Boris Johnson: details are for little people

The contrast could not be greater. On Monday morning Boris Johnson gave a speech to CBI members in Tyneside which has been ridiculed from Lands End to John O’ Groats. He stumbled over his words, pleaded with the audience to “Forgive Me” as he lost his page, described himself delivering a new green world to the disciples of Sir David Attenborough, and spent considerable time saying how much he loved writing about cars for GQ, proceeding to make the vroom vroom sound of a petrol engine. He quoted from Lenin and the Daily Mail. 

His performance has been described by critics, and even the most ardent of fans, as shambolic and embarrassing. It has provoked the usual criticism from unnamed critics calling for Number 10 to get a grip on Johnson or else.
Worse perhaps, many are asking whether the PM is suffering from burn-out and exhaustion after a bad bout of cold or indeed, whether he is finally losing his marbles to the Greeks.

As always, the BBC’s brilliant Ros Atkins did one of his deadpan four minute take-down films synthesising the PM’s petrol engine moment which has now been watched by a record 4 million viewers and growing.

Of course it was the PM’s fumbling and stumbling Peppa Pig lines that got the maximum heat from TV coverage as well as the red-tops and broadsheets. They also homed in on the most cringeworthy part of the speech where he described himself as Moses, and explained how he had provided a new Decalogue “when I came down from Sinai and I said to my officials the new ten commandments thou shalt develop.” 

Whether he was serious or taking the mickey out of himself is a mystery to us all. But his ten commandments are these: offshore wind, hydrogen, nuclear power, zero emission vehicles, green public transport, cycling and walking, jet zero’ and green ship, greener buildings, carbon capture and storage, nature and trees and green finance.
In and of themselves, going green with these ten ambitions are all worthy aims but they are going to cost business and consumers trillions – possibly many trillions of pounds – to implement whether it is £10K for your gas boiler or thousands more for a new EV car.  

And we know who will fund these green niceties: the taxpayer. The problem is that the PM does not want to discuss the cost, or indeed whether wind turbines, EV cars or all the other latest green fads are the most environmentally and efficient technologies that we should be pursuing.

If you look at the cost of the rare earth metals that are being mined at huge expense and social pain – and even greater cost to the environment – to be used in these technologies, then the answer is it’s time to take a pause. There is a strong case that private business – not government – should be free to come up with the latest solutions rather than diktat from on high.  But, with Boris, details are for the little people. 

However mad it may seem, the Peppa Pig mention was the highlight of the speech, a good parable with which to remind his audience of the extraordinary creativity of our animation industry. The UK’s creative industries are a huge force for good and a big source of employment.  

In fact, the PM’s shout-out to Peppa Pig – whose theme park he visited the day before with wife and son, Wilf – was one of the few sane bits of an otherwise higgledy-piggledy speech. It’s not good, but it’s not quite as bad as the pundits made out on the day.

And I know, because I’ve read all 3,538 words of the speech – so you don’t have to. If you do, then here is the link.

The PM did make the case for innovation, the powerful role of private business and the great legacy of Britain’s industrial past and the nation’s ingenuity stretching from the steam engine to splitting the atom.

Yet as always with Boris Johnson, it’s the delivery that matters. He’s by nature a fumbler and stumbler, it’s what some would say is his charm. Usually he pulls the stunt off, and it’s partly why he won the last election with an 80 MP majority.  He can play the buffoon and enough voters buy into it because we know he’s not a buffoon. So long as he plays the role well and tells some good jokes. 

But when Johnson becomes the joke himself – as he did on Monday – then the Conservative party and his former fans may start preparing to write letters to the 1922 Committee.  That seems to be what is happening now. The sharks are circling.

Now, let’s turn to the Guildhall in the City of London where the Centre for Policy Studies held its Margaret Thatcher Conference on Trade on Monday. Giving the closing speech was Lord Frost, minister of state and best known as Mr Brexit. 

In what was Frost’s first intervention in domestic policy, he fired shots over both No 10 and No 11, arguing for lower taxes and fewer regulations if the UK is to emerge a winner from Brexit.

Most pertinently, Frost – who was one of the few in the Cabinet to say he disagreed with the latest hike to National Insurance – says that the UK cannot carry on as before and that “if after Brexit all we do is import the European social model we will not succeed.”

It was a powerful speech – read it here on CapX – because it laid out a compelling vision for the UK going forward, one in which politicians have to compete in the marketplace of ideas. 

“We have to persuade people that free markets and free institutions are the best way forward. If we can’t – we lose. That’s why engaging in that battle of ideas… is so crucial.

“And that is all the more important because we are on our own now. Our destiny is in our own hands and we have to step up and compete at a global level. It is no longer good enough to be the most attractive economy in the EU.”
The private sector, he added, “isn’t just a source of taxes” and cannot be treated “as just a convenient way of keeping the public sector running”. “Nor is it a bunch of people who will inevitably do bad things unless the government keeps a very close eye on them.”

Touché. I wasn’t there in the room but it must have sent a frisson through the audience, and maybe through the PM too, who was present after his Tyneside fiasco. The contrast could not have been more acute. Where Frost is punchy, Johnson lacks a coherent political philosophy.

But Frost’s most interesting comments were on broader issues in the public realm, when he expressed concern about how public discourse is being constrained. This is what he said: “That’s why I am a bit of a free speech zealot – on every subject, not just on trade. We need to make sure that the room for testing ideas and for free debate is properly protected – whether it is on trade policy, economic policy, or indeed the right policy to manage the consequences of covid-19.”

“I worry about some of the constraints in practice about what can now be said in the public arena. Free speech is the best guarantor of democracy and we restrict it at our peril. Keeping this room for debate is central to how we manage the kind of country we want to be after Brexit. It goes to the heart of both the new policy freedoms we now have outside the EU, and the question of democracy – the most fundamental cornerstone of Brexit.”

What’s more, Frost added that we must keep challenging ourselves. “It is all too easy to get captured by the interest groups and the lobbies. We don’t have time for that. The world is not standing still. No-one owes us a living. Earning one is now fully in our own hands.” 

Then came Frost’s iciest bite: “My job is to drive change within government, to push policy in the right direction and to overcome the forces of entropy, of laziness, of vested interest.” 

If you didn’t know better, you would have thought it was the unelected Frost who was PM, and he who was giving a speech to galvanise British business and lift our spirits. At least Johnson has some opposition. Even if it is within his cabinet.