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HHow much longer can this continue? Previous prime ministers have at least been nodding the truth, but Boris Johnson is completely unashamed. Unconscient. A sociopath for whom no lie is off limits, whether in his public or private life. What counts is the reality as he would like it to be.
All of which makes the prime minister’s questions increasingly useless, save as an exercise in the Oxford Union am-dram, because there is no chance for Johnson to admit that he has made a mistake or changed his mind. Today was a good example. Keir Starmer thought he had gotten Boris to recover. After all, even the defense secretary had said the government planned to break the Conservative manifesto promise not to cut troop numbers in its commons declaration earlier in the week.
But for Johnson, such an admission was impossible, even after Starmer directly cited a newspaper article published during the last election campaign. What was going to happen was not what was going to happen. Reducing the number of troops was not actually reducing the number of troops because fewer soldiers would be more effective than having more. Not surprisingly, the Labor leader looked completely confused when he finished his six questions. They were all.
In theory, a two-hour session before the liaison committee, the supergroup of select committee chairs, should have been considerably more demanding. In his first two outings as liaison president, Bernard Jenkin had confused critics who believed he had only been elected because he could guarantee that he would give the prime minister an easy ride, and Johnson had often had trouble giving adequate answers to questions. difficult. Only now Bernie seems to have relaxed into his intended role and, under his sleepy eyes, Johnson had free rein to complain and talk about his interrogators whenever something or someone threatened to get difficult for him.
Labor’s Darren Jones was the first to give up the unequal struggle of trying to get some straight answers. Could Johnson say whether he and the Chancellor had authorized the £ 400 million ransom to OneWeb? “Er … pifflepafflewifflewaffle,” Boris said. He couldn’t comment on who did what and when because… well, because he didn’t feel like it. Jones tried another tactic and asked about any relationships the No. 10 may have had with David Cameron and Greensill. “That’s new to me,” Johnson replied.
“You haven’t actually answered any of my questions,” Jones complained, having finished his 10 minute questioning. Johnson seemed delighted. This session was going to be a lot less painful than he feared. All he had to do was treat the session like a PMQ series and he could get away with it without saying much about anything. Like Jones, Tobias Ellwood also took off when he tried to question Boris about his cuts in defensive numbers. The prime minister just muttered for several minutes about taking the defense very seriously, and eventually Ellwood disappeared.
Things got a bit more complicated when the questions were related to Covid, although not by much. After briefly touching on the vaccine dispute with the EU, Jeremy Hunt moved into the social spotlight. Johnson had said he had a plan to take it as seriously as the NHS, but 18 months later there was still no sign of it, Hunt said. Although instead of suggesting that perhaps there was never a plan and that he had fooled the country, Hunt, under Jenkin’s watchful eye, simply wanted some reassurance that it would be resolved soon. Preferably in the queen’s next speech. Boris nodded. Of course. This year, next year, sometime, never.
Meg Hillier tried to tempt Johnson about the mistakes he regretted the most, but Boris was too smart to get carried away. There were many things he could have done differently, but it was an unprecedented situation. Although one in which, vaccines aside, the government had performed noticeably worse than almost every other country. He even managed to deliberately confuse Hillier’s question about the Christmas regulations to make it appear that he had been proactively draconian rather than forced into a 180 degree turn.
Unsurprisingly, the thorniest exchanges were between Johnson and Yvette Cooper. The chairman of the home affairs committee can’t stand Boris and doesn’t try to hide his disdain. He wanted to know why the government was slow to put France on the red list and the couple chatted for the better part of a minute before Jenkin intervened. Finally, Boris reluctantly hinted that regulations might be tightened soon, but that was the closest he came to delivering a news line in the entire session. He also didn’t seem to realize that French truckers could unhook their containers in Dover and go home on the next ferry.
After that, everything was easy for Boris. Mel Stride, the chairman of the Treasury select committee, seemed more embarrassed that Johnson was not aware of what OBR’s forecasts were or that most independent economists had dismissed them as desperate underestimates. William Wragg, Huw Merriman, and Karen Bradley were just shameful, seemingly intimidated at being able to question their party leader.
Although she had feared the worst, everything had turned out perfectly. Johnson had been so relaxed that he had even found time to speak a little Latin and regurgitate some of the research for the Shakespeare book that he had yet to write. So much so that he seemed almost disappointed when Jenkin ended the session. If that was the worst the liaison committee could throw at him, then he could handle just about anything.
How much longer can this continue? Just keep delaying the public investigation into the coronavirus pandemic indefinitely and you could remain the “world king” for many more years.
