Boris, hats and rabbits

The other day found Mrs H and I discussing how Boris appears to be hemmed in by circumstances and political pressures. He seems to lack the ability to assert his leadership as opposed to his apparent role as official establishment mouthpiece. As if he knows he cannot recover the gravitas he squandered for most of his political career.

This impression may or may not be valid of course. He may be a willing collaborator in the ludicrous mess that is the coronavirus debacle. In which case he clearly needs to pull a pretty large rabbit out of the hat if he is to avoid the permanent impression that he is no more than a feeble establishment stooge. But even that may not matter to him. It may be his chosen role.

To my mind a major failing of modern Prime Ministers is that they appear to make little effort to understand the basics of important political issues. For example it was easy enough for Mr Johnson to understand that epidemiology is not an exact predictive science.

From that point it was easy enough to work out that he needed a range of expert opinion to bring out the uncertainties. He could then have been more open about the uncertainties and possibly could have steered a more flexible and pragmatic course through the pandemic.

As for pulling a rabbit from the hat, a tiny glimmer of optimism remains, but I don’t think Boris has the hat, let alone the rabbit.