More Boris Karloff than Boris Johnson.

 More Boris Karloff than Boris Johnson. 

This is beginning to resemble a classic episode of Yes Minister where Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne exchange light hearted pleasantries about government legislation and government red tape. Then the conversation becomes completely lost in any translation and before you know it both are talking a load of nonsense about nothing in particular. For Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne read Boris Johnson. You really couldn't make this one up. Poor old Boris is suffering from what is commonly known as foolhardiness. And that's putting it very mildly. 

On Monday he spoke before the leading businessmen and women about the crucial issue of social care caps and the continuing importance of the NHS. Halfway through his speech Boris crashed into a metaphorical wall, shot himself in the proverbial foot and fell headlong into the prickliest of bushes. Here was the ultimate catastrophe. In fact it couldn't have got any worse had he tried. For a moment Boris looked as if he simply wanted the ground to open up such was the severity of the blunder that had just claimed him. 

For several cringeworthy, deeply embarrassing and barely believable moments Boris Johnson was in danger of being laughed off stage and treated like the end of the pier comedian whose jokes had reduced his audience to a lengthy silence. The Prime Minister really didn't know which way to look. He was both ridiculously apologetic and did nothing but plead for forgiveness. What else could he have done under the circumstances? He'd lost his place, had failed miserably to make himself abundantly clear on anything connected to said speech and it all fizzled out miserably into some peculiar, rumbling undertone. 

So this is how things panned out on Monday afternoon. Johnson outlines all of the major Tory policies on social care and suddenly his voice goes off on some weird tangent that none of us could understand. Then he looks down on his pile of papers and before we knew it the whole performance turned into a Whitehall farce. There was a horribly muddled incoherence about his words and sentences that sounded as if the rest of the speech had been written in a Latin that even he could make neither head nor tail of. 

Almost immediately things went downhill. There was the by now familiar bumbling, fumbling, mumbling and shuffling of papers. Then Johnson just shamefacedly lost his way, rather like a man who was reading last week's shopping list. Suddenly Page One was now Page Five and on Page Three were references to jars of jam, cereal, bread, cleaning fluid and cheese flans. No, that can't be right Boris. He could have sworn that everything had been prepared and was in the right order. And finally  Johnson was reduced to a comical whisper and a desperate plea for understanding. 

Now the latest episode of Yes Minister started imitating reality. Johnson must have felt pathetically isolated, the spotlight burning down on him intently and at this point even improvisation couldn't come to Johnson's rescue. He could have taken a deep breath for a couple of moments and just bluffed his way through an ever increasing sense of crisis. But he didn't because this was damage limitation and besides he was well and truly stuck. So what could he do? The fact is he went off on some hilarious account of his weekend. You know the kind of thing. 

On Sunday Boris and his wife Carrie had taken their children to Peppa Pig World, a theme park for very young toddlers barely out of Farley's rusk, bottles of milk and dummies. He then explained the delights of wandering around a location where all you could hear was the uplifting sound of crying babies and our little darlings throwing tantrums. So it was that Johnson began the painstaking process of back tracking, humouring his audience as best he could and then pretending that nothing untoward had happened. 

For several open mouthed minutes Boris's stunned audience thought their Prime Minister had drunk too many glasses of wine the previous night or that their man had reached a mental roadblock. The blond hair by now was in a state of complete rebellion, the face white and creased with anguish, nay less total confusion and hidden under the Johnson persona was a private longing for the trapdoor. This was Johnson doing what only he can do when faced with adversity only funnier. It was time to blag and make it up on the hoof. Not a chance. 

He then had the audacity to ask his captivated listeners whether they'd heard of Peppa Pig and whether they knew anything about the characters in the book. Some of us are, to be honest, extremely concerned about the Prime Minister's welfare since quoting a children's book in the middle of a gathering for some of the most high profile businessmen and women in the country falls horribly short of what many of us would consider rational behaviour. 

At the end of the meeting everybody left the building none the wiser. Maybe the Prime Minister had finally lost the plot, a man estranged from the real world and staggering around in the dark looking for a light switch. What on earth are you talking about Prime Minister? Can we do anything to help you? The fact is none of us knew where exactly where he was going. If this was meant as a cheap publicity stunt to remind everybody that he was only human and flawed then this was not the way to go about such matters. So his words just vanished into some surreal world of complete incomprehension. 

Today the news topic will probably move onto something entirely different. But you can't help but feel that, for Boris Johnson this has been the week from hell. And we're still on Wednesday. The appeals for forgiveness and clemency were that of a condemned man who had gone down for pinching sweets. So Boris slouched away from the scene of a crime, emotions scattered all over the place and quite possibly giggling because only Boris could get away with treating the serious issues with all the frivolity of clown falling off their cycle. You chuckle for a few seconds before sticking a custard pie in the face of the master of ceremonies. Oh Boris. For how much longer are you going to subject your public to so many acts of buffoonish tomfoolery? It may be time to e-mail 10 Downing Street.