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British tabloids judge Boris Johnson: "Disgrace"
Photo:
ANDY RAIN / EPA-EFE
Since I've worked in television, I've worn a "button" in my ear for certain appearances.
No, not
on
or even
in
Earlobes, I let this fashion pass by as a teenager, maybe I was always a bit conservative.
With the button in the ear, which I mean, the director of a program gives instructions and sometimes clear commands ("Time's up!").
And so I'm wondering what Boris Johnson has heard from his direction in recent weeks.
"Time's up!" apparently no one has said it yet, because he's still in office.
But what he has said so far in the affair about almost ten illegal parties in the Corona lockdown, someone must have whispered to him.
It's so completely insane for a political crisis script, it's tougher than Hollywood.
And in very short pants for very short legs, as much as there is lying.
In short, that's how I imagine it with the voice, and otherwise everything happened exactly the same way.
It all starts with press reports, at Johnson's official residence at No.
10 parties were celebrated that ran counter to all the corona rules under which the British groaned at the time.
The voice from the director speaks for the first time.
She says in Boris' ear: 'Deny everything.
There were no parties.
There are no parties.
There will never be a party.
You don't even know what parties are."
»Hmmm«, says the voice after a few days, »it won't be that easy after all«.
A series of instructions follows:
"Then say: Those weren't paaartys.
You have to stretch that a in surprise and amazement that someone could think that inviting over a hundred people to drink and stand around and have lots of fun in a garden could be something like a... Don't use the word at all .«
"Didn't work?" the voice asks a few days later.
“Then say: You knew absolutely nothing.
There might have been parties, but if there were, then you knew absolutely nothing about it.«
Next it turns out that the invitation to the big garden party came from Johnson's office manager.
But the voice goes on: »Say, you can't remember.
There might have been parties, but you weren't there.
Definitely not.
Well, probably not.
Well, maybe it is.
But you can't remember."
Public and press are becoming increasingly restless, the excuses are embarrassing even by battered British standards. 'Time to act,' says the voice, 'open an independent investigation by a close associate and say, 'The British people have a right to a full disclosure'. Then speak privately with the staff member, and while the exam is in progress - deconstruct everything: what is a 'party'? At what point is a lawn a 'garden'? And what does 'being there' even mean?' However, for the first time the voice doesn't sound so steady when she says: 'You have to buy time, Boris.'
But voters, party members and the media are becoming increasingly impatient, even those who call themselves conservative.
The voice says: »Put the blame away.
Nobody told you it was a party and not a work meeting.
No one told you there were rules you had to obey as Prime Minister.«
»Ok«, the voice concedes shortly afterwards, »the fact that there was a bottle of wine in front of you doesn't look good in the photos.
You have to get on the offensive.
Find a scapegoat: whoever didn't tell you that you have to follow the rules: fire!"
Over the next few days, desperation creeps into his voice.
She says: 'Excuse me, Boris.
Yeah I know you hate it because you went to the elite schools and colleges and it's so... plebeian, so... small minded and not free.
Do it anyway.«
In a long interview, Johnson apologizes for the parties and his affectation in dealing with the affair. But the voice says afterwards: "It's no use, it doesn't stop, heaven, what do they want from you? Then let's do it like Donald:
flood the zone with shit!
Start a crazy argument, Boris. Hire a staff member who is politically loyal to you (no, not the one with the independent investigation) to abolish the BBC. Make a law to ban demos just because they're too loud. Something like that.”
Johnson's culture minister announces that she will cut public funds for the BBC, and the lower house wants to pass an extremely harsh anti-demonstration law.
The director asks helplessly: "Isn't everything working?
Your party friends, the ungrateful rabble, want to get at you just because you disgrace your office?
Huh, all of a sudden?
Then throw a chunk of raw meat at the idiots for me.”
Johnson starts
»operation red meat«
.
In order to dissuade rogue Tory MPs from voting no confidence against him, he fulfills their great wish: he declares the corona pandemic over and most of the measures lifted.
That was late last week.
In London and in real life.
Incidentally, the director's last entry for Boris, in the "procedure," as it's called on TV, could read like this: "It doesn't matter now, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.
Set fire to the city, London is not worthy of you.
England isn't, and Great Britain (with those Scots and Northern Irish, oh man) certainly isn't.
It'll be fine.«
