03 December 2020
Johnson?
Too early to know.
By John Watson
On Friday, The Times contained a cartoon by Peter Brookes which showed the Prime Minister dressed as a clown standing beside a noticeboard announcing the tiers with a virus bouncing off him. It was well drawn, of course, but did not make any particular point save that there is some dissatisfaction with the new restrictions. That is fair enough. Cartoonists cannot be expected to make profound points every day but it reflected, rather uncomfortably, the instinct of those in the media bubble to kick whoever is down and then to run off giggling fatuously.
Boris isn’t the only one to receive this sort of treatment, of course, and Jeremy Corbyn has much greater cause to complain about it. I was never an admirer of Jezza’s politics or his ability, but even so there were moments when I cringed at what was said about him in the press – particularly as mountains were built about minor indiscretions committed when he was a much younger man.
There is no point in complaining about all this. There is an unpleasant bullying streak in us all which delights in the cheap kick and, if you’re a politician, that is something you just have to put up with. Still, the Shaw Sheet prides itself on not “hunting with the pack” so perhaps we should make ourselves unpopular by looking at Boris Johnson a little more fairly.
Certainly he has two skeletons in his closet. The first is the aggressive line he took in the “Leave” campaign with its famously misleading figures. Not to his credit, certainly, but people get very carried away in the course of campaigns and in this one lies were flying around from all sides like a cloud of aggressive mosquitoes. So, naughty Boris, but let’s move on. The second is a failure of management. Following the last election he was wholly focused on Brexit and re-energising the North and was completely blindsided by the pandemic to which he reacted far too late. That was certainly a mistake but it is in the nature of politics that people make mistakes and recover from them. Churchill came back after making a monumental mess of Gallipoli. Thatcher survived losing the Falklands because she got them back later. It used to be standard advice to young solicitors that they would inevitably make mistakes and that the test of quality was how they recovered from them. Politics are rather similar.
So let’s move on to the handling of the pandemic generally. There are criticisms from all sides. Some say that we have locked down too far. Others say that we have not locked down far enough. Many of the countries which were held up as examples of good handling have seen things come adrift. Sweden now believes it should have taken a more restrictive approach. Germany is currently above us in the table of new infections. France too is having a difficult time. Everywhere countries are making decisions against a background of considerable uncertainty. So what is Boris chiefly criticised for? Occasional optimism, perhaps, although this morning’s papers attacked his pessimism? No, it’s not really that. More the continual changes in strategy and the hesitancy of the Government’s approach. How much better everyone would feel if they took a more confident line.
Yes, but what do you do when the evidence and scientific opinion continually change? Keynes is quoted as saying: “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” That is all very well in academia but difficult in an environment where new evidence is continually flowing in and changes take some weeks to implement. You cannot continually make big alterations in policy so the only sensible course is to nose slowly forward, making adjustments as you go along. It must be extremely difficult and those who doubt that should try writing down each day what they would do and then revisiting their advice with the benefit of hindsight. They will get the point then.
If Mr Johnson’s approach to lockdown was fairly inevitable, what about the implementation? There have been clear and frustrating gaps between what politicians have promised and what the system has been able to deliver, in particular in the realms of protective gear and testing.
It is hard to know why, but the image of the politicians pulling the levers of power and finding that nothing happens is a compelling one. Perhaps the years of austerity have worn the civil service down. Perhaps the quality of civil servants is sometimes not as good as it should be. Everyone from Dominic Cummings to Sir Mark Sedwill seem to agree that things need to be sharpened up. What would you, as Prime Minister, have done when you discovered about those disconnected levers? Promise less, to close the gap; or promise rather optimistically and strain every nerve to get as close to your promises as possible? There’s no doubt which approach will have more effect. Perhaps the Government did what could be done under the circumstances.
So if we can’t nail Boris on his performance on the pandemic, what else could we throw? The odd make up of his supporting team perhaps. First there was Cummings, clearly a man who can be difficult to work with but with plenty of backbone and a gift for political calculation. Why did he survive Durham? Probably because the Prime Minister needed someone to counter his rather idealistic liberalism. So what should he do now Cummings has gone? Go all wishy-washy? No, his answer can be seen in his appointment as Chief of Staff of Dan Rosenfield, a man who combines having worked for Tory and Labour Chancellors with top level banking experience and a reputation for frankness. Is Dan what is needed to keep his boss up to the mark?
There are lots of areas where one can only wait and see. Will Johnson replace loyalist Leave ministers with abler administrators once Brexit is over? That could transform his government. How will he use Michael Gove once he is no longer needed on Brexit? There is a reforming talent which could boost the prospects of the North. Will he be given his head?
There are lots of questions about Johnson’s ministry and it may be that historians looking back on it will rank it a failure. But for the moment it is “may be” and not “will” and the patronising giggling that greets the mention of his name at the drinks parties of North London is premature; worse still, it has become just a little bit tedious.
