The tragedy and farce of Johnson

From: John Riseley, Harcourt Drive, Harrogate.

THERE are the makings of tragedy or farce in Boris Johnson being run over by the lockdown juggernaut that he, against his own better judgement and instinct, allowed to be set in motion.

If only he had been able to break out of the mindset, dating back to before BSE, that the Government should react to risk first with vacuous reassurance and then by dictating precautions. The consistent thread adhered to is that the public should not think for themselves.

Even without the silliness of partying, the vehicle is still likely to have caught him.

The policy (endorsed by Labour) of paying the Covid unemployed 80 per cent of salary while the rest were on jobseekers’ allowance and maintaining the incomes of commercial property owners by keeping their tenants solvent, has build a mega-debt which will now bite us.

So much for the notion that “interest rates are so low it won’t matter”.

There seems a strong consensus for him to go. That is until you exclude those who don’t want the Tories to win the next election (sorry, you don’t get to pick the other team’s captain) and those Conservatives who already regarded Boris as spawn of the Devil for lending his charisma to the Brexit campaign.

Perhaps the bitterest opponents are those who missed funerals or visits to care homes. But was their restraint really about obedience to the law or more simply that such gatherings could have killed their loved ones? Does the “resigning matter” of getting a fine apply also to speeding tickets?

If so, is it to avoid this that we provide ministers with chauffeurs? Should we not also have given them social chaperones?

Do we believe that Churchill ate, drank and smoked within the spirit of rationing?