Mirror Mirror

I woke up very early this morning, early as in 4.06am. Really wide awake. Feeling a little sad? low? Melancholy. Not because of health or other obvious reasons, but because Boris and Nadine have resigned as MPs, and the world of politics, if not the world itself, just got a bit more boring, a tad less colourful. Stale. For all their faults, I can't help liking both of them and am more tolerant of their failings and wrongdoings than I should be. Contrast that with my knee-jerk criticism of others, who probably don’t deserve it, well not all of it. Just as I’m willing to either disbelieve ill of, or forgive, Boris and Nadine (and Sir Jacob and Dame Priti), so I lap up the malicious gossip in the Daily Mail of the likes of Starmer, Sturgeon, whoever took over from her, the Lib Dem non-descript, and the Green thingy.

Why?

Firstly, it’s the disproportionate he-does-absolutely-nothing-right-ever criticism. I’m the first to admit that I don’t handle criticism of me at all well, especially when I perceive it to be unfair (so, all the time then?) and dislike of unfair or excessive criticism of others means I compulsively rise to their defense. When the criticism encompasses me and them in one breath, then hang on to your hats. The obvious and cracked-record example of this is Brexit. In yesterday's Sunday Times, Matthew Syed writes of Boris, “[His] charming deceit reached its acme during the Brexit campaign, the high point of Johnson’s career, when the former classicist cast a spell over a sufficient number of Brits to conjure up the most remarkable juxtaposition: the worst decision of the postwar period gaining the largest democratic mandate.”

That makes my blood boil – a double insult in one short, scornful remoaner rant. He accuses Boris of fraudulently manufacturing the “worst decision”, and charges me and over 17.5million patriots – many of them Northerners – with being zombies. Well, Mr Syed, look me in the eye if you dare while I tell you that we weren’t deceived; we didn’t go into that voting booth high on Boris’s metaphorical magic mushrooms. We knew exactly what we were doing and I for one have no regrets. To say otherwise is to insult my intelligence and belittle my education that includes two Masters and a pending PhD. Not everyone who voted for Brexit is as fortunate as me, but the absence of bits of paper bearing testament to squillions of hours spent in the library doesn’t belie Northerners’ canny intelligence, strength of character and confidence in their own mind that delivered freedom for Britain, snatched from the jaws of EU tyranny.

*Further, Max Hastings in the Times this morning, in the midst of his fantasy character assassination of Boris sneered, "Some of us predicted it would be the poor, and not the tycoons who backed Brexit". Such disdain for, and complete ignorance of, 17.5million souls says more about Hastings' nastiness than Brexit voters' insight. Indeed, Hastings opens his diatribe by criticising Boris for newspaper headlines he had no control over, inferring that his resignation letter was all about him and not the important issues of the day. That's not what I read and not what Boris wrote. Someone buy Hastings a new pair of glasses! And take him over the rainbow for a new brain and heart as well.

Boris steering us towards Brexit was, ironically, his downfall, in that remoaner MPs, uncivil servants and the moral-missing media - Hastings included - were always going to get him anyway, any place, anyhow. Excessive criticism became a witch-hunt, a bully-fest that distracted Boris and his government from governing. Undermining democracy. That’s treason. A far greater crime than lying about cake. Cake! Boris didn’t lie about Weapons of Mass Destruction. He didn’t take us into an illegal war. He didn’t let Jimmy Saville off the hook. He didn’t sell our gold reserves. He didn’t preside over a kangaroo court, lying about having high ethical standards when the guilty verdict had already been rubber-stamped. By the way, the same bully who presided over said court – Horrible Harman – was happy to rub shoulders with paedophiles while working for the laughably entitled National Council for Civil Liberties (since rebranded as Liberty), whose desire for liberties is limited to Marxists, anti-monarchists and antisemites.

Inconsistencies, i.e. illogical reasoning, are anathema to a logician like me. How often have Rayner and her fellow Ranters called for Boris to resign? Now that he has, they’re calling him a coward. In many respects, such flip-flopping is a form of gaslighting, and gaslighters are bullies, and bullies are cowards, cowards who find it easier to bully than tackle the really important issues, because that needs big hearts and strength of character, and they have neither.

Hypocrisy also irks me. Boris might be bad, but he’s not all bad and he’s no worse than a lot of people. Anyone who’s castigated Boris for lying and called for his head on a platter, have they never themselves lied, deceived, favoured their family and friends, turned a blind eye to earn money, cheated? We’re all sinners, Boris included. His biggest crime in many eyes is not that he actually sinned, but that he Got Brexit Done.

Another thing I like about Boris is his support for his friends and those who in turn support him (apart from his ex-wives, but I’ve already said he’s not perfect). His too-ready detractors call this nepotism. Which is preferable? Paying back a favour, or take take take from a well-wisher then turn turn turn your back, sometimes after you’ve stabbed the donors in the back? Not Boris, and this is where I bring in Nadine. She was one of his staunchest supporters regarding Brexit, and Boris rewarded her with a series of promotions. She then supported him through thick and thin, not tempted to bite the hand that fed her, unlike other Tory turncoats who only got elected – and promoted – because of Boris. Still they did for him. I don’t like people like that. If her Wiki-bio is to be believed, Nadine has had her own run-ins with the truth, suggesting ‘she ain’t no nun’, as Vince said about Sister Mary Clarence (Deloris Van Cartier) in Sister Act, but she’s loyal and forgiving, and we can all do with a pinch of that at times. She’s also fiercely protective of her family, once tweeting to a journalist, “Be seen within a mile of my daughters and I will nail your balls to the floor... using your own front teeth.” 

A nun wouldn’t say that, but she’s loyal, protective, and holds the views she does and acts on them through genuine conviction and for the right reasons. A working-class Scouser, a social conservative, a strong, independent, free-thinking woman, she’s a natural Brexiteer. No uncritical echo-chamber regurgitations for her. She did good in the rural south (mid-Beds constituency) and in the Eton/Oxford dominated parliament and is welcome to share a bevvy around my kitchen table any time. I wouldn’t even let Horrible Harman and Ranting Rayner clean my toilet. Indeed, come Judgement Day, I reckon God will give Nadine the once-over and say, Oh what the heck, and welcome her with open arms. Harman and Rayner, on the other hand, will get the Pearly Gates slammed in their faces.

Why would God do that, apart from the fact that Nadine has a twinkle in her eye? Well, if all politicians recorded on a balance sheet all their good and bad traits and actions, I bet Boris and Nadine wouldn’t fair too badly compared to the rest, or compared to me or you or to anyone else. I ain’t no nun either; I look in the mirror often and despair. But at least I look in the mirror, and am honest enough to despair.

As well as the eye-twinkle, I think God would find appealing what I find most appealing about Nadine, and about Boris. Their natural smiley faces, sense of humour, positive energy: a breath of fresh air that blew away the orthodox, self-righteous, contemptuous conceit of Cameron, Clegg, Osbourne and their predecessors, plus the Kardboard Keirs of this world.

When Boris was ousted as PM last July, I blogged about my upset and didn’t half get a rollicking from several quarters. I wonder what delights await me this time round, now that I’ve compounded the evil by cosying up to the less-than-perfect Nadine. Never mind. I know that God will also welcome me with open arms because, like Nadine, I have a twinkle in my eye. I see it when I look in the mirror.

*Blog updated 12th June to include this most dreadful of opinion pieces.