I suppose, in the end, people like me do have to make a choice, to take an actual position.
Back in the easy calm, of say, 2019, a fairly normal week for me might have involved having a go at, say, Amber Rudd for refusing to carry on serving in a government which is entirely anathema to almost all of her beliefs. Quitting just makes it easier for them. Why not stay and fight?
Then the next day might well involve having a go at Matt Hancock for, say, launching his Tory leadership bid by saying that the prorogation of parliament would be an affront to the men who fought at D-Day. And then getting offered a cabinet position and going along with said prorogation anyway.
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At some point in said week, it’s highly likely I’d have had a go at Jeremy Corbyn, for refusing to compromise, refusing to change his mind, refusing to plunge his hands into the mess of politics, and actually do something, achieve something, albeit imperfect in an imperfect world. For being a politician that imagines himself to be above politics.
As all this is going on, there’d probably be a vague sense of panic in the back of my head that, you know, what if someone notices that, in order to have a go at some politician or other every single day, you’ve had to hold every position under the sun in barely more than a matter of hours, and they all contradict one another. And then you might, you know, look a bit ridiculous.
All of which is a very long way to arrive, yet again, at the 5pm Downing Street press conference, and the sight of Matt Hancock, doing his very best, yet again, and frankly not doing a terrible job of it.
Taking as many questions as he possibly can, being frank and clear about the challenges ahead, sternly saying things that will not make him popular.
That man’s fastidiously-washed hands are very dirty indeed, there can be no doubt about that. Matt Hancock was built for kinder, gentler, politics. He has compromised. He has gone along with things that are anathema to everything he believes in (one of these things begins with B. You don’t hear so much about it these days.). And yes, all these things do end up with Matt Hancock still in a job, lucky old him.
But ultimately, probably, carrying on is the right thing to do.
On Friday morning he was opening the vast NHS Nightingale Hospital in east London, with Nadine Dorries, both of whom have had Covid-19 themselves, and are back at work.
There is no point pretending the government’s plan, over the last few weeks, has not gone perfectly. On Friday, Mr Hancock was asking people who have or have had Covid-19 to sign up for clinical trials.
It would not be wholly unfair to suggest they are in especially great need to get cracking with said trials, after the previous clinical trial, the “herd immunity” one, that had been planned to be carried out on the entire UK population had to be abandoned.
In the last couple of weeks, there has been a very noticeable public backlash against journalists. Much of the public is on some kind of war footing, that the government are now troops that must be supported. And those asking them difficult questions, daring to point out where things might have gone wrong, are somehow not doing their bit, are undermining the war effort.
It is no surprise, and it is certainly nothing new, that the general public doesn’t always understand the specific role of the media in society. That always being the sceptic, the cynic, the one relentlessly focused on the negative, brings about positive change, though rarely for the reputation of journalism. That will never change. The burden is part of the job.
But there is, perhaps, just maybe, possibly, who knows, a growing sense that somewhere on the other side of this is a return to the old, and better way of doing politics. A willingness at least to entertain the possibility that there are one or two decent people out there doing their best.
Alternatively, it might just be because no one’s talked about Brexit in weeks and Boris Johnson is in quarantine. Still, a glimmer of hope will do for now.
