Racist, Populist, Dog Whistle Bollocks

[Denzil_DC]

3. I suspect Johnson's even worse than that.

It may be that he's not dogwhistling, vying with Hunt for who can tweak the base's prejudices the most effectively - foxhunting and all, hastily walked back in Hunt's case. Given the current Tory Party polling, Johnson hardly needs to make any effort at all.

This is what Johnson actually thinks and believes. Read back over his various columns in the Telegraph etc. This is what he feels and who he is.

Now, he's a weak enough character that he could trim his sails in future to whatever prevailing wind he senses (as he did while Mayor of London), but at the moment it doesn't look like that will mean a move towards liberalism, or sanity, in any sense.

Meanwhile, he doesn't give a shit for the wider effects of his words. If he gets called on it, he'll disappear in a squid cloud of sub-Woodhousian waffle as usual, in the hope the current audience will lose the thread, or interest, before he finishes whatever he's burbling.

The cabal around him, on the other hand, in Parliament and with loosened purse strings beyond it - I wouldn't put anything past them.

The fact that Lynton Crosby, King of the Dogwhistle, is running Johnson's campaign (for no payment upfront) might undercut my case and bolster yours, though only if I assume Johnson's capable of sticking to a playbook when he opens his capacious gob and lets rip.

Perhaps Crosby's advice has been "Let Boris be Boris"?