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How Boris destroyed Boris This patriotic showman was another victim of Brexit

It's over mate (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

It's over mate (Leon Neal/Getty Images)


July 6, 2022   7 mins

We are in the summer of 2032, and once again Boris Johnson is fighting for his life. Above Downing Street the carrion crows circle, as they have so often in the last 13 years. Once again a senior minister has walked out. Once again the headlines are full of lies and evasions, sleaze and scandal.

After four resignations in little more than a decade, the Sky camera crew outside Sajid Javid’s London home have become friends of the family. Rebellious backbenchers look to Michael Gove to wield the dagger; as always, he remains inscrutable. Television pictures show Steve Barclay emerging from Number 10 with his 27th Cabinet job in barely a decade, while the disgraced Matt Hancock is reportedly eyeing a fresh comeback. On Radio Four, the 99-year-old Lord Heseltine is talking about Brexit. On Twitter, Foreign Secretary Nadine Dorries pledges her loyalty to the PM. Everything is safe, solid and unquestionable. Everything will be the same for ever and ever.

Is that, perhaps, how Boris Johnson’s remaining loyalists imagine the future? Alas, I have news for them. David Cameron may have compared his Old Etonian rival with a greased piglet, forever wriggling away from the most excruciating scrapes, but even the most sebaceous porker ends up on the breakfast table eventually. And even by Boris’s standards, to lose a Chancellor and a Health Secretary in a single evening, as well as a gaggle of parliamentary aides and trade envoys, represents a sensational and surely fatal humiliation.

True, Harold Macmillan lost his entire Treasury team in 1958, but he was riding high in the polls and few people knew who the Chancellor was anyway. (Peter Thorneycroft, if you’re wondering.) And yes, Margaret Thatcher soldiered on for another year after losing Nigel Lawson in 1989. But in retrospect, it’s obvious she was doomed. So even if, by some miracle of escapology, Johnson clings on until the end of the week and then through the summer, before defying his backbench critics to soldier on to the party conference and beyond, it’s almost impossible to imagine him lasting to the next General Election.

And what if he does? Electoral oblivion, surely. Divided parties very rarely win elections, and it’s hard to see Tory England voting once again for a man whom Jeremy Hunt, Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid, David Davis and Steve Baker, to name but five, have explicitly told them is not up to it. So why bother? What’s the point?

For his critics, Johnson’s fall has been coming from the first. In the summer of 2019, before he had even laid hands on the crown, his former editor Max Hastings predicted that his premiership would “almost certainly reveal a contempt for rules, precedent, order and stability”. Johnson, he wrote, would surely “come to regret securing the prize for which he has struggled so long, because the experience of the premiership will lay bare his absolute unfitness for it”.

Was this just a patrician Tory Remainer talking? Not really. That same summer, another of Johnson’s old newspaper colleagues, the Brexit ultra Simon Heffer, warned that Tory party members would soon tire of his “indolence, casualness, monstrous selfishness, lack of attention to detail, incompetence and monumental dishonesty”. And even if Johnson won an election, wrote Heffer, “no one should bet on him shaping the destiny of Britain and her people for much more than a brief, and possibly deeply troubling, interlude”.

There is, perhaps, another side of the picture. Detached from the hurly-burly of our present arguments, future historians may well be struck by Johnson’s formidable, if ephemeral, strengths as a communicator and campaigner. His roguishness, his showmanship, his patriotic populism may have enraged the bien-pensant — as well as his own former colleagues — but they clearly struck a chord with millions of ordinary Britons who had little interest in the niceties of politics.

In a thoughtful analysis after his crushing General Election victory in 2019, the Cambridge academic Helen Thompson wrote almost approvingly of “his willingness to enter the realm of risk, his eagerness to trade his dignity, his indifference to conventional pieties and mundane detail”, all of which she traced to his “pagan energy”. And in another acute profile, published last year, Tom McTague argued that Johnson “understands the art of politics better than his critics and rivals do”. Johnson was right, he wrote, to see that politics was “a battle to write the national story, and that this requires offering people hope and agency, a sense of optimism and pride in place. He has shown that he is a master at finding the story voters want to hear.”

These articles have an ironic ring today, amid the risible chaos of the fin de régime. But they weren’t necessarily wrong. Much as his critics loathed Johnson’s populist persona, he won elections. But that shouldn’t be a surprise. British political history, even at the highest level, is littered with rogues and showmen, from Palmerston and Disraeli to Lloyd George and Blair. They weren’t just rogues and showmen, of course: that was why they were so successful. Energy, optimism, a gift for storytelling, a sense of humour: these are hardly negligible qualities for somebody hoping to become prime minister.

No less an observer than Karl Marx once called Palmerston “an exceedingly happy joker” who “ingratiates himself with everybody”. “When unable to master a subject, he knows how to play with it,” said Marx. “If wanting in general views, he is always ready to weave a web of elegant generalities.” That sounds pretty familiar. Yet plenty of ordinary voters adored Palmerston as the bluff incarnation of British patriotism, forever sticking it to the priggish and prissy Macrons and von der Leyens of the mid-19th-century world. One observer spotted him visiting the Great Exhibition in 1851. “The moment he came in sight,” he wrote, “throughout the whole building, men and women, young and old, at once were struck as by an electric shock. ‘Lord Palmerston! Here is Lord Palmerston! Bravo! Hurrah! Lord Palmerston for ever!’’”

The problem is that in the 21st century, merely playing Lord Palmerston — or even Johnson’s supposed hero, Winston Churchill — can never be enough. The scope of government has widened far beyond what either man imagined possible, and a modern Prime Minister is responsible for a bureaucratic machine that touches almost every aspect of seventy million people’s lives.

Johnson’s government didn’t get everything wrong: when his defenders point to the vaccine rollout or his support for Ukraine, they have a point. But surely, alone with his confessor, even Jacob Rees-Mogg would admit that the conduct of affairs inside Downing Street has been an utter, utter shambles. Britain has had plenty of inept and sleazy governments before, but very few with such a palpable lack of ideological direction and such a basic indifference to organisational competence. Even those infamous parties, judging by the photos, had a forlorn and hapless look, unworthy of a venue that has seen some pretty heroic drinking in its time. A glass of cut-price Chardonnay with the Big Dog and his teenage groupies, or a double Scotch and a tirade about socialism from the Iron Lady? I know which I’d prefer.

It really didn’t have to be this way, though. Recent history offers some excellent examples of political showmen who ran competent, efficient administrations, largely by standing back and letting the professionals deal with the nuts and bolts. When Ronald Reagan became President of the United States in January 1981, his critics derided him as a mere Hollywood has-been. They mocked him as a know-nothing, an airhead, coasting to disaster on clouds of his own optimism and good humour.

Even his closest international soulmate, Margaret Thatcher, sometimes despaired of his spectacular inattention to detail. Her Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, once recalled that after they had endured Reagan’s thoughts about South Africa during their first visit to the White House (“Well of course, the South Africans are whites and they fought for us during the war. The blacks are black and they are Communists”) she left the Oval Office, pulled him aside and pointed at her head. “Peter,” she whispered in horror, “there’s nothing there!”

But Reagan was no fool. He surrounded himself with some of the biggest beasts in the Republican jungle: George Bush, Al Haig, James Baker, George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, hard-nosed operators who knew how the machine worked and how to get things done. That took a degree of psychological security, even humility: it often meant Reagan was the least bright and least well-informed person in the room. But he didn’t mind. It left him free to play the part that came most naturally: the jolly, sunny, patriotic father of the nation, always ready to disarm his opponents with a rousing story, a Hollywood anecdote or — in private — a dirty joke. And it worked. He won elections — and even his adversaries secretly liked him.

Has Britain ever had a politician like Reagan? Well, I can think of one obvious example: another good-humoured, amusing, patriotic fellow, who liked nothing better than to make voters laugh and put them at ease. He too was dismissed by his critics as a mere screen performer, a charismatic joker who knew nothing of economics and was indifferent to details. But ordinary voters, whether diehard Tories or traditional Labour, liked him, and twice elected him to run their capital city. And while he rolled out the crowd-pleasing rib-ticklers, he had a team of serious, professional operators to keep things ticking over behind the scenes. His name, of course, was Boris Johnson.

Why didn’t Boris Johnson learn from Boris Johnson? Why didn’t he run Britain as he had once run London? For me, that’s the really baffling question. Why didn’t he play the British Reagan? Why didn’t he surround himself from the first with genuinely seasoned, clever, ruthless people, as Reagan did — or as Thatcher, Clement Attlee and his hero Churchill did? Why employ Gavin Williamson? Why associate with Nadine Dorries? What can possibly explain the Cabinet career of Jacob Rees-Mogg? An elaborate bet? A practical joke that got wildly out of hand?

Ask people who know Johnson well, and you get different answers. Some suggest that deep down, he has always been intensely insecure — something that’s true of many politicians, but wasn’t true of Reagan or Thatcher — and that he dreaded surrounding himself with rivals and potential successors.  Others point to the breakdown of his marriage to Marina Wheeler in 2018, insisting that she was his rock, his anchor, his source of psychological stability and political sense.

But perhaps there’s a simpler explanation, less grounded in amateur psychology, but none the less thematically satisfying. It may be that Boris Johnson’s capacity to play the British Reagan vanished some time between midnight and dawn on 24 June 2016, as it became clear that Britain had voted to leave the European Union. For as the sun rose that morning, just under half of the country vowed that it would never forget and never forgive. They blamed Gove, they blamed Farage, but above all they blamed Johnson. And with that, the part of the national conciliator, the amiable patriotic showman, was lost to him forever. He tried out for other parts, of course: the Brexit deal-maker, the Whitehall party-planner, the East African travel agent. But none of them really worked out. All his life he had been preparing to play a single role — and in the very act of securing it, he lost it forever.

So perhaps, in the end, he was just another victim of Brexit. As a former classical scholar, he might appreciate the irony.


Dominic Sandbrook is an author, historian and UnHerd columnist. His latest book is: Who Dares Wins: Britain, 1979-1982

dcsandbrook

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Jim Jam
Jim Jam
2 years ago

He is the inevitable result of a period of political dysfunction brought about by the sustained attempts to thwart Brexit; a battering ram of pigheadedness, blind loyalty and mediocrity. Had more capable politicans been prepared to act honourably then the electorate might have ended up with a better cabinet not headed by a bumbling, buckling coward who – although acheiving Brexit, which I applaud – might have behaved like something approaching an actual Conservative.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
2 years ago
Reply to  Jim Jam

There are capable and honorable politicians?

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago
Reply to  Jim Jam

Keep taking the tablets

Cobbler 91
Cobbler 91
2 years ago
Reply to  Jim Jam

For me, while he did get that done, it has been nothing but a constant stream of disappointment from him. I hoped that we were going to level up parts of the UK that had been neglected for decades. Instead, that died when the northern parts of HS2 were cut back on. I did also hope we’d move a bit more towards CANZUK as we moved away from the EU and built a new alliance to combat China in the Pacific. AUKUS did help out a bit on this, but no overtures seem to have been made to Canada or New Zealand on this. Not to mention the general cluelessness about how to fix the economy, tackle woke institutions etc.

Johnny West
Johnny West
2 years ago
Reply to  Cobbler 91

he got it done by *lying*, signing an agreement he never intended to honour. we will be living with the consequences of this devaluation of trust in our country for decades.

Chris Dale
Chris Dale
2 years ago
Reply to  Jim Jam

You totally lost me at “A more capable and honourable politician (Theresa May would certainly qualify)” Pffftt.

Rasmus Fogh
Rasmus Fogh
2 years ago
Reply to  Chris Dale

Well, she did not lie all the time, or break her own rules. And she tried to find a realistic solution to the NI problem instead of just promising whatever and then breaking her word. She may be no Churchill, but surely she is honourable, and more capable than the Boris?

Michelle Johnston
Michelle Johnston
2 years ago

Perception is everything. In a world where we seem to drown in compliance, the perception was that the establishment was seen to be hijacking our departure from the European Union the ultimate example of power through bureaucracy. Add to that an opposition that hates England, Corbyn and Sturgeon, no other General Election result was ever likely. That the metropolitan media were completely wrong-footed tells us more about them than Boris.
Within twelve weeks Boris was engulfed in the break out of a Virus which we knew from China increased mortality amongst the elderly and co-morbid.
His instinct, which was right, was to go “Sweden” but he was swamped by (well we all know that story). That he was lax inside NO 10 was stupid but that was his instinct at work.
He thought by rolling out a Vaccine which avoids excess mortality rates and remove restrictions as quickly as possible was the important stuff (actually it is). But his casualness in Lock Down came back to bite him on the bum and from then on he was lost. Every bit of poor recollection would be his undoing.
Those who profoundly disagreed with Brexit (The Financial Times) now hammer him on economic performance. Capital Economics made it clear in 2016 that it would take ten years to realign. It is far far too early to make that judgement unless you happen to be a particular company whose business profile only worked whilst we were in the EU.
Now dealing with the disastrous consequences of policy to the Virus and a European War hardly makes conclusive judgement possible, even prematurely but this is a world and media that have an attention span of a gnat. So it’s events, dear boy.
But whether I like him or not his instinct to carry on longer rather than fold makes sense. Labour/Scotland has not gone away and many will worry a replacement will slide back toward the four tenents and we end up de facto in the EU.
As I always say if you want to understand Europe, you can consider the South/North dysfunction, but talk to people elsewhere in the world who try to deal with them. Their idea of a level playing field is not about quality alone it’s about every aspect of production denying individual states the right to do things their way.

Steve Murray
Steve Murray
2 years ago

Excellent analysis, taking in every single point of major impact on his premiership (to date). It fills me with hope that there are good people out there capable of seeing and writing with such clarity amid the fog of the MSM and opinion pieces, albeit a fairly decent one which we’re responding to.

Andrew Horsman
Andrew Horsman
2 years ago

The vaccine rollout that might perhaps have postponed the deaths of some the elderly population, but which has left thousands of innocent people of all ages dead or injured; that, despite the claims of the pharma shills in politics and media, didn’t prevent transmission from, or offer immunity to, those who took it; that was authorised by a panicking, panicked government on the basis of reportedly fraudulent trial data and despite effective, generic treatments being available; that created an “outgroup” in the form of the “unvaccinated” against whom the lying, amoral, charlatan who has called himself PM these last few years legitimised hatred and discrimination; that accelerated the rollout of digital ID technology that could usher in unprecedented control and restrictions on individual liberty the likes of which this country has seen; and that has left the country with an enormous tax bill that our grandchildren will probably be paying off, but which enriched many individuals close to the government? That vaccine rollout?

And the “support for Ukraine” that has inflated the ego of a fellow actor-clown-princling and which might have contributed to protracting for many months a horrendous war that have concluded in days or weeks at the cost of thousands of lives, that could lead to an escalation of geopolitical tensions and possibly further conflict, and which has self-inflicted further economic hardship on our own country? That support for Ukraine?

Boris Johnson, like that man-child Hancock, is being deposed, but for all the wrong reasons. Unless we can have an honest national conversation about what actually happened in “Covid times”, and unless we can gain a more realistic perspective on geopolitics, this political clown world will go on and on until it collapses under the weight of its own preposterous contradictions, or some foreign power or other forcibly puts an end to it.

Paul Walsh
Paul Walsh
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

We are unfortunate to have a group of world leaders, who are largely Dad’s Army types, with no crisis management experience.
I think the damage done by lockdowns etc, will lead to a lot of leadership changes in the next few years. Maybe a cautionary tale for the next lot of idiots we have running the world.
I was always of the opinion that the Covid vaccination should have ideally been rolled out like the flu vaccine, offered to over 50’s and selected at risk groups. It may have done some good for the vulnerable in this group. Although I was also in favour of a saline solution injection labelled as a vaccine, to get us out of the ridiculous measures we somehow got into.

Last edited 2 years ago by Paul Walsh
Gordon Wolffe
Gordon Wolffe
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

Excellent comment thank you for speaking out and speaking the truth

Claire Allen
Claire Allen
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

Thank you for putting into words exactly how I feel about Covid treatments, the vaccines, digitalisation, and Ukraine. It is a huge relief to know I am not alone!

Martin Spartfarkin
Martin Spartfarkin
2 years ago
Reply to  Claire Allen

No there is a significant community of conspiracy nuts. Piers Corbyn is always in search of new acolytes (and financial contributors)…

Andrew F
Andrew F
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

While, I agree with some of your comments about vaccines, my recollection of events is that Boris was reluctant to introduce restrictions but was bounced into lockdowns by hysterical media and his advisers.
UK was a country with highest public support for lockdowns and other restrictions.
What other politician would resist the pressure, especially with all MSM and opposition parties just shouting for harder and longer lockdowns?
Politically, successful rollout of vaccines infuriated Remainers even more by shoving how useless EU is.
Your comments about Ukraine, i find really disgusting.
Why should not we help Ukraine if they chose to fight Russian aggression?
What nonsense are you talking about war “that have concluded”?
Which country caused thousands of deaths.
Country which escalated geopolitical tension and persuaded Sweden and Finland to join NATO is Russia.
Economic hardship was inflicted on Western Europe by idiotic “net zero” energy policies and Germany driven reliance on Russian energy.
Nord Stream project is nothing more but economic version of Ribentrop-Molotov pact.
Oil prices were increasing steadily since 2015 but this was ignored to placate woke voters with green policies.
Yes, Boris is guilty here.

Paul Walsh
Paul Walsh
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew F

The worrying thing is you have a point on Boris being bounced into it, but that isn’t following his Churchillian image. We needed him to show some spine, as he obviously didn’t think much of the rules he introduced.
This doesn’t fill me with hope about the quality of many of the potential leaders who supported these ruinous policies.
I think Ukraine deserve support, but I doubt Boris was leading the support entirely on moral grounds.

Gregory Cox
Gregory Cox
2 years ago
Reply to  Paul Walsh

Initially Johnson gave advice about prudent behaviour but did not lockdown like France (March 2020). For the next few days he was subjected to a torrent of abuse from left, right, and centre, from the bbc to scientists, for murdering people by failing to introduce Lockdown.
Observing from abroad I would comment that the UK has turned Johnson into a sacrificial goat. By killing the goat please do not imagine that you have solved anything. In fact you have increased your problems. Brussels and Moscow now see you as weak and vulnerable.

Paul Walsh
Paul Walsh
2 years ago
Reply to  Gregory Cox

I don’t disagree, which is what I mean be showing some spine. I always though the backlash would hit him and was surprised he didn’t hold firm, especially for 2nd and 3rd lockdowns.

Gregory Cox
Gregory Cox
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew F

Well said, Horsman’s comment about Ukraine is utterly disgusting.

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
2 years ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

Regarding the vaccine rollout: you are simply wrong. I write as a doctor, working in a very busy A&E and witnessing people coming into my department with Covid.

The vaccine made a massive difference. And people damaged by the vaccine? None ever came into my department.

Don’t believe everything you read online.

AC Harper
AC Harper
2 years ago

Another hit piece – which I think is more balanced than most. But a key question is who would replace him? There are plenty of hopefuls in both main parties who would like the chance, but in times of trouble (much of it confected by the media) people don’t want a grey managerialist yet again.

and a modern Prime Minister is responsible for a bureaucratic machine that touches almost every aspect of seventy million people’s lives.”

And there’s the rub. Many of the potential electorate don’t want another Major/Brown/Cameron/May clone put in place by the political machine. And I believe that any politician arising from within the bowels of the machine will avoid rocking the boat – we deserve better.

tom j
tom j
2 years ago
Reply to  AC Harper

I still don’t really see what the problem is. Sajid Javid resigning is either evidence that (a) he couldn’t do the job or (b) Boris did appoint someone competent despite Dom’s argument. I assume it’s a bit of both, but the idea that the right leader is some technocrat is just awful. Boris is fun and he’s made some big calls: your Mays and Starmers would have locked down again last December. All alternatives look just a lot worse.

Ian Stewart
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  tom j

I’m with you on the big calls being very good for Brexit, Ukraine and the vaccine. But he keeps mucking it up on the minor stuff – as Dominic says, he needed a dependable and competent cohort of core staff.

Paul O
Paul O
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Brexit I agree, but creating long term economic chaos and inflation due to lockdowns, etc, and taking us headlong into another Afghanistan/Iraq and putting millions of less well off Brits into fuel poverty didn’t seem too wise at all. And as for all the poorly thought out ESG strategies and pandering to wokeness at every chance gives him my vote as the worst British PM ever.

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

And instead he got Carrie

Vic Pearson
Vic Pearson
2 years ago
Reply to  Ian Stewart

Brexit yes but Ukraine ? The war would be over by now had not Boris persuaded Ukraine not to accept early Russian talks and then encourage an arms race then now many casualties.

Guy Aston
Guy Aston
2 years ago
Reply to  Vic Pearson

Are you serious? Putin is a classic bully, possibly a psychopath. Do you really believe that ceding a huge chunk of the Ukraine to him would have stopped everything? It would have simply fed his appetite for more. There comes a point where a stand has to be made. Had Ukraine conceded, the war would be just beginning… for Latvia, Estonia, Moldova and more.

Mary Bruels
Mary Bruels
2 years ago
Reply to  Guy Aston

This is the same argument that got us (US) into a long, protracted, useless VietNam war. The war hawks (Lyndon Johnson et al) screamed that if VietNam went communist, all of SE Asia would follow. Well, we know what happened. We pulled out with our tails tucked between our legs, the communists took over and the rest of SE Asia did not fall to the communists. Putin is having a more difficult time that he thought he would have just trying to handle the current situation. As an American,I view this as a European problem and look to you to stiffen up and resolve it.

Matt M
Matt M
2 years ago

Every leader in the western world that came through the COVID period is in the same position.
Trump: lost election
Sleepy Joe: lowest poll ratings of any president at this stage, heading for mid-term wipe out, highly unlikely to be the ’24 Dem candidate.
Macron: a month or so into his second term and already a lame duck. First president that can’t control his parliament since the ’80s.
Scott Morrison: lost election
Merkel: resigned before pushed
Olaf Sholz: sinking in the polls after a few months
Trudeau: highly unpopular and leading a minority government

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

Yes, I think that they are in general a bad, or at least a weak and uninspiring, lot as leaders go, with Boris Johnson being the worst.

Art C
Art C
2 years ago
Reply to  Matt M

You could turn it around and say the covid scam showed where real power resides.

Matthew Baildon
Matthew Baildon
2 years ago

I think the question was answered earlier on in your article. As mayor he was able to select the best and the brightest to lead and enact policy and he proved himself most apt at spotting such talent (a modern day Reagan, as you put it). As PM he only had the pick of the Tory party. And sadly therein lies a dearth of talent. Sadder still is when one looks across the divide and sees a Labour party similarly bereft of ability.
As an aside I voted for Brexit so our politicians and civil service could finally have their feet held to the fire, unable to hide their incompetence behind the fig leaf of the EU. They were always this inept but now the mask has been removed. We have many years of appalling governance ahead of us, whichever party leads.

J Bryant
J Bryant
2 years ago

Seems like everyone is writing BoJo’s political obituary, but, so far as I know, Boris is still prime minister. Things aren’t looking good for him at this moment but I’m not willing to write him off just yet. The next few days will be interesting.

Prashant Kotak
Prashant Kotak
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

It’s over I’m afraid.

And will spawn a civilization lasting a couple of millennia I imagine. The Judases (plural this time but as brown as in the old days) have taken their pieces of silver. Pilate (or in this case the chair of the ’22 committee) has already washed his hands (or rather, downed several rounds of whiskey and soda as they do these days being a more enjoyable activity than scrubbing with soap and water). We now have to wait for the resurrection (“… touch me not, Carrie…”, or in this case “… ooh, yeah, nice! touch me like that again!…” to some successor of Carrie) followed by the ascension (scruffy business suit instead of blue nightie, surrounded by cabal of fresh-faced spads instead of gaggle of seraphim and trumpet-blowing cherubim, a heavenly seat to the right of some CCP-approved CEO on the board of a chinese tech giant, as good as any old-time pearly-gated bling). I fully expect, within a few years, little statues of Boris in every home, floating above us from a zip wire, face mask instead of a crown of thorns, arms akimbo, not nailed to anything (because it’s very difficult to nail anything on Boris being so greased and porcine) but holding aloft a couple of Union Jacks. And the entire UK population, forever after full of contrition at our responsibility in His downfall, will forever mark the day of ‘Masking Sunday’ as a day of collective mourning.

Last edited 2 years ago by Prashant Kotak
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
2 years ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

Well I appreciated the comment

Alphonse Pfarti
Alphonse Pfarti
2 years ago

Yeah, made me chuckle.

tom j
tom j
2 years ago
Reply to  Prashant Kotak

“afraid”

Rob Britton
Rob Britton
2 years ago
Reply to  J Bryant

He might limp on for a few more months, stumbling from crisis to crisis. However, in the greater scheme of things, Boris Johnson is toast I’m afraid. There is no way Boris Johnson will be leading the conservatives into the next election.

Kerie Receveur
Kerie Receveur
2 years ago
Reply to  Rob Britton

What Conservatives? This lot are, at best, Blue Labour.

Kal Bevan
Kal Bevan
2 years ago
Reply to  Kerie Receveur

And Labour are now Red Tories… what a surreal time we are living in

Richard Abbot
Richard Abbot
2 years ago

“It is absolutely fatal to attempt to govern on principles opposite to those on which you were elected.” J Enoch Powell, 1972, referring of course to Edward Heath, but just as applicable now.
As repayment for lockdowns,ballooning government spending, demonisation of the unvaccinated and the nodding through of endless woke-green madness, Enoch Powell’s words must continue to reverberate “He needs no one else to ruin him after doing that.”

polidori redux
polidori redux
2 years ago

I simply cannot get my head around a man who ignores the interests of his natural supporters, preferring instead to suck up to those who would not vote for him whatever he did or said. Some blame the influence of his wife, but I don’t think so. Perhaps one day we will find out.

Martin Spartfarkin
Martin Spartfarkin
2 years ago
Reply to  polidori redux

I think if you look at Johnson’s history, he’s always been a social liberal to the extent that he believes in anything, despite the off-colour jokes. Furthermore, his conversion to the cause of Brexit was entirely a matter of political calculation, not conviction – he was arguing against Brexit right up until it became advantageous to back it.

Last edited 2 years ago by Martin Spartfarkin
Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
2 years ago

Alas, this is true. Also true there is no conviction. But loads of energy and optimism to make up for it. Not sure conviction is all that great really, look at the despots. No U turns for them. But Boris took it too far and “listened” to everyone and tried to get brownie points from everyone. In the end, no one won.

JJ Barnett
JJ Barnett
2 years ago

The problem is that in the 21st century, merely playing Lord Palmerston — or even Johnson’s supposed hero, Winston Churchill — can never be enough. The scope of government has widened far beyond what either man imagined possible, and a modern Prime Minister is responsible for a bureaucratic machine that touches almost every aspect of seventy million people’s lives.

You’ve hit upon the problem in the latter part of this observation. A big part of why hate our leaders more with each decade is that they’re becoming bigger and bigger figures in our lives — the entire apparatus of state is.
Governments should never be allowed to get too large (in sprawl, or in our lives) …or they will use that power to begin existing for their own sake. The larger the state grows, the more inept and corrupt it becomes, this is inevitable. And then we will begin to hate them. Also, inevitable.
That’s what we have now — a system that lives for itself, primarily. The ‘state’ is currently so big it touches everything. It’s so bloated that it reaches into the most intimate corners of citizens’ lives. The state is everywhere. It’s in classrooms, bedrooms, parent/child relationships, etc.

Having achieved this immense and inappropriate power, now both parties fight relentlessly, and viciously, to control the levers of that power. And every kind of malevolent corporate interest, or activist group, seek to do the same. And the whole circus attracts sociopaths and chancers, who all fight to corrupt or to control power, or to lower their bucket into the immense river of cash that passes through government coffers. A corrupt, incompetent bureaucracy of this nature will also repel, frustrate and exhaust people of principle, gumption or integrity… until they are filtered out. It’s quite literally a sort filter for all the worst people; the ones that should absolutely not be given access to power.

The answer (as I see it) isn’t to elect my particular ‘team’, or search for new ‘stars’ and ‘saviours’ to elevate. They will all disappoint us in the end. I believe the answer is to de-fang and de-centralise the system in such a way that the state has less power and influence in our lives. Way, way less. We need to beat back the state until it resides once again ‘over there’. We should return to time when nobody has heard of the bloke who is the Chancellor, as joked about in the article. Politics should be at the fringe of our lives, not in the centre of it. Just my two cents.

Last edited 2 years ago by JJ Barnett
Bill Tomlinson
Bill Tomlinson
2 years ago

“Did Boris destroy Boris?”

Nah!

Carrie destroyed Boris.

Andrew Martin
Andrew Martin
2 years ago
Reply to  Bill Tomlinson

Well said Bill. As Cummings has said, once the election was won he was cast into the wilderness by her. She had a Rasputine effect on the jolly jovial Boris deciding his no10 team of juvenile clowns who were clearly out of their league. Lord Frost thought so too and banished her and her friends.But why was it allowed to happen in the first place?

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
2 years ago

As has been mentioned numerous times before, Johnson tends to get the big decisions right such as Brexit, the vaccines and Ukraine. It’s the mundane day to day stuff that he seemingly doesn’t have the capacity to manage effectively.
The article makes a good point that if he had surrounded himself with competent people he may have been ok, although British politics is sorely lacking in that regard for all the major parties.
Perhaps his was always going to be a short stint in charge, being one of the few people with the ability to force Brexit through. Now that’s largely done somebody else can deal with the day to day running of the country

David Harris
David Harris
2 years ago

But if not Boris then who? And don’t say Jeremy Hunt.

Tamara Perez
Tamara Perez
2 years ago

The civil service, there to serve the govt, decided in its narcissistic rage to put obstacles in his way including the lockdown parties which were primarily a civil service affair. As for clever ruthless operators – we ain’t in Kansas anymore – where are such people in politics?

Adam Steiner
Adam Steiner
2 years ago

Yet another potentially great article from Unherd, ruined by a clickbait title and a tacked-on non sequitur of a conclusion.

polidori redux
polidori redux
2 years ago
Reply to  Adam Steiner

At least yo have the bit in the middle.

Bryan Dale
Bryan Dale
2 years ago

Johnson’s one hope would be to stop letting the WEF run the country. Cut taxes, cut regulations and ditch Netzero. Unfortunately, the Conservative Party today is so woke that such moves would probably depend the revolt against him.

Mark Vernon
Mark Vernon
2 years ago

This is the telling remark, I’d say: “a modern Prime Minister is responsible for a bureaucratic machine that touches almost every aspect of seventy million people’s lives.” Promising year on year material growth and improvement to boot.

How is that possibly sustainable, even if the planet were an infinitely giving, effortlessly replenishing resource?

Steve Elliott
Steve Elliott
2 years ago

When I see the likes of John Major, Tony Blair, Macron, Hugh Grant, Putin, Michael Heseltine, Lord Adonis and all those EU Leaders who rejoiced in Johnson’s downfall I think despite all his many faults I’d vote for him again. If he can p**s off all those elite aholes then good on him.

Mark Chadwick
Mark Chadwick
2 years ago

Boris Johnson is no different than any other career politician who’s emerged over the last 30yrs. Representing their country is only a stepping stone towards bigger and greater things, and the electorate are just an inconvenience they have to put up with along the way.

David Redfern
David Redfern
2 years ago
Reply to  Mark Chadwick

He’s hardly a career politician, he’s a journalist, a story teller.
True to form, his past returned to haunt him.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
2 years ago
Reply to  Mark Chadwick

Yes, rather like the plebs of Ancient Rome or οι πολλοι of the Greek city states.

Johnny West
Johnny West
2 years ago

The 2016 point is right – Johnson could never again seek the sunny uplands of the Heineken politician. But there’s a bigger reason why he couldn’t “do a Reagan”: he always thinks he’s the smartest person in the room, and it means a lot to him. He massively overestimates his own abilities.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
2 years ago

I was happy that Boris Johnson was prime minister at first, but that quickly waned during COVID lockdowns when he exhibited nothing but easy-going cowardice. Because he was a ‘go with the flow / offend no-one’ type of politician, he ended up offending everyone.

Jeremy Bray
Jeremy Bray
2 years ago

Boris’s advantage has been the alternatives have been pretty uncompelling . His successes have been achieved by Ministers who have no great independent profile.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Bray

If there’s one word that describes Boris, it is “lucky”.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
2 years ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Well, it is certainly an adjective which describes him. We may each follow it with the noun of our choice!

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
2 years ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Read Napoleon’s view on ‘lucky’.

David McDowell
David McDowell
2 years ago

Simple enough. There isn’t the quality or quantity of supporters available to enable him to repeat the strategy of delegation he employed as Mayor. The parliamentary party and pool of external expert operators is rammed with remoaners who won’t work for Brexit. The ones that are willing to work for a pro-Brexit government are a bit dreggy unfortunately.

Russell David
Russell David
2 years ago

Johnson criminalised human contact. That should be his political epitaph.

Andrew Langridge
Andrew Langridge
2 years ago
Reply to  Russell David

He also presided over the deaths of 150000 of his fellow citizens. If we had your way that figure would be double.

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
2 years ago

Evidence? Sources?

Or just parroting another conspiracy theory?

Nicholas Rynn
Nicholas Rynn
2 years ago

The difference between Johnson and Regan is that Regan understood integrity and the difference between the truth and a lie.

Maureen Finucane
Maureen Finucane
2 years ago

Begone and take your foolish vapid wife with you.

Maureen Finucane
Maureen Finucane
2 years ago

He has made himself an open target of the MSM who wanted him dislodged because of Brexit. The foolishness of his lockdown parties cannot be understated.

Stoater O
Stoater O
2 years ago

The incessant lyimg of this man is stellar.

P Branagan
P Branagan
2 years ago

Crackingly good read. Thanks

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
2 years ago

The overwhelming consensus in the punditry that Johnson is finished means that he will be back some day bigger than ever. Look how many career reversals Winston had in his life..

James Vallery
James Vallery
2 years ago

Politicts needs a change. Instead have parties leading and selecting who fills which role in goverment. Political culture inside said parties it is obivious they no longer fit for purpose. Instead roles for running a country should be filled with the best suited candidate regradless of which party they are in. Britain prides itself on multiculturalism. It is time for politics to follow suit. Instead of a party working for its own best interests a multi politic goverment would work for whats best for the country and not just a select few work for a few of its Citizens. The current model of politics is geared towards discrimnation. Which current Politcal Party method works on. The UK laws state..
The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society.
How can you have a proper working goverment when Political Party disciminate agianst each other and its citizens??

Last edited 2 years ago by James Vallery
Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
2 years ago
Reply to  James Vallery

I agree with your first sentence.

Fran Martinez
Fran Martinez
2 years ago

Vaccine roll out, support for Ukraine? Are these positives? The only positive I can think of was his reluctance to use vaccine passports to enter pubs and restaurants. Though he used them for night clubs and entering the country.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
2 years ago

Brexit giveth and Brexit taketh away.

Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
2 years ago

Hold up you thumb downers. I was only saying Brexit made Boris but the anti brexiteers took him away.

Roger le Clercq
Roger le Clercq
2 years ago

Central point is that Johnson was stuffed by 48 percent of Brexit voters who could never forgive him. The rest follows. He was doomed, doomed, doomed.

Roddy Campbell
Roddy Campbell
2 years ago

Covid? Maybe.
Carrie? For sure.

David Hirst
David Hirst
2 years ago

Lord Heseltine is 89, not 99.

In the following part-sentence…
‘it’s hard to see Tory England voting once again for a man whom [NAMES], to name but five, have explicitly told them is not up to it.’
…’whom’ should be ‘who’. It’s a slightly complex sentence, and I can see how the slip occurred – but it reduces to the same general form as ‘the man whom ate the biscuits’.

Graeme Cant
Graeme Cant
2 years ago
Reply to  David Hirst

Well, David, your learned pedantry on who/whom is rather undermined by missing the article’s opening words We are in the summer of 2032,” – when Heseltine will indeed be 99.

Last edited 2 years ago by Graeme Cant
Martin Spartfarkin
Martin Spartfarkin
2 years ago

As a Londoner, the idea that Johnson ran London competently is laughable. The best you can say of his directionless, stunt-filled administration is that it did less damage than many of us feared, assisted by the fact that the major has limited powers. The bike infrastructure projects (mostly inherited from Livingstone) were good. But the money spaffed on vanity projects, most notably the doomed ‘garden bridge’ and the reduction in affordable housing targets tell the real story.

Sean Bass
Sean Bass
2 years ago

You brits are so cute!!! We love it

Rob Britton
Rob Britton
2 years ago

Boris Johnson always reminded me of Jimmy Savile. While not being guilty of the sins that Savile was guilty of, Boris johnson had a flamboyant personality and a carefully cultivated brand of clownish buffonery to mask something darker that lay beneath.

Robin Blick
Robin Blick
2 years ago

Like his name-sake, not Goodenough.

Edward De Beukelaer
Edward De Beukelaer
2 years ago

It is interesting how many on this commentary section vote down anything that is/may be pro EU. I can see the simple logic of it in relation to the difficulties the EU has. It will need quite some time to become a successful venture (if we can call it a venture…). But getting out of an organisation that is so closely linked to the UK in all respects, and losing all influence in this organisation to help/stear/etc to make better seems utterly shortsighted, however bad the EU functioning may well be on the moment.
I have talked to quite a few people who agree with this after voted pro brevity because that is what their heart told them. I can understand this and won’t criticise their vote, but those who say they have hard arguments…. I find that more difficult. You progress by cooperation …. not by opposition…

Steve Elliott
Steve Elliott
2 years ago

Quite some time? It’s been 60 years since the UK joined the Common Market and 30 years since Maastricht was signed. How long do we have to wait?

danni baylees
danni baylees
2 years ago

He’s a psychopathic narcissist and like Hitler they are very dangerous when cornered . I imagine that he will attempt to close down Parliament