Boris Johnson does his best to laugh off his past stupidity, but the rest of us are stuck with it – and him

Ten months ago, Boris Johnson won a general election with a vacuous promise to “make Britain the greatest place on earth to live”.

It is especially unfortunate that there are now many graphs to show that what he has in fact done is make Britain the greatest place on earth to die, with the possible exception of Belgium.

Even more unfortunate is that this minor tweak to the manifesto commitment, namely replacing life with death, was deemed not sufficiently important to update the conference speech accordingly.

That the speech was being given, not on a conference floor in Birmingham, but in a strange sealed room in east London to an audience of no one, would also, you might think, provide enough of a clue that some of the material needed reworking.

To come out, once again, and promise that you’re going to turn this country into “the best place in the world to live”, even after you’ve visited upon it the highest per capita death toll of any developed nation, and the largest economic shock in the G7, would be bold to the point of stupidity.

But lo, that is where we are. At this point, perhaps we should consider that, back in July 2019, the only reason his most loyal colleagues could credibly give to back him for Tory leader was that he was this great power of oratory and communication. And here he was, in some places, reading out literally that same material from 12 months earlier.

As he promised a future of green energy, with every home being powered by wind, we would learn, again that “20 years ago people said wind turbines couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding”. It is very well known that 20 years ago, those people were him. He is quoting himself, his own column in The Daily Telegraph. He also said these words seven years ago while mayor of London.

He knows this, of course. What is not clear is whether this is the first time a prime minister, or party leader, has done the same lame gag in back-to-back conference speeches.

What we know is that in 21 years, this great orator evidently hasn’t worked out that a wind turbine cannot, in fact, pull the skin off a rice pudding, because a wind turbine doesn’t create wind, it turns it into electricity. To suggest a wind turbine isn’t sufficiently windy is to mock a combine harvester for not growing enough wheat.

But there’s also the main fact, which is that if the prevailing mood around climate change now had been the mood 20 years ago, the prospects for humanity and life on earth would be thousands of times improved. If, say, the zero emissions aircraft that are promised for 2030 had been ready for, say, 2010, the challenge ahead of us might be reachable.

But alas, back then, there was Boris Johnson, firing out execrable columns that he is just too narcissistic, even now, to realise are a profound humiliation to him.

We would also hear more about his new plan for 5 per cent deposit mortgages for first time buyers, which the state would almost certainly have to underwrite, and look set to be introduced just in time for a coronavirus-related 14 per cent price crash.  

Still, Boris Johnson making little gags about his own historic wrongness shouldn’t be any cause for alarm, should it? In a few years’ time there’s definitely nothing else he might be doing his best to laugh off having been hopelessly wrong about, is there?

In the meantime, it’s up to us to decide which to worry about more. The cheerful rolling back of mortgage-lending regulations introduced after risky mortgages almost bankrupted the world 12 years ago. Or the cheerful jokes at his own expense. Then again, if the prime minister gets to revel in the joys of complete self-ownership, why shouldn’t everyone else?