Boris can’t be saved – the Tories must act
On a pleasant Spring day in the early Fifties, Churchill was strolling in the gardens of Chartwell, talking to himself. He was obviously rehearsing a speech. As he passed the open drawing-room windows, he paused, cleared his throat, and started again. “Mr Speaker Sir, I had not meant to intervene in this debate…”
I had not meant to allow Boris Johnson to intervene in this column. Whether it is the depths of dishonesty or the shallows of incompetence, there seems nothing new to say. Marx wrote that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Boris Johnson has a variant. With him, history starts with farce and then becomes really farcical.
Bagehot declared that the English constitution ought to consist of two aspects, one dignified, the other efficient. The dignified one would arouse reverence. The efficient one would deploy that reverence in the interests of good government. Bojo has gone beyond Bagehot. He is the undignified part of the Constitution and also the inefficient one.
There is, however, a consequence. At present, trying to write about politics without mentioning him is like trying to play Hamlet without the clown. Archibald Douglas, a great Scottish nobleman in the late 15th century, earned the nickname “bell the cat” for volunteering to dispose of one of James 111 of Scotland’s councillors. So he did. Later on, he disposed of the King. Useful man to have around, that Douglas – as long as you kept him on your side.
David Frost may be the new bell the cat. Where he has led, others may follow. Lord Frost is a serious man of government, and he is not impervious to the claims of loyalty. He would only have acted as he did if he had been driven beyond endurance by Boris’ shambolism.
There is another factor. In recent years, the House of Lords has come close to being unmanageable. This is partly due to a morass of poujadist Liberals, a malign legacy of the Cameron/Clegg coalition, most of whom would be out of their depth as number three in Crewkerne St Timothy parish council’s missing pussy-cat department.
But there are also characters capable of serious mischief. In part, the Lords has become a reservation to corral the last of the Eu-hicans: Euromaniacs who will go on fighting for the EU in the spirit of an Imperial Japanese soldier in the jungles of Borneo for decades after the War.
There is a spectacular example in Lord Kerr of Kinlochard. John Kerr is very clever, very charming, very witty – and very fanatical. Sir John Major nicknamed him Machiavelli. He is constantly trying to break out of the reservation and restart the Euro-war. Lord Frost is, as it were, the commander of the US cavalry units whose job is to round him up. He performs this role beautifully: never ruffled, always magisterial, always paying tribute to John Kerr’s distinguished career in diplomacy. The Lords – long may this continue – still needs Ministers who can hold their own, or indeed more than hold their own, in debate. If David Frost is not there to carry on the fight, the Upper House will cause even more trouble, and Boris Johnson has only himself to blame.
It would be charitable to describe the current Leader of the Lords, Nat Evans, as hopeless. She may well be the worst member of the current Cabinet. We know that this PM has no interest in promotion on merit: that he is, indeed averse to able colleagues. Even by his standards, the last re-shuffle was a disgrace. But in his own self-interest, there ought to be limits. Without help from David Frost, Lady Evans will be unable to cope with the Euhican peers. The Lords is always at its most dangerous when facing a weak and discredited government. As a description of Boris now, “weak and discredited” would be gross flattery.
He must still have supporters; the political equivalent of Private Eye’s Sid and Doris Bonkers. But if they try to start a claque, protesting that unelected Peers have no business rebuffing a democratically-elected Prime Minister, most voters would merely say: “Thank God someone is.”
Apropos reshuffles, there is a lot of talk about a drastic change of personnel in Number 10. But the medieval parallels are not encouraging for Boris Johnson. Archibald Douglas was not the only magnate who started by dealing with the king’s evil councillors and then moved on to the King himself. Moreover, the problem does not arise from the back-room team, many of whom have seemed to be impressive. Fish rot from the head. If there is a Prime Minister with no principles, values or morals, incapable of thinking through complex subjects, laughably out of his depth in a dangerous world, without even a basic grasp of honesty – then a council including Einstein, Wittgenstein and Frankenstein’s monster could not save him from himself.
More to the point they could not save the country from him. It is a pity about the good Tory candidate for North Shropshire, who would – and one hopes will – be an asset to the Commons. Even so, the voters did the Tory Party a favour. Kipling referred to the Boer War as “no end of a lesson”. The Tories should not need an endless lesson. But they have had a short, sharp shock. Let us hope that it leads to action.