Masque of the Fat Tosser

The problem with watching as many old films and TV shows as I do is that I end up finding myself framing everything in pop culture terms.  Hence, all these current revelations about lockdown-busting parties at Ten Downing Street have put me in mind of Edgar Allan Poe's 'Masque of the Red Death', or, to be more specific, the 1964 Roger Corman movies inspired by the story.  For anyone unfamiliar with both the story and film's scenario: while a plague (the titular 'Red Death') ravages the country, the wicked Prince Prospero hides away in his castle, with his fellow nobles, and happily continues with his various depravities.  Believing themselves immune from the plague, having sealed themselves off, Prospero and co engage in a series of extravagant revelries, culminating in a masque, during which the 'Red Death' himself appears as an uninvited guest.  The comparisons with Boris Johnson and his cronies seem irresistable - they too seem to believe that they are in a 'bubble' that sets them apart from the rest of the population and outside of the rules they make for them.  Moreover, they seem to think that their rule-breaking and revelries are OK, just so long as nobody else can see them.

Of course, it all breaks down if you try an reimagine the 1964 film in terms of Johnson and the pandemic - I mean, for one thing, Prince Prospero is played by Vincent Price rather than a fat smirking tosser.  Also, the elaborate sexual and sadistic games and culminating masque of the film make the real-life fumblings of Matt Hancock with an aide and the 'Bring Your Own Booze' gatherings at Downing Street look as sordid as they really were.  Of course, in real-life, Covid had already made its visit to Downing Street and proved, in comparison to the 'Red Death', a pretty crap harbinger of death with regard to the revellers.  Although, one has to wonder whether, as he looked Covid in the face, Johnson saw, as Price does in the film, his own face.  or maybe it was Dominic Cummings face?  But, overall, the analogy stands: an elite - who had been happily been using the pandemic to line their own and their friends' pockets  - believing that their wealth and power could protect them from the plague.  Sadly, in real life, Johnson has yet to suffer his comeuppance.  He's still PM and the Tories are still in power.  The best we can hope for, realistically, is that the Tory MPs finally tire of his blundering oafishness and remove him.  But they'll continue in power with the next idiot at the helm, clinging on for as long as possible before an election, hoping that the right-wing press can brainwash the electorate into voting for them again, regardless of their manifest corruption.