GOOD morning. As a man whose achievements are no more than broken marriages and a useless cable car, I find myself having to take credit for other people’s. Here’s how:
Mention them in the same sentence
‘I enjoyed eight successful years as Mayor of London alongside Barack Obama, president of the United States for the same period.’ You’re not actually lying, just misleadingly associating. ‘The UK is blazing a pioneering trail by licensing this vaccine as we leave the EU.’ See?
Always be out front
So the developers of the vaccine are a couple of Turks in a lab in Germany? Well, they don’t have the power to get Pointless cancelled for a press conference starring themselves, and I do. The more idiotic cod-explanatory waffle I throw in, the more everyone’s looking at me.
Be in power
Technically, this vaccine was created under my authority as prime minister. Technically, the great blowjob Jordan Gardner of Reading received this summer was under my authority as prime minister. All of the good things happened under me. All the bad things aren’t my fault, though.
Furiously rebuff criticism on others’ behalf
Whenever Keir Starmer criticises the government’s track-and-trace f**k-ups, I leap to my feet and tear a strip off him for the terrible things he’s saying about our hard-working doctors and nurses battling away through this crisis. And suddenly it’s like I’m one of them.
Fake humility
Apparently some people are ‘humble’ about their achievements. How curious. I wonder why? Anyway, I’ve discovered that if you’re humble about the wonderful things someone else has done, abashedly repeating you don’t deserve credit and so on, people will think you had something to do with it. I know. They’re idiots.
When in doubt, Latin
Someone’s done something clever? Someone’s quoting Catullus at length in the original Latin? Must be the same clever guy!
