Boris Johnson second rate? No way.

When I look at the behaviour of the Johnson government, the thought “second rate” always springs to mind. Only to be replaced by, “that’s so unfair”. Followed by a swift reassessment.

Gentle humour, charmingly readable

Decades ago – oh, it was probably the seventies – I discovered the books of George Mikes. Most English speakers pronounce the name as though it were the plural of the nickname ‘Mike’. Or rather, since practically no English speaker even remembers him, perhaps I should say that they used to pronounce the name that way.

He was Hungarian by birth, though he lived most of his life in England. Strictly his name ought to be pronounced something like Mick-esh or possibly Meek-esh. But I like to think of him as Mikes.

He wrote a whole series of books commenting on the different nations he visited, starting with his adopted country, Britain. Just the title of the first of those books gives a feel for his style: How to be an Alien: a handbook for beginners and more advanced pupils. His books were light-hearted, humorous reflections on the behaviour and attitudes of various countries.

In one of his books, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to find the passage now, he mentions that a critic had called his writing second rate. He rejected this notion as a wild exaggeration. By way of explanation, he gave a ranking of authors, which again I don’t remember, but here’s a similar, if partial and entirely personal, ranking of my own.

In the ‘first rate’ I’d want to include Jane Austen, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Graham Greene, George Orwell, Harper Lee, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett.

So in the ‘second rate’ I’d have to have Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, Joseph Conrad, Joseph Heller, John le Carré and Hilary Mantel.

I’m not going to bore you by going down a whole list, but simply point out that the second rate is made up of outstanding writers, whose names will ring down the ages, and who produced extraordinary books.

Mikes reckoned that he was at best tenth rate, which is probably about right. He’s down there with other writers who entertain and help you wile away a dull hour – you know, John Grisham and Nevil Shute – good writers (well, Shute was a lousy writer but a great story teller) who hit the spot but are a long way behind the best.

Now we can take the same approach to government. We need to be careful, however, because there are more factors to take into account. Competence is crucial, but competence applied to do harm is a defect, not a virtue.

On those grounds, while Abraham Lincoln in the US, Clement Attlee in the UK or Pierre Mendès France in 1950s France, were all first rate, we’d have to say that Tony Blair, whose government might have been first or second rate without Iraq, tuned out at best third rate in the end.

Because they were competent and did more harm than good, I’d have to put the Wilson governments up into second rate. Equally, the Callaghan government didn’t do too much wrong, entitling his time in office to be viewed as third rate.

Maggie Thatcher was extremely able and powerful, but did huge harm, wiping out whole communities (a few years ago, I revisited a village in Yorkshire which was once thriving when it its mine was running, to find it run down, shrunk in population and with 40% of the population on either unemployment or invalidity benefit, victims of Thatcher’s vandalism).

Twelfth rate at best.

When the amateur burglars pay a call
A fine metaphor for the inept playing at Thatcher

I remember an advert from a long time ago for an insurance company. It showed a devastated living room, with books and records all over the floor, amongst the ruins of broken furniture, devices and pictures. The catch phrase was something like, “If you think professional burglars are a threat, wait until the amateurs pay you a visit”.

Well, if we think that the competent Thatcher was a damaging presence, we now need to absorb just how much damage an incompetent version of the same can do. Think of a government that stumbles from crisis to crisis with no plan or guiding philosophy except its own self-aggrandisement, that takes its decisions too late and applies them too weakly, that sacrifices lives to profits in cruel indifference to the suffering and bereavement it causes, and then seeks to blames its advisers for its shortcomings. Yep. You’ve got it. That’s the Johnson government. Thatcher redux, without the ability.

Second rate, this lot? Way beyond their reach

Shall we say twentieth rate for the Johnson government? Or, OK, let’s be generous, maybe nineteenth. But second rate? Nah. They’re nowhere near that good.

As Mikes made clear, second rate is pretty remarkable.

The Johnson crowd comes way, way down below that on the Mikes scale.