BOJO WAIVES THE RULES

I wrote this Limerick way back, long before Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, maybe even before he became Foreign Secretary. It was known that his life's ambition was to become Prime Minister, but as one astute journalist observed, not to be Prime Minister but to have been Prime Minister. The glory without the responsibility.

And he might have got away with that. But when he got in to the job, the glory was too seductive for him to give it up easily. Here was a full house every night with the audience hanging on his every word. The consummation of a long acting career.

Never mind that he never studied or learned the script. He was a master at winging it. He had been doing it all his life. Turn up to a celebrity function as guest speaker. Make a few jokes about pretending he didn't know what function he was at. Tell a string of the same old hoary stories in an entertaining manner. And Bob's your uncle. Collect the cheque on the way out.

Each time a different audience for whom the tired old routine seemed fresh. But now? Now it was the same audience night after night and he was fast running out of oul blather. He didn't study, or even read, the script provided. He just kept winging it. It was what he had done all his life and the rut was too deep to change.

He had spent a fair portion of his life, as a Brussels correspondent for an English newspaper, belitteling the European Project. He wrote outrageous, but hugely entertaining, lies about the European Union and its supposed malign affects on British sacred cows - imperial measures, bendy bananas, and so on.

So much so that the European Union set up a web page to rebut his outrageous claims. Unfortunately the rebuttals were duller than the lies and other papers failed to pick up on them. So his contribution to UK distrust of the EU was enormous.

He fronted a campaign to leave the EU based on lies and partial truths, and underpinned by illicit covert targetting of thousands, if not millions, of individuals.

However ruthless he may be behind the scenes, he is a people pleaser in public and he needs the approval of the masses. This in a sense is his downfall, because he makes inconsistent promises and doesn't even lie consistently.

The most obvious example is his signing up to an ag agreement with the EU which saw an economic border down the Irish Sea while at the same time assuring everybody that there would be no checks whatsoever on goods moving in either direction between Northern Ireland and Britain.

He is totally insensitive to the pain of others, as is clear from the totally inadequate response of his government in combatting the Covid pandemic. No action was taken about making schools or workplaces safe and no support was offered to those required to isolate. He allowed the pandemic to run rampant despite advice to the contrary.

He presided over what must have ranked among the greatest raids on the UK Treasury in history when he oversaw the award of massive contracts to Tory donors who were never in a position to deliver and whose failure to do so cost innumerable lives.

His fecklessness is now catching up with him as the long-suffering British public vent their anger at partying in No.10 while they could not console sick or dying relatives or friends nor attend their funerals. The most graphic illustration of this is the partying on the eve of the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral at which the Queen is pictured alone in the pews observing the pandemic restrictions.

So, to the Limerick. Objectionable as it seems, the reality is a thousand times worse. It wasn't just a selfie, it was daylight robbery. He didn't go. He hung on and destroyed the UK on so many fronts. But yes, it will be up to the British people to clean up a mess of incalculable proportions.

And what should happen to Boris Johnson?

Pass the eggs and the rotten tomatoes.