In his first Prime Minister’s Questions since taking on the top job, the new premier vehemently defended his ground-breaking track record of 100% failure of votes in the House of Commons. It appeared that the difficulty was getting to him, as Johnson’s performance rather brought to mind the Malcolm Tucker line about looking like “a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra,” as he tried to dodge Jeremy Corbyn’s questions, and also get the crowd back on side with a few ripping one-liners which one assumes worked beautifully back in the Oxford Union debating chamber.

Bear in mind that Corbyn’s initial performances at the dispatch boxes left something to be desired. Fronting off against Cameron, who seemed to have been lovingly nursed from a pup by a high-ranking City PR company, Corbyn would propose a query which had been sent in from Valerie in Shoreditch, let’s say, which would only be smacked down by some withering remark which delighted the dinner jackets of the Government benches. Corbyn, as if appearing via Skype with a faulty connection, would merely move on with another line of inquiry, this time from Brian just outside Shropshire.

But on Wednesday, even the Labour leader’s critics were forced to admit that he was on form as he maintained a coherent thread throughout his inquisition, and got more than a few good punches in all the while. It certainly helped that Johnson was flopping about in the manner of a particularly witless salmon that has just caught a bear winking at it.

If the mask has not slipped, then suffice to say it is wearing rather thin. The man who proclaimed as a child that he aspired to be “world king,” is finding that fulfilling the job of Prime Minister to be far less appealing than possessing the title.

It is often said that Johnson has in mind his predecessors who achieved greatness through their time in office. Yet what he fails to realise is that they did not set out to achieve greatness as their primary goal and motivating factor, but rather it is something that happened as a result of their efforts.

Churchill, for instance, embarked on a Parliamentary career not out of some Messiah-complexed lust for glory but because that is generally what was expected of his class, in lieu of a Saturday job for a bit of extra pocket money.

For most of his career Winston Spencer Churchill was considered a party oddball or loudmouth eccentric, in the style of Nadine Dorres say, but with an undoubtedly skillful turn of phrase. But for the world as it was then known disintegrating and falling to chaos and ruin, he would not have had a chance of rising to the premiership. Due to his rising to the occasion when the occasion arose, and doing what no one else wanted to, he is remembered as the giant on whose shoulders his successors may now stand.

Those who go out, instinctively, in search of greatness and glory are likely to, at best, be remembered as a glitch in the fabric of time, a historical irrelevance, or at worst as a complete and utter disaster.

 

For the full version of this parliamentary sketch, visit The Scallion.