Incompetency, poor judgement, unreliability and cynical lying are all unacceptable reasons why Boris Johnson’s pandemic roadmap might lead nowhere or a fourth lockdown.
The unpredictability of a mutating virus is a justifiable ground for fearing his route out of restrictions could be changed in coming weeks and months.
But the Prime Minister’s 12 months of fatal crashes, U-turns, running red lights, ignoring danger signals and getting stuck up cul-de-sacs are all causes for grave concern.
Why we’d be foolish to believe a word uttered by Johnson is detailed forensically in The Assault on Truth by my friend Peter Oborne, a fine writer once a fan of the PM.
The book persuasively charts the lying of a man sacked twice for fibbing and when telling the truth will be the last thing on Johnson’s mind when he speaks in Parliament then addresses the nation on TV. Deceit is Johnson’s DNA.
We should, I suppose, be thankful for small mercies and scientists appear to have persuaded a Premier who thought Covid-19 would take Christmas off that Easter won’t be a holiday for the coronavirus.
Labour and Keir Starmer should hammer Johnson for deceptions, dishonest and false hope – vaccination primarily an NHS success, not a Tory triumph.
MPs wanting a great British summer need to demand the PM extends job-saving furloughing, fund properly shut businesses until they’re allowed to reopen fully and insure sports grounds and festival promoters so they can plan then be compensated if ordered to cancel.
The roadmap out of the pandemic will inevitably depend on changing circumstances.
Johnson, however, is a terrible driver as witnessed by Europe’s worst funeral pyre and lost livelihoods exceeding other major world economies.
The charlatan who led us into a deeper crisis simply can’t be trusted to lead us out the best way.
