New Zealand Listener – August 03, 2019

8 LISTENER AUGUST 3 2019

BULLETIN FROM ABROAD

kind of demented partisanship has

replaced healthy doubt and scepti-

cism. And the knock-on effect is that

almost any discussion of politics is no

longer about practical assessment, but

instead quickly becomes a moral issue

of truth and lies.

B

ad faith is endemic. There’s a

desperate hope that things will

change when we finally leave

Europe. But the likelihood is that the

ill feelings and divisions will only

grow, as the effect of the split takes

hold. In any case, the departure is by

no means guaranteed. It’s rumoured

that Johnson will call a quick elec-

tion – the third in four years – as our

politics grows more Italian with each

passing day.

If he does, it will be because he’s

relying on the astounding uselessness

of Corbyn, which has him trailing

in the opinion polls against the

least popular government in

modern history. It’s a high-risk

strategy, though, as Theresa May

discovered. And if he doesn’t go

to the nation, he has to rely on a

Parliament that has already sig-

nalled its opposition to a no-deal

Brexit, which is Johnson’s fallback

position in the renegotiations he

promises to have.

His only other option is to

muscle the Queen into bypassing

Parliament. That will involve

a constitutional crisis of such

magnitude that the entire political

process could grind to a halt.

We can be thankful it’s August;

the whole country is in need of

a holiday. l

A

t a recent wedding of very

old friends, one of the guests

confessed that she was avoid-

ing another guest because she

couldn’t forgive him for the last con-

versation they had. As she’s not given

to dramatic gestures, I asked what the

issue was. Politics.

It used to be that politics was a

bit like sport, at least among mature

adults. Someone supported this party

or that policy just as they might sup-

port Chelsea or Manchester United.

It was a biographical detail, not a

character flaw. But in recent years,

politics has become poisoned and,

as a result, it’s now poisonous.

The first thing infected is a

sense of objective truth, the idea

that, beyond the usual disagree-

ments over detail, there were

facts and these facts mattered.

Just recently, new Prime Minister

Boris Johnson – and how weird it

is to write those words, as if they

were composed in an opioid haze

• held up a kipper (a cold-smoked
  fish) during one of his final hus-
  tings speeches.
  He told his audience that
  because of the barmy EU restric-
  tions of “Brussels bureaucrats”,
  the producer of the kipper had
  been forced to transport the fish
  with an “ice pillow”. It required
  only minor journalistic work to
  discover that the kipper was not
  subject to any EU rules and the
  terms of its transportation were

UK politics is falling

towards its nadir

as a barefaced liar

confronts a buffoon.

The Italian job

It’s rumoured

that new Prime

Minister Boris

Johnson will call

a quick election

• the third in
  four years.

A
N

TH

O
N
Y^

EL

LI

SO

N

“And the only reason I wasn’t the first

man on the Moon was bone spurs.”

solely a matter for UK domestic bureaucracy.

So, it was a barefaced lie. Politicians have always

lied, of course, but there was a time when they

made the effort to conceal it, or, failing that,

explain it. We are way past such quaint customs

now in the UK. Johnson’s estranged relationship

with the truth is long-standing. He built his news-

paper career – as a correspondent in Brussels – by

making up stories about bizarre EU regulations.

But now he’s the most important person in

the UK, at least in theory. The lies of his opposite

number, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, are

another matter. There’s nothing barefaced about

them. Instead, he’s convinced he’s telling the truth,

even when there is abundant evidence that he is

not. A BBC investigation into anti-Semitism in the

Labour Party exposed a whole political architecture

enabling anti-Semites, but Corbyn’s response was to

blame the messenger and repeat over and over that

he was an anti-racist.

In both cases, the supporters of these two lead-

ers maintain that there is no problem: “Nothing

to see here,” they call out, “just move along.” A

ANDREW

ANTHONY

IN LONDON

Andrew Anthony is an Observer

feature writer and is married to a New

Zealander.