Opinion Matrix: Will Boris Johnson's 'sinister' smirk give him a longer political life?

David Knight, the P&J’s former deputy editor, concurs with the research findings from Boston University School of Medicine. “This revelation did not surprise me... Even in the biggest crisis a joke and smile can make all the difference,” he said. He segued into exploring Boris Johnson’s plans for the health service. “Boris Johnson is a natural comedian (I know, I worked with him for a short spell many years ago) and sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel beneath it all.”

But other columnists discerned Mr Johnson’s good cheer as a means to more than just a long life.

The Daily Telegraph

There is frequently an ‘impish grin’ playing on the lips of the Conservative leader, as he drives forward his Brexit plans, wrote Gyles Brandreth. “That’s why he is going to win this thing - and the election that follows it. His smile is his secret weapon.”

He recalls different research by radio psychiatrist Dr Anthony Clare, which concluded the most successful politicians were often those who smiled the most.

“When you smile, people treat you differently,” Brandreth wrote – claiming the act of smiling releases dopamine and endorphins which lower a person’s heart rate, enabling them to relax and function better. A smile also positive triggers in the brain of the person on the receiving end, he added.

“When you look at a person smiling, you feel that you are being rewarded - and you smile back. It’s an unconscious, automatic response... and it explains why Boris, in spite of everything, has got to where he is today and looks set to stay there.” No surprises in Brandreth’s conclusion, then: “The scowling Jeremy Corbyn, poor fellow, doesn’t stand a chance.”

The Scotsman

Lesley Riddoch pursued the same theme, but in a very different vein, urging readers to “look behind the playful smirks at the horrifying reality”. Her take on Mr Johnson’s smile is that it is not winning, but sinister. “It’s been a Boris Johnson trademark for years – that sudden, impish, flashing grin that suggests the new Tory leader doesn’t actually believe a word he’s saying,” she wrote.

He was called out on it on one occasion when he sat grinning on the front bench while Theresa May attempted to explain his fraudulent £350m post-Brexit NHS spending pledge, she explained. Perhaps he was smirking because he knew the claim was a ‘bare-faced’ lie, but it had already done its job with the voters and the truth no longer mattered? “What was unusual was the unguarded nature of his reponse – the brazenness of that smirking grin.”

Riddoch had spotted Jacob Reese Mogg too having “the tiniest, tell-tale smirk” while dismissing those protesting against the proroguing of parliament.

What was he smirking about? Perhaps, she wrote, it was at the naivety of those who still believe using traditional democratic avenues will make a difference. Perhaps because his own money is safely invested in Europe and will be unaffected by any hit taken by the UK economy?

The one thing the columnist was sure of is that the smirks are significant, revealing something hidden about those leading us towards ‘tumult and disruption’. “Behind the scenes they’re laughing at us, laughing at democracy, laughing at the very notion that fairness, democracy, procedure, facts, official government reports or parliamentary conventions are of the slightest interest to their Del Boy crew.”

The Times

A different TV reference interests Magnus Linklater. He compared Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson with Johnson, and he finds much more to like in the latter.

In an interview the PM had said he was “working non-stop, burning the candle at both ends, pushing ahead with his programme like ‘a locomotive freighted with investment bashing through all the priorities’,” Linklater reminded us.

“We have to go ‘full throttle’, he said, ‘put a tiger in the tank, put our pedal to the metal, foot to the floor’.

The Times’ writer is not impressed. “He sounded more Jeremy Clarkson than voice of the nation”.