Good on Boris for refusing to mind his language
A timid, pro-eu political class loathes Boris for expressing it with verve and wit
Forget Boris and the blonde Tory aide, what really scandalises the political Establishment is the Telegraph columnist’s use of language. Boris is to English what my poodle Maisie is to a tennis ball; bouncy creatures both, neither can resist being playful, picking up a thing and running with it in delighted circles.
In sharp contrast, most MPS are dedicated to using what George Orwell identified as phrases “tacked together like prefabricated sections of a hen-house”. Desiccated, dreary paragraphs delivered by “strong and stable” speaking clocks terrified of saying anything colourful or interesting lest they upset the vast and growing army of the Waiting to be Offended. On the vanishingly rare occasion when a senior politician expresses something the general public actually agrees with, it is immediately called a “gaffe”. The offender, ticked off for “inappropriate” behaviour, grovels obediently.
Not Boris. Boris is the gaffer of gaffes, a fervent pundamentalist. This Oxford Classics scholar is blessed with such an exuberant command of his native tongue that first he shocks, then laughs, people into recognition of what they have been thinking all along. At the weekend, he was at it again, giving his doltish critics more material to choke on when he penned a blistering account of what, amusingly, passes for our Brexit negotiations.
“Why are they bullying us? How can they get away with it?” he began. Boris wondered how a country with the sixth largest economy in the world could be “so utterly feeble”. Despite offering to hand over £39billion for “nothing in return”, our side had met only with humiliation. “We look like a sevenstone weakling being comically bent out of shape by a 500lb gorilla,” Boris complained. As for the lunacy of Mrs May’s commitment on the Northern Ireland border, he warned: “We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution – and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier.”
Oof! Cue fits of righteous indignation from tone-deaf parties who wouldn’t know a metaphor if one bopped them on the nose. Sir Alan Duncan called the article “one of the most disgusting moments in British politics… this is the political end of Boris Johnson. If it isn’t now, I will make sure it is later.” (Better buy a new crystal ball, Alan.)
Reigning queen of the Sanctimonia, Nicky Morgan, announced that she would not serve in a Boris Cabinet. (A grievous loss, I’m sure we all agree. Perhaps she and Soubry can open a small whelk stall. In the Outer Hebrides.) On Andrew Marr’s show, the normally reliable Sajid Javid said: “It’s a reminder for all of us in public policy, whichever party we represent, to use measured language because I think that’s what the public want to see.”
Afraid not, Saj. What the public want to see, as Boris’s poll ratings suggest, is someone who is prepared to speak out loud and clear against the ignoble Chequers fudge, to inquire why the Prime Minister is making a complete hash of things and, above all, to point out the strong cards held by our not entirely negligible country. Even Her Majesty would appear to back Bojo. Talking about Brexit, a puzzled Queen is reported to have asked former deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg: “Why can’t we just get on with it?”
That is the view of the British people and a timid, pro-eu political class loathes Boris for expressing it with such verve and wit. Which is why this week’s papers have been full of leaked gossip about his private life and coordinated denunciations of the “political amorality” of a “populist rabble-rouser”. They’re “frit”, as Margaret Thatcher would have said.
For what it’s worth, I think that possibly dating someone young enough to have been at school with your daughter is a risky way of maintaining the loyalty of lady Tory voters. However, if “populist rabble-rouser” now means someone who brilliantly articulates the legitimate doubts of millions of people about everything from burkas to Barnier, then we should be grateful to Boris.
Obsessing about so-called “offensive” language like Boris’s “suicide vest” metaphor has become a displacement activity for institutions that have utterly lost touch with the popular mood. How else can we explain an extraordinary tweet this week from South Yorkshire Police: “In addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing.”
Just to give you some context, the Office for Police Conduct is currently overseeing 98 separate investigations into South Yorkshire Police for their failures over grooming gangs which were responsible for the rape and pimping of hundreds of teenage girls. If I insult SYP for their calamitous dereliction of duty in child sex-abuse cases, will I be reported for a non-crime hate incident? I do hope so. It’s not as if they’ve got anything better to do, is it?
No wonder people who despair of the warped priorities of PC Plods (very PC, very plodding) and the tepid platitudes of politicians thrill a little to Boris’s swashbuckling style. The blond bombshell could not be more different to the present occupant of No10, whom he must surely long to evict. When BBC’S Strictly Come Dancing tweeted about the launch show at the weekend, Theresa May, referring to her own recent “dancing” in South Africa, replied from her official account: “Get in touch if you need any tips…”
It was funny, so we knew the Prime Minister couldn’t possibly have written it herself. That degree of selfknowledge is alien to her. When she dances, Theresa May looks like a stork struck by lightning. When he writes, Boris Johnson is as wittily assured as Fred Astaire. Which one speaks the language British people understand? I think we know the answer.