A couple of housekeeping notes before we head to the meeting of titan minds that was Boris Johnson and Tony Abbott at the Canada Strong and Free Network. CSFN is a kind of Canadian PopCon, where the right wing go to cheer each other on as they curse the woke. Except, unlike so many “alt-right” talking shops, it’s got almost 20 years under its belt. There are probably people in it who remember a time before wokery, when political correctness had merely gone mad. We will hear a lot of words that sometimes seem to describe the through-line from early 00s conservatism to what we see before us today, but if you tried to actually draw that line, it would look like the cloud of hair and flies around Pig-Pen’s head.
The disgraced former UK prime minister no longer looks like a man whose Spads have ruffled his hair on purpose before he steps on to the stage, for “charm”. His dishevelment feels much more authentic and bedded in, like a man who’s already been kicked out but doesn’t know it yet because he hasn’t been home, and stands in contrast to the pin-neat Tony Abbott, who also has a neater, less contradictory mind.
