Could a British TV show be responsible for Boris Johnson's rise to power? Photo / AP
The prime minister's early appearances on Have I Got News For You, a comedy show, helped endear him to the British public.
There are many theories about how Boris Johnson, Britain's prime minister, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, another politician leading Britain's exit from the European Union, rose to power.
They were destined to lead thanks to their drive and privileged backgrounds, some say. Or they were best able to tap into a public mood that had soured against the European Union.
But a good many watchers of British television and politics trace the two men's ascent to something else: Have I Got News for You, a long-running BBC quiz show that began its newest season this month.
An institution in Britain, Have I Got News For You began airing in 1990 and runs Friday nights on the BBC's main channel, averaging 4 million viewers. Highlights appear on Twitter and YouTube, while old episodes play endlessly on Dave, a comedy network.
It's a simple show. Two captains — Ian Hislop, the much-feared editor of Private Eye, a satirical magazine, and Paul Merton, a comedian — are joined by star guests, often politicians, to joke and answer questions about the week's news.
Political guests are subject to continual mockery, especially if they have a scandalous past or their policies appear muddled. But for those willing to be laughed at, and to laugh at themselves, the show has become a way to endear themselves to the public in a country where self-deprecation is an art form.
The show is mentioned repeatedly in profiles of Johnson and Rees-Mogg. Johnson's appearances were "pop culture classics," wrote Sonia Purnell in Just Boris, a biography. "In the end his TV career may have proved his greatest electoral asset," she added.
Johnson's first appearance, in 1998, occurred when he was a journalist and failed Conservative Party parliamentary candidate. Richard Wilson, one of the show's executive producers, said he saw Johnson, straw-haired and spouting arcane references, on a news show one night, thought, "He's a slightly ludicrous figure" and decided to book him.
During Johnson's appearance, he was asked about a notorious episode in which he was secretly recorded offering to help a friend find the address of a reporter whom the friend, who was later convicted of fraud, wanted to beat up.
Johnson flailed around a bit but kept his wits.
"I'm not ashamed of it," he said.
"What are you not ashamed of there, Boris?" he was asked.
"Whatever there is not to be ashamed of," he added. The audience howled with laughter.
Johnson ended up appearing six more times, honing his bumbling persona in the process. (He would mess up his hair just before the cameras rolled, Wilson said.) For one appearance he was even once nominated for a BAFTA, the British equivalent of an Emmy, for "best entertainment performance."
Meanwhile, his political star rose. He won election to the House of Commons in 2001, then became mayor of London (he stopped appearing on Have I Got News For You after announcing his candidacy for that role). He became prime minister this July following discontent over how his predecessor, Theresa May, had handled negotiations to extricate Britain from the European Union.
Emily Rayner, a civil servant standing in the queue for a recent taping of the show in Borehamwood, a commuter town north of London, said she knew people who had voted for Johnson "because they thought he's got character, he's been on Have I Got News for You."
Another leading Brexit voice, Rees-Mogg, the House of Commons leader, also got widespread attention from the show, which introduced many people to his antiquarian manner of speech and dress.
Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party, has been on the show as well, though he was already well known by the time he first appeared.
For those disinclined to favor Johnson, Rees-Mogg, Brexit or all three, the show has become an easy target for finger-wagging.
"Have I Got News for You is partially responsible for this whole mess," wrote Stuart Heritage in The Guardian in April. Johnson's "entire buffoonish eye-rolling Oh-Boris smokescreen of a persona" was "forged in the fires" of the show, he said. It had also given Rees-Mogg "a reputation as a harmless, self-deprecating Victorian caricature," he added.
Some of the complaints seem far-fetched. The show can hardly be accused of being pro-Brexit or pro-Boris, rarely passing up an opportunity to send up either.
On Tuesday, after Johnson accepted the European Union's offer of a further delay to the Brexit process, a Tweet from the show's popular Twitter account said: "As UK heads into third Brexit extension, country looks forward to another three months of bickering, amateur dramatics and absolutely nothing being achieved before asking the EU for another one."
Hislop, one of the captains, dismissed the idea that the show was behind Johnson's success. "If we ask someone on and people like them, that is up to people," he said in a telephone interview, pointing out he had never given Johnson an easy ride.
(In a 2014 TV documentary about Johnson, however, Hislop said, "There is a sense of guilt that part of Boris' success has been built on his performances.")
The show had been blamed for the rise of politicians on the left, too, Hislop said. He expected criticism soon if Jess Phillips, another popular guest, became leader of Britain's Labour Party. "If in 10 years' time, the country is falling apart due to the fact Jess Phillips has moved violently to the left and totally screwed everything up, there will be people who'll say, 'She's only popular because she was on Have I Got News for You,"" he said.
Jimmy Mulville, co-founder of Hat Trick Productions, the company behind the show, said he didn't lose sleep over Johnson's or Rees-Mogg's rise. If anything "gives me cause for concern" about the show, he said, it was when politicians have used it to rehabilitate their public image. Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former spin doctor who was accused of beefing up the case for Britain and America to invade Iraq, had done just that, Mulville said.
Still, he said, such guests were too high-profile for the show to turn down.
The program sometimes makes headlines itself. Not long after the Britain voted for Brexit in 2016, Gary Lineker, a former soccer star, made a joke on the show about how Brexit may not be completed for 10 years. "That's not fair," he said. "Most of the people who voted for it will be dead by then." It prompted outrage from some Brexit campaigners.
Last year, Have I Got News For You was accused of being sexist for not booking enough female guests. This May the BBC pulled an episode 20 minutes before broadcast because it featured Heidi Allen, then the leader of Change UK, a small anti-Brexit party. The BBC feared that the publicity the episode gave to her party would breach impartiality rules around the European elections. (The show's producers said that they offered to air the show with a square covering Allen's face and bleeping everything she said but that the BBC declined.)
At a recent taping, the guests weren't controversial: Layla Moran, a member of the Liberal Democrats, and Sara Pascoe, a comedian.
But some comments did cause sharp intakes of breath from the more sensitive members of the audience. At one point, there was discussion about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal that included scathing sarcasm about Prince Andrew's association with Epstein (the BBC's on-site lawyer, who watches all tapings for potential libel, didn't appear to object).
Boris Johnson may not have been a guest, but he was a presence throughout.
The first quiz round was called "Boris' Brexit Balls-ups" and made fun of his most recent embarrassments, including allegations that he directed public funds toward a friend and that he had once written a failed film script called "Mission to Assyria."
The host played a clip of one of Johnson's constituents calling him a "filthy piece of toe-rag." "And that's his mother," Merton said. It got one of the biggest laughs of the night.
Written by: Alex Marshall
© 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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