The words that have already been written about United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s (impending) departure from office will fill a library. Apart from the Murdoch-directed right wing press, most have been far from complementary.
During his term in office Johnson’s Tories treated the regional media with disdain, often banning their journalists from press conferences on their own patch in favour of the fawning nationals.
As a result, his departure was greeted with almost universal enthusiasm from this section of the Fourth Estate, but of all that has been written, I believe the editor of the Stoke-on-Trent daily, the Sentinel, Marc Waddington raised a significant and rather disturbing point when he asked: How could we have been taken in by him?
Under a headline Worst among equals, Waddington described the ending of the Johnson era as “ignominious and fitting”, while maintaining that the warning signs of the Prime Minister’s character had been there for years.
“His adultery — cheating on his wife while she was battling cancer being one of the particular lowlights — and his consistent lying; his awful comments about the Hillsborough disaster; the infamous ‘letter box’ jibe at Muslim women, the references to African people as ‘piccaninnies with watermelon smiles’,” Waddington writes.
“Whether his transgressions were in his personal, journalistic, or earlier political life, they all made one thing patently clear: The man lacked the moral fibre for the job he so coveted. In fact, he lacked the moral fibre for pretty much any role he has ever had.
“What is most staggering is that we as a country, armed with all this knowledge, were willing to trust him, or at least give him the benefit of the doubt; as though someone who has failed so many times to do the right thing and to behave like a decent human being would somehow transform into a paragon of probity and decency once invested with huge power and responsibility.
“It was never going to happen. And it didn’t. And in that respect, the joker has made clowns of all of us.”
Waddington states that any one of the scandals in the long litany of those that have dogged Johnson’s time in office would have, in the past, been the undoing of any principled politician — and many unprincipled one.
“Not in these times, for some reason. It seems we live in some sort of post-truth, post-moral era,” he writes.
“In politics, personal responsibility seems to have been supplanted by self-belief. As long as you believe you are doing the right thing — or just say you are — then that’s OK.”
Is it true, as Waddington states, that somehow over the past few years we have become more tolerant of utterly shameful behaviour? Was Johnson merely testing the limits and guilty only of taking one step too far?
Perhaps most importantly, is this a continuing decline into the gutter so that future leaders will be able to get away with all that Johnson has done — and more?
These are question that can only be answered by the mood of people, not just in the UK, but around the world. I am pessimistic. The signs from Moscow to Myanmar are not good. Decency and tolerance are becoming niche qualities.
Meanwhile, the Beast of Brexit will leave the United Kingdom in a far worse state than when he found it — and many will wonder whether there is anyone in the Brexit rump of the Conservative Party at Westminster who has the talent and ability to pick up the pieces.
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