Twinkle, twinkle little liar

It's a curious quirk of human psychology that even the most hard-nosed sceptics amongst us are sometimes willing to overlook, or even go along with, a barefaced whopper if it's delivered with a certain charm and panache. 

No one exemplified this phenomenon better than Boris Johnson, who, as Prime Minister, mastered the roguish twinkle even as he lied his socks off. And it's not like many of us actually believed him at the time, though a significant number was willing to suspend disbelief just so long as he was telling them something they desperately wanted to hear - such as 'take back control' or '£350m per week for the NHS'. 

As Abraham Lincoln wisely observed, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time". The problem for Johnson (and us) was that he never knew when to stop trying. Sadly, he was temperamentally incapable of doing so, though he seems to have survived this character flaw in far better shape than his country. Who said honesty is the best policy?

Fast forward to his successor-but-one as PM, Rishi Sunak, whose feeble attempts to emulate Johnson's boosterishness are increasingly irritating voters, according to Labour's latest focus group results. Even while sticking to Johnson's punchy sloganeering, Sunak's 'stop the boats' isn't hacking it like Johnson's 'get Brexit done'. Migrant boats continue to cross the Channel,  inflation hasn't halved, the economy isn't growing, national debt is rising and NHS waiting lists burgeon. A new Illegal Migration Act is on the statute book, as promised, but is doing nothing whatsoever to stem the unabating flow of human misery, whilst compounding the problems for victims of human trafficking - as Theresa May warned it would. It's a complete fiasco and we are all seeing and feeling it.

Against this sombre backdrop, Sunak's pathetic attempts to urge us forward like some hapless Head Boy trying to motivate the demoralised school cricket team, just rubs salt in the wound. At least Johnson looked like a public school rugby skipper whereas Sunak looks like he'd rather be in St Custard's chemistry lab or on a biology field trip. In that respect he is definitely fotherington-tomas to Johnson's grabber m.a. Johnson may have been an out-and-out bullshitter but he delivered his crap with brio and a palpable self-belief. Sunak's rictus grin and stuck record recitation of his five pledges mantra doesn't even seem to convince himself, much less his MPs, party or country.

In his desperate optimism Sunak is following in the footsteps of fictional characters such as Dr Pangloss, Wilkins Mikawber, Pollyanna and Charles Pooter, whilst utterly lacking their certainty, though he does share the latter's sense of self-importance, to equally comic effect (were it not that he is supposedly leading the country rather than clerking at Perkupp's - a position to which, come to think of it, he would be much better suited). No, the laugh is definitely on us.

The sooner this grinning ninny is despatched the better.


Popular posts from this blog

Looking to Africa - long read

As I sit here on an island just off the coast of North-West Africa I can't help pondering the future of that vast and seemingly unknowable continent, so near and yet so far. I'm writing this in Tenerife, one of the eight Canary Islands forming an archipelago off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara - tantilisingly close and yet a world away from the 'mainland' of continental Africa. As an Autonomous Community of Spain, the Canaries form an outpost of the European Union (EU). Yet, despite their proximity to Africa, their outlook, politically, culturally and economically, is resolutely European. Africa may as well be Mars, though only a narrow gulf of the Atlantic Ocean separates these offshore islands from their continent. I say resolutely European but that resolve may, little by little, be weakening. There is a growing sentiment, especially, though not exclusively, amongst young Canarians, that they have been sold a pup. True, the economy is superficially buoyant, du
Read more

On old age

"The fact is that when I come to think it over, I find that there are four reasons for old age being thought unhappy: First, that it withdraws us from active employments; second, that it enfeebles the body; third, that it deprives us of nearly all physical pleasures; fourth, that it is the next step to death."  Writing his essay,  De Senectute (On Old Age), in 44 BCE, Marcus Tullius Cicero went on to refute these four supposed reasons in characteristically robust and forthright manner. Cicero wasn't one to sit about moping in his own old age; he remained actively engaged in the political life of the Republic whose survival, in the face of tyranny, he championed so fiercely.  Cicero was nine years younger than I am now when he met his untimely end yet he considered himself already an old man; or, rather, his society judged him to be so. His second point about age enfeebling is more germane. Physical decline had not yet impacted him but, six years on from my retirement, I
Read more

Born to rule

When, ten days ago, I posted my piece about the manipulated image of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her children (see Snap Judgment) I didn't know of her cancer treatment. Had I known, I would have adopted a gentler, though I hope no less critical, tone. But I didn't know, and nor did any of us outside the immediate royal circle, which rather goes to strengthen the case against the monarchy. For Kate and her family the diagnosis of cancer (as yet unspecified) will have been a devastating blow, as will the chemotherapy she is currently undergoing. On a human level, of course I sympathise and extend my best wishes for a full recovery as, indeed, I did at the time of her father-in-law's diagnosis. It is particularly cruel, then, that on top of all this she has been obliged to record a video statement to reassure the public. As if she didn't have enough to contend with already. But such is the unpalatable obligation placed upon any royal personage - noblesse oblige. Whic
Read more