“Boris deserves measured praise for the tone, content and delivery of his address. For the first time in his premiership I saw an embryo statesman emerging - discarding the natural bonhomie that had become his stock-in-trade - replaced by the gravitas which was required. Not too much distracting hand-waving, thank goodness but with a reasonably-paced delivery and a clear, short unambiguous message. As someone who was appalled at his rise to the top of the Tory party and even rejoiced when he continued to make gaffes, this morning I have to eat a starter portion of humble pie. Cometh the hour, cometh Boris. May he lead the nation successfully through this test.”
I think you would have to be extremely bitter and churlish to disagree with this comment from a Times reader, following yesterday’s announcement. He needs our collective support now, love him or loathe him.
It shows how low a bar we have set for Johnson when we it takes for him simply to read a pe-written statement for us to be impressed. Was it only last week that he told us that he was going to visit his mother on Mother’s Day while simultaneously telling us to stay away? Was it only a couple of months ago that he was enjoying a Caribbean freebie when he should have been putting in place measures to negate the worst of this horrendous virus ? We knew it was coming. We had all seen Wuhan. Lest we ever forget, if Johnson hadn’t followed his ‘herd immunity’ strategy we might not have had 89 dead in one day.
I’m aware the right would like to paint those criticising Johnson’s woefully inadequate response as somehow part of the problem but even in times of crisis our elected government’s actions should be scrutinised. In fact it’s arguably more important now than ever before.
