Johnson is as corrupt as Clinton – but at least Bubba bothered to brush his hair
What’s a worse sign of weakness – going on TV to terrify the nation to distract from your illicit cheese and wine parties, or bombing an aspirin factory to distract from a grand jury investigation into your illicit blowjobs?
In strictly limited terms, there are some similarities between Boris Johnson’s address to the nation on Sunday, and Bill Clinton’s 1998 announcement of the bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant, three days after the then US president had testified – and lied – in the Monica Lewinsky hearings. Both Clinton and Johnson are men of various “appetites”, of course, and Clinton was widely believed to be leaning in to a helpful distraction with his solemn live appearance on America’s TV screens. Given the total cynicism Johnson inspires, some might say the same of the PM, with Sunday’s decision to reannounce his booster drive in the face of the Omicron variant feeling at least conveniently timed to draw attention away from the multiple rule-breaking allegations now dogging his entire No 10 operation. But the key difference is that while the threat of the Omicron is not yet fully quantified, it is certainly real, and could well be disastrous for the already teetering NHS. Clinton’s chemical weapons factory, meanwhile, turned out not to be one at all, but a facility that produced more than half Sudan’s vital medicines, from malaria drugs to TB medication.
Other differences? At least Bubba brushed his hair to address his nation. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bit tired of having my vital public health messages delivered by someone who looks as if he’s just been forcibly dragged away from a kneetrembler in the stationery cupboard at one of Downing Street’s famous Christmas parties. No matter how many of
these addresses we have to sit through, you always sense Johnson’s last words spoken to an aide just before he goes live are the same. “God, you’re a killjoy, mate – I was nearly finished. [FROZEN LOOK] Shit, are we rolling?”
The main problem, obviously, is the fact that these deadly serious briefings are fronted by the little prime minister who cried wolf. Johnson is such a noted liar about absolutely everything else that being asked to believe him on matters of life and death seems bizarre. No one could be more miscast; it’s like watching a rice pudding play King Lear. Unsurprisingly, fewer and fewer people seem to be taking him seriously each time – not least, his own backbenchers.
Perhaps it’s fitting that someone who was such a nakedly self-interested and irresponsible MP himself is now at the mercy of so many similarly singleminded underlings. In the Conservative parliamentary party, an anythinggoes atmosphere certainly seems to be taking hold. Wherever you stand on the actual efficacy of vaccine passports – and testing is a miles better way out – we have to lament the sort of morally bankrupt political culture where Yeovil MP Marcus Fysh feels free to publicly compare their proposed introduction with “Nazi Germany”.
Dear dear. Marcus is a person who has had every top-end educational advantage lavished upon him at every stage of his life, but still, somehow, just HAS to bring up the Holocaust because people might need to flash an app get into a mega-Spoons on a busy night. It doesn’t exactly fill one with hope for serious medium-term solutions to our ongoing and recurrent woes. Covid will be endemic, meaning we should invest in the NHS and build back capacity and resilience lost to years of cuts and false efficiencies, along with specialist clinics … The only thing is, guys like Marcus might have to vote for it. So we won’t.
For now, Johnson would prefer to frighten people in order to drive them into a system that is not capable of doing what he promised on Sunday. This is not a sophisticated, intelligent or even kind way of doing politics – and it certainly isn’t effective, as will be seen over the coming weeks and probably months.
It is, however, a way of making any pending failures someone else’s fault. What a shock that a guy who spent last week insisting there had been no party in Downing Street will now only say he personally didn’t break any rules. It’ll be the same with this million-jabs-a-day promise. As Johnson’s spokesperson insisted yesterday, that’s actually merely a target, and “no one is going to get the blame if that doesn’t happen”. Sure! Sure they won’t.
In the meantime, at what once more seems a crucial stage of the pandemic, many are tiring of being told to take responsibility by a guy who never does. I read this morning that the mooted Tory rebellion is causing “yet another headache for the PM”, and wondered what he’ll take to soothe it. Couple of aspirin factories, maybe. Always gets you out of a hole.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist