The referendum has come and gone. The
Spanish elections have come and gone. My response in both cases has been
to write poetry and feel thoroughly depressed – something of a literary
tradition in times of sadness. But, there are limits to what even the
sublimity of poetry can achieve. In these cases it is only the rough
workaday utility of prose that suffices.
Boris Johnson (one of the Four Donkey Drivers of the Apocalypse) has declined
to be one of the candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party and
the next (God Help Us) Prime Minister.
I can think of no explanation for his action which reflects anything but badly
on him.
Let us consider the possibilities.
1
Cowardice
Having seen the state of social, political,
financial and cultural crisis that his opportunistic and selfish leadership
role in the Leave Campaign has delivered to the British people, Bumbling Boris
has a clear case of what I am sure he would term, ‘funk’. He has no
intention of accepting responsibility for the chaos that he has caused (why
should he? The philandering liar has no history of doing anything like
that) and has offloaded the messy situation for somebody else to deal with.
2
Opportunism
Having decided that there is no personal
advantage to be gained by doing the hard work of overturning or mitigating the
disaster he has helped cause, he will now bide his time and assiduously work on
the myth of ‘The Greatest Prime Minister We Never Had’ and, when the dust has
settled and the level of British misery has reached its nadir, Boris can then
poke his stylish writing above the parliamentary parapet, wave his illusory
political credentials in the Westminster air and shyly shuffle into the
limelight that he will have switched on for the occasion.
3
Consolation Prize Status
After taking a leaf out of Cameron’s “I am
an abject failure but I am also capable of a pretence of dignity in a self-made
defeat” Boris’s chummy statement (which is the equivalent of “It’s a fair
cop!”) is an obvious plea for a senior position in the next government.
No Prime Minister in their right mind would want a lazy deadweight like Boris
in a real parliamentary role, but the Blue Rinse Hero Worshippers might force
his participation, by sheer unthinking adulation, into some meaningless
political role.
4
Going back to his real job
No one can accuse Boris of being a
competent Mayor of London or MP, but he is a fluent writer. Perhaps he
has realized that being in a situation where he would actually have to turn up
on time and do some real work would interfere intolerably with where his real money
making opportunities are found: in writing, public appearances and dangling
from photo opportunity zip-wires.
5
Deception
It is much more than fair to argue that
Boris has done nothing more than he has always done: let people down. There
is only room for one person in Boris’s life and that is Boris himself. He
did pretend over the last few months that he had the interests of the British
people at heart, but nothing in his previous career would justify believing
him, so, in a way, the heading of this section should be ‘self-deception’ – not
by Boris (he, after all thought he knew exactly what he was doing) but by those
who actually fooled themselves that they might have a micro space in a totally
exclusive ego.
6
Lying
Perhaps it is almost like the last
category, but there has to be a separate category to epitomize the character of
the charlatan. He was and is a liar. He entered the referendum
after writing a Brexit and an Remain piece for his highly paid column and then
chose the Brexit. After, we are told, a great amount of heart
searching. Liar! Why is anything other that mendacity expected from
a serial liar? So, at the end, even his assertion that “I will [ . . . ]
give every possible support to the next Conservative administration” can be
thought of in terms of how much support he gave his pal Cameron.
Liar! Once a liar always a liar. It is my belief that given time
and space Boris can, almost in his own words, “win and be better and more wonderful
and, yes, a greater liar than ever before.”
Boris is a contemptible person. He is
an opportunistic politician. He is a disaster. He is a coward and
shirker.
There is one thing that he can do to
partially redeem himself. Apologise. Give a humble, sincere and abject
apology. Then resign from public life and all public offices.
What chance is there of that?
