Opinion

Alex Kane: Boris is supposed to be prime minister, not Del Boy Trotter

Alex Kane

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is an Irish News columnist and political commentator and a former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Frank Augstein/PA Wire
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Frank Augstein/PA Wire British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Picture by Frank Augstein/PA Wire

Regular readers will know that I don’t like Boris Johnson.

In the great scheme of things that news, if it ever reached his ears, wouldn’t distress him, let alone keep him awake at night. Indeed, I don’t think anything would keep him awake at night apart, perhaps, from the babies. Or maybe the occasional garden party.

His performance in the House of Commons on Wednesday was exactly what I expected it to be: Arthur Daly channelling Del Boy Trotter while trying to sell an oven-ready squeal of contrition about a rule-breaking party in his own back garden. It seems like only five minutes ago he was trying to persuade us he had no knowledge of attending any parties, anywhere, let alone one he would be able to see and hear from his bedroom window. Actually, it was only five minutes ago.

But this is Boris, isn’t it? He has so many other things on his mind how could he be expected to remember the country was in lockdown, people were forbidden to socialise, social distancing was recommended, ICUs across the UK were bunged, people were dying without any of their family around them and normal life was at a standstill. How could he be expected to remember that he addressed the nation a few weeks earlier and told us we would all have to make sacrifices to beat the pandemic. How would he even know that a prime minister takes the lead in obeying the restrictions he expects the rest of us to obey.

Because it is Boris Johnson we’re talking about, that’s why. He believes he is above and beyond the ordinary, everyday rules of politics and accountability. After all, he managed to get Brexit ‘done’ by lying all the way through the 2019 election, bagging an 80-seat majority and then leaving part of the UK within the European Union. So distrusted has he become within his own party that only the ludicrous Michael Fabricant seemed willing to go in and bat for him when the story about the Downing Street party broke on Monday. And on Wednesday not one of his key allies could be bothered to support him by way of a friendly question from either the front or back benches.

Here’s the thing Johnson seems incapable of understanding: prime ministers will always be held to higher standards than the rest of us. It goes with the territory of the job: a job he backstabbed his way to when he bent the ERG and DUP to his will and then dumped them when he no longer needed them. Incredibly, some of them seem to think he’s still, albeit secretly, on their side. Of course, there’s nothing more useful to duff, tin-eared prime ministers than stupid supporters hoping to be loved again.

The words a prime minister says will always be parsed and scrutinised in a way that the words of others won’t. That’s because the PM’s words become part of the public/political/historical record. They are recorded in Hansard, cabinet minutes, briefing documents and taped for radio and television. He often seems to forget that. Look at how often the footage of him telling a local Conservative (during the general election) to ‘rip up’ any letters about an Irish Sea border, is replayed on social media. He lied with a straight face—knowing he was being filmed—and then tried to pretend he hadn’t said it a few weeks later. He’s not supposed to be Arthur Daly: he’s the prime minister.

He is held to higher standards than the rest of us because what he says can change the course of British history. He is paid to lead. He is provided with an ‘official’ home from which he can lead. He has weekly audiences with the Queen to brief her on what is happening in the UK. He has round-the-clock security because we believe that protecting our PM is important. The media hangs on his every word and movement. The public don’t have to like him or support him, but they do have the right to expect honesty from him. He’s not supposed to be Del Boy Trotter: he’s the prime minister.

At a moment when the entire UK was coming to terms with the impact of the Covid pandemic—a crisis no politician had ever experienced before—we looked to him and his government to take difficult decisions for the right reasons. To prioritise altruism rather than poll ratings. We knew mistakes would be made. We also knew that there would be a hard core of selfish, self-serving clowns who would break the rules and defy restrictions. What we didn’t expect was that the trail of custard-pie idiocy would, in far too many cases, lead directly to the front door and back garden of 10 Downing Street.

At that very moment when we needed the supposedly affable BoJo to rise to the challenges of statesmanship, he morphed into Coco the clown. He’s not a prime minister at all: he’s just a prime idiot.