Did CJ’s extravagance inspire Boris and Carrie Antoinette?

 A Different View with Dave O’Connell

There was something irritatingly familiar about the whole Boris Johnson/Downing Street flat refurbishment fiasco last week – sort of like we’ve lived through this exact same story before.

And then the penny dropped – because we too had a man at the helm who used to go on television to tell the rest of us to tighten our collective belts while he himself lived the life of a lord on the fat of the land.

Which begs the question – is Boris just the British version of Charlie Haughey?

Because there are obvious links – like getting their friends to trouser up for their life of luxury; being led by their libido like a dog on a long lead; and blessed by an aura of charisma for no obvious reason – other than perhaps that old aphrodisiac of power.

Both of them have, or had, what might be termed a loose interpretation of what constitutes fidelity – and in fact, in terms of public approval, it never did either of them a whole lot of harm.

The fundamental difference of course is that Boris is trying to kit out a grace-and-favour flat that’s not even his; he could be turfed out tomorrow if the electorate have their say, or the Labour Party awakes from its long slumber.

But Haughey was feathering his own nest at Abbeville, his Gandon mansion in leafy Kinsealy, before eventually selling it off and making a massive profit on it.

Neither Boris nor Charlie would be the first political leader to ignore their own message of course, because the world is full of people who prefer the ‘do as I say’ approach to the more difficult ‘do as I do’.

And there are bigger, bloodier despots governing countries where the people are starving on the streets while their leaders, cushioned financially by secret Swiss bank accounts, wash their ample frames in gold-plated baths.

But still, both Johnson and Haughey enjoy, or enjoyed, a lifestyle that was way beyond the one their respective incomes or wealth could ever have funded.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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