Hemlock or Cyanide

The Observer, Sunday 8 December: “On Thursday voters have the chance to strip power from a dangerous charlatan – Boris Johnson. We abhor Corbyn’s failures on antisemitism; we recall Lib Dem complicity in the dreadful policies of the coalition; and we are no allies of the cause of Scottish and Welsh independence …” The newspaper goes on to encourage readers to vote with their conscience for the “pro-referendum candidate most likely to deny Johnson the opportunity to wreak existential damage on our country.”
 
Matthew Parris in The Times, Saturday 7 December: “Untruth comes as effortlessly to Boris Johnson as breathing …” But voters “know he’s a scoundrel, know he’s a cheat, know he’s a selfish careerist … but something about his rascality appeals; and when the alternative is the ghastly Jeremy Corbyn … the wonderful lightness of being Boris Johnson just tips the balance.”
 
So that’s the choice: a mendacious cynical opportunist, or a throwback to the discredited and tedious revolutionary socialism of bygone years. The tragedy is that the much-heralded third way with the Lib Dems, seems to have withered on the vine. It has left many voters feeling, as I feel myself, out in the cold and completely disenfranchised. Hemlock or cyanide.