Kakistocracy XXXVI:Are You Still Here?

"When Alexander of Macedon was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer. Eric Bristow is only 27" - Sid Waddell

When Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was 58 years old, he was (eventually) deposed from his position as Prime Minister. We don't know if he cried salt tears or if he cried any tears but we do no he reluctantly agreed to (and not until September) leave the post in a style that was completely befitting of him.

He tried to be funny (the "them's the breaks" and the "hasta la vista" lines), he lied about his achievements, he claimed it was "eccentric" for the Tory party to be getting rid of him, and he boasted "mission accomplished - for now"!

Not only does that suggest, like the Terminator he so hilariously quoted, he'll be back but it's worrying too. What's truly 'eccentric' is how he could lie that his mission was accomplished. Unless his mission was to divide and destroy the UK.

A disastrous bodged Brexit that he never really believed in anyway (he campaigned against it until he saw a crowd running behind Nigel Farage which he then joined - at the front shouting "follow me") and the country will argue about for decades to come, a disastrous response to the Covid pandemic that left the UK with the 7th worse global death toll, a falling in global status because the government's lack of seriousness and ability to stand by its promises, and, perhaps worse of all, a list of contenders to take over that are pretty much all as shit as Boris Johnson.

That's because they've all, to more or less, degree stood behind Johnson. When Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak began the downfall of Johnson's government by resigning fifteen days ago (surprisingly, the Chris 'Ass' Pincher affair - yet another Tory groping people and yet again Johnson lying how much he knew about that before promoting the sex pest) they set in chain a series of events that have left us with a final two of Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. Both of whom, like all the others, are talking about the last three, or even twelve years, as if the Tories have not been in power!

Javid, Grant Shapps, and Rehman Chishti (yeah, me neither) all resigned when they saw they had no chance of winning and over the last two weeks the likes of Jeremy Hunt, Nadhim Zahawi, Suella Braverman, Tom Tugendhat, Kemi Badenoch, and - today - Penny Mordaunt have been knocked out leaving Sunak and Truss as the last two standing.

Either of them, or any of the others mentioned - would essentially be a Boris Johnson continuity candidate (even Hunt or Tugendat who didn't have the decency to leave the party as it was taken over by a criminal gang) but out of the two remaining Truss is definitely the worse. As a friend observed, she can't read, she can't talk, she can't listen, and those who saw her preference saw that, much like the party she hopes to represent, she has no sense of direction. She couldn't find her way to the press room and got lost again looking for the door on her way out.

That would come to sum up a Truss tenure (which probably wouldn't last long anyway) but we should be only marginally more welcoming of a Sunak leadership. He stood by Johnson right up until the bitter end, he lied about his wife's non-dom status, he jokes about working class people (not knowing any), and he was, like Johnson, convicted of partying during Covid lockdowns.

The reason it's such a shitshow is that any half-decent Tory left the party and refused to serve under Johnson and those who reached the highest ranks only did so through loyalty (never ability) and fealty to a failed Brexit project.

I'd expected, in this blog, to write about a Tory donor (possibly Lord Brownlow) being contacted by Johnson to build his six year old son a £150,000 tree house in Chequers (while at the same time his party was voting against free school meals), Steve Bray becoming one of the first people to feel the strong arm of the new anti-protest laws, the UK government acting like a Bond villain and announcing - in advance - plans to break the law, and of course the rumours of BJ receiving a BJ while at work. But, of course, things moved pretty quick.

Chris 'Ass' Pincher (a man who'd already resigned for such things and had even been assigned a minder to check he doesn't get drunk and start molesting people) will go down in history as the scandal that finally tired the unshockable Tory party but don't imagine there won't be more crap in the last couple of months of Johnson's reign and beyond. 

While all this backstabbing and politicking (yet virtually no policy making and certainly no concern for the country rather than the party) I have been up, I've been down, I've been mucking around, and I've been meeting some odd people and acting odd. 

I had a great night with Pam and Kathy at LCD Soundsystem at Brixton Academy, a visit to a not particularly impressive Zaha Hadid exhibition in Clerkenwell, I've chatted to both my parents, I've attended an interesting talk about Aleister Crowley's time in London, I've met Valia for drinks in Camden, and Vicki for drinks in curry around the South Bank.

Best of all I had a great time at the Lambeth Country Show with Pam and others (Horace 'Sleepy' Andy and Heatwave the stars - and the queues to see the vegetables incredible), a lovely TADS walk from Cosham to Portsmouth, and went to Cheryl's 50th birthday party in Farnham which, despite my DJing, was great (Tina, Tony, and Darren made up for it with their sets). Not least because so many lovely people attended.

I've also finally started taking Allopurinol for my gout and experienced heat of 102F yesterday as Britain had its warmest day ever. A COBRA meeting was called but, true to form, Johnson didn't bother to attend. There was a party on at Chequers or something.

So his damage will continue to, and beyond, the end. He'll carp from the sidelines, he'll try to make whoever follows him fail (they won't need much help in that but he'll still try), and the stories about his criminality and lying will continue to come to light. Sunak or Truss? It doesn't matter much. What we need is not just the end of Boris Johnson's political career but the end of the political career of every single politician who supported, enabled, or defended him. Hasta la vista indeed. Fuck off you lying piece of shit.