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SUBWAYaybe Keir Starmer should consider going back to basics. It has been so long since Boris Johnson gave a direct, or even indirect, answer to the Labor leader’s questions to the prime minister’s questions that the time has come for Starmer to find out at what level Boris is prepared to tell the truth.
Simple control questions, such as “What’s your name?” “What’s your job?” “How many children do you have?” On second thought, maybe we should clean up that last one. We will never get an honest answer to that. Especially since Boris may not know.
This week’s PMQs promised a lot, coming less than a day after Starmer had drawn a clear dividing line between Labor and Tories on how to deal with the coronavirus pandemic by calling for a circuit breaker. Call it Tier Starmer. However, somehow their 15-minute exchanges felt somewhat underwhelming. Not so much because Starmer was asking the wrong questions, but because of Johnson’s now-signature tactic of refusing to participate. Playing the idiot before it’s an easy way to shake off the Labor leader when he knows he only has to survive six questions.
Starmer started with some basic details. On May 11, Johnson had promised the country that science would guide him at all times. On September 21, Sage scientists recommended a short circuit. So at what point did the prime minister decide to abandon science and put together a three-tier regional system that hardly anyone was happy with?
Despite having had all morning to prepare for such an obvious question, Boris seemed genuinely puzzled. As if he had completely forgotten that it was Wednesday and had been waiting for a break. So he did what he always did. He filled the dead air with dead words. When he said that he was going to pursue science, he had never intended to imply that he would do so faithfully. Rather, he was going to choose the parts that he liked. It reminded me of a builder I once used who, when I noticed that the kitchen floor was not level, replied that he had never specified that it should be “level.”
Also, Boris added, he was trying to balance the effects on livelihoods and lives. Not to mention the concerns of many Conservative MPs who thought their three-tiered lockdown plan already imposed too many restrictions. So what had changed since Monday, when the Labor leader seemed to back his new proposals?
Now it was Keir’s turn to look surprised. What had changed was that Sage’s September papers had only been released hours after the prime minister finished making his Commons statement. It was a bit tricky trying to follow the science when the evidence had been withheld for the better part of a month. Hell, even all the council leaders in Greater Manchester were now on his side, saying they were supporting Tier Starmer instead of being thrown to level 3.
In fact, this was not entirely true, as the head of the Conservative council in Bolton had not adhered to this, but Starmer could be confident that Boris would not be at this level of detail.
“Opportunism is the name of the game for the party across the street,” concluded Johnson. This was an open target for Starmer and he did not miss, saying that this was too much of someone who had been an opportunist his entire life. Not even the prime minister’s allies could object to that. Once again, even Boris was self-aware enough to realize that this might not be the most profitable line of attack and he hastily backed off.
Keir then upped the ante on the stats. Sage thought the £ 12bn track and trace system was having a marginal effect at best. What had happened to the “defeat the world” system? Even the scientists did not believe that it was working well enough to reduce the rate of R, so the only logical conclusion was that little by little each region of the country would rise one or two levels as the infection rate increased, for which would simply end with a national lockdown by default. So why not act early and decisively to try to make a difference? Changing strategies when yours is not working is not a sign of weakness. It was a sign of intelligence. Some hope.
By now, Boris was starting to look a bit bored. Even someone with notoriously short attention spans can get tired of saying the same no-answers week after week. Not even the few staunch loyalists on camera who were animating every bit of his stupidity, could clear up his escape from Mogadon.
He first mistook a two-month confinement for a short circuit (he seemed so pleased with that bit of ignorance that he repeated it twice) before adding, “I’m not ruling anything out.” It was a good admission that we would probably get from the inevitability of a circuit breaker, but it was a lot more fun for Boris to see how many people died and how many companies went under as he played with his three-tier system first. . Dead by a thousand cuts.
And with that, everything vanished. There was time for a mandatory dig in the Scottish National Party (every time Boris opens his mouth it makes Scottish independence more likely), but most of all, the prime minister seemed like he couldn’t wait to escape. Being beaten by Starmer at PMQ is not something he likes, but it has long been on Johnson’s bottom line. Your only goal is to keep your losses to a minimum while maintaining the impression that the session is a pointless sham. And today he had managed to do just that, even though Starmer had intellect, science, economics, and public opinion on his side.
The Labor leader will have to rethink his approach. It will not be easy. Boris is as careless with other people’s lives as he is with his personal relationships. In Boris’s world, he is the sun god whose continued existence is paramount. Everyone and everything else is expendable. But a change will have to come from somewhere. Otherwise, we really are all screwed. There is not a single thing that the government can be said to be doing well. The coronavirus, Brexit, the economy and the level rise are disaster areas. And despite the pallor and fatigue, Johnson is simply not as lively.
