Somebody on Twitter posted an image of an article published in June 2019 from The Times written by Matthew Parris. It was in the run up to Johnson's election as leader and much of what Parris predicted has proved remarkably accurate. I remember the article and posted about it HERE. It was a piece about how unsuited to be prime minister Boris Johnson was - and in that, even the right wing press who supported him in 2019 can now agree.
The tweet is here:
I've been reminded of this Matthew Parris piece from June 2019, before Johnson became PM. It's wrong about the election result & couldn't have foreseen the virus, so the timing isn't quite right, but the prediction of how & why Johnson's premiership would fall apart is uncanny. pic.twitter.com/8wN9MJYnGW— Peter Sketch (@petersketch) September 19, 2020
The headline was: Johnson premiership will fall apart in a year, so, I suppose on that measure he has done well, considering covid-19 and has lasted a few months longer than Parris thought.
The part that caught my attention in June 2019 is still fascinating and I think points to the reason it is all going so badly wrong. At one point in his article, Parris tries to provide us with a flavour of what life is like in Downing Street having spoken to past PMs:
"What’s it like in Downing Street? You and I cannot know, but over the years I have talked with a few former prime ministers and they all say the same. 'You can have no idea,' one once said to me, 'of the weight and complexity of what begins to hit you from the very first day.'
"Background briefings thud on to your desk or ping on to your screen in stupefying detail. Mastering them is essential. Nothing we know about Johnson suggests talent for the conscientious absorption of detail".
One former PM said problems that tend to survive Whitehall filters and reach to top are "all the insoluble ones, judgements of Solomon, sure to leave one or both sides of the argument deeply unhappy."
Another one said, "You need to prioritise, pick out the issues where the decision must be yours, and take it, and decisions you can leave to trusted cabinet colleagues"
The problem that Parris identified has been made far worse by Cummings. Johnson's chief advisor has probably been surprised by "the weight and complexity of what begins to hit you from day one." Don't forget that no previous prime minister since Churchill has had to face issues like coronavirus and Brexit - and certainly not at the same time, these are additional to those faced by other PMs.
Having insisted on a cabinet of incompetent lightweights there are no "trusted cabinet colleagues" and Johnson himself is terrible on the details so cannot be of any help, as Parris noted. Cummings is a control freak anyway and thinks everybody else is incapable of following his own world view or of bringing about the radical change he thinks we need.
Covid-19 has exacerbated this. A pandemic is not a problem that you can put on hold for a bit. Brexit is, but they have chosen not to prioritise and this is the reason it is all going wrong. The problems are coming so thick and fast, they are too complex and Downing Street simply doesn't have the capacity to deal with them because everything has to be approved by Cummings who is nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is.
If he was, he would have recognised the problem from the start. That he didn't is down to sheer arrogance.
The next few weeks will test this government like no other since 1940.
