There’s nowt so strange as folks. Or it certainly looks that way when it comes to Boris Johnson. The mention of his name seems to shift some people into a parallel universe where things that they would never tolerate from friends and neighbours become endearing little foibles.
Boris Johnson lies
The history of his actual behaviour is in plain sight for all to see. He lied to a series of ex-wives and mistresses. He got sacked by the Times newspaper for publishing a lie. He promised fabulous things to the British people in order to get a small majority to vote for some form of Brexit. Then he promised us he would get those fabulous things done if he became prime minister. Project reality is that these have turned out to be nothing more than fables. Worthless politician’s promises. He lied.
Then he told us we were all in it together through the pandemic and must stay at home and keep our social distance. Whilst he and the new prime minister were attending large gatherings of people who brought their own booze. Something for which he claimed to apologise for fulsomely and sincerely, only to award some of the highest honours in the land to people who organised those bring your own booze social gatherings in Downing Street. In other words he lied even when he was apologising for lying.
In the middle of all this he attended parliament and told the nation with a straight face that no rules were broken. Which triggered an investigation by the committee of MPs that looks into abuses of parliamentary privileges. A committee that has a majority of Conservatives. After careful checking of the facts they unanimously decided that Johnson had knowingly misled parliament so blatantly that he had to be suspended as an MP. So he lied about not lying to parliament.
Johnson goes down lying
When he was privately advised of the outcome of this cross-party investigation Johnson decided to stay true to type. He lied about the nature of the investigation, he lied about the makeup of the committee that conducted it, he lied about their findings, and he accused everyone and anyone around him of bad faith.
Which makes it all the more astonishing that some people think he is the perfect person to lead Britain and that some pundits regularly speculate about a triumphant return. The vast majority of people who have worked closely with him have told us in no uncertain terms that he can’t be trusted and should never have been prime minister. As soon as the Brexit result was declared, Michael Gove realised that Johnson was the most likely PM and also quickly realised that it would be a disaster. His warnings may have been driven partly by ambition and self-interest, but they have been proved true in every single important detail.
After the dust settled from the Covid crisis and his own hand-picked ministerial colleagues had the chance to judge his performance, they queued up to offer their resignations and to explain why he had proved totally unsuitable to the job. The criticisms in their resignation speeches are utterly damning and ought to be enough to convince anyone that he should never be allowed anywhere near high office.
No wisdom in failure
Instead, otherwise intelligent people are spending large amounts of money to listen to him speak and to admire the wit and supposed wisdom. There is no wisdom in failing to govern decently. There is nothing to laugh at when the prime minister of our country is so arrogant that he thinks that the rules he told us to obey don’t apply to him. There are some things you can’t just shrug off with a knowing smile and a shake of a blond mop of hair.
He stands down from office after failing to deliver economic improvement, failing to level up, failing to make Brexit a success, failing to unite the country, and failing to be honest. Many of his local constituents were simply itching for a chance to vote him out of office, so he jumped before he was pushed.
Politics needs good politicians
Compare that with the dignity of the way Caroline Lucas is planning to leave parliament after 13 years of honestly fighting for her constituents and for a cause that she genuinely and passionately believes in. It is the difference between the absolute sincerity of someone you can respect even if you disagree with her and the utter lack of sincerity of someone whom even those who agree with him don’t trust.
What model do we want British politics to follow? That of the empty showman with an expensive education? Or that of the serious committed campaigner who knows how to work with others? There’s nowt so strange as those who nostalgise for the empty shell of a failed blagger when there are sincere people around who have a real commitment to the best long-term interests of this country and the planet that we live on.
