Boris and brouhaha

Typical Bozza.  He can’t make a jolly spiffing argumentum without resorting to some lurid balderdash that emanates from his lustful loins.  Or, London Mayor Boris Johnson is unable to frame a debate without recourse to erotic rambling.  There is little doubt which is the more intelligible sentence but to affect ‘Boris’ can be irresistible (cf. Private Eye).

In his column for The Daily Telegraph, which is worth ‘peanuts’ apparently, Johnson weighs into the controversy of government lawyers backing the decision of British Airways to dismiss Mrs Nadia Eweida for wearing a small crucifix on a necklace, even though BA eventually backed down and admitted it had over-reacted.  This may sound like a situation of after the horse has bolted, but the government is clearly looking for a test-case to decisively settle the matter for future court scenarios and hence their decision to push on to Strasbourg, dragging Mrs Eweida into the spotlight again.

Whilst symbolising his man-of-the-people credentials (against all prior evidence) – “As it happens, I met the good lady, by chance, on a crowded train in south-west London. I had a long conversation with my constituent…” – he drew a distinction between the original ban on a small cross and the privileges given to those who insist on wearing a burka, going further with an argumentum ad absurdum, to riff on a member of cabin crew who, believing in the Jedi order, posited “that her personal convictions demanded that she dress as Princess Leia.”

Okay.  Where did that come from?  A member of the cabin crew who happens to be female.  Given the vast preponderance of male pilots to female pilots and vice versa for stewarding staff, why did he instinctively suggest a female member?  And why this memeber of the Star Wars fraternity?  Why not Luke Skywalker and his pyjamas or Darth Vader with his helmet and cowl or even, with some green face paint and a stoop, Yoda?  It had to be Leia and for a man of Johnson’s monarchist leanings, a princess to boot.

And what is a standard Princess Leia ‘outfit’?  Would it be the skimpily-clad garments when she was a prisoner of Jabba the Hutt (or was her captor Eric Pickles), that is the most popular among Star Wars fans?  Given Johnson’s amorous adventures in the past, I wouldn’t bet against that image bumbling beneath that blond barnet.

Aside from this, he presented quite a lucid defenestration of the government decision.