Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are nothing more than sulking toddlers, says Christa Ackroyd

Actually I know a bit about sulkers. Our son was a mega sulker and we often tried to use humour to snap out of it by awarding him first bronze, then silver and finally the gold medal for sulking until even he had to smile. But then he was only about five years old when we tried to teach him that nobody likes a sulker, not a grown man. And boy have we witnessed a pair of Pulitzer Prize- winning performances of monumental proportions from a couple of grown men sulkers. You can couch it in all the words you want, bitter, disappointed, paranoid even, but what a pair of pathetic whinging losers the former President of the United States Donald Trump and our very own former Prime Minister Boris Johnson have been these past few days. The big babies. Were there ever two more similar peas in a pod when it comes to the ‘it’s them not me’ attitude that drives me insane. No wonder they got on. They have more than a strange hairstyle in common. Their self belief knows no bounds. Their over inflated opinion of their own abilities is second to none. They listen to no one not even their own conscience.

And what is worse there are still those who say ‘good old Donald, good old Boris they tell it as it is, I’d vote for them,’ despite all their misdemeanours. It amounts to children in the school playground playing the blame game. ‘Please Miss it wasn’t me. Please Miss they are ganging up on me. Please Miss it’s anyone else’s fault but mine that I got caught out.’ When Donald Trump was elected to the top job in the States I was horrified. How could such an egotistical, plumped up peacock reach the highest office in the free world? But more importantly how on earth did people vote for him and not see through him. And if the polls are to be believed want to do so again. No matter what came out, and continues to come out, particularly with his sickening attitude towards women, people still seem intent of believing this man is a God.

Before this last week’s second indictment over classified documents and after the civil claim brought against him by a woman who won $5m in damages for sexual abuse in the changing rooms at a department store, Trump was still riding high in the polls. No matter what he is accused of, or is found guilty of, it has barely dinted his ratings as he attempts to run for office again next year. And what did he call the woman in the changing room assault ? ‘A nut job’ ‘mentally sick’ and a liar. Not to mention the claim that she had loved the whole experience. As if.

Okay that was the civil case but what is worrying is that when he was charged in a criminal case with falsifying business records over a hush money payment to a porn star his ratings actually went up. And that dear readers tells me all I need to know about the good old US of A when bullying, crude behaviour and worse still sexual assault is rewarded with hero worship and the possibility of a comeback.

But then are we really much better in this country? Boris Johnson, in my opinion, was the worst prime minister we have ever had. Teresa May was ridiculed for being dithering and unassertive. Boris Johnson is certainly not that. What he is is a buffoon, a man who took us out of Europe on an election friendly whim without working out or even caring about the consequences. A man who locked us down too late during the pandemic and then for longer than we needed to have been, because we as a country were playing catch up in a global pandemic.

And still there are those who cling onto his coat tails when he hints that he too may make a comeback, saying ‘Good Old Boris at least you know what you got with him.’ Yes you do. You got a man who didn’t think the rules applied to him. A man who partied while people were dying alone. He blew out candles on a birthday cake, attended a bring your own booze party, was even fined for it and still came to the House and denied any wrongdoing because he was told by those who no doubt told him what he wanted to hear that that was the truth.

And so it wasn’t his fault and the parliamentary committee who have spent 14 months investigating must therefore be a ‘kangaroo court’. Just as Donald claims he is the victim of a witch-hunt. It really has been an era of madness that either of them were ever voted into office in the first place but please no more. Give me bland, give me old even, give me anything but what we have had these last few years, two egotistical men full of their own importance without the acumen to carry out the job they were elected to do.

My mum had a great solution for sulking; go away and think about it and only come back when you are truly sorry. Well that’s not going to happen is it? So let Boris and Donald make their speeches and put out their statements and let us read into them what they really are, an attempt to make excuses having been found out. Let them tell the electorate that it is everyone else’s fault but their own. Let them make money building monstrous buildings or writing bitter right wing columns and being paid a fortune to spout their ‘I’m a good guy really’ nonsense.

Above all let them stew in their own mess and sulk for ever and a day. But please god let them nowhere near a position of power ever again. They didn’t deserve it the first time. They showed their true colours when they achieved it. And the worst thing any of us can do is listen to their blustering hyperbole again and again. Boris and Donald have show shown the electorate what happens when you choose a so called orator over someone who actually gives a damn about the people they serve. And mum had another phrase pretty apt for this sorry duo – actions speak louder than words. And they have shown by their actions they deserve all they have got.