Boris is not trump – he’s a liberal, "girly swot" | thearticle

If politics is showbusiness for ugly people, then it is also a popular trade with those who boast an interesting head of hair. There was Julius Caesar, who went to great lengths to hide his

baldness. There were the ‘Roundheads’ and ‘skinheads’ and powdered wig-wearers of yesteryear. And today there’s Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. As Britain’s political parties embark on their

general election campaigns, it is becoming clear that Labour will focus on blonde ambition. Jeremy Corbyn has already called Boris ‘Britain’s Trump’, and the impact that a ‘Trump trade

deal’ would have on the NHS is one of Labour’s key lines of attack. And it’s working: according to a recent Survation poll, nearly half of Britons think that Boris would not protect the NHS

in such a trade deal. Of course, at face (or rather hair) value, Boris and Trump do have much in common. As well as their signature hairstyles, they are both New Yorkers, have had multiple

wives and have a tendency to shoot from the hip. They are both privileged right-wing populists who love Winston Churchill. They both style themselves as the champions of blue-collar voters,

from ‘deplorables’ to the ‘Workington Man’. But are these blonde bombshells the political soulmates that some would have us believe? In cosmetological terms, they might have similar hair,

but their roots are quite different. For one thing, Trump “love(s) the poorly educated”, frequently scolds journalists and, according to his former chief economic advisor, Gary Cohn, “won’t

read anything”. Boris, on the other hand, was an Eton Scholar and is a graduate of Oxford, a former journalist and the author of multiple books. Trump “doesn’t have the time” to read; Boris

thinks that “books are paradise”. In short, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is the kind of bookish intellectual that Trump would usually hold in low regard. Indeed, the ‘Boris’ character

that we all know is, according to his biographer Sonia Purnell, a persona that Boris invented in order to survive prep school and Eton, where his Turkish lineage and European upbringing

didn’t go down all too well. And if a thoughtful bookworm can be found behind the crass remarks and scraggly hair, so too can a fundamentally liberal politician. The same cannot be said of

President Trump. Take their economic philosophies. Trump is first and foremost a businessman and exponent of American economic nationalism who believes in low taxes, private healthcare, high

tariffs and the necessity of a border wall along his country’s southern border. Boris, by contrast, is both more of a social democrat and a free-trader. He is committed to keeping the NHS

‘free at the point of use’, wants Britain to create tax-free ports and sign free-trade agreements around the world, and has called for bridges (not walls) between Northern Ireland and

Scotland, as well as England and France. And whereas Trump is a conservative on social issues, Boris is undeniably a progressive. To be sure, both men have made disrespectful, clumsy and

racist remarks, but Boris’s actions, at least, speak to a genuine liberalism which the US president lacks. Whereas Boris supported the legislation of gay marriage, has explicitly backed the

net zero carbon emissions target and currently presides over the most diverse cabinet in British political history, Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change,

issued an executive order banning Muslims from entering the United States, nominated two deeply conservative Supreme Court judges, and chairs an overwhelmingly male and pale cabinet. Of

course, Boris is yet to be elected into office by the people, and it certainly looks like his opponents will dare his supporters into voting for ‘Britain’s Trump’ during this election

campaign. But, love him or loathe him, it’s important to remember that Boris is not only a liberal but, perhaps to his own dismay, a bit of a swot too. He might have a special relationship

with Trump, and they might share the same barber, but these are two very different beasts.