There was a time when Boris Johnson would dismiss any question about family life with a curt ‘I never talk about these personal matters’.
He is certainly talking about them now.
Day after day, pro-Johnson propaganda outlets have treated readers and listeners to page after page, phone-in upon phone-in, of the Prime Minister, his health, and his latest child.
Huge headlines have shouted out from the news-stands that it was the thought of never seeing his son which gave him the strength to beat the virus.
I am sure there will be some truth in this. But, first, him talking about all this goes against his cast iron rule about family.
Second, he is also the Prime Minister at a time of national crisis, and it is becoming more and more obvious that the ‘Bojo’ cult of personality is a fairly cynical tactic aimed at distracting from his many failings in the handling of this pandemic.
We saw the same when he was taken ill. Of course it was hugely newsworthy.
However, when some of the papers were leading their coverage on his health every single day that he was in hospital, this struck me as being more about turning attention away from the national catastrophe that was unfolding than providing readers with genuinely new information.
The tone of some of the reporting would have made Kim Jong-un’s spin doctors blush.
We have seen throughout Johnson’s career that he will do or say ‘whatever it takes,’ to use an in-vogue phrase, to further his own political interests and ambitions.
Even if he doesn’t issue explicit orders to exploit either his illness or his son for political gain, he has plenty of supporters who will do it for him.
Right now, the more the focus is on Johnson the person, not Johnson the leader presiding over a horrific and rising death toll, the scandalous neglect of care homes, failures on PPE, fiddled figures on testing, and the shocking indifference he showed to Covid-19 as it neared our shores, the better it is for him.
When someone has as much form as Johnson, we have cause to be wary.
We should be wary too about the incessant use of the line that ‘we are following the science.’ Scientists do not make major strategic decisions. They provide information and advice. Ministers have to decide how to use it.
Just as Johnson has always been good at evading scrutiny he has been good at avoiding blame too. Scientists be warned - this particular blame game is already under way.
