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Monday, May 25, 2020

LOCKDOWN CASTELLDEFELS - DAY 71 – Monday, 25th May



I am still shaken by just how poor a defence Johnson mounted to justify the high-handedness of his arrogant aide.  When even the Daily Mail asks, “What planet do they think they are on!” as a reference to the incredible (literally!) insulting justification for Cummings’ rule breaking, joined with the sickeningly unedifying spectacle of supine ministers docilely toeing the Save The Dom cabinet line, you realize that you are witnessing a government imploding.
     Perhaps I should have said ‘seemingly imploding’ because I do not underestimate the ability of the Conservative Party to survive ‘fatal’ mistakes and misjudgements.  It is undeniable that Johnson is a lessened leader, I don’t say ‘character’ because that is clearly impossible, and if it becomes clear to him that his status is diminished then he will do what any narcissist does when self-worth is threatened: lash out and to hell with the collateral damage.
     Let us never forget that Johnson’s espousal of Brexit was quintessentially narcissistic: he was convinced by his own rhetoric, comparing and contrasting two pieces of his own writing to see which one would afford him greater possibilities for self-advancement.  I don’t know what the opposite of a Damascene Conversion would be to cover his case, but there was no blinding light from an all-powerful deity, but rather a greedy acceptance of his own perceived omnipotence fuelling his ludicrously inflated ego and presented as reason and logic and, god help duty, dedication and us!
     The front pages of the newspapers cannot make easy reading for Johnson, but they don’t make easy reading for the rest of the Conservative Party either.  Most MPs are concerned about their seats; anything that looses them public support is not to be tolerated – and these MPs postbags must be filled with howls of outrage about the preferential treatment of a member of the establishment as opposed to the PBI, or rather Plebs as they think of us.
     You can take the over-entitled git out of the Bullingdon Club, but the sense of them-and-us never leaves.  Johnson is a perfect example of the born into privilege and milking it for all it’s worth with the minimum of effort sort of the undeserving rich.  He is also a bully, a liar, malicious and, as the ‘defence’ of Cummings has clearly shown, a coward.  And cowards in power are dangerous.  As we are finding out every day.
     Unless Johnson takes visible control of the government then even his comfortable majority will not be enough to protect him from the Men in Suits whose only raison d’etre is to preserve power, and to whom Johnson is only a momentary blip on the time line of their sequestration of political dominance.

The fall out from the pathetic defence of Cummings, where we are expected to believe in a sort of Schrodinger’s Lockdown that does and does not allow free movement at the same time, continues.  Johnson’s cringe-makingly inept performance has had the surprising result of uniting all sections of society and all political parties in fully justified revulsion.  Except of course for the ‘usual suspects’ of Brexit insanity, though even some members of the ERG have called for Cummings’ head!  We truly live in strange times!
     As a last resort, Cummings himself is to make a public statement and take questions.  I suppose if Cummings can supress his natural revulsion for the carping criticism of the ‘lesser breeds without the law’ by whom he thinks he is surrounded, then a person of his obvious intelligence and manipulative skills would be the sort of man to carry it off.  But he really will have to out-Houdini Houdini to get away with it and I hope The Daily Mirror and The Guardian hacks have got their linguistic scalpels out and ready to dissect everything that l’éminence désordonée has to say. 
     I keep checking in with The Guardian on my phone to find out the time because I do not want to miss a word.  I have just found out that his statement will take place at 4pm UK time, 5pm my time.  I will be there, don’t let me down Radio 4!

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