Barbs not Marbs for tragic comedian PM
WHENEVER Boris Johnson goes on holiday, I worry most about what happens when he comes back.
By packing his bags for Spain to escape a bewildered Britain the Prime Minister is demonstrating that he doesn’t give a damn for people he leaves behind.
The joker is no longer funny when he’s slapping on the sunblock while the country he is supposed to be running faces empty shelves, soaring energy prices and threats to shut factories.
It’s as if the lazy PM is desperate to prove that Keir Starmer’s jibe that he’s “trivial” actually gives him the benefit of the doubt.
Everyone deserves a break. Yet Johnson’s holiday – five weeks after his last one – is no laughing matter.
The trip betrays a privileged entitlement, a mistaken belief that the charlatan can do what he wants. Maybe that was true when enough people thought he was funny and bought Brexit bull from the fibber-in-chief.
But not any more, as smarter Cabinet Ministers and Conservative MPs nervously admit.
Mounting problems mean Johnson’s wisecracks illuminate him as a lightweight comedian without a plan.
He might be the only turkey guaranteed to survive this Christmas but his popularity is no longer assured. The question is whether Starmer and Labour are able to join the dots to convince the nation that Johnson is the central problem.
And that the Labour leader and a shape-shifting party jettisoning radical policies is a viable and compelling alternative government.
If this does not happen, the Tories could reinvent themselves again as a party of change as they did by dropping Cameron, May and, at some point in the future as they will, Johnson. Shortages, rising prices, unfilled vacancies, falling living standards, climbing unemployment and deepening poverty inflicted by Universal Credit cuts add up to a Winter of Discontent for the Tories. By picking this moment to frolic in Marbella, Johnson will fuel thoughts that he lacks the answers and the will to be Prime Minister.
Last week he likened himself to Margaret Thatcher.
This week she would be turning in her grave over his tomfoolery.