I’ve always like Shelley’s famous poem, Ozymandias –
The huge ancient statue
of the ‘king of kings’ who had thought such a lot of himself but who no one now
remembers – reduced to a few bits of rubble on the desert ground.
Boris Johnson is
such a persistent liar that it is hard to be sure of anything about him, but,
of one thing we can be certain. The man whose ambition as a child was to be ‘world
king’, will one day be gone. And then the Conservatives will have to share the
fate of Ozymandias or start the painful project of rebuilding themselves as a
decent political party.
Just as he did
with the 2016 Brexit referendum, Johnson has built the Tories’ 2019 General
Election campaign around a cynical, amoral lie: ‘get Brexit done.’ (See my blog
of 20 November.)
The Tories’
tragedy is that they have allowed Johnson’s poison to infect the whole party.
Every single parliamentary candidate is signed up to his lie. Any with any real
loyalty to their party would be defying Johnson and telling the truth: yes, you
can have Brexit if you really want it, but it will make you poorer, it will
destroy jobs, businesses, savings, opportunities and rights, and severely damage the NHS
and other public services, while possibly destroying the UK.
That is the
choice. So will Tory candidates find the courage to explain it, or will they consign a once-great political
party to the fate of Ozymandias?
‘Nothing beside
remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal
Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level
sands stretch far away.’
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