Boris will need the best of luck
“THERE is room for debate,” the journalist and historian Sir Max Hastings wrote recently of Boris Johnson, “about whether he is a scoundrel or mere rogue, but not much about his moral bankruptcy, rooted in a contempt for truth.” Harsh? Undoubtedly. But fair? The case for the prosecution isn’t hard to compile.
Sacked from The Times earlier in his career for making up quotes, he moved to The Daily Telegraph.
Sent to Brussels by that paper, he made his name turning out scare stories for its ageing Tory readership.
Highlights included claims the EU wanted to “standardise coffins, the smell of manure and the size of condoms — and had rejected an Italian request to make undersized rubbers”.
His fellow hacks were so unimpressed one of them marked his departure with a poem: Boris told such dreadful lies / It made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes.
Then there’s the exchange between Johnson and fellow Old Etonian Darius Guppy, caught on tape in 1990.
Guppy, later jailed over an insurance fraud, asked for the home address of a News of the World reporter who he wanted beaten up.
Johnson: “How badly are you going to hurt this guy? Guppy: “Not badly at all.” Johnson: “Really, I want to know, because if this guy is seriously hurt I’ll be f---ing furious.” Guppy: “I guarantee you that he will not be seriously hurt … He will not have any broken limbs or a broken arm and he will not be put into intensive care or anything like that. He will probably get a couple of black eyes and a cracked rib.” Johnson: “A cracked rib … OK Darry, I’ve said I’ll do it. I’ll do it, don’t worry.”
Now to be fair to Johnson, he says he didn’t give Guppy the address and the attack didn’t happen but nor did he warn the journalist he was in danger.
In more ordinary times a man with that stuff on his docket would never have made it near 10 Downing Street but the old rules don’t apply anymore.
These days trustworthiness in politics no longer means fidelity to your wife or honesty in your business dealings, but how “authentic” you can make yourself appear to a public impatient with anodyne politicians who speak in cliche.
Comparisons with US President Donald Trump, however, can be overdone. Trump’s jokes are at other people’s expense, whereas Johnson’s disarming frankness about his shortcomings has long been a potent political weapon.
The two men’s backgrounds are very different too.
Trump grew up in suburban Queens and went to second-tier universities. Johnson was educated at Eton and Oxford, which have turned out England’s rulers for centuries.
Trump made it to the White House by posing as an outsider backing those left behind. Johnson couldn’t be more of an insider and as he showed in his successful time as Mayor of London, his Tiggerish personality is more suited to uniting than dividing.
He’s going to need every ounce of his charm if he is going to succeed, because he has come to office at a time when his country is deeply divided over its relationship with the EU.
The division which started as a civil war in the Conservative Party has spread across the whole society in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum.
As he enters Downing St, Johnson’s position is already precarious.
His nominal majority in the House of Commons, which is dependent on whims of the Ulster unionists, is no more than two.
A number of MPs in his party — how many remains unclear — have signalled they are prepared to do anything to frustrate him if he attempts to leave the EU on October 31 without an interim trade agreement with the EU, even if that means bringing down the government and forcing an election.
And if Johnson is forced into and election — or listens to those urging him to call one — it is hard to see how he would get a majority.
In the Remain areas of England, largely the wealthier parts of the south, a Conservative Party promising a hard Brexit would shed votes to the middle-of-the road Liberal Democrats, who could also be expected to pick up votes from Labour voters disgusted by the hard-Left Jeremy Corbyn’s mealy-mouthed attitude to a second vote and the anti-Semitism that has rocked the party.
He would also, more likely than not, lose the seats in Scotland Theresa May won in 2017.
TRUMP’S JOKES ARE AT OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPENSE, WHEREAS JOHNSON’S DISARMING FRANKNESS ABOUT HIS SHORTCOMINGS HAS LONG BEEN A POTENT POLITICAL WEAPON