The Rest Is History - 205. The Last Days of Boris Johnson

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Boris Johnson has resigned. In a special episode of The Rest Is History Tom and Dominic dissect the tumultuous last few days in British politics, with references and comparisons to Roman emperors, Margaret Thatcher, and other characters from modern and ancient history. Join The Rest Is History Club for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community. *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. You knew it must come to this, sooner or later, Toad, the badger explained severely. You've disregarded all the warnings we've given you, you've gone on squandering the money your father left you, and you're giving us animals a bad name in the district by your furious driving and your smashes and your rows with the police. Independence is all very well, but we animals never allow our friends to make fools of themselves beyond a certain limit,

and that limit you've reached. Now, you're a good fellow in many respects, and I don't want to be too hard on you. I'll make one more effort to bring you to reason. You will come with me into the smoking-room, and there you will hear some facts about yourself, and we'll see whether you come out of that room the same Toad that you went in.' He took Toad firmly by the arm, let him into the smoking-room, and closed the door behind them. "'That's no good said the rat contemptuously talking to toad will never cure him he'll say anything so dominic that was that was your choice of reading and i have to say uh it's it's a superlatively good one um from

kenneth graham's wind in the willows um and toad of toad hall a character with whom boris johnson has often been compared he um he's always getting into smashes isn't he he he lies he drives cars fast he escapes from prison dressed as washing woman um non-stop scrapes um and um and boris has been well, I mean, he's – the grease piglets he's been called, but he's finally been caught and turned into bacon. He has indeed. So, Tom, you read that with great relish, and I have to say you make a very good badger. Thank you.

Thank you. I wouldn't have had you down as a natural. I think you're more of a rat than a badger, but I think you did a very good badger there. Thank you. Yes, I think this is an extraordinary day. We are recording at 11 o'clock on Thursday, the 7th of July after what has probably been the most extraordinary two days in modern British Prime Ministerial history,

possibly British Prime Ministerial history. Full stop. Since Walpole. history possibly british prime ministerial history full stop since walpole um so for instance i mean the obvious parallel is with the defenestration of mrs thatcher do you think it's a more it's been a more remarkable 24 hours than that um the tone is so utterly different tom it is isn't it regular listeners will know that we did a podcast about how prime ministers fall and we talked about the defenestration of mrs thatcher which for those people of our age kind of centrist daddish people is this kind of um it was felt like an absolute watershed didn't it but the tone of mrs thatcher's phone and we'll come back to mrs thatcher's fall in the autumn because we're planning an episode about that.

That was a... It was high drama. It was high melodrama. But everybody in it was possessed of a sort of dignity, weren't they? I mean, Mrs. Thatcher, even when she wept as the car carried her away. It was a Shakespearean tragedy, whereas this is kind of opera buffet. It's pantomime. It's carry on, carry on Downing Street.

For me, well, it's that sort of coupled with this sort of Game of Thrones role playing, isn't it? So that moment last night, late last night, when there were two rival delegations in Downing Street of ministers, there were the sort of the people led by the Chancellor of a day, Nadeem Zahawi, telling Boris Johnson he had to go. Then there were the loyalists, Nadeem Torres and co, telling him he had to stay.

He refused to leave and then sort of wildly flailing and lashing out, sacked Michael Gove and called him a snake. Brief to the press that Gove was a snake. I thought at that point, I mean, at that point, that was the point at which it tipped into just outright ridiculousness. Well, yes. So, I mean, obviously a kind of a comical element. So Michael Gove is, I think, even his enemies would acknowledge is probably the most effective minister in the current government um celebrated as a minister who actually gets things done and he is in charge of uh the government's leveling up department which according to the

prime minister himself is at the heart of his entire mission and and i think that by the end of yesterday evening they had one minister left in that department so to sack gove on one level obviously deeply satisfying for johnson because of course there's history there and we should explain for for non-british listeners that johnson and gove were were kind of allies in the brexit campaign gove was backing backing Johnson throughout that campaign, then was going to back him as a candidate to be prime minister. And it all went disastrously wrong because Gove basically realised that Johnson would make a terrible prime minister and said so. And everything he said was basically accurate and stabbed him in the backs and and then johnson has has been obliged to bring

gov back in because basically gave us the best minister there is um so on that level on one level deeply satisfying for johnson to to to get rid of gov like that but on the other massively massively irresponsible because now he johnson is going to step down that department still has no minister so that moment tom when uh johnson sacked michael gove i thought although that was that was couched in this sort of i fight on i fight to to win terminology derived from mrs thatcher in 1990 i thought that was the moment where it was very clear he wasn't yeah realistically going to continue as prime minister because having sacked Michael Gove, having lost all these other people, it was inconceivable that he could continue. But obviously he went this morning.

And, you know, as we said, the prime ministers have gone in different circumstances before they've been toppled by you know the public in general elections they've been toppled by internal party revolts but i can't think of a process that's ever been simultaneously uh sort of so protracted but in such a ludicrous and lurid manner i mean theresa may's departure was very protracted but it was sort of there was something excruciating about it and and she's a somebody of an immense seriousness yeah so there was something quite sort of even for people who despise Theresa May there was something quite tragic about it nobody could say that I think about Boris Johnson I mean it's just something absolutely ludicrous yeah I mean the the um there was no dignity whatsoever and I think it will it will be looked back at as as a kind of moment of of high grotesque comedy but to

reiterate you know britain is a country facing multiple crises um and essentially to have lost pretty much the whole government you know and and willingly to have allowed that to happen simply in the cause of defending his own prime ministership it's actually the most monstrous display of irresponsibility that i can think of from a leading british politician agreed i agree monstrously irresponsible because you think about you know because what's what what has happened however much entertainment it may have provided uh politics aficionados over the past day or so there are people who are facing i mean essentially a kind of a collapse into poverty inflation going through the roof massive massive spikes in in energy prices coming up huge huge problems and what has happened over the past years has made the ability

of the government to respond to that much much lower than it would otherwise have been yeah well that's why the question is now does he stay on to the autumn as he wants or do they actually move much more quickly do they defenestrate him do they get an interim prime minister who can work with a a team of sort of seasoned people to try and deal with some of this cost of living stuff before a new leader comes in? I guess late summer or autumn, maybe the party conference. But can Boris Johnson conceivably preside over some sort of temporary cabinet full of people who've stabbed him, not just in the back? Well, you know, or is there some kind of will there be some because the whole thing about the british constitution is that it's unwritten and i'm sure we'll come to

that because that essentially lies at the heart of everything that's been happening recently but maybe a new protocol will be written into the british constitution that um in a situation like this you revert to the norm norm that existed 24 hours before, and maybe all the ministers will come back in and resume their position. And of course, to reiterate, we're recording this 11 o'clock on Thursday morning. So by the time you listen to this,

perhaps this will all have been resolved. So Tom, since we are obviously a history podcast and our political punditry, though in our own minds, absolutely first class is probably not even fifth class in the eyes of some of our listeners. So let's talk about some of the history here. So Boris Johnson has always seen himself, hasn't he,

as a historical character, isn't that right? And particularly a character from classical history. Yes, so he studied classics at university. And for most people who study the ancient world, it is a distant period. It does not do what the study of classical languages and ancient history did for generations and generations of European leaders, which was to provide a kind of how to do politics course. I mean, that's what it was for Machiavelli. That's what it was for people in the Cromwellian period, for Millords throughout the 18th century, for French revolutionaries. Classics provided guides on how to behave, on how to behave politically, on how to behave morally. That has not been the case for many, many years. And the salience of classics in the education of people in Britain obviously has declined massively. So Johnson in that sense is a throwback. He is someone who, for whom classics

is pretty much central to his education. But I think also the thing that is intriguing about him is that I think he studied it as an example of how to get ahead. I think he had a properly Greek Roman understanding of how Fortuna, Tyche, Chance, this great goddess has her favorites and i think he's he genuinely you know in a kind of inchoate sense but a sense that does seem to me to have been authentic saw himself as fortune's favorite and for so long he was but of course it it's the nature it's the essence of tragedy it's the essence of um the cruelty and the humor of fortuna that she raises her for her favorites up only to hurl them down and the humour of Fortuna that she raises her favourites up only to hurl them down. And the joke that Fortune has played on Johnson is a peculiarly cruel one, I think. Well, let's talk a bit about classical parallels because some people,

so our producer, Joey, asked at the beginning whether it was like the Ides of March, whether that was a reasonable parallel. Is that how Boris Johnson himself, I mean, clearly he would love that parallel, wouldn't he? He'd like to see himself as Caesar brought down by sort of weedy politicians and senators who envy the great man. Do you think that's how he sees it, Tom? I think, well, to a degree.

So Caesar did cast himself as the kind of the tribune of the people. And he did become impatient with the conventions of the Republican frame of government and did want to establish a kind of personal relationship between him and the mass of the people who he felt were backing him, in fact, were backing him. As we've said many times caesar was a great populist absolutely and and that has been um a feature of johnson i mean he hasn't cast himself as a kind of a dictator as caesar did but he's cast himself as a presidential figure so even even as he was you know his government was resigning all around him he was saying that

his mandate derived from the votes of of the people who had actually voted for the conservative party i mean it's a parliamentary system not a presidential system exactly the mandate was for individual mps not for him exactly exactly but he was saying i can't be you can't bring me down because i have the backing of the people so to that extent uh the the echoes are there i guess of caesar but the the hero um johnson's hero has always been pericles and i saw actually that he he he was being interviewed by ch by Chris Mason on a couple of days ago about the whole imbroglio, just as Javid and Sunak, the health and chancellor of the health secretary and chancellor of the Exchequer were about to resign. And in behind him, he had a bust of Pericles, who was the great democratic leader of Athens. So tell us a bit about Pericles. And we'll do a whole podcast about Pericles. But tell us, give the great democratic leader of Athens. Yeah so tell us a bit about

Pericles and we'll do a whole podcast about Pericles but tell us give us a small sense of him. So Pericles was um he was of aristocratic pedigree a very good of a kind of slightly notorious but but very very influential family and he so rigged the democratic system, he made himself so much the favourite of the people that, in effect, he ruled as a kind of first minister in the democracy. And that's always been Johnson's role model. But I think that he's flattering himself with that. I don't think that Johnson has any real point of comparison with Pericles at all. Because Pericles was more serious or more substantial? He was more substantial, yeah.

He was more substantial. If we'd been recording this while Johnson was still clinging on in Downing Street, I would have said that the parallels actually were with those who made themselves tyrants in Greek city-states. I mean, the refusal to accept the the kind of civic norms is what was characterized is what characterized this crisis and that was

always the kind of the pressure point in both the cities of greece and in rome under its republican system was where its its great men its leaders refused to accept what the romans called the mos maiorum the customs of the ancestors the unwritten rules the unwritten conventions of behavior and morality that should it was felt properly govern how people behaved and it's though it's it's ironically it's the kind of the mos maiorum the the the customs of the ancestors that johnson has repeatedly kind of trodden down and and actually one of the things that romans in particular provide that the model that romans provided was knowing how to make a good exit so actually there's a kind of parallel with otho

who was one of the emperors in the year of the four emperors 8069 who who'd been a notorious ruy he'd been a friend of nero's he'd um he'd kind of gone out it a bit kind of like darius guppy and and and boris that they they as young men they kind of go out into the seamier reaches of rome and they would attack people and they're particular my god that is like so they're particularly what nero and off they would do they they they they they kind of take distinguished looking passers-by and and toss them in cloaks which is a very kind of public school thing to do isn't it um and and and and off though was the husband of papaya sabina who very much friend of the show we've talked about her quite a lot much or you claim that nero was

absolutely yeah so attached to her that he beat her to death yes but he he first of all he had to get rid of off though uh which he did by sending her off to him off to govern portugal right um and uh but then when nero died city erupted into civil war um off they backed galba who was the kind of the big military man in spain um came to rome thought that he was going to be groomed as um galba's successor uh wasn't so basically sponsored a coup against galba rather like boris sponsored a coup against theresa may galba was a rather theresa may figure kind of very serious solemn ponderous figure um so off they became emperor the legions on the rhine didn't like this they supported that the a very fat guy called vitalius he stopped on his march to eat pasties from that kind of thing yes

stalls didn't he exactly um and vitalius's army not actually led by vitalius because he was still busy go eating um met with otho's army in northern italy and otho's army was defeated and the news was brought to otho and he could have carried on fighting that he had enough troops to carry on fighting and the praetorians who backed him wanted him to carry on fighting so nadine doris jacob reese mogg that kind of those kind of people they were saying to otho yeah go on carry on fighting and otho said no i'm not going to do that because this would be bad for rome it would be bad for my city it'd be bad for the roman people um did he really say that tom this is what he i think he did and and i think we can rely on the gist of it because satonius's

father was at his side when he gave this speech and obviously reported it sat atonius who's the the biographer from whom we get this and also said i am unwilling to prioritize my personal interests my my selfish interests over those of my fellow citizens and so he killed himself fell on his sword and i think that that's the kind of model of civic rectitude that the british should follow that boris johnson could have could have picked up on but i'm afraid signally perhaps he didn't study that that section that period no well is there no roman example i mean is there a good roman example of somebody clinging on when they you know clinging on, doing the anti-Otho. So Nero, I mean, he tried to run away, didn't he?

He kills himself. He falls on his sword. I mean, there's a feeling that, you know, it's an undignified thing to do. Yeah. And there were various people later on in the history of Rome, aren't there, who are sort of, they're killed by Praetorians and their head is used as a football or they're thrown into the Tiber or yeah all these kinds of things but that's more sudden isn't it yeah there's not an example yeah there's not really an example of somebody who you know who has the opportunity to make a dignified exit but just risibly refuses to do so i suppose i mean even james the second

has the decency to flee England in 1688. So this is why I think that it is Fortuna's great joke that she has raised him to the pinnacle. Yeah. Only to make him a figure of mockery because he has spurned the chance to behave with dignity. Which of course Theresa May did and Mrs. Thatcher did. Well, in the summer of 2019 Max Hastings who had edited Johnson at the Telegraph and and has subsequently um established a kind of cottage industry of writing a rump thing about your incredible increasingly

furious opinion piece is saying that he is absolutely you know he should he should be thrown into the sea despite having having employed him, right? Despite having employed him. Well, he says, he predicted in the summer, he said, Johnson's premiership will almost certainly reveal a contempt for rules, precedent, order, and stability. He will surely come to regret securing the prize for which he has struggled so long,

because the experience of the premiership will lay bare his absolute unfitness for it. So that's a bit, isn't that very similar to the line about Galba? Yes. Everybody would have thought he would have been a great emperor if he only, but that is the fortune of, I mean, that is the tragedy, isn't it? As it were, that's the essence of tragedy. In securing the prize you seek, you expose your own inadequacy.

So one last thing about the dignity point tom is that um i think we forget partly because we've been inured to it because of the example of mr trump um how unusual it is to have an undignified exit in british politics so if you look back i mean theresa may i think everybody recognized that she was sort of trying her best, but when the game was up, she gave that sort of awful, excruciating, tearful statement outside number 10. Cameron left within hours of the Brexit referendum. He was humming, wasn't he? Well, he hummed.

That's after the misunders. Two things have now been conflated. So he actually hummed a few weeks later when it was obvious that May would succeed him without really a contest. And he said, OK, I'll have to go more quickly than I thought. And then he didn't hum on. Everyone thinks he hummed on the morning, but he didn't. But he left immediately at a point, actually, when no one was calling for him to leave.

Well, actually, I mean, this was something that was very much picked up on yesterday morning. But Gordon Brown. Yeah. After the indecisive election in was it 2010 hung around in Downing Street. Trying to form a coalition. Trying to form a coalition. And there was a slight sense that this was not a kind of dignified way for him to behave. And one leading columnist who pointed this out uh and that you know there's always as people have been saying there's always there's always a quote um but one leading columnist

who pointed this out was um was uh boris johnson who wrote in the telegraph about gordon brown's refusal to leave the whole thing is unbelievable as i write these words gordon brown is still holed up in downing street he is like some illegal settler in the sinai desert lashing himself to the radiator or like david brent haunting the office in that excruciating episode where he refuses to acknowledge that he's been sacked isn't there someone the queen's private secretary the nice policeman whose job it is to tell him that the game is over so i think we should take a break at this point and dominic when we come back perhaps you could put this uh in the context of british politics okay jolly good i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osmond and together we host

the rest is entertainment it's your weekly fix of entertainment news reviews splash of showbiz gossip and on our q a we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works Hello, welcome back to our boris special um we are recording this on um thursday morning a few hours after the resignation of boris johnson as uh well leader of the conservative party uh not not as prime minister uh he's trying to cling on by the time you listen to this you may have gone as prime minister as well um so dominic um you wrote a fabulous essay for unheard un h-e-r-d uh a couple days ago on boris johnson as as a political leader and you you essentially you you the figure you compared him to was ronald reagan do you want to just just kind of tease that out for people well i think what's easier to forget now because boris johnson is obviously widely

he still has fans by the way and some of the people listening to this podcast may well be great admirers of boris johnson but i think it's fair to a fair guess that a larger proportion are not and indeed that some of our listeners actively loathe and despise him. I would say that if we'd done this podcast in 2015 or 2014, that probably wouldn't have been the case. Boris Johnson back then was seen as obviously a comic figure, a sort of joker, but he was also, I would say, pretty clearly on the more liberal wing of the conservative party sort of one nation tory a very live and let live and and he was renowned for his

sort of jolly upbeat sort of you know gag a minute kind of personality and he was of course mayor of london and i often i used to think whether the analogy actually might be with ronald reagan in the u.s because of course reagan was governor of california so like london a kind of quite a you know as a liberal state uh he proved quite a pragmatic governor some people obviously thought he was terrible just like some people thought boris was a terrible mayor. But Reagan associated himself with a very sort of seasoned, experienced, cunning team who made it work while he went and gave the speeches. And he'd been an actor before that. He'd been an actor, of course. And he was brilliant at speechmaking, at meeting the people, at communicating, just as Boris Johnson owes his political career to television, to joking on television, on TV panel shows and so on.

And so in some ways, I think, I mean, this thing about Fortuna being Fortuna's plaything, the role for which fate seemed to have cast Boris Johnson, if he was ever to be a frontline politician, was of an optimistic, sunny people pleaser. You know, somebody who was never happier than when delivering good news, giving upbeat, patriotic speeches. And in some ways, the question is, why didn't he do that as prime minister? Why didn't he model himself on Reagan in the White House? So when Reagan came in January 1981,

lots of people, you know, hadn't voted for him and said, oh, he's just an actor. He's an airhead. He doesn't know anything. But actually, Reagan surrounded himself with James Baker and George Shultz and Al Haig and Casper Weinberger and all these people who actually knew how Washington worked, who were not showmen and kind of knew how to work the machine. Well, Reagan was the front man. So the question is, why didn't Boris Johnson do that? Why didn't he? And I guess there are two reasons. One, which you mentioned to me before we started recording which was events so covid made it impossible didn't it for him to as you said he he wanted to be charles ii but he became oliver crumwell yeah banning fun and as somebody who was a sort of lifelong funster that was obviously counter to his instincts but i also

think that that's sort of the to go back to the sort of the Greek tragedy element, which obviously people who despise Boris Johnson will think is completely overblown. Isn't there an argument, Tom, that in the very act of securing power, and the real key to that was toppling David Cameron,

in the act of securing power, he destroyed the very, he made it impossible for himself to play the part for which he'd been preparing. Because he destroyed Cameron and won ultimately in the long run, the premiership by making himself the figurehead for the Brexit campaign. Exactly. Exactly.

Because he made himself the figurehead for the Brexit campaign, a political movement that actually he, in some ways, he wasn't really that much in sympathy with. So much more protectionist, harder edged, obviously more people on the sort of the right of the Tory party, which is where he didn't really belong in policy terms, I would say. You see, I think that's another way in which he's a slightly Roman figure, is that the Romans weren't ideological in that sense.

They didn't have kind of programs. Right. They, you know, politics was like kind of, you know, it was eddies and a river that you try and catch to perceive the wind in the willows. Which is obviously what he was. Which is what he did. I mean, I agree. People say that, you know, he has no real principles and no real convictions. But I think that, you that's you could say the same

for roman politicians yeah and that was his political identity there wasn't it and i think what by doing that he made it impossible for him ever to play this sort of optimistic jolly people pleaser because half the audience or at least 48 of the audience would always loathe him but dominate and would never forgive him that's i'm sure absolutely but that the 52 i mean that proved enough for him to win a massive majority and you could say that um you know he he was able to appeal well to wakefield and to honiton and tibetan to the two um seat in the north the red wall the seat in the south the kind of the blue wall. So traditionally Labour seats that had moved to the Conservatives. Yeah.

And traditional Conservative seats in the south that he did appeal to both. And that's what won him his majority. He did. He clearly he's lost in a sense. He's lost. Well, not in a sense. I mean, he has lost a lot of backing in both those regions. Yeah.

And that's what that is where i think kovid comes in because i i think he was as a political figure peculiarly unsuited to dealing with kovid i mean i do think he i think it would be insane to deny that he was an incredibly talented politician i mean he well it sounds like campaigner yeah but winning campaigns and elections is a key part of being a politician isn't it right and getting to the top and and he was very very good at that very very effective at that he you know he won re-election as mayor of london yes he did a cosmopolitan liberal multi-ethnic city so clearly he he he was a man of considerable political ability. But I think that COVID was just something he was spectacularly unsuited to dealing with.

It required an ability to convey a sense of compassion. It required an attention to detail. It required a willingness to kind of knuckle down and basically to live a kind of solitary existence because you know you hold up in downing street which i'm sure it explains all the kind of the mad cake parties and things you can't be having these terrible these awful looking parts i mean actually to dignify them with the word parties is if i went to a path if someone invites me to a party and it was rishi Sunak standing there all guilty with a paper cup and Prosecco. Yeah, I'd be absolutely gutted.

But I think more than that, I think that COVID has, I think Britain, I think the entire global economy is suffering from long COVID. Yeah, of course it is. Of course it is. I think to deal with that requires talents and qualities that Johnson massively does not possess. Well, Tom, I think there's a couple of points to make there. So one of them is events, dear boy events, as Harold Macmillan famously said in the 1950s, are the challenge for any political leader. So you sort of hear this with people with with politicians they'll often say in their defense well i've been very unfortunate because you know events have ganged up on me and these but i mean that's the nature of the job when you when you move into the it is when you go behind that desk you know things are going to happen there will be wars there will be

crises there will be economic shocks that is the absolute and if you're very lucky if you're very very lucky actually Tony Blair is a very good example I think of somebody who was generally very lucky had an economic a run of kind of calm waters no storm the storms the Antonine piece yeah exactly there were storms I mean were storms. I mean, 9-11, I mean, his own decision to invade Iraq. But economically, he had fantastically plain sailing. Any prime minister in the early 2020s would have had difficulties, but that is the nature of the job. I mean, Franklin Roosevelt in America in the 30s, say, Asquith or Chamberlain or Churchill, who obviously faced the worst crises of all. I actually think that Johnson is quite well suited to dealing with, you know, wars. I think he's had quite a good invasion of Ukraine. Yeah, but that's because he doesn't have to organise anything. Exactly. But he can make the right guess. And also, to give him credit, you know, he has been,

he was kind of ahead of the curve with that. He was alert to it. So that is something I think that he got right. I just think that a massive public health crisis, I suspect he has no interest in hospitals or doctors or, you know, vaccines. It's just, I think, completely leaves leaves him cold i think he's just not interested i think there's another element to this which is that a uh a really successful high-end politician i mean that thing about reagan politicians are actors they are public performers

i mean that was true must have been true in the roman world i mean it obviously was true in the roman world one of the most famous bits of Roman political theatre, Mark Antony giving Caesar's funeral oration, is pure performance, isn't it? But I think a good politician is capable of playing more than one part. So Boris was clearly very good at playing a particular part, which is the kind of roguish mountebank. And British politics has been littered with those. So we've talked about that didn't we in our episode on how prime ministers fall and you drew analogies with disraeli with yeah disraeli

lloyd george blair to some extent um harold mcmillan was the kind of actor i mean palmerston in that unheard piece that you mentioned i quoted karl marx about palmerstonston. So Karl Marx said of Palmerston, if not a good statesman of all work, he's at least a good... Not a very good accent, Dominic. I'm not doing your terrible Karl Marx accent. Because I mean... Go on. I mean, people will just have to imagine that in your hair flick. In your hair flick.

Well, your Clouseau. I thought that was very Clouseau, your Karl Marx. So Karl Marx said, in my voice, if not a good statesman of all work, he is at least a good actor of all work. He succeeds in the comic as in the heroic. He's not a first-class orator, but an accomplished debater.

And it goes on, being an exceedingly happy joker, he ingratiates himself with everybody. Never losing his temper, he imposes on an impassioned antagonist when unable to master a subject he knows how to play with it if wanting in general views he's always ready to weave a web of elegant generalities and this sort of persona for Palmerston were very well because there's a lovely story about him going with a speaker of the house of commons to the great

exhibition in 1851 and the speaker says as we walked along i could gauge the popularity of lord palmerston the moment he came in sight throughout the whole building men and women young and old at once were struck as if by an electric shock lord palmerston here's lord palmerston bravo hurrah lord palmerston forever and so it went on throughout the whole building but that's like johnson at the olympics that is johnson at the olympics that's precisely the point he was an entertainer he was a a showman as pal Palmerston was, as Disraeli was, as Lloyd George was. But all of those three men all had other parts that they played. So Palmerston, you know, he's not just the sort of the showman at home.

He's also the imperialist abroad. Disraeli is also a reformer. He's also the romantic novelist. He's also the imperialist abroad. Disraeli is also a reformer. He's also the romantic novelist. He's also all these other things. Lloyd George, he's an absolute philanderer and disgraceful man, but he's also a passionate reformer. He's also a brilliant committee chairman who, you know, he combines the Michael Gove and the Boris Johnson, if you like. He can do all the nuts and bolts. And that's true of, I mean, Tony Blair could play different parts. Margaret Thatcher could in America. I mean, Reagan could play different parts, obviously,

and he had done all his life. Roosevelt could. I think Boris, if he was an actor with a casting agency, there's only one part he can play. He can't do anything else. And I think that's where he was found out. Well, and that was the whole problem with COVID, because he couldn't do anything else and i think that's where he was found out well that and that was the whole problem with covid because he couldn't he couldn't stand there and you know he'd say i you know my thoughts are with everyone who's you know suffering and everything but he just couldn't make it sound

plausible sounded like he was going to have a kind even even though he himself had very you know almost died of it even after that he couldn't really yeah it's interesting how even after that because that's sort of completely forgotten now isn't it that he was wasn't he he he went and he was you know he was in trouble with it but that's disappeared from our national memory because it doesn't and he doesn't really play on that himself because he hates playing the victim um a different with a different political persona that might loom larger in that sort of sense of them yeah joey our producer is sending us a message to say is he the last prime minister that the general public would most want to have a pint with i mean that

having the pint thing they have the same thing in america they use the same formula when they're talking about politicians and i think it really matters i mean nobody wanted to have a drink with theresa may did they probably not really with carrie star mean, nobody wanted to have a drink with Theresa May, did they? Probably not really with Keir Starmer either. Would you go for a drink with Jeremy Corbyn? No, probably not. But you would go for it. I mean, actually, I was talking to somebody the other week who knows Boris Johnson and has known him for a long time

and he said to me, he was telling me everything that was wrong with him. You know, he went through the whole list of all the failings and all these kinds of things. And then he said, the weird thing about him is he is obviously a terrible man in all these different ways but if he came in now and he pulled up a chair at this table he would be such good company and we would have such a tremendous time and he would be so fun to be with and that's the sort of the paradox of him. Well, that's what people responded to. People clearly sense that. Yeah, I think that's why he became one mayor,

you know, the mayor and all that. So two questions for you before we go. The first is, has he inflicted serious damage on the idea of the Mos Mayorum, the idea of the unwritten british constitution being governed by convention by a kind of understanding that politicians of all shapes and sizes will be governed by an accepted morality an accepted sense of what chaps should do that kind of thing has he has he inflicted serious damage on that or that's an

excellent question has the fact that britain's unwritten constitution has in the long run withstood him kind of you know evacuated him as it were voided him um showing that that it's still functioning um and the second question is will he be seen as a historically significant prime minister oh that's they're two brilliant questions tom you should ask questions more often um so the first one i would probably say some listeners may disagree with this but but i think um i think the conventions are intact um i think he has obviously tested them and he's broken a lot of them but as you say the fact that he's been evacuated by the system it's very telling isn't it that um in the end of virtually every single senior conservative either came out against him or just stayed silent and refused to

support him and the ones who did support him were the ones who would only ever have got a job. Exactly. I mean, he was left at this point. I mean, if Nadine Doris and Jacob Rees-Mulgay listeners to this podcast, I'd be quite surprised. But also, you know, I think it's nice to be inclusive to our listeners. So I apologize to them for what I'm about to say. But I mean, if these two otter clowns are the only people

you have left supporting you and everybody else on on every wing of the party so from Steve Baker on the kind of libertarian right to Jeremy Hunt on the kind of remainer left of the Tory party people have such diverse views are coming out against you and saying you've broken the conventions you have to go then clearly something is wrong and i think actually it's hard to the fact that he's been punished as it were so publicly humiliated actually tom he's been humiliated for breaking the conventions for lying for you know he's sending out ministers to say things that would and he's clearly infuriated them somebody's that the i was having my hair cut today in the bar and i were chatting about you know he sort of said well politicians they're all the same aren't they they

all they're all liars and all this sort of thing which is of course what people always say but actually in some ways the what's happened in the last few days shows whatever you think of politicians they're not what what they think of themselves they i mean they've a lot of them have talked those stories like javid have talked about their integrity. Now, you may well think, or the listeners may think, oh, they've got no integrity anyway, but they clearly think they do. And that, you know, the Prime Minister has, has produced that or has tarnished it. So I think actually, the conventions, they still a lot, most of them them the vast majority still clearly believe in those conventions so i don't think it's analogous to what happened on the 6th of january 2021 in america um no well that's where absolutely not i mean i mean right you know people are sort of have always made this comparison between donald trump and boris johnson i've actually never ever thought was right because i thought they're such totally different political personalities I mean they both got blonde hair and they're both populists and as you said about um the abortion debate Britain is not America

not everything has to be seen through an American prism and and this and this is not really like no this is this has been a this has been about the testing of the limits of the constitution I would I would also make what what i'm sure many listeners will regard as a kind of insane perspective but i i i actually think that every country at the moment is massively hurting the after effects of covid and the impact of uh energy price rises means every country is going through a terrible stage and i think that it's kind of right and proper that that leaders who don't measure up to the the gravity of the times you know go and someone else be brought in and i think in that sense actually the british

constitution is kind of showing that it works. Well, I mean, it's working even in the most very basic sense. He's lost the confidence of the House of Commons. He's got to go. It's as simple as that. But I agree with you, a different prime minister. What would also be good, I think, there's been a lot of heat in British politics in the last seven years, six, seven years. I think a slightly lower temperature would be nice would

would be good for britain but again i mean in reaction to that um yeah again you know britain has been going through a unprecedentedly tumultuous time um and the perspective from abroad is you know what on earth is going wrong everything seems to be going wrong but you again you could say that this reflects quite well on british democracy because actually every country should be going through a terrible time every country is facing incredible stresses and strains and challenges and kind of existential questions uh and in a sense the fact that that um you know we've had so many elections so many weird referendums,

I mean, all kinds of mad shit happening left, right and centre. I mean, mad shit should be happening because we're living through the age of mad shit. Tom, this is top punditry, but actually I completely agree with you. I completely agree with you. I think a rambunctious, colourful, chaotic democracy is better as long as the temperature long as the sort of you know as long as the temperature doesn't rise too much as long as it doesn't go for the full 1640s we don't want

that right exactly but a rambunctious democracy in which crazy things happen um is is not a bad thing and i think the contrast that people classically make is they say look at britain with these sort of terrible clans and these ludicrous developments and look at germany with such wonderful stability and all of these kinds of things um and of course it's very tempting for us in britain to look at to look across the the channel at germany and say oh isn't this admirable and stuff on the other hand you look i mean angela merkel who we did a whole podcast about angela merkel and German chancellors and her legacy. I mean, that looks pretty dodgy now, that period of kind of complacent stagnation, if you like.

Ending with the Nord Stream deal with Russia and this sort of virtual appeasement of Vladimir Putin. Now the new guy looks like he's a bank manager from a small town of Wiltshire. No offence, Tom. Absolutely nothing wrong with her. But, you know, who's, again, got what looks like a pretty dodgy record. You could argue on Russia, you could argue that actually a bit of a rambunctious democracy that more countries could do with it. And in a way, the fact that it is farcical and chaotic and whatnot, I don't think that's necessary.

It's regency, isn't it? A terrible thing. That's what it is. Yeah. I mean, Johnson is a kind of Prince Regent figure. People in the 18th century, Tom, would look at what was happening now and they'd say, this is absolutely standard. This is completely fine.

Now, that's Boris Johnson's place in history. He's going to go down as quite a short-lived prime minister. So he's down there. Same time as Chamberlain, I think, to this day. Yeah, he's down there right now with Chamberlain. And I think it's quite possible, and wouldn't this be the most sort of delicious irony, that he may not match Theresa May's time in office, which would be very amusing. So will he be remembered?

I think he definitely will be remembered because he's a character. And British, most prime ministers, we've talked about this so many times, most prime ministers are completely and utterly forgotten. So who remembers the Earl of Derby? Who remembers Sir Alec Douglas Hume? Nobody. Frankly, who under the age of 40 remembers Harold Wilson? Or James Callaghan. Or James, well, who does remember James Callaghan? Who remembers Stanley Baldwin, Tom? nobody frankly who under the age of 40 remembers harold wilson or james callahan or james well

who does remember james who remembers stanley baldwin tom it pains me to say it but nobody does if you ask 20 people in the street who was stanley baldwin they'd say that he played for bolton wanderers in nine in the early 1950s he does have that sound um you know i think very few thatcher is remembered church is remembered maybe Blair will be remembered Cameron no may know Boris Johnson I think Boris Johnson will be remembered as a character he'll be remembered for Brexit and he'll also possibly be remembered for the chaotic nature of his departure but other than that and he may be remembered for being the prime minister during covid if covid is remembered but it will covid remembered i mean how many people remembered the

spanish flu before covid struck i think it depends what the the long-term legacy of covid is which i think it's too early to tell but i mean will our grandchildren care about covid i i mean if the long-term legacy is that well if they're looking back and studying, you know, what are the causes of the Third World War? Yeah, that's right. Well, I think the truth of the matter is, let's imagine our grandchildren doing British history in the early 21st century at school. And the sort of weariness with which they will plod through the essay questions on the Cameron years and austerity and stuff, or Theresa May and the details of her various Brexit deals. And then they'll turn the page and there'll be a picture of Boris Johnson dangling unquestionably dangling from that zip wire with his union,

Jack flags. And they will breathe a colossal sigh of relief much as you would, if you were about to study Charles James Fox and you'd say, great, finally a good character. This is going to be a laugh. You do a week on Boris Johnson and it probably would be quite disobliging to him,

but it will be fun. Now, he probably didn't want, I think deep down, he didn't want to go down in history as a joker. No. He wanted to go down as a great man, didn't he? But that's Fortuna's joke. It is Fortuna's joke. So we should end with a prediction.

So who do you think, I'm going to put you on the spot, who do you think will be Prime Minister at the end of this calendar year? Oh, I thought you were going to say at the end of this week, in which case I would have said Dominic Raab, who is the Deputy Prime Minister and who I think will slip up that's a fair prediction but who do you think will be Prime Minister at the end of the year I'm no pundit Dominic

I know you're not but I'm putting you on the spot I think Rishi Sunak Rishi Sunak I don't think it'll be Rishi Sunak I think he's behaved with a degree of dignity he's very very a degree of dignity. He's too, he's very, very small.

Doesn't matter. He's too short. He can wear platform heels. Like Sarkozy. He looks like head boy at the private school. Well, he was the head boy. He was the head boy. He was the head boy of Winchester. But he looks like he's, you know, he's in his smart school uniform.

Jeremy Hunt was also a head boy. He was head boy of Char house was he um you would expect me to have an a slightly obsessive knowledge of which schools all these people went to and i think did we mention this before uh that jeremy hunt has a a ballroom yeah we did a spring yeah springs a spring ballroom i mean you know there's a case for saying that our first prime minister, who owns his own ballroom. Well, no, I'm sure they all owned their own ballrooms back in the 18th century. He mistook his wife for... He mistook her for a Japanese woman.

Didn't he go to China and he said, I'm delighted to be here because my wife is Japanese. Oh, I mean Chinese. No, I think the other way around, wasn't it? He went to Japan. Was it the other way around? He said, my wife's Japanese. No, she's not. I can't remember. Yes, but there was. Anyway, I'm in Chinese. Sorry. I think the other way around, wasn't it? He went to Japan. Was it the other way around? You said my wife's Japanese. No, she's not. I can't remember.

Yes, but there was. Anyway, it was a very entertaining moment. So my prediction is Ben Wallace. I think it might be. I've got a dark horse up my sleeve. I think it might be Penny Mordant. Do you? Well, she's a kind of Boris-esque figure, though, isn't she?

She's a kind of jolly carry-on. She took part in a diving competition, a reality show. She did, yes. When she was an MP. Yes. You see, I don't think it would be Penny Maldon, because I think she's too Boris-like. And I think the rhythm of British politics is roundhead cavalier,

roundhead cavalier. So who's the real roundhead? Who did you say? Sue Nex. Sue Nex. He's got too much money. He's too rich. So a real roundhead.

There's Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary. I think his sort of calling card is basically you. It's very boring. Yeah, it's very boring. He's sort of a military man who talks like this. Yeah, I mean, obviously, Theresa May is still available. I'm just... I once wrote a column proclaiming that theresa may was going to leave

her stamp on british politics for a decade did you and i could still be right you have that taken down um well another dark horse for who might be prominent at the end of the year of course is or whoever succeeds him when he resigns which which will be massive bans what would he resign for again did he have a coke or something he had a curry curry or something had a curry and a beer yeah somebody said to me keir starmer's only ever had one beer in his life and the irony i mean that really is fortuna's curse if if um that one beer is the beer so maybe maybe wes streeting uh who is the blairite candidate to succeed keir starmer i don know. I keep you talking long enough.

The Blairism comes out, Tom. Of course, Tony, Tony's still. Oh, Tony. Yes.

You, Prince Edward and Tony. House Blair. Right. Yeah. Well, maybe Prince Edward, maybe Prince Edward.

On that, on that bombshell, I think we should draw this rambling. I think it's been rambling at all. I think draw this rambling I think it's been rambling at all I think it's been an absolute display of top punditry at first class punditry the Pittsburgh Post Gazette will be all over it but Dominic you know what's terrifying

is that this will still be up in a year's time yeah but I mean like your article predicting the truth of a well dominate british politics for a decade i think yes but what's also still up is our opening our very opening podcast tom about greatness well the last great is where the last five minutes are all about vladimir putin well and we haven't taken that down no because i think that was a very shrewd analysis because he he is trying to be peter the great yeah he is well he's he's completely open about it now isn't he i'm not in

any way apologizing i think that was excellent i think we were absolutely on the money well on that self-congratulatory note so we have got all kinds of treats lined up uh we've got a whole series of a week of podcasts all about the history of london um we have george orwell we have the long-awaited episode on um the history of pigeons and their contribution to world civilization and on monday dominate what do we have i don't i can't remember actually we have do we have island oh we have love island well everybody will be will want cheering up after the events of this week and to find out which of our do you want to describe them tom um using your time-honored phrase historical hunks and babes to find out which of the hunks and babes

will be what will they be doing well so there will be four couples at the end of the show and they will be going up for public vote so you can decide who wins historical love island 2022 it couldn't be more exciting coming on monday do not miss it that dream couple of judas oscarit and virginia wolf emerge triumphant wait and see it couldn't be it couldn't be more exciting it's much more exciting than politics right goodbye everybody bye more exciting than politics right goodbye everybody bye-bye thanks for listening to the rest is history for bonus episodes early access ad-free listening our chat community, please sign up at restishistorypod.com. That's restishistorypod.com. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our

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