It was widely declared, especially by this blog, that Boris was a clown, a showman, a liar and incompetent. There were two reasons for this. One was that this was the personna Boris on purpose presented. Second he is evasive over detail when questioned and refuses interviews with forensic interrogators. In fact he appears to suffer from something a bit like dyslexia when articulating detail. But he his a master of strategic vision and a political tactician without equal in Westminster. That most of us did not know.
Being Prime Minister is the only job he ever wanted or was willing to take seriously. It is the one he has planned for all his life. He comes from money, Eton and Oxford. But, and this is the greatest historical political fact of the hour, he is not a Tory. He has seized control of the Tory party as his own political machine. It is to be remade to his design. It has shifted far to the left, become, in his words ‘the party of the people’ and, as all populists down through the pages of history have done, he will give the people, ie the working class, the forgotten rustbelt industrial communities, what they want. And they will sustain him in power.
We are about to enter a new era. One so very different from the austerity, drift, indecision and grandstanding by little people, already swallowed by that forgotten corner in the quicksand of history. This is a new era of raw power dominated by a single leader, where things happen thick and fast, for good and bad. Whatever may be the trauma of the defeated Labour and Liberal Democrats, it will be nothing compared with what the Tories go through. Because both the beaten parties, in spite of internal blame arguments and name calling, have a fair idea of their place in the political spectrum. But the Tories are about to have their very identity turned on its head.
With all populist leaders there are two certainties. There is a rise and in the end a fall. The difference between the historic greats and the figures of fun, is the length in between. Boris will be judged on that. We will have to see if he is in fact a political genius in the Peel, Disraeli, Thatcher, class Or, as some still believe, just a clown after all.