Mwah, mwah, mwah, cripes, oops. Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
After days of Manchester spit and grey, the sun came out for the Prime Minister. Pathetic fallacy is embarrassingly real. He has his jumbo majority, his Brexit, his vaccine programme. Of course he can put the sun in his pocket too.
Boris stepped up to the lectern, boyish and bashful, and started taking the piss out of Michael Gove. The Minister for Levelling Up turned jelly puce. The auditorium hummed, gagged, sputtered and groaned. Years ago, Julian Critchley said Michael Heseltine knew exactly where to find the clitoris of the Conservative Party. The Prime Minister is well within this subtle and sensitive tradition.
He likes jokes best of all. Boris is greedy for them. Today there were puns, put-downs, satirical flights, whimsical interludes, absurd images, and ribald allusions. The hall adored them. If Columbus had listened to Keir Starmer, he would have been famous for discovering Tenerife, Boris said (whoops, cheers, screams, hoots). Beavers sometimes build without local authority, Boris said (giggles, tee-hees). There are sixty six thousand sausages aboard HMS Elizabeth, Boris said (indulgent chuckles). They still love him here. The grins on the party members’ faces show it more than anything else could.
They would say “YES!” to him before he asked them a question. Even if the question was “Would you, errr, umm, rather mind sticking your hand in this oven?”, they’d unhesitatingly grill their fingers, melt their thumbs. He hasn’t let them down yet. So the relentless gaggery is pure fun, not needily insecure. Not yet.
Boris was ordered not to be funny, right from the start. In the Nineties, Michael Portillo told him that he would have to choose between politics and comedy. Max Hastings warned him that “a penchant for comedy is an almost insuperable obstacle for achieving political office”.
And where are they now? Hastings writes his door stopping histories about 20th-century wars that I suspect are much more bought than read. Portillo wears his silly jackets on television. Boris holds the Conservative Party in his hands.
And perhaps he knows the party is anxious. (What would Conservatism be without anxiety?) The weeks leading up to conference were full of ominous signs and dreadful headlines. Almost every day the Telegraph would decry the social care tax hike as the final death of Tory politics, proclaim the twilight of the West as China rises, fulminate about the “woke” takeover of the National Trust.
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SubscribeArticle a Joke , Boris a joke so I will tell another joke-
Boris Johnson walks into a Bank
He needs to cash a cheque. He approaches the cashier and says, “Good morning, could you please cash this cheque for me?”
The cashier says “It would be my pleasure. Could you please show me your ID?”
Johnson replies: “ I did not bring my ID with me as I didn’t think there was any need to. I am Boris Johnson, Prime Minister.”
The cashier says: “I don`t care who you are, with all the regulations and monitoring of the banks because of impostors and requirements of the legislation I must insist on seeing ID.”
Johnson says: “Just ask anyone here at the bank who I am and they will tell you. Everybody knows who I am.”
The Cashier responds: “I am sorry, Mr Johnson, but these are the bank rules and I must follow them.”
Johnson says: “Come on please, I am urging you, please cash this cheque.”
The cashier relents.
“Alright sir, here is an example of what we can do,” he says.
“One day, Tiger Woods came into the bank without an ID. To prove he was Tiger Woods he made a beautiful shot through the exit doors into waste bin on the other side of the road. With that shot we knew he was Tiger cashed his cheque.
“Another time, Gordon Ramsay came in without an ID. To prove who he was, he called the branch manager a f-cking donkey, and fired everyone at the burger joint next door. With that we knew who he was and cashed his cheque. So sir, what can you do to prove that it is you and only you?”
Johnson stands there thinking and thinking and thinks and finally says, “Honestly, my mind is a total blank. There is nothing that comes to my mind. I can’t think of a single thing. I have absolutely no idea what to do.”
The cashier replies: “That will do just fine good sir, will that be large or small notes?”
That’s better than Will’s article.
Edit – by the way, in Alastair Campbell’s first volume of memoirs (which is a good read, especially around GFA) he bemoans the fact that Satan was always asking for a joke to put in a speech.
People like a laugh, Will, especially in these times. Only a miserable, hate-filled, left-winger would insist on an approved register of things they were allowed to find amusing.
Whilst Trump was callous, coarse, belligerent, painful to listen to – a small-time liar with no class and no style. Boris is sophisticated, erudite, witty, charming, hates confrontation and is a professional liar.
The other difference between them was that Trump’s instincts were razor-sharp, his engagement with people he claimed to represent was real, he made every effort to enact his policies, usually, successfully, he actually did level up, he was tough on immigration and grounded in reality.
Boris on the other hand has mendaciously used the COVID crisis to forward his Masonic agenda and has proved to be utterly incapable of pushing forward with anything he promised – putting his energy in weird one-world governance policies, ripping phrases from WEF whilst flogging useless vaccines to the world.
Trump was also a professional liar. Maybe not professional because he was so bad at it everyone knew he was lying. As for being ‘grounded in reality’, I would say he was grounded in corruption and wrong doing. His efforts were concentrated on his own well-being. If they didn’t benefit him personally they were disregarded. Boris on the other hand is an opportunist of a different stripe. They are and were both uniquely unqualified to be in their positions,
Like their opponents.
Speaking of lying… ‘he was grounded in corruption and wrong doing’. Are you a professional liar, or are you still maintaining your amateur status?
You don’t think he is corrupt? You’re not living in the real world.
You are believing the bought-up and paid for main stream media too much. I was not a Trump fan either, but I now realise the media and political classes, did everything they could to discredit him for five years. Many people are now waking up and realising that we are ruled by unelected bureaucrats and VERY rich people, and those people don’t like someone like Trump coming along and spoiling their party,
shock horror – headline – politician economical with the truth!
One person who is definitely not fit for office of Prime Minister (or any other public office) in telling us lies and taking us to war with Iraq on the basis of the lies of the existence of weapons of mass destruction is Tony Blair. I understand that following his time as PM, he did get some official role representing UK in the EU. I only hope that now that we are out of the EU, Tony Blair does not get into the House of Lords.
Until he took us into the Iraq war I had been a lifelong labour supporter and thought that Tony Blair was actually the Tony off the Frosties packet. However, he turned about to be a lying charlatan and self-serving zealot.
Tony Blair’s lies are ones to get serious about! Any promises that Boris Johnson makes stem from a positivity. Boris has singlehandedly delivered on his one major promise to get the job done in getting us out of the EU to honour the referendum vote and has done so despite the efforts of the opposition, press and various members of the “great and good” into which latter category I would probably include the inept Theresa May (as such I view Theresa May as a liar or abuser of trust).
Anyone who did not know, or refused to admit, that much of Trump’s bluster was persiflage is quite dull.
Why are people continually confused about what motivates politicians? It’s power, my lad, the more the better. If it takes lies, bring it on. Don’t make me quote Lord Acton.
Masonic agenda? That’s a new one
What is the WEF, but a Mason’s club for globalists?
A fair summary of the Trump package, and the crucial differences between him and Boris.
The author seems surprised that a politician who has spent his whole career making speeches full of jokes, obscure historical references and sometimes overblown patriotic positivity (this isn’t meant as a negative, I’d like to see more positivity towards the country) makes a speech full of jokes, obscure historical references and sometimes overblown patriotic positivity to the party conference?
Someone’s after a job with The Guardian…..
The obsession, the raw hatred for the Tories over at the Guardian is frankly disturbing
Works both ways. The Telegraph shows the same levels of contempt for anyone left of centre right
Well, except that they frequently give them column and op-ed space. When was the last time the Grauniad published an article by a Brexit supporter, a Conservative, a climate change sceptic, or an ethnic minority member who’s critical of the grievance industry?
dont you mean Woke`s both ways or maybe not
“Boris Johnson is a joke”
There, fixed it for you…
Maybe, but did you see the other guys? Perhaps the joke is on us.
Indeed, back in 2019 and still today.
Yes, but having opponents even more stupid than yourself (Starmer, Davey, Sturgeon…) isn’t an excuse for sheer incompetence.
Witness HS2
Witness Covid
Witness (in particular and with knobs on) the “Climate Emergency” and “Ruinable Energy”.
The last will be Boris’s undoing. Even the thickest, the most insouciant about politics, the most virtue-signalling, woke and ‘caring’ will be unimpressed when they shiver in the dark after their energy bills have quadrupled.
I suggest an investment in piano wire futures might be profitable.
The virtue-signalling, the woke and the ‘caring’ all vote Labour or Lib Dem, of course.
The growing and inevitable poverty in this country is likely to result in fierce civil unrest, followed by military repression.
Better for you to invest in a company that makes tanks.
I was only teasing Sir, only teasing. I agree whole-heartedly with your comments.
Perhaps before criticising someone else’s wit and sense of humour you could spend some time developing your own?
‘Almost every day the Telegraph would decry the social care tax hike as the final death of Tory politics, proclaim the twilight of the West as China rises, fulminate about the “woke” takeover of the National Trust.’ Er, does the author read the Telegraph? It is now the woke house journal. If there has been a woke takeover of the NT, then the Telegraph will be cheering it on.
I think those who criticise Boris, particularly those of us who do not like Brexit, how he rose to the role, and how he seems incapable of telling the truth, continually miss the most important bit: he is very popular with a slice of society who have not done well under administrations who considered themselves more enlightened. Moreover, he is probably right in his core analysis that having cheap EU labour has led to a low productivity UK economy. The duty on directors under company law makes it very hard to justify doing the ‘right’ thing when the ‘wrong’ thing gives greater shareholder return. A really useful bit of journalism would be to investigate how much cash private companies are sitting on. One suspects that someone in the Treasury knows full well and that it is a large amount. There is absolutely no point in pushing up taxes on the population when you can change he rules of the game and force the private companies to raid their treasure chests and get you the same outcome. The problem with this solution is not the logic, which might well stack up, but the morality of making those at the bottom of the economic stack suffer more to force change through.
‘there is absolutely no point in pushing up taxes on the population when you can change he rules of the game and force the private companies to raid their treasure chests and get you the same outcome.’ Are you saying that the private companies are wreckers and looters and saboteurs, and that their ‘private money’ must become state money? And that the logic of doing this stacks up? Those are some interesting positions.
It is a very telling phrase “…are you saying that..?” The obvious answer is No, that is not what Tim said – that is your (wildly off-centre) interpretation of what was said. It’s a poor rhetorical trick to convince the listener (reader) that that is what was said.
Anyway, I digress.
It is a reasonable exercise to speculate how much capital private companies are sitting on. There has been a limitless pool of labour that has suppressed wages which – because the CEOs have a legal obligation to do the ‘wrong’ thing [as per above] – has given companies a much larger slice of the earned revenue in the form of profits. It is a rational position to suggest that the employees of those companies should see a little more, and the shareholders a little less; within reasonable boundaries, of course. It is, after all, the result of ‘market-forces’ capitalism.
All the best
Boris (or at least those around him) have figured out that identity politics gets you elected these days. And if truth be told, he knows that if there was an election tomorrow, he’d win again. What’s more, if there was an presidential election in the US tomorrow, Trump would probably win too. That’s the scary part.
Then the opposition needs to stop slavishly following the identity politics brigade. If opposing it is electorally successful, which I’d say it is, then the best thing to do if you want to win an election is oppose it as well, or at least try and change the narrative to focus on your oppositions weaknesses. The sooner Labour realise this the sooner we’ll have a credible opposition again
I think you meant to say “countering” identity politics gets you elected.
Or did he? Perhaps he meant that both Johnson and Trump capitalised on the fears of those who identify as white? Not that Johnson (I don’t know about Trump) has any true sympathy for white identity and will betray those who voted for him.
no more scary than the alternatives…that`s really the point
Why not start with the Jews? If there’s anyone the left hates worse than a private company it’s a Jewish private company.
The UK had a narrow brush with those folk resurgent in the last election. They lost but still lick the salt.
Boris is not the Messiah. He’s a cheeky chappy who needs the stabilising force of a straight man to inject some gravitas. Unfortunately the Leader of the Opposition is not that man.
I think that is the Chancellor’s job. The leader of the opposition is there to be made to look foolish and misguided. Starmer tends to do that for himself.
Not the Messiah.
He’s a very naughty boy!
They seem to be cosidered acceptable in politics along with blatant lies.
Unherd is in danger of becoming Moonlighting Press Herd – hacks already widely published in the dailies. Where is Unherd, unusual, suprising that avoids the Punch and Judy from.left and right?
You a right. I subscribed to hear different views from those pushed at me from all angles of the media. Not necessarily right wing or left wing but different. Everyone I know thinks that politics is broken. Boris has many faults but at least he doesn’t always plough the same furrow.
The writers of articles like this should spend less time criticising what’s wrong with the likes of BJ and more time analysing why their darling ‘progressive’ politicians are doing so badly.
I watched the speech: you are simply wrong, or the opinion lens through which you view the world is so distorted you no long see very accurately. It was funny, plausible and inspiring. He leads in part because he has vision and enthusiasm. Public figures are not saints, they have human flaws, constructive criticism is important, a freedom we have that is wasted when all we do is default to cliches.
I totally agree. The article is typical of the media coverage of Boris that wants to see him as a clown, and won’t listen to anything that doesn’t fit in with its view. Boris is a serious political player. It suits him for his enemies not to take him seriously. Like the Supreme Court and the rest of the anti-Brexit Establishment in 2019. But he surprised them. And won. Boris will be around for a few years yet. He’s clever, ambitious, and has UK’s best interests at heart. If he lost office, he wouldn’t go off and make billions, like Tony Blair. He would focus on regaining office. It’s all he’s interested in. Labour have no chance against him, even if they could get their act together, which they won’t.
In spite of all the evidence on display recently to the contrary Boris remains the only major political leader in the UK who is actually a leader, of sorts. The rest are woefully inadequate in comparison. This in turn is bad for the UK, since Boris is currently behaving like the ship’s cat.
Will Lloyd is a brilliant comic writer – but not a political writer.
And as a comic writer has brilliantly managed to portray Boris as a pier-end comedian stranded in Manchester.
Which doesn’t really do justice to such a wily and chameleon-like politician.
I think Will, perhaps, needs to dump his Peleton – as does Sarah – and just get out more.
It’s the party conference for the Tory party faithful not a national love-in.
Unfair on Boris. He addressed very important structural issues in his speech, mainly using infrastructure spending and other means to bring more opportunities to the many parts of the UK, mostly northern, that lack them and are shockingly deprived: Whitehaven in Cumbria, Blackpool in Lancashire, Llanelli in south Wales, to name but three, of many. As he said, these are areas that have been overlooked and passed by since the 1970;’s, in some cases before the 1970’s, while south-east England and London have boomed. That’s pretty serious stuff, I think, and long overdue.
We’re living in serious times. We don’t need jokes. We don’t need Johnson. Get rid.
Au contraire, jokes are never more important than in serious times
“There are no jokes in Islam”
— Ayatollah Khomenie
Part, indeed, of the problem.
Life is an unexpected mix of tragedy and comedy. We have no choice but to embrace both.
I disagree, we’ve had a very serious and depressing couple of years; this joke-fest of Boris’s was a bit of a lift. We have hard times ahead indeed, and a little reminding that all is not lost was needed.
I guess it usefully hides the lack of alternative ideas and a positive vision for society based on something that actually works.
The choice at the next General Election might be considered to be a decision on do we want to listen to a PM – Sir Keir being cautious, boring and woke; or Boris being outrageous, amusing and cheery.
I know which one I would rather listen to.
Sputtering is not amusing.
“Portillo wears his silly jackets on television”.
The really silly thing about Portillo’s jackets is that the arms inside them do not swing when his trousers walk.
When Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo said that politicians campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Here the situation is reversed: Johnson governs in poetry but Starmer campaigns in prose. Funny old world
Yes Boris is human and full of fault. But it is unfair to look just at his many faults. What is good about him is that he seems to have some love in him for our country. If he can be funny and try to make people laugh or smile why the hell shouldn’t he.
One word, “populism” believe it if it makes you feel good, but understand the consequences.
By populism do you mean setting your policies based on what a majority of the population is asking for, such as Brexit and tighter immigration rules? Personally I’d call that representative democracy
There is a whole ongoing debate about majorities, democracy, maybe whether results are valid if people have been persuaded to vote in favour of lies. To me populism is telling a majority what they want to hear in order to further the ambitions of the people in power.
May be we get the politicians we deserve. Ultimately the nature of politics is shaped by us all. Optimists are necessary for progress, but we also need pessimists to cope with our failures.
I do not believe in your attempted blurring of “democracy” and your representation that there is a debate about it. Democracy is democracy and there is always a degree of propaganda on both sides when approaching votes and the best chance for a fair vote on Brexit, for instance, was back in 2016 when it happened. You sound like a remoaner in the process of back peddling or dissembling. Boris got it done!