Boris is a liability not a laugh
I VISITED Zippo’s Circus this week where Toni the High Speed Knife Thrower chucked daggers at me.
It was an unsettling experience but I was delighted to assist with final rehearsals for their Rebound Tour, which has since opened to rave reviews.
Because the 80-strong circus community had to jump through hoops to open the show after lockdown.
They got Covid-compliant in just three weeks. But social distancing means their 1,000-seat big top will now hold less than half, so finances are a balancing act.
There’s been no help from the Government, which gave them only two days notice to reopen, nor a grant from the £1.57billion arts support fund.
But, like businesses up and down the land, the circus is juggling the challenges of the “new normal” – while Boris Johnson and his cack-handed cronies have dropped all the balls.
Their Covid policy has more holes than a trapeze artist’s net, while the guidance flips more often than Zippo’s Timbuktu Tumblers.
And the PM’S slapstick “whack a mole” plan for local lockdowns won’t work when the rest of the UK is enjoying a heatwave and his test and trace system is just a joke.
Showing me round the circus, Martin Burton, aka Zippo, told me the first one was built in London, in 1768, on the site of St Thomas’ Hospital where MPS could see it across the Thames from Parliament.
“Now the clowns are on the other side and Bojo’s leading the circus,” I quipped.
But Martin, president of Clowns International, looked hurt. “We don’t like language l i ke that,” he said. “It’s insulting.”
And he’s right. Boris Johnson is NOT a clown. He’s certainly a buffoon with a mask of joviality who dangles on zip lines and waves kippers for laughs.
But clowns are noble artists who confect a world of chaos then try to make it better for people.
Boris uses buffoonery to hide the real chaos caused by his policies and failings.
So can we all stop branding Bojo a clown?
Let’s call out the cuts and the missed targets instead – and throw them swiftly back in his face.