PRIME Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rish Sunak have gone straight to the top of the leaderboard in the Fastest U-Turn League with their decision to reverse their stance on not self-isolating coming just two and a bit hours after they had made their bonkers statement.
The one thing that the UK has needed during the pandemic is strong and stable leadership (c. Theresa May, 2017) and above all consistency in the messages to the public. Instead we got bumbling Boris, careering from chaos to crisis time and again. He’s the man who has made a science out of U-turns with more volte-faces than a display regiment at the Edinburgh Tattoo.
In dealing with the coronavirus alone we can cite a dozen Johnsonian U-turns last year.
1. Right at the start, according to a BBC documentary never denied by Downing Street, Johnson said it would best to “ignore” the outbreak in China. He soon changed his tune when people started dying and introduced the lockdown.
2. In March last year, Johnson ended the mass testing programme recommended by the World Health Organisation. That came just one day after NHS England announced it was expanding the testing programme. And of course he did a double U-turn later and mass testing began.
3. In May last year, Johnson said the £400 NHS staff visa charge would remain. One day later, on May 21, Downing Street announced the policy had been discontinued. Funnily enough, he was scheduled to be filmed in the Clap for Carers that evening.
4. On June 3, the Government, in the shape of Commons Leader Jacob Ross Mogg, declared that there would be no proxy voting for MPs. One day later, Johnson caved in under immense pressure from MPs of all parties, and proxy voting was allowed.
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5. Also in early June, the hapless Education Secretary Gavin Williamson was given the task of telling English parents that Johnson’s promise to have all primary schools re-opened by June 9 was not happening. 6. Later that month, Johnson picked a fight with an opponent he just couldn’t beat – Marcus Rashford, the brave and principled Manchester United and England star. Rashford campaigned to have the free school meal voucher system continued during the summer holidays and Johnson at first held out until he capitulated on June 16, saying he had only just learned what his Government were doing. Really?
7. Erstwhile health secretary Matt Hancock took the blame for the monumental cock-up over the NHS app, but it was Johnson who had backed the development of an app which just didn’t work. On June 18, the Government had to concede defeat and send for Google and Apple.
8. It was also in June that the controversial quarantining of air passengers came into force. Weeks later, the exemption list had grown to 73 countries and Johnson has since sent out Transport Secretary Grant Shapps to take the flak every time the Government changes its mind about travel – which it does very frequently.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson isolation U-turn a 'monumental leadership failure', say SNP
9. On July 14 came the biggest U-turn to date. The previous month there had been insistence that face coverings would not be mandatory in shops. On that date Johnson made them compulsory. (Just as a by the way, that was the same date on which Johnson U-turned on the issue of Chinese firm Huawei’s involvement in the UK 5G network, bowing to US pressure to keep them out.)
10. In August Johnson told England that the exam results were “good, they’re dependable for employers”. Obviously not, as just two days later, teacher assessment replaced the algorithm method.
11. Also that month, Johnson backtracked on the issue of face masks in schools, and then he also changed tack on the ban on evictions which was going to be scrapped until experts pointed out that it would be certain to lead to rising infections among the homeless.
12. In September, the experts recommended a two-week “circuit breaker” lockdown to try and stem a second wave. Johnson refused point blank but on October 31, he was forced to bring in a month-long England-wide lockdown, saying “no responsible prime minister” could ignore the situation.
That’s just the first dozen – The Jouker is researching many more.
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