There are two competing schools of thought about those who seek to rule the rest of us: that no one determined to control other people should ever be allowed to do so; or that, as Tony Blair ever-so-patiently put it when his chancellor was trying yet again to force him from 10 Downing Street, Gordon Brown’s desire to be prime minister was “not an ignoble ambition”.
The character of our leaders has always been a hotly-debated subject, but the past few years have truly stress-tested what we’re willing to put up with. The ascension of Donald Trump to the US presidency was a planetary shock and affront: a man utterly ill-suited to the office, driven entirely by ego and cynicism. With no interest in the fortunes of his fellow Americans or his country’s global duty of care, he took the post-war international system to the very brink.
A second term for Trump would have said something very dark about the direction of the US and the values driving its society. It may well have permanently fractured the Western alliance, as other countries sought safety in new structures and agreements. Raise the 2016-2020 period with American diplomats today and they still flush with genuine relief that he is gone, even as they worry about a possible return in 2024.
It is possible to overstate the similarities between Trump and Boris Johnson – though Johnson’s obsequious wooing of the heavily-pancaked monster and attempts to position himself atop the same populist wave led to the then-president labelling him “Britain Trump”. The prime minister is not as bad. He is not stupid, for one thing. He falls short on the evilometer, perhaps more doofus than devil.
But the likenesses are too great to ignore, especially now Trump has gone while Johnson remains in office. The question as to why the latter wanted his current job has never been satisfactorily answered beyond an early ambition to be “world king”, perhaps because that is the only answer. There is no sense of any pulsing drive to improve the lot of his fellow Britons; there is no “Johnsonism” which one can analyse, and nor will there ever be; policy seems more a finger waggled in a vague direction than something considered, pursued and delivered.
No end in sight
Johnson’s contempt for the constitution and the conventions that govern much of it is breathtaking and, at times, more than a little scary. He has no time for parliament, for the courts, for the civil service, for the ministerial code, for ability above craven loyalty.
He drained his parliamentary cohort of talent and experience, replacing many gifted and thoughtful politicians with ultra-Brexiteer yahoos. The crazed nihilists with whom he initially surrounded himself in No 10 came close to forcing various constitutional crises before they predictably and spectacularly imploded and had to be replaced. He shows no capacity or inclination to learn – the Owen Paterson scandal merely echoes the callous and self-absorbed behaviour that has defined his premiership.
It’s awful. And, yet, there is no end in sight. The Conservative backbenches grumble every time they are forced to defend some indefensible government action, only to be humiliated by the inevitable U-turn, but as yet show little inclination to address the fundamentals.
A majority of 80 – though, given how many of the seats are marginal, that is less secure than it looks – allows Johnson to portray himself as a winner and for the gullible to accept his own estimation of his brilliance. His cabinet is so underwhelming and insubstantial, and so many of those who would be genuine contenders have been defenestrated, that there is no obvious replacement in the wings beyond a few callow wannabes.
Boris Johnson is embarrassingly unfit to serve
As if it were needed, Covid and the decision-making process around it exposed a prime minister wholly out of his depth. His handling of Brexit, especially in relation to Northern Ireland, has been a shaming disgrace. His main policy programme – levelling up – is barely any better defined that when he first announced it, and few would bet he has the commitment or the interest to deliver it beyond a few token gestures. And all this is without mentioning his private life, which Jackie Collins would surely have dismissed as too outré to be credible.
I used to work with Boris Johnson, and if you’d told me then he would be prime minister I’d have thought you mad and possibly dangerous. Our shared colleagues would have agreed. Unreliable, solipsistic, selfish, scatty, and with no real interest in the lives or hardships of those he governs, Johnson is embarrassingly unfit for the great office he holds.
At least America got rid of Trump. “Britain Trump” sails ignobly on. What the hell is this country playing at?
Chris Deerin is a leading journalist and commentator who heads independent, non-party think tank, Reform Scotland
