Boris Johnson And The Reminder Truth Does Still Matter
If he finds any use in doing so, the PM will now have plenty of time to psychoanalyse himself over why the hell he had to so successfully torpedo himself out of “the best job in the world".
“The job of a Prime Minister in difficult circumstances when he has been handed a colossal mandate is to keep going. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
—Boris Johnson
Is there any circumstance under which a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom should consider resignation on his own—the proverbial jumping before having to be pushed?
Well, in the lead-up to his belated announcement on 7 July that he was stepping down, a hostile MP put the question very bluntly to the now-former PM Boris Johnson at a session in Parliament—a session of the Prime Minister’s Question Time.
Johnson’s answer was quite revealing of his rabid mindset, as he combatively thrust forth his response from across the despatch box:
“The job of a Prime Minister in difficult circumstances when he has been handed a colossal mandate is to keep going. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
And he was right. Well, he was right about one thing—His unequivocal general election victory in December 2019: It was indeed “colossal”.
A wasted promise
As Britain lingered in uncertainty in the wake of the Brexit referendum, the public wanted a leader who could steamroll ahead with any bold plans for the country to fall back on its feet.
Given the choice between the confidence-projecting Johnson and his Labour contender—Jeremy Corbin who was mired in accusations of antisemitism and whose stance on Brexit was fuzzy, to say the least—voters took a gamble on the Tory leader.
They didn’t do so because they were unaware that Boris Johnson was an unusual politician; they knew that the man is an adept of the rough-and-tumble method. An orderly method, he never missed an opportunity to show he had none.
Immediately upon trading his job as a media commentator for a role in politics, he wasted no time in moving to make a trademark out of being deliberately scruffy and had clung on ever since to his delight in telling things as they are—or rather as he thought they are.
His untidiness and cavalier approach to the business of politics had a vague allure of pragmatism, a raw potential for greatness that had showed through in his first ever speech as a Prime Minister.
Remember: On 24 July 2019—after he followed protocol and went to see the Queen for her assent to form his first cabinet—Johnson had stood before Number 10 and vowed enthusiastically:
“The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters… they are going to get it wrong again: The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts, because we are going to restore trust in our democracy.
“We will do a new deal—a better deal—that will maximise the opportunities of Brexit while allowing us to develop a new and exciting partnership with the rest of Europe, based on free trade and mutual support.”
The boisterous enthusiasm in that speech was a striking departure from the shy pronouncements of his predecessor, Theresa May. In fact, it was contagious.
For a brief moment—from the BBC’s newsroom floor where I monitored the speech for my TV bulletin of the day—I was insidiously sold on Johnson’s capacity to deliver what he banged on about.
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who would cast a vote for him when Election Day came around on 12 December 2019.
Now, for my defence: There was no credible alternative. Plus, I saw more than just the enthusiasm; Johnson was a welcome break from the typical Westminster pol who would affect seriousness while knowing deep down that they would lie for a vote and may even fiddle an expense claim.
He assumed being a mountebank with the twist that he was one who was frank about it; and one who could get things done. After all, despite his tomfoolery—in his time as Mayor of London—the very scruffy Johnson steered the nation to some wonderfully staged Olympic Games in 2012.
The store of lovely memories from that great British Summer—coupled with the Olympic legacy of leisure parks and pools and running tracks, still in fine repair and much visible at multiple sites across London—had that kind of sway which could only but swing voters in favour of the man who had been the face of it all.
Anyway, Election Day came. And after Britain decided—with 43% of the popular vote and a majority of 80 seats in the Commons for the Tory Party—Boris Johnson indeed was given more than a clear mandate.
But Johnson apparently misunderstood—if not forgot—what it was that he was given the mandate for.
The big self-sabotage
The PM must have thought his win was a vote of confidence, delivered almost entirely on the account of his certifiable credentials as a buffoon.
What he probably never grasped is that there is a fine line between harmless buffoonery and making a complete art form out of leading on a consistent pattern of lies and gaslighting.
Had Boris Johnson been serious enough to understand that there is nothing funny or attractive about being a liar, he would have maximised his chances of coming close to achieving his impossible dream—snatching a place in history as a Churchill of some sort.
Consider this: Despite being broadsided by the pandemic, which admittedly frustrated his big plans for getting Britain back on track and roaring, Johnson sure held his pledge to finalise Brexit on schedule. And he was doing a rather decent job with regard to reducing Britain’s carbon footprint.
More important, the catastrophic economic slump that was forecast by Brexit opponents never materialised. Overall, Boris Johnson was somewhat winning. Until Boris Johnson decided to get in his own way.
In the course of his brief premiership, Johnson’s slate of political misconduct kept recording one sin after another, resulting in an unprecedented tally for any single Prime Minister who ever occupied Number 10.
From aiding and abetting the transgressions of Conservative MPs to then claiming he knew nothing about their recriminated turpitudes, he soon ended up in that mighty sharp bend—breaking Covid lockdown rules his own government had put in place, which he then made worse by knowingly misleading Parliament and the public.
The irony is, he still got away with it, despite being fined by the police and despite the Sue Gray Report which was infamously damning of his executive misbehaviour. And how? Members of his party—though grumbling through their teeth—stuck shoulder to shoulder with their incriminated boss.
And with their complicity, he survived a no-confidence vote brought against him in June—his last survival stunt, just a month before his premiership came apart tumbling down.
Johnson’s one blunder too many was a staged ignorance over the deeds and character of a shady MP—the notorious Chris Pincher—now known as that ex-Conservative deputy chief whip who had trouble keeping his hands to himself, especially when he had too much to drink.
Even for Johnson, a Teflon Don who had displayed his dexterity at political survivalism, shielding a “groper”—a presumed perv—proved impossible to outlive.
When the Pincher Groping-gate led to the cascade of resignations, which turned 7 July into a day of reckoning for Johnson, the departing Prime Minister still failed to see what all the fuss was about.
In the face of a whole country almost entirely enraged by his pattern of misconduct, Johnson and his supporters opted to argue that mistakes were made indeed, but that they were minor.
And so—rather very conveniently—they mounted a blame-game against the Cabinet Ministers who had decided they’d had enough. They are traitors and guilty of a coup, Johnson and his posse of diehard supporters lamented.
The triumph of truth
I could sympathise with the PM’s father—the affable Stanley Johnson—whose filial dutifulness to his son must have blinded him to the true measure of the lies and perjuries of the former PM.
A lot harder to sympathise with are those Cabinet members and those backbenchers who—in their misplaced sense of indebtedness to Johnson—elevated their loyalty to a man above their duty to truth and towards the public.
In that regard, Liz Truss—the new boss at Number 10—with her casual dismal of Johnson’s transgressions, committed a political blunder, though obviously it didn’t prove fatal to her leadership bid. Could she at least try and draw some lessons from her ex-boss’s demise?
Anyway, the seeds of lies—political or otherwise—will always sprout and flower and ripen into a forest of mess where the liar will ultimately trip over themselves and be brought down to their knees. It is so in our personal relationships, as it is at work and in politics.
In the end—despite coming irritatingly very late—the downfall of Boris Johnson rings with a tone of vindication for all those who cherish the old-fashion wisdom that truth does matter in the conduct of public affairs and in our private business.
To anyone who still holds to whatever sliver of faith they have in politics, the downfall of Boris Johnson is a consolation.
As for the former PM—if he finds any use in doing so—he will now have plenty of time to psychoanalyse himself over why the hell he had to so successfully torpedo himself out of “the best job in the world”.
To him, I can only say, “Hasta la Vista and thanks for the comedy”. Things could have been a lot more unbearable if—on top of Johnson’s disregard for fundamental ethics—he were a sour humourless damp.
Now, what do you say?
Over to you, now: What’s your honest and dispassionate assessment of Boris Johnson’s Premier? What—if any—will he be remembered for at a national level and globally? Use the comment box below and remember to let the weight of your argument speak. And insult can easily be dismissed, but a good argument never.