Michael the Third?

By DAVID HORSPOOL

He wasn't angling for it ��� honest: "I never thought I'd be in this position. I did not want it, indeed I did almost everything not to be a candidate for the leadership . . . ". To put it another way, "Your love deserves my thanks; but my desert / Unmeritable shuns your high request". In any case, he really isn't cut out for it: "Whatever charisma is I don't have it, whatever glamour may be I don't think anyone could ever associate me with it". Yes, "so much is my poverty of spirit, / So mighty and so many my defects, / As I had rather hide me from my greatness". 

 
 

Of course it needn't have come to this: "I knew we needed a leader who both believed in this new path and who could build and lead a united team to guide us through the challenges ahead. I believed that Boris Johnson ��� who had campaigned alongside me with such energy and enthusiasm ��� could build and lead that team". That's right, "God be thank'd, there's no need of me, / . . . the royal tree hath left us royal fruit, / Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time, ���/ Will well become the seat of majesty, / ���And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign". ���

But what's this? "I came to realise that, for all Boris's formidable talents, he was not the right person for the task". We are not told why. Something to do with "the corruption of abusing times", no doubt. And "That realisation meant that I once more faced a difficult decision". Exactly: "Alas, why would you heap these cares on me? / I am unfit for state and majesty;��� / I do beseech you, take it not amiss;��� / I cannot nor I will not yield to you���". ���

���But "Could I recommend to friends, colleagues and the country a course in which I no longer believed? I could not. I had to stand up for my convictions. I had to stand up for a different course for this country���". Indeed, "Since you will buckle fortune on my back, / To bear her burthen, whether I will or no, / I must have patience to endure the load���". ���

������What can possibly go wrong?