What is the point of the foreign secretary?
Glen Newey
So Boris Johnson is the foreign secretary. Heir to the mantle of such as Castlereagh, Palmerston and Halifax. Christ. It hasn't taken long for the new PM to stiletto expectations. If there was one by-blow of Brexit that could command general approbation, it was surely the toppling of Johnson, a clown with a plank who belatedly discovered the plank could do some damage, before getting a pratfall from his straight man. Now Theresa May's spoiled even that.
But May's move, seemingly counter-intuitive, has its reasons. As its name still suggests, the Foreign and Commonwealth (formerly India) Office is a relic of empire. What is the point of the foreign secretary? It's largely a matter of needing to be seen to have one, a pointless curlicue blazoned on Brits' post-imperial delusions. David Davis as Brexit minister will do the heavy lifting. Liam Fox is secretary for international trade, Michael Fallon secretary for defence. Together they bag most of the stuff to do with foreigners.
Has Johnson got even the little it takes to do this non-job? Some doubt it. A few months back the Spectator, in the person of righter-than-thou Douglas Murray (Eton and Oxford), ran a limerick competition to insult President Erdoğan which – in the way of these things, ex-Spectator editor Johnson (Eton and Oxford) won. His squib:
There was a young fellow from Ankara,
Who was a terrific wankerer.
Till he sowed his wild oats,
With the help of a goat,
But he didn’t even stop to thankera.
It's said that by stooping to pen such stuff Johnson has shown himself lacking the gravitas for high office. But previous inmates of the Foreign Office have also fancied themselves as rhymesters. George Canning (Eton and Oxford, since you ask) comes to mind. Canning, later prime minister, served as foreign secretary in the 1820s. Then as now, trade wars loomed large on Britain's to-do list. During a spat with the Netherlands over tariffs, Canning wrote a 'separate, secret and confidential' Foreign Office memo of 26 January 1826:
In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little, and asking too much.
The French are with equal advantage content,
So we clap on Dutch bottoms just 20 per cent.
At least it scans. Sadly the talk of 'clap on Dutch bottoms' seems to refer to boats.
May's left-field appointment turns out to be a brilliant coup. By being booted over to the FO (clue's in the abbreviation), Johnson has, as they used to say of IRA weapons caches, been 'put beyond use'. Till the next cluster-blooper makes office untenable even by him, he'll be eking out a twilight existence in business class, fuelled by complimentary peanuts. He'll come out of it fatter than ever and with a carbon footprint the size of Jupiter. But more – much more than this – he'll be out of sight.
Comments
Criticism of him seems to be that he's a buffoon but also a schemer; that he's overtly ambitious but happy to look foolish; that he was a prime Leaver but even worse, he wasn't fanatical about it.
I don't know him from Adam. What, in my eyes, he seems to have, is an ability to communicate with most people; that he seems decently liberal; he isn't dogmatic; that he has an international outlook.
It really seems as though the issue Glen and the others have is one of presentation rather than substance. And then, if you argue that he has no substance, what better qualification for being Foreign Secretary that he has the ability to bluster to no particular end.
Interestingly positive article in the Times today after his first European meeting: "il est formidable" said the Luxembourg foreign minister.
1. Doing nothing in particular as Mayor. The things he trumpets (Overground, Bikes, Olympics) were all done by his predecessor. The things he doesn't (massive new towers, little affordable housing) are all done by him.
2. Outright lies for no reason. He replaced bendy buses, which had good reviews from actual bus users, by claiming they killed cyclists. They didn't. He claimed it would cost nothing to make new Routemasters because other cities would buy it. They didn't. In short, he wasted tens of millions for no reason.
Lying. Again and again. Making up quotes for the Times (sacked), making up lies about the EU for the Telegraph (got him a column for £250K)
3. Actual awful things:
- giving Darius Guppy the details of a journalist, so Guppy could assault him. I have no idea why he wasn't prosecuted for aiding and abetting a crime here
- insulting racial minorities - picanninies with watermelon smiles for example
- his relationships with women. I would usually choose not to judge men for their affairs (I'd just everyone if I did). But he has had multiple ones, has denied each (remember Petronella Wyatt being an inverted pyramid of piffle?) and has fathered children he has treated terribly. There are reports of him getting a mistress pregnant (does Eton has sex education?) and suggesting to her that she have another affair and pass it off as the second chap's kid.
4. Having no principles
- He clearly doesn't want to leave the EU. Evidence, other than his Telegraph column the Monday after and his ghastly pallor the day after?
- He previously said Brexit would leave "the government for several years in a fiddly process of negotiating new arrangements, so diverting energy from the real problems of this country”"
And people voted solely because of that lie. That's the difference.
Of course Johnson was associated with it.
Part Brit, French and part Turk
But always completely a jerk
Boris is now FO to many’s dismay
A clever ruse by Ms. May just yesterday
To keep him away from real work
Sticking strictly to the humorous side of things, I note that over here during the past week I’ve come across some uproarious material about The Donald, with a few Borisovian links. Some wag wrote that Boris seemed to be wearing Trump’s hair-do backwards. In USA Today (which is distributed as a national and international news insert in many local newspapers) there was an article a few days ago about the history of Trump’s prodigious litigiousness. In a case dismissed by a judge as lacking merit, he once sued the comedian Bill Maher for a riposte to his ridiculous efforts to prove that there was something fishy about Obama’s US citizenship. Maher offered Trump a cash award if he could produce a document that proved he was not the descendant of an orangutan. Harumphing and whining all the way, Trump and his lawyers seemed not to understand that the way the proposition was framed depended on the old saw that it’s impossible to disprove a negative (combining a joke about logic with a light-hearted bit of ad hominem observation).
I think British comedians are on the eve of a real field day. With those pouty expressions and eye-rolls, surmounted by the flaring hair, Boris has often reminded me of that clever and amusing orangutan, Clyde, who was Clint Eastwood’s companion in several “machismo comedies”.
If that's your idea of 'uproarious' it looks as though Messrs Johnson and Trump are reasonably safe.
As for British comedians, they are 'on the eve of a field day' in the same sense that the England football team is.
Fancied himself the new Horace,
Qui fit, Maecenas?
There's nothing between us,
Said Sally and Jane and Aunt Doris.
So:
He's part Brit, French and part Turk
And often a grandstanding jerk
Named FS today
By the deft Ms. May
To keep him away from real work
And, my apologies to Mr. Newey for leading us down this path toward a bound volume of Boris limericks.
Is stabbed in the back and so legs it,
But Prime Minister May,
Forces Boris to stay,
So he gets the blame if he wrecks it.
To decency is an affront,
Truth’s put in remission
To serve his ambition,
He’s truly a hideous cunt.
Found his δαίμων sadly depleted,
After being FO’d
He biked Colebrook Row
Not having the cake he had eated
There is an excellent cocktail bar at number 69.
Who ne'er gave an honest response on
The matter of Brexit.
Gove showed him the exit,
Oh! Would that that had been his swansong!
A bad boy named Boris declaimed
Pouting with his mane all aflame
We’re not you, old EU
Tell us not what to do
And Brexited all in a rush
A bad boy named Boris declaimed
Pouting with his mane all aflame
We’re not you, old EU
Tell us not what to do
Hoping Brexit would lose all the same