Sweet revenge

I have never quite seen the attraction of Boris Johnson. Women seem to swoon over him, my fellow members of the lower orders adore ‘Good old Boris.’ ‘He’s not like other politicians,’ folk add. ‘His background as a filthy rich old Etonian member of Oxford’s Bullingdon Club means he understands people like me.’ Today, as his former chief advisor Dominic Cummings took revenge, the real Johnson was revealed. A media-obsessed narcissistic liar completely unfit to run the country. Oh wait, we knew that bit anyway.

I don’t look for revenge as such. I want justice. Justice for family members and friends taken too early by COVID-19 specifically because Johnson’s incompetence and irresponsibility. Justice for 150,000 bereaved families in our country.

None of this is to say I now am some kind of Cummings fan boy. He was the mastermind who took us out of the EU, with Johnson as his front man. It was he that came up with the Tory line of ‘Get Brexit Done’ for the 2019 election, although the Tories were somewhat aided and abetted by having a political opponent as bad as Jeremy Corbyn. So, whilst Cummings took Johnson apart today, he is also the man who fucked the country and stayed in his job when thousands were dying thanks to his boss’s downright negligence.

For all that, Cummings was pure box office. For seven hours, he was totally in command of his brief. I watched, both captivated and appalled. Here was a man who saw at first hand what was going on at the heart of government telling us how useless it is.

Johnson’s teflon coat will doubtless protect him again from a nation which seems now to love politicians who routinely lie and mislead, people like him. Cummings will never be out of a job. But the nation is poorer for having the likes of both these terrible men in positions of ultimate power. If Johnson can survive this – and he will – he can survive anything.