Toad revisited

I am writing shortly before this week’s vote for Mayor of London, which makes it a good time to ask whether Boris is Mr Toad. Hidden away on Sunday night, after the wondrously acted but terminally bleak Vera (Brenda Blethyn can convey more with her squeaky mou noise than some actors manage with ‘God for Harry, England and St George!’), was Perspectives: the Wind in the Willows (ITV1). It was one of those perfectly judged programmes which makes you glad that television exists. Gryff Rhys Jones, who played Mr Toad at the National, was an admirable guide, like those custodians in stately homes who adore the place and want you to share their delight.

He took the view that we all have our inner Toad: selfish, pleased with ourselves, yearning for a life of pleasure. I’ve always thought this is Boris’s appeal to the public, why — in the opinion polls, at any rate — he is far ahead of his own party and his own leader. People like Boris not in spite of his Toadish excesses — his love life, his lack of respect for his nominal superiors, and the way he seems to say whatever pops into his head. People like him because of his failings.  We all have our inner Boris, we are all the junior accountant who wants to snog the prettiest clerk and tell the manager he’s a tosser.

The Wind is, of course, two books — the Elysian paradise of the riverbank, threatened only by the inhabitants of the Wild Wood, merges with the knockabout adventures of Toad. One point the programme didn’t make is that it’s a very conservative tale. Toad has every possible fault. But he is the owner of Toad Hall, so when the working-class stoats and weasels seize it, Ratty, Mole and Badger — the bourgeoisie — are obliged to take it back in order to restore proper order.