All Tip and No Iceberg

 In 2013 I listened to a couple of talks given by Boris Johnson at the Melbourne Writers' Festival and came to the conclusion that he was very entertaining but lacked any substance - and, having pocketed a fee to talk about a topic he then didn't talk about, not a man of huge integrity, to boot.

Since then he has become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and then fallen ill with the latest form of coronavirus, and recovered (as the majority of its victims do, we now know). Whether because of his basic lack of substance or as a result of his illness, he is no longer even entertaining. In fact, I am beginning to find his appearances excruciating - a politician rarely aims to evoke feelings of embarrassment and pity in the public he is addressing, but those are the emotions Boris Johnson now evokes in me.*  

I used to feel like this for the poor souls on the receiving end when Paul Keating was in the Australian parliament, skewering his opponents. Intriguingly, I realise that many of Keating's comments are applicable to Johnson today. For example, watching Johnson's performances in Question Time against the utterly uncharismatic shapeshifter, Keir Starmer, Keating's comment on an attack by John Hewson, (shadow treasurer at the time), comes instantly to mind:

"It was like being flogged with a warm lettuce."

Keating also observed of another opponent, "He's got the political morals of an alley cat", which is something many people have implied about the UK Prime Minister for a long time, (and the statement is also often made about him with the adjective "political" removed). 

Then there are these examples in the Keating speech in which he compared various of his opponents to different varieties of fireworks - at this point they strike me as uncomfortably applicable to the Johnson of today:

1. "I don't know if any of you remember the flower pot, but that was the one that always promised a dazzling performance. You'd light it up and it had multicolours, and it did a show for you, but often when you lit it up it went ffffft, you know, a bit of a spark ... there was always a bit of a show, and then there'd be a bit more, and a bit more, then, finally it fell away to nothing."

2.  "The Catherine Wheel - we used to nail them to the fence and they'd take off, spreadeagle the kids, burn the dog, run up a tree and then fizzle out going round in circles."

Some of Keating's comments on Andrew Peacock, (who was often leader of the opposition but never Prime Minister, and rumoured to be immensely vain), seem to fit Johnson equally well at present:

"All feathers and no meat", "a gutless spiv", "a soufflé" who makes speeches "with all the sincerity of a Mississippi gambler", "a squalid opportunist", a man whose party "ought to put him down like a faithful old dog because he is no use to it and of no use to the nation." 

In the end though Keating's verdict on Peter Costello, (Australia's long time Treasurer and a man who often tried feebly to be Keating, verbally, on the floor of the parliament but was always a pale imitation) most accurately clarifies the disappointing figure that Johnson as supposedly Conservative Prime Minister has turned out to be:

"All tip and no iceberg."

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* (Johnson also is beginning to make me feel angry, as he has turned into the most frightful authoritarian nanny - vis yesterday, when announcing increased police numbers, he did not say that they would be used to help citizens who at the moment are ignored due to lack of resources when they experience theft; no, according to Johnson the new officers will be used to "enforce our rules to fight coronavirus and ensure people observe social distancing.")