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Saturday 30 August 2008

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Gordon can barely speak English either, so why don’t we swap him for Sarkozy?

And this said with earnest passion, and with a look in his eyes like love. You see what I’m getting at, don’t you? Gordon Brown can barely speak English either. So what would we have to lose? How about a French exchange, at the highest level? We get Sarko, they get Gordo. With all his tinkering, wonking and spending, they would love him. Can he speak French? Who cares? Indeed, after the first couple of sentences, who would even notice?

Obviously, the French exchange model would need a little bit of modification. Otherwise we’d have both of them over here for a month. They’d probably get on OK for a couple of days, although Gordo might be staggered that Sarko had never seen a toaster before.

It wouldn’t last. It never does. Pretty soon they’d be jostling at the despatch box like Asterix and Obelix in suits. Eventually they would have their first full-scale, screaming interlingual argument, which would be about Iraq, or Afghanistan, or the necessity of washing with soap. This would make Gordo throw a strop, and abandon Sarko at a bus-stop halfway back from Madame Tussauds. And then they’d have to do it all over again, but this time in Paris. This would leave us with no Prime Minister at all, and we would have to watch Ed Balls, Jack Straw et al, licking their wolfish chops, like you were always afraid your friends would do over your girlfriend.

No, it would have to be a straight swap. They get ours, we get theirs. They get Gordon, bumbling drearily away about whatever half-baked statism he has decided to impose to get himself out of the hole dug by his last half-baked statism. We get Nicolas, with his brave, stirring pronouncements which we might not agree with but can at least understand. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Just like old times.

I know, I know. There is little point in me writing about the London mayoral election. By the time you read this, quite possibly, you will already know who has won. Still, humour me. At the time of writing, I don’t even know which way to vote. Obviously, it should be Boris. There is nothing personal in that — I have never worked for him, and the few conversations we have ever had have revolved around his fervent, long-standing belief that I once had him pelted with eggs. (I didn’t.) But I’m pretty sure my beliefs are Boris beliefs, not Ken beliefs. I think crime is a problem, and I’m not that interested in Venezuela. I would never suspect Boris of cronyism, or self-righteousness, or of secretly hating me for being a Jew. Boris should be the man. And yet, I am troubled. I love London, and I fear that I love it in Ken ways, not Boris ways. I love that market smell of bananas, fish and cigarettes on a cold winter morning. I love the cultural mess, the Portuguese delis next to halal butchers. I love the congestion charge. God forgive me, but I do. I love night buses, and the bustle of drunks and sluts and madmen. I bet Ken takes night buses. I doubt Boris has for years.

More articles from: Hugo Rifkind | this section

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