WTH Happened to Boris Johnson? The Uprising In the Conservative Party and What It Means for Us

What the Hell Is Going On

AEI Podcasts

News, History, Government, Politics

4.4 • 633 Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Last week, in the aftermath of both Party and Pinchergate – not to speak of sky-high inflation and higher taxes - Boris Johnson resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. For many, the writing has been on the wall for months: small ethical problems snowballing because of mismanagement and lies; large economic problems fostered by increasingly leftist policies. In light of these challenges, Johnson’s great Brexit achievement’s luster began to fade. The coming days and weeks promise an unseemly scramble for leadership of Britain’s Conservatives. Where will the Tories go? A rebirth of Thatcherism to face Britain’s crises? Or more drift to the squashy left? More importantly still, are there lessons for the United States in the BoJo debacle?

These questions and more in today’s episode with Alan Mendoza. Mendoza is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society, a leading UK think tank.

Download the transcript here.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This podcast is brought to you by the American Enterprise Institute.
0:03.0	If you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Thanks for listening. Here's our show. What the hell's going on? What the hell is going on? What the hell is going on? I don't know what the hell he's talking about. You don't have to know what the hell is on it. What hell's the matter with these guys? We don't know what's going on. What hell's going on?
0:01.1	Who in God's name knows what
0:22.4	it's all about. Hi, I'm Daniel Pekka. And I'm Mark Teeson.
0:38.2	Welcome to our podcast. What the hell is going on? Mark, what the hell is actually going on?
0:45.4	Well, what the hell is going on is Boris Johnson is gone.
0:49.6	Bye Boris.
0:51.0	By Boris. The British Prime Minister has stepped down. He's not actually gone. He's still in office pending the election of a successor. So he'll still be prime minister for a few months, lame duck prime minister. But he is leaving office. I will tell you that when the news broke, the first thought that came into my head was, boy, is Joe Biden lucky, we don't have a parliamentary system here in States of America where his own party can throw him out of office because they'd probably do that right now if they could. Not if number two was Kamala Harris, they wouldn't. Well, I don't know. I mean, they've got a big selection. They got a big problem. So like, you know, there was a Reuters episode poll that showed 58% of Britain's
1:28.9	wanted Johnson to step down. Well, there's a new Harvard Harris poll out that finds 71% of Americans
1:34.6	don't think Biden should run for a second term, and only 30% of Democrats would vote for him in a
1:40.2	Democratic presidential primary. So he's lucky we don't have no confidence votes in America
1:45.1	because I think they'd throw him out right now for Bernie or somebody. Yes. Perhaps we would be
1:51.5	happier with a parliamentary system. On the other hand, we did fight a, you know, revolutionary war
1:56.2	so that we wouldn't have to have that or a king. And so I guess we shouldn't be that envious of the Brits.
2:02.2	It really does seem kind of crazy over there. Although, I'll say this, one thing that really is
2:08.3	striking is just how Boris Johnson went looking for trouble. How do you mean? First of all,
2:15.1	he puts in place COVID rules, which all, you know, leaders do.
2:19.0	And it's a variety of lockdown and you can't meet with X number of people.
2:23.9	And, you know, but Barr is special, you know, kind of like most of our politicians are special.
2:29.9	They don't need to wear masks.
2:32.0	The little people need to wear masks.
2:33.9	And bars have the same attitude.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from AEI Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of AEI Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.