Boris Johnson; stop the knockabout politics over pandemic – Sir Bernard Ingham

There are only 100 days to go, please God, to ultimate Brexit.

And an unprecedented virtual party conference season has opened – not that you will have necessarily noticed.

Two of the three parties are under new management – both knights of the realm – and the third, the commoner Boris Johnson, apparently on a hiding to nothing when his turn comes.

This is not to mention the awful reckoning in store with the national
debt exceeding £2 trillion (thousand billion) and a massive budget deficit 
of around £350bn thanks to the pandemic.

We are throwing away in servicing our debts more than we spend on our defences against the probing ambitions of the Communists.

Let us also not forget another constant on the political scene – Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader with a one-track mind regardless of the grief that independence, the break-up of the UK, would bring to all living North of the border.

All this presents our party leaders with a test of character and ability to rise to meet by far the severest political test known since the end of the Second World War 75 years ago

Three things are top of the public’s mind:

How much longer must we endure interference in individual freedom and normal life?

How on earth are we going to cope with a ravaged economy and a vast indebtedness far worse than Gordon Brown’s legacy after the 2008 international financial crisis?

Will Brexit at last be achieved on December 31 with a minimum of fuss and good sense by all concerned?

Let’s start with Sir Keir Starmer 
whose Labour Party conference has 
just ended. Such is the invisibility of virtual conferences that he has still all to prove. His ‘goody two shoes’ vision in a speech in Doncaster yesterday is meaningless without a plan to implement it.

In the aftermath of this artificial conference it seems clear that the unions, his paymasters, intend to keep him under their thumb and Jeremy Corbyn’s Momentum mob have not gone away.

Until he has lived that lot down, he is in trouble because they have seriously intensified doubts as to whether Labour is economically responsible and, as Starmer recognises, patriotic.

This means he still has a mountain to climb to convince us Labour knows the way to get out of the present mess and how to avoid the hard Left’s elephant traps.

As for Sir Edward Davey, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, who goes in to bat this weekend, his major problem is demonstrating his party’s relevance, except as a spoiler.

He will not convince us the Liberal Democrats have something to contribute to the nation’s welfare by being Covid-wise after the event or mourning our departure from the EU. Pointing the way forward is much more difficult than point-scoring. Has Davey got it in him? We shall see.

This brings us to the Prime Minister who, according to the polls, has gone from saint to sinner in little more than six months.

In the process he has buried his liberal reputation under a mound of restrictions; presided over a Government churning out inconsistency after inconsistency detached from real life; and all too 
often promising the earth – or heaven – without any chance of delivering it 
this side of a vaccine and economic miracle.

Promising Shangri La while you are deep in the mire seems to be a government malaise, with Home Secretary Priti Patel and Health 
Secretary Matt Hancock particularly afflicted.

And who the hell is in charge of the Government’s presentation? Its bizarre performance suggests it might be that weirdo, Dominic Cummings. Has he or his technical boss, Boris, not yet realised that credibility is all in presentation?

All this means that blustering Boris needs to get a grip – and fast.

First, he must master his brief, especially with Sir Keir Starmer QC around.

Second, he should stop busking it and prepare thoroughly.

Having done the hard work, he should then complement his boisterous soul with a certain gravitas so that he looks the part.

And then he should convince us, in spite of all that has gone before, he has a coherent plan for Covid, Brexit and economic recovery.

No more knock-about politics, please. Only credible plans will do.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson