Whatever you think of Boris Johnson’s bumbling and controversial pronouncements, the man tipped to be Britain’s next prime minister is a virtuoso at manipulating the media with a sense of self-deprecating humour that is deeply lacking in Luxembourg politicians.

Responding to Stormzy’s headline performance at Glastonbury last Friday night, during which the crowd gleefully chanted along to the “Fuck the Government and fuck Boris” chorus of his single ‘Vossi Bop’, Johnson told the Press Association in an interview that he wanted to thank the rapper “for his rousing endorsement of the Back Boris campaign.”

British media had made headlines of the “Fuck Boris” chants and Stormzy’s performance received critical acclaim from Glastonbury reviewers such as The Guardian's head rock and pop critic Alexis Petridis, who said “his performance seems not merely a personal triumph but a victory lap for British hip-hop.”

Claiming, with clear irony, that Stormzy had actually been singing “back Boris”, Johnson said that “there may have been some problems with the acoustics that caused him to be briefly misunderstood”.

Compare this to the faux outrage and humourless reaction to Tun Tonnar’s “FCK Lëtzebuerg”, which ended with the Luxembourg performer in court facing slander charges by politicians Fred Keup, and Joe Thein as well as Dan Schmitz, a man who has been prosecuted for social media hate speech. When Tonnar was acquitted, two of the three original plaintiffs launched an appeal against the court’s decision, backed by the public prosecutor.   

What the plaintiffs fail to understand--and it is a lesson that has been ignored by censors and the morally outraged for decades, if not centuries--is that taking legal action against art (no matter what you might think about the actual merit of the work in question) only provides more publicity, and more fuel to the argument of the artist. The longer the Tun Tonnar case continues, the more people will side with the rapper against the pompous offence felt by his targets.

Johnson’s perfect response--misread by most of the UK media as the Tory candidate being actually tone deaf to Stormzy’s intention--will have done just the opposite. He has diffused the fallout from Friday’s performance and taken back control of the situation. Thein, Keup and co would do well to learn from such a master of the media.