No 231 – Time Up Boris. The Party’s Over!
Dear James,
Boris is finished. He was finished long ago. As a child he was finished by his fawning family As a student he was finished when he started to ‘get away’ with the lies and braggadocio in his years at Eton. None of his confreres stopped him. Everyone laughed. ‘What a bounder!’ they said, using that term of flattering misdemeanor so loved by that part of society.
Much later, as a politician, Boris’s train was derailed when this man of over weaning self-regard, ingrained inability to deal with truth and fundamentally serial incompetence led the Brexit campaign back in 2016. Once derailed, a train is destined for final disaster. There’s no way back onto the tracks. The momentum of bumptious self-importance and ‘right to rule’ that has kept the train moving after its initial derailment, has finally run out. The whole convoluted contraption of lies, deceit and U-turns is juddering to a final, calamitous pile up at the end of the track called populism.
Crisis is a time for perspective, not a time for last minute, desperate apologies or vacuous excuses. Perspective shows us that the seeds of a crisis usually lie in the personality of the person in the centre of the crisis. Today Boris appeared at Prime Minister’s Question time in the Commons - admitted to attending a party at Downing Street on May 20th 2020 when the rest of the country was in total lockdown and the police were prosecuting up to 11,000 individuals for similar law breaking - and made a 'sincere apology' for his ‘misjudgement’. For anyone else such a groveling performance might have worked. But it was all too late. Perspective shows us that Boris has form. He must resign.
The question was always very simple. ‘Did Boris attend the party at No.10 or did he not? When that question was put to him by a journalist a few days ago, we saw the usual evasion behind the Boris smile. As far as I know there’s no word to describe that special facial device. It’s neither smirk, nor grin, nor snigger -such nouns are far too crude for a man of his polished background. Boris’s smile is more subtle. It works at two levels. At the superficial level it invites the receiver of his ‘confidential’ smile to join him in life’s massive ‘joke’. It is neither superior nor inferior – it is ’collegial’ – the coy, silent plea in his eyes is an attempt to ensnare the listener into the conspiracy of the elite. It says, ‘I’m one of you, you’re one of me. Nudge, nudge?’ In reality it is merely a device to seduce. For beneath that smile is a layer of impermeability that allows Boris to live simultaneously in two worlds. It’s this ‘truth-proof-course’ (TPC) that for so long has allowed him to be given the ‘benefit of the doubt’. Above the TPC is the ‘One Rule for Them’ world i.e you and me. Below the TPC is the real world of the elite i.e. ‘Another Rule for Us.’ Boris’s real world is devoid of any notion of morality or need for truth. It serves only to protect and preserve their vaulted status and its associated assets in society.
Today the world of ‘Boris exceptionalism’ has been finally exposed. At the dispatch box today, there were no gags, no smiles, just a painful (for him) apology. Or was it really an apology? In his speech he said the Downing Street event was ‘technically within the rules’ and his only error was to fail to see how it would look to the public. He just can’t give up, can he? But it’s too late Boris. The public has got your number. No normal person can believe what he says. It’s all over bar the final Tory Party machinations. Last night a Savanta ComRes poll found that two-thirds of the public think Johnson should resign. Even among Conservative voters, the figure was 42%. The game is up for Boris and hopefully, for the party he has so gravely damaged over the last five years.
So James, for once in your life, why not do the right thing? Pen a letter to Sir Graham Brady and the 1922 Committee and put Boris and the rest of the nation out of our agony. Mr Sunak is no doubt deep in serious conversation with his many supporters and I think you’re well positioned to make yet another career move in your party's endless pursuit of power.
BH - Your Concerned Constituent