A lorryload of BS from BoJo
WON’T somebody think of the female cyclists? That was the cry from beloved political buffoon Boris Johnson this week as he stepped down from his role of pretending to get on with Theresa May to spend more time in his main role as the Keyser Soze of Brexit.
Johnson is a remarkable character who has managed to hide his ruthlessness and cunning by creating a Bertie Wooster-esque persona, in much the same way John Wayne Gacy used to dress up as Pogo the Clown to entertain kids, when behind the scenes he was killing 33 people and dumping their bodies in the crawl space under his house.
BoJo has mumbled and bumbled through his career, quietly leaving a trail of dead in his wake – former friends, enemies and frenemies, all left with naught for their tussles with BoJo, save for a coating of white blond hairs, as if mauled by a rabid-yet-loveable golden retriever.
Johnson’s resignation letter is a tour de force in passive aggression and poorly disguised attacks on May, but one of the most jarring lines was about the threat to cyclists – very specifically, women cyclists – from what Boris calls ‘juggernauts’.
Female Cyclists vs Juggernauts sounds like a really poor Japanese monster movie, or perhaps an electro-punk band you’d catch at an all-day charity gig in Whelan’s, but Johnson’s line shows just how caring he is, thinking of all the lady cyclists riding sidesaddle on their crossbar-less bikes, trying to hold on to their bonnets with one hand as ‘juggernauts’ whip by. Normal people call them lorries, Boris or, if you are speaking to those with notions, HGVs.
A cyclist himself, Johnson previously brought his concerns about HGVs and the visibility of cyclists to the EU, which ruled four years ago it would change the shape of HGV windows to make it easier to see cyclists. The safer lorries hit the roads from next year, proving the system works.
Sadly, by that time Britain will be looking at the EU in the rear view window as the Brexit juggernaut rumbles over the white cliffs of Dover, and BoJo celebrates escalating trade wars and rising prices with an angular bottle of manly Ukrainian vodka.