Johnson’s shallow Commons speech was an insult to Britain
One might have thought that the PM would have performed well on Wednesday. He had a simple and for him appropriate task: sustained intellectual dishonesty. He had to deny two self-evident truths. First, that the British troops who fell in combat died in vain, Second, that the UK’s foreign and security policy is now in a mess.
Yet there is a problem. Inventing quotes or telling porkies to wives and girlfriends: all that comes easily to Boris. But he does not deal in complexity. Last Wednesday, that was needed. This would not be an easy task, but a Prime Minister can summon help. There are plenty of clever people at the heart of government and no doubt some of them can write speeches. So why not draw on them? General Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defence Staff, has in effect been defending the withdrawal. Although not everyone finds his arguments convincing, he was infinitely better than Boris. Why not involve him?
It may be that the PM just could not be bothered to sit through drafting sessions and decided that it would be simpler to busk it. As that is what he did, Boris can at least claim that his speech was all his own work and wholly in character: banal, shallow, tin-mouthed, devoid of sincerity, utterly unconvincing, an insult to the fallen and to those who loved them – an insult to Britain.
So why does he do it? As Jeeves would have said, we have to consider the psychology of the individual. In that regard, Boris would like us to believe that he is indeed Boris Wooster, goofing through life with a chorus of ‘sorry, chaps,’ using bumbledom to ensure that no-one stays angry with him for long. The truth is much more complicated. The Woosterisms are just a mask. The real personality rests on selfishness and indeed solipsism.
This is a man with few close friends or emotional attachments. He has learned to charm others, solely in order to exploit them for his own ends. No policy issues consume him. He is In the grip of ambition, yet it is all about himself, not about his country. He wanted to be Prime Minister, not to do good but to gratify his narcissism.
He may also be constantly astonished that so many people keep on buying his act. I suspect that at moments, he has enough self-knowledge to see through himself and to wonder how he continues to get away with it. But up to now, it has succeeded, so why change the act?
That may explain his refusal to look Prime Ministerial. In his classical studies, he must have come across Housman’s poem about Leonidas and his three hundred men at Thermopylae, preparing to sacrifice themselves in order to hold up the Persians, and thus save Greece. In Housman’s words, as they prepared for battle, and death:
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock
Sat down and combed their hair.
On Wednesday, if he did nothing else, could Boris not have made one sacrifice for his country, and brushed his hair? It would have shown respect for those who mourn their losses, as would a sombre, dignified tone. None of that is difficult to achieve – but we have a Prime Minister who simply does not care: who would regard it as absurd that he should do his duty to those who have nothing to offer him. Joe Biden is not up to being President. He is clearly past his best, and his best was never that good. Yet at least he looks the part. Moreover, he is not Donald Trump. He may turn out to be a worse President, but he is a better human being. What sort of human being is our Prime Minister, if he cannot be bothered to do justice to a solemn national occasion?
Equally, what sort of Prime Minister do we have who clings to ministerial incompetents? A school term is about to start, with widespread uncertainty as to the examination system. What will happen this year? We need an Education Secretary who is capable of thinking everything through, who can sound authoritative and inspire confidence. Gavin Williamson? A PM who retains his services is expressing contempt for every child, every school, every university, every parent in the country.
As for Dominic Raab, he should have known that he had to get back to London as fast as possible. Even if It may have been impossible for him to do much, symbolism matters. So does British foreign policy, now in a state of confusion. Mr Raab is not the man to put that right any more than Boris was during his inglorious tenure of the Foreign Office. But the current incumbent’s mediocrity may endear him to his boss. A weak minister is not a threat, except to the nation’s well-being: not a factor in Boris’s calculations. Rishi Sunak, not a weak Minister, has entered Boris’s calculations, which is to his credit.
Others are also calculating. There are rumours that some letters calling for a leadership election have already been sent in to Graham Brady, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee. That should not surprise us. A lot of Tory MPs were appalled by Wednesday’s performance, and we must remember that it was the third in a row. The Queen’s Speech was weak. The speech on levelling-up was worse than weak. Level? We have a Prime Minister who is well below the level of events.
The late Gaia Servadio had the misfortune to be one of Boris’s mothers-in-law. Her assessment was brief, pithy and conclusive. ‘I didn’t like his character. For him, the truth doesn’t exist.’
It is time for the Tory party to re-connect its leadership with the truth.