The Shameless Boris Johnson
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Boris Johnson, like so many other populist charlatans, is a symbol of how much has changed in modern politics—for the worse.
But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
No Profumo
Over the past few days, watching the final meltdown of Boris Johnson’s career, I have been thinking about John Profumo.
Who, you say? Exactly my point.
In 1963, “Jack” Profumo was the U.K. secretary of state for war. He was This would have been bad enough, but it turns out that Keeler was also canoodling with the senior naval attaché at the Soviet embassy in London. (You might have seen the 1989 movie at some point, which was a dramatization of this whole mess.) And then, to compound all his other sins, Profumo tried to lie when he was caught by the British tabloids.
