Sunday, June 30, 2019

Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt ?

Initially Boris Johnson seemed the best candidate for the Tory leadership role and Prime Minister, at least to me. He had after all done a great job as Mayor of London where he was elected as London Mayor for two consecutive terms, which is no mean feat, given the leftist leaning of the capital.

However although the private lives of countries' leaders may be regarded as being private and not material to their electoral chances, separating one's private life from the public one, becomes more and more difficult the higher profile the public life becomes. By way of example I personally would not have supported Donald Trump for president given the media reports about some of his personal life, although politically, right wing moderation seems to me, preferable to left wing moderation. 

Prince Charles probably recalls the agitation caused by Lady Diana's rift with him before her tragic death  in 1997 and then the further agitation caused by his subsequent marriage in 2005, to a divorced lady, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall.

Public attitudes change and there has been considerable change since 2005 as the marriage in 2018 between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle illustrates. 

Prince Harry's marriage was very popular, not only in the UK and the fact of Meghan Markle's  own divorce in 2013 was hardly an issue. 

The popularity of Meghan Markle  which continues in this country, illustrates the changes in public perception here about the relevance of certain aspects of leaders' private lives to their public duties that has taken place, even since the 2005 marriage of Meghan Markle's  British father in law.

In my personal opinion however, the issues that have become public about the private life of Boris Johnson have become part of his personal  traits that should be considered together with his many positive personal qualities, when looking at his possible role as  UK prime minister during what is a difficult time internationally. 

Having weighed up the information so far known about the two Tory candidates, including the fact that Brexiteers are entitled to feel more cautious about Jeremy Hunt's views on the EU than those of Boris Johnson,  and Boris Johnson's apparently rather colourful private life, I am now, on account of disclosures made recently about the latter, particularly in today's Sunday Times, more inclined to support Jeremy Hunt than Boris Johnson.

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