Somebody must have told him to reference the Bengal famine.
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POLITICAL SKETCH
Funny and delusional, Johnson’s farewell speech was classic Boris
Tuesday September 06 2022, 10.15am BST, The Times
When prime ministers leave No 10 there is normally truculence and exhaustion amid the grinding jawbones. Not so with Boris Johnson. After a dawn reveille he left with bustling gait and a skip on to the pavement. He grabbed hold of his wife Carrie and steered her past a crescent of admirers towards the armour-plated Range Rover.
Gassy wisps rose from the exhaust pipes of a police motorcade. He was beginning his final prime ministerial journey, far north to Aberdeenshire’s conifers and the Balmoral abattoir, the royal hand and the ceremonial loss of office. It was not yet 7.40am. Breakfast eggs had yet to be boiled but a prime minister who won an 80-seat majority was being decapitated.
After overnight downpours that had left Downing Street’s grey façade rain-streaked, a forgiving sun broke out on Johnson’s golden head. His supporters cheered. A few surged forward to slap him on the back. It almost ended in slapstick. He was tugging so insistently on Carrie’s hand that he nearly pulled her into a lamppost. It would be wrong to say he left Downing Street happily but he did so sportingly and entirely properly, rueful yet defiant, optimistic to the last (if last it be).
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Boris Johnson bids farewell
His speech was classic Boris: humorous, delusional, written with enough art to allow for a couple of digs without too many people noticing. “This is it, folks,” he began. “Like Cincinnatus I am returning to my plough.” Cincinnatus did indeed return to his farm, almost chewed off his fists from boredom, and made a political comeback. Ploughing is not much of an occupation for a fizzy ambition.
The words boomed out of him, echoing around the odd London cul-de-sac that is home to our elected leaders. With friends and staff crowding in at both sides, the mood was part Chelsea wedding speech, part office farewell bash. There was nothing particularly funereal about it, save in the sense that something distinctive was leaving us. Johnson doesn’t, in public, go in for mawkishness. He mentioned Dilyn the dog and Larry the Downing Street cat. If they could resolve their occasional difference, so could rival Conservatives. A name-check for Dilyn but none for Carrie or their children. He settled instead for a broad thank-you to those who had supported him behind the scenes.
Carrie, standing near by, was in a long, pink, summery frock. A crowd of MPs wore smart suits. Andrea Jenkyns, an education minister but possibly not for much longer, wore an Aussie country hat. Jacob Rees-Mogg had brought his teenage son Peter. Johnson’s sister, Rachel, mingled with the MPs, as did the former Tory party co-chairman Ben Elliot. Nadine Dorries kept hugging people. Nadine may be a bit leaky over the next few days. And “Sir” Michael Ellis, who as paymaster general often had to defend Johnsonian indefensibles at the Commons dispatch box, was enormous in a double-breasted suit, a cuckoo among sparrows. Opposite them festered the media, cameras clicking.
Jacob Rees-Mogg speaks to Michael Ellis, flanked by his son Peter
ISABEL INFANTES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Ben Elliot, rear left, joins Nadine Dorries and Rachel Johnson, second right, in Downing Street
REUTERS
The only thing missing? Protesters. Half past seven in the morning is too early for the anti-Brexit brigade and the Extinction Rebellion gluers. At the microphone Johnson was saying that his premiership had unexpectedly turned into a relay race. “They changed the rules halfway through,” he claimed. Did they? He reprised successes: the Covid vaccines, standing up to Putin, extracting us from the EU. He whirled his fingers in the air and whacked the lectern.
Wind energy was now able to provide half our electricity needs. Apparently. Tech companies were “sprouting” at an unmatched rate. Unemployment was lower than it had been since he was a child bouncing on a Spacehopper. Talking of which, he himself would now be one of those booster rockets that fall away from the mother ship and drop with a plop into some remote ocean, having “fulfilled its function”. I don’t suppose he believed that for a moment. But it was magnificently done.
In fairness Jarry’s politics changed a bit over the years as well.
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Jarry?
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He was a great disappointment. Brought down by his missus.
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TBF, when it comes to Health Ministers we cant talk.
Then we got a fit healthy doctor, and we still werent happy.
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Quentin Letts is the mother of all cunts.
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Is that Cian O’Neill?
Has Lizzy named her cabinet yet?
There must be very few thing white right-wingers love more than people of colour who will do whitey’s bidding for him. God, they love them.
Same way hardline Unionists loved the Cruiser.
That musician lad really does look like a tonne of politicians over there
The lefties hate the fact that women and minorities get big Government jobs when the Tories are in power.
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Fixed that for ya
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Lizzy croaking it
Everyone in UK will all be getting a day off I’d say.