Barely a week ago, the government launched its scheme to entice people back into cafes and restaurants, beneath the banner “Eat Out to Help Out”. This is the sort of unforeseen innuendo that happens if you leave the sloganeering to people who – in some ineffable way – regard going down on someone as essentially leftwing.
In light of developments, that unfortunate slogan takes on more of a hectoring tone, as Boris Johnson mounts another podium to strongly suggest there will be a return to “virtual normality” by November, “hopefully in time for Christmas”. Over by Christmas – another interesting slogan, there, from a government not even clever enough to realise it’s not clever enough.
Either way, it’s time for all redshirts to get back to their offices if they can. Or, as Johnson’s chief scientific officer said yesterday, there is “absolutely no reason” to change advice to work from home. This was the appearance before a Commons committee by Patrick “herd immunity” Vallance, who, like Glenn Hoddle, now seems to think he never said them things. Vallance certainly seems to have missed the announcement from chancellor Rishi Sunak, who this week warned sluggish consumer units – “people”, in the old parlance – that the economic recovery would fail unless Britons got back into the shops and restaurants.
Please do enjoy the spectacle of the Conservative-run state commanding its populace to participate in capitalism. It’s semi-optional, for now, though I’d like to think the participation drive will swiftly escalate into backbench MPs being instructed to motor round the streets of their constituencies with a PA system blasting out the message: “YOU MUST RETURN TO THE MARKET ECONOMY.” Commuter commandants to be introduced by October.
Still, what’s the worst that could happen? In fact, there is perverse good news for health secretary Matt Hancock, who has recently looked like the central character in a short story about a man who starts haunting himself. According to a paper by two Oxford academics, it’s possible that Public Health England has significantly overestimated Covid-19 death statistics by including former sufferers who could have subsequently died of other causes. Hancock has ordered an urgent inquiry, which shows us that he CAN order urgent inquiries. The public inquiry into the government’s fiascoid handling of the coronavirus is pencilled in for before winter – just not this winter.
Speaking of eccentric accounting methods, there are question marks over the spending announcements unveiled seemingly five times a week by Sunak. Some suspect the same money keeps being produced with elan, then produced again with further flourish. Those who got to the sealed section in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations will know that this is actually known as the Biscuit Mill model. It’s based on an episode of Bagpuss where the mice claim to have a biscuit mill, but in fact have only one chocolate digestive that they roll off their production line, wheel round the back, then roll off again, and so on. (Incidentally, I must confess that I myself have previously used this metaphor, making it a sort of meta-metaphor about the covert recycling of limited material.)
The episode plays out with the mice eventually being exposed by Professor Yaffle. Who, in this latest case, is played by Paul Johnson of the Institute of Fiscal Studies. The director of the respected economic thinktank said on Thursday that Sunak’s attempt to disguise old money as new money was “corrosive to public trust”, adding that “the ‘Rooseveltian’ additional £5.5bn of capital spending represents an increase of precisely zero this year on budget plans”.
As with Johnson’s performance this morning and in recent days, none of it can really be said to fill one with confidence. Which, for a man whose sole political talent is supposed to be filling people with confidence, feels ominous. Johnson increasingly comes across as a public speaker of dazzling inagility. Even Theresa May murdered prepared lines more humanely. With Boris, the impression is of a man with a joke he’d like to make at some point during the next half hour, waiting patiently for about 56 seconds, then losing all control and spaffing it at the wrong moment. I wonder if it would help to think of something else entirely – cricket averages, say – or apply some kind of numbing agent before standing up to speak?
Consider the moment at prime minister’s questions this week when Keir Starmer asked him if he had a message for the bereaved families of coronavirus victims. As a spectator, your only thought is: don’t do the joke now. Just say a message for the dead people. But Johnson was powerless to resist himself. The leader of the opposition needed to decide which brief he was going to take, he began … Don’t do it now. Don’t do it now. Don’t do it now. “Because at the moment – please please please don’t do it now – “he’s got more briefs than Calvin Klein!”
There it is. Another premature ejaculation by the prime minister – as the promise of this all being over by Christmas may very well turn out to be.
