MARTIAL law was briefly declared in South Korea yesterday because the president was in trouble, arousing wistful longings in these prime ministers:
Boris Johnson, 2019-2022
Not a natural authoritarian, Johnson looks back at the beginning of lockdown and wishes he’d done the Churchillian thing by dissolving parliament, announcing a government of national unity headed by himself and suspending press freedoms indefinitely. For the Guardian, Mirror and BBC. All the rest are his mates, they’d be fine.
Gordon Brown, 2007-2010
On reflection, the credit crunch was an ideal opportunity to get the troops out given that money matters more than people, Brown often muses. Outlawing the opposition would have been an act of kindness. And imagine how much it would piss Tony off for his successor to be named president-for-life.
Theresa May, 2016-2019
Rebellious representatives not doing what you want? Young people protesting? Nobody listening even when you shout? May looks at president Yoon Suk Yeol and sees a reasonable man taking fair, measured steps to do what was right for his country. What a paradise Britain would now be if she’d done the same.
Tony Blair, 1997-2007
Not a bad kind of martial law. Not the Tiananmen Square kind that has such terrible optics. But a friendly, matey, sorry-I-have-to-do-this-guys kind of martial law, perhaps where soldiers are allowed to wear jeans and polo shirts. Yes a curfew, but understandingly enforced. Dissolving parliament apologetically. He could have got away with it, early on.
Nick Clegg, 2010-2015
Not technically prime minister but only an assassination away, and that would have made a marvellous pretext. A pause in democracy to rejig it and get it right; proportional representation, free university, justice for Cleggs. Still thinks back to that moment when he was behind David holding the knife. Instead he sliced the jamón for the sandwiches.
Liz Truss, 2022-2022
On day one. Obviously.
