THE nation has just watched a Prime Minister commit professional suicide. Well most of us have. Two other audiences remain, those who did not watch and those who believe Boris Johnson is the messiah.
It is possible I am exaggerating but I doubt it. For Boris Johnson did not merely defend his special adviser Dominic Cummings. He did not merely refuse to sack him. He endorsed his actions. Which means the buck has moved up a level to the Prime Minister's own desk.
As a retired PR adviser and consultant I listened in mounting horror to the foolishness of Johnson's words. Bad enough that he chose to defend the indefensible actions of his man. Bad enough too that he should have called his actions reasonable and legal. But then he set about lying to show that the interpretation put upon the regulations was justified by the words in them.
This is not only untrue but the facts of this case do not meet even the extreme interpretation that Johnson has put upon them.
If you brief a senior executive on a breach of the rules you have to make sure they understand what their audience understood. Stay Home. Short sweet and eminently supported by the man himself and all of his acolytes. And resulting in huge personal, emotional and familial sacrifices by the population. Not sit at home and think about it. Not figure out how to avoid it. Not use your heartfelt desire to do something else. But Stay Home.
It is worth just examining the probity of Cummings claim, which Johnson so handsomely endorsed.
He and his wife are both high powered employees with work demanding long hours and flexibility. They live in a nice London house with a four year old son. To ensure his care they have a nanny. I will just say that again since it is something the media seems unable to grasp. They have a nanny. Presumably to provide support for their child when they are not available. Hmmm.
But beyond that they will have a wide circle of friends in the area. And they both have family working and living in London. Some of Cummings chums and family work in number 10. So the last problem they were confronted with when Mrs Cummings announced she had covid-19 symptoms was child care.
The regulations state that in this circumstance the family should self-isolate, at home. Mrs C would use one room and facilities; the others the rest until things changed or they had been tested or 14 days had elapsed. No problem you might say for the Cummings family.
But he must have asked himself, why do we want people to stay home? Surely they can do their jankers somewhere else? No. Track and trace requires that the trackers and tracers know where you are. If they spoke to the source of Mrs C 's infection they would come knocking on the Cummings's door. No one home? Where are they? They could find them but it would take time.
And by then Mrs C would have given it to Mr C, the child may have it, the people they went close to at the motorway stop where they took a pee, fettled the child and bought fluids... well anyway you get the point.
The rules have a purpose, the purpose was the safety of the entire family including the four year old child. Cummings ignored all that and decided he was above the rules and could do what he wanted – see his parents, honour his mum's birthday and get out of the London hell hole while they recovered.
And he had the infernal cheek to refuse to quit, laugh at the issue, tell us he doesn't care how it looks (thus insulting his boss and the cabinet). And then his boss throws the entire covid-19 strategy under a bus along with the reputation of the Tory party. For what?
To save the neck of a man who is an avowed anarchist. Judgement? Johnson never has had any and has never proved it so conclusively. Now the issue is – Johnson
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