Rhymes and Routes: Boris Johnson and the Rasputin Effect

As I type, Andrew Castle on LBC is holding a debate about the failure of the Labour Party in the Hartlepool byelection. This is a debate being held in all sections of the media, in homes and offices and, one hopes, in Labour Party Headquarters. What has not yet been questioned is how someone like Boris Johnson has risen to be our PM and, more pressing, is: why does he appear to an unstoppable winner?

A seemingly perceptive article in The Byline Times would have it that "...Labour appears to be a toxic brand". It goes on to say that Labour's policies in the 2019 Election were initially popular with the public, but...

"According to polls, Labour’s headline policies were popular. 73% of voters supported increasing the minimum wage to £10, 66% supported tax rises for those earning more than £80,000 – and so on. However, pollsters found that, when these policies were attached to the Labour Party, their popularity dropped markedly".

If this is correct, then Labour has much to do. The debate has begun, and will rage for a long time. But, rather than add to what is admittedly an important controversy, I would like to examine the role of Johnson's personality in his present electoral success. To my surprise, and, no doubt, many people's incredulity, there are distinct similarities to the career of Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin (1869 - 1917), I am well aware that there are many differences between these two men. Some people will undoubtedly point out the more crassly obvious differences, but certain common factors are unmistakably clear.

Most people know the name of Rasputin thanks to a very potted musical history put out on record in the 70s by Boney M (if you don't remember it, click HERE). Unusually for a pop song, it contains a modicum of truth about Rasputin in the lyrics. Although never an ordained monk, as some believed at the time, he was known as a mystic and a healer who came to the attention of the Russian royal family. Remarkably, and all historians admit this, he did seem to be able to help the young Tsarevich Alexei's haemophilia. Rasputin's apparent healing skills led to his being included in the royal family's entourage. People familiar with the song, however, will best remember the chorus, where we learn that Rasputin was "Russia's greatest love machine" and the "lover of the Russian Queen". The latter claim is dismissed by historians (although Rasputin himself bragged about it), but the former has an element of truth, and that brings us to the first similarity to Boris Johnson.

Both men share what might be described as a "liking for the ladies" and an indifference to public notoriety and scandal. Rasputin exploited his status as adviser to the court to the full. As "History Collection" says:

"... many admiring women visited him simply for sex. Lots and lots of sex. Rasputin was, by all accounts, what would be considered today a sex addict, with enviable stamina and staying power. Saint Petersburg’s authorities posted plainclothes policemen at Rasputin’s building, and their reports frequently described dozens of women, from prostitutes to high ranking aristocrats, visiting his apartment".

Boris has never quite accomplished this, but has tried very hard, as many commentators and newspapers have salaciously documented, not least in one revealing article in The Sun. From this article alone - pre Jennifer Arcuri - we learn of his two previous marriages and many known affairs (there are probably many more to be discovered). And, as with Rasputin, the widespread notoriety of his peccadilloes have done him no harm politically. It's not been noted, but Boris is the first prime minister to live in 10 Downing Street with an unmarried partner and a child born out of wedlock. And he still remains largely popular with the media. Have we become more tolerant? I have reservations about that. Had our PM been a woman with two failed marriages, a torrid sexual history and an illegitimate child, I believe the political and media fallout would have been very different.

But I digress. The other similarity between these two very different men is that they both seem unassailable, at least to themselves and their admirers. Rasputin was not well liked by everyone in Russia, even in his heyday, but he enjoyed the protection of the Tsar and Tsarina. Any court official who tried to act against Rasputin soon found themselves en route to Siberia. I have no doubt that Johnson, despite the allegations of sleaze made against him, feels himself more secure after the Hartlepool result. In fact, Labour activists phoning in to LBC this morning are saying that these accusations were of no interest to voters on the doorstep.

Perhaps not to them, but they are to some people in the Conservative Party, and this could point to a coming similarity between Boris and Rasputin: an internal coup. Rasputin was not removed by popular unrest. He was assassinated, in a legendary long-drawn-out attack, by a group of Russian aristocrats who were concerned about the negative influence of Rasputin on the royal family. There are Remainer Conservatives who bear Boris no love for the way he sidelined them before, during and after Brexit. There are others who deplore the conduct of what they see as the Boris Johnson clique's undermining of traditional conservative values. One of these disgruntled Tories is the writer, Peter Oborne, who writes, on the Open Democracy website:
"Brexit has mutated ... into a brutal assault on everything we stand for.
Like Paul Johnson turning his back on Labour forty years ago, there is no way that I can as a lifelong Conservative vote for Boris Johnson’s revolutionary clique..."

Besides this, there are the sleaze inquiries that may well (probably?) find incriminating evidence against the PM. Should that happen, there could be an internal revolt by dissenting Tories to remove Johnson. He may not be poisoned, shot and thrown in the nearest river like Rasputin, but his fall will be spectacular.