Musings: Boris Johnson and Fascism

 Enemies of Boris Johnson routinely used social media to accuse him of being a "fascist": a word nowadays employed so loosely as to be practically devoid of any meaning except dislike. Nevertheless, I consider that there are interesting parallels between him and Mussolini, the leader of the Fascist Party in Italy and the inspiration for copycat movements throught the interwar period.

    Mussolini, like Johnson, was by instinct a tabloid journalist, and his principal aim was to dominate the next day's headlines. As a rising politician, he produced no specific policies, and was never really in control of the dark forces of street violence that he had unleased and encouraged. He delivered speeches full of rousing phrases but devoid of any ideological content. His really solid achivements were few: he was a lazy administrator and allowed vast levels of corruption to flourish under his government. When the great recession came after 1929, he had no more clue of how to deal with the economic problems facing his country than did any other western European leaders. 

   Boris Johnson as Prime Minister was noted for his rousing speeches and for his publicity stunts: dressing up as a soldier, a doctor or whatever, for the benefit of the T.V. cameras. He too was lazy and famously could never be bothered to master the details of policies.

   In the 1920s Mussolini was accepted as a serious statesman by the other leaders of Europe, and his Fascism was widely imitated, not least by Hitler in Germany. When the two dictators first met, Mussolini was profoundly unimpressed, and commented that Hitler was "wrong in the head". But Germany is a far stronger power than Italy, and in the end Mussolini could not bear Hitler grabbing all the headlines and felt he would have to lash out internationally himself, with disastrous consequences for Italy and for himself. The only parallel here, though not a very exact one, is with Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.

Postscript: Boris Johnson has reverted to his old job and is now writing articles for the "Daily Mail

It is a sobering thought that he can earn far more for churning out this kind of rubbish than he did as Prime Minister; but personally I do not begrudge him a single penny. I would far rather he was harmlessly enployed producing what Orwell called "prolefeed" than pretending to run the country.