What do you do when in deep trouble? Boris Johnson is having his fill of it, but does he consult his chief whip, his political aides, his secretaries or his wife? Intriguingly he turns to someone in even deeper trouble that himself, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Last Wednesday the prime minister suffered the humiliating departure of his so-called “ethics” adviser, Lord Geidt. Johnson was facing a critical meeting with northern MPs before the upcoming Wakefield byelection. It was a three-line whip: nowhere was his presence more vital to boost morale and find votes. Yet not long after the Geidt statement Johnson cancelled his ticket to Yorkshire in favour of one across Europe deep into Ukrainian territory. He clearly and desperately needed the embrace and consoling chat of his friend Zelenskiy. Ducking and weaving from Putin’s missile batteries is clearly as nothing to the cluster weaponry of a bunch of Tory backbenchers.
Research by the i newspaper has revealed that these sudden conflabs with Zelenskiy have coincided precisely with Johnson’s moments of acutest embarrassment. On 6 June Sir Graham Brady announced that Tory MPs were ready to vote on their party leadership. Within three hours Johnson was on the phone to Zelenskiy. A month earlier, on 5 May, the day of local elections with dire results, Johnson sought comfort from the same source. On 30 April there was disastrous news of MP Neil Parish’s resignation. Johnson called Kyiv. On 23 April, news broke that the Met was issuing fines over a bring-your-own-bottle lockdown party at Downing Street. Johnson called Kyiv. On 16 April, when the UN savaged the Rwanda plan, Johnson called Kyiv. On 12 April Johnson was fined by the Metropolitan police over Partygate, and he called Kyiv. Was it really to discuss strategy in Donbas? Surely it was just a celebrity shoulder to cry on and a good news headline.
One wonders what on earth they discuss. Does Johnson plead that Vladimir Putin must be an absolute doddle compared with his Keir Starmer? Do they discuss peace in our time or what they had for tea? All we know is that on almost every occasion, Johnson conjures from the air another tranche of British taxpayers’ money in aid for Ukraine. It must be the most expensive psychotherapy session in history.
Of course all these calls may be pure coincidence. All leaders need advice and comfort, and find them often in peculiar places. Churchill had his Normanbrook, Thatcher her Whitelaw, Blair his Mandelson. As he prepared for office, Johnson sacked all plausible sources of impartial advice, relying on the unreliable Dominic Cummings. Today he appears to rely on an inexperienced wife and a Ukrainian comedian-turned-leader, assumed to have time to kill easing Johnson’s domestic woes as opposed to the more pressing concerns of confronting a bloodthirsty invader.
Johnson has clearly fallen back on the last resort of any leader in trouble, be they autocrat or democrat, which is to find a good war. Starting a war rescued his predecessor Thatcher, and fighting one made the reputation of his idol Churchill. We must perhaps be thankful Johnson has not started one of his own. Instead he has hijacked someone else’s. Is that really the best he can do?
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
