Bringing Up the Bodies

Boris Johnson's calamitous couple of weeks continues. "No more fucking lockdowns – let the bodies pile high in their thousands!" is what the Daily Mail led with, and politics today has been about nothing but. Asked earlier for her opinion, Nicola Sturgeon said "I don't find this impossible to believe, on the contrary it's all too believable." Yes, because Johnson has a thing for crass, off-the-cuff remarks. Remember when he referred to the government's emergency efforts at procuring ventilators as "Operation Last Gasp"? And discussing how Sirte in Libya could just be like Dubai "once the bodies are cleared away?"

Did he really say it? The normally pliant and pliable Robert Peston affirms the story, digging up a couple more whisperers who are definitely not and have nothing to do with Dominic Cummings. The truth, however, doesn't matter at this point. Everyone knows Johnson's persistent foot-in-mouth disease makes it believable. It has enough truthiness, and that's what counts in politics. It's the sort of background music no party would like playing in the background.

Meanwhile, the persistence of Tory corruption has finally, it seems, taken a lump out of their poll ratings. The Evening Standard reports how they've lost five points in the space of the month. No consolation for Labour alas, who are also down by one. Could the Mail's scoop push the ratings down further while the rows about the PM's flat and everything else rumbles on?

For the first time, there is a real danger here for Johnson. The resilience of the Tories has been thanks to their politically astute management of the crisis. At each step, the government have keenly emphasised the lengths they've gone to to ensure supply of equipment, bed capacity, doses of vaccine, and the "unprecedented" emergency measures they've introduced. Measures, the more informed reader will know, that were pushed by Jeremy Corbyn before the Tories adopted them. Their visible activism was accompanied at all times by their concerted effort at depoliticising the crisis. Despite the late lockdowns, the carnage in our care homes, the collapse of test and trace, Johnson and co. have successfully taken the political sting out of their disastrous handling. They've managed this by turning the responsibility for infection onto the British people themselves. Transmission of the disease and all that follows is bad luck, an unfortunate individual happenstance. Or because one was acting irresponsibly and not following the guidelines. The viral footage of Hyde Park, of last summer's parties in the woods, and even a certain trip to Barnard Castle hammered home the same message. The politicians weren't as fault, even while they refused to mandate the closure of many unnecessary workplaces, it was a question of conduct and fortune. And, unfortunately, the official opposition have have allowed the Tories to play this merry game. Hopeless.

Why are the warning signs flashing? Because Johnson's indiscreet outburst threatens to blow open the entirety of the strategy. It's one thing to punt out a line about following the science and pleading good faith mistakes on the timing of the lockdowns. That helps the government escape responsibility. But if Johnson is found out for saying thousands of dead are a price worth paying for avoiding another lockdown, then the whole edifice of the pandemic looks less an honest response to unprecedented difficulties and more a deliberate contrivance riddled with hubris and fault. Deaths were preventable and Johnson did not care. True, by itself it might not be damaging, but waiting in the wings is a vengeful Dominic Cummings. He has the receipts showing he pushed for earlier lockdowns, and was knocked back. With Johnson's comments coming to light, a howling tempest is brewing and one that might, might induce a few cracks in the impervious electoral bloc Johnson has relied on.

The second question then arises: why is this happening? For a Tory party that has been more or less united, apart from a few tantrums in and around Number 10, there is no crisis. The poll lead is solid, the majority isn't going anywhere, and Labour are more interested in owning its left than attacking the government. Since the corruption story broke the press have gleefully piled in and driven the sleaze allegations. It is perhaps a reminder to the Prime Minister that his electoral success depended in large part on the spade work they'd done prepping his electorate over decades, and that they can go elsewhere if they chose. Perhaps some sections of the press are upset about Johnson's programme. Before all this broke, common were the "concerns" of the anonymous backbenchers worried about his breaks from the orthodoxy and his arbitrary authoritarianism. And this dovetails with thwarted ambitions. For as long as Johnson looks impregnable, what happens to the men and women in a hurry? Michael Gove is entirely sidelined, and yet remains a wholly owned subsidary of Rupert Murdoch. Yesterday's men like Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt still fancy their chances but are smarting at the slights Johnson slapped them with, and while everyone is hiding Liz Truss - now a big favourite among the diminishing party faithful - is putting herself forward to fight the good fights. Johnson's crisis is opportunity for them. And should it drag on into the summer, the party and its backers will likely conclude the incumbent is pointedly not as fit as a butcher's dog. The door to the backyard might open, and with a final pat of the head Johnson could be led outside.

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