It floats across the channel like a smell of the end of reign. However, unlike Elizabeth II, who has been valiantly serving her country for more than 70 years on the throne, and is preparing to pass the torch to Prince Charles, Boris Johnson, on the other hand, is under fire: he seems to have exhausted the solutions to get out with his head held high from a series of scandals and increasingly embarrassing lies. That his days in Downing Street are numbered is no longer in doubt even within his political family. And if he struggles to stay in power, declaring that “not even a Panzer division would be able to dislodge him from Downing Street,” his cabinet reshuffle would rather look, to spin the dubious metaphor to the extreme, like the twilight of Sigmaringen.
After the departure of five of his closest aides to Downing Street last week, including his faithful political adviser Munira Mirza, at his side for 14 years and whose resignation no one expected, Boris Johnson had to resolve to recruit and reshuffle his teams. Too weak to stand up to anyone, he is forced to move his pawns as if on a chessboard and reassigns what he has left of loyalists. It is clear that these new appointments have surprised rather than reassured. And that he seems to have struggled to recruit.
His new director of communication, the Welshman Guto Harri, told a news website in Wales as soon as he arrived that Boris Johnson had welcomed him to Downing Street by humming the lyrics to Gloria Gaynor’s hit “I will survive”, and that they had “laughed well together” and that the Prime Minister “is not just a clown”. For a taking office as director of communication following weeks of scandals, we probably do better, or at least more discreet and more sober. The Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, did not fail to react: “When so many people are recovering from the trauma of the pandemic or are worried regarding rising prices… Boris Johnson and his pals are gawking. It’s not funny, it’s even insulting.”
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An “act of despair”
Boris Johnson’s new chief of staff is none other than the MP and minister Steve Barclays, former minister in charge of Brexit under Theresa May. An unusual appointment since the chief of staff is usually a senior civil servant. Which made former chief of staff like Jonathan Powell say, “Congressman and Chief of Staff? Chief of Staff is a full-time job. Will he report to the Prime Minister or Parliament? This appointment seems to me to be an act of desperation.”
In government, while heavyweights like Rishi Sunak, the economy minister, with whom relations are increasingly strained; Priti Patel, the Home Secretary; Sajid Javid, the health secretary; and Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, keep their posts, others change portfolios. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s appointment as “Minister for Brexit, its opportunities, and government efficiency” has won the political oxymoron award. The Eton and Oxford alumnus, who had a career in finance before becoming an MP in 2010, appears to be straight out of a Dickens short story when he was born in 1969. Very tall and very thin, his ninety meter forces him to stand a little stooped. And when he talks to you, he spends his time adjusting his glasses on his nose to the nearest millimeter. Decked out in three-piece tweed suits since the age of ten, he still has the nanny who raised him at his service and speaks a language that only the Queen understands the subtext of.
This English Catholic who called his sixth child Sixtus, has no equal in unleashing sharp arrows once morest his political opponents, but always with extreme courtesy that has the gift of irritating his interlocutors even more. When Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross recently withdrew his support for Boris Johnson, he called him a “featherweight” and had a hand gesture to emphasise his insignificance. Anti-abortion and anti-marriage for all, he is also, as it should be, anti French. By deep conviction or by assignment, it’s hard to say. Last October, commenting on the outraged reaction of the French government in the case of the Australian submarine contract, he tweeted: “The French are still in a bad mood in October. The birthdays of Trafalgar and Azincourt must disturb them.”
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A keen observer of British political life, the actor Hugh Grant, laconically summed up the general impression following this mini-reshuffle: “this is what is called a dream team.”
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