THIGH will survive. Unstoppable Boris Johnson blundered on this week, despite claims of historic fondling, threats to put him in jail, and allegations that he’d had an affair with a pole-dancing entrepreneur.
The fondling claims came when a journalist said the wild man of Eton had placed his meaty paw on her upper leg during a swanky dinner 20 years ago. Asked about the thigh, the Prime Minister has repeatedly legged it. He’s also ignored inquiries about claims by another woman that he squeezed her hand in an outrageous manner when she was nervous before appearing on Question Time back in the mists of time.
Boris sails blithely through this Sea of Sleaze but even with the thigh behind him, he faces questions about his relationship with the pole-dancing businesswoman.
And, while all this was going on, liberals carried on being liberal with attempts continuing to have the PM jailed if he leaves the European Union without a deal. Putting politicians in jail is not a practice normally associated with democracies, at least when the crime is politics rather than, er, crime. Jail, ban, impeach, prevent. It’s the replacement of politics with law, Parliament with the court room. It’s the new intolerant liberalism. So it goes on.
Our upside-down world gets topsier and, arguably, turvier. Nothing is what it seems. Former Marxist trade union leader Arthur Scargill came out in sympathy with Brexit – by way of a letter to The Daily Telegraph. Penrith and The Border MP Rory Stewart resigned from the Conservative Party, after finding it was incompatible with his socialist beliefs.
The House of Commons speaker lost his voice. And the Scottish National Party took part in plans for a government of British “national unity”. Even with proper journalistic training, you couldn’t make it up.
Looked at with Olympian detachment, a mind stretched to the maximum elasticity might make a case for some of this. Consider the following first: has Scargill moved right? Is Brexit a phenomenon only of the right?
Hard left entertainer George Galloway is a Brexit supporter. In Scotland, probably the two most left-wing of prominent nationalists – Jim Sillars and Alex Neil – backed Brexit. Tory Rory Stewart’s main beef was with Brexit and, as online cynics are pointing out, he didn’t resign over the catastrophic introduction of Universal Credit or the exponential rise in homelessness or the bedroom tax.
Fair play. You like some policies. You dislike others. It’s this whole idea of having to adopt an entire slate of policies, on the left or the right, that’s all wrong. Normal people, the great unwashed, the hoi polloi, will be right-wing on some issues and left on others.
Again, it would be grand if we could vote on policies rather than parties, but that would take us into the dreaded referendum territory, where the ever untrustworthy people are given too much say. That’s why we have representative democracy, so that MPs can listen to our views and responsibly ignore them.
Meanwhile, Boris isn’t listening to the allegations of lewd and libidinous behaviour in his past. As liberals abandon liberalism, perhaps he’s the new Lib Dem: a Libidinous Democrat.
I don’t doubt that some of his behaviour may be deemed inappropriate and, if true, this is not a Good Thing. Other women have come forward to maintain that he was always a model of propriety, while many men are starting to tire of the “he looked at me funny 32 years ago” hysteria.
It’s difficult to know who to believe. It’s not just the law that is replacing politics. Sex is sticking its oar in too, with the result that we run the risk of contracting syphilis of the constitution. We seem stuck somewhere between prudery and prurience.
Who knows where it will end? Anyway, thaths about the thighs of it for this week, readers. Tune in again next week as the wandering hands of history take us into new, uncharted territory.
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