Boris & His Last Ditch Attempt at Popularity: Calling The End of Isolating
Not for the first time, Boris Johnson has demonstrated to the world at large that he cares more about whether or not he is liked by his mates than the welfare of the people he was elected to lead. Also not for the first time, Johnson has provided strong evidence in favour of the argument that an expensive education has no relation to someone’s intelligence (which is, incidentally, true).
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Johnson has eschewed responsibility, put off decisions until the damage is already done, and generally mumbled and faffed his way through the deaths of more than 100,000 people with apparently no consequences whatsoever. This pattern of entitled behaviour, preferring to enjoy the perks of friends in high places whatever the fallout, is not unique to Johnson since 2020 and not uncommon in privileged white men. But it seems that this time, in the wake of public anger about illegal parties and blatant lies, Johnson’s ability to wriggle out of a tight corner is diminishing. And he knows it.
I almost wanted to add a disclaimer here. But then I realised that “disclaimer: I don’t want people to die or be relegated to a restricted and cruel life for my convenience” shouldn’t be something I have to include. For the sake of clarity, I am immunocompromised, my mother is undergoing chemotherapy, my partner’s mother is a nurse in the Covid ward, and I lost my grandad to Covid-19 in the first wave way back in April 2020. We still haven’t been able to hold a funeral for him. Does this personal connection to public health measures make my view biased? Does it undermine my belief that a society that chooses to sacrifice thousands for the convenience of a few is cruel? Does it discount my opinion altogether as one of the unlucky ones who are considered unavoidable sacrifices as Britain goes “back to normal?”
Vitruvius, who lived in the 1st century BCE, had a fundamental understanding of the need for airflow and open space in designing buildings and cities to reduce the spread of disease. The word quarantine comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period, and began to be used in the 14th century during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in Italy. We have, for thousands of years, understood how diseases spread. Modern technology and medical understanding means that we can map the spread of Covid-19 almost from person to person. Putting privacy concerns aside for a moment, it is indisputable that we understand the idea of disease spreading from one sick person to another. If we have the flu, we stay home and rest. If we have a cold, we don’t sneeze on people. If we have a stomach bug, we stay home and are told to sanitise the bathroom so that we don’t re-infect ourselves. We know that illness + exposure = spreading.
So why has Johnson decided that the rules of epidemiology and medicine no longer apply to him or the people of England? Simply, because he has no other option. If scandal was going to be enough to push him to resign, hat in hands, and slink off into the backbenches, he would have left years ago. His is a power that is fuelled and perpetuated by the approval of other powerful people. Britain is run by the Old Boys Club, and internal nepotism relies on external populism to maintain its authority. It’s no secret that there are plenty of Conservative Party MPs writing letters of no confidence in the bizarre secret vote that can unseat a Prime Minister, but as long as Johnson has the favour of his inner circle, that is enough. Protests and growing voter intention for Anyone But The Tories is a threat, yes, but as long as there is a core group of voters still persuaded by the populist campaigning of the man who deliberately messes up his hair, they won’t change much.
Johnson’s pie-in-the-sky promise of making Covid-19 untransmissible – at least that’s what I’m assuming he means by declaring that there is no need to isolate even when you are infected and infectious – is a last-ditch attempt to maintain that bump of popularity. We’ve heard it before in his promises about £350 million a week for the NHS from Brexit, “back to normal” by Christmas, etc. etc. He doesn’t care about the actual practicalities of delivering on those promises; that’s a job for one of his lower-tier employees. As long as he can keep up the veneer of relatability and keep his popularity high enough, he’ll be able to fill the gap with another promise when things get a bit too uncomfortable for him, and another, and another.
So collective public health has been declared less important than keeping the keys of Number 10 by Johnson. In another world, the act of one desperate politician wouldn’t be a potential death sentence to thousands. Unfortunately, we’re stuck in this world where it most likely does.
From the early days of the pandemic, it’s been clear that the idea of “for the many, not the few” has less traction than we would like to believe. Misinformation, conspiracies about government and/or Bad Guys™ using or even fabricating Covid-19 to control citizens, and anti-vax propaganda has been spread deliberately. More recently, known alt-right organisers have been at least partly behind the “freedom convoy” that has locked down Canada’s capital, Ottawa, for more than two weeks. At some point, public health measures have been twisted into sinister government controls and curbs on freedom, and people are angry.
There is doubtless validity to people’s anxieties about the increased data monitoring from the pandemic. But by erasing the pretty key element of saving lives and replacing it with political bluster and one-upmanship, Johnson and his government have been and will continue to be complicit in the deaths of thousands.
Diseases are utterly amoral. Infection and sickness don’t only happen to bad people or weak people. For those of us with chronic illness or disabilities (or both), we have lived experience of the fragility of health. Many of us are still shielding, and have been since 2020. Nightclubs are a no-go, with or without a QR code passport, seeing friends and family in more than strictly controlled environments is anxiety-inducing at best. And hearing people, let alone the elected leader of the UK, deciding that a false concept of “freedom” is more important than our quality of life, or even our lives at all, is terrifying.
Boris Johnson was elected as a populist and will be remembered as a man who chased popularity above anything else. Never mind the damage left in his wake, the hundreds of thousands dead and more left grieving. He will bluster in front of the cameras, mess up his hair, and tell the British people that everything will be fine – we’ll be back to normal next Tuesday. Because for him, it will be. It is the rest of us who will suffer for his promises.
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