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ORMore desperate than anything else, Boris Johnson has started calling Keir Starmer “Captain Hindsight.” Even when the Labor leader is making predictions about what will happen next. But in the Commons debate on the new levels of coronavirus, the prime minister revealed a new person for himself: Major Sulk.
You could tell Johnson wasn’t a happy bunny from the start, because he came in looking a total mess. Most of the time, Boris’s appearance is less art than artifice. You hope that looking chaotic will make people think you don’t mind too much. That he is the lord of fair weather that you can trust to make a joke. Except no one laughs anymore. And much less Boris. His disheveled and downcast demeanor wasn’t a sign that he wasn’t bothered. Rather, it was the opposite. He couldn’t bear to let his audience see how much he cared. Not for the country, obviously. But for himself.
Until now, the great narcissistic bad mood has never cared about his grassroots supporters. He didn’t even know the names of three-quarters of them. But this was the day she realized that the one-way love affair was over and that the magic had faded for a significant number of the Conservative parliamentary party. Parliamentarians willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because he had managed to win an 80-seat majority now realized that they had bought a failure. A prime minister who could be trusted to be disappointed in a time of crisis.
Johnson’s keynote speech was a lazy, poorly argued walk through the family arguments he’d been making for the past week. He began by listing the positive aspects of the new regime – hair salons, gyms, and 24-hour shopping – insisting that the evidence for reopening them had been taken in great detail. Despite the fact that their economic impact assessments, released last minute the day before, looked more like something struck on the back of a cigarette pack.
He then went on to say that no one should take Christmas for granted. Only that was precisely what he was doing by granting a five-day Christmas amnesty that could turn into a New Years slaughter zone. He also promised an extra £ 1,000 to every pub that did not serve Scotch eggs as a snack to disgruntled conservatives. Or beer money, as Keir Starmer scathingly described it. The more Boris spoke, the emptier his words became. In the end, he was running out of smoke.
In response, the Labor leader simply expressed what was on everyone’s mind. We had all been here before on several occasions with Johnson, but he had always let the country down. He had come too late to lock himself up initially; he had ignored Sage’s advice on a circuit breaker in September; he had introduced a level system that soon proved totally inadequate; Tracking Typhoid Dido had been a joke. He had promised that the pandemic would end in summer. And then at Christmas.
Now we were holding on for life hoping that vaccines would save us. So why should anyone believe a word the prime minister said when it seemed like the new levels were driven by what Boris could smuggle into quite a few of his backbenchers rather than science? A third national blockade in January was almost inevitable. And meanwhile, where was the financial aid for the hospitality sector and the self-employed? Like so many times, Johnson had promised too much and failed to deliver.
Still, something had to be better than nothing. Therefore, Labor would abstain to make sure everyone’s main focus was on the number of Conservative rebels. Once again, Starmer would be giving Johnson the benefit of the doubt and warning the government. It’s been on notice for a while. There would come a time when Keir would have to say enough is enough and vote against the government for its handling of the coronavirus. But now was not the right time.
The rest of the debate was dominated by disgruntled Tories, who vowed to rebel or to vote reluctantly for the government. Bernard Jenkin, after listing all the flaws in the new tier system, sadly concluded that he would vote for Boris. As much out of pity as for anything else. Others were less lenient, demanding more localized tier gangs and proof that the hospitality industry was the root of all Covid ills. Steve Baker even demanded expert evidence. This is said by the MP who happily ignored both the experts and the evidence during numerous debates on Brexit. Better a sinner who repents, I suppose.
It was Chris Grayling who delivered the real knockout blow by saying he was “very worried.” When you have lost the trust of Failing Grayling, which has cost the taxpayer more than £ 3 billion in a ministerial career of incomparable futility, then you have lost the soul of the Conservative party.
With Labor abstaining, the vote itself was a formality, the motion passed with a majority of 213. But with 56 Conservatives voting against it and more abstentions, this was Boris’s darkest hour. One from which he may never recover. Many of us saw Johnson a long time ago. An opportunistic singer only interested in self-glorification. Now it seems the fog has lifted from the eyes of many of its own banks. Enough so that I would never take a vow for granted again. What goes around comes around.
• Join John Crace and Guardian columnist Marina Hyde as they look back on a political year like no other. Thursday, December 10, 7pm GMT, 8pm CET, 2pm EST Book tickets here
