A sick PM, and what it really means
THE plight of the Prime Minister dominated the newspapers’ comments sections, with one columnist describing Boris Johnson’s admission to intensive care “a turning point” in the Covid-19 crisis in Britain.
The Daily Mail
Stephen Glover questioned whether the Prime Minister would be in any fit state to return to work when he is allowed home from hospital.
“Whatever happens over the next 24 hours – and, God willing, Boris will be all right – it is surely clear that he is physically in no state to resume his extremely taxing schedule when he is released from hospital,” he said.
“I would go further and say that, once he has recovered, he will almost certainly be in no psychological condition to return immediately to full-time work without some sort of break after the tensions and worries that have mounted up over recent days.”
Added to his own health fears, he said, will have been the knowledge that his fiancee Carrie Symonds – heavily pregnant with the couple’s first child – had also contracted the virus.
“In other words, the strains on this naturally gregarious man of trying to run the country while alone and in self-isolation have been augmented by pressing personal concerns. These have been far from ideal circumstances for any person to fight the contagion,” he said.
Glover argues that Mr Johnson needs a couple of weeks rest at Chequers with Carrie as the “bare minimum”.
“The last thing that this country needs at the moment is a hobbled Prime Minister who is too fatigued and borne down to tackle the indisputably enormous difficulties it faces,” he concluded.
“What Britain wants is a re-energised leader who can bring all his intellectual agility and dynamism to dealing with our problems.”
The Daily Express
Stephen Pollard said the crisis had revealed much about our nation.
“Hearteningly – and entirely expectedly – it has shown that the vast majority of us are decent, law-abiding, thoughtful, caring, neighbourly and sensible people,” he said.
“Poll after poll, for example, shows that around 90 percent of us understand and support the need for the measures the Government has taken. And we have seen for ourselves how people have come together to support each other.”
However, it has also exposed the “covidiots” – those who flout the need to stay at home, believing public spiritedness is for other people, he said.
“And there are others who cannot free themselves of the need to score political points, who cannot bring themselves to wish Mr Johnson well without attacking his politics,” he said.
“If you spend even a few seconds on Twitter and other social media you’ll see any number of people lambasting our leader, often using two weasel words, ‘even if’. ‘I wish him well,’ they say, ‘even if he is [fill in the gap here, with words explaining what you dislike about him].’
“There will be a time for political point-scoring when this is all over and we return to something resembling normal life.
“But for now, the last thing that we need is for politicians to put their own egos and battles above the nation’s wider needs.”
The Guardian
Martin Kettle described the Prime Minister’s move to intensive care as ‘a turning point’ in the crisis.
“Its full significance for Britain has not yet been properly understood. The incapacity of any prime minister at any time always throws a government machine into confusion,” he said.
“What is different this time, and much more important, is the wider potential resonance across the country of Johnson’s worsening condition and his hospitalisation.
“The Prime Minister has been struck down by something that threatens every person in the land directly every day.”
He said Mr Johnson’s medical crisis was not just his own.
“It speaks more widely to the nation. It conveys an unexpected, brutal and disturbing message.
“For most, though, the effect is likely to be more sobering and stiffening. Nothing that has yet happened in this outbreak brings home more clearly that we are in a collective struggle.
“We are living through a time when the shadow of death is passing across the land more fatefully than normal.
“Perhaps the most improbable thing in Johnson’s life is that in this dark hour he has surprised us into the need to be serious.”