WITH Dominic Cummings having a seemingly inexhaustible supply of grenades in his knapsack, it can only be a matter of time before one lands firmly on target and unseats Boris Johnson. The latest salvo in his guerilla war might yet prove to be fatal, and Johnson’s hopeless, belated mea culpa and attempts to deflect blame are both insulting and unlikely to win him any converts.
If his defenestration comes to pass, there will be no warm applause from the British public for a Prime Minister who has so comprehensively treated them with such cavalier and ill-disguised contempt. Instead, there will be an ear-splitting howl of anger, led I suspect, by the numerous people who were denied the basic human dignity of holding loved ones’ hands as they passed away, constrained by the draconian legislation which staff at Number 10 felt so comfortable ignoring and indeed mocking.
Add to these traumatised voices those of individuals whose relatives were barricaded away in care homes, or those forbidden by diktat to comfort one another at funerals, and you have an army of aggrieved (and rightly so) individuals. These latest revelations, coming as they do on the heels of others, are so revolting that it is hard to see how anyone could survive the ensuing investigations.
It is not just the fact that as revellers gathered in the garden to ‘enjoy the weather’ and BYOB, ministers were simultaneously proselytising via the media and exhorting the public not to meet one another while the police enforced a rabid and misguided enforcement of rules that the Government thought so little of.
Will it matter to Boris Johnson? No, is the short answer, why would it? It has been rumoured that for a long time he has become disenchanted with his role and the work and attention that is required, so being ejected, even under a cloud, would perhaps be a relief. Like all failed politicians, it will be a matter of marking time before he is rewarded with an ennoblement and finds a welcoming berth in the Upper House.
We can look forward to the pantomime of the Conservative Party electing a new leader. This charade, which will make not an atom of difference to the irrevocably woke agenda that they are pursuing, is, to borrow the hackneyed aphorism, akin to re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
There will be the time-honoured ‘beauty parade’, in which potential pretenders to the crown will wax lyrical about their desire to see a better society. These verbose pronouncements will be larded with all the necessary buzzwords: society, equal, tolerant, diversity, harmony, fairness, opportunity, community, etc, etc.
There will be the customary background revisionism, erasing any hint of advantage or advancement gained unfairly. It will be a race to the bottom, so to speak, as metaphoric tales are told of having a father ‘down t’pit’, or a mother working tirelessly as a charlady, or not having clogs to get to school.
At the end of this nauseating spectacle will come the coronation. Sympathetic editorials, soft TV interviews and a Prime Minister promising ‘change’. We’ve heard it all before and the one certainty is that there will be no change whatsoever.
The imbecilic pursuit of net zero, the war on car ownership, the unsustainable debt, energy costs, crime, immigration, Covid, and the over-reach of government, will all continue unabated, the only difference being a new face at the helm.
That for many, is the most dispiriting aspect of our so-called democracy.
Whether it is Call Me Dave, Mother Theresa, Sir Keir, Jezza, Bozza, the two Eds – Sir and Mr (not the horse, although that would be an interesting modern take on Caligula) they were, are and will be equally interchangeable, equally uninspiring and sadly equally incapable.
While the media will whip up a storm about ‘Partygate’ and Labour will claim a scalp in due course, the headlong plunge of the UK into a dystopian abyss will carry on regardless. One can only hope that the incoming denizen at No 10 approves of the costly re-decoration that was yet another example of Johnson’s flawed character.
