Boris Johnson used to joke that he admired the Mayor in Jaws because – a few people may have been killed – but at least he kept the beaches open. But the Covid enquiry reminds us that he’s closer to Dracula. In the Bram Stoker’s novel., newly qualified solicitor Jonathan Harker is sent to Castle Dracula by his employer Peter Hawkins, who has been buying a London property on Dracula’s behalf. Hawkins claims in his letter of introduction that an attack of gout prevents him from travelling but Dracula is already aware of the substitution (“I bid you welcome, Mr Harker,” he says) and Harker already suspects that the muffled coach driver who brought him to the castle might have been Dracula in disguise. Hawkins’ letter ominously introduces Harker as “full of energy…very faithful.” In  a Westminster context Hawkins appears to be throwing Harker under the bus.  The unofficial silent film Nosferatu merges the characters of Hawkins and Renfield making it clear that Harker’s employer wa...

 I always thought that in Bram Stoker’s novel DRACULA, Jonathan Harker would have made a good excise officer. The way he follows the audit trail of Dracula's coffins from Whitby to Carfax and then out to Bermondsey and Piccadilly. Contents misdescribed as "common earth" when actually "undead-nurturing." What penalty would that attract? Just to lay out the facts; In the novel Dracula arrives on a Russian schooner, the Demeter, which is wrecked on the Whitby shore. The vessel has a small cargo of “wooden boxes filled with mould” which Dracula has consigned to a local solicitor called Billington.  Pre-Brexit, this would have been a simple EU excise move from Bulgaria to the UK, although it would now be a customs arrival from the EU. Either way, there’s a fair degree of misdescription in the papers. When Harker visits Billington’s office in Whitby he sees an invoice for, “fifty cases of common Earth to be used for experimental purposes.”  As we later learn, the eart...