The longer Johnson is prime minister the clearer it becomes he has no idea what he’s doing or even what the job involves. His advisers were wise to keep him away from as many probing interviews as they could, because when he finally does one he reveals a stunning ignorance about the way the world actually works. The interview with Marr on Sunday was a revelation for some when Johnson showed he simply did not understand how the pig industry works.
Even when Marr tried to explain that raising, feeding, killing and incinerating pigs on farms is a disaster, not just from the money angle but physically and emotionally too when trying to despatch them in as humane a way as possible. He just did not get it at all. His sheer stupidity is congenital and probably hereditary.
As if that wasn’t shocking enough, days later, it's apparent he STILL hasn't got it. He was interviewed by Tom Newton-Dunn for Times Radio and displayed precisely the same ignorance. Nobody close to him had managed to get him to understand the issue!
Watch this:
If you can’t understand how that was possible, listen to the clip below of another penetrating interview yesterday with Channel 4s Gary Gibbon where he constantly talks over Gibbon and simply doesn’t take the time to listen, let alone respond with a coherent answer.
Now imagine what cabinet meetings are like. I bet nobody else gets a word in edgeways. I've met plenty of men like Johnson, men who listen but don’t hear and look but don’t see. They are usually a disaster area.
In a stunning interview with Nick Robinson on Radio 4 yesterday morning, he was rambling on and on to such an extent that Robinson had to beg him to “stop talking.” I can’t ever recall that happening to any previous prime minister - either because they didn’t ramble or they were providing a coherent answer and were worth listening to.
There is a growing confluence of crises and his response is simply to ignore or downplay them. He is digging his own grave.
I suspect Johnson’s current response - we can’t go back to the old, failed model of low wage immigration - has been worked up hurriedly in the last few days and he is expected to flesh that out in his conference speech later. I assume he might even give us an idea of the failed new model he intends to replace it with - but don't hold your breath.
Peter Foster at the FT tweeted something which I think points to the catastrophe that Johnson is leading us to:
No to business business “mainlining” cheap Labour!Yes to importing it via “world-beating” FTAs!— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) October 5, 2021
Asking British industry to pay higher wages while facing competition from the trade deals he is demanding we sign with low wage or high productivity countries overseas is a two pronged pincer that will destroy domestic industries already drowning in debt and red tape after covid and Brexit.
Of course, we want a high wage-high skill economy but it isn't going to happen overnight or even over a ten year period and laying waste to the economy in the meantime is really not helpful.
I worry that this country will never recover from Johnson’s ignorance and refusal to listen. His period in office will go down in history as the worst ever.
He has almost single handedly been responsible for destroying entire industries like fishing and pig farming, crippling others with red tape, throttling some like the banking and finance sector by slashing access to the single market and at the same time hastening the break up of the UK and poisoning relations with friends, neighbours and allies across the world.
One man has done this. Boris Johnson.
There are signs that the disaster of Brexit is perhaps beginning to dawn on some members of the Tory party including those in the forefront of the campaign like former ERG chairman, Steve Baker.
Speaking at a fringe meeting this week, Baker acknowledges that campaigning in 2019 in his High Wycombe constituency was "extremely painful." He talked about solid Conservative areas where voters he expected to support him slammed the door in his face. I know what that feels like, but from the opposite side.
"Some of my best streets, I mean absolutely solid [Conservative] streets, big two million pound houses, with long driveways Porsches, BMWs, shut the door in my face.
“I lost more than 2,000 Conservative Remainers. Actually it hurts that I lost them.
“We’ve got a lot of hurt out there and I honestly don’t know the answer and if anybody has got the answer to how we heal these wounds as fast as possible then I’m absolutely up for hearing those ideas.”
Remember, he was speaking about the 2019 GE which was almost two years ago and only in the last few weeks has Brexit really started to bite. I bet if he had to campaign tomorrow the local reaction would be a good deal worse. I wouldn't like to be him in 2024.
I don't see anybody forecasting a turn around in the next few weeks and most forecasters expect things to get worse, much worse, in the next few months. But Johnson continues to defy gravity in the polls and unless the Tory party or the popular right wing press turn on him, he is likely to remain in Downing Street - making blood, sweat, tears and toil speeches - for a long time yet.
It is up to the cabinet, Tory MPs and the press to get rid of him while we still have a country left to save. If they don't and they continue to support him and defend Brexit, the party is finished, which may be no bad thing, but the price we will all have to pay will be beyond anyone's imagination.
