The Economist writes “Historical parallels with Boris Johnson, Britain’s new prime minister, abound. Mr Johnson’s acolytes compare their leader to Winston Churchill, who also once helped Britain out of a pickle in its relations with Europe. Smart alecs opt for George Canning, a fellow Old Etonian with populist tendencies, who became prime minister in 1827—and died in office after just 119 days. David Lloyd George, a Liberal prime minister whose time in office combined huge constitutional changes, political chicanery and enthusiastic infidelity, also fits.
Yet the better comparison is with a more recent and less likely prime minister: Theresa May. Mr Johnson and Mrs May are different species. She was determinedly dull, while he is unstoppably jolly. She ascended to the highest office by careful management of a cabinet job, whereas he almost torpedoed his career with a dodgy stint as foreign secretary. Mrs May embodies a strand of curtain-twitching suburban Conservatism. Mr Johnson represents the party’s wing of cavalier public-school bons vivants. Yet these different political animals have strikingly similar strategies.
Team Johnson has cornered itself on Brexit, painting negotiating red lines with the same enthusiasm as Mrs May. Mr Johnson has promised to take Britain out of the European Union by October 31st, just as Mrs May pledged to do so by March 29th—the missed deadline that, in effect, sealed her fate. Both prime ministers’ Brexit strategies have at their heart the threat that “no deal is better than a bad deal”.
