“Posterity will point at him as a politician without a policy, as a statesman without a principle, as a worshipper at the altar of expediency, to whom neither vows sworn to friends nor declarations made to country, were in anyway binding.”
- Anthony Trollope in his novel The Three Clerks
Proper politics can be boring. A Prime Minister of good faith (a bit of a stretch for Boris Johnson to be honest) needs time, access to experts and sound analytical skills to come forward with solutions to the nation’s challenges that both work and are enduring.
The Prime Minister needs access to subject area experts to help identify the key challenges facing the country. He or she needs more experts to help identify the true nature of those problems – what is it we are trying to achieve and what is preventing us? More help to come up with the options for a solution and yet more resource to evaluate those options. All this time and effort may yet prove fruitless.
It was this approach that delivered our enduring changes such as public education, the NHS and the welfare state. Changes that have benefited millions over many decades.
Given politics can be tedious and, at best, take time to deliver results, it is no wonder politicians reach for easier ways forward. Step forward populism. No need for all those experts and resources devoted to analysis and evaluation. Instead call up a few political psychologists. Ask them to identify the hidden, inner fears of voters and then set about exploiting them. I guess many people’s dislike of snakes and spiders is to do with their non-human and un-cuddly appearance. It is no great leap to apply that thinking to human beings and start working away at our hesitation about other humans who do not quite look like us.
Remember the Brexit Referendum? All those dusky looking folks who were going to swamp our little nation once Turkey was allowed to walk into the European Union. They would sweep over our land, taking our jobs, driving down wages, living off benefits while taking our jobs, get in front of us in the queues for NHS care, homes and school places. Scary stuff!
There is, of course, not a shred of evidence to support any of this. We are more likely to establish a colony on Mars before Turkey joins the EU – anybody checked their human rights record recently?
Sadly, the evidence is not the point. Once the fear has been planted and fertilized it can be difficult to resist. Now honourable politicians would not pursue such a dishonest route, but some politicians have a very loose link between reality and the dark side.
Populism has been around for some time but has seen a resurgence in recent years. Trump in the US, Bolsonaro in Brazil and Johnson in the UK (although some would argue he is not a full-on populist but that might have more to do with the loss of his mentor in the White House).
Johnson won the EU Referendum and the 2019 General Election on a mostly populist platform. All the problems brave, plucky Brits faced were down to migrants, Europeans and, indeed, foreigners in general. Throw in those traditional hate figures - benefit claimants and travellers - plus a woeful Opposition and the Election was Johnson’s to lose.
Now good populists like having their photograph taken on a very regular basis. Snaps of them out and about visiting stuff and a national flag never far away. Soldiers and police folk always feature heavily. In Johnson’s case, hospitals are also a must visit. After being opposed to the very principle of socialised medicine for 70 years, canny old Johnson discovered voters quite liked the NHS with its prospect of free treatment at the time of need so his Party has adopted it and is even trying to persuade voters they founded it.
Now the other photo must-have for populists are animals. These are usually animals that reflect their projected personality so lions, tigers, bears, big dogs etc usually feature. I must say I find it difficult to believe that when Johnson found out about Pen Farthing’s distressed cats and dogs caught up in the chaotic evacuation of Kabul, he did not see before his very eyes the front page of the Daily Mail with him holding a cuddly dog rescued from the jaws of the dastardly Taliban with a beaming Pen Farthing.
I guess any such idea got dropped once the logistics got in the way and countless innocent Afghans awaiting evacuation were blown to smithereens.
Now populism can be all fun and games with its culture wars, flag waving, nationalistic boosterism, xenophobia and victim blaming until a real problem comes along. A problem that cannot be solved with a patriotic speech wrapped in a Union Jack. A problem that cannot be faced down with a catchy three-word phrase. For Johnson that moment of truth was the Covid pandemic.
In the early days he simply ignored it. Then when he could not do that anymore he went on daytime television to promote the prospect of the virus being allowed to work its way through the population. He made a speech in which he promoted the idea of the UK economy remaining open while others closed down to protect lives. Sound familiar? After 2 years the pandemic rages on. Hundreds are still dying each week and ten of thousands are falling ill each day. We still have not got to the bottom of the carnage that was allowed to take place in care homes in the early months or the fiasco around the availability of sufficient fit-for-purpose PPE. Perhaps most damningly, the UK has one of the highest Covid death tolls in the world and the worst pro rata death rate. Why were most public health measures all but abandoned in March 2020? Why has the number of tests undertaken by the UK’s test and trace programme lagged behind so many other countries? Why does the UK have proportionately fewer vaccine take ups compared to many other European countries?
We need to remember that the lockdowns announced by Johnson were always last minute and had more to do with saving him from damaging reports of hospitals overwhelmed with the dead and dying rather than preserving life by the taking of simple public health measures. Everything Johnson did that was not to do with the economy was simply too little, too late. Christmas 2020 being the classic example. Prof Neil Ferguson at Imperial College estimates 20,000 people could have died because of the original decision not to lock down in March 2020.
If the measure of success in a pandemic is the suppression of illness and the driving down of the loss of life, then Boris Johnson has failed. By any international comparison the UK has done badly. Johnson may brag about keeping the economy open and the booster programme but rarely mentions the incidence of illness and the number of deaths. We can only speculate about what the figures would have looked like without the booster jabs.
As the number of deaths rose so did the rule breaking parties in 10 Downing Street. Those who were making the rules were not following the rules. Then we had the denials. First, there were no parties, then there were events but no rules were broken. Then there were perhaps rule-breaking parties but a civil servant would investigate and get to the bottom of it. Sadly, the chosen civil servant had been partying as well so another one had to be found. After saying any potential law breaking was nothing to do with them, the Metropolitan Police have decided to investigate almost at the moment Sue Gray dots the last i and crosses the last t of her report.
Two months after telling world leaders it was five to midnight as far as saving the world from climate warming was concerned Johnson decides to go on the 600-mile round trip for a photo opportunity at a north Wales recycling plant.
All of this would be very funny if it were not so tragic. While Johnson and his team partied and he exploited every photo opportunity, people died unable to be with loved ones other than via a screen on a mobile device. Citizens wore masks and kept their distance from each other. The nation isolated and followed the rules.
Apart from the pandemic the country faces many other challenges. Energy prices and supply, inflation, public services crippled by over 10 years of austerity, growing gap between the richest and poorest, falling life expectancy, increasing poverty, housing shortage, climate change, poor relations with our European neighbours and on and on.
Johnson’s approach to all this vacillates between disinterest and three-word slogans hinting at an immediate solution. His whole political appeal is based on the “Moon on a stick” approach to problem solving. Whatever you want you can have and somebody else will pay for it plus some tax cuts as well.
Voters will soon, if not already, grow tired of “getting Brexit done”, “building back better” and “levelling up” simply because our populist leader over-promised (a polite way of saying he lied about what was affordable/achievable) and never did the preparation work that is so boring but so necessary if lasting change is to be delivered. An early hint of this has come from the decision not to extend high speed rail up the east side of the country.
Johnson appears to have got clean away with the bus promise to fund the NHS from the EU subscription fee and instead increases National Insurance by 10%.
Johnson’s former boss, Max Hastings, recently said “he has a window to quit Downing Street on his own terms and return to doing what he does best: telling adoring audiences what they want to hear”. He is quite right.
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