At the Covid Inquiry on 20th November 2023 Sir Patrick Vallance criticised the weak leadership of Boris Johnson when was Prime Minister. It was very different from the public image of himself that Johnson promoted when at No.10
There was talk of Churchill when Ukraine leader Zelensky addressed MPs virtually in 2021 which both fits Johnson’s worldview as a Churchill fan and suits the narrative of much of the media most of the time.
Johnson wrote a book The Churchill Factor (2014) whose main purpose was simply to promote Churchill (& Johnson obviously) as a great man who altered history. Johnson argues that Churchill is the ‘resounding rebuttal to all Marxist historians who think history is the story of vast and impersonal economic forces. The point of the Churchill factor is that one man can make all the difference’.
When it comes to Ukraine however the ‘great men’ are not Johnson or Zelensky but Biden, his Foreign Secretary Blinken and Putin. They believe they can shape the future of the world. Indeed the US has already some success in getting, for example, Germany to increase its defence spending. This was a persistent gripe that Trump had about NATO- namely that the US carried most of the financial cost.
The late US socialist Mike Davis has written an interesting (brief) analysis of the current conjuncture east and west where he specifically addresses the great men theory of history. He notes: Everyone is quoting Gramsci on the interregnum, but that assumes that something new will be or could be born. I doubt it. I think what we must diagnose instead is a ruling class brain tumour.’
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/thanatos-triumphant
When one looks at the outcome of recent wars such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya it can be seen they have not turned out as their promoters anticipated. Matters are shaped as much by soldiers and civilians on the ground as much as great men, the difference being that the former often get killed and injured while the latter just move on to other projects.
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