Having been instrumental in forcing the last two prime ministers out of office, Boris Johnson is on a hat-trick. Can he do it? Can Big Dog play his cards in such a way that a third prime ministerial scalp will be his – his in more ways than one? The answer feels like a hard yes, but this never-ending Greek tragedy is certainly taking its time. How’s your stamina? Like me, you maybe feel the Boristeia is dragging on a bit. Seemingly three plays in, Shagamemnon is still with us.
Anyway: we go again. One calendar week after Johnson tried to wriggle off the “partygate” hook by shouting something grim about Keir Starmer and Jimmy Savile, Keir Starmer was beset in the street by a mob shouting something grim about him and Jimmy Savile. It’s important to be clear that they were shouting a load of other grim stuff, too – but I’m afraid that isn’t the get-out Downing Street seems to think it is. In fact, it just underlines why no prime minister, ever, should be feeding dangerous conspiracy theories, which run the gamut from anti-vax all the way to antisemitism, via a selection of paedophile-based nonsense and much else besides. If recent rallies and demos have taught us anything, it’s that there is, increasingly, plenty of overlap. These days, all sorts of persuasions are fellow travellers.
You need to be against ALL this stuff, elementally, not just the bits that can’t get you out of a hole in the House of Commons. It’s the same with mobs: the mob that targeted Jacob Rees-Mogg and his son a while back was just as bad as the mob that surrounded Starmer and David Lammy on Monday, as was the mob that repeatedly abused Dominic Cummings in his own street. They’re all a pox and a signpost of worse to come, and no politician who truly cares about their country should pander to them.
Moving on to No 10 Clowning Street, it’s been a lively few days of long knives, not all of which have been wielded by the prime minister. I imagine Johnson has always had to spread out Valentine’s Day – you can’t be in that many places at once – so perhaps it’s fitting that his St Valentine’s Day massacre started in early February and is still going. Some aides have been sacked, some more significant ones have sacked themselves, and there’s some kind of mini-reshuffle under way. Yes, as loyalists keep explaining, the PM is “rebooting” his Downing Street operation. I love the idea that this full-scale meltdown can somehow be rebooted. Like standing in the ruins of the reactor building at Chernobyl and going, “Have you tried switching it off and on again?”
Or, as one No 10 aide explained of the personnel moves: “What this weekend was about is bringing in capable, grownup people who will make sure the machine works better. What we’re doing is … creating a structure which attracts professional grownups … ” Oh dear. I tend to shudder when people in politics decide to tell you they’re the “grownups”. There was a Labour conference a few years ago where most of Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench repeatedly boasted they were “the grownups”, with Starmer going for the full Principal Skinner by styling Labour as “the grownups in the room”. Yes and no, mate. Yes and no.
At present, Johnson’s greatest advantage is the quality of his Brutuses (Bruti?). Reading another non-story about Liz Truss this morning – she had a birthday party for Thérèse Coffey a couple of weekends ago, apparently – leaves me more awestruck than ever at the 1D chess being played by Team Sunak. Unless Rishi’s grandmasters get it together, he’s going to have an uphill struggle to emerge as the Fortinbras in all this.
As for the new grownups in Downing Street, it is impossible to have an opinion, one way or the other, about multi-hyphenate Steve Barclay, which is presumably the point. Until Monday, I would have said the same about the new spin doctor, Guto Harri. For years, Harri has been one of those people in public life who make you think you can get away with never finding out who they are. Like Topher Grace, or the Duchess of Kent. It’s a kind of give-a-toss triage, where the mind registers the name but reflexively declines to investigate. Do imagine my distress, then, to realise yesterday that as far as Guto Harri is concerned, this state of blissful indifference can’t continue. Here he comes, gurning up Downing Street with a bag from Tesco and considerable baggage from his time lobbying for Huawei. First impressions of the new No 10 comms chief? Harri looks a bit like what might happen if you put Charles Moore through an Instagram filter. Competence-wise, unfortunately, he looks to be firing at the same level as an unfiltered Charles Moore, with his first day in the job unfolding with the same tactical skill and foresight as the latter’s plan to save Owen Paterson.
Seemingly the only person excited about Guto Harri’s appointment is trackie-bummed antihero Dominic Cummings, who – and I’m going to shock you – takes a dim view of it. That said, Cummings will never allow anything to divert him for long from his nuclear attacks on Carrie Johnson, which now seem diurnal.
Clearly, Mrs Johnson has made a number of mistakes, but it does feel way past time for acting like the buck stops with her. Why then, we have to ask, has that message yet to be got by Cummings? He increasingly comes off as someone using Carrie to sublimate the peculiar nature of his anger towards his former preciousssss, Boris. The way Dom sees it, Johnson’s problem was basically that “he got a wrong ‘un pregnant”. How revealing of Cummings that he should alight on that styling, with its hideous old-fashioned echoes of a time where men were described as being “caught” by the women they impregnated, as though all their wonderful promise had been sapped out of them by some two-bit succubus. What crap. You really don’t hear this kind of talk very much these days from people with half a brain, and no matter how often Dominic Cummings remembers he needs to mention this or that “brilliant woman” on his blog, I am not the only one to notice what a sad little relic this self-styled futurist so often resembles.
As we move into act 25 of the shitshow, then, it’s worth course-correcting to remember that the only person responsible for messing up Boris Johnson’s life and dream job is Boris Johnson. The rest are just bit parts – whatever they’d like to think.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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