Has Johnson’s handling of the pandemic consigned him to history already, or can he rescue the party from conceding to the Opposition in the next General Election?
In recent months, the Labour Party has pushed a media narrative that Johnson and his government are ‘incompetent’. Of course, this is merely subjective, but it is a narrative that is lingering around Johnson like a foul odour – and it is causing harm to his Government and party.
In December 2019, Johnson delivered an outstanding victory in the General Election; this was totally crushing for then-Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who himself was so arrogant as to publicly predict himself as “the next Prime Minister” – what an embarrassing blow to the egotist!
Despite his feeble attempt to make a mockery of the Tory Party with scandalous lies about NHS privatisation, Johnson humiliated Corbyn with his 80-seat majority, sweeping up the rubble of the Red Wall that he so successfully demolished. It seemed, therefore, that Johnson’s party was at a huge high, and the next few years were looking promising; at this point, Boris was the man of the moment. Then, in the New Year, an unprecedented game-changer caught the world off-guard – coronavirus.
From the end of March up until now, we have painfully endured an inconsistency of mixed messages from the Government, whilst the public have made a mockery of them on social media.
On one occasion, someone had shared an image of Johnson, photo-shopped next to the Nike logo reading underneath: “Just do it, but don’t do it”. Obviously this was making light of the Government telling people to stay indoors but to go outside, go to the pub, but not go to the pub, ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ but also minimise socialising. The Government spent all summer encouraging us to go out and help restaurants and businesses; by September, the message was once again closer to ‘stay indoors’.
After all this, the detestable Matt Hancock then blamed young people for a surge in Covid-19 cases. There is no denying that they would have contributed, but society as a whole was not following coronavirus rules laid out by the Government. Therefore, for the Health Secretary to blame young people as the sole reason was just a pathetic attempt at scapegoating.
A more likely reason for this rapid incline in cases is the grossly huge number of non-socially distanced Marxists protesting and rioting for BLM. On top of this, we’ve had the deluded, tinfoil hat-wearing, anti-lockdown brigade. Embarrassingly, we saw little force exercised by the PM on these issues, despite the current Government being ‘fascist’, according to the far-left – no surprise there!
Perhaps the reasoning behind this was the party’s fear of being labelled as racist by the virtue-signalling Leader of the Opposition and left-wing media. Nevertheless, whatever spin The Guardian or the Labour Party want to put on the Tories, it has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with saving lives.
However, in all fairness, these are completely unprecedented times, and it is no use arguing over who would have done better; debates over hypothetical situations are futile as they are based solely on opinion.
Who is to say that Corbyn, Swinson or Farage could have done any better? Who is to say that Sir Keir Starmer would do a better job now? Whether Johnson is as ‘incompetent’ as Starmer is so keen to argue is up to each individual to decide. It is fair to say, though, that there are a number of things the Government could have done better – communication to the public being probably one of the most significant.
This is the most drastic period the nation has faced since 1945. Throughout World War II, the Falklands and Iraq, our leaders faced extreme criticism. I doubt that the PM has had a decent night’s sleep since January, what with the birth of his son, Wilfred, and contracting Covid-19 himself. He is most likely sick and tired of the mainstream, ‘right-wing biased’ media attacking him relentlessly day-in-day-out. Perhaps my frustration towards this Government is therefore premature…
Nonetheless, until the end of his term, we can’t answer the question of whether Boris has gone from the man of the moment, to the man for the moment. Perhaps, under normal circumstances, he would make a brilliant Prime Minister, but at the moment he is slowly shifting from the man people love to hate, to the man they just hate.
If the Prime Minister wants to remain in government for another term, drastic improvement must be implemented, and swiftly – for the sake of the party, and support from the public.
