You can tell who the country is trusting. People no longer watch Boris Johnson on TV because they wonder why he is lying to them. They know why. Boris lies because he knows how to interact. His default setting is Deceit. The past and present are both foreign countries. Truth and Boris have never been on good terms. When the prime minister and Chris Whitty hold a press conference, there is only one person who is listening.
The chief medical officer appeared to be starstruck by the Johnson swagger and the Downing Street setting and would tend to defer to anything Johnson said. The stuff he knew was bullshit. Over the last nine months, the chief medical officer has become more aware of his surroundings. He speaks his mind.
There was a case in point on Wednesday. Whitty went free despite the fact that the Omicron variant is more transmissible than the delta. He thought the government advice was just plain crazy. If you wanted to make it through to Christmas without getting ill, then it was time to start cancelling some engagements and reprioritising your social calendar.
The reaction was immediate. It is always safest to do the opposite of what the government suggests, since the libertarians on the right of the Conservative party will tolerate less than the public good.
Labour tabled an urgent question, asking the Treasury for the government to do more on statutory sick pay for those off work and to offer financial assistance for the entertainment industry. The shadow chancellor had a good excuse for not being in the Commons in person.
Not so much, Rishi Sunak. He is on a tour of San Francisco, visiting friends in the area. Obviously working hard. He distanced himself from Boris. He doesn't want to be seen as close to the prime minister as possible, with a leadership election in the offing. Sunak and Johnson are both disloyal to one another.
Steve Baker is turning into a one-man unit. The picture is from the Wiiktor Szymanowicz/Nur Photo/Rex/Shutterstock.
John Glen, the junior minister, was harangued from all parties for 45 minutes, in the absence of the chancellor. He said it would be fine. Everyone should just wait for the afternoon. To give Rishi a chance to wake up, fit in a yoga session followed by a tantric massage, and then make a 10-minute phone call with some stressed out business men back in the UK. Could everyone take some deep, Omicron-free breaths and realign their chi? Or kundalini. Or something.
None of them reassured anyone. Glen tried again, repeating what the government had done, and dropping hints that something would happen in a day or so once Rishi had completed his ayahuasca experience. People are pestering the Treasury about their business going out of business. People were always thinking about themselves. The problem with society was that. Too much of me, me. Om.
People should follow the government's advice and go out and catch Covid. Boris wanted people to do that. No clubs and restaurants would be at risk if that were the case. He would like to take his team out for lunch on Monday. Someone should keep the receipt. I have some news for Glen. Someone in his team would probably cancel the reservation as he spoke and he would be eating on his own. Not for the first time.
Steve Baker is turning into a one-man unit because of all of this. On guard against anything that is not sensible. He wanted to know why unelected scientists should have a say in protecting the health service. The politicians who were paid to make the wrong decisions should have the final say on public health. If people died, they died. God punished a decadent society that no longer trusted its own prime minister. The rest of the chamber looked at the floor in embarrassment.
Brand Rishi, which is available at £99.99 from www.dishirishi.com, wasn't the only one to dodge a bullet in the Commons. Liz, Sunak's main rival for Boris's job, was working on her Britannia-themed account, and so was unable to answer Tom Tugendhat's urgent question on why Johnson had lied to him during prime minister's questions.
James Cleverly had to clear up the mess because he was on a mission to disprove theories of nominative determinism. He said to read his lips. There would be no cuts to the Foreign Office. There could be some cuts. There are no 10% cuts. It was not believable even by the standards of ministerial non-denials. We gave up on the UK being a global superpower because we had a government that was not even trusted by the Conservatives. Happy Christmas, Britain.
John Crace wrote A Farewell to Calm. You can support the Guardian and Observer by ordering your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
