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For a man with his head stuck in a vise, sandwiched between the wailing of bankrupt business owners and the furious howls of the scientific community, Boris Johnson delivered a very competent performance at the PMQs yesterday.
Words that are not often spoken in this column, it is true. But he was impassive and authoritative.
The class clown gets serious. Team slogger plays responsible innings.
Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to side with scientists and demand another national shutdown is a bold gamble, some might say unnecessary.
Not only does it put him at odds with business owners, it allows Boris to slip into his favorite role as the nation’s top optimist.
In front of an animated camera, the prime minister set up his’ three tiered ‘system, placing restrictions on the most infected areas, as a last chance – one last chance’ to keep things going, to keep businesses running, to keep our children in school. ‘
In front of an animated camera, the prime minister set up his ‘three tiered’ system, locating restrictions in the most infected areas, as one last crack.
As sales are going, it was a good one.
In this kind of way, he could have sold me a clapped Ford Cortina.
With the two parties now deciding on a very different course of action, there was a remarkable urgency in the session.
We are in high-risk territory. If the nation locks up again in the next fortnight, Sir Keir will crush Boris.
If the number of infections starts to decrease with the PM’s strategy, he will be the one showing off.
Sir Keir was immediately trapped. Explosion.
No preamble, no useless tributes to tiddlywinks’ victorious teams.
He demanded to know why the prime minister had ignored the blockade advice of Sage (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) in September.
Starmer kept referring to Sage as if he were some kind of faultless oracle.
Is this justified? We might as well have examined the entrails of animals (as the fortune tellers of old did) for all the good some of their predictions have done us.
We hear the latest horror statistics. “That is the price of rejecting the advice,” Sir Keir intoned solemnly.
Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to side with scientists and demand another national shutdown is a bold gamble, some might say unnecessary.
Lower down on the front bench sat his foreign affairs spokesperson Lisa Nandy, frowning like an upside-down banana.
Boris reasoned that infection rates in places like Cornwall were much lower than, say, Liverpool.
Was it really worth closing the Polzeath tearooms to satisfy the strong peaks in the northwest?
Furthermore, Starmer should have appeared and voted in favor of the government’s new measures on Tuesday if he took the stricter restrictions seriously.
The session took a spicy turn after that. Good.
For too long, this couple have hopped around the dispatch box like two old Broadway radio amateurs barely insulting each other.
Starmer accused the prime minister of being “someone who has been an opportunist his whole life.”
As such, the righteous Sir Keir couldn’t expect Boris to understand how he was “genuinely in favor” of another blockade.
Savor, if you like, the unrefined piety of this statement. Wonderful isn’t it?
The prime minister remained calm. No laughter. No “Captain Hindsight” antics.
He replied that he was simply determined not to resort to the ‘misery’ of another confinement.
As for opportunism, he added: “I’m afraid that’s the name of the game for the opposite game.”
A notable increase in noise from their backbenchers was heard from the government banks.
Boris Johnson angrily gestures towards his counterpart in the Opposition banks during the PMQ
Or ‘uptick’ to use the scientific phrase du jour.
Probably the nosiest I’ve heard since the on-camera numbers dropped.
It’s amazing what a swell in the atmosphere does to the confidence of the prime minister.
When Starmer let it be known that he was on his last question, a standing ovation went up in front.
Carry on, Sir Keir, just a quick smile. Show us that you are human. It is not a possibility, sadly.
Instead, he pulled out a newspaper clipping he had found in which a government minister, unnamed of course, predicted there was an “80 percent chance” that the prime minister would back a “circuit breaker” in the next few days. two weeks. Was that correct?
Boris said he couldn’t rule out anything, but for now he was determined to keep the country open, albeit partially.
It was a decision he hoped Starmer would finally come to.
Starmer stared straight ahead, unblinking, unblinking. It was the look of a man who couldn’t even tolerate the idea that he could possibly be wrong.
