There was a cruel irony in the BBC screening Darkest Hour, a film about Winston Churchill helping a seemingly defeated Britain regain its mojo in 1940, the night before Boris Johnson’s latest address to the nation.
Never in the course of political mishaps has a speech been so massively anticipated only to deliver so little.
If the more excitable elements in the media, which is most of it these days, were to be believed the end of our two-month lockdown was nigh. The reality, revealed by a government backpedaling like a unicyclist on piecework, was a range of, sensibly, cautious amendments to the rules.
If we have learnt anything about our current prime minister is that Mr. Johnson and set-piece speeches don’t mix well. He can never seem to find the correct register, instead of exuding gravitas in the manner of French president Emmanuel Macron he comes over more like the class clown awkwardly reading the lesson in chapel.
We should, perhaps, be thankful that unlike Donald Trump at least he doesn’t offer advice to down a flagon of bleach to ward off the virus. A piece of medical advice so deranged it would have failed to pass muster in the Middle Ages, but somehow was taken seriously by a large slice of middle America.
One thing is for sure ‘we will come back from this devilish illness’ is unlikely to join ‘we shall fight on the beaches…’ in the lexicon of quotes trotted out at future moments of national crisis.
Neither will the new slogan ‘stay alert, control the virus, save lives’, which has replaced ‘stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’; although it has allowed news correspondents who did English at Oxbridge to dust off their critical faculties by analyzing it as if it were one of the more gnomic lines from Pinter or Becket.
The changes to the lockdown rules themselves seem sensible, if vague. From Wednesday people who can’t work from home will be encouraged to go back to work if they can, schools and some shops could open again from the start of June, other businesses including pubs could open from the start of July. All this, we were reminded was contingent on the R-number staying low and social distancing rules being followed.
A cautious road map for progress that doesn’t so much promise jam tomorrow as giving us a glimpse of a cupboard that might, just might though, have some jam in it. After two months of bad news and the likelihood of worse to come, this time about the health of the economy, it is better than nothing.
In the spirit of fairness last night’s broadcast wasn’t anywhere near as bad as many in the Tory Party might have feared. Brand Boris is back on the road, the rest of us though will be hoping that he has learnt to temper his ambition and mercurial energy with a little self-doubt. Best not to hold our breath though.
At the end of the day government can only guide us so far along the road into our new normal. We as individuals have to think seriously about the risks we are willing to take, there is no one size fits all option, being hesitant doesn’t make you weak; wanting to push ahead isn’t necessarily foolhardy. Humans being what we are we will most of us hold both positions and a dozen others in the space of a single afternoon.
One thing is certain, the world we are slowly returning to will not be entirely like to one we left. Making our way through it may mean we all have to be a little braver.
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