Public trust in the PM may now have gone for good

WHAT were you doing in May 2020? Ordinarily, you might not remember in the whirlwind of early summer barbecues, trips to the beach, perhaps a late spring holiday or lots of catching up with friends, at the pub or in the garden. Maybe you were at a bring-a-bottle party...

Or maybe you weren’t. Because May 2020 was anything but ordinary. And to meet up at a party was against the law. Millions of us were meeting just one other person from another household – always outside – and staying two metres apart, in strict adherence to the regulations designed to keep us at home, protect the NHS and save lives.

But in Downing Street they were partying.

While in some parts of the country police officers were snooping in shopping trolleys or questioning two people out for an innocent walk because they were both sipping coffees, the Prime Minister and his wife were allegedly pouring themselves a glass of wine and mingling with up to 98 others in the garden behind Number 10.

Police forces in England and Wales issued 14,244 fines for breaches of the coronavirus lockdown laws between March 27 and May 11, according to figures from the National Police Chiefs’ Council. They seem to have missed all the people who appear to have been breaking the rules in postcode SW1A.

Throughout this coronavirus crisis, I have been prepared to cut the Government, and specifically the Prime Minister, quite a bit of slack. I thought that Dominic Cummings’ trip to Barnard Castle to provide childcare for his son when he and his wife were ill was stupid, but just about defensible, in the circumstances. I thought Allegra Stratton’s mock press conference following the earlier “party-gate” allegation late last year excruciating, but hardly enough to bring down a government in the middle of a pandemic. But the drip, drip, drip of revelations has grown to lake-like proportions in the past few weeks. The mountain of evidence that it really was one rule for us and another for those in charge is now extremely hard to argue against.

Politicians of all political stripes are capable of being bad, even downright evil. Through history there are cases ranging from recklessness to poor judgment made by leaders at the time. In many cases the consequences of those errors, from Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler to Tony Blair’s adventures in Iraq, are far more serious than a Downing Street garden party during lockdown. But judged on other criteria – on the importance of standing shoulder to shoulder with your citizens; of understanding what is the right thing and what is the wrong thing to do, partying while the nation was in lockdown is just as bad, politically, as making a bad decision for what you believed, at the time, to be the right reasons.

Boris Johnson owes his electorial success to his chutzpah. Increasingly it seems there is not much else. But audacious behaviour relies on those who sit in judgment laughing along with you and, perhaps with a shake of the head and a wry smile, saying, sotto voce, “Oh Boris...”

No one is saying that any more. The wry smiles, even among supporters, have turned to grimaces. The head shakes have been replaced with clenched fists.

Trust, already an endangered commodity between public and politicians, has been further eroded.

In truth, in the case of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, it may have gone for good.