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The
best piece of business advice I have ever read was, “Beware the
articulate incompetent.” It is important to business decisions but far
more so to political ones.
Boris
Johnson has always been a poster boy for the articulate incompetent,
and yet he rose with wit, bravado and connections to the highest
elective office in Britain, prime minister. Now his luck has run out.
Born
in New York to British parents, he didn’t renounce his dual citizenship
until 2016, when it became a liability politically. He won a
scholarship to Eton, the boys-only boarding school where many prime
ministers studied, went on to Oxford, and was elected president of the
Oxford Union. This is the equivalent of privilege on steroids.
Johnson’s
weaknesses — including sloth, disorganization, lack of preparedness,
showing off and a disinclination to let the facts stand in the way of a
good story — were well known. He was fired from his first journalistic
job on The Times of London for fabricating a quote — from his godfather,
of all people. Later, Michael Howard, the distinguished Tory leader,
fired him from the ranks of the shadow cabinet, also for lying.
After
The Times, Johnson worked for the conservative daily, The Telegraph. In
Brussels, where he was assigned, he was regarded by his peers as good
company but an unreliable reporter. One of them told me that he was
often asked to chase up some fabricated concoction of Johnson’s like the
banana regulation, allegedly defining the length and curve of bananas
allowed into the European Union. The only curve was that of the truth.
Johnson’s
editors in London wanted to hear only bad news about Europe. Johnson
obliged: He was playing his part in the movement to take Britain out of
Europe, which matured as Brexit.
Johnson
went on to become a member of Parliament and editor of The Spectator,
an admired British weekly magazine of politics, culture and current
affairs, published continuously since 1828. His colleagues at the
magazine found him sloppy, often absent, and often leaving his work to
others. His management was, it is reported, incoherent, a charge
repeated about his leadership of Britain.
The
Spectator, under Johnson’s editorship, was engulfed in a sex scandal of
rare portions. The publisher was cavorting with a British cabinet
member, Johnson with the star columnist, and an editor with a secretary.
It was a literary “Animal House.”
Johnson has been married three times and has six children from those marriages. He acknowledges one love child.
The
next step for Johnson was to become mayor of London. His humor papered
over the cracks, and he did a good job defending London’s image —
especially in insisting that the double-decker red buses be retained.
The
campaign for the United Kingdom to leave Europe gave Johnson his
chance. He went against his old parliamentary friend and Eton and Oxford
companion, Prime Minister David Cameron, and campaigned vigorously and
with the aid of some wild and untrue claims about how Britain would
prosper out of Europe. Brexit carried the day.
Cameron
was replaced with the dull, dutiful Theresa May. She had the task of
trying to make Brexit work without breaking Britain. After three years,
she was out, and a shaken party installed Johnson as its leader.
In
a landslide, the Conservatives won the first election with Johnson at
the helm, and he was expected to be a transformational prime minister.
Instead, he has been involved in scandals: He has been caught lying
about parties in his official home and office, No. 10 Downing Street,
during the COVID-19 lockdown, and recently about the allegations of
sexual impropriety of a member of his party, whom he had been warned
about but nonetheless promoted. The truth might have saved Johnson; he
eschewed it.
Johnson
isn’t a fool, but he does foolish, often roguish things. He is a
scholar of the ancient world, a biographer, a linguist and a wordsmith.
He likes to make comparisons to antiquity: He equated London to Athens
and himself to Pericles.
He
wrote a biography of Churchill, which I enjoyed but found nothing
groundbreaking. It seems to have been written to signal similarities
between himself and Churchill.
Johnson
will be heard from again as a commentator and author. He excels at the
pithy phrase and joking in adversity, as when, as London mayor, he was
left hanging on a zipline during a 2012 Olympics event.
His
legacy may be that he was the most quotable prime minister of his
generation and beyond. Here is a classic: “My friends, I have discovered
myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed,
opportunities for fresh disasters.”
On resigning, Johnson said tamely, “Them’s the breaks.”
On Twitter: @llewellynking2
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of "White House Chronicle" on PBS. |