Boris has come and gone. His premiership was relatively short but highly eventful. It was a premiership that started with great hopes and much promise. It was a premiership that ended squalidly.
Boris is, if nothing else, ambitious. When he started, he had little to work with. Theresa May called a pointless election which cost her the narrow majority that Cameron won in 2015. By the time she was forced out, May had become a tragically farcical figure. Boris had precious little to work with, but he ultimately won out. He not only won out, he won the largest majority for a Conservative government since the 1980s. He used it to end the impasse over British Liberation. It was not a perfect agreement, but it was an agreement and Britain got out.
There were, however, two mistakes that Boris made. The first is that he failed to look out for the needs of the people of Northern Ireland. Of course, Ulster has always been a world of its own. A different way of life, a different set of banks, a different social dynamic, a different set of political parties… Yet, for all of this, it is a part of the United Kingdom and is, for all of this, loyal to it. However embattled, it remained truly and loyally British. A visit from its prime minister should never have been treated as if it were almost a visit to another country. His inability to show spine and do what was needed weakened, compromised the union. Even if the demented moron filling his Depends in DC doesn’t like it, the PM’s first duty is to his country. The devil was very much in the details. Boris did not negotiate as good an exit deal as he could have. That is very much a result of his classical lack of focus on detail. The EU is awful about most things, but one thing it is good at is detail and technicalities.
The second thing Boris got wrong was losing his cool. He followed the Beijing model to catastrophic results. The British economy was wrecked, sterling is facing crisis, sovereign debt is utterly out of control and supply lines have broken down. This is largely the result of the Chinese-style lock-ups he imposed. I am aware that he took severely ill. I’m not unsympathetic. I know people who suffered kidney failure due to influenza as children and people whose colds turned into fatal pneumonia. As a result of lock-ups, Britain — like many countries — was left vulnerable to any serious shocks that might occur. When Vova P. invaded Ukraine, that was quite a shock to an overly stressed system. The fact that Boris had so little respect that he broke his own arbitrary and pointless rules hurt him badly. Moreover, he lied about it repeatedly. He couldn’t be trusted with the details, he couldn’t be trusted to do his job and he couldn’t even be trusted to follow his own “rules”. As the country started to spin out of control, it was time for him to go.
Now, as I’m still paying the price for his cupidity, I can’t help but feel a sense of elation. Of course, my life is still full on fully effed as a result of his arbitrariness so my glee isn’t improving my situation. I’m also well aware that the banana slug that he is will likely make money hand over fist on the speaking circuit — especially in his native United States. I just wish Liz Truss well. She strikes me as an intelligent, diligent and capable public servant. Many of her appointments have been spot-on. Her messaging has been mixed, but she is facing the most complex, difficult set of circumstances since at very least Thatcher in 1979 with the exception that Thatcher entered office at the head of a new Parliament elected after the precious Labour government stuffed itself. Truss inherits a healthy majority, but one that is of a party that has had a disappointing 12-year-run. If she sticks to her word, she just might turn it around. If not… Hawai’i sounds good.
Boadicea's Chariot 