For reasons unknown, I have just finished watching Boris Johnson’s latest press conference where, alongside Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and senior NHS suit Dr Nikki Kanani, he had literally nothing new to say. Instead, we were ‘treated’ to Johnson’s familiar Bertie Booster presentation of how we all needed to get together and get jabbed again because otherwise we might all die. I watched it despite knowing, in my heart of hearts, that the only reason the conference had been called was to cause as much difficulty as possible for the national newspapers just as they start to go to press. That is how cynical Johnson’s government is. You won’t be surprised to learn that.
Unlike at today’s PMQs, Johnson didn’t lie all the way through the presser. At the pressers, Johnson is usually standing alongside men and women of honour, which must feel extremely odd for him given the chancers and shysters he sits next to on the government benches. But there was a sort of theme to it. The Downing Street TARDIS had appeared and Johnson had taken us back to March 2020. Essentially, it went like this:
“This is going to be a great Christmas, See all your family and go to a packed-out pub and get shit-faced. Kiss everyone under the mistletoe – tongues, if you like – and forget about your worries and your strife. At the same time, try to see as few people as possible, be sensible because Omicron is a bit of a bastard. If you need to snog under the mistletoe, maintain social distancing. If everything goes tits up, it’s your fault.”
Confusion, never far away, all but overcame me as Whitty explained that the numbers of new infections would be at Guinness Book of Records levels, nurses and doctors would all be off sick from work and if you were daft enough to suffer a heart attack over Christmas, one of the porters now running A&E might be able to get you a paracetamol.
So there was the messaging of 2020 all over again, as described here by Matt Lucas. Things are bad, they are going to get worse, it might be an idea to cut down on your social gatherings but we’re not going to tell you that. IT’S CHRISTMAS. We’ll worry about the consequences in January and if we need a few extra body bags don’t worry: Matt Hancock’s mate who flogged us all the overpriced PPE can probably dig some up from somewhere.
If I had a business in the hospitality sector, which makes its money at this time of year, I’d be bricking it. If you heard Johnson AKA Bertie Booster (with thanks to John Crace for that one), you might have felt all was fine and you wouldn’t kill granny this year. However, if you stayed on for Whitty and Kanani, you might be ordering a few more bottles of plonk in the Big Christmas Shop.
Do go out, don’t go out. I hope that’s clear. And when the daily record number of new infections is smashed to smithereens over the coming weeks, I suspect many people will be closing the curtains and hibernating until the New Year. We’ve been here before with Johnson and the joke, which I never found funny, is on you and me.
