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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Mikey Smith

Boris Johnson thinks he's the wrong Terminator - but will he be back?

Boris Johnson almost certainly isn’t a sophisticated combat cyborg, sent back through time to save humanity.

If he is, we've all made a terrible mistake.

Because after a three-year dystopian nightmare, he has finally - probably - been Terminated.

“Hasta la vista, baby,” Johnson’s sign-off at the end of his final PMQs, is of course a quote from the T-800 - the ‘good guy’ cyborg portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2.

In reality he’s closer to Arnie’s nemesis - the evil T-1000, whose liquid metal structure makes him impervious to attacks that would be fatal to anyone else.

Maybe Arnie himself would be a better comparison. He too made the transition from entertainer to politician.

Of course, Schwarzenegger left his job as Governor of California on a wave of affection, rather than being run out on a rail after a series of damaging and self-inflicted scandals.

Boris Johnson met Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was London Mayor (PA)

It was deeply bizarre to see the very MPs who gave him the boot, now giving him the kind of delusional, dewey-eyed send-off you’d expect to be reserved for a PM who’d won five elections, abolished poverty and personally cured cancer.

But everyone on the Tory benches cheered, whooped and applauded as he rolled out the greatest hits - with the vaccine rollout, dodgy claims about unemployment and, of course, Ukraine all featured on his increasingly spurious list of achievements.

Everyone except Theresa May, of course, who genuinely stood behind Johnson, arms-folded in defiance as he was given one last ovation.

At the end of Terminator 2, Arnie’s T-800 gives a ‘thumbs up’ as he’s gradually lowered into a vat of molten steel - destroying himself a final act of self-sacrifice for the good of mankind.

But even in his final moments, Johnson gave the distinct impression he didn’t think it was over.

“Mission, largely accomplished - for now,” he said.

He may as well have used the Terminator’s other, more chilling catchphrase… “I’ll be back.”

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