Super-injunctions apart, I’m voting for Hugh Grant

WHO would have imagined that Hugh Grant’s greatest role is that of Santa, delivering us the present in the form of the comment that could wreck Boris Johnson’s chances of a workable majority?

Grant, for years, has been the master of the dithering performance, the diffident, tongue-tied toff who can’t quite make up his mind about what to say until at the end of a film when love conquers his fears.

His performances in the likes of Four Weddings and as a lovestruck PM in Love, Actually have actually been endearing.

But Grant is not dithering at all these days. He’s coming right out and saying that to have Johnson as the leader of the country would be dangerous. Yet it’s the way Santa Hugh has spotlit his argument that’s been clever.

Perhaps the best scene in Love, Actually featured Andrew Lincoln’s lovelorn character turning up at Keira Knightley’s pink mews door with a beat box playing Silent Night and then reveals a set of big cards written on with a black bingo marker.

Lincoln’s character tries to use the statements to woo the love of his life. But this week, Boris Johnson, our Prime Minister (for today anyway) nicked the idea of turning the Love, Actually cards scene (already used by a Labour activist) to attempt to sell himself to the British voter.

However, what he (or his aides) forgot was the message on Andrew Lincoln’s opening cue card which said: “Because at Christmas you tell the truth.”

Grant spotted a golden opportunity to ask: “I just wonder if the spin doctors in the Tory party thought that was a card that wouldn’t look too great in Boris Johnson’s hands.”

Now you wonder how many voters’ minds will wonder which cards the PM should have held up to win over his desired?

How about: “I seldom tell the truth, by the way. And why would I start now given lies have propelled me forward in my career, faster than Hermes on the way to meet a pole-dancing friend to talk technology.”

Or perhaps: “Hide away from Andrew Neil? Would you face this tempest in human form knowing your argument is reliant upon little more than deliberately ruffled hair and a much-practised ‘yowzers!’ grin”.

If Johnson really wanted to tell the truth at Christmas surely he would hold up a card saying: “It’s not hard at all to see why I’m viewed as a racist when I make comments about letter boxes and piccaninnies.”

And the next cardboard offering would read: “I really have no principles at all. I had some written down once but I’ve lost them. Look, give me five minutes and I’ll make up some more on the back of my Bullingdon Club membership card.”

Now, you wouldn’t really expect Johnson to offer: “The reality is I probably have way more children that Bob Cratchit and one day I will get around to counting them.”

But now voters will surely be wondering if Boris Johnson’s election chances could have been helped had he held up a card saying; “Of course I hid in the fridge. Just two days earlier I’d been hit by a pic of a four-year-old sick boy on a hospital floor in Leeds. Who knows what horrific honesty I’d have to face this time?”

In revealing Boris Johnson’s omission of the truth card, Hugh Grant has produced a performance as classy as his portrayal of Jeremy Thorpe in BBC drama, A Very English Scandal.

Yet, that’s not to say Grant’s record on candour and honesty should not be called into account. The actor believes that tactical voting may just be enough to save us from Johnson and co. But should we listen to a man who was at the vanguard of the super injunctions movement, who once declared that “men are naughty by nature. Of course rich men should be able to gag the press.”?

Should we listen to a man who can deny a female her inalienable right to speak to the press? Certainly, Hugh Grant’s hatred of the media stems from blatant selfprotection issues. And we can’t forget Oxford-educated Grant is as much part of the self-preservatory world of privilege as Johnson and his cabinet, a man who’s never had to worry about paying a Christmas gas bill?

Perhaps Boris Johnson’s final card in the Love, Actually rip-off (sorry, homage) should read: “You lot out there are no more than spectators at the grand ball of the rich and privileged. The art of politics is about letting you think you can make a difference.”

But at least Hugh Grant is arguing at the moment for honesty, arguing that we all can make a difference.

His argument that at Christmas time you have to tell the truth is a great starting point for the year ahead. Today, I’m voting for Hugh Grant.

Lies have propelled me forward faster than Hermes set to meet a pole-dancing friend