He gave Brits what they wanted.
He gave Brits what they wanted.
W hen Boris Johnson led the Conservative Party to victory in 2019, he delivered the biggest Tory majority since 1987. Though the prime minister had enemies within party ranks, the overwhelming attitude toward him was one of loyalty and hope for the future. Just a few years later, and Johnson is in the political fight for his life. What happened?
The media explanation is “Partygate.” That is, the string of illicit parties — illicit by the government’s own standards at the time — that took place on Downing Street between May 2020 and April 2021. There are two main reasons for the outrage this has caused. One, being political, is easier to understand — mostly faux outrage by Tory MPs who believe that Johnson has become a liability, rather than an asset, and that this may be the best opportunity to get rid of him ahead of the next election. The second is, as my colleague Andrew Stuttaford has described, public anger: “the importance that Brits attach to everyone ‘doing their bit’ during a national emergency.”
On this last point there is, I believe, an additional factor — not only public anger but public regret. Bari Weiss recently summed up the sentiment on Real Time with Bill Maher. Weiss said that at the beginning of the pandemic, she was as enthusiastic as the next person about taking the prescribed precautions. However, two years in, Weiss is worried that future generations will see the policy response to coronavirus as disproportionate, as a “catastrophic moral crime.” The curtailment of civil liberties, along with the school and business closures, were all supposed to be temporary — lasting weeks, not years. The vaccines were supposed to guarantee a return to normalcy. But they haven’t. And the social cost of coronavirus policy around the world has been devastating. Mental health, especially among young people, is rapidly deteriorating; millions of children (especially lower income) have suffered huge educational setbacks from school closures; families have been deprived of precious moments, prevented even from comforting dying loved ones. U.K. cancer charities have warned of tens of thousands of missed diagnoses because of less NHS contact time.
Has it made us any safer? Has it brought back normalcy faster? Was it worth it? At the time these policies were being enforced in Britain, the risks were speculative and the benefits unknown. Still, among a scared population, lockdowns were popular — and so they were pursued. By October 2020, an Ipsos poll found that 45 percent of Brits thought that lockdowns weren’t strict enough and 33 percent said they were “about right” (only 15 percent said they were “too strict”).
The popularity of Covid restrictions helps explain why the Labour Party, the government’s chief opposition, did not focus their criticism on the massive economic and social damage of such policies, but rather continued to insist that the government wasn’t going far enough. The lone voices who did say that prolonged lockdowns were madness were dismissed as “anti-Science,” stupid, and immoral. Of course, for many, “doing your bit” was merely appearing to do your bit. Behind closed doors, some were content to bend the rules as they grew ever ridiculous. Even Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, was photographed drinking beer with staff at what he claims was a work event.
The longer coronavirus goes on, the clearer the price of Western Covid policies becomes. Boris Johnson’s biggest mistake was not in attending various parties or even lying about it — damaging though both of these were. His biggest mistake was giving Brits what they wanted.