Editorial Comment:
An online speech delivered in an almost empty room to a virtual party conference did not exactly play to the Prime Minister’s rhetorical strengths. But there was enough of the old Johnsonian optimism on show to remind his party why they elected him leader and the country returned the Tories to office last December. As he said earlier this week on the BBC, the characteristic “buoyancy and élan” have been set aside for a more sober mien, but his keynote address had some familiar flourishes and was notable for his determination to look ahead to a post-covid world.
Many of the themes had been rehearsed long before the pandemic changed every equation. With its “levelling up” agenda aimed at holding onto the Labour seats won at the last election, the Government had already made a bold grab for the territory that the Left usually considers its own – the NHS, public spending on infrastructure, higher benefits and the minimum wage.
He chose energy investment as the most eyecatching policy ambition, painting a picture of the UK in just 10 years from now as an almost carbonneutral, pollution-free zone in which everyone will drive around in electric cars and all households are powered by offshore wind turbines. The UK, he said, had decided to become the “world leader” in low-cost, clean power generation, not for the first time making a claim to global-beating status that needs to be matched by achievement.
A 10-year timetable for such a shift seems overly ambitious and yet wind technology has advanced so rapidly that it is not inconceivable that one third of our supplies will come from this source by the next decade. But it needs to be part of an energy mix that includes nuclear, where serious supply problems remain, as well as new sources such as hydrogen, backed by carbon capture and storage. Mr Johnson was right to say that this must be led by the private sector, albeit backed by government investment. A beneficial tax regime and minimum regulation will be required if green energy is to replace the activity lost through dwindling North Sea oil reserves, let alone turn the UK into the eco-equivalent of Saudi Arabia.
The Prime Minister said thousands of jobs would be created in this sector, but they will not even begin to replace the millions that are under immediate threat because of the shutdown of swathes of the service economy. Mr Johnson was commendably eager to look to the future but his entire premiership, which once seemed to be Brexit-fixated, will instead come to be defined by its response to the coronavirus. Arguably, it already has been.
For those whose bars and restaurants have been shut for good, whose artistic careers have been wrecked because theatres and concert halls are closed, or whose jobs working in cinemas have been lost, the promise of jam tomorrow offers little consolation for the misery now. Moreover, many people running perfectly profitable firms are unlikely to be convinced by Mr Johnson’s assertion that Covid has merely brought forward changes that would take place anyway. Their livelihoods have been halted, not by the virus but by state decree. The Prime Minister said he hated doing it but there was no alternative – though countries like Sweden have found that there is.
Mr Johnson is evidently reluctant to take such powers and his discomfort is shared by many of his MPS. The decision to postpone the planned vote on the continuation of the 10pm curfew needs to be an acknowledgement that the policy is wrong, rather than an attempt to buy time to head off a backbench revolt. There is little evidence that the virus is spreading in hospitality settings, with most of the current increase appearing among students in university towns. Many pubs and restaurants have gone out of their way to make themselves “Covidsafe”, and the curfew is damaging firms that were already on the brink after the lockdown. If Mr Johnson really wants to show he cares about them, he would scrap it, or at least promise a rethink, rather than risk being beaten in the Commons by a growing Tory rebellion.
He can always get his way if Labour supports the Government. But if a Prime Minister with a majority of 80 is having to rely on Opposition support to avoid defeat in Parliament he has a serious party management problem on his hands.