Boris Johnson’s speech announcing Lockdown 3 on Monday consisted of 1,152 words.
Not 1,152 different words, obviously. That’s the sort of stunt speechwriting you’d expect from a maverick genius wordsmith, not the human manifestation of a clumsy bear in a children’s cartoon.
In all, there were 530 unique words. “Covid”, “new,” “variant” and “virus” occurred seven times each, as did “schools”. Leaving aside the English language’s most common utterances, the only word to occur more was, well, “more”.
He said “we” 25 times, “are” 13 times, “in” 23 times, “the” 72 times... but not once did he manage to string them together and find an appropriate four-letter conclusion.
One word, however, was notable by its absence. The 120th most common word in the language is “sorry” – but he didn’t find time to say it once.
Not to any of the people who will have doubtless picked up the virus during Monday’s false start to the school term, nor to any of the people who catch it from them.
Not to the teachers’ unions who dared to stick up for their members and ask that the schools be closed, a request for which they were called all the names under the sun right up to the point the Prime Minister realised they were right.
Not to any of the millions of business owners and their employees at the sharp end of Johnson’s inability to stick to a strategy. Not to the families of the tens of thousands who needn’t have died.
The rest of us have said sorry countless times. We’ve spent the best part of a year saying little else. Sorry, no birthday party this year; sorry, we have to let you go; sorry, we can’t visit, even though it’s our last chance.
Think of the sacrifices we’ve all made – and the Prime Minister of the country can’t even bring himself to say sorry to us.
He says it when it suits him. In 2004, as Spectator editor, he put on a hair shirt (making him look even more like a cartoon bear) and made a whistle-stop tour of Liverpool, apologising to anyone he could get his paws on over an article full of stereotypes and insults about the city.
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The pain caused by Simon Heffer’s Hillsborough slur was genuine, but Johnson’s apologies were a transparent PR stunt, simply the most expedient move for him at the time.
Now he’s achieved his life’s goal – and even though it’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’ll never admit to his mistakes.
Unabashed, unashamed – and unapologetic.
