POLITICS. There is too darn much of it at the moment. Have you noticed? Wake up, it is there. Go to work, it is there. Come home, politics again. Eat, sleep, rinse, repeat. Matters have come to such a head that newspapers, faced with a barrage of momentous events, have taken to listing them one after another, as if reporting a world war on several fronts. But we are not at war, are we?
That is the other thing of which there is too much: questions. A lot of them are variations on “What happens now?” Questions are met by that third horseman of the news apocalypse, speculation. Like flood water, speculation levels are at a worrying height. As for the fourth horseman, it is closely tied to speculation. While it cannot be bluntly named in a family newspaper, let us just say it is awfully good for the roses.
It is important to have standards, if only to know how far one falls short of them. Swearing has no place in a newspaper, for example, not without asterisks at least. But Boris Johnson chose his first Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday to say a four letter word on the floor of the Commons. It was that sort of occasion. An hour of vicious barracking and traded insults ended with the Speaker, John Bercow, telling MPs that a delegation of politicians from Lebanon was in the public gallery to observe parliamentary procedures. What an impression they will take home from the mother of parliaments.
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While it would be unfair to criticise anyone in a new job after such a short time, Mr Johnson begs that an exception be made. “Not a good start, Boris!” shouted an MP on Tuesday evening after Mr Johnson lost his first vote as Prime Minister. Come the new day, he notched up another first when he made his debut at Prime Minister’s Questions. It was not his finest hour. He blustered, he was not in command of the subjects he was asked about, at times he was incoherent. The attempts at jokes, including at one point calling Jeremy Corbyn a “chlorinated chicken” for not backing a General Election, made Jackson Carlaw look like Morecambe, Wise, and the Two Ronnies combined.
In short, Mr Johnson was so bad he made the Labour leader look prime ministerial. Perhaps it had been a rough night with the new puppy. In all the strange twists and turns British politics has taken since the EU referendum in 2016, the sight of a rescue puppy being delivered to Downing Street this week has to be among the most bizarre.
It was certainly a PR coup for the animal rescue charity involved, but what an odd time for Mr Johnson and his partner to take in an animal. Any vet or trainer would tell you that a puppy should be introduced into a calm, secure environment where they can be given lots of attention and settle into a routine. That hardly fits with descriptions of Downing Street at the moment.
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Anyone would think the puppy was being deployed as a weapon of mass distraction, but acquiring a dog for such a reason would be a silly, selfish and cynical act reeking of irresponsibility. Why, the kind of man who would do such a thing is exactly the sort who would suspend parliament for an unprecedented amount of time to force a plan through, whatever the consequences. It may not be a lesson found in Bagehot, but as a general rule if a person cannot look after a dog they should not be trusted with a country.
As Mr Johnson is now finding, it is a tough gig being king of the world, the job he dreamed of when he was a child. It was notable at PMQs yesterday that he several times called Mr Corbyn “frit”, as if wishing to summon up thoughts of Margaret Thatcher, who first used it against then deputy Labour leader Denis Healey, again in the context of fearing an election.
It was another mistake on Mr Johnson’s part, largely because he suffers badly when he, and his administration, are compared to Mrs Thatcher and her Ministers. Yes, if there is one achievement of Mr Johnson’s more astonishing than making Jeremy Corbyn look good it is his ability to generate nostalgia for the Thatcher years.
The Conservative MP Rory Stewart, a one-time contender for Mr Johnson’s position, was among those drawing unfavourable comparisons between the current PM and the triple General Election winner. Mr Stewart was among those who lost the whip yesterday for voting against the Government.
On Mr Johnson denying rebels the chance to stand for the party, Mr Stewart said it was something Mrs Thatcher would never have considered doing. He is right.
Whatever else one could criticise the former PM for – and the list would stretch from here straight into Saturday’s paper and beyond – being a hypocrite was not among her failings. She was a conviction politician, for good and ill. Mr Johnson has expelled members of his own party for doing exactly what he and several other members of his Cabinet did only recently. Besides being hypocritical, Mrs Thatcher would have seen the move for what it is –bad politics and, given his lack of a majority, wholly irrational.
Perhaps it was the sight of Ken Clarke at the forefront of the Tory rebels that had some thinking back semi-fondly to the Thatcher era. It says something about Mr Johnson that one could not imagine him sitting at Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinet table. It says a lot, too, about the current state of the Conservative Party that it cannot accommodate the likes of Mr Clarke and Nicholas Soames.
Mr Johnson likes to think of himself as a man who knows history, who can appreciate the grand sweep as much as the fine details. If he was to find himself at a loose end in weeks, months or years to come, and should settle down to writing a history of his party, one wonders how big a role he will give himself in its demise.
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He cannot be said to have single-handedly killed the Conservative and Unionist Party. The issue of Europe in general did that. Nor is the party dead yet. But the beginning of the end is taking place on Mr Johnson’s watch, and is being hastened by it.
Should one be hypocritical and mourn the party's passing? Say the right, polite things about checks and balances, a home for every vote? Perhaps it is too soon for that.
No political party has a right to exist, even if it has been around for a couple of centuries.
The worry with Mr Johnson is where he goes after this, what new, Nigel Farage-shaped alliances he might be tempted to seek next. We have not heard the last of him.
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