British former prime minister Boris Johnson’s prospective return to Downing Street reads like a Shakespearean arc of redemption after a fall — but critics see elements of farce.
Johnson, 58, has long been struggling to write a biography of William Shakespeare, missing several deadlines after securing a lucrative publishing advance in 2015.
He may have been concentrating on the manuscript during his recent self-imposed leisure time, after announcing his imminent departure in July and quitting in September.
For much of the time since July, he has been on UK and foreign holidays — reportedly cutting short a trip to the Caribbean on Friday to try to reclaim the crown in the Conservative party’s latest leadership contest.
Following the resignation of Prime Minister Liz Truss, Johnson’s supporters have urged him to resume a tenure that was abruptly curtailed by a cabinet uprising.
They appear motivated in part by a burning desire to halt Rishi Sunak, the former finance minister who was initially promoted by their Caesarean hero Johnson, but they accuse of then back-stabbing, Brutus-like.
Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, such as King Lear and Macbeth, see the error of their ways too late, providing a redemptive coda to their doomed stories.
Has Johnson learned anything from his own many missteps?
– ‘The Scream’ –
He still has a Sword of Damocles hanging over him, in the shape of a House of Commons investigation into whether he lied to MPs over the “Partygate” affair.
Ex-aide Dominic Cummings, now a vocal critic of Johnson, argues that his former boss discreetly backed Truss against Sunak out of Machiavellian self-interest.
He expected her tenure to be disastrous and short-lived, paving the way for his return, Cummings claims.
“It is extraordinary the state of British politics… this soap opera is in danger of tipping over into absolute farce,” ex-Johnson aide Will Walden told LBC radio on Friday.
Switching artforms, he likened the situation to the nightmarish scene evoked in Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream”.
Johnson remains a favourite of some Tory lawmakers and grassroots — who will elect their new leader next week if Conservative MPs cannot settle on a single candidate.
Supporters believe only he has the democratic mandate from the electorate needed to rule until, and then win, the next general election due by January 2025.
“If Liz Truss is no longer PM there can be no coronation of previously failed candidates,” declared ex-culture secretary Nadine Dorries, a Johnson loyalist who in her spare time writes romantic fiction.
Johnson has, in his brief time away, been portrayed in a Sky television drama about the Covid crisis, played in Shakespearean guise by Kenneth Branagh, replete with dream sequences inspired by Greek tragedy.
His life story has been adapted for the stage including at this summer’s Edinburgh Fringe festival, when Johnson was depicted having failed to learn any of his lines for a…
