A crisis that could not be any more serious demands leaders to match
Conflict builds character, according to the leadership textbooks, but crisis defines it. If true, we have seen a few defining moments this week.
We have seen, for example, Downing Street briefings suggesting tomorrow will be Freedom Day, after Boris Johnson tonight unlinks the chains of lockdown to release a grateful nation into the sunlight. It is to be Happy Monday, apparently, and, by way of a teaser, we saw the Prime Minister wandering to work in a sun-dappled St James’s Park yesterday, with only his coffee, close protection officers and a Press Association photographer for company.
And then in short order, we saw Nicola Sturgeon, no coffee, no bodyguards, telling Scots there will be no rush to exit lockdown, that nothing will change until the risk of reigniting another onslaught is lower than it is now. It is, she reiterated for the hard of thinking, a time for caution. It is, she implied, with every unspoken word, no time at all for anonymous briefings, confused messages, cheap headlines, reckless promises and false hopes.
After days when the anonymous voices of Downing Street became increasingly less strident and increasingly more cautious, we will wait and see what the Prime Minister says tonight but he now seems unlikely to be ringing the bells of freedom.
The VE Day commemorations reminded us of another time of strife, and we should be in no doubt that our societies are at war with this awful virus. Scientists may be our battlefield generals but our commanders remain those in the highest offices, behind the biggest desks, and, as Scotland’s pre-eminent historian, Tom Devine, says elsewhere in these pages, we can only hope they are of the calibre in charge in 1945.
In Britain and Scotland the biggest desks belong to Boris Johnson and Nicola Sturgeon and comparisons are inevitable. For the sake of common purpose, judgements on their respective performances remain largely unspoken and, in this time of defining crisis, that is perhaps fortunate for Mr Johnson.
The paucity of ministerial talent and experience in the Prime Minister’s cabinet becomes clearer with every press conference and the performance of Mr Johnson, himself, has not, so far, inspired great confidence that a grip is being got.
In the First Minister, Scotland has a capable and intelligent leader; a leader, more importantly, who seems to take her job and the responsibility that comes with it as seriously as any of us could hope.
This crisis may not have defined our First Minister’s character but it has confirmed it.