The Lord of Misrule

I have produced below an edited and revised version of a book review by Andrew Rawnsley. The book in question is an analysis of the term in office of a modern politician. Can you guess whose reign is being discussed?

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If the reign looked dreadful from the outside, it was even more diabolical viewed from the inside. We did not really have a government during his trashy reign. It was an anarchy presided over by a fervently frivolous, frantically floundering and deeply decadent lord of misrule.

Never in modern times has the office been occupied by someone so fundamentally unfit to hold the office. He was an utterly incapable leader. 

“I am meant to be in control. I am the führer. I’m the king who takes the decisions.” The would-be great dictator was never in control because he was incapable of performing even some of the most basic functions of a leader.

He had no clue how to be an effective leader and no idea what he wanted to do with the role other than satisfy his lust for its status and perks. One of his cabinet members said: “He loved the prestige and the trappings. He reveled in it… His philosophy on the way up had been to do, pledge, say anything to get over the line because I’m the best, I deserve it. Now I’m here without any core beliefs, I can do and say whatever I need to remain here.”

He was as woeful at applying himself to official papers as he was hopeless at assembling a stable and productive team. He was almost pathologically incapable of making and sticking to decisions, especially when confronted with choices that were in any way difficult. Most of the time, he was just making stuff up as he went along. “Wow, where the hell did that come from?” was the reaction from his staff when he suddenly announced that he had a plan to fix social care. No such plan existed. “Put down in 3,000 words what you think my foreign policy should be,” he told startled officials. He did not form a serious relationship with any of his international peer group. 

He deliberately stuffed his cabinets with mediocrities who knew they were expected to be “nodding dogs” and whom he disdained as “the stooges.”

The authors explore whether he believed in anything except the satisfaction of his own appetites and come back from their search for a philosophy as empty-handed as all the other people who have pursued this vain quest. This mirthless farce had tragic real-world consequences. Utterly unsuited to handling a crisis as grave as the pandemic, his endless prevarications and about-turns cost lives. “He wildly oscillated in what he thought,” observes one official. “In one day he would have three meetings in which he would say three completely different things depending on who was present, and then deny that he had changed his position.” His personal brush with Covid encouraged some to think it might prompt a reform of his behavior. They were disappointed. Even coming near to death couldn’t remedy character flaws that were so deeply ingrained.

Everyone he dealt with sooner or later found him dissembling, because he was only ever willing to commit to a position if he thought there was some immediate personal advantage or because his hand had been forced. One of his officials says he lied “morning, noon and night.” He lied not just to the public, but also and often to his closest associates.

Battles for the ear of this shallow and capricious monarch turned his court into the scene of constant internecine struggle between the ever-shifting factions within the building. We hear him whingeing about his inability to find the personnel or the structures to make his government functional, but several inside accounts suggest that he relished being at the centre of the tornado of chaos.

Rather than take any responsibility upon himself, he would deflect blame for decisions he feared might be unpopular – and did not hesitate to use even his wife for that pathetic purpose. In the words of one courtier: “He would tell us that she was impossible to deal with and he couldn’t control her and she would do whatever she wanted. Then he’d go upstairs and tell her that we were impossible and he couldn’t control us. He liked to pour gasoline on both sides and see what happened to the fire.”

To the bitter end, he blamed everyone but himself for the implosion of his reign. He was dethroned because he was and always had been utterly unfit to wear the crown.

Guess now, before the reveal.

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The book review was published in The Observer. The book is Johnson at 10 by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell, the subject being Boris Johnson, who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022.

Did you think it was Donald Trump? Everything said about Johnson could equally serve as a summation of Trump’s disastrous reign (which is what led me to produce this blog post).

It is amazing that at the same time two of the countries that should be beacons of light for the world were ruled by similar disturbed personages. Let us hope that it never happens again.

Original review at:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/30/johnson-at-10-anthony-seldon-raymond-newell-review-ducking-and-diving-with-the-pm-who-would-be-king-boris-johnson