From Guardian live:
2h ago 18:15
Boris Johnson's speech and Q&A - Snap verdict
That was the most extraordinary prime ministerial press conference we’ve seen for years - perhaps not quite as dramatic as Theresa May’s “nothing has changed” meltdown, but certainly more peculiar. Even by Johnson’s standards, it was rambling and shambolic. The only rational explanation I can think for what happened is that it is all part of some ultra-cunning plan to convince Jeremy Corbyn that he can vote for an election because Johnson will be such a hopeless campaigner, but life normally doesn’t work like that. If it looks like a cock-up, it probably is a cock-up.
First, the backdrop was pure Donald Trump. Although ostensibly an event to promote the government’s police recruitment plans, this was obviously a party political event - No 10 described it this morning as day one of the election campaign - and so there was something clearly improper about getting the police to act as extras on set. And if you do want to present yourself as a politician committed to supporting the police, it is best not to force them to stand in the sun for so long (Johnson started about an hour late) that they start dropping like flies.
If you do invite people to listen to a speech and then force them to wait, you should at least prepare something of merit to say. But Johnson wasn’t speaking from a script, and he appeared to have given very little thought to what he wanted to say about policing (beyond a threadbare argument about policing being at the heart of a successful economy). At one point he launched into a very bizarre routine about the police caution; quite what that was all about remains a mystery. Of course, sounding improvised is part of the Johnson schtick - in his Churchill biography he quotes approvingly the FE Smith line that Churchill “spent the best years of his life preparing his impromptu remarks”; Johnson has mastered the same trick himself - but today this did not sound like artful spontaneity. To be honest, it sounded like he had had a glass too many at lunchtime.
On Monday Johnson stood outside Number 10 and said he did not want an election. Today’s message was all about taunting/shaming Corbyn into agreeing one. Even someone as practiced at inconsistency as Johnson would find this hard to pull off, and in the office where I was watching his insincerity seemed obvious - although perhaps outside the “bubble” people may be willing to credit his claim that he doesn’t really want an election at all.
To his credit, Johnson did take a large number of questions. His most interesting line was his assertion that he would rather “die in a ditch” than request an article 50 extension in October, as he might be obliged to by a bill becoming law on Monday. That did not sound literally true either, but at least that was a hyperbole untruth, not a statement of bad faith. Perhaps leave voters, and the wider group of voters who just want the
Brexit crisis saga to end, will cheer this message. But whether that compensates for the overall impression of omnishambles is another matter.
