A return to the grey men/women of politics - this is not Britain's got talent!

I know some people don't like it when I get a bit political so as this is one of those blogs and as it's about Boris Johnson you might want to look away now.

To begin at the beginning; retirement gives you time to think and one thing I was thinking about recently was that political news these days seems to be about the politicians, their weaknesses and misdemeanours, rather than the various situations these people are trying to manage. Looking back 20 to 30 years say, I certainly couldn't have told you who all the various cabinet ministers were or their opposition counterparts. We had moments of drama, such as when Mrs Thatcher made her last appearance at the dispatch box and Hugh Edwards rocked up on College Green in a glorified gazebo, but they were just that, moments, and were quickly forgotten while we all got on with life. The news was about what was happening in South Africa, the break up of the Soviet Union, remote wars and such stuff; the politicians themselves were boring and largely nameless grey men (and women of course). 

Now that's a picket line

After the good old days

Reflecting on all of that made me think when did things change; when did politics become a cult style "Britain's Got Talent" personality contest rather than something that went on in the background and popped up every five years or when we wanted to have a say about paying too much tax and who the government should give it away to?

In my mind it was Brexit that did it; the issue was so divisive, the impact so unpredictable that it became more about the larger than life characters involved than the details of the decision itself; okay people can say they were lied to, there was misinformation but in my mind the decision was made exactly the same as the Scottish Independence Referendum, promised in 2023, will be. It is a decision based on what is in your heart with a little bit of input from your head (basically along the lines of "if this all goes wrong can I survive?").

Democracy at work
Note the coin
©Harveywetdog

News becomes entertainment

And from there the rot really set in. There was no nuance in the question or the answer, we were out, and all we could do was get on and implement it. It became good television, sold newspapers and was easy to understand. Mrs May did the honourable thing and went to the country and thereby threw away David Cameron's majority and then it became real seat of the pants stuff, with television specials looking in on specific debates as the advantage swung backwards and forwards overseen by the braying speaker John Bercow. But a television drama needs a set of characters, and if these can be slightly quirky to make them more easy to remember as the drama unfolded so much the better.

Now in fairness the close coverage could be justified - the British people had been consulted and had spoken, we were about to leave Europe and politicians from all party's needed to respect the will of the people and implement the decision. But was it at this point that media begun to realise that this was easy, didn't involve any danger and didn't even mean leaving London. Everyone had their favourite hero/villain and cheered/booed at the appropriate time - there was a feeling it might go on forever as Michel Barnier and Lord Frost grappled with the agreement. Of course it couldn't go on for ever and in 2019 the Conservatives won a decisive election victory on the basis of getting Brexit done and Levelling Up. And there, had it not been for Covid, this blog might have ended.

Getting Brexit done

Nobody needs reminding that it was Boris Johnson who won the 2019 election so convincingly. People may think back and wonder how ever did he get to be Prime Minister; while his tenure as London Mayor was "mainly harmless" let's face it was his gaff prone appearances on "Have I Got News for You" that he was best known for. However did the king makers within the Tory Party not only decide that he was fit to be a leadership contender but also convince their MPs to make him Leader?

An enigmatic leadership style

Okay I'm going to speculate now; weighing him up from afar, Boris is what I'd call an enigmatic leader. And from what I've seen of enigmatic leaders in the Electricity Supply Industry then they are generally very personable, can inspire, are thought provoking, challenge and welcome challenge, but talk in riddles (as the name suggests), you must only have one at the top of your organisation at a time and you have to have really good people around around them to interpret the riddles and convert them into policy/practice. They also need a degree of governance, mostly to protect themselves from themselves. In industry they typically have a senior mentor to bounce thoughts off. It is high risk/high reward, it can work and it is great when things are moving forward and everything is positive.

Any photo shoot will do

The media benefitted as well. They had a PM coming out with all this stuff that they could convert to their love him/hate him agenda to suit their readers/viewers needs. What ever your views of the man, the fact of the matter is that MSM became hooked on Boris, realising he was box office, sold copy and advertising space and got people watching news programmes because it was entertainment not really news.

Better still, as the Covid crisis hit, we had a daily dose of it with heroes and zeros added in as the plot developed. Journalists didn't have to really work any more, just produce a ten minute video, beautifully shot in unnecessary slow motion, with pointless GVs of a hospital ward with everyone in PPE and a Clive Myrie haunting over dub and you've got a winning formula. Instead of the duff duffs we had vaguely worrying medical terms like toxic, chronic, crisis and panic to finish the drama and make sure we came back for more. You could even shout questions at the government from the other side of Downing Street and nobody thought you were a childish prat.

We all had our favourites

I've said on Twitter that the Tory king makers created a monster and then found they couldn't control it. I don't mean a monster in the evil "King Kong" sense, more the sense that it was bigger than they realised. How they lost control I don't know but they took their eye off the ball with the inevitable consequences; I did say an enigmatic leadership style requires a degree of governance - somebody saying "do you think that's a good idea son?" I also said that they needed to be surrounded by good people to do the heavy lifting. Did Boris get that? I've always thought he's been remarkably loyal to his cabinet team but perhaps he realises there's no one else to take their places.

An unholy alliance

And so we have a problem; Boris has not delivered for the people yet but he has delivered for MSM. Careers have been forged on Boris bashing. PMQs is a divisive gold mine, just wheel out the pantomime villain, shout out “the EUs behind you”, “oh no he didn’t”, "oh yes he did" add a bit of jaundiced opinion from a Burley or a Kuenssberg and you've got a show.

Other characters include.............

 

This is basically a popularity contest; this is X Factor, Strictly or Britain's Got Talent and everyone can understand the concept and clap or cry along. 

Other characters include Sir Keir (the boring one), Angela (all done in the best possible taste), Ian (loveable plucky Scot) and Sir Ed (not the talking horse but similar). MSM have looked at other possible combinations for the main roles but nothing works as well as the on the fence, detail obsessed Starmer, toe to toe with the full of bluster, might say the wrong thing Johnson. Having looked into the abys journalists have realised without this show, with spin offs and sub plots developing throughout the week, they might actually have to do some real work. 

Remember the shock and horror on Clive Myrie’s face when he had to do some actual reporting from Kiev? 

"This is dangerous Lyse!"

"No it's journalism Clive, but not as you know it".

A dangerous assignment?

 

So where do we go from here?

Despite the MSM's dependence on him, sooner or later the Johnson era will end. It could be next week, next year or it could be the next General Election but end it will. The show will have lost it's lead and will sadly have to close; Boris won't be waking up and realising that it was all a dream.

After that what I'm proposing is that perhaps we should let politics get a little bit boring again. Let's break the need for personality and needless confrontation, let's see ordinary men and women doing their jobs as MPs in a quiet and dignified manner to get the country healing and more united. We might even have to pay them a bit more to ensure we have the correct level of talent.

Let us return to the grey men and women who we don't really know what they do, or who they are, but we feel reasonably comfortable with what's going on around us and accept that they must be doing something right.

As HMQ said "we will meet again".

Update 9th July

Boris Johnson finally resigned, or said he was going to resign, on the 7th July 2022 after his cabinet ministers started to resign around him. Somehow you knew it was the end. I'd been having quite a ball on my Twitter account and I maintained my #BackBoris stance to the end. I began to realise, 

"In British politics we always vote for the least worst option; despite his many faults,

Boris Johnson remained that least worse option for me"

I was even inspired to turn to Johnny Cash for support

But the next day the lectern was out in front of Number 10 Downing Street and Larry the cat didn't have to worry about Dilyn the dog for much longer. I found Boris' leaving speech inspiring; I appreciate others won't, but for me it had the correct tone, the correct sense of driving forward, the correct barbed pointers including the look towards No 11 when he accepted his failure to deliver Tax cuts, but no apology, some sadness and enigmatically to the end "Them's the breaks".

I was reminded of the classic joke about Ahmed/Arwen/Achmed/ Archie the goat/sheep shagger

Ask your Dad
Harveywetdog built on a press photo

And why did the press finally take the nuclear option and decide to finish off the goose that had laid them so many golden eggs? To show that they could I guess.

"Yes it was a media circus show,

but we were all guilty of buying tickets"

Now where are those grey men and women.

Author - David Robinson  

David spent approaching 50 years in Her Majesty's Electricity Supply Industry before retiring

He was part of the highly successful design team on the Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station Project before spending 25 years producing safety cases to keep our aging AGR fleet generating for the good of the nation

He is responsible for the Harveywetdog YouTube Channel which he maintains as an outlet for his creative talents

David is currently recovering from blood cancer but refuses to be a victim

All views are his own but might be influenced by the drugs he's currently having to take