Boris should heed the historic dangers of charisma and power

MANY years ago I remember reading a short article based on an incidence on a small island in the Far East after the Japan war ended. The occupying Japanese had gone and the friendly nice American army moved in with relatively little to do. The local inhabitants were still to some extent in a catatonic mental state of submission, leaderless, unmotivated, doing very little. Relying on the nice abundance laden US to look after them.

One rather alert young soldier took notice... these people were supposed to be gloriously happy; the nice Americans had arrived, yet they were listless and lacked any motivation. So he started to hang out with them, helping to do a few jobs for them even started to learn their language. He befriended them and began showing them how they could help themselves... he got together surplus stuff and together they made a school room, repaired boats to fish and looked for cooking pots and pans so they made their own food got the pigs together and chicken into pens. He even got a digger and dug latrines and organised toilets and a washroom

Very soon it became a full time job and nobody in the army seemed to mind. The locals started coming to him with all sorts of little problems, sometimes personal. He became a sort of head man, unelected mayor; people just naturally came and deferred to him. And then, the two worst things possible happened as he demonstrated a charisma for getting things done: a) They needed him – could not do without him; and b) the American army de-camped and shipped him and all the soldiers home.

Philip Bowern’s very interesting article on the situation of Mr Johnson was good reading. Mr Johnson – famous for his debonair charismatic and winning ways, his boyish half smile who could get away with most things, including what might be called a varied and colourful past – suddenly finds himself being assaulted, politically, on three sides. One was his own side, one was the opposition, and the other was national newspapers. It’s just 16 months since winning a hefty majority in the General Election...

If we jump back a few years to the 1969 US election of Richard Nixon, one that gave Nixon the biggest ever victory to succeed President Eisenhower as President. Nixon won 49 of the 50 states, something never before or since achieved. By late 1971 the murmurs of the plans to re-elect him in 1974 were being formulated and that included activities that were quite illegal towards the Democrat’s HQ, housed in the Watergate building. Skilled investigative journalism and investigation by political leaders revealed President Nixon’s complicity in the notorious ‘Watergate scandal’, and in August 1974 he resigned rather than face impeachment for an “attempt to pervert the course of justice”. I like that law...

Political power at the top is an awesome, even terrible thing. Time and again we witness that power will lead to corruption to ensure held power persists, eg Mr Putin’s Russia and others. Absolute power corrupts absolutely when in the eyes of the perpetrator – everything he/she does is right. Lackies are appointed who just do your bidding and protect and defend you in your tower of power.

Power can and does make despots out of capable people. There must always be time when the power we give people must be accountable to the people. Any attempt to pervert the course of justice, and enquiry, is grounds for dismissal.

Mr Johnson would do well to heed our 20th century history of power and its effects on those who climb for it. The journey back down may not be nice.