Bright Boris and the dim media

Read his rebuttals here.

If the baying pack could borrow a single Boris brain cell, it would raise their collective intelligence by 100 per cent.

His is widely described as a publicity-seeking, gaffe-prone buffoon. He is none of these things.

Reading through his serious political journalism, one gets the clearest impression of sound and crystalline analysis presented by a writer of the first water. His has a wide knowledge of history, politics and culture and applies his penetrating intelligence in the service of all three to puncture fatuities and ask questions which few others ask.

He is not a stand-up comedian whose instant reponses are hilarious but, finally, of little value beyond amusement. He can be extremely witty and amusing and is therefore offered platforms on which these gifts can be displayed, but not his more cerebral talents because the time allotted by TV programmers is insufficient. Comedy producers are not looking for political thinking, merely for quick laughs, which he sometimes provides.

TV suffers from attention deficit disorder. For Boris to articulate his response to a question takes time, which he is denied both by the accidents of modern communications and deliberately, because a laugh - whether with him or at him - is all that is required. He seems to stumble over his words, because the cascading thoughts in his vast brain require time to be ordered and presented. He is unfamiliar with chav culture which makes him an easy target for cheap laughs.

Boris is only to be evaluated in print or when he is accorded the courtesy of time to develop his point, as he is in Parliament but never by the media. They want a toff-buffoon, so they make him one. If he were uneducated and as thick as custard, and spoke Estuary English, they would ignore him or just be rude, but they know he's brighter than them and therefore actually interesting. He's a conundrum. A brilliant man whom they can portray as a mumbling Etonian placeman and a blinkered berk, to boot. A media man's dream.

Insofar as Boris is a jester, he is a wise one. Kings and courtiers recognise this but the rabble are blind so they belt him with his own bladder.

I might say 'poor Boris', but I suspect he's ahead of me as usual and has long accepted the unpleasant realities of life in the public eye. That he takes it all in good part does him credit. So, no 'poor Boris' from me.