I finished re-reading Bring up the Bodies by Hilary
Mantel yesterday. I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on anything new under
the shadow of the UK government’s internationally derided criminal incompetence.
Immediately after closing the book, I got to
thinking just how similar is the dynamic between King Henry and Thomas Cromwell
and pseudo-king Johnson and Dominic Cummings. You don’t even have to go as far
as the discarded wives.
Boris Johnson is not the physically impressive
figure Henry VIII was and Cummings is not, despite his own fantasies, the adept,
ingenious manipulator Cromwell was but if we think Cummings is the ultimate
puppet master, we underestimate the strain being put on the strings.
Commentators, including me, have imagined we see
Cummings running things for Boris Johnson but Johnson is the ultimate player and it may be
Cummings who loses his head as Johnson sails ever on untouched in his gigantic, un-anchored cruise ship of privilege.
When the next set of after-the-horse-has-bolted
covid rules that make no sense are landed on the UK public from nowhere with no
notice or proper reasoning or logic –
instead of searching for a rational explanation just imagine the whim of a mad –
self-obsessed- spoiled-brat, misogynist, jingoistic king and it will make a horrible
kind of sense…