The Prime Monster who would be World King and 'The Kermit the Frog' Speech Pt. 2
Portrait of a Serial Liar
This is an aside to the recent HGV driver shortage/Fuel shortages/panic buying mania enveloping the UK at the moment but it offers a follow-up to Pt. 1 - or my response to the ‘Kermit the Frog’ speech Boris Johnson gave to the UN for some continuity.
In some ways following - it seems - yet another embarrassing u-turn on the part of the Government as it examines offering a, “package of measures to address the [HGV driver shortage] crisis, including the option of issuing temporary visas to foreign lorry drivers.
You might be forgiven for thinking this is rather odd considering the foundation of Boris Johnson’s election victory was built on the pretence that we would finally ‘Get Brexit Done’ and ‘Take Back Control’ from the dreaded ‘foreign invader.’
No matter - may it serve as a solid reminder of why we should not trust Boris Johnson, which is what this article, Pt. 2 - fundamentally - is about.
Some might remember, actually, the scenes from the 2019 general election where Channel 4 held a leader’s debate to discuss Climate Change.
If you do remember the surreal scene as party leaders spoke standing next to two evocative melting ice sculptures of Planet Earth, you’ll remember that Boris Johnson didn’t actually show up - he said that it was due to time constraints.
One of the ice sculptures was dedicated to him in his absence - the other to Nigel Farage who also declined Channel 4’s invitation.
Later, it was revealed that the Prime Minister’s father Stanley turned up at Channel 4’s studios, essentially, to defend his son’s honour and speak in his place - with Michael Gove in tow, no-less.
Both were refused by Channel 4 on the account that it was a leader’s debate and neither were… well, leaders.
Stanley Johnson is an interesting character, though - and it’s fair to say that despite criticisms of the man, he is a rather committed environmentalist. and prolific author on the subject.
His awards include:
Greenpeace Prize for Outstanding Services to the Environment (1984)
RSPCA Richard Martin award for services to animal welfare (1984)
WWF Silver Medal (2012)
RSPB’s Medal for Services to Nature Conservation (2015)
WWF Leaders of the Living Planet Award (2015)
However, as per the oedipus complex that I alluded to in Pt. 1, it could provide some explanation as to why Boris Johnson is so aversive to becoming ‘a committed environmentalist’ himself - and actually, he might even secretly resent the concept; mainly as a result of his father’s committment to the subject over parenthood and marriage.
Beyond this requires a very kind and very deep heart - a very, very deep heart to sympathise with Boris Johnson.
It’s the hair, isn’t it?
Boris Johnson’s hair is subject to much discussion but it is behavioural psychologist Jo Hemmings that sharpens the shears on it and gives it a No. 2 all over in The Telegraph.
You’ll remember that when the Duke of Edinburgh passed away, Boris Johnson posted a video of himself standing in solemn silence to commemorate the death of Prince Phillip looking somewhat like Jesse from The Fast Show sketch ‘Jesse’s Tips’ - and ‘he couldn’t even do that right’ said commenters across social media.
BUT - the focus for many was on Johnson’s unkempt appearance.
Actually, the sight of a man with such an unkempt appearance in a way has almost defined Boris Johnson’s history of living and working in public life.
Such that it would be the focus of a book titled, ‘Oh Boris! The Man, The Hair, The Gaffes’.
And yet, as Hemmings writes:
“His hair is like the misdirection in a card trick.”
She continues:
“His hair is a handy distraction ‘device’ for when things don’t quite go according to plan. When he becomes less self-assured, his hair appears to become messier. As he comes under increasing criticism, his hair becomes more interesting. Rather than being something which he chooses to be defined by, he has become rather dependent on it.”
Because:
“...presenting his hair wildly has now become something Boris needs to do, as a form of comfort or defensive behaviour.”
“O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!”
Sir Walter Scott from ‘Marmion’
Can you find it in your heart…?
The first thing Hemmings ‘gets wrong’ here is that she subtly ‘falls’ for Boris Johnson - as the country has - and his deception by referring to him as ‘Boris’.
That isn’t his name - his name is Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson.
‘Boris’ is the character; it’s the character that ‘saved’ [as per ‘comfort’ or ‘defensive’] ‘Pee-Pee’ De Pfeffel Johnson during his formative years at Eton when he could ‘wing’ his performance of Richard III by entertaining his captivated audience who would laugh, sit aghast and grimace in embarrassment simultaneously.
This is a character - that ‘bumbling affable Toff’ - that has formed almost as a product of Dissociative Identity Disorder where an individual might react to stressors or triggers that determine mood - from some barely spoken and sad trauma, possibly in childhood.
For this character, and in this context, we can probably thank “committed environmentalist” Stanley Johnson.
At least, according to Tom Bower’s book The Gambler - that was later serialised [in part] in of all places the Daily Mail - rather sensationally given the gaudy headline, ‘Boris’ Dad Broke His Mum’s Nose’
The clouds grow darker.
To some extent, the Daily Mail article examines Boris Johnson’s childhood where he was witness to his father Stanley’s behaviour, but also his absence due to his committment to environmentalism.
While Stanley was involved in environmentalism overseas, he was suspected by Charlotte [Johnson’s mother - who sadly died recently] as having engaged in numerous affairs.
When home, “Stanley was very bad-tempered. He was always shouting and angry,” according to Charlotte.
While Stanley was overseas, the Johnson family back home was living in relative poverty. Boris Johnson along with his siblings drank water contaminated, it is claimed, from lead pipes; sickness later compounded, it’s claimed, by “agonising ear-aches caused by grommets,” and Boris himself, “suffered long periods of deafness.”
When his mother was studying at Oxford and pregnant with their daughter Rachel, Bower is told that a young Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson [then 10 months old] was literally sleeping in the drawer at his mother’s university.
Sent into private education, Johnson would also be bullied - relentlessly - whilst studying at Eton; dubbed ‘Pee-Pee’ by his peers, according to his sister Rachel.
The article discusses a childhood, according to Bower, in need of constant attention, affection and adulation where a young Johnson was often ‘competing’ against his sister Rachel [who was among the many interviewed for the book, as was his mother Charlotte] and ‘jealous’ of her from the moment she was born.
In the latter stages of their marriage, Charlotte would suffer a nervous breakdown - it was in the 70s, according to Bower, that Stanley would break his wife’s nose - an incident, Stanley admits to, but says that he deeply regrets - although justifies it as self-defence due to Charlotte’s behaviour, who was suffering from bouts of severe mental illness and later admitted into a London psychiatric hospital.
It describes a scene where Charlotte would “forensically” discuss details of her “ghastly” marriage to Stanley with a “very lonely” and neglected 10-year old boy named Boris Johnson - who was 15 when Stanley and Charlotte finally divorced.
Charlotte would describe that the family were “very hard up” when they divorced - and she would not accept any financial settlement.
It’s with this that I find a deep and mostly hidden place in my heart to part-sympathise with Johnson - or rather, Boris Johnson the Child, which he is no more.
It discusses, for instance, Johnson’s own transgressions involving his numerous affairs and divorces - two, so far, out of three marriages, with 6 children confirmed and a 7th on the way.
The article discusses an inherent failure on the part of Boris Johnson to understand women, and giving examples, in some cases, of Boris Johnson’s contempt for women - despite his view of his mother as the “supreme authority” - his “awful temper” and erratic, somewhat manipulative behaviour whilst simultaneously attempting to ‘swoon’ women - literally climbing walls for them - all the while married to his apparently “loyal soulmate” Marina Wheeler.
Unfinished sympathy
Losing Wheeler and children, it seems, however, was not the critical incident that caused Boris Johnson to stop, take stock and seek to repair his life as he approached the age of 50.
By contrast, he married Carrie Symonds - a woman significantly younger than he who is often portrayed [perhaps unfairly - it may even be misogynistic] in some portions of the media and by former special adviser Dominic Cummings as somewhat of a Marie Antoinette-like figure that installs and rejects friendly ministers, and decides policy at a whim, and is almost totally responsible for the Prime Minister’s recent financial brushes with the Electoral Commission.
And with this, Johnson simply appears to have become hungrier for supply - dependant, almost, and using unfulfilling short-term fixes and living somewhere between the lifestyle of a sex parasite and/or vampire [like in Steve McQueen's 'Shame' or Abel Ferrara's character study of an addict in his 1995 film 'The Addiction'] to achieve whatever it is Boris Johnson desires to achieve - whatever that might be, without any path, plan, direction or even long-term goal beyond the grand ambition of being ‘World King’.
Marina Wheeler divorcing Johnson and his own children wanting nothing to do with him [describing him as a "shit" and a "selfish bastard", respectively] was probably the first time at any point in his pitiable life that anybody ever said to him, 'you're not getting away with it this time.’
Some reports say that as a result, Johnson - like Stanley before him - was left almost penniless as a result.
And like an unwanted pregnancy that took a court decision to force Johnson to accept, or indeed, the final result of the Brexit referendum that, as a keen proponent of access to the single market, even he did not want - or expect, when the reality dawned on him that he couldn't escape it, he was forced to have to deal with it - and acknowledge it.
Inside Doesn’t Matter
In examining Boris Johnson though, I reflect on what Travis Vogan, Associate Professor of American Studies at Iowa University wrote in an article in 2011 called 'Inside Doesn't Matter' relating to Ronald Reagan and and the cultural condition of 80s America in ‘American Psycho’ .
I’ve spoken about this elsewhere.
Vogan writes on the final scene in Mary Harron's adaptation of the Brett Easton-Ellis novel:
“...When Bateman approaches his friends’ table after his fruitless confession, they are watching a newscast of Ronald Reagan commenting on the Iran Contra affair.”
“This final scene links Bateman’s apparent schizophrenia to Ronald Reagan’s image-politics and seeming irreverence for the difference between image and reality. This irreverence is epitomized by Reagan’s statement that facts are stupid things.”
“Bateman’s seeming ability to get away with murder through the manufacturing and deployment of his image parallels the manner in which Reagan’s image—so meticulously constructed and affective that the former actor earned the nickname the “Teflon President”—enabled him to maintain public favour while being involved in scandals.
“Reagan could make mistake after mistake but never be called to account. His image could be deployed, unfailingly and instantaneously, to demolish any narrative of criticism that anyone cared to construct.”
“An examination of American Psycho’s commenting on Reagan’s image politics illustrates how the Reagan era marked a hyperreal cultural condition in which the codes of signification took precedence over that which they signified.”
Where does all of this sound so painfully familiar?
Back to Stanley: This is the End, Beautiful Friend… sort of
The argument could be made that Boris Johnson hates his father for what he did to his family - for ultimately how his behaviour [and dedication to environmentalism] carved Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson’s “Boris” persona as we see it and endure it.
An extension of that resentment could reasonably be attributed to views on climate change, where despite his new-found commitments and urgences for the world to “grow up”, he would previously offer contradictory accounts where he would describe climate change as a, “primitive fear.”
“That fear – as far as I understand the science – is equally without foundation.”
Johnson wrote in 2015.
“There may be all kinds of reasons why I was sweating at ping-pong – but they don’t include global warming.”
[An article, by the way, in which Boris Johnson decided his views on climate change following a phone-call to climate change denialist and anti-vaxx, Covid sceptic, Piers Corbyn]
It’s a funny old world, eh?
But then this is, in essence, the duplicity of Boris Johnson’s character.
Many know this about Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson already but some - from an international audience who have experienced the man for the first time following his 'Kermit the Frog' speech who might ask, "who is this bozo?"
Well, this article should form the basis of some kind of perhaps turgid, possibly overly-long answer.
Obviously, to prevent this from happening again - so the United Kingdom doesn't feel compelled to continually apologise to the UN and the world for Boris Johnson - it's for to the United Kingdom to see this answer, too.
And not vote for him.
Epilogue
The problem is, however, that when Boris Johnson is asked directly whether he feels that honesty in public office is important - in 2019, also during the General Election campaign - the audience laughs when he proclaims, "I feel it is important!"
They laugh.
They actually laugh - because they know how big a liar he is but, alas, vote for him anyway just as they laughed each time he appeared on Have I Got News For You - even when he was skewered by host Ian Hislop for being involved in a plot to assault a journalist.
For that laughter and that apathy - and ultimately, indifference - society has a lot to answer for in carving the character of "Boris"; in ultimately ‘falling’ for the character of “Boris" - or Oh Boris! The Man, The Hair, The Gaffes.
It’s just all an elaborate joke to many - with court jester Boris Johnson at the helm goading the starving public baying for their quick-fix of Japanese school-children being rugby tackled as entertainment.
“Entertain us; Tell us a joke O’ World King Jester, SIR!” they might say.
But then the frustration exists for the objective few who are keen to remind people, just occasionally, that that joke isn’t funny any more - and especially when he is given one more opportunity to fulfill his grand, narcissistic and self-important ambition.
Thankfully, hope exists insofar as pockets of individuals still have the capacity to think objectively.
It’s over to society to think more, and think hard - however difficult that might sometimes be - about the sort of individual we want representing us as our leader on a global stage where a pre-requisite shouldn’t be how successful he is in being able to ‘wing it’ but rather, a model representing the kind of people we truly are, with a vision of a kind of world we should all aspire to living in.
The latter, which Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson possesses none.
