The convalescent PM Who’s running Britain?
“This time last week, along with the rest of Fleet Street, I was writing Boris Johnson’s obituary”, said Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun. “I’ve never been so pleased to see my copy spiked.” During a week in London’s St Thomas’ hospital – including a three-day stint in intensive care – the Prime Minister almost “paid the ultimate price for Covid-19”. Now, he’s recovering with his pregnant fiancée, Carrie Symonds, at his country residence of Chequers, having left hospital on Easter Sunday. In a video message posted after he was discharged, Johnson said “things could have gone either way” for him and praised the NHS staff who “saved my life, no question”.
The PM’s illness was all the more shocking because he’s usually “such a force of nature”, said Bagehot in The Economist. A vigorous – if “eccentric” – tennis player with a penchant for “rough and tumble”, Johnson is said to view sickness as “a sign of personal weakness”, and had been working 15-hour days during the Covid-19 crisis. Then, suddenly, he was in intensive care: Dominic Raab, the First Secretary of State, was in temporary charge, and Britons were left “praying” for Johnson’s swift recovery.
After all, “this is no time for caretakers”, said Jenni Russell in The Times. The decisions being taken now are “shaping or shortening” lives in ways that were “unimaginable” until recently, and Johnson’s stand-in was chosen from a Cabinet noticeably lacking in star quality. “Nobody is looking at the haunted face of Dominic Raab and thinking, ‘Thank God that minister is having his moment in the spotlight.’” But the PM may be out of action for a while yet, said Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail. Until he returns, Raab must ignore the covetous glances cast by ministers such as Matt Hancock and Michael Gove, “throw himself into the breach” and lead from the front.
Let’s not forget the real tragedy here, said Nesrine Malik in The Guardian. For the past week, a multitude of issues which warrant closer scrutiny – the failed “herd immunity” experiment, the delayed lockdown, the deadly lack of testing and equipment – have become “secondary” to updates on the PM’s welfare and “high spirits” in hospital. Here’s a reminder of the facts, said Matthew Norman in The Independent: the NHS has been “desecrated” by Tory governments, doctors have had their real-terms pay cut, and health workers are dying from a lack of protective equipment. If Johnson really thinks he owes the NHS his life, he could start repaying the debt by making sure it’s properly funded.
Before he got sick, it was possible to see Johnson being undone by this crisis, said Robert Shrimsley in the FT. Not any more. The PM’s “brush with death” has brought him closer to voters who have realised they’re more attached to him than they may have thought. Ministers are left to try to steer the country out of the crisis. “The failures will be all theirs; the success, his.” His illness has raised him to “a higher pantheon of leaders”.