Glum Prime Minister dangling defencelessly like an outsized piñata

As Boris Johnson made his statement to the Commons on the new lockdown for England, many viewers at home will have been shocked. Even outright incensed.

Because it looked, quite clearly, as though the Prime Minister had had his hair cut. If so, this is nothing short of a national scandal. After all, as Prime Minister, he knew before any of us that the lockdown was coming – and he would therefore have been able to book a haircut, before everyone else in England started scrambling for a last-gasp appointment. Talk about an unfair advantage.

As it turned out, a lot of MPS weren’t very happy with the Prime Minister yesterday either, albeit for rather different reasons. After he’d finished his statement, he was attacked from Right and Left with equal ferocity. Sir Charles Walker (Con, Broxbourne) accused Mr Johnson of turning Britain into “an authoritarian, coercive state”.

Sammy Wilson (DUP, East Antrim) barked that Mr Johnson was more like Lord Halifax (a Thirties supporter of appeasement) than Churchill. And Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer – whom Mr Johnson had ridiculed less than two weeks earlier for demanding a lockdown – condemned him for “a catastrophic failure of judgment and leadership”.

For his part, the Prime Minister mostly just looked glum. His usual bullish self-justification and quickwitted pugnacity seemed to have deserted him. “Alas,” he would sigh, again and again (at one point, we even caught an “alas, alas”). While MPS from every party lined up to take a whack at him, Mr Johnson just dangled defencelessly, like an outsized piñata.

His answers were often vague and insufficient. In response to Sir Keir, he couldn’t explain why a four-week lockdown in November was better than a two-week lockdown in September or October (which was what his scientific advisers had wanted). In response to Mark Pawsey (Con, Rugby), he couldn’t explain why (unlike during the first lockdown) pubs were being banned from selling takeaway beers. And, in response to several Tory MPS, he couldn’t explain why an outdoor, socially distanced form of exercise like golf had been banned, either; all he offered was some hazy waffle about Jenga (“It’s very difficult to take out one block without disturbing the whole, er, package”).

It was odd. If you’re trying to persuade people that all your new restrictions are essential, it tends to help if you can tell them why. On one point at least, however, Mr Johnson did his best to sound firm.

“Whatever happens,” he insisted, with a half-hearted thump of the dispatch box, “these restrictions end on December 2”.

Legally speaking, this is true. But it’s worth noting the Prime Minister’s caveat – which was that “any further measures” will be put to a vote in the Commons.

In other words: the restrictions will end on December 2 – but could then resume on December 3.