Weekly SOAL: Why Boris Johnson’s stale act is akin to David Brent butchering a Two Ronnies’ gag

THAT JOKE ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE

It is with a heavy heart that I must announce that Boris Johnson is at it again. The Foreign Secretary’s Valentine’s Day speech had approached with much fanfare. It was to be a speech in which he would appeal directly to Remainers, asking them to rally around his vision of Brexit. In the end, though, what we saw was just how dated Johnson’s act has become. All the hallmarks were there. The same old jokes. The bumbling, meandering lines. The shoehorned Latin. The lead-footed attempts to appeal to normal folk. This time, it was a reference to cheap flights for stag parties. On another night, beer and bingo perhaps. The speech contained nothing new. On the contrary, this was classic Johnson, ploughing the same furrow he has for the best part of thirty years. The only difference now is that everyone else in the room has moved on. The act has become stale, and for all his usual bluster, he has nothing else up his sleeve. An intelligent man, for so long now has he played the lovable buffoon that he seems to have forgotten how to be anything else. At a time when the country is crying out for politicians with gravitas, someone level-headed to steer the ship through choppy Brexit waters, in Johnson we find ourselves stuck with David Brent butchering a Two Ronnies gag. If the pretext of the Valentine’s Day speech was about making a positive case for Brexit, then the subtext was once again all about Boris Johnson. It was his vision for Brexit. A time to unite around a common cause – the best Brexit for all of us, regardless of whether we want it or not. For all his talk of unity, the headlines afterwards inevitably focused on his refusal to say that he wouldn’t resign from the cabinet and launch his own leadership bid if Theresa May didn’t deliver his own vision of Brexit. Some would suggest that even the timing of the speech was an attempt to undermine May’s authority, coming as it did just days after she announced her own ‘road to Brexit’ speeches. There are positives to take, of course. Now that the cabinet are finally setting out their Brexit visions, we can finally trigger Article 50.

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KEEP THE POUND, WATCH THE PENNIES

The death throes of the UK Independence Party continue apace, with the party this week finding themselves on the brink of financial ruin thanks to the legal exploits of friend-of-the-column Jane Collins. A judge has ruled that the party must contribute towards a £660,000 legal bill that was the result of a defamation case brought against Collins by three Labour MPs. The MPs – Sir Kevin Barron, Sarah Champion and John Healey – successfully sued the MEP for Yorkshire and Humber after she has accused them in 2014 of ignoring child sex abuse in Rotherham. The judge at the time ordered Collins to pay £54,000 in damages to each MP, plus costs. With Ukip’s finances (allegedly) looking remarkably similar to their number of MPs in parliament, the outlook is bleak. The current beleaguered leader, Henry Bolton, does not take a salary and insiders have suggested the party would struggle to finance another leadership election. Perhaps it is time for Ukip to turn once again to Nigel Farage, a man who claims to be skint but would will enjoy a handsome MEP’s pension long after we leave the EU, along with his LBC salary. It all could have worked out differently, of course. The judge in the Collins case revealed that a settlement could have been made out of court, but that Ukip had deliberately blocked any settlement before the 2015 election because they believed it would win them votes. The total number of parliamentary seats they won in that election? Zero.

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KEEP DIGGING 

Finally, a doff of the cap must go to Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham, who has this week been railing against “unelected and unaccountable” elites. Lord Jones, a former Government Minister who sits in the House of Lords and who has never held elected office, was speaking on Twitter to Remainer MP Anna Soubry about the kind of Brexit he wants to see. Giving his reasons for being against a 'soft Brexit' or 'EU-lite', Lord Jones explained that the British people voted to get back control from those he described as 'unelected and unaccountable'. Hear, hear. https://twitter.com/Digbylj/status/962956585617240066 https://twitter.com/Digbylj/status/963056816858062849