The interesting thing about Boris Johnson’s exit from parliament is not his statement, a thousand words from a psychedelic upside-down world in which everyone else is a liar and he alone tells the truth. Perhaps that’ll come back to bite me: it could be important for the historical record. Right now, though, I’m struck by the new consensus that Johnson is an unlikable man, without friends or allies, whose only discernible mark on the universe is a trail of the betrayed and disillusioned. This is now apparently an obvious thing, completely common knowledge among the Boris-watchers who five seconds ago were telling us that he was the most genial man in British politics.
A little bit of consistency would be nice, or at the very least some acknowledgment that they’re now saying something different from what they said before. But never mind that, because it’s also a relief. It’s quite discombobulating when opinion is united on the amiability of a man who you can see, from a distance and close up, and at every proximity in between, is not amiable.
