The Sh*t is starting to fly

We all kind of knew it would end like this. As the UK and Theresa May thrashed in futile fashion and the EU negotiators raised their eyebrows when they were talking to her and rolled their eyes when they weren’t, we all knew that the horror-show had yet to reach a climax. With Boris Johnson’s installation as British prime minister, we know that the sh*t should start flying any week now.

Johnson has been compared to two people, one alive and one dead. The alive one is Donald Trump, and the similarities are scary. Both are bulky creatures, both have impossible blond hair, both have shown at best irresponsibility and at worst rampant misogyny: Trump describes “grabbing them [women] by the pussy”, Johnson is vague about how many children he has.

Both men treat the notion of truth with amused contempt. Trump says one thing one day and the opposite the next, to the point where people have come to expect it as the norm. The magazine Vanity Fair claims Trump has told over 10,000 lies since coming to office. Johnson most famously lied about £350 million pounds per week being diverted from the EU to the NHS. And of course he voted for Theresa May’s withdrawal bill and now denounces it as worthless.

The other person Johnson has been compared to is Churchill. There are similaries: both move in a semi-crouch, both write very well, both have been British prime ministers.

Churchill in 1920 said of Iraq: “I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes .” In 1930 he said of India: Gandhi-ism and everything it stands for will have to be grappled with and crushed.” And speaking of India in 1942, Churchill said “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion. ”

Johnson has described Muslim women as looking like pillar boxes and bank robbers. He has referred to “picanninies” with their “water-melon smiles” and he has said of Ireland’s present Taoiseach “Why can’t he be called Murphy like all the others?”

Anyone who writes knows that when you admire the subject, it’s markedly easier to write about it. Maybe that’s why Johnson wrote a biography of Churchill.

 

* By Jude Collins (judecollins.com)

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