With the country in crisis and the NHS stretched to breaking point, Boris Johnson’s government has seized on war rhetoric, national pride and nostalgia
For about five weeks, the mayhem of coronavirus rendered the political mayhem of the previous four years irrelevant and dated. The divisive, petty, mendacious battles that had been waged in the name of Brexit suddenly appeared for what they were all along: conflicts conjured out of thin air by newspaper editors and their friends in the Conservative party. The era of digital “fake news” and memes was replaced by the sobriety of daily press conferences. Ministers broke their childish veto of the BBC’s Today programme. Boris Johnson ran for cover behind civil servants and academics. All eyes turned towards the cold objectivity of statistics.
We can date the opening of this window with some precision. Johnson’s general election honeymoon (which included holidays to Mustique and Chevening) came to a halt when he attended his first Cobra meeting on coronavirus on 2 March. We can only imagine the shock and disappointment Johnson must have felt, as it dawned on him that his premiership would not be remembered for Brexit at all. There followed weeks of earnest policy analysis, and when the lockdown finally arrived, it was accepted as the authoritative decision of experts.
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