More on the fake outrage

Laurence Hodge has a piece in TCW which is worth reading. It brings out the problem of weighing up the performance of Boris against the obviously fake outrage being used to take him down.

THE Conservative Home popularity poll for January was released a few days ago and the result reveals little: the current febrile environment means that individual performances are probably evaluated by panel members alongside the potential of Boris Johnson being forced to stand down...

Are the grass roots rooting for their beleaguered leader or is there more to Johnson’s mild upswing than that? Could it perhaps be that in all the media frenzy they recognise a simple truth: that Johnson, who is widely accused of being unable to organise a gathering in a brewery, is now lambasted for organising a concatenation of drinks parties and cake festivals.

The truth is probably that he unthinkingly let these things happen and that he absolutely shouldn’t have. However, there was a certain logical, unspoken hierarchy of rules, and Johnson was not barging into intensive care units or gate-crashing funerals. Many places of work, just like Downing Street, have continued to be staffed over the past two years and it is doubtful whether no birthday cakes were shared by staff behind the scenes at supermarkets or that the odd crate of beer didn’t make its way into delivery depots.

Without doubt Johnson should have done more to resist the authoritarian instincts of colleagues such as Hancock, Gove and Javid and the jackbooted enthusiasm with which rules were implemented by every petty official in the NHS, education, and almost every public sector institution you can think of, but every decision was taken against the baying of the opposition parties and the clamour of the media for ever more draconian measures. A sense of proportion and fairness is called for.

That jackbooted enthusiasm with which rules were implemented must concern anyone who lacks the jackboot gene. We certainly saw it in action and should not forget what we saw. And yes, every decision was taken against the baying of the opposition parties and the clamour of the media for ever more draconian measures. I wish Boris wasn't so sold on lunatic green policies though.