Boris Johnson would walk a general election

The rise of the buffoon was inevitable if we paid any attention to recent trends. Schwarzenegger, Bush, Berlusconi, all of them are clowns in their own right. The popularity of Boris – a man so fastidiously adored that he can buck unprecedented electoral trends to keep hold of the Mayoralty – is more than simply an enigma. To think so would undermine the significance of more structural issues at hand. He’s, to put it bluntly, a type of leader whose time has come.

When getting caught on a zip wire leads to you trending on Twitter for the next 12 hours because people are using the incident to remind themselves why they love you so much, you’re in odd territory for a politician. Politicians are supposed to be polished, statesmanlike, well dressed and groomed, to know the lines and repeat the lines and repeat them again, and again, until the people take in the lines and believe the lines. I’m paraphrasing Peter Mandelson there. This is how the technocrats do politics.

But Boris’ recent surge in popularity is not incidental. If it is “the end of history” as Francis Fukuyama claimed, and liberal democracy is the pinnacle of political evolution, then technocracy is arguably the most rational means by which to govern. Except the electorate rejected technocracy, manifestly observed in the decline of New Labour and the failure of David Cameron is win a majority with his own version of “modernising” Conservatism.

Boris effectively holds a mirror up to technocracy, parodies the entire means through which we relate to politics, and in doing so has caught the public mood. To the people, the political arena is a circus, and Boris is happy to play the clown. After all, people have more affinity with the clown than the ringmaster.

If rumours are to be believed, David Cameron has conceded in private his belief that he’s a one term prime minister. It is no surprise that many in the Conservative Party and in the commentariat have touted Boris as his ideal successor. What would be the implications for Labour if this became reality? Ed Miliband has worked hard reforming the Labour Party on a policy level. His movement away from New Labour’s market-oriented approach to values and ideas that fit within the Blue Labour framework has been beneficial in informing his position on the financial sector, which has given the party a sustained lead in the polls.

But we still do politics in a technocratic way. Connecting with the electorate requires a transgression from the old way of doing politics, the means that deters so many from political engagement. Boris’ ability to transcend that, to connect with people on a human level, to laugh at himself and not take himself too seriously, is a valuable commodity in the current climate. His stock is high, and if he was to lead the Tories into 2015, I fear he’d absolutely walk it.