Theresa May was the last one, I think. She did her best, but when your supposed support is squabbling behind you like a gang of spoilt children, then it’s very difficult for your leadership to be effective. The irony is that while the pro and anti-Brexit voters in the street were supposed to accept the result and move on, the House of Commons never did. Currently, it seems to me that the only time the Conservative Party is ever unified is in the six weeks before an election.
However, I digress. It may be an antiquated concept but I believe leaders should look and act like leaders. While a photo-opportunity kissing a baby (oh those good old days) was acceptable and builds a positive image, dangling from a zip wire does not. One might expect a leader to use language that we can all engage with, or appear to be prepared to speak, or have a decent haircut, or be relatively smart. You would not find Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron or even Donald Trump deploying a 17-stone body against a rugby playing 10-year-old Japanese boy and flattening him. You will not find the leaders of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland getting drawn into these shenanigans.
Unfortunately, Boris Johnson’s working life is haunted by things that have gone wrong. He presents this classics scholar intellect, but there is no substance. Since his election some things he never could have foreseen have gone against him, but at no time has he exhibited the image that he is in control. The news of the last week almost confirms that he doesn’t have an idea of his own because his partner and advisor and goodness know how many cabinet members are openly promoting their own ideas. Sadly, he is just a front man.
This is not an anti-conservative rant. I would like to offer the same destructive criticism of the other two main party leaders, but their presence is only noticeable by its absence. Their appearance is smart, but where are their policies? You can’t score points off each other if you have no clear idea what you would do in the same situation. They could have united with the nursing and teaching unions, with business leaders and come up with credible solutions to immediate problems while considering the Britain we want at the end of it. However, they probably just listened to their advisors.