Lightness of Being
In this opinion piece for The Times David Aaronovitch describes Boris Johnson as having a 'lightness of being' and by seeming not to act as a normal politician, there's no doubt that the London Mayor cuts through the widespread anti-politics mood of the nation.
Depending what happens at the general election Boris could have all to play for after May 7th 2015, but it's interesting that, for the moment at least, many of the the most successful politicians are distancing themselves from their parties.
Nigel Farage is still relatively popular despite the almost daily gaffes of his fellow Ukippers and David Cameron regularly outpolls the Conservative Party; only Ed Miliband seems to less popular than the party he leads.
Perhaps the only exception is in Scotland where the SNP have been in power since 2007, yet still manage to confound their political rivals by donning the clothes of an opposition party when it comes to dealing with the Westminster Parliament.
Boris is winning over even old sceptics like me
By David Aaronovitch - The Times
No one – even Ukip voters – seems immune to the London mayor’s charisma which could catapult him into No 10
I have been dreaming about Boris. Not often, but then politicians rarely feature in my dreams — Tony Blair once did and that was about it. The mayor and I are usually hanging out somewhere and exchanging jokes. Anyway these Boris-shaped visitations from my unconscious are perfectly pleasant and make a nice change from anxious reveries about being stranded on a crumbling mountain ledge or finding myself on stage having forgotten my lines.
The dreams remind me that I have been thinking about Boris too. And the thing that I have been thinking is: “God Almighty, it may just happen. He may make it to the very top after all. How absolutely extraordinary!”
I have known Boris for two decades — not intimately but almost well enough for me to be able to call him by his surname. In that time I had imagined, in Yeats’s words, that he and I both “lived where motley is worn”. I saw him mostly as another scribbler, if a droll one, whose political ambitions were not to be taken too seriously. Boris making a speech about Latin in schools? By all means. Boris negotiating with Vladimir Putin? Give me a one-way ticket to Patagonia.
In 2008, I backed Ken Livingstone’s bid to be re-elected as London mayor. I was impressed by the positive things he’d done and concerned at the shortcomings of his admittedly charming opponent. I wrote at the time: “The man is chaotic. The notion that a Boris administration will, as his website promises every few lines, subject London’s finances and procedures to the most rigorous of scrutinies, is beyond parody.” I thought his manifesto was silly and that if he got in he’d soon be out again.
Instead in 2012, in a bad year for the Tories, Boris was re-elected, his own vote substantially above that indicated by polling for his party. And, though he had been lucky in his inheritance (the Boris bikes, for example, were already on their way when he was first elected, as were the Olympics), the fact was that he colonised every initiative with a vigour Cecil Rhodes would have admired.
All the same, London mayor is one thing; party leadership (and the premiership) is quite another. That requires, does it not, gravitas and a grasp of the great complexities of state? It also requires an appeal that goes beyond the Eton-tolerating south and into the old puritan mill towns of the north. Once exposed to the winter of hard choices, the blond butterfly would ice over.
Expecting Boris to implode has turned out to be like expecting Ed Miliband to win over the voters. It just hasn’t happened and it shows no sign of happening. In fact the reverse phenomenon has occurred. People have started off with a liking for Boris and have — almost counter-intuitively — implied a competence from that affection.
A colleague of mine found himself with a polling company talking to a focus group in Bromley, south London, in 2012. They were representative of London voters, including working-class people and people of all colours. What did they think of Cameron? That he was posh and didn’t understand the ordinary person. And Boris? Yes, he was a guy you could have a pint with. But, said the pollster, what about the fact that Boris went to the same school and same university as Cameron? Some of the group didn’t care and several said it wasn’t true.
Neil Kinnock’s momentary soaking on Brighton beach in 1983 was used against him for a decade to demonstrate his haplessness. Boris suspended, close up, from a zip wire, his legs dangling helplessly, for a full five minutes, on the contrary represents what could happen to any of us. He’s a sport. He is the hero of the age of the ice-bucket challenge.
A recent opinion poll showed how Londoners intend to vote at the general election. Labour was well ahead. But one statistic jumped out, grabbed me by the credulities and wrestled me to the floor. You have to remember that Ukip supporters are generally the most disenchanted and cynical voters of all. They tend to believe that they’re getting shafted, that all politicians are the same and that no one is even vaguely competent. And yet 60 per cent of them thought Boris was doing a good job!
Despite everything I have thought and predicted, the fact is that now, in a year of decision, voters like Boris, regard him as somehow qualitatively different from the normal politicians and, in all probability, would “give him a chance”. And who — apart from me — cares if he is breaking his promise to the London voters not to become an MP during his term of office? He’s like a man who breaks wind in a lift and everyone wonders what smells so good.
Boris transcends party and gives the voter something political to relate to that has nothing to do with manifestos, spending commitments and other tedious electoral fictions. Meanwhile inside he is — and has always been — a man with a very serious sense of purpose. Being able to disguise the unusual intensity of your ambition under a very bearable lightness of being is a great and hyper-modern gift.
I have now begun to realise that the question is not “could Boris lead his party?” but rather, “who could stop him?”. If David Cameron were to step down, for whatever reason, who would bet on Theresa May or George Osborne out-polling Boris among the Tory grassroots?
In fact, in the event of a parliament so badly hung that no party could assemble a majority, I could even imagine a scenario where Boris, like the Roman aristocrat Cincinnatus, might be called in to save the state. After all, just because David Cameron or Ed Miliband couldn’t form a government, why shouldn’t someone else try? Someone who could bring together people from several parties in a government of all the talents? Someone who had the charm and the steeliness to get very different people to work together? Except, unlike Cincinnatus and more like the hero of his most recent book, Winston Churchill, Boris would — in effect — send for himself.
This fantasy of mine will turn out to be wrong too. But if it happened, a very large number of British voters who don’t care much for the Tories or even for politicians, would probably — like the people on Channel 4’s Gogglebox — turn to each other on the sofa and say: “That’s all right. I quite like him.”
I have been dreaming about Boris. Not often, but then politicians rarely feature in my dreams — Tony Blair once did and that was about it. The mayor and I are usually hanging out somewhere and exchanging jokes. Anyway these Boris-shaped visitations from my unconscious are perfectly pleasant and make a nice change from anxious reveries about being stranded on a crumbling mountain ledge or finding myself on stage having forgotten my lines.
The dreams remind me that I have been thinking about Boris too. And the thing that I have been thinking is: “God Almighty, it may just happen. He may make it to the very top after all. How absolutely extraordinary!”
I have known Boris for two decades — not intimately but almost well enough for me to be able to call him by his surname. In that time I had imagined, in Yeats’s words, that he and I both “lived where motley is worn”. I saw him mostly as another scribbler, if a droll one, whose political ambitions were not to be taken too seriously. Boris making a speech about Latin in schools? By all means. Boris negotiating with Vladimir Putin? Give me a one-way ticket to Patagonia.
In 2008, I backed Ken Livingstone’s bid to be re-elected as London mayor. I was impressed by the positive things he’d done and concerned at the shortcomings of his admittedly charming opponent. I wrote at the time: “The man is chaotic. The notion that a Boris administration will, as his website promises every few lines, subject London’s finances and procedures to the most rigorous of scrutinies, is beyond parody.” I thought his manifesto was silly and that if he got in he’d soon be out again.
Instead in 2012, in a bad year for the Tories, Boris was re-elected, his own vote substantially above that indicated by polling for his party. And, though he had been lucky in his inheritance (the Boris bikes, for example, were already on their way when he was first elected, as were the Olympics), the fact was that he colonised every initiative with a vigour Cecil Rhodes would have admired.
All the same, London mayor is one thing; party leadership (and the premiership) is quite another. That requires, does it not, gravitas and a grasp of the great complexities of state? It also requires an appeal that goes beyond the Eton-tolerating south and into the old puritan mill towns of the north. Once exposed to the winter of hard choices, the blond butterfly would ice over.
Expecting Boris to implode has turned out to be like expecting Ed Miliband to win over the voters. It just hasn’t happened and it shows no sign of happening. In fact the reverse phenomenon has occurred. People have started off with a liking for Boris and have — almost counter-intuitively — implied a competence from that affection.
A colleague of mine found himself with a polling company talking to a focus group in Bromley, south London, in 2012. They were representative of London voters, including working-class people and people of all colours. What did they think of Cameron? That he was posh and didn’t understand the ordinary person. And Boris? Yes, he was a guy you could have a pint with. But, said the pollster, what about the fact that Boris went to the same school and same university as Cameron? Some of the group didn’t care and several said it wasn’t true.
Neil Kinnock’s momentary soaking on Brighton beach in 1983 was used against him for a decade to demonstrate his haplessness. Boris suspended, close up, from a zip wire, his legs dangling helplessly, for a full five minutes, on the contrary represents what could happen to any of us. He’s a sport. He is the hero of the age of the ice-bucket challenge.
A recent opinion poll showed how Londoners intend to vote at the general election. Labour was well ahead. But one statistic jumped out, grabbed me by the credulities and wrestled me to the floor. You have to remember that Ukip supporters are generally the most disenchanted and cynical voters of all. They tend to believe that they’re getting shafted, that all politicians are the same and that no one is even vaguely competent. And yet 60 per cent of them thought Boris was doing a good job!
Despite everything I have thought and predicted, the fact is that now, in a year of decision, voters like Boris, regard him as somehow qualitatively different from the normal politicians and, in all probability, would “give him a chance”. And who — apart from me — cares if he is breaking his promise to the London voters not to become an MP during his term of office? He’s like a man who breaks wind in a lift and everyone wonders what smells so good.
Boris transcends party and gives the voter something political to relate to that has nothing to do with manifestos, spending commitments and other tedious electoral fictions. Meanwhile inside he is — and has always been — a man with a very serious sense of purpose. Being able to disguise the unusual intensity of your ambition under a very bearable lightness of being is a great and hyper-modern gift.
I have now begun to realise that the question is not “could Boris lead his party?” but rather, “who could stop him?”. If David Cameron were to step down, for whatever reason, who would bet on Theresa May or George Osborne out-polling Boris among the Tory grassroots?
In fact, in the event of a parliament so badly hung that no party could assemble a majority, I could even imagine a scenario where Boris, like the Roman aristocrat Cincinnatus, might be called in to save the state. After all, just because David Cameron or Ed Miliband couldn’t form a government, why shouldn’t someone else try? Someone who could bring together people from several parties in a government of all the talents? Someone who had the charm and the steeliness to get very different people to work together? Except, unlike Cincinnatus and more like the hero of his most recent book, Winston Churchill, Boris would — in effect — send for himself.
This fantasy of mine will turn out to be wrong too. But if it happened, a very large number of British voters who don’t care much for the Tories or even for politicians, would probably — like the people on Channel 4’s Gogglebox — turn to each other on the sofa and say: “That’s all right. I quite like him.”
