Stuck in the slow lane, is Johnson’s juggernaut in need of a service?

Compare and contrast. At exactly this time last year, during the Tory party conference of 2019, I wrote a sketch about Boris Johnson’s distinctive approach to being interviewed. I called his technique “The Juggernaut”, because that was what it was like: a vast onrushing juggernaut of bluster, 10 solid tons of thundering exuberance, which the benighted interviewer was helpless to halt. BLAM! At maximum speed and top volume the juggernaut would blast straight through all obstacles, traffic cones scattering, crash barriers crushed, the interviewer soon no more than a frantic dot in the rearview mirror.

The perfect illustration of this was an interview the Prime Minister gave to Dan Walker of BBC Breakfast. Poor Mr Walker could barely get a word in edgeways. “Every time I open my mouth to speak,” he whimpered, after five miserable minutes, “you...”

But the rest of his sentence was simply drowned out by the roar of the juggernaut’s engine.

Contrast that interview with the one Mr Johnson gave yesterday to Andrew Marr on BBC One. The difference was marked. He spoke much less rapidly, less emphatically, less energetically. There was little of the old boisterous zest, the uninterruptible verve, the domineering positivity. Rarely did he talk over his interviewer, or interrupt him. Instead, the juggernaut was chugging along in the slow lane, with a wary, even anxious, eye on the speed limit and the road ahead.

Marr asked the Prime Minister whether he was suffering from fatigue, as a result of “long Covid” (as in, the long-term after-effects of a bout with coronavirus).

Mr Johnson insisted that this was “drivel”, “balderdash” and “nonsense”, and protested that he was “fitter than several butcher’s dogs”. He also argued that, given the gravity of the crisis, it would seem “totally inappropriate” for him to behave with “the sort of buoyancy and élan and all the other qualities that I normally bring to things”.

This may be true. Then again, buoyancy and élan were always vital to his appeal. Right now, no one expects him to be cracking jokes and clowning. But his supporters might at least hope for a bit more vigour and conviction.

Not to mention clarity. Marr asked the Prime Minister why, after six weeks of extra restrictions, Oldham’s rate of infection had almost doubled.

Clearly the restrictions weren’t working there, were they?

“It’s too early to say,” claimed Mr Johnson, less than convincingly. (Too early? After six weeks?)

Marr moved on to Manchester. The rate of infection had shot up there, too. Why weren’t the restrictions working?

“Well, I think there are all sorts of factors in play,” said Mr Johnson – but then didn’t explain what these factors were, beyond some vague mumbling about schools and businesses reopening. Schools and businesses reopened in places that haven’t seen such a surge in infections, so it was hardly the most illuminating answer.

His attempt to defend the 10pm “curfew” for pubs, meanwhile, was weak: he cited no scientific justification for the cut-off, and said that drunks tumbling out on to the streets en masse should simply “follow the guidance”.

(Supporters have always admired his optimism, but this was surely pushing it.)

At one point, he promised that the Government would not be “deterred” from delivering on its manifesto. “This is the moment not to slow down,” he said, “but to speed up.”

It was meant to be a message to his MPS. But some of them may feel like sending the same message to him.

There was little of the old boisterous zest, the uninterruptible verve, the domineering positivity