Movie Quote of the Day (‘Bedazzled,’ on a Faustian Bargain for Prime Minister)

George Spiggott [aka Satan] [played by Peter Cook]: “Now, then, what'd you like to be first? Prime Minister? Oh, no, I've made that deal already.”—Bedazzled (1967), screenplay by Peter Cook, from a story by Dudley Moore, directed by Stanley Donen

As Peter Cook’s clever take on the old Faust tale indicates, Boris Johnson (yes, he’s the one pictured, not the late, lean Mr. Cook) is hardly the first British PM suspected of bargaining with Ol’ Scratch for a stay in 10 Downing Street. 

But the man who used Brexit as his crude instrument for supplanting predecessor Theresa May must now feel that, after only three years in power, his sojourn in Hell is arriving a bit early.

Now that he’s resigned under overwhelming duress—and even then, vowing to serve until his party can find a replacement—Johnson may wish that he had fewer of those Houdini-like instincts long wondered at by the press.

In the end, all of those escapes from political death only prolonged the final agony: questions about what he was doing about former deputy chief whip, Chris Pincher, who was accused of groping two men last week. All of this was too much for nearly 60 members of his government who resigned.

In his overturning of the traditional political order and his fast-and-loose approach to the truth, Johnson has sometimes been compared with Donald Trump. I can’t imagine that Johnson’s former ministers and party colleagues loathe him more than Trump’s did. 

But the political situation in the UK was certainly more conducive to them telling the PM that it was time for him to go.

You can almost hear the sigh of relief over Johnson’s departure coming from the Republic of Ireland. After all, Brexit—and Johnson’s unseemly trashing thrashing about to maintain the loyalty of Ulster Unionists—led him to trash the Protocol agreement his own government negotiated just a few years ago, unnecessarily complicating the survival of the Good Friday Agreement that wound down 30 years of “The Troubles.” 

(For an analysis of the damage caused by Johnson’s blithe disregard for his own diplomacy, see David Lammy’s Guardian article from three weeks ago.)

"The relationship between our governments has been strained and challenged in recent times," acknowledged Taoiseach (Irish PM) Micheál Martin, who urged Johnson’s successor towards “broader bilateral relations between us…[and] to work together in a spirit of respect, trust and partnership." 

Let’s see if the nation that produced the likes of Johnson, chuckling at the antics of the overgrown schoolboy scamp even as he overturned one political norm after another, is now ready to move decisively away from his policies. Lots of luck with that—especially if Peter Cook’s “Mr. Spiggott” has anything to say in the matter.

Essay: The Parallel Transatlantic Crises

“I’ve so far resisted these comparisons, but now Britain’s political crisis [i.e., Boris Johnson 'proroguing' Parliament for more than a month, in an unprecedented move to short-circuit discussion of his 'no-deal' Brexit] really does resemble the parallel crisis in the United States. A ruthless executive is pushing the outer bounds of what is constitutionally possible in order to achieve unpopular outcomes. A ruling party that is afraid for its own electoral future is shamefacedly supporting him. A divided opposition seeks to block him but doesn’t have a popular leader itself. A conservative party is using populist slogans that undermine national institutions. Old precedents and customs are being abandoned at great speed, leaving only a vacuum in their wake.”—Anne Applebaum, Washington Post, Aug. 29, 2019

There are even more parallels not mentioned by Ms. Applebaum between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump: 

*Both are tonsorially challenged clowns with neither executive ability nor respect for truth, perpetrating breakdowns in their country’s essential legislative function.

*Both Trump and Johnson lead a base worried by deteriorating order and challenges to traditional values, despite these "populists" own extremely untidy personal lives.

*Both came to power by emerging from the socioeconomic flotsam of the 2007-09 Global Financial Crisis, exploiting the fears of foreigners left in its wake.

*Both found their causes aided by trolls and bots associated with Russia (yes, the British are investigating how Putin propaganda aided the Brexit campaign, according to this NPR interview with Jane Mayer; as for Trump, not one of the President’s most raucous defenders can explain the extraordinary coincidence of Russia releasing the Wikileaks files on Hillary Clinton less than 24 hours after The Donald urged it to do so).

*Both are calling for stronger trade ties between their countries, as a seeming counter-move against the Economic Union (EU)--a strategy that plays into Putin's hopes of undermining economic and military alliances. 

*Both the Trump and Brexit campaigns used Steve Bannon as their scurvy strategist.

*Both leaders have created a ruckus over border security: Trump, by squawking about a wall with Mexico (and even transferring Defense Dept. money for other projects to try to speed its construction); Johnson, by ignoring concerns that lack of a EU “backstop” would doom the fragile tranquility prevailing in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement two decades ago.

*Both have crashed through unwritten rules of law and conduct that restrained predecessors in their countries’ highest office.

*Both have a penchant for insult: Johnson derided opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn as “you great big girl's blouse," while Trump has insulted someone on Twitter pretty close to every day.

*Both now pose a fundamental threat not just to the economy and governance of their countries, but to the faith that other nations place in the U.K. and U.S. as birthplaces of liberty.

So far, only one major difference exists in the ascent to power of Trump and Johnson: In the latter’s first week in office, a coalition of 21 Conservative Party Members of Parliament—including former Cabinet ministers—allied with the opposition to force him to make a Brexit deal or request another extension till early 2020. No such public, principled cohort has emerged to restrain Trump. 

Over the years, I have been critical of much British governmental policy (including its misbegotten colonial legacy), but this week, I have to tip my hat to a legislature that, unlike ours, has enough members who refuse to be bullied into meekly abdicating their time-honored responsibilities.

(Photo of Boris Johnson taken as an MP, July 27, 2016.)

Quote of the Day (Boris Johnson, Anticipating His Brexecution)

"My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters. Nothing excites compassion, in friend and foe alike, as much as the sight of you ker-splonked on the tarmac with your propeller buried six feet under."—British Member of Parliament and former Mayor of London Boris Johnson, quoted in Rose Powell, “How Gaffe-Prone Boris Johnson Could Become UK Prime Minister,” Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 7, 2014

With his highly idiosyncratic approach to the mother tongue and his penchant for getting into one scrape after another, Boris Johnson can sound at times like Bertie Wooster let loose in Parliament. Put that together with his keen sense of Fleet Street’s voracious appetite for copy (he was a former reporter and editor of The Spectator), and you have a journalist’s dream candidate, a virtual English Channel of quotes and gaffes.

Except that, at least for the current cycle, it doesn’t like as if he’ll be a candidate for Prime Minister. The astonishing last week in the U.K.—starting with the vote to leave the European Union, David Cameron’s announced departure from Whitehall, and the vote of no confidence in Labour Party leader Jeremy Corwyn—climaxed with the out-of-left-field statement by Johnson, a Conservative leader of the Brexit forces, that he would not, after all, seek the P.M. post.

Cameron’s loss of power led observers to reach back in history for another Conservative
P.M. undone by a grievous miscalculation: Anthony Eden, in the wake of the Suez invasion. But Johnson’s abrupt slide down the greasy pole led commentators to look to drama: House of Cards, where treachery and the velvet power thrust abound.

Briefly, after the Brexit vote, when he still looked like The Coming Man, New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin likened him to Donald Trump in how he outraged elites. All seemed to change once Michael Gove, his comrade-in-arms atop the Leave forces, cleared his throat, said his old college friend couldn’t “provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead,” and put forward the best man for the job: himself. Now, unlike The Donald, Boris is looking up mournfully at the post he tried to attain.

You are unlikely to see Trump—or, to be fair, any current U.S. politicians—drop allusions to Greek and Latin literature in their speeches, as Boris has been known to do. But the derailed politico’s story and tone are going to seem oddly familiar to Americans long since used to Trump, and for reasons going beyond the tonsorial styles that made them presumptive hairs apparent to their nation’s highest office. Consider the following:

*Brashness. Johnson’s style is unfiltered, running counter to the typical British reserve (including that displayed by recent occupants of 10 Downing Street). In Trump’s case, “brash” seems to be permanently connected to the word “billionaire” (and, I suppose, will do in a pinch, to avoid overusing other “b” words such as “bumptious,” “bombastic and “bullying”).

*A libido that, in years past, would have marked him politically Dead on Arrival. Boris has had three known affairs resulting in an abortion, a miscarriage and a child born out of wedlock, not to mention his sacking from the Tories’ “front bench” back in 2004 when he was less than candid with party chief Michael Howard about one liaison. Despite that, he rebounded back into contention in the race to become PM until his latest stumble. Trump, of course, is a twice-divorced adulterer, world-class female objectifier, and even a guy who creepily said his daughter was so hot that if they weren’t related, he could date her. None of this, of course, made the slightest difference to religious conservatives, who voted for him in great numbers in the primaries.

*Lying. Boris is a glib liar. Even before he prevaricated to Howard, he got fired from a prior job in the newspaper business, by making up quotes. The sheer brazenness of that act prepared him well for politics, where—as demonstrated in the latest Brexit campaign—he could make promises and offer "facts" on flimsy evidence, then walk them back. Trump is an even greater master of mendacity. Long given to hype, he is now utterly unable to distinguish truth from falsehood. He lies about masses of Muslims celebrating 9/11, about never settling cases, about Ronald Reagan liking him, about always being against the Iraq War. Not content with being a chronic liar, he is also a pathological one, a tendency born of ineradicable narcissism.

* “Did he REALLY say what I thought he said?” There’s an entire book called The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson. Personally, I’m not too sure about the “wisdom” part, but the outrageous factor in it is quite high. The following is as good an example as any to illustrate the point: “For ten years,” he once wrote, “we in the Tory party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing, and so it is with a happy amazement that we watch as the madness engulfs the Labour party.” Forced to apologize to the government and people of Papua New Guinea, he offered a non-apology apology: “I meant no insult to the people of Papua New Guinea, who I’m sure lead lives of blameless bourgeois domesticity.” As for Trump, once you start on all the individuals and groups he’s insulted—Mexicans, the disabled, reporters, Iowans, African-Americans, POWs, Megan Kelly, Rosie O’Donnell, Pope Francis—the question then becomes, who hasn’t he dissed? Imagine Spiro Agnew, but with a billion dollars.

* Non-ideological conservatism. Boris has been known to be oddly blasé about his convictions, including the degree of his devotion to Thatcherism: "I realise that there may be some confusion in my prescriptions between what I would do, what Maggie would do, and what the government is about to do or is indeed already doing ... I don't think it much matters, because the three are likely to turn out to be one and the same." Trump is similarly blithe about his beliefs: “Folks, I'm a conservative, but at this point, who cares?”

*Irresponsibility. Johnson lent the Brexit movement a credibility lacking from its most diehard zenophobes. Once he won, splitting the EU, his party and perhaps his nation in two, he tried to downplay the positions he had only recently taken. This, as much as anything, may have sparked the rebellion of Gove, who had been set to serve as campaign manager in his PM bid. Similarly, Trump has divided his party and the nation as a whole with his inflammatory rhetoric.

*Faux populism. Boris contends that he speaks for the working class. It would be more correct to say that he has exploited its real troubles and that his closest associates are more likely to come from the tony schools from which he graduated, Eton and Oxford.  Truman’s advocacy in this vein is even more preposterous. How the populist mantle can be worn by a billionaire landlord who has tried to hustle tenants out of his buildings and imported foreign workers to work on his signature Manhattan property is beyond me.

*Branding. Boris is such a well-known quantity in the U.K. that he is one of the few politicos to be known by his first name, in the manner of Madonna. Trump’s business holdings use his name, based on the notion that they will exert a broad brand recognition. His rise to the top of the GOP field was smoothed by this high recall, as well as with their recall of his role on reality show The Apprentice.

* “Who Do You Think You Are?” Boris appeared on an episode of this BBC series about family history. The tone of the question for the series’ subjects is meant to be quietly inquisitive, but voters on both sides of the Atlantic would be best advised to adopt a far more challenging—and, yes, derisive—tone as they consider the record and damage left by Boris and The Donald.