Counter-Currents
Death of a Ladies’ Man: The Rise & Fall of Boris Johnson
Mark Gullick
1,950 words
So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed
It would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed.
— Leonard Cohen, “Death of a Ladies’ Man”
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson could have walked straight out of a novel by Evelyn Waugh. His Englishness is close to caricature. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, Johnson followed a classic rite of passage for the British ruling class. Former prime ministers William Gladstone, Pitt the Elder, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, and David Cameron had the same academic pedigree. It is a lineage steeped in privilege, and the hubris that so often comes with it.
Johnson resigned as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom last Thursday for the most pathetic of reasons, having promoted a man called Chris Pincher who no one outside of political journalism had previously heard of (I hadn’t) to high office, but whose sexual proclivities qualify him as that most modern of terms: a sex pest. Johnson’s colleagues resigned in droves when it was found that he had misled both Parliament and the country, and there was no way back for Britain’s 76th Prime Minister.
Prior to this, Johnson had been embroiled in what became known as “Partygate” (since Watergate, adding “gate” as a scandal suffix is standard form for unimaginative journalists; I would very much like Bill Gates to get himself in hot water, then we could have Gatesgate), after it came out that a boozy birthday party had been held for Johnson while the rest of the country was under draconian Covid lockdown. The public were not amused.
Johnson is, and was, a dabbler, and being Prime Minister of one of the G7 countries — possibly the most influential nation in modern world history (prove me wrong) — eventually bored him, I think. A lack of seriousness is not an appealing trait in a leading politician; just look at Biden. Johnson’s goofball persona, his crazy hair, and his oddball, eccentric act only got him so far before both his party — at the grassroots level as well as his Parliamentary colleagues — became fatigued with the silliness and clowning.
Johnson is not a stupid man; far from it. He is highly educated, and he can quote at length from the Iliad, in ancient Greek — but politics was never his milieu, I feel. As editor of Britain’s oldest political magazine, The Spectator, for six years, he was so obviously having a good time, and I think publishing suited him a lot better than politics did. What many politicians don’t seem to grasp is that when you set foot in the corridors of power, you leave your freedom of speech at the door. It makes me laugh when people complain about the death of free speech, when the politicians who are supposed to be the stewards of this freedom have absolutely none, as they are constantly in the crosshairs of a spiteful and vituperative media class. They have no free speech. Why should they care about yours?
On his way to the premiership, Johnson was also Mayor of London, my home town. The current incumbent is a rather unpleasant little Muslim man named Sadiq Khan, and I make no apologies for saying that I preferred a white kufr in charge. No Scientologist is allowed to hold high office in Germany and, in my view, the same should hold for Muslims across Europe. There is a reasonable chance that the next British Prime Minister will be of a dusky hue, and I can’t say I approve.
So, who’s next at Number 10 Downing Street, the British equivalent of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (albeit a lot smaller)? I believe that the smarter contenders realize that the job is a poisoned chalice just at the moment. Inflation is just starting to bite in the United Kingdom, and will probably follow America’s current path. My brother tells me that petrol (which is what we Brits call gasoline) is going up on a weekly basis. He looks after Information Tech for a major haulage company, and they are feeling the pinch. I told my mother a couple of days ago that she should not be surprised if she is paying £5 (around $6 at the moment) for a loaf of bread come Christmas. Anyone who thinks that Britain — and the West in general — is somehow immune to the fate of Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and yes, the Weimar Republic needs to rethink their economic outlook. I live in Latin America, and the next dominoes to fall here look like Peru, Chile, and Argentina. Money is a force like the tropical storms we experience here are a force. You can’t stop it once it slips loose of the leash.
Personally, I would like to see Steve Baker as Prime Minister. A young man and a genuine Conservative, a leader of his caliber could restore some of Britain’s former grandeur, which is precisely why he will never get anywhere near power. Britain’s deep state knows fine well that what is needed is a premier who can manage decline and, like Joe Biden or his people, attempt to make it look like progress.
Three women stand out as potential prime ministers and I have to say that — absent Baker, who threw his hat in the ring and then promptly removed it — they would all get my vote, were I back in the old country. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is running on a tax-cutting ticket, traditional Tory territory and bound to go down well with the public, as well as companies such as my brother’s. International Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt wants to reform the Conservative Party from root to branch — what my late father would have called a bloody good idea — and Attorney General Suella Braverman is not a bad outside punt if you are a betting man or woman. They are all smart ladies, and the Conservative Party remains the only one of the big two to have had women prime ministers: the uninspiring Theresa May and the world-famous Margaret Thatcher.
There is a huge sense of unease in the Conservative Party after Johnson’s departure. Some Tories are essentially the same as American RINOS: happy to be in power but unsure what to do with it, and some are almost begging Johnson to come back as premier, claiming he has been “got at by the Westminster blob and the BBC.” Well, as the young people say, duh! The BBC will attack any Conservative leader because they are viscerally trained to do so. They despise Britain — which essentially means England — and see it as Conservative-run. This, of course, is nonsense on stilts. Britain is now a country run by socialists, and Johnson lacked the fiber to go up against that. From the sassy, cocky man who walked seemingly unimpeded into the highest office in Britain, he seemed to falter when actually in power. He didn’t really know where his convictions lay when it came to “woke,” and his absurd flirtation with green policies did him no favors. More importantly, if you seek his hubris, it may be his fatal attraction to the fairer sex.
You can buy Mark Gullick’s Vanikin in the Underworld here.
I believe you can tell a lot about a man by the women he chooses and his general attitude towards romance, and Johnson has certainly not been starved of female company. Married three times, and with at least seven children to his name, his current wife, Carrie Johnson (née Symonds), was muttered about in Westminster as the driving force behind Johnson’s mania for zero carbon and other green follies. An uxorious man is never a good bet for a position of power.
The selection process for the next PM is irritatingly Freemasonic, involving secret ballots until there are two contenders left. They are then subject to a vote by the party members. This means that around 200,000 people will get to choose the next British Prime Minister. Then it is a question of guts. A new PM with onions would call an immediate general election in order to get a mandate which would always be in doubt otherwise. This was the fate of Gordon Brown, who famously took over from Tony Blair but lacked the courage to go to the country, leading to a dozen years of Tory rule, and counting.
I believe a new British Prime Minister could be one of the most famous and successful in history if they have the gumption to grasp the nettle and return to basic Conservative values. Taxes must be cut. Individuals are far better at tending to their own money than governments are, as the latter tend to be profligate and waste tax revenue on eye-catching but ultimately wasteful ventures. If you are British and you can bear to look, the never-ending saga of the railway link HS2 will make you weep, and is a perfect example of why government should not look after our money.
Immigration has to be curtailed. If there is another Manchester Arena Bombing, for example, the British public will begin to tire of the whole multi-culti experiment. The Muslim man who killed 25 children in that atrocity and injured many more was rescued in Tripoli by the Royal Navy and brought to England. Talk about inviting the vampire over the threshold.
And British values need to return. I may sound like some dusty old brigadier ranting in his gentleman’s club, but there was such a thing as British decency at one time. I don’t wish to offend American readers, but vulgarity was an import my country could have done without. I know it is a little crass to say that you got Shakespeare and we got McDonald’s, but I can’t shake that feeling.
This is a momentous time for the United Kingdom. With the appalling Scottish Premier Nicola Sturgeon pushing for a second independence vote (Please! Bugger off, you Scotch gits — we pay you to dislike us), Northern Ireland unsure of whether it wants the European Union or Britain as its future host, and the Welsh as bad-tempered and anti-English as ever, the next PM has to be either placatory or aggressive. It will be interesting to see who steps up and has what we English call bottle.
Her Majesty’s Opposition, the Labour Party, led as they are by my schoolmate Sir Keir Starmer (who I don’t think will be around much longer, either), are clueless and lacking in any beliefs or principles. I sometimes think it might not be a bad idea to put them in power for a while. That way, they can absolutely destroy what is left of the economy, and we can really build back better. Again, anyone English reading this needs to have a little think about Labour in power, and the possibility of Diane Abbott being Home Secretary.
Also — and here we return to the notion of British values and decency — the Labour Party deserted the white working class, a sin for which they should never be forgiven. With their current obsessions with woke culture, drag queen story hour, transgenderism, and the rest of the absurd, Nero-like carnival the West is going through, they could run the country about as well as I could skipper the England football team. Keir Starmer famously couldn’t define what a woman is, and that will never be forgotten.
So, whoever replaces Johnson will either be a case of meet the new boss, same as the old boss, or could really make a name for himself by reviving the soul of conservatism. Roger Scruton, where are you when your country needs you? Passed away, sadly. Scruton once said that true conservatism was less a set of theories and more of a gut feeling. Guts. Who has them on the British political Right? Whoever you are, make yourself known.
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38 comments
This is, of course, the business of the English to judge if Boris Johnson was good or bad as the Prime Minister, but I know that he was and still is extremely popular and liked in some Eastern European countries, in Ukraine particularly.
Johnson only went to the Ukraine because he wanted to sell them arms, because they drew heat away from his idiocies, and because he could vicariously look like a ‘man of action.’ A cynical chimp of the highest order.
I preferred a white kufr in charge
Well, I understand what you mean, but you used, as I think, a wrong word. You should write qafir or kafir, if you meant an Infidel, non-Muslim. Kufr means infidelity, but the infidel man or woman is qafir/kafir.
Evet, doğru yazım çok önemlidir.
“He is highly educated, and he can quote at length from the Iliad, in ancient Greek”
That’s precisely the kind of thing an intellectually mediocre individual does in order to show off. Who can tell if the gibberish he’s spewing even really is Homeric Greek? The hair is along the same vein. He wants to convey the message his head is so filled with brilliant thoughts that he just can’t get around to combing his hair. In fact, Boris Johnson’s friend and ally, Vylygybytyqymyr Jewlensky, must have gotten the idea for his trademark green undershirt from him.
He’s probably bright (certainly a lot more so than Brandon), but no real intellectual. He’s around my age, and had the benefits of a then still superior classical education. But probably only reads a bit; maybe focusing on narrative history. Interesting, though, that he read Classics (or do they call it “Greats” over there?), when he could have just done history or politics. Learning classical languages is a real accomplishment; remembering them, more so (don’t ask me for any evidence of my own four years of high school Latin – amo, amas , amat …).
Agreed. A classical education is sorely missing in today’s world.
Boris’s intellect is not at all mediocre: he was a Kings Scholar at Eton and narrowly missed a first at Oxford. He could probably have been a Fellow of All Souls if he’d wanted. He went up against the BBC’s favourite right-on historian, Cambridge don Mary Beard and acquitted himself well. Alas his olympian disdain for detail and hard work allowed the centre left British Establishment to mount a media campaign to hound him out of office. Truly a case of a tragic flaw bringing a potentially great man low. We can expect that normal service will be resumed in his successor, whoever that may: that is to say a ‘safe’ centrist pseudo-conservative ‘woke’ pro-immigration globalist, like all the rest.
Dear Scotland-hating Little Englander (who doesn’t even live in dead old Blighty anymore), you certainly have fallen for one of the more risible English lies that only a lobotomised, English-government-PR-guzzling fool would fall for, i.e that England subsidises Scotland. It genuinely is the other way around. Why do you think the inbreds in Westminster want to hang onto Scotland? For our sunny temperaments? Its so the south of England parasites can continue to suck us dry of natural oil and gas resources.
I hate to tell you this, by Jove, old bean, by jingo, gawd bless the queen, up the apples and pears, bring me my best boy for some recreational public school sodomy, but without Scotland the screaming spires of England would be bankrupt. Of course, as you do not like Scotland, and are ill-informed in your atypical, tedious English Tory xenophobia, you choose to believe that we are the ones at fault here. I honestly think you should do a bit of research of your own (if I put up links you will just pooh-pooh them), find out the truth…and then shut your waffling, tired Tory gub.
By the way.
You forgot to mention that the decorticated clown Johnson was born in America and spent the first few years of his life there, and only gave up his American citizenship so he wouldn’t have to pay tax in his homeland. Penny Mordaunt is a Scotland-hating halfwit, Liz Truss is nothing more than a knife and fork operator, and Rishi Sunak should take up a career in bear gynaecology.
Thanks ever so much, arrogant, ignorant Sassenach genetic debris.
A Scotsman.
PS: Scotch is a drink, not a nationality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MnD7q7EFt0
I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re about, Luv — this from an ill-educated American tourist who has only visited England four times (mostly Sheffield and environs), and Scotland once –but I adore your glorious use of the English language to soundly cut the Brits to shreds and lift the Scots to glory. I love you both.
Whether or not the content of this comment is true I have no idea. But it is possibly the most fun thing I have read in days. I screen shot the thing so I can steal some of the lines. “Knife and fork operator” is pure gold. Thanks!!
P.S. I read it as if I could hear you say it with a Scottish accent, which made it even better. As long as Greg doesn’t ban you from commenting I will re-up my subscription.
Of course I am also doing it to read Greg’s new piece on suicide and Nick’s thing on the trashy South African gal.☀️
Scotch is a drink, not a nationality.
Mark Gullick was just being snarky, but “Scotch” as an adjective meaning “of or from Scotland” has a venerable history. I dunno why/when those north of the border decided to find it offensive and always replace it with “Scottish” or “Scots”.
By the way: as The Queen of England, Elizabeth II, is also your sovereign, do locals up there call her The Queen of Scotland? And – as the tragic Mary, Queen of Scots was ruling when we had Lizzie I – isn’t the current monarch your Elizabeth I.
I second Weave’s notion and demand this rant be recorded in Groundskeeper Willie’s outrageous accent.
Perhaps the Critical Drinker would be game?
Orwell advised his friends to call Scottish people ‘Scotch’ as it annoyed them. Early trolling, I suppose. I like your caricature, though.
But I thought that the Scottish and English were friends, based on their mutual feeling of superiority over the Irish?
Perhaps the English Army ought to invade Scotland and snuff out Scotland. EDWARD I did nothing wrong. Wee Jock Poo Pong MacPlopp, let’s get that war on.
What I cannot understand about England is how they have allowed their invasive immigrants — mostly Moslems (and don’t try to pawn off the appellation “Asians” to throw me and all gracious Brits off-track) — to entirely stop and forbid the use of the original St. George English flag in public! I was horrified to learn of this way back in 2016 on one of my first visits there. No English flags can fly at sports events, or in front of official public buildings, or in anyone’s private yards — though I saw a few brave souls flying them high in defiance. I tried to buy a small flag in a tourist trinket shop in Oxford and again in York, but no luck. “They’re no longer being made” I was told. One small shop did have one final item of a banner rather than a flag, so I grabbed that before anyone noticed. Thankfully, I found one lovely English teacup with the flag emblazoned on it in bright white and red, porcelain, which I am still using for my morning tea to this day, back at home in dreary L.A.
The more research I do on British politics the more cucked England appears. This takedown of Johnson looks like an Indian conspiracy. There are too many to name, but this is how much British politics differs from America and possibly other European countries. There is severe intermarriage within the leaders and their immigrant and colonial subjects. It’s cultish. There is no way it reflects their constituency. They have lots of mixed children too. Priti Patel, Sajid Javid and so many others are all married to white British. So many Jews intermarrying too like Tom Tugendhat and Grant Shapps, in addition to the distant Rothschild ancestry so many British elitists like David Cameron and Boris Johnson seem to have. This is just the Tories. It’s also bad with Labour, but not as much, as Corbyn married foreigners and Keir Starmer is married to a Jewess. English politics are very hereditary. The House of Lords and all that is not ceremonial. At this point I think the breakup of the UK is the only thing that will save it even though each separatist movement is horribly leftist. The next 5 years will be very interesting because the queen will have kicked the bucket, thus giving royalism its coup de grace. Federalism/republicanism will undoubtedly be initiated to keep Northern Ireland and Scotland from seceding. I’m not sure it can get much worse with royalism. Another English revolution will need to occur once the Celtic nations leave.
You British have a nasty habit of insulting others for no particular reason. We Americans may also be too soft, so soft we bailed you out of two world wars. Be a little nicer for a change.
I never found much use for ‘nicer’. People rattle my cage bars, I rattle theirs. That seems equitable to me.
Roosevelt pushed Chamberlain into declaring war on Germany over Poland. And no you didnt do much in ww1. America provoked the fight between Poland and Germany by reassuring the Poles they’d eventually help. Then pushed the Brits into the stupid declaration over Danzig.
Hahaha! What nonsense! We bailed your ass out twice; there’s no way you would have won either time without our help. And had you lost one or both of the Wars on your own, Germany would have been a much more obliging victor than you were, certainly in 1918. Undoubtedly, you would have been looking for a way to re-engage the war, even in defeat.
Boris Johnson failed just as Donald Trump failed: they gave into the pharmaceutical lobby and bought all the bs about “Covid”.
Covid is not “BS”. What are your scientific credentials to merit that judgment?
Trump and BoJo failed because they are weak and especially selfish. They care about themselves first and probably last. If either had governed soberly and from the (civic, alas, not [yet] white) nationalist Right, they’d still be in power (and remember: we still don’t really know whether Trump did in fact win reelection, but his behavior was such as to prevent his winning by such a margin that the race could never have been stolen).
Viruses (like “Covid” if it even is one itself) are not the causes of illness they are a reflection of it. They are more appropriately labeled exosomes.
Why do I have to prove that “Covid” is bs? Why can’t the media do this? Have they ever proved that the mass illness that began in 2019 was caused by some sort of microbe? Show me.
A much more likely culprit as far as I’m concerned was the shift to 5G. The effects of 5G are profound compared with 4G and yet no one wants to talk about this. Why do you think that is, Shrang? There are billions and billions of reasons why, and they all come down to a “1” on a computer screen. What might each of those “1”’s represent?
British Prime Ministers are not designed to last for long. They are merely First Among Equals according to Parliamentary tradition and culture. They, Parliament and the MPs are sovereign.
Scientific credentials are that I passed grade two arithmetic . The American CDC announced,on its website and elsewhere, that 96.3 % of Covid deaths were cases where the deceased had on average 2.9 co morbidity’s. so dying of three other conditions already . This was in august of ‘20. The numbers , as was often stated in normie media were equivalent to the ‘68 Hong Kong flu epidemic when ,were told ,the earths population was half that of now. (To be clear , that’s before accounting for the self admitted fact that over 19 out of 20 cases were bogus) We were all had by that scam .
That so many normally level headed ,relatively bright individuals fell for and helped drive the hysteria disturbs me to this day. I’ve been seeing a leading infectious disease specialist 3-4 times per year since 2017. He was surprised when I informed him of the above . He checked it out and unlike the vast majority of people of his stature , graciously accepted being corrected by one without what some consider relevant credentials . If you’re argument can’t clear as basic a hurdle as elementary arithmetic ,you’ve likely let faith guide your ‘reasoning’
I will miss Boris Johnson answering questions during PM question time. Can you imagine this idiotic dolt Biden trying to do that?
Of course not. Even high and drunk plus novocaine injections, anyone here could riff a Q & A better. If I were teleprompter guy I’d insert “she sells seashells by the seashore,” maybe a few slurs and watch the fun.
Regarding your point about not wishing to trade Shakespeare for McDonald’s, that is well taken. It’s a fair critique. The problem is that we Americans have had too many “nice” men like Carl Dekel who cast their lots with leaders, be they British or American, who would prefer McDonald’s to Shakespeare (in order to personally benefit financially). So, there was no “trade”, just collusion at the top to destroy both countries. We were your “bitch” during both Wars and you wouldn’t be able to stuff yourself with Big Macs had we not bailed you out to wipe out the last vestiges of noble civilization.
A weirdly optimistic piece. England is a corpse, the PM just the chief maggot.
The BNP boom, rise of Farage and Brexit had my hopes up. All of them have since been dashed. To say that England is just one terror attack away from finally “waking up” is wishful thinking too. Rather they will queue up to be the first to be beheaded. What is required for a wake-up is English Action, courage, and rapid racial organization of Britons, not more non-white aggression and English deaths.
ALL white nations are corpses.
We have met the enemy, and he really is us. Whites are evolutionary defectives. WNs need to stop blaming Jews, greedy capitalists, cowardly politicians, Christians (this one’s really ridiculous), etc. I used to be a blamer myself. My belief was shaken by the poor showings of Pat Buchanan in his 1990s Presidential races, and then crushed by Jean-Marie Le Pen’s terrible showing in the Presidential run in 2002, when less than a fifth of French voters opted for national perpetuity and Western Civ, despite massive, undeniable evidence of the disaster, both empirical (terrorism, street crime and welfare budgets) and psychological/cultural, that diversity was daily inflicting upon the actual French.
There are prowhites in every white nation. But we are a majority nowhere (at least outside the Slavic lands … maybe). How do you explain white nations that had zero experience with colonialism or diversity (eg, Scandinavia or Ireland or Switzerland) cucking out on race just like America and Australia and South Africa? One cannot, except via genetic explanations pertaining to white evolutionary maladaptedness to present circumstances.
The ONLY hope for our racial preservation is WN geographical ingathering within already existent jurisdictions (eg, states, provinces, nations), followed by the push for secession and new sovereignty, followed by the “slow cleanse” and the development of states formally dedicated (in national security, immigration, and natality policies) to white perpetuity. Without this, our race will go extinct.
In the Early Middle Ages, Celtic Christians spent three centuries isolated on the small island of Iona (current population 120), west of Scotland, preserving themselves from Barbarians. The subsequent spread of the religion in the British Isles would not have happened without them.
The first episode of Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation, “The Skin of Our Teeth”, shows the artwork that they produced there.
“ALL white nations are corpses. We have met the enemy, and he really is us.”
That is so devastatingly true, as was the entirety of the comments by both Lord Shang and Vauquelin. Although I never was a “blamer”, I was once that naive person who thought that the majority of Whites were simply unaware of what is really going on and could be awakened to act in their (our) own best interests if only — if only — they could be directed to read this blog. Or, that book. Maybe if I sent them a link to just the right YouTube video. Alas, at some point, one realizes that whether most Whites are clueless, oblivious, or just cowards they will indeed be lining up for the guillotine.
Thanks. I used to be that naive guy, too, especially in the 80s once I’d discovered Instauration and read The Dispossessed Majority. Finally someone had tied together all my own disparate and inchoate thoughts! I was incredibly hopeful across the 90s, due particularly to a) the Soviet implosion (which I, in retrospect idiotically, assumed meant that the Republicans would now be free to tackle immigration, along with other pressing domestic problems neglected during the Cold War); b) the founding of American Renaissance as a [necessary, I thought] “respectable” forum for our ideas; and c) the rise of the internet, whose propaganda potential (more accurately, potential for unpalatable truth dissemination) I immediately recognized. The mass Awakening would only be a matter of time, I was certain …
Please consider my final paragraph in the comment you replied to. That is what is most important I believe for all prowhites to internalize.
Liberal deMocracy is only for oligarchs and is media orchestrated. When elites no longer identify with the nation, that’s the kill shot. People are mostly powerless
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