‘Wonderfully inane’: the art critic’s view on Boris Johnson’s first photos

The PM seems to be trying to channel Winston Churchill and Barack Obama in his behind-the-scenes pictures. Surely the next step is the Vladimir Putin school of power imagery

The Guardian /Jonathan Jones

Hands in pockets as he pauses on the stairs at Admiralty House before going to see the Queen, Boris Johnson looks at once conscious of the weight of history and boyishly proud. However, while “Action this day” was the wartime slogan of Johnson’s hero, Winston Churchill, the first behind-the-scenes photographs of the new PM by Andrew Parsons, which have been splashed by several newspapers, show that an appropriate motto for Johnson is “Bullshit this day”.

If he isn’t announcing a new railway, he is to be seen thoughtfully staring at three laptops or talking intently with some men and a woman. And yet, like Churchill, he must be seen to be relaxed under pressure. In one photograph, he has put his feet up for a minute and we get a good view of the worn soles of his shoes – still the scruff at heart etc.

I especially like the one of Johnson pointing at himself on a huge TV screen. What a wonderfully inane moment. These pictures have been touted for their authenticity. A conscious parallel is clearly intended with Pete Souza’s intimate reportage of Barack Obama’s White House. Yet Souza’s pictures had the weight of history because Obama was the first African American president of the US. What is Johnson? A chancer whose expensive education hasn’t taught him to distinguish rhetoric from reality.

Surely the next step is the Vladimir Putin school of power imagery. While Johnson ascended to Downing Street, the Russian president was being photographed in a submersible as he prepared to dive to the bottom of the Gulf of Finland. Johnson won’t be able to impress people for long with pictures of him sitting at a desk, even if he is gesturing passionately. He too will have to descend in bathyscaphe if he is to keep even the friendliest papers interested in photos of his working life.

However, for the moment these pictures must suffice – pictures that ask us to feel a thrill of pride that, finally, a president of the Oxford Union has gone on to become prime minister.

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