The Decline and Fall of Boris Johnson

It looks like the fat lady is singing for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. If you can imagine a more disappointing political career, one that is looking more and more like a Greek tragedy, I cannot.

Succeeding the thoroughly hapless Theresa May, Johnson produced Brexit. He led his nation out of the European Union and ceased its dependence on an army of Brussels bureaucrats. As had happened during World War II, Britain stood strong and proud against the onslaught of continental European nations, what with their dreams of Empire and their pretense to be able to tell the British what to do.

The result, for Johnson and his Tory Party, was a resounding electoral victory and an extraordinary Parliamentary majority.

But then things started going downhill. Johnson started sounding like a flatulent Western leftist, with his love for nature and his deep sensitivity. His popularity went into free fall and his party started losing elections. A few weeks ago Johnson won a vote of no confidence from his party, but just barely. Yesterday, two of his senior ministers resigned. All indications are that the fat lady is singing.

If we are believe the bitterly distempered Dominic Cummings, formerly Johnson’s chief political strategist, the problem was Carrie. That would be Carrie Symonds, now Carrie Johnson, mother of Johnson’s most recent offspring. Apparently, there was a power struggle for control of the Johnson mind, and Carrie won.

Cummings was removed from power and became a vicious and vindictive enemy. He has been the source for many of the nastiest stories about Johnson, the stories that portray the prime minister as a hapless, ignorant buffoon. Keep in mind, Johnson is vastly more intelligent than the people who are leading America these days.

To be fair-- we always essay to be fair-- the problem is less Carrie and more Johnson himself. If he took her advice and became more of an environmentalist tree hugger, the ultimate fault lies with him. It is not her fault that he is whipped. We will spare you the derogatory term that is most often associated with whipped.

Of course, while Johnson must have understood the threat posed by Dominic Cummings, we have no real sense of the threat posed by Carrie. We do not know whether the first British political couple had reasoned debates, wherein Carrie persuaded Boris to abandon his manhood and become warm and fuzzy. We do not know whether or not she threatened him, whether she might have pulled a Princess Diana and taken her grievances public. We do not know whether she would have left him-- an embarrassment that would have far surpassed the departure of Cummings.

So, we do not know whether she sabotaged the Johnson prime ministership, or whether Boris just allowed it to happen. It is bad to blame it all on her, but if we do not grant her any responsibility here, that would be seriously disempowering.

As for evidence of how badly Boris has been whipped, I offer a piece of evidence, gleaned from Walter Russell Mead’s Wall Street Journal column yesterday:

Speaking to German media between the Group of Seven and NATO summits late last month, he [Boris Johnson] offered the following wisdom: “If Putin was a woman, which he obviously isn’t, but if he were, I really don’t think he would have embarked on a crazy, macho war of invasion and violence in the way that he has. If you want a perfect example of toxic masculinity, it’s what he is doing in Ukraine.”

This is feminist boilerplate. It is beneath the dignity of the prime minister of Great Britain. It almost sounds like he is channeling the jejune musings of the woman who shares his bed.

There is no such thing as a feminist who does not drool on about-- if I were a man or if he were a woman. And there is no such thing as a feminist who does not inveigh endlessly about toxic masculinity. It sounds weak and whiny. Boris should know better. That he does not is dooming his prime ministership.

While Mead offers an analysis of one of Putin’s role models, that would be Catherine the Great, we will take a different tack. We will take it because we have been taking it from the beginning of the Ukraine War.

We have pointed out that Putin did not invade Ukraine when Donald Trump was president. When the Biden people took over, Putin sensed weakness and took his chance. The same applies to his annexation of Crimea during the weak-kneed Obama presidency.

Putin knows that Western Europe is becoming more and more feminized. Its leaders spend their time whining about the environment and about sustainable energy. They have foolishly made themselves dependent on Russian energy supplies. Now, as a war is ongoing, they have nothing to offer but sanctions that appear to be hurting them more than they are hurting Russia. 

So, we should reconfigure the Boris Johnson statement, to say, if Western leaders, leaders like Boris Johnson and, why not, Joe Biden, had anything resembling testicular fortitude, then Putin might well have made a different calculation. If Boris were a man, and if Biden were a man, Putin would probably not have invaded Ukraine. Political leaders who have an ounce of sense do not undertake military operations in order to make a show of their machismo. 

Boris is wrong. Being wrong about this and so many other issues, he is about to go down in history as a tragic figure, a monumental disappointment.