Numquam Censuit Boris

You don’t have to be Mary Beard to know this means “I never voted for Boris”. Latin is a neat language – concise.

I voted for Jeremy Hunt in the leadership ballot and Xingang Wang in the General Election. If I may digress he is the candidate that put the ass in assonant but he’s a Tory ass so I gave my X to Xingang (he lost Hammersmith). His name, to digress, is curious. Chinese nomenclature is surname, first name – so Smith, John. My candidate should properly be Wang Xingang and I wonder if he was named for the Chinese film actor of that  name (born 1932); the winner of Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers awards?

Numquam censuit Liz and it is most unlikely I will ever have the opportunity to do so. That’s how democracy works here; parliamentary not presidential, Party not Prime Minister. Over lunch last week a friend drew a parallel between Prime Ministers a century apart: LLoyd George (PM 1916 – 1922) and Johnson (PM 2019 – 2022). Both elected to solve knotty problems – World War I and Brexit – and dumped when their job was done. The same might be said of Brown (PM 2007 – 2010) and Churchill (PM 1940 – 1945). Churchill and Cincinnatus were come-back kids – Johnson?

Liz Truss looks more like a Brown than a Churchill (or Thatcher). She’s in at the fag end of a twenty-two year Tory innings, a tail-ender not a night watchman – to stretch the analogy. But Gordon Brown had principles and vision that transcended his brief premiership. I have a suspicion Truss will pander to the polls and put the country deeper in the poo. Rescue me …