It’s taken a while but I have finally worked out the major difference between US and UK politics. In a field where presentation is everything there is a fundamental issue about personal branding. And in this particular department America leads the way by some distance.
The current leadership of the United Kingdom has the main offices of State in the hands of a May, a Hammond and a Hunt. Far too many imponderables, uncertainties and voiceless glottal fricatives. It’s no wonder the country is struggling to decide which way to go and so many people wish the Government would drop their ‘H”s.
Over in the USA the team is lead by a Trump, a Pompeo and a Mnuchin. It’s no contest in terms of impact, plosives and a family whose history in the United States began with a Russian-born Jewish diamond dealer who emigrated there from Belgium in 1916. The names sound like characters in a blockbuster film and sometimes have histories to match.
I could also offer Huckabee-Sanders and Lighthizer as examples of the memorable and media friendly names that dominate. But the big, bold, power-names also leave just enough space for the occasional subtler, headline-friendly option like ex-White House Communications Director, Hope Hicks. Perhaps the next British Prime Minister’s spokesperson should be considering a deed poll change to become Aspiration, Austerity or Panic.
There is such a wealth of brand-worthy names available that the President has even been able to dispense with strong contenders. He got rid of a McMaster, who may have sounded too challenging, and a Priebus, who, perhaps, sounded too much like a foreign car in an era where the focus is on US first. Most memorably he even forsook a Scaramucci because he featured too strongly in the operatic section of Bohemian Rhapsody to survive more than 10 days as White House spokesperson.
And where the name itself falls short there are some brilliant nicknames even if they have also fallen by the wayside. Mattis may not have risen to the status of celebrity surname but being called ‘Mad Dog’ was always likely to draw attention. And returning to Mr Scaramucci I can only be in thrall to someone who not only has a name worthy of Hollywood but glories in the nickname ‘The Mooch’.
Part of the brilliance of the best names lies in not being too over the top – teaming plain old Donald, Mike and Steve with a striking surname is part of the trick. Just imagine having Theresa Trump, Jeremy Pompeo and Philip Mnuchin powering through Cabinet meetings. They’d make pretty short work of a Rees-Mogg whose hyphenated Welsh-English surname owes more to channeling Daffodil-Rose than Dragon-Lion.
All of this helps explain why the British media have latched onto the dishevelled, accident-prone figure of Boris Johnson as a potential leader. He has become the one name diva of the current political generation with a unique line in hair. While it’s difficult to credit there is no doubt that he is the Tory party’s equivalent to Beyonce, Pink and Madonna.
The brilliance of Boris is that he has even been able to appropriate the nickname of a US multi-Olympic medal winner and a Golden Globe nominated singer-actress. Sadly, Florence Griffith Joyner passed away in 1998 so there is no chance of the three ever teaming up. BoJo, FloJo and J-Lo might sound like a slightly outre vaudeville act but I suspect that together they could have equalled anything that Groucho, Harpo and Chico managed.
Of course, Boris’s given name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, which incorporates a distinctly Germanic-surname containing more consonants than necessary. In that respect he joins Nigel Farage who has had a little help from the continent with a family name of French Huegenot extraction. The forename-surname rule comes into play here as well because I suspect that Boris Farage would be too exotic and Nigel Johnson too prosaic for public support.
So there you have it. In a world where attention spans get shorter and shorter the route to political success and media approbation lies in having the right name and demonstrating real affinity with popular culture. The era of Tony, John, Gordon, Margaret and David is over and we are looking towards the day, depending on who wins the Premier League, when Pep.U.Up or JuergenaImojiMe2? have a realistic shot at leading the country as it seeks re-entry to the China-European Union Alliance in 2050.