I see you at the daily conference, your carefully tousled hair conveying none of its usual charm, its contrived wobbling instead betraying the frantic panic of the man it straddles. This isn’t quite the carefree lark you were promised, is it? You were meant to ride a wave of nationalist glory all the way into the history books and instead you’re governing a nation suffering through the apocalypse. This isn’t what Dominic promised you, is it? What on Earth are you paying that weird basement full of super-forecasting eugenicist thumbsuckers for exactly? Those pasty fucks couldn’t see a train coming if they stood on the tracks and felt their feet rumbling.
Anyone who buys into the nonsensical notion that this is somehow your Churchill moment obviously hasn’t been paying much attention. It’s quite the opposite – never before have so many chosen to do fuck all about protecting the vulnerable few. As a result the drastic measures you didn’t foresee becoming necessary have become necessary on a daily and rolling basis. They might be big, bold, sweeping changes to the very way we live our lives but your every move has been cautious and reactive, communicated poorly and delivered without authority. Just a few short days ago businesses were left flapping in the wind as you scrambled to clarify your position under pressure and the self-employed are currently very much abandoned. All they’ve got so far is the humiliating admission that it turns out you always knew universal credit was a pathetic amount to ask anybody to live on in the first place.
At least they’re finding ways to amuse themselves for now. The self employed are about 15% of the workforce and sales of sex toys have gone up by 13% so it seems like most of them are taking your advice to go and fuck themselves literally.
The messaging has been an absolute mess, cloudier than a syphilitic’s piss when what everyone desperately needs right now is simple, direct clarity. Half the country rushed out for a last hurrah at the pub on Friday night because you couldn’t even order them to close with any conviction. You’re still muddying the waters by waffling and ad-libbing, grabbing for the most obscure words you can think of in a hopeless bid to charm our facemasks off on the way into bed with you. False information continues to spread like wildfire and while I’ve no doubt Chris Witty is the expert and adult in the room, actual government policy is still being influenced by the sort of untested behavioural science Cummings has long advocated. Relying on him to predict the citizenry’s mass reaction to your every move is like asking a Terminator to define love. This isn’t a referendum to manipulate with big data. It’s a national emergency and your trembling at the tiller endangers people’s lives every single fucking day.
That you’re already visibly bored of the weight of all this responsibility should be a surprise to no-one, Boris Johnson. The jokes and witty amorphisms have reappeared in the daily briefings as you attempt to pratfall your way to rising to the occasion. They elicit no chuckles in the room when the national mood is so anxious – in fact, they make us want to squash the sombrero with your head still in it. You can’t catchphrase your way out of this one no matter how hard you try. Just a day after you glibly promised us we’d all be over the worst in three months the ugly reality was splashed all over the headlines. ‘Get Coronavirus done’ just isn’t selling no matter how hard you struggle to push it uphill.
We all have our part to play moving forwards. The unbelievably dedicated staff in the NHS, the overwhelmed teaching staff being asked to act as guinea pigs for an untested hypothesis that they won’t be at risk of infection from the children they work with, the stressed shop workers and the cleaners and the refuse collectors. Just a month ago they were unskilled undesirables and now they’re the only ones propping us up. Who knows – maybe we can expect a reckoning at the end of all this and we’ll start giving them the respect and wages they deserve before you rush to deport half of them.
And you, Boris Johnson? Your part is to lead from the front and to actually make some fucking decisions. While you umm and ahh and drag your feet all that happens is that those who couldn’t give a fuck about the elderly or vulnerable see the lockdown coming a mile off and make a beeline for the beach or park for one last selfish jolly. There’s no way you can write two letters and wait to see how the wind blows on this one.
For Christ’s sake, you’re being eclipsed by Rishi Sunak, a man who I suspect might be three six year olds sat on each other’s shoulders in a Savile Row suit. A month ago he couldn’t pose with a sack of teabags without looking like he’d just shat himself and now you look positively terrified in comparison when stood next to him. Is it so much to ask that for the next few months you put your ego aside, stop with the fucking clown act and turn your ear away from Dominic Cummings’ dangerous Iago impression before he gets thousands of us killed?
I see you, Boris Johnson. I fucking see you.
