3 hours ago
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Those we haven’t loved. It’s been quite the week for rightwing populists shooting their mouths off. Trolling the world. We’ve had Donald Trump at the UN. Rubbishing medical science by advising pregnant women not to take Tylenol. Telling the Europeans they were all going to hell. Claiming to have brokered a peace with countries that weren’t even at war with one another.
We’ve had Nigel Farage on LBC radio. Doubling down on the safety of paracetamol. Insisting that London wanted to “go to sharia law”. Because a taxi driver from Buckingham had told him so. Sparking fear among swans in every royal park that they were about to be eaten by filthy foreigners. Threatening to deport anyone who had been granted indefinite leave to remain.
So it was probably only a matter of time before Boris Johnson put his head above the parapet. After all, an attention-seeking narcissist is always going to seek attention. It’s just that these days Boris struggles to get a platform. No 15-minute slot stretched out to an hour in front of a captive audience of politicians from around the world. No news channels breaking off their schedules to broadcast uninterrupted coverage of a press conference that ticks well beyond 60 minutes. Instead, Boris has to live more on the margins. Be grateful for a 45-minute slot on the Harry Cole Saves the West YouTube channel, hosted by the Sun’s editor-at-large.
There’s something ineffably sad about Johnson these days. You can almost see the pathos in his eyes. A man struggling to understand how it has all come down to this. Back in 2019, he was king of the world. The prime minister with an 80-seat majority whom everyone believed would be resident in Downing Street for a decade at least. Britain had been bent to his will and he had the country at his feet. Yet in under three years he had been forced to resign in disgrace. Rejected by his own party and the country.
Sure, he now had the money. More than he had ever imagined. And that was something. He had always felt a bit hard up compared with others. But there was still that huge hole – that gaping need – inside him.
Where was the fun in being lavishly overpaid for your opinions if no one was interested in them? Above all, he couldn’t escape the feeling of being hard done by. Betrayed by an ungrateful world.
Trump and Farage had built careers on making misleading claims and no one cared. In fact they went from strength to strength. Yet Boris’s lies had been his downfall. It wasn’t fair.
Cole started with Ukraine. This used to be Boris’s specialist subject. He had been the first western leader to champion Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Now he was on the sidelines. The Ukrainian president never called any more. The world had moved on. But any audience was better than none. Boris could feel his self-importance rising. Someone somewhere cared what he was thinking. He was alive. A player again. Perhaps he would rise from the ashes.
We needed to take Trump at his word when he said Ukraine could retake all its territory, Boris insisted. Cole’s scepticism was evident. That was the last thing anyone should be doing. Everyone knew The Donald made things up as he went along. But Johnson was adamant. Trump had had a Damascene conversion and seen the error of his ways. Russia was finished. The west should impose more sanctions on Russian oligarchs. Were Johnson more self-aware he might have recalled the lavish hospitality he had enjoyed at the Lebedevs at this point. But Boris is Boris, so instead he called for British fighter jets to shoot down Russian planes.
“Are you sure?” said Cole. “You want to start a full-scale conflict with Russia?” When Harry Cole is the voice of reason in a two-way conversation then you know you are in deep trouble. Boris scratched his head. Maybe he had been a little hasty. Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea. How about just shooting down a few drones instead. Third world war averted.
The interview skipped through net zero, fracking and free speech. At which point, you realised we were in new territory. Because Boris has been many things in his time. Mendacious, infuriating, challenging, even humorous. But never boring. Yet boring is what he had become. Because nothing he says really mattered. So he was just another bloke wanging on about world affairs while saying nothing that you hadn’t already thought for yourself.
Luckily, Cole could sense the show was in danger of dying on its feet and skipped to immigration. Here things became rather more interesting, because it became evident that Boris is stuck in a political time warp of 2019. His golden time. The British public were right behind him. Always had been, always would be. He had given them Brexit. That’s what the country had been crying out for. To have full control of its borders. It was just that he had chosen to dramatically increase inflation. People loved him for it. It was illegal migration that was the problem.
This was Boris’s Norma Desmond moment. Cole was almost apologetic as he pointed out that the country had moved on. As if he was intruding on a private grief. The tragedy was that Boris had never felt more alive in the 45-minute interview than now. His smile widened. He had found his voice.
We had regressed six years. He was the prime minister again. The universe refashioned in his own image. He talked of Refund, Regurgitate – he enjoyed the schtick even if no one else was taken in by it – ah yes, Reform. Putin apologists. If only the country could see the architects of Brexit fighting like rats in a sack. The Labour party full of Marxist Corbynistas. Only the Tory party could save us.
The mirror cracked. Was there any way back for you, asked Cole. Here history played out as tragedy. Normally Boris is the first – and sometimes last – person to talk up Boris. No comeback too improbable, too outlandish. But now reality crept in. Even he couldn’t imagine a political future with him in it. He was the past. Yesterday’s man. Taxi for Boris.
