The Shakespearean analogies to the Boris Johnson stance in government are very apposite in Edward Docx’s brilliant long read (The clown king: how Boris Johnson made it by playing the fool, 18 March). But we can draw other analogies, showing the deeper decay of truth brought about by the clown/fool role that Johnson adopts – Richard III, Iago in Othello and Edmund in King Lear.
These tragic antiheroes/villains use the stance of the fool as a subverter of the social order, and intermediary and interpreter of the action for the audience. They do it not to reveal truth, like the classic fools Feste and Lear’s Fool, but to gain power for themselves in the most cynical way – revealing their manipulation as they exercise it, daring the other characters and audience to doubt them. There are so many examples of this by Johnson; the most blatant must be “We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead”. They invite listeners to collude in the lie, implying they will all gain from it, and equally be able to deny it at the same time. Truth dies. Let us study these plays to think how these malevolent twisters can be out-fooled, and truth be spoken and acted out.
Rev Stephen Roe
Chatham, Kent
• Edward Docx omits to name the models for Johnson’s clowning. Weak jokes, bad hair and absurd overexcitement when sighting young women – the Benny Hill plagiarism is clear. Hill had more dignity and integrity in his little finger than has Johnson in his whole body. It is on Hill’s characters that the most incompetent PM in history models himself. Voters should be reminded of this at his every public appearance by the blasting out of Yakety Sax.
Angus Gellatly
Oxford
• Rafael Behr points out Boris Johnson’s belief that he is modelling himself on Churchill, and notes the costs of his procrastination (Johnson wants to move on from Covid – 125,000 deaths shows why we need an inquiry, 17 March). Clearly Johnson has gone further back to find models: Fabius Maximus, nicknamed Cunctator (“the delayer”) and Ethelred the Unready.
Ian W Sutherland
Edinburgh
