The worst is yet to come

When I commenced my blogging career it was in a fit of pique about a football match. It was a Monday morning, I was in a foul mood, anyway, and England had just departed yet another World Cup at the feet of the Germans. So I ranted about it on an early morning train between Amsterdam and Eindhoven in the south of the Netherlands, where I was working at the time. In the nine years since I have covered all sorts, with a skew towards music and football, the subjects I profess to know best, or at least have the most enthusiasm for.

With, perhaps, the odd deviation, I have managed to stay clear of politics with my blogs. For two good reasons. Firstly, I'm an intellectual dolt and would struggle to string together a cogent commentary. Secondly, the digital dissemination of current affairs via social media has proven relentlessly unwinnable, especially within the last three years, with Brexit bringing a coarsening public discourse to the surface, much like the toxic slime beneath New York City's streets in Ghostbusters seeping through the cracks. Throw in the rise of populism and the daily diatribes from that which the US president dumps - a phrase I use with literal intent - on Twitter, and things turn ugly. Profess an opinion and the keyboard warriors pile on. Yes, it's their democratic right, but the vitriol with which some - from either side of the increasingly yawning chasm of viewpoints - apply themselves, left and right, right and left, is symptomatic of the "divided Britain" that became a common thread of the now completed contest to choose a new leader of the Conservative Party, and then by some ridiculous default, Britain's next prime minister.

Trust me, this isn't just about Boris. I've held a long disdain about politicians of all partisan hues. With the odd virtuous exception, politicians are largely charlatans. Many years ago, my then-local MP, Vince Cable, now the recently resigned Liberal-Democrat leader, proved to be so utterly useless in the case of a legitimate issue of a parking ticket that I raised with him (I'd picked it up after an event at Wembley Stadium), that he had the temerity to write back to me to say he'd been at the same event and it had been "highly enjoyable". So when he came knocking on my door in the run-up to the 1992 general election, I took great pleasure in not only showing him his letter, but asking him - fairly rhetorically - how he thought I'd vote. Political observers might say that such cynicism towards our elected representatives is regrettable. The problem is, they don't do themselves any favours, do they?

Take Jeremy Hunt, the defeated runner-up in the Conservative leadership contest: "I am delighted for the country that Boris has become Prime Minister," he said immediately after Johnson had been named the new Tory leader. "I think he will be a great prime minister, he’s got optimism, enthusiasm, he puts a smile on people's face and has total unshakable confidence in our amazing country." Compare that with Hunt's "bottler" accusation when his rival refused to take part in a Sky News televised debate early in the campaign, or his assertion that Johnson will not deliver on his Brexit promises, the core topic of his leadership tilt. But, hey, that's politics for you. Utterly shameless, utterly charlatan.

Here's where my depth of political knowledge shows its threadbare state. Political historians will say that politics has forever been thus, that there has never been an age of great integrity, or a period when politicians had our trust and respect. But even with my addled perspective, I can see that we live in extraordinary times, and not in a good way, either. Britain now has a hugely divisive incoming prime minister, spouting cod-Trump populist statements about "making Britain great again" and burbling away about his shit-show predecessor Theresa May's "...extraordinary service" and it being "...a privilege to serve in her Cabinet and to see the passion and determination that she brought to the many causes that are her legacy", a privilege of course until he resigned. Here is a man who has coveted the keys to 10 Downing Street since childhood, believing himself to be Winston Churchill-incarnate. And yet he has proven time and time again to be untrustworthy, getting sacked by The Times in the 1980s for fabricating a quote, running roughshod over Parliamentary rules on financial disclosure (amongst other examples of a somewhat 'casual' approach to authority), comparing women wearing burqas and niqabs to "letter boxes" in his Daily Telegraph column (and is talking about "uniting" the country now he is PM), being economic with the truth on everything from EU banana regulations and the UK's payments to Brussels, and most recently waving a packaged smoked kipper about in a rant about "pointless, expensive, environmentally damaging" EU regulations, despite those regulations being, in fact, introduced by the UK government, not by the EU. Even Max Hastings, his editor at the Telegraph when he was its Brussels correspondent, recently declared: "He is unfit for national office, because it seems he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification." 

Those who defend Johnson maintain that these are examples of a colourful character, who makes mistakes because he's human. True: compared to the Maybot, Johnson is indeed the life and soul. No danger of poor quality ABBA dancing here, or revelations about ribald adolescent behaviour running through wheatfields. But there are legitimate questions about his character that deserve scrutiny, and that's before we get anywhere close to his professional political record and issues like telling the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in 2017 that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was training journalists in Iran, a "slip of the tongue" (according to International Trade minister Liam Fox) that has rendered her still in jail in Iran, with a court telling her that, as a result of the-then foreign secretary's comments, her sentence could double. But there's colourful BoJo, "Britain's Trump", the populist blond who speaks honestly and doesn't bow to convention.

There's no doubt that Johnson is a "character". Over the years of his public life he has cultivated, cleverly and cynically, the bumbling, scruffy-haired, zip-wiring clown, guest hosting Have I Got News For You as a knowing joke figure which was as much an act as Janette Tough dressing up as Wee Jimmy Krankie. Even in his mess of a victory declaration today ("...like an ill-prepared after-dinner speech at the local golf club," according to Labour's Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell), with its references to "pinging off the guy ropes of self-doubt and negativity", we had an incoming premier based more on the character 'Boris' rather than a politician of strategic vision and integrity. Now, as one of his supporters muttered this morning, the hard part begins: leading a government with no real majority, the nuclear acrimony of Brexit (and the criminal damage of a No-Deal Brexit, too), and brewing conflict with Iran (of whom he has that form...) being just three hot topics on the desk of Britain's 77th prime minister.

As you will clearly have gathered by now, I'm no fan of Boris. But, as previously stated, I'm no fan of politicians in general. Is Jeremy Corbyn a viable alternative? I sincerely think not, and certainly not when Labour is so riven by anti-Semitism, political cranks and ambiguity about Europe. And the newly-installed Lib-Dem leader, Jo Swinson, shouldn't think herself too highly, either. Offering a "credible alternative" means doing exactly that, and there is no one in the Westminster bubble currently who stands out. Which means we are in moribund times. Probably for the first time in my conscious lifetime. A country isolating itself from Europe, at risk of political influence from an inane presence in the White House and nefarious intent in Moscow, being run by a comedy prime minister. Not great, is it?