Some observers puzzle why Boris Johnson exhibits unconventional manners, yet follows a regal progress towards bothering new neighbours in Downing Street. This is because, like other stand-out leaders (Orban; Kim Yong Un; Putin; Mohammed bin Salman), he practices lessons from a simplistic-yet-successful politics playbook for our 21st century that rightly should be attributed to the 45th POTUS.

1. Never explain, apologise or appear anything other than in full control at all times,
2. Court your support—the really/wannabe rich, the rigidly religious, the untraveled and under-educated—and speak directly to them.
3. Cultivate your support by adopting whatever matters to them as policy priorities; speak  to them, as if they represented the entire country..
4. In doing so, be unconstrained by manners, diplomacy, consistency, taste, convention, or any mix thereof—provided the result appeals to you support.
5. Inflate prestige and eschew modesty: always appear poised and immaculate; flaunt wealth and power; exploit media fixation with the elite.
6. Find, demonise (and, if necessary fabricate) external enemies (c.f. Orwell’s 1984) but associate with tough, unchallenged world leaders to appear similar; adopt their technique of denigrating enemies by any means.
7. Keep your friends close, your underlings closer and your family closest of all. Disregard enemies, critics, opponents and all that they say.
8. Overreach the powers of your office; this courts publicity, appears decisive and makes critics seem petty and hesitant as they play by the rules.
9. Make unexpected, outrageous (but plausible) pronouncements, then countermand a few to keep enemies playing catch-up and thre media hungry for more.
10. Use social media to flatfoot conventional media filter/bias. This achieves direct communication with support to cultivate being “of the people” evades needing to supply the details normally required.