Johnson’s dilemma
The new restrictions are unpopular with Tories and economically unsustainable. Emily Hohler reports
Boris Johnson suffered a “crushing blow to his authority” on Tuesday when almost 100 Tory MPs voted against a measure to curb the spread of the Omicron variant, says George Parker in the Financial Times. Although he won the vote to implement Plan B by 369 to 126 (Plan B includes mask-wearing, working from home and a Covid-19 pass for mass events), he did so only with the support of Labour. The mood in Westminster is “mutinous”, says Katy Balls in The Spectator. MPs are asking themselves whether Boris has “outlived his usefulness” and members of the cabinet, including Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak (the two frontrunners), “are accused of being on manoeuvres”.
Johnson versus the backbenches
The vote, which comes after a torrid few weeks, exposes the growing divisions between Johnson and his own MPs, says The Times. This time, the rebels weren’t all from the anti-lockdown wing; they included MPs from “red wall” constituencies and “mainstream” figures such as Damian Green. Johnson’s “standards of veracity and insouciance about conduct in public life have inflicted grave damage on his own and his government’s reputation”. Although for now the “king remains” (he is still “by some margin the best election-winner” the Tories have), his “powers are being curtailed”, says Fraser Nelson in The Daily Telegraph.
Sajid Javid has ruled out mandatory vaccination, “abruptly ending the ‘national conversation’” that Johnson had called for. Rishi Sunak has drawn “his own red line”, saying that any extra revenue will be “used to cut taxes rather than swell the state”. Effectively, “two holders of the four great offices of state have put the prime minister on notice” (both would have to resign if No 10 insisted they broke these promises).
Ultimately, it’s hard to “see any way out of this” for Johnson, given that the political crisis “hinges entirely” on his personality, says Janet Daley in The Daily Telegraph. The trashing of the government’s “we are all in this together” mantra with revelations about the illegal Downing Street parties is unlikely to be forgotten by many going through “life-changing bereavements” at the time, but the “most damaging effect” is on the government’s credibility. “The confidence of the people in their government’s soundness and honourable intention is critical to democracy at the best of times. In a crisis, their willing cooperation is a matter of life and death.”
We need to get off the treadmill
Thankfully, the latest data suggests that Omicron is mild, says The Times. Still, this does not make a case against the “relatively modest restrictions” in place to slow the pace of infections, which are otherwise forecast to reach a million a day by Christmas, meaning that the NHS risks being overwhelmed if even a fr action of those require hospital treatment.
The latest restrictions are not “particularly onerous” and talk of a police state is paranoid, says Jeremy Warner in
The Daily Telegraph. However, what is notable is not the restrictions themselves, but rising “public panic” fuelled by the “relentless alarmism” of the media, which is keeping people away from venues and causing economic pain. This “begs the question of whether government-imposed restrictions are necessary in the first place”. If behavioural change is enough “to flatten the sombrero”, it offers“a possible way off the treadmill of renewed restrictions every time the virus mutates... We need to get to a place where the public is trusted to make up is own mind on the degree of threat repeated waves” of Covid-19 pose. The alternative – repeatedly closing the economy to compensate for the capacity failings of the NHS – will “bankrupt the country”.