London Mayor Boris Johnson (on the left above with David Cameron) is a throwback. He’s a bona fide, genuine toff with all the proper upper class credentials: Eton, Oxford, yadda, yadda, yadda. I can never quite decide whether Boris is a dimmer version of Evelyn Waugh or a brighter Bertie Wooster. It’s quite easy to picture Boris and his old school chum and fellow posh boy Prime Minister David (Call me Dave) Cameron toddling off to the Drones club for a G and T with Bingo Little and Gussie Fink-Nottle. What ho, Boris. What ho, Dave.
Besides wearing an old school tie, Johnson is also an old school Tory. His pal the Prime Minister likes to present a centrist, green friendly facade to the world. Yesterday, Boris wandered off the coalition government reservation by denouncing President Obama for“anti-British rhetorice, buck passing and name-calling.” Obama’s real offense has been to finally toughen his rhetoric against the multi-national oil company responsible for the oiltastrophe, BP. We Yanks are pleased that Obama sounds more passionate but Boris and the right wing British media think Obama’s ass kicking comment isn’t cricket. That’s why Boris Johnson, who is one of the whitest people on the planet, is malaka of the week. He’s also bloody fun to mock in general.
Johnson’s downright silly critique has led the right-wing UK press and Tory troglodytes to jump on the Obama bashing, pro-BP bandwagon. For his part, David Cameron is trying a difficult straddle:sympathizing with Obama and deploring the spillon the one hand whilepandering to his base by whispering sweet nothings in BP’s ear.
If there was ever that proverbial tempest in a tea cup this is it, which makes it a case study in malakatude. BP is a multi-national corporation that is bespoiling the Gulf Of Mexico including international waters. This has nothing to do with nationality whatsoever. It could just as easily be a multi-national oil company based in Saudi Arabia, Holland or the US and A. I don’t think that the oily Pelicans and Sea Turtles consider themselves American, after all. They’re just screwed as is the entire eco-system thanks to BP and its ilk.
Boris Johnson has always been known as a bomb thrower and loose cannon in his dual roles as a politician and right wing journalist. This bomb may well blow up in his chum the Prime Minister’s face; at least I hope so. Of course, relations between British Conservative governments and Democratic administrations have been fraught for years. In 1992, the Tories helped Poppy Bush’s minions root around in Bill Clinton’s travel records and senior Democrats helped Labour secure its landslide victory in 1997. The sole recent exception came in 2004 when Tony Blair privately pulled for a Bush re-election fearing that Bush’s ouster could lead to his own downfall. Blair was on his own: the rest of the Labour Party was pulling for John Kerry.
So, Boris, bugger off, shut the fuck up and remember that oil doesn’t carry a frakking passport. I am, however, grateful to Boris for giving me an excuse to write about his toffishness and egregious malakatude.I’d also like to thank Boris for reminding folks what the Tories are really like: a bunch of Tony Hayward loving, budget cutting Thatcherites. Boris and his ilk deserve a proper handbagging but I can only give him a virtual one by dubbing him Sir Malaka.
What ho, readers.
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