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meIn hindsight, the clues were there for all to see. Last week, the government forced a vote to extend the recess for another week until January 11. After all, it wasn’t as if MPs had to scrutinize much. Brexit was destined to go seamlessly and the coronavirus was close enough fully under control. So, indeed, on the first day of his extended holiday, Boris Johnson announced that Parliament would be repealed on Wednesday.
Now it is becoming easier to predict government policies. Just listen to what the prime minister said in the morning and the opposite is likely to happen by mid-afternoon. It is almost like clockwork: the government does what most reasonable people would have done weeks before.
At every stage of the coronavirus pandemic, the government has been hopelessly behind. From being late to closing in March as the Cheltenham festival and Carrie Symonds’ baby shower went on. Of ignoring Sage’s advice in September for a second national lockdown and being forced to do so in November by both Keir Starmer and rapidly rising infection rates. Since the announcement of a five-day free Christmas in early December, everyone knew that Covid liked to take time off during the holiday period, which it then had to cancel after everyone had already made their plans.
During the biggest national health crisis in 100 years, it is our luck to have Johnson in charge. A man pathologically incapable of making the right decisions at the right time. The prime minister is a narcissistic charlatan. The great cock forger. Someone who cannot bear to be the bearer of bad news or to have people who disagree with him prove him wrong. So he stubbornly ignores the evidence until he is overwhelmed by it and public opinion has turned against him. He’s not just a drag as a leader, his indecision has cost lives. Your arrogance will only cost you your job.
So the day started like any other day for Boris. A quick walk to a good photo opportunity to see someone receive the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine on its first day of national distribution and a short clip on camera. Schools should definitely stay open, he insisted, apparently oblivious to the fact that most health and teaching professionals had said otherwise.
But Boris thought otherwise. Most schoolchildren only received a mild dose of Covid and teachers should stop complaining. Despite the increased infectivity of the new coronavirus variant, teachers should take one for the team, as children cannot afford to lag further behind in their education. It didn’t seem like it had occurred to him that children also have parents and grandparents they live with and that they may not be so lucky.
There may be a time to increase the restrictions (Nicola Sturgeon announced the one for Scotland in the early afternoon and the Labor leader had made a second appeal in two days to make sense of Johnson), but now was not the right time. Which raised the question: “If not now, when?”
With infections rising exponentially, the death rate rising, and hospitals struggling to cope with the rate of admission, how many more people would have to become seriously ill before Boris bothered to take action?
As it happened, not many. Because shortly after filming this interview and insisting that there would be no 10 press conference that night, Johnson announced that he would address the nation on television at 8 p.m. Once again, Boris had been embarrassed in another U-turn. Better late than never. Although it is too late for some.
For your television speech, a disheveled Boris: why change your life habit and make it look like you don’t give a shot? – He didn’t look as serious as he was scared. Someone for whom reality, at least temporarily, had penetrated his self-deception. There were few ways to sweeten the news, despite the fact that he spoke about the vaccine. There are no triumphs to declare, no substitute leadership theater to reassure you. Only the desperation of an unlucky television evangelist was featured in the eight-minute statement.
He started out as if the huge increase in coronavirus cases had been a huge shock to him at lunchtime, even though it was old news for the rest of the country, and he spoke of his deep regret, the pain was all his, for putting the country back into a total blockade. Including the closing of the schools that had opened that morning.
“Some of you may be wondering why we haven’t done this before,” he said. A question that literally nobody asked, since nobody expects more than incompetence and delay from this government. Typically, there was nothing about financial support for those whose livelihoods may be affected. He ended by saying that if all went well, there could be a relief from the closure in mid-February.
But not even The Great Dick Faker, the master of self-deception, seemed convinced by this. As usual, he didn’t have the balls to level up with the country and tell us what we all know deep down. That it will be at least three months before there is even a hint of a return to normalcy. And that’s if we are lucky.
“So we keep moving forward, ships against the current, incessantly drawn into the past.
