Corbyn rises to the occasion, Johnson rises to the bait

by Parliamentary Sketch writer, Fionnbharr Rodgers

In his first Prime Minister’s Questions since taking on the top job, the new premier vehemently defended his ground-breaking track record of 100% failure of votes in the House of Commons. It appeared that the difficulty was getting to him, as Johnson’s performance rather brought to mind the Malcolm Tucker line about looking like ‘a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra,’ as he tried to dodge Jeremy Corbyn’s questions, and also get the crowd back on side with a few ripping one-liners which one assumes worked beautifully back in the Oxford Union debating chamber.

Bear in mind that Corbyn’s initial performances at the Despatch box left rather a lot to be desired. Fronting off against Cameron, who seemed to have been lovingly nursed from a pup by a high-ranking PR company in the City, Corbyn would propose a query which had been sent in from Valerie in Shoreditch, let’s say, which would only be smacked down by some withering remark which delighted the dinner jackets of the Government benches. Corbyn, as if appearing via Skype with a faulty connection, would merely move on with another line of inquiry, this time from Brian, just outside Shropshire.

But on Wednesday, even the Labour leader’s critics were forced to admit that he was on form as he maintained a coherent thread throughout his inquisition, and got more than a few good punches in all the while. It certainly helped that Johnson was flopping about in the manner of a particularly witless salmon which has just caught bear winking at it.

If the mask has not slipped, then suffice to say it is wearing rather thin. The man who proclaimed as a child that he aspired to be ‘world king,’ is finding that fulfilling the job of Prime Minister to be far less appealing than possessing the title.

Alexander Johnson, a rather shy child, first created the character of ‘Boris the lovable, dishevelled rogue’ in his school days. In order to limit the time spent with his head down a toilet, he decided to devote more of his conversation to the sort of substances that should end up there. This has worked well for him as regional Mayor, which is a largely ceremonial position, in effect, which people do not expect much from. In many towns throughout the world, they give the job to a nice cat and are perfectly happy.

However, Johnson is discovering, and everyone else along with him, that caricatures are amusing to watch on late night comedy shows, but the shine comes off them when they start representing your country and its interests on the international stage. Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg similarly found that his persona of a Wodehouse lounge lizard will only go so far, when his snoozing through a Parliamentary debate on one of the most significant constitutional changes of the last century provoked as much ire as ridicule from people on the internet.

It is clear that no longer being the darling of the press, and the life and soul of the [political] party is getting to Johnson, as has been seen by his expressions when giving speeches before booing masses. During PMQs, as his best efforts to deter Corbyn and win the day had failed, failed utterly, Johnson resorted to shouting the words ‘great big girl’s blouse’ across the Despatch box. One would not be guilty of wild imagining to suggest the Prime Minister was one step away from hurling is Legos across the aisle and storming off in the huff.

After leaving the chamber the Conservative Party got to work on producing campaign material which painted Jeremy Corbyn as a chicken. This included a poster of the Labour leader in a chicken suit, stickers with Corbyn drawn in the style of Colonel Sanders with the letters ‘JFC’ nearby, and single-use plastic boxes of rather unappetising looking chicken. Say nothing of the fact that Colonel Sanders was a human, not a chicken; Corbyn is infamously a vegetarian; but also, this same strategy was tried by Josh Lyman in The West Wing. It didn’t work then, either.

It is often said that Johnson has in mind his predecessors who achieved greatness through their time in office. Yet what he fails to realise is that they did not set out to achieve greatness as their primary goal and motivating factor, but rather it is something that happened as a result of their efforts.

Churchill, for instance, embarked on a Parliamentary career not out of some Messiah-complexed lust for glory but because that is generally what was expected of his class, in lieu of a Saturday job for a bit of extra pocket money.

For most of his career Winston Spencer Churchill was considered a party oddball or loudmouth eccentric, in the style of Nadine Dorries say. His spells as a cabinet minister had either been unremarkable, or made him a national pariah, such as his brutish response to put down the 1926 general strike. Though it was of course in no doubt that he possessed a skillful turn of phrase.

But for the world as it was then known disintegrating and falling to chaos and ruin, Churchill would not have had a chance of rising to the premiership. Due to his rising to the occasion when the occasion arose, and doing what no one else wanted to, he is remembered as the giant on whose shoulders his successors may now stand.

The incumbent Prime Minister likewise faces strife in Europe, though the stakes are of course no where near as high, and he seems less concerned with promoting an image of national strength as promoting a personal image of political fortune.

Those who go out, instinctively, in search of greatness and glory are likely to, at best, be remembered as a glitch in the fabric of time, a historical irrelevance, or at worst as a complete and utter disaster.