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CAt the hour, the man comes. When the UK has become the first European country to record more than 50,000 coronavirus deaths and all staff within No. 10 are fighting over who can get the prime minister’s attention by becoming his chief of staff, the latest that wanted the government was another downside Downing Street press conference. But one had been promised and one had to be delivered. And in such delicate circumstances, there was clearly only one minister suitable for the position. Take a step forward Alok Sharma.
Even the business secretary is not entirely sure how he came to be a business secretary. He doesn’t even seem to have much interest in politics, much less business. Rather, it was that one thing led to another. He had seen which way the wind was blowing in the Conservative leadership contest, had declared himself a huge fan of Boris Johnson, despite never knowingly declaring great enthusiasm for Brexit, and was rewarded, to his surprise and that of all the others, with a place. In the closet.
Perhaps Boris had seen what others had missed. That Sharma has been blessed with the gift of almost never saying anything interesting. Almost every press conference with him could last a couple of hours and no one would be the wiser. On rare occasions, you make news, then it’s guaranteed to have been a mistake. Unfortunately for Sharma and Boris, this was one of those occasions. The only saving grace for the business secretary, though, was that he seemed completely unaware of how badly he’d screwed up.
The briefing had started out as overwhelmingly boring and pointless, as everyone had intended. Sharma began by reciting the latest upward trend in hospitalizations and deaths, before basically admitting that the economy was a bit screwed up and a vaccine was still missing. The only time his voice deviated from a monotonous tone (Sharma has a hard time getting excited and reading at the same time) was when he mentioned four companies that had hired additional staff to manufacture PPE. Recovery starts here.
Stephen Powis, National Medical Director for NHS England, was equally determined not to release any news. He had seen how some of the media had turned on Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance for being the bearers of bad news and he was screwed if he was going to get in the line of fire. He just showed just a slide with the statistics Sharma had just read, and then he babbled a bit about the vaccine cavalry being out of place. These Western Boris John Ford metaphors are as contagious as the virus itself.
Initially, it seemed that the business secretary was going to survive the questions unscathed. A member of the public named Chris got to the middle of a smart question about how any vaccine would be implemented before realizing it was Sharma he was talking to, so there was no chance of getting a smart answer. Sure enough, Alok didn’t disappoint – confident to admit his ignorance, he simply babbled about being sure those who needed it most would get it first. It’s fair to say that Sharma is not a man of details.
The issue started with a question from the BBC about reports that Brexit could disrupt the supply chain for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Gently enough, Sharma didn’t even seem to sense the danger in the question. Perhaps this was because this was the only part of his report that he understood and was eager to share his enthusiasm and wisdom with everyone who was watching. Yes, he said, Brexit was going to bring major disruptions to almost every business, so a series of webinars had just started to give businesses a chance to prepare.
He did not seem to realize that less than 50 days had elapsed before the UK left the EU, that there was virtually no chance for companies to be ready in time, as the government had yet to reach a deal or no deal and vaccines You will not be exempt from chaos. If Covid doesn’t kill you, then Brexit will.
From there, everything went downhill. When asked about the current infighting within Downing St and Lee Cain’s resignation, all Sharma could handle was that everyone was working hard to protect lives and livelihoods. Mainly yours. When Dominic Cummings single-handedly destroyed government messages about the coronavirus with his trips to Durham and his trips to Specsavers, he had done so with only the good of the country in mind. Similarly, Cain had only wanted to teach the world to sing. When asked who Joe Biden’s chief of staff should call now that Boris didn’t have one, the best Sharma could offer was that he was sure there was a reassuring message on the answer phone about the climate crisis on the number. from the Downing Street switchboard.
Powis realized the press was falling apart and quickly referred subsequent questions about Brexit disruptions in the vaccine supply chain to Sharma. By now you could see that even the business secretary was beginning to realize that he might be in trouble. Even if he didn’t really know why or how much. First he muttered something about having high hopes about the vaccine, but then he couldn’t help but tell the truth. Because deep down, Sharma is one of the few honest ministers in the cabinet. So he resorted to his first response that there was trouble and was last seen being dragged by security yelling “webinars.”
Cries of despair could be heard coming from what was left of the Downing Street communications team. They had counted on their man not to be wrong and he had simply let them down. It was turning into one of those days. Or, as the rest of us call it, one of those years.
