BoJo’s irreverent mojo
STARTING tonight, then droning on for a further hour tomorrow, we have THE RISE AND FALL OF BORIS JOHNSON (9pm). Would it surprise you to know it’s on Channel 4? To be fair, it doesn’t come across as an out-and-out hatchet job from the start.
Even though the first politician it hears from is Jeremy Corbyn (“I would like to look inside Boris Johnson’s head,” Jezza remarks, his face still a picture of vote-shedding charmlessness), the next is Nigel Farage.
We’re also teased with fleeting glimpses of other non-lefties it’s roped in, including Matt Hancock, Jacob Rees-Mogg and a harrumphing Lord Heseltine.
But having each popped up to share an early thought or two, these people are largely left on the cutting room floor for the remainder of this opening episode. It’s as if their soundbites have been woven into its first couple of minutes merely to persuade us we’ll be getting an even-handed take on things.
It’s Boris’s chaotic upbringing that provides much of the programme’s early focus.The conclusion to which we’re clearly meant to draw, viewing this in the context of the adult Boris’s somewhat messy private life, is: “Well, no wonder…”
Contributors also have a lot to say, inevitably, about his largerthan-life personality.
This, we all know, is the thing about Boris Johnson that his detractors really hate the most.
Although they’ll insist otherwise, it’s not his misdemeanours that rile them. They’re actually grateful for those, exposing flaws in the man that they can target with relative ease from the moral high ground.
No, what they really loathe is Boris’s irreverence. They hate it when he’s funny. It makes them uneasy, highlighting the absurdity of the political game on which they rely for their sense of self-worth.
“He’s not really a politician,” whines Labour’s ex-London Mayor Ken Livingstone, ousted by Boris in 2008.
Sure, Boris’s clowning about is largely an act, often to get himself out of a pickle, but we’re well aware of that, thanks. We’re not idiots.And is it any worse a tactic than those used by “serious” politicians to worm their way out of similar difficulties?
Despite his many obvious failings (dare I suggest, occasionally even because of them?), Boris Johnson somehow connects with people. Not only does this infuriate rival politicians, it even seems to baffle people who’ve worked with him.
“He’s not a serious person,” complains James Fletcher, who worked on that London mayorship campaign in 2008.
“It was the exact opposite of anything I’ve ever seen from any politician anywhere, ever.”
Well, precisely.