Matthew Parris: How Did We Get Here?

Parody is now extinct. Boris Johnson has killed the distinction between reality and satire. Remember the Tory who as a wannabe MP called Labour’s repeal of Section 28 “appalling”, who joked about “tank-topped bum-boys”, who sneakily rowed back from homophobia by asking “what’s not to like?” about gays who leave the field of available women clear for straight men? He is now urging gay men to vote Leave because, he says, some Eastern European countries have legislation that represses them.

“It was us,” he burbles on a new Out & Proud video, “the British people, that created [an] environment of happiness and contentment for LGBT people.” It may well have been us. It ruddy well wasn’t him. But now, even into gay saunas creeps the smell of his damp tweed.

Look, this is a joke but this is not a joke. Somebody has to call a halt to the gathering pretence that if only you’re sufficiently comical in politics you can laugh everything off. Somebody has to remind us that it’s not enough for those who seek to govern us simply to be: they have to do. Incompetence is not funny. Policy vacuum is not funny. Administrative sloth is not funny. Breaking promises is not funny. A careless disregard for the truth is not funny. Advising old mates planning to beat somebody up is not funny. Abortions and gagging orders are not funny. Creeping ambition in a jester’s cap is not funny. Vacuity posing as merriment, cynicism posing as savviness, a wink and smile covering for betrayal . . . these things are not funny.

So I present you with a mystery. How did we get here, with Boris Johnson? ...

Matthew Parris' Times column.

LOL! etc.