‘Embrace immigration!’ – Boris‘n’Donald’s seven-point guide to being a highly effective politician
|
Version 0 of 1. Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, it has been observed, look like two peas in a particularly pasty pod. They share a similar shock of hair, the same pie-eating grin, and eyes that are always on the prize. But it’s not just looks that they share. Both men have overcome all odds and a great deal of ridicule to rise to their respective positions as foreign secretary of Britain and prospective leader of the free world. How did these men get to where they are today? Well, there was an Eton education, for one. And a very large inheritance for the other. But these are minor details. While money matters, it is myths that maketh a man and both have built a story around their success. Trump is the maverick captain of industry, a guru of greatness and author of books such as The Art of the Deal, How to Get Rich and Surviving at the Top, while, Johnson has attempted to cast himself as a latter-day Churchill. His biography of the revered statesman, The Churchill Factor, invites one to see Johnson’s own eccentricities as Churchillian strengths. And Johnson has said that he has often used Churchill as a justification “for the way I do things”. The Johnson/Trump myth-making suggests that if you wish to follow in their footsteps, you will need to possess unique business brilliance or to be Churchill reincarnated. Luckily, this is not actually the case. So here is a more honest account of what it takes to be the next Johnson or Trump. Follow these seven habits of highly effective politicians and you, too, may propel yourself into a prime political position. 1. Believe in yourself completely Trump is often called a narcissist, as if this were an insult. However, research shows we tend to judge narcissists as more confident, intelligent and attractive than other people. So work hard on inflating your sense of self and building your personal brand. Embrace your ego and think big. Johnson’s earliest ambition was to be “World King”. The fact that there is no such position hasn’t stopped him working towards it, and it shouldn’t stop you. 2. Don’t be afraid to make racist jokes Conventional wisdom is that diplomacy is a good quality for the person in charge of UK foreign policy. However, Johnson has made off-colour jokes about people of colour and won a £1,000 prize for a rude limerick about the Turkish president having sex with a goat. And Trump has turned insult into an art. So, speak your mind and if you have a racist goat joke, go for it. 3. Demonstrate an admiration for creative accounting Paying tax is a sign of weakness and ignorance. Information from 1981, the last time Trump’s income-tax returns were made public, shows that he paid $0 in income taxes. This was perfectly legal, of course; he took advantage of a tax-code provision popular with developers that allowed him to report negative income. One imagines Johnson would have approved; one of the things he seems to admire about Churchill is the great man’s creativity with tax avoidance. “The best thing,” he said in an interview, “was Churchill got an advance of £20,000, when he was chancellor … he got some brilliant accountant to deem that since he had become a politician, any literary earning ceased to be income. That it was capital gains. And he didn’t pay any tax!” 4. Never compromise Boris Johnson has said that his “policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it”. Compromising is a sign of weakness and will compromise your image. Stick to your guns even if you have a nagging feeling that you’re wrong. 5. Talent imitates, genius steals The biggest news of the Republican national convention was that Melania Trump’s speech appeared to plagiarise a speech by Michelle Obama. While haters seem to think this was a problem, winners know that there’s no need to waste time reinventing the wheel when you can just appropriate one. Indeed, Trump has done this many times himself. A New York Times investigation found that several pages in textbooks from the Trump Institute were copied from a book in a set entitled the Real Estate Mastery System, a series unaffiliated with Trump. 6. Embrace immigration Immigration is a tough one. Pandering to prejudice is a good political strategy, but sometimes you need some cheap labour. As Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, once said: “We need immigrants … Who’s going to vacuum our living rooms and clean up after us?” And Trump Tower would never have been made had it not been for the cost-effective Mexican and Polish contruction workers. Meanwhile, Johnson used anti-immigration sentiment to help pull Britain out of the EU — only a few years after saying that, as the “descendant of immigrants” he “is the only politician I know of who is actually willing to stand up and say that he’s pro-immigration”. So sometimes hypocrisy is simply the best policy I’m afraid. 7. Realise people can’t handle the truth “I play to people’s fantasies,” Trump wrote in his bestseller The Art of the Deal. “I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration — and a very effective form of promotion.” The truth, you see, is a nebulous thing. A work in progress. Don’t be afraid to revise it for the better. We can all create the truth we want to see in the world. As Melania Trump once said: Yes we can! |