Boris Johnson's Tier Four Fears

I've given up trying to fathom the depth of my hatred for the Tories. Every time Boris Johnson opens his mouth, the antipathy sinks deeper and deeper, and this was no less the case with this evening's press conference. Having traded barbs and banter with Keir Starmer at PMQs in which Johnson accused the Labour leader of wanting to cancel Christmas because, sensibly, he was calling for tougher Coronavirus restrictions, now Johnson has gone cap in hand to the nation for forgiveness. Thanks to surging infections in London and the South East, tonight will see a new tier introduced along the lines of November's second lockdown. Irony of ironies, the Prime Minister finds himself horned by his hubris as tier four means no unnecessary travel, the closure of non-essential retail, and no meeting up for Christmas. So much for all those plans he was encouraging people to make.

Why are we here then? The rapid dissemination of the new variant Covid-19, which is up to 70% more infectious than the "original" strain but, thankfully, appears to be no more severe nor more resistant to vaccines, is to blame. This is what's driving a huge tick upwards in infection and necessitating a tougher approach. What Johnson conveniently fails to mention, which naturally the stenographers and courtiers of the loyal hack pack did not pick up on, was how the second lockdown was full of holes and the existent three-tier system is pretty anaemic. Insisting on keeping schools open, when the teaching unions were spelling out how this was preparing the grounds for a public health disaster, undermined the efficacy of the lockdown. Opening up colleges and universities, and letting students circulate around the country while insisting on a minimum of in-person teaching sessions was a case of precipitating catastrophe. And allowing pretty much everywhere outside of tier three to open themselves up following the second lockdown, unsurprisingly, saw infections shoot up.

Will the introduction of tier four work? Despite the problems of the last lockdown, infections were suppressed up to a point before plateauing and charging again. By limiting mobility at a time of mass migration out of the cities to here, there, and everywhere visiting families for the festive period, Johnson is going to be calling on the luck of all the talismans he can muster that this pushes the R number down. After so many rash promises, neither the Tory base nor many in the marginals are likely to be impressed. The tier four zone covers London and the Home Counties, and naturally if people - especially young people - can't fan out from the capital this will have knock on effects on Johnson's popularity everywhere a family were expecting loved ones. Having escaped accountability for the government's actions so far, hiding behind the new variant and pretending it's responsible for the sudden about-turn was the most natural and predictable course of action. Whether it works, time will tell. But useful to note Johnson announced this after the last pre-Christmas Saturday shopping spree took place.

As said many times before, public health has played second fiddle to the politics of public health. Since the first lockdown, the business support schemes, and the furlough programme - now extended to April on the last day of term - the Tories' primary concern has been the preservation of labour discipline and rentier capitalism. Those falling outside their "generous support package", so genereous this is repeated at every possible juncture, are left to the mercies of destitution and food banks with no recourse to help or, in some cases, the pathetically inadequate Universal Credit. Where the life and limb of millions have brushed up against the interests of the miserable sectional concerns of the Tory base among employers and landlords, the latter have won out each time. And yet even here, there might be trouble at the mill. Despite Johnson serving his class and their petit bourgeois hangers on, junior lieutenants on the backbenches rumble with grumble. Even here, there's only so much foolishness and incoherence they can take. Might this be the final straw then, the moment where finally the Tory coalition starts cracking? An awful shame it's taken a terrible toll, much of it preventable, to bring us to this point.