This government should be on the rack. The evidence that it botched crucial decisions at crucial moments is piling up. The litany is now so familiar it barely needs repeating, from the failure to secure personal protective equipment for frontline workers in health and social care to the 11 lost days of delay before imposing a lockdown that has proved essential for saving lives.
You can focus on specific judgments: why did ministers allow mass gatherings, from racing at Cheltenham to a Stereophonics gig in Cardiff, ignoring the warnings that such events would be a virus-fest? Why did it initially tell people to stay away from pubs and restaurants, but simultaneously allow those places to stay open? Why did the government call a halt in March to testing and tracing? If the answer is a lack of capacity, then why did it not immediately set about recruiting the “army of contact tracers” that will be required if we are ever to emerge from our homes? Why the focus on mega-labs, rather than seizing on the offer of small laboratories to do testing for their local hospitals, which, as Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute, has argued, could have made those hospitals “safe places”? Why the rules initially limiting tests to those NHS employees with symptoms, which, as Nurse puts it, allowed staff to be on wards “infecting people”?
Or you can look at decisions going back a decade, pointing a finger at Tory austerity that starved public services to the bone, leaving them underequipped and eroding our resilience. Either way, the country now faces a death toll approaching 30,000.
And yet, far from being on the rack, the government continues to bask in public support. True, approval for the government’s handling of the crisis has fallen from the dizzying 61% it reached a month ago to 51% at last count. But 51% is still the kind of approval rating most politicians long for.
What accounts for this disconnect between the government’s record and the public’s high regard for those responsible? Put another way, why isn’t Boris Johnson in more trouble?
Any answer must begin with what pollsters call the “rally-around-the-flag” effect, the tendency for voters to back their leaders in a time of crisis. Data from around the world, in this era and in others, suggests that when citizens are scared, they want to believe those in charge have the wisdom and strength to protect them. Think of electorates as passengers on a plummeting plane: in that moment of peril, they need to trust the pilot.
In Johnson’s case, there’s an additional factor. No one can throw at him the traditional accusation directed at politicians, namely that he is out of touch with the seriousness of the disease. His own near-death experience with Covid-19 immunises him from that charge. The outpouring of sympathy while he clung to life in intensive care was real; some of it lingers when he briefs the nation from No 10 and grows visibly tired before the hour is up. That might prompt some voters to go a bit easier on the prime minister than they otherwise would, an indulgence buttressed by the arrival this week of a Downing Street baby. The extraordinary month Johnson has endured acts to protect the prime minister and, since this is very much his administration, the entire government.
He’s helped, too, by the fact that there is so little we know for certain about this disease. The UK may have the highest death rate in Europe, but as David Spiegelhalter argued persuasively, we won’t be sure of that “until the end of the year, and the years after that”. Even if Britain does turn out to be the worst hit, it’ll be easy to argue that it wasn’t the government’s fault but was rather a function of certain immovable facts about this country: that, for example, it includes a city, London, that has no direct European equivalent in size or scale.
Some voters are surely minded to give the government the benefit of the doubt on the grounds that it has merely been “following the science”. That could prove a valuable alibi, nicely positioning the scientists as the fall guys once all this is done. Even those who know that when it comes to public health policy there is no such thing as “the science” – that there are always going to be competing views over how to act on data once you’ve got it – could see that as a reason to cut ministers some slack: faced with a near-unprecedented threat, politicians have had to make life-and-death decisions with no clear manual to follow.
It helps that much of the press is supportive, putting the Johnson baby news or Capt Tom Moore on the front and condemning the dead to the inside pages. It’s handy, too, to have a few outriders attacking journalists for daring to ask awkward questions at a time like this, suggesting they should be biting their tongues in the spirit of national unity (when, of course, asking awkward questions of those in power is journalists’ essential duty). Nor does it hurt to have an opposition that – for reasons that may make sound political sense – has decided to offer mild, “constructive” criticism rather than to put the boot in.
All of these factors have helped insulate the government from the flak that would otherwise be coming its way. But there’s one more, perhaps less obvious explanation – and it relates to judgment by comparison. We don’t need to wait for a full statistical analysis to know that Johnson has not been the worst world leader in this crisis, because we can declare a winner in that contest right now.
Each day Britons wake up to ever more jaw-dropping news from across the Atlantic. Last week, it was Donald Trump advising Americans to inject bleach. On Friday, it was his claim to have seen evidence that coronavirus was developed in a Wuhan laboratory, a claim denied by his own director of national intelligence. The shocking images of protesters wielding assault weapons storming into the state assembly in Michigan on Thursday night are hardly a surprise, given that Trump himself was tweeting “Liberate Michigan!” a matter of days ago, cheering on those who are demanding their states defy the advice of Trump’s own White House and prematurely end the lockdown that has so far proved to be the only way to stop the virus.
However bad Johnson and his government of conspicuously few talents is, we know they’re not that. They can at least show a modicum of human empathy for those who’ve lost loved ones, a feat that continues to elude Trump. They have at least – eventually – united behind a coherent “stay home” message, rather than undermining that advice at every turn. They are not hawking quack cures and endorsing deranged conspiracy theories. They do not seem willing to countenance mass death in the insane belief that it will help them win an election. It’s a low bar, but these are low times.
• Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
Trump is handling coronavirus so badly, he almost makes Johnson look good
Jonathan Freedland
The only thing protecting the prime minister from harsher criticism of his failures is that the US president’s are even worse
Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
This government should be on the rack. The evidence that it botched crucial decisions at crucial moments is piling up. The litany is now so familiar it barely needs repeating, from the failure to secure personal protective equipment for frontline workers in health and social care to the 11 lost days of delay before imposing a lockdown that has proved essential for saving lives.
You can focus on specific judgments: why did ministers allow mass gatherings, from racing at Cheltenham to a Stereophonics gig in Cardiff, ignoring the warnings that such events would be a virus-fest? Why did it initially tell people to stay away from pubs and restaurants, but simultaneously allow those places to stay open? Why did the government call a halt in March to testing and tracing? If the answer is a lack of capacity, then why did it not immediately set about recruiting the “army of contact tracers” that will be required if we are ever to emerge from our homes? Why the focus on mega-labs, rather than seizing on the offer of small laboratories to do testing for their local hospitals, which, as Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute, has argued, could have made those hospitals “safe places”? Why the rules initially limiting tests to those NHS employees with symptoms, which, as Nurse puts it, allowed staff to be on wards “infecting people”?
Or you can look at decisions going back a decade, pointing a finger at Tory austerity that starved public services to the bone, leaving them underequipped and eroding our resilience. Either way, the country now faces a death toll approaching 30,000.
And yet, far from being on the rack, the government continues to bask in public support. True, approval for the government’s handling of the crisis has fallen from the dizzying 61% it reached a month ago to 51% at last count. But 51% is still the kind of approval rating most politicians long for.
What accounts for this disconnect between the government’s record and the public’s high regard for those responsible? Put another way, why isn’t Boris Johnson in more trouble?
Any answer must begin with what pollsters call the “rally-around-the-flag” effect, the tendency for voters to back their leaders in a time of crisis. Data from around the world, in this era and in others, suggests that when citizens are scared, they want to believe those in charge have the wisdom and strength to protect them. Think of electorates as passengers on a plummeting plane: in that moment of peril, they need to trust the pilot.
In Johnson’s case, there’s an additional factor. No one can throw at him the traditional accusation directed at politicians, namely that he is out of touch with the seriousness of the disease. His own near-death experience with Covid-19 immunises him from that charge. The outpouring of sympathy while he clung to life in intensive care was real; some of it lingers when he briefs the nation from No 10 and grows visibly tired before the hour is up. That might prompt some voters to go a bit easier on the prime minister than they otherwise would, an indulgence buttressed by the arrival this week of a Downing Street baby. The extraordinary month Johnson has endured acts to protect the prime minister and, since this is very much his administration, the entire government.
He’s helped, too, by the fact that there is so little we know for certain about this disease. The UK may have the highest death rate in Europe, but as David Spiegelhalter argued persuasively, we won’t be sure of that “until the end of the year, and the years after that”. Even if Britain does turn out to be the worst hit, it’ll be easy to argue that it wasn’t the government’s fault but was rather a function of certain immovable facts about this country: that, for example, it includes a city, London, that has no direct European equivalent in size or scale.
Some voters are surely minded to give the government the benefit of the doubt on the grounds that it has merely been “following the science”. That could prove a valuable alibi, nicely positioning the scientists as the fall guys once all this is done. Even those who know that when it comes to public health policy there is no such thing as “the science” – that there are always going to be competing views over how to act on data once you’ve got it – could see that as a reason to cut ministers some slack: faced with a near-unprecedented threat, politicians have had to make life-and-death decisions with no clear manual to follow.
It helps that much of the press is supportive, putting the Johnson baby news or Capt Tom Moore on the front and condemning the dead to the inside pages. It’s handy, too, to have a few outriders attacking journalists for daring to ask awkward questions at a time like this, suggesting they should be biting their tongues in the spirit of national unity (when, of course, asking awkward questions of those in power is journalists’ essential duty). Nor does it hurt to have an opposition that – for reasons that may make sound political sense – has decided to offer mild, “constructive” criticism rather than to put the boot in.
All of these factors have helped insulate the government from the flak that would otherwise be coming its way. But there’s one more, perhaps less obvious explanation – and it relates to judgment by comparison. We don’t need to wait for a full statistical analysis to know that Johnson has not been the worst world leader in this crisis, because we can declare a winner in that contest right now.
Each day Britons wake up to ever more jaw-dropping news from across the Atlantic. Last week, it was Donald Trump advising Americans to inject bleach. On Friday, it was his claim to have seen evidence that coronavirus was developed in a Wuhan laboratory, a claim denied by his own director of national intelligence. The shocking images of protesters wielding assault weapons storming into the state assembly in Michigan on Thursday night are hardly a surprise, given that Trump himself was tweeting “Liberate Michigan!” a matter of days ago, cheering on those who are demanding their states defy the advice of Trump’s own White House and prematurely end the lockdown that has so far proved to be the only way to stop the virus.
However bad Johnson and his government of conspicuously few talents is, we know they’re not that. They can at least show a modicum of human empathy for those who’ve lost loved ones, a feat that continues to elude Trump. They have at least – eventually – united behind a coherent “stay home” message, rather than undermining that advice at every turn. They are not hawking quack cures and endorsing deranged conspiracy theories. They do not seem willing to countenance mass death in the insane belief that it will help them win an election. It’s a low bar, but these are low times.
• Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist