Boris, my kind of leader

Because Boris got Brexit done as he promised he would, and stood his ground against the EU, Irish, French and Russians as I prayed he would, I consider him to be my mate, and mates are there for each other, through good times and bad, warts and all.

So I find it all very sad if not scary that Boris, our Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, elected with a thumping majority just 2 ½ years ago, is stepping down at the behest, not of the electorate, but of disloyal and/or incompetent civil servants, biased and unprofessional media, selfishly ambitious Cabinet Ministers and other Traitorous Tories (TTs), traitorous against Blighty as much as against Boris. They prefer instability to peace and progress; personal advancement to team-playing; lemming mentality to loyalty; insults to reasoned debate; subservience to the bullying EU despite the democratic will of the people.

The TTs have knifed in the back a man who won them an election – let’s face it, the Tories wouldn’t have won it without him. He smashed Socialism by demolishing their northern Red Wall. No one else could have done that. He gave his MPs good, secure jobs that they themselves have now made insecure. His ministers looked like a diversity box-tickers dream, all appointed on merit not condescension. And he delivered so much brill stuff. He cocked up other things, but name me a PM who didn’t.

They say Boris lacks integrity because of his lies. He lied about cake and what he knew about someone else’s groping. Starmer, in case you missed it, lied about beer while criticising Boris for lying, lied about what a woman is (the supreme insult to more than half the population), and failed to prosecute Jimmy Saville. Boris has bought the West more time to prepare for World War III, if not prevented it, whereas Blair lied to take us into an illegal war. There are degrees of lying and degrees of integrity. No leader scores 10/10 in all attributes. Strengths in some areas can counter shortcomings in others.

A friend of mine, who knows more about these things than I do, took the discussion a bit further and explained that very different skills or competencies are required for leadership and management. People tend to lump the two together and think that all people in management are leaders and all leaders are managers. But that is far from the truth. Leaders are people who inspire their teams, influence and generate momentum behind an idea. Managers are people who pay attention to the detail and manage their teams.

A true leader is high in the ‘power motive’, which used to include ‘sexual proclivity’ – think Kennedy, Clinton, Churchill and of course Boris. This particular description has now been ‘cancelled’. Ironically, the legislation around sexual harassment and the diminution of resilience in society to what is natural, instinctive behaviour amongst alpha males has diminished the development of true leaders.

Another thing she told me was that in order to be successful as a great leader, focused on inspiring and influencing, you need a ‘second’, a good manager who pays attention to the detail and manages the staffers. And you need to listen to that second. Sadly, Boris didn’t have a good second – and where he might have done, he didn’t listen. So the trouble was that he was focused on influencing the world and inspiring the country and wasn’t paying attention to what was going on under his nose. It's possible he might not have stopped and thunk about the damage Pincher-by-name could cause in more ways than one, or that having drinks after a meeting was breaking Covid rules, especially when the Uncivil Service was instigating most of it (and then leaking about it) and NHS staffers were twerking on TikTok (I have no idea what twerking or TikTok are, but it sounds good). I might be being too kind to Boris, but then he is my mate and I'm sure he'd be as forgiving of my foibles.

Now on a roll, my expert friend talked about Boris being an innovator – someone who generates ideas like a scattergun and doesn’t pay attention or perhaps even doesn’t see the rules/conventions/norms. Innovators create dissonance. I think we can all agree that Boris has created dissonance throughout his career, but society needs ‘dissonancers’ to shake us out of our apathy and status-quo-acceptance to lead us to a better place.

Which is why Boris’s resignation speech was so remarkable. The content, tone, delivery were all perfect. He was cool, calm and collected. Composed. Polite. Magnanimous in defeat. Showed his detractors up and then some. I couldn’t have spun it better myself. Except it wasn’t spin. It was genuine. And it’s made me even angrier that this good (not perfect), funny, friendly, engaging, innovative, patriotic, loveable mate of mine has been ousted by second-raters who aren’t worthy to dab the cake crumbs from his chin.

And what have they achieved? Firstly, a less effective PM and a less effective Government because everyone wasted too much time and energy on either false or disproportionate accusations. Even more time and energy will now be absorbed by a leadership campaign. And there’s nothing like instability and uncertainty to stall investment, decision-making and wealth creation. There will be a further delay while the new PM and Cabinet get their feet under the table. And there’s no guarantee the new team will be any better than the old one.

Can you imagine a future conversation between the TT’s and their grandchildren: “What did you do during the Covid pandemic and the Ukraine war, Granddad?” “Me? I stabbed a hard-working, well-meaning patriot in the back, hindered the national recovery and emboldened Putin.”

Pathetic.

The only Tory MPs who’ve come out of this smelling of roses are the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries who, while not everyone's cup of tea, have stuck by Boris through good times and bad, warts and all. They are my kind of people. 

And my mate Boris is my kind of leader.