The performance art of Boris Johnson – New Statesman

In his first statement to the House of Commons as Prime Minister, Boris Johnson said that in 2050 I fully intended to be there, but not necessarily in this job. Not necessarily. The media tour to promote his new memoir, Unchainedwas equally playful about a return to Downing Street. This included an appearance last night (October 10) at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, in front of an audience who compared their Unchained copies hoping he wouldn't have bothered to sign it himself.

It was the final part of a promotional roadshow that was overshadowed by cancellation and confusion. The interviewer at Cheltenham was supposed to be Beth Rigby, but she withdrew because Johnson's team wouldn't allow recording (she was replaced by Juliet Samuel). The BBC interview was canceled because Laura Kuenssberg accidentally sent her notes to Johnson (Johnson appeared on ITV the following night). This week he made several radio appearances and compared the Downing Street flat to a crack den. Earlier, the newspapers mentioned the memory bombs. Despite the apparent chaos, it is worth remembering that any Johnson media tour has a purpose in which the political and the personal merge seamlessly. His first ascent of what he would call the specialized course (we'd call it the greasy pole) was energized by TV appearances that began in the late '90s. Today, he recycles parts of the old routine, abandons others, and develops new maneuvers more pointed. The first time we doubted his designs on issue 10, we were once fooled. The question this time is not whether he wants it, but whether it is lost forever.

Judging by noise alone, it is clear that Johnson remains impossible to ignore, both politically and publicly. And it's hard not to notice that this media commotion occurred during the Conservative Party leadership race. In interviews so far, he has refused to choose between the candidates, but each of the final four, the Sunday hours reportedhad sought his approval. July was the party's worst defeat in a century; Johnson won his biggest victory in a generation. It won 365 seats; the Conservatives now have 121. The next leader will hold fewer seats in total than before. lost between Johnson's general election and July's. There will be a new leader but no new Big Dog.

In the BBC Radio 5 Live interview, Matt Chorley not only said Johnson needed no introduction, but actually forgot to introduce him. Everyone knows who he is and has an opinion about him, Chorley said. And the party, the press and the public have stronger and more involved feelings about Johnson than about any other British politician, including the Prime Minister. Years ago, Keir Starmer's current foreign minister, David Lammy, described Johnson as devoid of substance. This is far from being an original or effective insult. Johnson first stood up precisely by presenting a vacuum of substance and leaving what the French call back you knowthe call of the void, forces its audience to explain itself.

Oh no no, don't say yes to everything! Sue Lawley protested Desert Island Discs. In his Do I have news for you Ostensibly, he permitted any suggestion, interruption, rebuttal, instruction or accusation. Lynn Barber found him so willing to recant or accept criticism that it is very difficult to determine what he actually believes. Picasso ripped off hysterical prices from art dealers, not because they didn't know the number he wanted, but because he himself didn't know it. Likewise, Johnson allows endless speculation. The feeble conclusions that could be drawn about him only came after so much thought that he was already more significant than his rivals.

He elicited at least one laugh from all of his interviewers and many from the crowd at Cheltenham. His hair is still messy and he still displays the grandiloquent pomposity that gave rise to YouTube channels dedicated to seconds-long clips titled Boris Johnson saying [word]. No other British politician has a single image that could have matched the ITV pre-interview montage of Johnson hanging from a zip line, driving an excavator through a wall, throwing a basketball over his head and bringing tea to the journalists. He remains surprisingly sympathetic, and one wonders if his interrogators still leave the sessions feeling that they have been too cruel to him.

All of this has its uses. His biographer Andrew Gimson says Johnson became Conservative leader after ten years of telling party conferences that he would make members feel good about being Conservative. He then promised the country that he would make them feel good about Brexit. It seems he still believes that this little voice full of optimism is the winner. He says he is resolutely positive and insists that it is an incredible country. Read Unchained and I hope you will find a hymn of praise to this country for what it could be and will be if people watch the program I propose.

The media constantly asks why Starmer showed no charisma and then why he didn't tell any stories. Labor believes these charms have expired. According to their analysis, the public is tired of thinking about politicians and politics. The message that life is going to get worse and not better for a while doesn't help you think sunnier thoughts, but it does allow less thoughts. And a population weary of hope and joy obviously doesn't hold promise for Johnson, especially if it's the washout that's exhausted them. As Starmer said: “With Boris Johnson it was all about character. It was over-promising something, not really delivering, and then becoming a character all the time.

All of Johnson's interviewers said he had failed Britain and that the facts of Partygate and Brexit would stick with him. Voting Johnson was a way to feel better about voting Tories and voting for Brexit, but it can never be a way to feel better about voting Johnson. However, he will certainly try. He is more or less programmed to want to have these things. He is still five years younger than his hero Winston Churchill at the start of the First of all of his two terms as prime minister. This media campaign is an opportunity to try new lines: Brexit was not a government in waiting; Cameron failed to put in place a Brexit strategy; vaccines and Ukraine were triumphs; Sue Gray led the Partygate investigation; Subsequent conservative leaders abandoned his winning mandate; Britain is still great.

Predictable, but there is also something new, more ironic. Johnson seems more willing than ever to be cynical. He provoked Chorley by describing his recent life as one of unimpeachable darkness. Twice during his media tours, when asked if he wanted the top job again, he, as in the past, compared his chances to being reincarnated as an olive, blinded by a champagne cork. , locked in a disused refrigerator or decapitated by a Frisbee. He began as I think I said before, then recited not one item but the entire list, in a tone that made it clear that these were memorized tools, knowing that these distractions had already introduced him clandestinely in Downing Street and, more disturbingly, knowing that we knew it. At one point last night the host exclaimed: “That's what you said before you became Prime Minister!” Johnson replied: Good point.

By the end of the evening, her glass of wine, which Juliet Samuel had initially considered a promising frankness, had been raised but not drunk three times and carried off stage full. There was a lot left in there. There's a lot left in him. The old spectacle will no longer dazzle, but a new one will be attempted. On Desert Island Discs in 2005: I have a lot of energy. On Steve Bartletts Diary of a CEO podcast this week: I've always had a lot of energy. The question is who, us or him, will see the other more clearly. Along with his first words as Prime Minister, we should remember his last. See you aroundbaby, that means until next time, baby.