I am not talking about the psychopathic supervillain, who was disregarded by society as he terrorised Gotham City, but about Boris Johnson, the newly elected Prime Minister of the UK. He has not been to Gotham City, but was the Major of London. In fact Boris has (hopefully) very little in common with the supervillain except for the fact that both are goofy pranksters, and both do like to dramatise everything. Boris Johnson though has been the joker of the Conservative party, somebody who is widely adaptable to mould himself into the solution for any given problem.
He is seen as the savior against the sudden rise of Nigel Farage’s Brexit party popularity. He is seen as anti-establishment, even though it was the deepest establishment that voted for him. He seems to model himself on Churchill. Johnson is charismatic and proudly English, able to connect with a wider audience and not shy to stretch the truth to make his point. All those are qualities the previous Prime Minister, Theresa May didn’t have. His performances of his previous two official posts though were in stark contrast with another.
Boris Johnson did remarkably well as Major of London. He was not only well liked but also seemed approachable and normal, often cycling to work with an ill-fitting helmet. But his chaotic nature superseded any other trait when he was the Foreign Secretary. He failed to gain any respect among his European colleagues and proved to be largely ineffective. That surely only hardened his stance as pro-Brexit. These days he seems so determined to leave the European Union at any cost, that a no-deal Brexit seems to be his base case.
Because of this, he, more than anybody else, would be able to get the Europeans to agree on more concessions. Let’s see if the Boris show is all about the art of negotiations or just showmanship. If he doesn’t get a better deal, the government could collapse, and he would go down as the shortest serving Prime Minister of the UK.
Should he succeed in finding a palatable compromise and thereby saving the UK from economic self-mutilation, he could go on to be a memorable Prime Minister – provided that he surrounds himself with the most talented and hardworking executive to make up for his short coming.
It will be interesting to see, if the second Prime Minister chosen in the last 3 years, not by the people, but rather by a few old men is able to turn this democracy around.