Bombastic Boris meets his match in forensic Starmer at PMQs
For possibly the first time in his life, Boris Johnson had appeared interested in changing a nappy. “I’m sure it must be my turn now,” he had said hopefully. Carrie Symonds had merely looked confused. In desperation, Boris had next tried to ring Dominic Raab, but the phone went straight to voicemail. The foreign secretary wasn’t that stupid: there was no way he was going to risk a hat-trick of humiliations. Dominic Cummings had then gently taken the prime minister by the arm and led him to the Downing Street front door. It was time. The point of no return.
So it was a decidedly reluctant and somewhat sheepish Boris that appeared for his first prime minister’s questions up against Keir Starmer in the Commons. He had the air of a naughty schoolboy about to appear in front of the headteacher for repeatedly failing to hand in his homework and expecting a prolonged detention as punishment. If only Boris had managed to get off that lightly. By the end he had only made the situation worse by making countless promises he had no idea he would be able to keep and which would be certain to be added to later charge sheets.
For all his life Boris has managed to blag his way out of any tricky situation. Half Flashman, half Billy Bunter, lies and half-truths have been his stock in trade. But in Starmer it is as if he has instinctively realised he has met his match. A power greater than himself. There was little of the prime minister’s familiar smirks, bluster and banter. Weirdly, he didn’t even really make much effort to put up a fight. Just a series of mumbled excuses that he didn’t expect to be believed.
Not that it’s any great shock Starmer has turned out to be so good at PMQs. First off, he’s an inherently serious man and these are serious times. He’s also had years of practice in crossexamination as a QC, so he’s learned how to fine tune his approach. He asks the right questions in the right manner. Never raising his voice, the stiletto in his hand is his courtesy. A death by a thousand kindnesses. What was more surprising was just how easy it all was for him. Keir will have had a harder morning’s work defending a shoplifter at Snaresbrook crown court.
It turns out that the simplest way to compromise Boris is merely by using his own words against him as evidence. Starmer started with a gentle warmup. Two weeks ago, the prime minister had boasted of our apparent success in dealing with the coronavirus. What part of a death rate of more than 30,000 – the highest in Europe – did he consider a success? Johnson barely even attempted an answer, muttering that he hoped one day the international data might produce the conclusions he wanted. Besides, now was not the time for any kind of public inquiry. Or ever, if possible.
From there on it all went steadily downhill for Boris as Starmer observed it was the government’s own data that highlighted the UK’s unwanted top spot in European coronavirus deaths. Wasn’t it the fact that we had been too slow to lock down, to test, to trace and to provide personal protective equipment? Why had it taken 12 weeks to recognise the danger in care homes? When were we going to see a proper strategy as opposed to a few barely literate slogans?
Boris visibly wilted under the most gentle of onslaughts. Maybe he’s still not fully recovered from his illness. Maybe his time in intensive care has provided him with a conscience that had hitherto been absent. Or maybe he somehow realises the game is up. That he was essentially a prime minister for the Good Times, someone to lift spirits with delusional appeals to jingoism. All of which could take place in a moral vacuum of no consequences for him. Now, though, he knows he’s been found out. That his failures have left him with blood on his hands that no amount of washing for 20 seconds while singing Happy Birthday can get clean. He has become Lady Macbeth.
Whatever the truth, Boris could not prevent himself from sleepwalking into further incriminating himself. It was an outrage, he said, that NHS staff did not have adequate PPE. As if the situation was in no way his responsibility. Bluster had given way to dissociation. In his head he is both the prime minister and not the prime minister. Schrödinger’s PM.
Thereafter, his logic collapsed in on itself. Having promised 250,000 tests back in March, he now promised to double the health secretary’s still largely fictitious figure of 100,000 to 200,000 by the end of the month. Matt Hancock shook his head in disbelief at this. This was clearly the first he had heard of this. Here was yet another ad hoc commitment on which he would be hung out to dry.
Boris concluded by saying he was sorry not to be able to announce what measures he may or may not be introducing to ease the lockdown to parliament this week. Mainly because he still hadn’t a clue what they might be. Kill the economy or kill the nation? Maybe he would have more data by the time he spoke to the nation on Sunday. Or maybe he wouldn’t.
But he did promise someone from the government would make a statement to parliament some time next week. Though it probably wouldn’t be him as he had things to do, such as choosing a new colour scheme for the nursery, and he didn’t know if he could stand another punishment caress from Starmer so soon. Hancock again looked ashen faced. For the second time in as many minutes, he was being lined up as the patsy. Some guys get all the luck.