Still running scared
Even after all this time, Boris’s "scary" (his word) campaign managers are still keeping him away from any media outlet they don’t think will give him glowing praise or provide a strategic boost to their campaign.
Cole Moreton writes in today’s Independent on Sunday (thanks to Dave Hill for pointing it out) about how Boris’s minders have made it completely impossible for him to get even a minute of time with Boris to ask him a question or two. Their lies and excuses to avoid this reporter are exposed towards the end of the article, when they have no time to speak to him but suddenly find just enough time to suck up to Muslim voters on Al-Jazeera:
I am next, and the only one left … but just as Boris opens his mouth to speak, the handler places his body between us. They have to go, he says nervously but insistently. Right now.
"Cole was with me on the stump in my first campaign in Henley," Boris protests. The old pro has either been forewarned, or this is an example of that prodigious memory that allows him to quote the Greeks at length.
"Cole is my first priority!" he insists, not entirely plausibly, but the handler has other ideas. Al-Jazeera has appeared. Suddenly, it seems, they are not in such a hurry to go. Boris tells the reporter he is proud of his Muslim ancestors, rattles off a few answers then turns back to me. The room is almost empty. Every single reporter or broadcast journalist who wants it has been given time. But not me.
"We really do have to go," insists the handler, who has obviously had firm instructions not to let us speak. Boris shrugs, and flashes one of those smiles that have helped him get away with so much. He’s sorry, he’s so busy, he’ll ring me. In the morning. Absolutely.
I know he won’t. Even if he wants to. (And so, in time, it proves.)
The article is well worth a read, and provides yet more evidence of Lynton Crosby’s cynical, manipulative and downright dishonest campaign of avoiding media outlets that will scrutinise his candidate properly. No wonder no-one has been able to provide any positive reasons to vote for Boris: there aren’t any, but no-one has been able to get close enough to expose that!