‘Never mind the flat, it should have been curtains for Boris years ago’
‘INDIGNANT FURY’: Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions
It’s been a tough week for Boris Johnson, as questions about his probity begin to stack up. But as Simon Bristow argues, he has never met the standards we should expect from a Prime Minister
Whatever has happened to the happy-go-lucky, bit-of-a-lad comedian who has been leading this country through one of the greatest crises in living memory?
Boris Johnson, the flag-waving Honey Monster who overcame the disadvantage of an Eton education to reach the highest office in the land, appeared to have settled quite comfortably into the role, at least as he saw it, which was more that of cheerleader than Prime Minister.
Not really a details or policy man, he sought to do away with the solemnity displayed by his less able predecessors, labouring as they were under the dread burden of responsibility.
If only they had seen what Boris could – that being Prime Minister could be FUN! - and how each and every one of us could overcome life’s little problems if only we remembered to shrug it off with a laugh.
Johnson threw himself into this new style of premiership with child-like enthusiasm, never missing a chance to jump in front of a camera to exhort the “Briddish people” to excel themselves while waving his arms up and down.
He had, of course, prepared himself well for the top job by getting stuck on a zipwire with a small Union flag in each hand while Mayor of London. These he continued to wave while revelling in the absurdity of his predicament as an adoring public shouted encouragement from below.
Admittedly, this was perhaps not quite how Cicero would have done it, but we got the picture – that’s Boris, always having a laugh no matter where he ends up – is there (literally) nothing that can bring this man down?
‘LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN EDDIE THE EAGLE AND JAMES BOND’: Boris Johnson stuck on a zipwire
Perhaps that’s how Johnson sees himself; a flawed patriotic daredevil willing to have a go at anything, like a cross between Eddie the Eagle and James Bond.
So it was with a delicious sense of anticipation that I tuned into PMQs this week, to see what wisecracks the PM had in store, what japes he had up his jester’s sleeve, to fence off the mounting series of scandals that have begun to engulf him.
Instead, it was with crushing disappointment that I realised the joker had left the stage and been replaced by a sinister ogre spouting anger and indignant fury.
No matter how hard this apparition at the despatch box tried to tell us about the honey – “more nurses!”, “more police!”, “tougher sentences!” – there was the implacable Keir Starmer standing opposite, talking about “rules”, “laws”, “offences”, and something called the “Nolan principles”.
Johnson was so upset by this unhelpful line of questioning he even ran off a list of topics he would prefer to be asked about, failing to understand that is not how PMQs works.
And then the PM lost his composure completely, embarking on a finger-jabbing rant so loud that the Commons speakers began to distort. Would this not breach the Government’s own planned law on limiting the volume of protests?
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM: Boris Johnson at the despatch box
If so, Johnson was not setting a very good example, and that’s the point, because of course he never has.
There now seem to be more inquiries under way in Westminster than there are voters. But Johnson was surely right about one thing – it does seem bizarre to find at the seat of this political fire curtains, wallpaper, and the interior decoration of his Downing Street flat.
If this is to be the scandal that finally ends Johnson’s unorthodox premiership, it would be strange indeed given his conduct in other areas.
Because this is a man who should never have been allowed to hold any public office.
The racist and homophobic comments he has made in the past should have precluded him as a candidate for any election, and made any self-respecting employer recoil at the prospect of giving him a job.
In 2002, six years before Johnson became Mayor of London, he used the word “piccaninnies” to describe people in the Commonwealth, and talked about “watermelon smiles” in reference to people in Africa.
He had used these words in a newspaper column, so they were quite deliberate and carefully chosen. Added to that are his descriptions of Muslim women wearing burqas as “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”.
In an earlier column in 1998, our Prime Minister wrote about “tank-topped bumboys” in describing gay men. This list is not exhaustive.
Whenever challenged about these remarks Johnson seeks to dismiss their seriousness as “satire”, or uses the old chestnut that his comments were “taken out of context”.
But it is this kind of casual racism and homophobia – especially coming from the supposedly cultured mouth of someone who has benefited from an education at the elite institutions of Eton and Oxford – that is so dangerous because it creates the space and underpinning legitimacy for abuse and violence.
All of which should cause us to realise just how far standards in public life have fallen. It also exposes the glaring lack of checks and balances at the heart of our unwritten constitution that should have prevented such a man becoming Prime Minister in the first place, let alone an MP.
It is no longer enough to expect or take for granted an innate decency in those who represent and govern us.
The shambolic recent attempt to launch a European Super League in football has renewed calls for some kind of stringent “fit and proper person” test in relation to club ownership. It’s a compelling argument.
But surely a more urgent fix is the introduction of a citizenship test, or some basic threshold of standards, for those who would lead us - before they can stand for election.