Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

Boris Johnson seems no fool at all, though at times he plays one rather well. I'd like to see him and William F. Buckley square off - alas that cannot happen, and likely they'd agree on much.

Are we now in an age where politicians can sacrifice integrity for expediency so obviously and get away with it? — Tim3003

Good question. Sadly, yes, the average politician sacrifice their integrity just to get away from problems or made decisions. It is so obvious that is why we get mad, right?
To be honest, this "technique" or "trick" (whatever we can name it) is so common in modern politics. If you want to be a politician I guess you have to be ready to sacrifice morality and integrity to climb on powerful positions.
Citizens? These will no longer care for the government anymore since the moment they win the elections.

Boris Johnson seems no fool at all, though at times he plays one rather well — tim wood

It is also interesting this technique. Politicians tend to act more stupid or ignorant than they are in real life or in the "shadows". Bush did so on Irak crisis. But I do not understand why they use this technique just to get away from problems usually. When I vote a political party and their leader is due to my confidence on them that the situation would be better because they are capable of managing a whole country.

I saw a movie, starring Robert Redford, in which the suicide rate sky rocketed after he discovered a realm of being after death.

A vote for Boris has never conceivably been a vote for consistency. We like the cut of his jib, without having the least clue what a jib is or how it should be cut.

A vote for Boris has never conceivably been a vote for consistency. — unenlightened

It's not so much inconsistency as lying that I mind. The only principle he seems to espouse is that of saying whatever half-truths are necessary to get away with as much as voters will let him.

It's not so much inconsistency as lying that I mind. — Tim3003

You and me both. From the bridge to N. Ireland to the floating wall in the Channel to stop the migrants, the fantasies pour out with Trumpean brazenness. They'll be telling us next that Corbyn is a racist.