Hold my beer...

I read a tweet the other day. In a familiar theme it said: “...I object to contributing to so-called "Talent" fat cat salaries, a trained chimp could read from an auto cue for God’s sake...” These are the kind of things we all say from time to time – “I could do that. And I’d do a better job of it.” But could we? In theory, anybody could conduct an interview, but would it be watchable in the way a Frost or a Parkinson interview always was? And could there ever be an easy replacement for Andrew Neil and his unerring ability to take his prey to task and reveal the weakness of their ill-considered pronouncements?

No doubt some ‘talent’ does get paid way in excess of their worth by any objective analysis, but, in economic terms, how is ‘worth’ measured other than by the remuneration you can attract? Nurses and policemen, soldiers and ambulance drivers receive the apparent pittance they do in return for their vital and often harrowing work because at that salary it is usually possible to attract sufficient bodies to fill the spaces. Would paying more and being more rigorous in selection yield better results? Undoubtedly, but who pays for it?

At the extreme other end of the scale you get the abilities for which people rarely object to paying. World champions in every sporting arena don’t just spring from somebody saying “I could do that!” without then backing it up with gruelling training, perseverance and yes, ultimately, talent. Practice alone, supervised by the very best, is still not enough to quite literally go the extra mile if it just isn’t in you. Yet we all harbour an inner wannabe which manifests itself whenever we see somebody cack-handedly dealing a with a problem for which we think we have the answer. Oh yes, politics.

When it comes to running the country, balancing the national budget, bringing law and order to our streets, stabilising the climate and bringing peace and health and harmony to all we are all suddenly experts. And in fact, when it comes down to expertise we may just be right, because politics requires talents more akin to show business than to actual competence in the government roles our elected representatives find themselves. An interview with former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborn was aired on yesterday’s PM, in which he freely confessed to not being much of an economist and argued that it just wasn't important for the job.

Similarly, Home Secretaries rarely grasp law and order and social justice and immigration and, er, people. Defence ministers have little understanding of the detail involved in going about the world killing our enemies and the diplomatic skills of most Foreign Secretaries would, well... see Boris Johnson. And having, finally, got to the point of this edition of the blog, what of Boris; Prime Minister elect? The pundits think so, the media seem pretty sure and the opposition (which includes most of the Tory Party, by all accounts) are driving themselves into a frenzy of envious fizz at the prospect.

What talents does he possess? Look at his appalling record of back-tracking, lying, committing public gaffes, adultery, rugby-club behaviour... hair! And of course, none of this is in the least bit relevant. It ought to be, but it’s not. Because all that matters here is his single, unique attribute – he is Boris Johnson. Love him or loathe him – and I wouldn’t trust him an inch – he is the one thoroughbred in the race and everybody who thinks otherwise is looking at the wrong form guide.

Har, phwa-fwafaar... wiff-waff!

The other names, the also-rans, are trying to pretend they have the talents to do the impossible job. But everybody knows that whoever gets to occupy the big chair will almost immediately face the challenge of a general election. And when it comes down to it, almost none of the other faces in the starting blocks have any traction with the voters. No matter what qualities you think you want in a Prime Minister, Boris has the only talent that matters right now. He is electable – gawd knows why; he just is. You couldn’t do it, I could never do it, the Rory Stewarts of the world can’t do it as long as their arses point downwards, but Boris can. Brace yourselves for a bumpy ride.

Long Live... er...

So, ding-dong Theresa’s gone? But, as she made clear, her successor isn’t going to find it any form of picnic and rebuilding the Conservative Party is a task beyond Boris Johnson’s thus far unimpressive diplomatic talents. Yes he will draw the crowds and yes he will pick up the sort of voters Mrs May could never reach, but he will lose sufficient numbers of the sitting MPs to make it impossible to carry the government through to the next scheduled election. What, with May’s disastrous 2017 snap election and the inevitability that Boris will piss off the DUP it is almost as if the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act had never happened

But who would want the job anyway? As Groucho Marx said, “I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member”. Why would you want to be the leader of only a half of a club while the other half loathe you and will plot against? So the undignified jostling for position that we are going to see in the next few weeks will just be a series of side events in the continued demise of our oldest political party.

Compromise, uniting both sides, finding consensus, bringing people together? Tosh; utter, unmitigated twaddle. If the Tories can’t themselves see that there are at least three parties in that unhappy marriage then they are doomed. Leavers, Remainers and fence-sitters seeking their next patronage make unhappy bedfellows. Maybe, in the past, Conservatism united patriotic people of many persuasions in the common good, a love of country has recently been decreed verboten.

Juncker called nationalists stupid. Verhofstadt regularly demands that national sovereignty be surrendered on the EU altar and metaphorical blood sacrifices are made to the holy edifice via the medium of political assassination... especially in the UK Tory Party. If anybody believes there is any form of settlement available at any time soon they are deluding themselves. And if anybody thinks that we can come to some form of amicable arrangement with the EU as long as we are part of it has obviously not been watching.

A Labour government is, of course, untenable. A disastrous combination of grievance politics, identity issues, perpetual class war and a bizarre belief that borrowing money to piss away is really investment, Labour doesn’t even have a cohesive vision, let alone a single realistic policy where it matters. Like Bill and Ted, all they have is ‘be excellent to one another’... ‘but not them’. If you want a party of division, the Labour amoeba is a natural home for you.

What of the Brexit Party, you ask? What indeed? From late tomorrow we will find out just how soundly they have scythed through the Conservative vote and when they take their seats in Europarl, they must surely become such a thorn in the EU’s side that the pressure to let us leave – and sod the ‘deal’ – will become irresistible. But then they will have achieved their only aim. But they could never become a cohesive party and Nigel Farage will surely never become an MP because, when it comes down to it, we still need a viable government and pretty much nobody will work with Mr Brexit.

At least there's no scandal...

So, where does all this leave us? Despite all the obvious evidence that the Tories ought to be finished, they are probably the only hope we have of ever getting out of the EU intact. And given that everybody has blotted their Latin grammar at some point during the interminable wrangling of the last three years they are going to have to be led by the least worst, rather than the best candidate. Somebody who doesn’t pose too much of a threat to the old guard but who can also appeal to the naifs. Somebody who the public can be persuaded is tolerable, for now; somebody they don’t all want to stab. For better or for worse, it’s going to have to be Boris, isn’t it?