The icarus of downing street | thearticle

We love a hero. As parents we go along with the cult of the superhero, larger-than-life beings with superhuman powers. Characters like Batman and Captain Marvel star in modern morality plays

in which good ultimately triumphs over evil. In these weeks, when the Fates, the weaving goddesses who assign individual destinies to mortals, have returned to haunt our classicist Prime

Minister, it’s worth reflecting on the nature of heroism, those who seek it, those to whom it falls naturally and those who perish in its quest. The word hero comes from the Greek ἥρως or

heros — literally protector or defender. In classical mythology heroes are semi-divine creatures who live and die in the pursuit of honour. But they can also be amoral, blindly ambitious and

foolhardy, a mixture of the flawed and the fearless. What we know of Johnson from his teachers, his family and his biographers is that he craves greatness, glory, above all else. He yearns

to be a hero, which explains why he is drawn to real-life heroes like Volodymir Zelensky, Ukraine’s improbable warrior president. The rape of Ukraine is a story filled with the elements of a

Greek tragedy: a turning point in modern history, pitting the forces of freedom against a tyrant who wants to turn the clock back to the dark ages of Russian imperialism. Johnson’s jaunt to

Kyiv for a photo opportunity with Zelensky was in part a ploy to distract his tormentors who wish him gone. But it also speaks to the Prime Minister’s inner hero. His support for Ukraine is

part conviction and part reverie. Rubbing shoulders with Zelensky, recipient of the John F. Kennedy award for courage for marshalling “the spirit, patriotism and sacrifice of his people in

a life-or-death fight” (inevitably conjuring up Churchill) must be exhilarating. Beleaguered at home, vilified for his self-evident guilt in breaking the very Covid rules he enacted, faced

with an investigation into whether he lied to Parliament, Johnson, as Simon Jenkins says, would dearly love to swap places with the hero of Ukraine. Johnson’s all-time hero, by all accounts,

is Pericles, the soldier-statesman of fifth century Athens. Johnson has carefully cultivated his classical aesthetic since university — carrying, we are told, a bust of Pericles from office

to office. One now sits in Number 10. Pericles loved big ideas (he built the Acropolis). He transformed Athens into a leading maritime power. He was a populist. He was an accomplished

orator. He came from a celebrity family. He was a patriot and he had unbounded belief in himself. Pericles might not have been out of place at Eton. Johnson no doubt imagines he would have

been at home ruling Athens in its glory days. But Johnson is no Pericles. He would like us to believe that, for all his self-avowed blemishes, he possesses noble traits. His diehard

supporters argue that he must be forgiven his flaws because, in the words of Jacob Rees-Mogg, he is a “great man” doing great things. Johnson yearns to be seen as a transformative figure

which, in a way, he is. He delivered Brexit, a decisive fork in road that leads Britain to glory or slow decline. But Brexit is done and (almost) dusted. It is not, as his handlers hope, the

gift that will keep on giving. To stay in power, let alone win it again, the Tory leader must do what he says he wants to do (if only party poopers would just let Partygate drop), which is

to deliver. But Johnson seems incapable of doing this, not least because he has ensnared himself in a crisis of his own making. Had he fessed up at the start and sought forgiveness for those

parties instead of deflecting blame, denying and forcing his party to defend the indefensible, he might have got away with it. Previously loyal backbenchers are turning against him. Others

wait to see which way the wind blows. It must be exhausting. It’s certainly a monumental waste of the Government’s time. Grandstanding on the world stage will not address the problems

Britain faces. The country faces a cost of living storm that will inevitably hit hardest those who can least afford it, many of whom are in those famous Red Wall constituencies. Levelling

up, the great hope of Johnson’s second term, the main course to the Brexit entrée, remains little more than an underfunded slogan. Sending refugees to Rwanda may satisfy some voters, but

it’s unworkable as well as unethical. Threatening once again to tear up the Northern Ireland protocol — as the pound slides to its weakest level since 2020, retail sales and trade slump, and

inflation surges driven by exploding energy prices — is another mistake. Number 10 seems to think that doubling down on the Brexit agenda will shore up Tory support in key marginals. But

without an economic recovery, that will not work. Voters will see it for what is it is — a distraction. There is no obvious strategy for growth. Social care and energy security remain ships

stranded at low tide. Partygate, for all the sophistry deployed by Number 10, has done real, perhaps irreparable damage. Voters just don’t believe him. The Tory party is tired and fractious.

Two years on from a resounding election victory and two years out from the next, it can’t decide whether to ditch a leader whose fortunes are sinking in the polls or plough on in the hope

that something turns up. The hope that Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, might emerge as a post-Johnson lifesaver is gone. He turns out to be a clever man with feet of clay. There is something

almost pitiful about Johnson. On the day he jetted off to India he suffered two further, humiliating blows. MPs (including his own) backed a motion to investigate whether he lied to

parliament over Partygate, while senior backbenchers with clout declared in the words of arch-Brexiter Steve Baker, that he “now should be long gone”. Johnson resembles not so much Pericles

as Icarus, the tragic hero in Greek mythology, who failed to make the transition from boyhood to manhood. Warned by his father Daedalus, who had built wings from feathers and wax, not to fly

too close to the sun, Icarus over-reached, with fatal consequences. To be a real hero, it is just not enough to be a boy wonder. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication

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