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Politician Johnson, singer Presley: Only at the beginning of an extended decline
Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images;
Globe Photos/MediaPunch/AP
In the end, the moment will be remembered when the phenomenon tipped Boris Johnson.
No, not the birthday cake during lockdown, not the children's swing in Downing Street's garden ruined by his boozy employees.
But the moment when tens of thousands at the darts world championship just before Christmas in London's Alexandra Palace yelled "Stand up if you hate Boris!"
Since they were already there, unity of sentiment was a prerequisite, so to speak.
In addition to the number of people who loudly expressed their hatred of Johnson, what was even more interesting was who they were and how they did it.
The name "Boris" suddenly no longer sounded like a buddy, but now carried the same contemptuous undertone as "Maggie" once did.
Regarding the first: those who called were representatives of the very “white working class” whose votes helped Boris Johnson win his big election two and a third years ago – at least according to the myth.
In truth, the xenophobic side of his neo-nationalist Brexit fundamentalism went down at least as well with the petty bourgeoisie as with the »left behind« (in UK political lingo »the left behind«) from the deindustrialized »Red Wall« (UK political Lingo for once Labor-dominated Northern England constituencies).
Regarding the second: The fact that the Darts World Cup spectators called Johnson by his first name "Boris" demonstrated the reversal of exactly that quality that had once helped him to untouchable popularity: the folksy charm of the narcissistic clown, which allows that you can not only laugh with him, but also at him.
Johnson is now in the "Fat Elvis" phase of his career
Ever since the Partygate scandal erupted in Downing Street, the endless analysis of British comment columns has featured much of the concerns within the Conservative Group.
The amusement with which the population regards their head of government has given way to pure mockery.
Not entirely true, because what was being expressed here, if you listened to the chants more closely, was pure hatred.
The name "Boris" suddenly no longer sounded like a buddy, but now carried the same contemptuous undertone as "Maggie", Johnson's last predecessor in office, who was customarily referred to by her first name.
Once the brand has become a dirty word, there is no turning back.
Considering Johnson the populist pop figure he always was, Johnson is now in the "Fat Elvis" phase of his career.
His big coup of 2019, which took him from popular buffoon to prime minister, appears as the equivalent of Elvis' comeback TV special, which crowned him the undisputed king of rock 'n' roll in 1968 after the interlude of The Beatles and Co.
The following year, however, Elvis botched his tearjerker “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”, which had once been so heartwarmingly performed, on the Las Vegas stage with jokes and embarrassingly forced laughter.
The result was about as irritating as Johnson's involuntarily raised corner of his mouth in smirk whenever he delivered his increasingly implausible denials of blame or mock apologies in recent months.
Presley, as he taunted his own audience with his fits of laughter, was only at the beginning of a protracted decline that would tragically end eight years later in the alienated Graceland (his version of Downing Street).
Johnson, on the other hand, is now surrounded by a conservative faction who are doing everything they can to overthrow him before he falls of his own accord.
Contrary to the feverish expectations of his imminent departure, however, they will – presumably – wait until after the local elections in May.
Their foreseeable debacle would probably be hung around the prime minister's shoulders as a farewell.
With a little imagination, the Elvis parallel could also be extended to his entourage, the notorious »Memphis Mafia«.
Just as Elvis fired his closest bodyguards Dave Hebler, Sonny and Red West in 1976, who finally published their accounts in the form of the scandalous book "Elvis - What Happened?" two weeks before his death, Johnson also left five of his closest ones over the past week Allies lost in Downing Street.
The most important of them was his political adviser Munira Mirza.
It finally burst when Johnson, to distract himself from his own troubles, falsely accused Labor leader Keir Starmer that in his previous role as leading prosecutor he had brought Jimmy Savile, the ex-Top of the Pops presenter who was posthumously exposed as a mass child molester, before a court spared pursuit.
A bad attack.
Mirza himself has not shied away from similarly deep attacks in the past, for example against Starmer's predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.
In the case of Elvis, too, the bodyguards at the parties in Graceland first joined in the celebrations before they discovered their capacity for moral outrage.
Meanwhile, survivor Johnson does something that even Elvis wouldn't have dared to do: he seeks his salvation in a radical genre change, a fusion of new seriousness and disco.
The hiring of a new advisory staff is referred to in Downing Street's hopeful parlance as the arrival of the 'adults'.
And his new press chief is ex-BBC politics editor Guto Harri, who had worked for Johnson when he was mayor of London.
As soon as he took office, Harri says he asked Johnson, "Will you survive, Boris?" Johnson replied, "in his deep voice, slowly and with determination," and "started singing a little while finishing the sentence: 'I will survive.' I couldn't resist inviting him to say, 'You've got all your life to live', and he replied, 'I've got all my love to give',” Harri asserted, quoting from the lyrics to Gloria Gaynor's famous, emancipatory disco anthem "I Will Survive."
Amazingly, the newly appointed press chief used this anecdote as evidence to support the new Johnson image he wants to convey: "He's not a complete clown, he's actually a very likeable character.
He's not the bad guy many would make him out to be."
Perhaps Harri is referring to his own words from 2018, when Johnson described a Brexit deal proposed by his predecessor Theresa May as a “suicide vest”.
“Unfortunately, now he's dragging us to a place,” Harri commented on Johnson's testimony at the time, “where we think we can joke about suicide vests and be totally uninhibited sexually.
Somebody has to take the spade out of his hand or it looks to me like he's digging his political grave.«
Boris Johnson, the endlessly outrageous, endlessly loveable narcissist, sees no problem in inviting the man who said such things about him to eagerly dig along.
Just as in the "Partygate" affair he is willing to sacrifice his closest officials and the credibility of the Metropolitan Police for his political survival.
This shows again: Ultimately, the »Boris« project was never really about things like Brexit or the so-called »levelling up«, the much-cited formula for miraculously eliminating the inequality of modern Great Britain characterized by the South-North divide.
"I will survive," he sings in the first person singular.
And remains true to the only thing that really interests him: himself.