No surprise here
“Perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie and the bullshit lie.”
– A British politician describing Boris Johnson in 2020.
Boris Johnson, the notoriously clownish Prime Minister of Great Britain, has finally run into a buzz saw that is almost entirely of his own making. Open rebellion and mass resignations from his government led in a matter of days to his own resignation. Sort of. He’s still in office. But does it matter? For most of the world, the recent events have mainly been a source of politically-themed entertainment, of no more actual significance than the scandals and rumors surrounding any other run of the mill celebrity. And I’m not so sure many Britons see it much differently.
The lying politician is such an old trope the two words seem redundant together. Lying is not news, and truth-telling raises suspicion. Lying is expected.
It is universally expected of democratic government.
Winston Churchill famously quipped that Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. But when he said it, in 1947, monarchies were dying. The democratic allies had just triumphed over Nazi Germany. Soviet Russia and Red China were being forcibly walled off from the “free world”. Perhaps he thought the democratic principle had somehow proved so powerful that lying politicians and misled voters did not matter.
Yet what is Democracy, if not voters and politicians? Constitutions and laws and public institutions vary from democracy to democracy. Politicians and voters are the one constant.
Unlike lawyers or boards of directors, politicians (as we understand them) are not bound by any duty toward those whose interests they represent, such as a duty of loyalty, or a duty of care. They may swear loyalty to a Crown, or a Constitution, but this is ceremony, not substance.
If you had to hire a politician to represent you in divorce proceedings, you would not be surprised if he started seeing your soon-to-be ex for sex. And if you complained and pointed out the conflict of interest, you would not be surprised if he was offended that you would call his ability into question and assured you he was protecting your best interests. And when your divorce left you with next to nothing, the bar for politician-lawyers would inform you that, if you’re unhappy with the way he handled your divorce, you should not hire him for your next one.
A legal system run this way might not survive very long. Yet this is how we run nations.
I think what matters about Boris Johnson is that his existence is not surprising. And that raises a question. Forget whether Democracy is better than Monarchy, or Soviet-style Communism. Is Democracy, as we understand it and practice it, good enough? Will it even remain relevant?
The question is still open, Winston Churchill notwithstanding.
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