1 - How do you turn a press conference into a hostage video?
Having kept his scientific advisers away from press conferences in the last few days the Prime Minister appeared alongside Sir Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty. But he stopped journalists asking them for their scientific and medical opinion on Dominic Cummings’ breach of lockdown on his day trip to Barnet Castle.
Johnson said “I’m going to interpose myself and protect them” to stop civil servants “being dragged into a political argument”.
Sam Coates of Sky News highlighted the absurdity of the situation by asking the advisers to simply nod if they wanted to talk and eventually the scientists responded that they did not want to get dragged into politics.
2 - A change of tone
There was a major difference of tone and signalling between the moderately alarmed tone of Vallance and Whitty on the level of infections and the PM’s lockdown relaxation measures. Vallance sounded pessimistic about test and tracing saying it had to be “effective” to contain the virus. But Johnson pressed ahead with school plans. The sense emerged that there might not have been unanimous support in the top team.
3 - Hit the mute button
Once again the Prime Minister allowed no follow-up questions, abusing the remote nature of the press virtual conference by simply cutting journalists off. If it was a real press conference follow ups would be impossible to ignore and the public, not just the press, are beginning to notice how this Prime Minister runs from scrutiny.
4- To avoid the mute get your retaliation in first
Journalist Sam McBride of the Belfast Newsletter, slipped in a stiletto under the cover of a wonderful Ulster accent.
His said: “Prime Minister, we know that you’re not going to sack Dominic Cummings, and we know that he is not going to take what many of your party colleagues believe would be the honourable course of resigning."
"But given that lives are at stake if the public health advice here becomes basically bastardised by the actions of Mr Cummings, can you bring yourself to even bother any words of criticism of how he has acted given the gravity of the implications of what’s happened here?”
The Prime Minister ignored the question.
5 - The rate of infection, the R, is between 0.7 to 0.9.
Last Friday the upper limit was one. But...Vallance sounded a very cautious note: “We need to keep concentrating on R below one, that the measures are adhered to and that we all stick with them to make sure the right thing is done and that we end up in a position where we can get the numbers done. But we are in a fragile state.”
