A few years back, one of the electricians who worked for a client of mine, left to set up their own business. Rather than going quietly, he shouted from the rooftops about how crap his former employer was. In his little world, he was heading for greatness.

He loaded himself up with business cards saying MANAGING DIRECTOR, leased a brand-new van, and rented an office. He was ready to take on the world. The only thing he didn’t have was very much business. He was a renown bullshitter, so he told anyone who was prepared to listen, that he was snowed under.

About a year later, he went bust. He said he had sold the company to ‘one of the big boys’ but a simple credit check showed him in liquidation. He spun the line that he preferred life ‘back on the tools’, and eventually found a maintenance job at a private school somewhere in Kent.

It was always going to end that way. His company had no base, no structure, and no plan. Just bullshit. Anyone who has started a business knows how it works. You begin in the spare room, skint and worried you might not get enough money in to pay your bills. Then, as you get established, things start to happen. It is not a short term ‘shoot from the hip’ process.

No Substance, Bullshit Aplenty

The same applies in government. You can bullshit about bridges, levelling up, building back better, making Brexit work, and sending covid packing, but with no structure the plans just fall apart. The person heading it up becomes a sad joke and blames everyone else for their failings.

That is where Boris Johnson is at. He is not only a liar, but also a cheat and a coward. He is a blagging public schoolboy, obsessed with flags and dressing up as a policeman, a construction worker, or a scientist. There is no plan or thought process. Just the odd racist joke or comedy fall to get a laugh from the idiots who still adore him.

Here is one of the reasons Johnson has lasted so long. The wally at the top of this post is not unique. Everyone knows one. The plumber or double glazer perennially going bust and taking their mates down with them. The builder with multiple VAT violations and a list of Covid scams, or the pyramid salesman taking your parents to the cleaners via Bitcoin cons.

They all vote for Johnson because he legitimises their bullshit. They look up to him as the King of their preposterous tales down at the local boozer. If Johnson can tell outrageous lies and get away with it, why shouldn’t they? Show me a fervent Johnson supporter and I will show someone talking utter shite with no substance to it. Challenge them and they lose the plot, every time.

Johnson is not a Conservative. He is a charlatan. A cheerleader for those who lap up populism, whilst his paymasters in the city empty the coffers, free from the laws and standards they were once forced to adhere to. His buffoonery and scruffiness is a distraction to laugh at whilst cash is getting hived offshore.

No Populist Joke to be Had

The joke is wearing thin. The Downing Street Party wasn’t funny. He couldn’t laugh it off because over 500 people died of Covid on the day it happened. He couldn’t find jokes about people at home alone wondering if their sick parent would survive another night in the care home. There was no joke to be had, so what could he do?

He blamed everyone else of course. Allegra Stratton, with crocodile tears, resigned, willingly, or unwillingly, thrown under the bus. Others would also be sought out, but not Boris. He is a man of integrity who has done nothing wrong. It was everyone else who had let him down, you see. Right there, you have the measure of Johnson, the man.

Of course, his ex-wives, employers and anyone who ever got close to him, would have known how this scandal would play out. They knew that Johnson would never take responsibility for anything, even a party under his own roof. They know him too well. Conservative historian, Max Hastings, once called him “a gold medal liar, entirely unfit for high office”.

He was bang on the money.