Britain Needs a Bastard

Keir Starmer entered Downing Street promising the political equivalent of a monastery. He was silent on matters of substance, except to say that his administration would be founded on integrity, service, and an end to scandal; government “whiter than white”, with the adults, finally, back in the room. No more circus. No more rogues. Just a decent, serious man restoring trust after the bacchanal of Boris Johnson, and a Tory party that went through leaders like others are rumoured to go through Ukrainian rentboys. Exhausted by 14 years of Tory chaos, the nation acquiesced to the Ming vase strategy.

Almost two years on, Starmer’s net favourability sits at minus 48. Just 22 percent of the populace view him favourably; 70 percent do not. He is, by multiple measures, among the most unpopular Prime Ministers in modern polling history.

The sanctimony was always the problem.

We are endlessly told that politics needs more virtue, more ‘decency’, more leaders who would never dream of embarrassing us at the despatch box or in the tabloids. Yet the historical record, from Westminster to Washington, tells a different story. The leaders who wear their flaws openly, those who drink, philander, bluster, and occasionally bungle in full public view, often command deeper loyalty, greater respect, and, crucially, yield better results. Their vices are known quantities. Voters can calibrate expectations, forgive the human mess, and judge the record on its merits. The sanctimonious, by contrast, set the bar at sainthood. When they inevitably fail to measure up, the disillusionment is total.

We might term it the ‘bastard thesis’. Leaders are simply better: more effective, more popular at their peaks, more trusted in the moments that matter - precisely when they refuse to pretend they are better than the rest of us.

Consider the rogues’ gallery who prove the point. Winston Churchill, Britain’s greatest Prime Minister by any sane reckoning, was a prodigious drinker, a depressive who spoke openly of his “black dog,” and an imperialist whose views would clear a modern seminar room in seconds. None of it was hidden. The nation knew exactly what it was getting: a glorious, flawed bulldog who would fight on the beaches and in the pubs. He delivered civilisation’s narrowest escape.

Notable Churchill devotee, Boris Johnson’s private life was tabloid fodder for decades. The blond ambition, the sheer chaotic joie de vivre, and perhaps Britain’s first politician genuinely unaware how many children he had fathered. Every flaw was public property. His “lovable rogue” persona was not an accident; it was the brand. Voters embraced it, rewarding him with an 80-seat majority. Brexit was delivered, albeit partially, and a Covid vaccine rollout that outpaced most of Europe. The Partygate scandals only began to stick when they started to look like hypocrisy, rather than mere humanity.

The pattern repeats across the West. Bill Clinton’s job approval rating actually rose during the Lewinsky scandal, hitting 73 percent after the House voted to impeach him. He left office with a 66 percent approval rating after delivering peace, prosperity, budget surpluses, and welfare reform. Yet the lies - especially the televised denial and testimony under oath, permanently damaged his personal reputation and moral authority. Jacques Chirac, the French “bulldozer,” shrugged off corruption convictions and a legendary appetite for both food and women, serving two full terms while steering Kosovo and EU enlargement with characteristic Gallic pragmatism. Donald Trump, endlessly denounced as a vulgarian and a threat to democracy, survived two impeachments, countless lawsuits, wall-to-wall media hostility, and two (sorry, three) assassination attempts, yet twice secured the largest vote totals in Republican history. Voters forgave, even celebrated the flaws, because the leadership felt raw, unfiltered, and authentic.

These men are not saints by any stretch of the imagination. They were bastards - visible, unapologetic, occasionally magnificent bastards. And the public, far from recoiling, rewarded them with sustained support precisely because there was no fraudulent halo to shatter.

Now contrast the sanctimonious brigade - the self-proclaimed ‘decent’ men who promised moral renewal and delivered only disappointment. Jimmy Carter ran in 1976 as the honest peanut farmer who would “never lie to you.” He bequeathed America stagflation, an energy crisis, and the Iran hostage humiliation. His approval ratings collapsed, and the pledge became a millstone. François Hollande campaigned as “Mr Normal,” the modest antidote to Sarkozy’s bling. His popularity sank below 20 percent amid economic stagnation and a secret affair that exposed the gulf between image and reality. Emmanuel Macron swept to power as the brilliant outsider, the Jupiterian reformer who would cleanse the corrupt Old Guard. Yet his domestic ratings remain dire, defined by street protests, pension chaos, and technocratic aloofness. In each case, the higher the moral pedestal, the harder and more gleeful the public fall.

And then there is Starmer, the lawyer who would restore integrity. The man who declared an end to scandal. The politician who prioritised process over policy, and promised that, if nothing else, he “followed the rules”. That is perhaps why every U-turn, vanished phone, and lawyerly evasion now lands like a personal insult - because the brand was built on unattainable purity. Had Starmer come clean about the appointment of ‘Prince of Darkness’ Peter Mandelson: “Yes, he’s dirty - but we need him; he’s good at the job” - I doubt anyone beyond Westminster would have batted an eyelid. But the charade of not knowing what was going on in his own office, and his penchant for throwing subordinates under the bus, will now likely prove fatal for this dullest of Prime Ministers. The sanctimony has made the fall steeper than any mere rogue could manage.

Why does this pattern hold? Because politics is not a seminary. Voters are not children who need protecting from the messy truth of human nature. They are adults who understand that power attracts the ambitious, the ruthless, and the occasionally libidinous. They can forgive many things. What they cannot (and will not) forgive, is the insult of being told they are getting a saint when they are actually getting the same old operator in slightly better tailoring. Authenticity, flaws embraced, vices aired, builds trust. Performative virtue destroys it.

Britain today faces structural crises that demand something sterner than sermons: unsustainable debt thanks to a welfare state which outweighs treasury receipts, the scourge of mass migration, stagnant productivity, energy insecurity, and a cultural cohesion coming apart at the seams. These are not problems solved by focus groups. They require ruthlessness, pragmatism, and the willingness to make enemies. In short, they require a leader whose vices are visible; visible enough that we can weigh them honestly against the virtues, rather than a leader whose primary vice is the pretence of having none.

The West does not need more Mr Normals or Jupiter-like technocrats. Britain, especially, does not need another sermon from the mount. It needs more Churchills, more Johnsons in their prime, and, dare I say it, quite possibly a maverick like Nigel Farage. Thankfully, the Reform UK leader has refreshingly well-documented vices. He likes a drink, likes a smoke, and has a rumoured taste for presentable young ladies. All these things are, for my money, firmly in his favour. The man has been subject to establishment scrutiny for the last quarter of a century - compromising revelations are, therefore, unlikely to derail him.

Whether Farage is the right man for the job remains to be seen, but Britain is in dire need of a bastard. At least then we’ll know what we’re voting for - and, what’s more, we might even get something done.

Frank Haviland is the Editor of The New Conservative, and the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West.

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This piece was first published in The European Conservative, and is reproduced by kind permission.