloomberg Opinion. She was editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
November 6, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg) — Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.Boris Johnson will try to get his campaign back on its feet after a stumble on Tuesday with one of his best-known ministers in trouble for comments about peop…
November 6, 2019Read More
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast / Photos GettyDonald Trump has deprived us of so much: newscasts the children can watch, Vladimir Putin as our enemy, Angela Merkel as our ally, forgoing Latin phrases like quid pro quo in everyday conversation. And now he’s taken away the truism that “All politics is local.” Trump made the Kentucky governor’s race all about him, traveling to the state Monday night to throw his full weight—for an hour and 20 minutes—behind incumbent Governor Matt Bevin. Could Trump have thumped his chest harder? If Bevin were to lose, Trump predicted it would be reported as if “I suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world. You can’t let that happen to me.” Andy Beshear Declares Victory Over Matt Bevin in Kentucky’s Gubernatorial RaceOh but they did. Rather than drag Bevin across the finish line, Trump showed just how weak he’s become. He stoked turnout–against himself. Voters came out in droves in an off-year, which never happens. In Bevin’s first race in 2015, 973,000 voters turned out, this year 1.5 million did. In Bath County, which Trump won with 67 percent, Beshear beat Bevin with 52 percent. Almost everywhere, even in coal country, Bevin performed worse than Trump, raising two crucial questions: First, is that how Trump will perform in 2020, with a 30-point advantage going poof up in smoke like the mines that will be closed by a Democratic governor? Second, what are Senators Susan Collins, Cory Gardner, and Thom Tillis thinking over their coffee Wednesday morning when they read about Andy Beshar declaring victory while the AP still has a race that shouldn’t have been close to begin with as “too close to call”? Even Mitch McConnell might need an extra lump of sugar. Already at an 18% approval rating with his likely challenger former fighter pilot Amy McGrath outraising him last quarter, the majority leader made his bed with Trump and it will be hard to throw off the covers off now. McConnell has made himself an accessory after the fact to what’s now been confirmed- by Trump appointees testifying under oath: The president withheld military aid to Ukraine, thereby weakening them against Vladimir Putin’s well-armed troops. He withheld the money and a meeting with the president of Ukraine as he demanded the country interfere in our election by investigating a political rival. Unless McConnell’s lost his mind, he knows that’s wrong. I’ll take bets that McConnell will not stand with Trump as he did at the Rupp Arena in Lexington in 2020.At the same time Kentucky went blue, Virginia completed its transformation to the same color as Democrats won control of both legislative houses in a state where they already held the governor and lieutenant governor’s seats, the state attorney general and both U.S. Senate seats. You can hardly get bluer. Only Mississippi was too much to ask for. In a state Trump won by 18 points, Tate Reeves beat Jim Hood by only about 5 points as the last votes were tallied early Wednesday morning .After Trump nationalized the race in Kentucky, Republicans will try to retroactively re-localize it by piling on Bevin as a particularly bad candidate no one could help, not even the maestro. Donald Trump Jr. shrugging Tuesday night that “this has nothing to do with Trump” and Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale saying “”The President just about dragged Gov. Matt Bevin across the finish line, helping him run stronger than expected in what turned into a very close race at the end.” To hear it now, Trump wasn’t engaging in locker room banter when he called Bevin “a pain in the ass,” but asking “isn’t that you want?” a compliment to his own original persona. In fact, Bevin, the apparent loser, is a Trump acolyte, refusing to apologize for suggesting teachers who took a sickout day had fomented sexual molestation against children left home alone from school. Like Trump, Bevin hated on immigrants, Obamacare, gay marriage, sanctuary cities, abortion facilities (which he’s closed), and taxes (he prefers consumption to income) and spending on fripperies like health care and pensions. Yes, Bevin removed 30,000 Kentuckians from Medicaid but Trump’s overseen throwing 1.3 million folks off in his quest to scrub the last piece of evidence that Obama sat where he does. Maybe Bevin lacked the con-man’s ease with lying but he was otherwise a mini me whose race Trump didn’t just nationalize but personalized.. Trump welcomed impeachment without asking Republicans in Congress how they would feel about it. They’re not feeling happy right now. It’s one thing to see the president booed at the World Series; another to see him booed at a UFC fight , a safe space if ever there was one. And all that was before losing an election in Trump country. Ahead of that loss, you could hear the sound of silence coming from Capitol Hill as early reports of high turnout in Democratic counties in Kentucky came in and the depositions of career civil servants were made public and confirmed Trump’s rogue operation in Ukraine. And then came Bevin’s stinging defeat. If Republicans triumphed, Trump harrumphed that the media would cover it as a “ho-hum” event. That’s because it would have been a dog-bites-man story. Like McConnell smiling, the GOP losing Kentucky was news of the highest order. Will the longest serving majority leader in history treat Trump’s loss like Mick Mulvaney, who licks the boss’ boots no matter how dirty, or Gordon Sondland, the toady who bought his ambassadorship only to suddenly separate from Trump when he recalled that the president had asked for a quid pro quo, after all, and amended his testimony to avoid perjury charges. McConnell could follow Sondland by taking down his ad in which he promises is own quid pro quo—“the way that impeachment stops with a Senate majority with me as Majority Leader”—if you send a donation to his reelection campaign. On Monday, the Majority Leader said that if an impeachment vote were held today, it would not end in removal. But today is so—totally—over. If McConnell sees the office he’s held since 1984 in jeopardy, he’ll abandon Trump in a Kentucky minute. It’s won’t be on principle, but as a matter of survival. It will only work if McConnell can gauge when tomorrow is before more todays like Tuesday consume him.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
November 6, 2019Read More
Sudan’s new prime minister has repeatedly urged the West to end his country’s international pariah status. In September, Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok said he was expecting a “big breakthrough” that would lead to removing Sudan from the U.S. list of …
November 6, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg) — The collapse of star investor Neil Woodford’s business empire reverberated beyond his own stockholdings, dealing a blow to the fundraising environment for early-stage British biotechnology that’s just starting to heal.Budding biotech com…
November 6, 2019Read More
The Nos. 1 and 2 teams opened their seasons against each other for the first time since 1975 and UK made their case to be top-ranked next week.
November 6, 2019Read More
The shoes are coming off again in Iraq. In years past, Iraqis have beaten their shoes against portraits of Saddam Hussein in a sign of anger and insult. Now protesters in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square are using their shoes again — slapping them against ban…
November 6, 2019Read More
A knife-wielding assailant injured a pro-Beijing lawmaker and his assistant in Hong Kong, as tensions worsen with protests nearing the start of a sixth continuous month. Lawmaker Junius Ho was wounded in his chest, while his assistant’s hand was injur…
November 6, 2019Read More
Dick Vitale is partnered with play-by-play man Dan Schulman for Michigan State basketball and Kentucky. Fans reacted to his commentary on Twitter.
November 6, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg) — British businesses are taking Boris Johnson’s election pitch to ‘Get Brexit Done’ with a pinch of salt: they know that confusion over the U.K.’s exit from the European Union is set to carry on through 2020, or longer.Even if the prime mi…
November 6, 2019Read More
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