The Week India – June 30, 2019

104 THE WEEK • JUNE 30, 2019

SOUND BITE

ANITA PRATAP

Pratap is an author and journalist.

Blond leading the blond

ILLUSTRATION BHASKARAN

T

he similarities between the two “blond

bombshells” are uncanny. In appearance and

temperament, US President Donald Trump

and Britain’s prime minister aspirant Boris John-

son could be... related. In Manhattan, the public

mistook Johnson for Trump on three occasions. Th e

Independent columnist Matthew Norman satirises,

“Th ere is the same penchant for comically deranged

hair, along with the outlandish narcissism, vulgar

populist grandstanding, bone idle refusal to read

a brief and limitless capacity for blurting out the

crazily off ensive.”

Johnson’s tactics are Trumpian, too. Leading the

Tory pack to replace the outgoing prime minister,

Th eresa May, Johnson threatens to withhold the

€44 billion Brexit divorce bill

that Britain must pay the Euro-

pean Union for leaving. Johnson

abhors alimony. Like Trump, he

has a history of multiple marriag-

es, philandering and adultery.

Seeking to use the payment as a

bargaining chip to extract a “bet-

ter deal” from the EU, Johnson

proclaimed, “In getting a good

deal, money is a great solvent and

a great lubricant.” Such populist

claims may grease his way to 10

Downing Street, but are unlikely

to soften the EU to renegotiate.

Both Trump and Johnson are anti-establishment

disrupters, politically incorrect, self-promoting,

publicity-loving provocateurs, uninterested in detail

and policy. Both use politics as theatre. Both have a

history of lying. Johnson was sacked twice—by Th e

Times newspaper for inventing a quote as a jour-

nalist and by Tory leader Michael Howard for lying

about an adulterous aff air.

But none of this matters as Johnson emerges the

clear front runner in the peculiar Tory leadership

race. Several candidates fended off scandals involv-

ing drug abuse. Johnson admitted to having snorted

cocaine (but it did not go up his nostrils, he claims);

foreign minister Jeremy Hunt admitted to drinking

cannabis lassi in India. Another admitted to using

opium, and several others to smoking cannabis.

First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon observed:

“What a horror show the Tory leadership election is.

Tax cuts for the richest, attacks on abortion rights,

hypocrisy on drugs, continued Brexit delusion.”

Johnson would like to handle Brexit, Trump

style. Said he: “Imagine Trump doing Brexit.... He

would go in bloody hard. Th ere would be all sorts

of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would

think he had gone mad. But actually you might

get somewhere... there is method in his madness.”

Perhaps. But there is one big diff erence. Britain is

not America.

Biographers say there is method in Johnson’s

madness, too. He has spent years

carefully crafting his public per-

sona as a bumbling bloke prone

to rambling speeches, risqué

jokes and racy rhetoric. Noted

biographer Sonia Purnell: “He is

a great actor, he is a showman.

Th e whole ruffl ing-the-hair thing

was about making sure he did not

seem too ambitious. Th e ‘gaff es’

were not really gaff es, they were

scripted.” His biographers say

Johnson is “ferociously ambitious

and competitive”.

Th ere are signifi cant diff erences between Trump

and Johnson, notably Johnson’s intellect. Educated

in Eton and Oxford, Johnson can sing in German,

joke in French and debate with scholars on Greek

vs Latin literature. A gifted writer, he has authored

a biography of Winston Churchill. Said American

political scientist Geoff rey Vaughan, “Trump is

ostentatiously rich and Johnson ostentatiously

educated.”

But for all his erudition, critics say Johnson lacks

focus and preparation. “It scares the living daylights

out of me to think of him forming a cabinet, because

he is not good at selecting people,” said Purnell.

Here, too, Johnson could borrow from Trump’s

playbook—the blond leading the blond.