No. 215 - Boris, the Comedian, Brings the House (and the Country) Down!

Dear James, 

 It was Boris the entertainer. Boris the clown. Boris the stand-up comedian. Joke followed joke. While those outside the Tory bubble looked on dumfounded, the audience at the Tory Party Conference’s closing speech clapped and laughed allowing the entertainment to drown out their doubts. Boris is living in some parallel universe where problems don’t exist and where opportunity sprouts like flowers on a desert landscape after the first rains. Where was the detail? Where was the discussion about the £20 per week withdrawal of the universal credit? Where was the debate about current supply chain problems? Where, the question of rising food prices, rising energy charges? The speech was empty of substance. The backlash by the business community was immediate. Even that right wing Think Tank, the Adam Smith Institute, called it ‘bombastic but vacuous and economically illiterate’. The speech was like all the other Boris speeches. Delusional, egotistical, self-serving and wrong.

Boris says his government is a ‘can do government’. His government’s got the guts for the task that every other previous government has shirked.  This is man talk. This is the Dunkirk spirit. This is the new Tory Party or should I say the Boris Johnson party. His followers are ready to give their lives for their leader even though their leader is full of rhetoric but empty of content. He is putting off the present chaos into the long term future. The pain will be worth it! Just you wait and see! 

And like Trump across the ocean, his followers appear mesmerised. Any doubts are doused by the constant flow of enemies to blame for the current problems. The dastardly EU, the perfidious French and now, finally British companies and businessmen themselves! Nowhere in that list is the biggest culprit himself. One called Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson! 

The name of the game is ‘doubling down’. In Boris Johnson we are undergoing the same phenomenon as the Republican Party in the USA. An extreme right wing, populist party, knowing that it is on a losing wicket, confects new stories, each one more bizarre than the last. In the USA Trump claims that the 2020 vote was rigged. In the UK, we are told that Brexit gives us hope but we now need a ‘period of adjustment’. Boris Pangloss offers us the ‘best of all possible worlds’. There will be short term pain but in the long run, unforeseen wealth beckons us all. Bluster, bravado and bullshit Boris!

 Does he not realise that a high wage, high skilled economy will put up the costs of everything unless accompanied by investment in machines to replace lower paid workers? With higher prices, we may price ourselves out of international markets. This is called autarky. Proponents of autarky have argued for national self-sufficiency to reduce foreign economic, political and cultural influences. Autarky threatens us with inflation and exclusion from overseas markets. My old economics professor at university used to say that in the long run, the wealth of a nation depends on the value of its currency. Autarky means self-imposed poverty for many.

James, your leader lives in a dream world. To quote Robert Shrimpley of the Financial Times, “Voters may conclude that he (Boris) is all destination and no map.”  Inflation for poorer members of our community is currently running at 10-15%, because energy costs are such a high proportion of their budget. No mention of that in his speech. No strategy, no plan. The only tactic was a stand-up comedy act to please his adoring followers.

Come out of your bubble James. Join the rest of us in this place called the real world. You did once live here!

 BH – Your Concerned Constituent