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Tories on their knees – and here comes Boris Johnson. Dear reader, look away
If you feel physically breathless at the current state of British politics,
that’s just Boris Johnson immediately sucking all of the oxygen out of the room
again. Is the dignity vampire coming back? Unclear. But I know we’re all big
fans of lettuces now, so be advised there could be a monstrous 16-stone slug
waiting to crawl out of this one and burrow straight into your brain stem.
With a poll this morning putting them just the 39 points behind Labour, a
genuinely tragic number of Conservative betas seem to think that only Johnson
can fix this/save their jobs. They desperately, desperately need you to think of
the UK government as a state-of-the-art technology that only functions when
unlocked with Boris Johnson’s unique biometric pass. And yet, does it? Does it
operate only when Johnson’s eyes meet its retinal scan? Does it crave to
recognise his handprint (like so many spirited but troubled young women before
it)? On the vanishingly outside chance that this is the case, can we not simply
do as the movies have taught us: forcibly borrow or cut off the relevant Johnson
body part, and just get things working that way?
The UK is in a political crisis layered on top of an economic crisis, which
itself has needlessly exacerbated an already dire cost-of-living crisis. The
idea that the answer to a single part of this horror show is to bring back a
morally degenerate financial incontinent who broke his own laws is something
that tells you everything about the terminal sad-sacks who are so much as
thinking of it. The formal parliamentary investigation into Johnson’s last
truth-aborting period in office is about to begin; if it ends up censuring him
for misleading parliament over the No 10 lockdown parties, as is perfectly
likely, then we’d be in a constitutional crisis too. Maybe crises are cheaper
when you buy in bulk.
The fact his name is even being mentioned suggests the Conservative party has
failed to learn the lessons of the first wave of Boris Johnson, and to plan for
the second. Any rays of light in the worst-case scenario? The return to power of
Roman dictator Cincinnatus – famously mentioned by Johnson in his recent leaving
speech – lasted just three weeks (by choice). Though if Johnson clocks up even
that many days back in power, it’ll feel very much longer.
As indeed did Liz Truss’s tenure as prime minister, despite being shorter than
the seven-week leadership contest that put her there. At the current rate of
executive disintegration, I’d give it three months before someone’s unfurling an
ironic TRUSS IN banner behind Rishi Sunak/Penny Mordaunt/Johnson at PMQs. As
things stand, Truss leaves with up to £115,000 a year office expenses, for life,
on the back of just 44 days in post, with the Tories effectively now acting like
the Football Association did for so many years – paying all their expensively
terrible choices millions of pounds to go away.
If you wanted to make a moodboard of the past 48 hours you’d need Thérèse Coffey
to bung you some illegal sedatives and a wall the size of the Hoover Dam to
mount it all on. But given that we’re all condemned to play psychodrama
Pinterest, here are a few key images: Jacob Rees-Mogg, who’d be a first-round KO
for Monty Burns, being accused of “manhandling” people in the voting lobbies.
Johnson, during a parliamentary session, cocktailing his arse off for his
Uxbridge constituents on a sun lounger in the Dominican Republic. Penny Mordaunt
acting like the unity candidate. Suella Braverman acting like the Unity Mitford
candidate. Brandon Lewis taking “soundings” to see if he was going to be the
Fortinbras in all this. You, unable to meet your own gaze in the bathroom mirror
as you whisper, “Maybe … oh God … maybe Sunak, I suppose?” The mirror cracking.
Elsewhere, Graham Brady and Jake Berry, looking shifty as they explained the
vote could well end up in the hands of the party membership again. Sorry, but if
this does come to pass, it can’t be online. Voting should instead take place in
Westminster Hall, with Conservative members required to queue and present
themselves for the BBC livestream. That way if rogue actors such as Putin – or
rogue presenters such as Phil and Holly – wish to upset the delicate balance of
this ancient rite, everyone can see them doing it.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/21/the-tories-boris-johnson-crisis-conservatives