We all suffer Buyer's Remorse from time to time. When that funky kitchen tool falls to bits after three days, or the hotel room you booked for a weekend break hoping for a good view has most of its rooms facing the surrounding buildings. 

Most times, we shrug it off as bad luck and get on with life. 

It gets far more serious when we are beguiled by glossy and attractive promises by politicians that we end up voting for them and are then more than just mildly disappointed…for years.

Britain has just gone through exactly that, with the result being the embarrassing enforced ejection of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The exact process of this political execution is not important as he was sacked by his own party, but his popularity with the public had also plunged, with 71 percent of the public thinking he was doing a bad job, according to a recent YouGov poll. 

According to past YouGov polls, Johnson had managed to boost his approval rating to 66 pct after about a year of this three years in office. When he stepped down as leader earlier this month it had collapsed to just 23 percent.

America’s former president Donald Trump has a similar popularity profile and by the time he was voted out in 2020, around sixty percent of US citizens disapproved of his performance as  President.

Both these tissue-paper leaders rode to power on a wave of popularist policies, but with the focus on a few ‘hot-button’ issues like immigration with Trump’s Build-the-Wall and Johnson’s Get-Brexit-Done.  

There were, of course, other promises but, as is usual with the peddlers of popularist policies as a means to gain power, they came with the baggage of a litany of lies and falsehoods aimed at frightening the electorate and playing on their innate fears and prejudices.

With a combination of charisma, false promises and outright lies they rode to power and enthusiastic voters rallied round, only to discover a few short years later that their new Emperor had no clothes and the country was getting into a mess and going in the wrong direction. 

Brexit is a classic example. Johnson, who models himself on his alter-ego Winston Churchill the great wartime leader, charged to power pretty much just on the single issue of at last finalising  Brexit, which ended Britain’s 47-year-old partnership with the European Union (EU).  

Barefaced lies were built upon barefaced lies. This, combined with a steadfast refusal to look facts in the face resulted in an inadequate botched divorce agreement with the EU which the government is now frantically trying to back away from and, of course, blaming everyone but themselves. 

Fifty three percent of Britons now believe it was a mistake to leave the European Union but Johnson’s lies were believed at the time and that was enough to tip the balance towards leaving. A referendum now would have the opposite result. Johnson was a weak leader who lied to cover up mistakes and had neither the moral fibre or backbone to confront his own dangerous inadequacies. 

He was a disastrous Prime Minister and his party has rightly kicked him out of the top job. Arguably much too late, but they got there in the end.  

It was much the same with Liar-in-Chief Donald Trump, who I know had a following in Taiwan because of his tough stance on China. But he too was a disastrous leader swept to power on a wave of popularist policies and sea of lies. He was a charismatic showman who played on people’s prejudices saying Hispanics coming across the United States southern border were, to directly quote the man, "bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists."

“They're taking our jobs, they're taking our manufacturing, they're taking our money, they're taking everything, and they're killing us at the border,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Phoenix in July 2015.

Clearly, for most right-thinking people such vile invective has no place in modern democratic politics, nevertheless, Trump became President. 

Full credit to America in realising their mistake and he was booted out of the office after just one term, but as we are now witnessing with the January 6 Capital Riot inquiry, if you allow someone as politically disgusting as Trump to gain power, it can do deep and lasting damage to your democracy and trust in the system of government.

Sadly, I believe the economic damage Johnson has wreaked on the UK economy and the political damage Trump has done to the US democracy, will be long lasting and difficult to resolve. 

It could well result in a change in the political DNA of both countries where honesty and decency are seen as nice-to-haves but no longer essential in the modern era. Aggressive and nasty policies like Britain trying to send immigrants to Rwanda, and constantly shifting blame after mistakes are made could well become the norm. I hope not, but I fear it may become so.  

While Taiwan politics is not tainted with appalling charlatans like Johnson and Trump, it is well to keep a lookout for such types. When you watch the behaviour of our politicians it is not hard to spot those who obfuscate, bend the truth or even shamelessly lie.

Then there are some who just over-promise and get more easily swayed voters to believe their rhetoric, even as reality flies out of the window.    

Kaohsiung once had a Mayor who promised great riches based on a closer relationship with China. He was duly elected but fortunately the electorate realised their mistake and, just as fortunately, he was recalled. It was not only a false promise, but a dangerous one.

Taichung has a Mayor who was voted in on the promise of working wonders over their awful pollution problem. It has never improved. Empty promises made to gain power, you can see the pattern. 

In some individuals the desire to gain power can lead to them either lying outright, or believing their own fantasy that somehow they are God-like and can actually alter reality. Narcissism and arrogance takes over and to a section of the electorate this can act like a drug if they think a ‘strong’ leader is the answer to their problems or the route to a better future.   

The reality is, quite frankly, reality. I’m sorry if that sounds glib, but the old British saying of ‘Jam Tomorrow’ sums it up quite well. The meaning is “a pleasant thing which is often promised but rarely materialises.”

Hoping for a better future is something we all do. Hoping for a better future based on false hopes is something best avoided.

In Greek mythology, Sirens who were part bird and part woman, lured sailors to their death on rocky coasts by seductive singing only to drag them to the depths and eat them. 

Beware political sirens who try to seduce with unrealistic or dangerous promises.    

As a foreigner living in Taiwan I have been shocked and dismayed at the developments in the US and the UK, the country of my birth. It is why I cherish living in a young Taiwanese democracy and the fact that it is, for the most part, currently free from the kind of obnoxious political games playing out in the west in what were once decent and honest democracies.

I hope and pray Taiwan’s voters are never seduced by such people.   

Tinkerty Tonk...