Politics Sketch // Sunday Blog // LONDON Saturday night and there's a very faint whiff of hope in the air. It feels as though Johnson may have failed to get the numbers, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief - probably - for now. Anyway, Johnson done. Maybe. Let's see. I'm trying to temper my joy, for now, obviously. Partly because it's not confirmed and I dont want to write an immediately out-of-date blog that hangs around for a week with 100s of you wrinkly, haggard-AF, racked-by-booze jokers quote-tweeting me, like "THIS AGED WELL, LOL". But mostly out of chickens-hatched, Referendum-trauma: assuming something is totes fiiiiiiiiiine before having it snatched away, last-minute, and then having to deal with the consequences for years afterwards. A trauma that it has to be said, feels all too closely connected to Boris Johnson. I mean, you'd have to have some sort of condition to not find this funny, to NOT see the comedic collateral here. Let's break it down: Johnson has been called every 'lazy' and 'workshy' adjective going (I personally prefer four-letter nouns but whatever) . Whether it was his (allegedly) made-up nonsense he passed off as car reviews for GQ, or (again, allegedly) not reading his brief in the Foreign Office, or the eyewatering number of holidays he took while in No. 10 - this is a man who is known for enjoying his downtime. So seeing him cut short one of his beloved holidays, to fly home and run a doomed leadership bid, only to be forced to endorse the guy that stabbed him in the back in July? Sweet Jesus, that's a *special* kind of high. The kind of high that would make Suella sad. Which in-turn would probably get me high again. Fuck, this shit should be regulated. It's too perfect. The failure to get support. The fact he's interrupted his holiday to allow this humiliation to happen. Then having to stand there and concede to the guy that served as the catalyst for his original ejection from power. We've gone from Bad Timeline Biff to "I thought I told you two coats of wax, not just one" in a day. What do we think his concession will be like? I mean, how will he play this? Will he adopt a jovial, faux-gracious sort of demeanour? Will he throw in some of his God-awful gags? "While it is certainly an honour to have OVER A HUNDRED OF YOU back me, I'm afraid I must leave the clean-up of these particular messes for somebody else. Indeed, think of my boosterism as the Party, my enthusiasm as the Wine & Cheese; but yes, now, friends, comes the time, when you disgusting, peasant cleaners must clean up the Cava piss and Malbec vomit. This is very much your hangover to deal with. That's it. And go fuck yourselves." (bonus points if you're imagining - as I did - Johnson adopting a Churchillian 'V' pose but with the two fingers turned round) Personally, I think there's a strong chance he'll go balls-to-the-wall, troll AF. Picture him coming out with a newly-practiced, earnest tone, saying that he is not, in fact, going to pursue the leadership because now, these days, he feels it more important to spend time with his family. "Family is my FIRST priority.." he would say. And all the while his un-acknoweldged, illegitimate son (or daughter? anyone know?) screams from the sidelines: "Dad! DAD! I just want to talk!" "I've told you NOT to call me that!" spits Boris, "and can't you see that I'm working?!" Indeed, irony be damned, it's always felt funny to me how Boris Johnson-types never miss an opportunity to take issue with pronouns. "HE/HIM?! WHAT ON EARTH!" and "WOMEN ARE WOMEN!" etc etc. While defining the gender of one of his children remains so unresolvedly off-limits. I digress... Lets move on, so a bunch of OGs have abandoned Johnson this weekend. And it really brings it home. I mean, how fastis the news cycle now? How quickly do things change? Dominic Raab, David Davis, The Daily fucking Mail, The Telegraph's Charles Moore; everyone's desserting him. Friday it felt like every low-rent sack of shit with a Twitter account was posting "#imBackingBoris" jpegs. By Sunday morning we expect him roaming around Whitehall, shot in the arse, shouting "King Kong Ain't Got Shit On Me". Assuming he does stand aside and Sunak goes on to win this, Lil Rishi's in-tray will, of course, be terrifying. Honestly FUCK that. It'd be like finding out the chick you've just started going steady with is Maxine Carr. Like "Man, i thought this was something I was super into!? I felt like I was the luckiest guy in the world! But actually, in hindsight, I now realise this is actually... ...fucking awful." Still, if you ever needed anybody to clean up a mess? Reasonable to think Carr could make a solid contribution. Back to Sunak.. I'm not exaggerating with his in-tray. He (or Mourdant) is going to have the mother of all probation periods. They're going to have to grapple with the endless downsides of Brexit (while pretending they don't exist). The collapsing NHS. The Housing Crisis. Russia and Ukraine. The Cost of Living. Mortgages. The UK being downgradedto "Outlook: Negative". The breadth and scale of our challenges dwarf any optimism now. It's tragic really. We used to be a geopolitical partner of choice. We used to have our shit together. We were reliable. But now, broadly, on a ratio of Bad to Good? We are firmly in what the kids might call "hot mess" territory. And you can't escape the feeling that - like other hot messes we've all encountered - they'll pursue and conquer it, and as soon as they've done so, roll over and with that post-coital return of the senses, ask: Why Did I Do That? Did I Ever Even Really Want <This> ? It's a weird job to want, right? In this contest, there are no winners. Just privately-educated, power-hungry sociopaths who want the power for the sake of it. They don't appear to be interested in the Public Service aspect. They want the podium and the cameras. They don't use their legislative agenda to improve anyone's situation. It's just there to adhere to the whims of the last round of donors. They aren't trying to solve housing, they just want their Grace & Favour. They don't want accountability. They like being on the news rounds. They don't even want *this* job. They just like the security of their *second* job maturing into a post-Parliamentary career. Indeed you could find yourself wondering if "Privately Educated" & "Public Service" should ever inhabit the same résumé? Anyway, as I say, bit of a thankless job. Who the fuck would want it? And especially now. And especially Sunak. Being an Etonian Tory with a Billionaire wife and 'winning' this thing must feel like leaving your mates at a festival to go and try your luck in a tombola. (only to come out two hours later with two plastic tiaras and a bottle of Brut while they went off and caught Sir Paul McCartney playing a secret gig with Dave Grohl) These are strange times. We face astronomical challenges. The idea that someone like Johnson, a couple of months after having left office in shame, could ever be taken even half-seriously, shows us our already-serious-challenges are compounded with a deeper, underlying issue: A significant chunk of our Parliamentarians are obviously suffering from some sort of Traumatic Brain Injury. And we must find out what's causing this. How many have been hurt? How do we protect them from it? The future of the country is at stake.
