I have a reputation in certain quarters for being grumpy, so this seems a perfect subject for these times.
To prepare for my diatribe I have first checked the Johnson entries in 'Late Life Crisis', a series of articles I did over the pandemic up to August this year. I will reproduce some of them below. They form an aide memoire for developing my arguments. They are also a snapshot of 18 months of UK Covid world.
The Review
March 2020
'Here is one of the best recent quips. The Chief Medical Officer tells Boris Johnson that the length of time Johnson spends washing his hands should be twice the length of singing Happy Birthday to his children and Johnson says that that could take a very long time'
April 2020
' 7th April - Boris in ICU, and the worst of human nature emerges, with some people refusing to have any sympathy for his personal position'
'Appropriate suspension of Bojo targeted ribaldry when he went into hospital. But by later in the week, a sense of relief that the tousled haired one seems to be ok. And so it would not be out of order now to suggest that there could be a more appropriate social media tag than #clapforBoris.'
'And if that last comment was mean, then what about the thought that if Boris was reported as sitting up in bed and engaging with medical staff then Carrie ought to start getting worried.'
May 2020
'Metaphors: Boris launched us into a tunnel somewhere under the peak of a mountain, as though we were participating in a strange video gaming experience. All was ok as we could see light at the end of the tunnel, and some pasture, although hopefully we would not drive into the pasture. But yikes, there could be another peak beyond and it was not clear whether there would be a tunnel under that. The problem with extended metaphors is that when you go into them you need to know how to get out of them, otherwise in this case Boris might be leading us out of a tunnel and over the edge of a cliff.'
'We waited, we waited [this was for 9th May press conference on regulation changes]...and we were treated to a lovely slice of waffle. The Prime Minister is at his most comfortable in waffle mode - broad brush, or Boris Brush if not Basil Brush. As one wag observed on Twitter, it was comforting to know that if your household included your gran, then you could now take her out to the park for an all-day kickabout. That's about the level of specifics we got. However, we must wait for the 50 page document of detailed guidance.'
'Despite the dressing up of the messages via the "Comms" people, it is evident to the British public (that term that Boris frequently uses, often barely resisting the temptation to apply Darkest Hour language and add "great") that when the needs of the economy clash with the needs of virus protection then it's a no brainer as to which is going to win. Thus my own efforts in the Pastiche the Message stakes:
Economy first
Sod the virus
When it suits us'
June 2020
'The commentator Matthew Parris has dismissed Boris Johnson as a shallow opportunist with a minor talent to amuse. No more clearly has this been evidenced than in Prime Minister's Questions, where he struggles to cope with Keir Starmer's questions. Starmer may not be charismatic, but he is incisive; Johnson resorts to stuttering bluster, repeating initial non-answers and in desperation treating holding of the Government to account as unhelpful attacks on the administration. But increasingly now Johnson resorts to cod legal language, blurting out phrases such as "m'learned friend" and "your witness". It ought to have been Oscar Wilde who said "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery". It appears not to have been his work, but the quotation is apposite. Oh, and I doubt if BoJo would have had the assiduousness to make it in either branch of the profession.'
July 2020
[After a piece on how Gavin Williamson had become a caricature of himself] 'And it occurs to me that this is a problem with Boris. Because we are so taken with the buffoonery and the bluster, we treat him as talking bollocks when he is not talking bollocks. Adapting the words of Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s, the medium has become the message'
'Our leader: "We discovered too many care homes didn't really follow the procedures in the way they could have". Exact quote.
That is clear enough. The key word is "could". It implies that procedures were in place but that they were not followed. No amount of later No.10 spin on this really meaning that none of us knew what were the procedures (Government sensitivity on no mass testing of asymptomatic elderly patients before they were booted out from hospitals back to care homes) can get over this. He "misspoke". Calculated deflection blame? I don't think so. He is a sloppy, lazy communicator, surfing a wave of recklessness as he thinks he can get away with it. Not good enough for a Prime Minister. Johnson Minor, you must do better or else it will be newspaper down the back of the trousers time.'
August 2020
A cheeky little trip to France, and so a respite from Boris.
September 2020
'Bojo is feted by his supporters for his quality of enthusiasm. But surely any idiot can be enthusiastic, and it takes a little more than that to be a good Prime Minister?'
'It's December 2019.
Bojo: "Dom, just before we wind down for Crimbo, I'm a bit troubled about this EU Withdrawal Agreement that I am apparently negotiating"
Dom: "Yes Boris. What's the problem?"
Bojo: "Well, as you told me to do, I've just said: "There will be no checks on goods from GB to Northern Ireland or from Northern Ireland to GB". [quoted in The New European, 13 August 2020, p 22]
Dom: "Yes Boris"
Bojo: "But we know that there will have to be something in it about checks on goods, so as to ensure no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic"
Dom: "No sweat, Boris"
Bojo: "Why"
Dom: "I'll explain. We hope that when we do the trade deal with the EU, we can get rid of what we will have to put on this stuff in the Withdrawal Agreement in order to keep the EU onside."
Bojo: "And if we can't?"
Dom: "Then we simply pass legislation to get rid of the parts we don't like"
Bojo: "But isn't that against the Rule of Law thingy?"
Dom: "No. Parliament can do what it wants. It's called sovereignty. We may be breaking an international treaty, but it would take years to sort that out. And once we threaten to make the legislation happen, that will shit-scare the EU and we'll be able to roll them over in the trade talks"
Bojo: "Dom, it's a great comfort to have you around at times when I have to act like a Prime Minister"
Dom: "I know"
[Cummings exits, crossing the fingers of both hands]'
October 2020
'A gotcha question? Alok Sharma, not the brightest button in a drawerful of largely dull Cabinet Ministers, accused a Today Programme interviewer of attempting a gotcha question when asked about the Prime Minister's inability to summarise the latest Covid social distancing rules for the North-East. A sharp comeback blow, and certainly one that a Humphreys or a Paxman would have landed, would have been to remind the hapless Sharma that Ministers are expected to have a grip on their brief. Now the Prime Minister should not be expected to know the detail on all of his underlings' portfolios, but at least he should know sufficient to field a simple question of the day on a topic of the day.'
November 2020
"Now Christopher and Patrick, show me the drawings you've done during carpet time.......thank you".
"Christopher, yours has some squiggly lines going up and down over the page...........................I see, it's spiders having a race......well, that is very good imagination".
"Patrick, you've done a drawing with some lovely blocks of colour. I can see some yellow, some orange, and some red. What made you do a drawing like this?.................................Ah right, it's something you remember from when your mother left her Farrow & Ball colour chart on the kitchen table".
"But Christopher and Patrick, you both have this very tiny writing at the bottom of the drawing. No one would be able to read that, so you must form your letters much bigger..................................Oh dear, you both saw writing like that when Mummy and Daddy were watching TV, so you thought it was ok, even though both your Daddies said they couldn't read a f-----g word of it.....................Who were the people on the TV?......................................Yes, two tall men who looked like head teachers and a funny one in the middle....What did the one in the middle look like?.....................................A teddy bear? Really!".
December 2020
' I say, Ursula has invited me to supper at her place. She says it's because all the restaurants in Brussels are closed, but I think she took a shine to me in that telephone chat over the weekend. I've had a look at her profile photo - slim thing. A bit older than Carrie, but variety is good. What ho, Gove, I sense the sweet smell of success'.
January 2021
'I had fun in November's Late Life Crisis, rewriting Bread of Heaven into an anthem to first Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford. This has spurred me on to another hymn rewrite, in celebration of one aspect of the Government's resounding trade deal with the EU:
'Eternal Boris, strong to save,
Who fought the EU unlike Dave,
Who bid the mighty North Sea deep
To yield more fish for us to keep,
You cry: "The deal could better be",
I say: 'Push off, get back to sea!'.'
February 2021
'Boris Johnson is the striker who has had an indifferent game, spurning chances in front of goal, but who has scored the winner late in the second half [vaccines kick in] and who as a result has been hailed as a hero.'
March 2021
Some peripheral Johnson, but nothing directly on point.
April 2021
'HOOSIAL: Not the gutter outpourings of a Glaswegian after a night of too many bevvies (apologies to Glaswegians), but Alastair Campbell's acronym version of the 'Nolan Principles of Public Life':
Honesty; Openness; Objectivity; Selflessness; Integrity; Accountability; Leadership
Bojo's response is simple: 'Who cares, if I am seen to be doing the job well!' And anyway, after Barnard Castle does anyone trust Dominic Cummings any more?'
May 2021
'And so I am announcing now - on the steps of Downing Street - that we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all, and with a clear plan we have prepared to give every older person the dignity and security they deserve'.
You probably did not need me to italicise three of those words, and you probably did not need me to suggest that you review the statement against the Queen's Speech this month.
June 2021
'The Johnsons at breakfast: 'Gosh Carrie, soon I've got to do one of those big Covid announcements. Need to get the language right when talking to the hoi polloi. I say, do you like hoi polloi? We're into Greek now as Latin is hors de combat as it's only used by poshos like me. OMG - 'hors de combat': Macron would be pleased to hear that, the little shit.
Language, hmm. Priti keeps using 'unacceptable' - I should really teach her to broaden her vocabulary, but the word is very Home Secretaryish. Like Raab saying 'unwelcome'. Suitable nevertheless for Foreign Secretary when discussing Ukrainian hijacking and our vicious resulting sanctions. Fair enough - never got the hang of that role myself. Now, where was I? Suitable language. Ah of course - it's back to 'I must tell you', uttered without the merest hint of the supercilious schoolboy grin for which I am famous. Will that do Carrie? Carrie...?'
....who left ten minutes earlier to take Dilyn for a pee in the garden.'
July 2021
'Johnson; 'We have severed the connection between virus infection and severe illness'.
Scientists: 'Weakened'.
Zahawi to Marr (on Sunday): 'Severely weakened. And the Prime Minister did not lie'.
Get a dictionary out. Which part of 'severed' does Johnson not understand? But of course he understands. So, ad nauseam (sorry) what he speaks is what he wants people to hear at the time.'
'I get weary of commenting on Boris Johnson's uncomfortable relationship with the truth, but cannot ignore the events of Sunday 18th July:
- Early morning: News that Johnson and Sunak will not be self-isolating after being in contact with Javid, but will be part of a pilot that will enable them to keep working from Downing Street. It is difficult to see this as anything other than a decision.
- Soon after: Jenrick is sent out to do the media rounds and confirm.
- Later morning: U turn after political and public reaction, so Johnson and Sunak will self-isolate.
- Afternoon: Johnson posts a clip on Twitter where he says 'We did look briefly at [my italics] the idea of us taking part in the pilot scheme'
I rest my case.'
August 2021
'It looks as though Bunter could have usefully rolled up his sleeves and done a shift in the fields [fruit picking]. 'Bunter', you say. Outrageous! Yet this does seem to have been the code word used for Johnson (quite innocently of course...) on his visit to Scotland. From photographs it looks pretty clear that the personal training has not worked. Is Boris bovvered? I suspect not. I suspect that in fact he prefers the Bunterish look (with hair) to a slimmer profile. Although caution should be exercised, Prime Minister. There is a sleeker, more physically pleasing specimen living next door to you. And he is after your job. "Carrie, get those jam doughnuts back in the fridge, smartish!'' '
[NB As of today, Sunak is favourite to succeed Johnson]
The Analysis
I have laid out the above partly to ensure that my thoughts now are based on a near-contemporaneous record of events, however I may have spun my reflections, and to avoid a stream of unadulterated lashing out comments. Incidentally, the Labour front bench could do with more discipline here - for example I recently witnessed an emotional David Lammy (Shadow Foreign Secretary) being dismembered in TV debate by the wily Tory backbencher Peter Bone.
Here are the themes I have drawn out:
- Personal appearance
- Standards of behaviour in private life
- Presentation
- Credibility
Personal appearance
In May 2019 I saw Jonathan Maitland's 'The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson' at the Park Theatre, Finsbury Park. This was two months before Johnson became Prime Minister. There was a scene where he was interviewed by a journalist. Johnson appeared, suited and booted, hair neatly in place. In the moments before the interview started, the tie was fractionally loosened and the hair is given a serious tousle.
That pretty much explains it. We have had the hair; the teddy bear look; the Bunterish physiology. But platitudes of 'lose a few pounds' or 'smarten yourself up' miss the point: all this and more is a piece of the Johnson persona. He wants you to notice these things.They make him stand out, even though you poke fun at the idiosyncrasies. In fact the poking makes it even better. Oscar Wilde: 'There is only one thing worse in life than being talked about, and that is not being talked about'.
If there is a trap of perception here, it is one into which many of us fall.
Standards of behaviour in private life
For Johnson, private life is private. Leaving aside misdemeanours related to money, we may froth at the mouth over the relationships; the wanderings; the apparent careless disregard for the trail of hurt for some that he has allegedly left in his wake. However, if we were to challenge him he would question what this has to do with his ability to do the job of Prime Minister.
It is also useful to look at the behaviour of previous Prime Ministers. In 'The Impossible Office - The History of the British Prime Minister', Anthony Seldon explains how cash for honours (the cash going into his personal funds) played a major part in ending David Lloyd George's tenure in the 1920s, although his 'legendary sexual exploits' were also a factor. In the 1950s, the downfall of John Profumo came from a straight up and down lie to the House of Commons over an affair with a woman who was also sleeping with a Soviet 'naval attache' - the State security implications made the outcome inevitable. Under Credibility I'll discuss whether PM announcement untruths can be put in a different box. For the moment it is enough to say that Johnson's narrative in his head is that any behaviour issues are trivial.
Presentation
This is everything for Johnson, yet we should not treat it as idiosyncratic to him -for example in Tom Bower's 2016 'Broken Vows', a dissection of Tony Blair, Bower time and again focusses on Blair's obsession with how something will look to the electorate, whether it is a policy announcement, response to criticism, or shaping of a speech. I am sure that there are plenty other examples.
More broadly, every communication reinforces image, in Johnson something deliberately distinctive that he has nurtured from an early age. It is possible to go off on all sorts of Johnsonisms, but I should stick to what I picked out above. So as illustration we had the extended metaphor of the light at the end of the tunnel, the Greek and Latin references the general bluster (at the expense of detail), the cod imagery of the stuffed shirt Leader of the Opposition, and the general bluster (at the expense of detail).
The question then is how this plays to audiences. The Tory faithful love it, and the Great British Public appear to have been beguiled, at least sufficiently for Johnson to secure his 80 seat majority. On the other hand the jokes don't always work - witness the cringe-making Peppa Pig effort in front of a stony-faced, unimpressed CBI audience (apparently a hate group for Johnson). Perhaps the impressed ones valued the arrival of a lively personality at the top, yet we could immediately point out that there was a low bar, Johnson succeeding Teresa May as PM and then fighting an election against Jeremy Corbyn.
Another factor is that the buffoonish, cheerful front masks both an intense loyalty to allies and a deep-seated hatred of perceived enemies (I suggested a group above), where insights on the latter seep out only indirectly from third party reports. Jolly old boosty Boris, giving the country hope, is what he wants us to see.
And now I have used the word. As we know, he was born Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. The surname is pretty ordinary, and the adolescent Alexander, according to his sister known as Al at home, must have thought that conventional abbreviations of that - Alec, Alex - would not deliver the impact required for one with high ambitions and a superfluity of ego. Thus, with a healthy dose of assonance, was reborn Boris.
We feed the Boris ego every time we use the word (or Bojo), even if we refer to him pejoratively, and our naming enhances his status as being so notable, and possibly so close to us (I don't think this is fanciful), that we are comforted by the use of a first-name term.
I realise that I have not addressed directly why I detest him. This comes in the final section.
Credibility
Because of the wealth of sources available, we could hit this in a number of ways, but I will again stick to my structure. My entry point items I have extracted from Late Life Crisis are:
- The claim that care homes had 'not really' followed Covid procedures in the way they could have done (July 2020). I suggested then possibly deflection blame (Government handling of the pandemic) or possibly plain carelessness. I cleave now to the former, but not in the sense of his being reckless (Johnson not knowing or caring whether the statement was true or false), but in the sense of intent, of laying out a phrase that would accentuate the trust of the core vote and would deliver a blow to an easy target. The subsequent No.10 spin on what Johnson really meant was not a getting the leader out of a hole. Whilst perhaps not a pre-conceived precise response to a likely backlash, the line was ready for use, and essentially the sowing of seed of care home negligence had already been done. (If you doubt any of this, read Dominic Cummings' after fall from grace comments on how the "£350,000 a week to the NHS" claim was conceived).
- The claim that there will be no checks on goods from GB to Northern Ireland or from Northern Ireland to GB (September 2020). I hope that the gist of my argument is becoming clear. This one had to be said, to underpin that in securing a trade deal with the EU Johnson had got Brexit done, as he had promised he would do. The flimsy basis for the claim was irrelevant. The message got through. The renegotiation shenanigans could then be laid at the feet of the demonised EU.
- The claim that the Government will fix social care once and for all under a clear plan already prepared (May 2021). Given the subsequent muddle, what clear plan was that?
- The claim that we have severed the connection between virus infection and severe illness (July 2021). Subsequently explained by a dutiful then Vaccines Minister as meaning 'severely weakened', And said Vaccines Minister had to add that the Prime Minister did not lie. And having been sent off round the Sunday morning airwaves and having kept up a straight face, Zahawi (now elevated to Secretary of State for Education) would have got pats on back for a good performance.
Lying? We don't like that word. In the Commons an allegation of such would amount to unparliamentary behaviour. We prefer the more obscure synonym eg veracity, or better still we fudge it and talk about Johnson's uncomfortable relationship with the truth (I did this above).
And of course does it matter, if overall the Prime Minister is perceived as doing a good job, with personal appearance being genuinely trifling and with private life, at least in relationship terms, being of marginal importance?
My essential beef on Johnson is his calculated disingenuity, and the arrogance and cynicism towards all around him that he shows in deploying this. And that he gets away with it.
If you want the ranting, raving version of this, read anything that Alistair Campbell has written about Johnson, or has voiced in his 'Instagram Live Rants and Rambles'. I referenced Campbell in the extracts above, and the qualities of HOOSIAL for a Prime Minister are admirable. Of course, those who remember the Blair years will have a nagging question of whether the Blair/Campbell axis was any different from Johnson/Cummings in their pomp. Like many I felt that the country was deceived over Iraq 2, but in the recent Blair/Brown programme I felt that Blair was plausible on genuinely believing that the UK had to support the US in the invasion, whatever were the deficiencies in the way that the arguments were presented.
For a superficially more considered take on the above, consult Charles Moore of the Telegraph, reputedly a guru figure for Johnson. He tried the line that the rhetoric could be purely Johnson talking aloud. That is a surprising effort from someone of such intellectual weight.
With Johnson I don't know whether on matters of substance he believes anything. Matthew Parris, a commentator I admire, described him in words I reported above (June 2020) as being a 'shallow opportunist'. Certain organs of the press still essay to defend him. This could be through a simple God forbid, Labour might now just be electable, fear, or through a serious concern that the post-Brexit sunlit uplands, ideologically craved by the Conservative Party right as much as the Israelites prayed for deliverance from the Egyptians,, might be lost by a bumbling and incompetent man at the top, that once vote-winning talisman seen as pulling a trick that no one else at the top of the Party could do, but now seen as the Emperor with no clothes (yes, not a pleasant image).
The Johnson apologists explore solid policy issues concerning what his beliefs are and why the core vote might feel shaken by his performance. The Spectator's Christmas Edition editorial bemoaned how Johnson had been understood to be a liberal conservative, seeking a low tax, lightly regulated economy, but who has morphed into a high-taxing, heavy-regulating despot. They beseech him to change, but does he have change in his DNA? And if he is the opportunist that Parris suggests, is the word change even appropriate in beliefs terms for someone whose exclusive goal has been to get to the top.
In another angle, the same magazine carried an article by Katy Balls headed: "Losing his grip - can Boris take back control of No.10?', as though it is all the fault of the advisers who have not adequately controlled Mr Bumble. There might be something here, as one often hears of the great days of Mayor Johnson, with a team of lieutenants (none of whom has ultimately stayed the course in the No. 10 entourage) who drove the management of London while the frontman entertained and inspired, once notably while hanging stranded on a zipwire. But, trite observation, being Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is not the same as being Mayor of London. There is the Peter Principle of a person being promoted in an organisation to their level of incompetence. I suggest that our man is in the cross-hairs for this.
A final defence tactic is alleged victimhood, most recently practised by acolyte Nadine Dorries, who took sycophancy to a new level and who for her troubles was ejected from a right-wing Tory What's App group. This tactic was not attractive when put forward by Diane Abbott in relation to Jeremy Corbyn, let alone if one starts to consider how victimhood is energised geopolitically by eg Russia and China. If you can do nothing better than this argument, then you really are in the oblivion departure lounge.
If it is right that Johnson is little more than a naked opportunist, then does that disenfranchise him from entitlement to his PM role? Not necessarily so, I say, provided that he keeps pulling off the tricks. But this leaves him on unstable ground, and so far as opportunist equals chancer, he is dependent on Harold Macmillan's 'events' (however the sentiment was actually formulated) going his way. Where they do not, and the Government should be dead scared of inflation outweighing any Johnson promised big wages increase, then other things may tip the balance on credibility. Thus the tittle tattle of financial irregularities of wallpaper suddenly becomes not tittle tattle at all, especially when it now appears as though the chap who knew nothing about the funding of his flat refurbishment might have been petitioning directly for more funds.
Still, the big one is Christmas parties that might have been cheese and wine meetings etc. (and the sooner that Dominic Raab is off the panel of spokespeople for the PM, the better). Why? Because whilst in ordinary course the issues might have been dismissed for a Prime Minister on song, here we have the awkward convergence of desperate Covid-related family situations with the perceived playground oasis of Downing Street. One rule for them; one role for us, and even (however illogical) Tory toffs of Eton looking down on the little people they rule. There will be desperate hoping of pulling off a counterbalancing trick with delayed regulation re Omicron.
Credibility is fragile, and especially for Johnson as he goes into 2022. He may not be on a zipwire, but he sure is on a highwire.
.........
Colin Davey is a writer, historian, speaker, occasional tour guide (professionally qualified), and former managing partner of a City law firm.