Column: Boris Johnson: The man who put Cummings before country

Rarely has one issue angered so many people.

Boris Johnson’s defence of his special advisor, Dominic Cummings, for breaking the lockdown rules they set for everyone, should be his political obituary.

He publicly shredded the policy designed to save lives in order to save one man.

In doing so he outraged every single person who has endured the last nine weeks of isolation from loved ones.

We followed the guidance regardless of the pain. Cummings followed his instinct.

We didn’t visit terminally ill parents in their final hours, comfort relatives in nursing homes, or, faced with falling ill, do what Cummings did and pack our family into a car and drive 260 miles in case we needed child care. We endured that hell at home. That is exactly why this feels like such a brutal, personal betrayal.

Johnson said his grotesque guru “followed the instinct of every father in lockdown.”

His words from a shambolic broadcast on Sunday dragged British politics to an all-time low.

Johnson only came out of hiding to save the skin of the man who tells him what to say and do. The PM has rarely been seen in recent weeks, which suggests he is a) still recovering from coronavirus and, therefore, not fit to lead, or b) not remotely interested. My guess is B.

Johnson doesn’t do detail. He avoids forensic scrutiny wherever possible and then leaves everyone bewildered with his wretched, mangled speeches in which every bumble, every um and err is deliberate and calculated.

Given a straight question, his eyes dart everywhere and he melts into a pool of witless repetition.

He said he “totally got” the public anger over Cummings. He didn’t, because he’s not interested enough.

https://www.fifetoday.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/column-breaking-lockdown-rules-hurts-everyone-2861572

https://www.fifetoday.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/column-social-distancing-we-need-find-new-way-shop-2852164

We look at Donald Trump – a man who wears his idiocy like a badge of honour – and laugh at his vulgar presidency, but when his manual on how to run a country comes to the UK, it stops being a bad joke.

Johnson is Trump with an Eton background. A man pitifully out of his depth, a leader who cannot lead – and, even more damning, can’t be bothered to lead. He has all he wants. Power.

This is the man who told the nation that many of our loved ones would die. A statement so bereft of compassion he might as well have concluded by saying “but hey ho - that’s life.”

In his mind he’s a Churchill for these times of crisis. He’s not even Churchill the animated dog which sells car insurance in the TV advert.

Johnson’s double-think, contortion of the truth, and reluctance to speak to, and for, the nation renders him utterly unfit for public office –but we knew that before he arrived at Downing Street.

That he was still chosen by his party makes you question the competency of those who voted for him. May they never get close to public office at any level.

If Johnson’s conduct does one thing, I hope it makes people angry.

Angry enough to drive out the self-serving idiots. Angry enough to shake the system to its core. Angry enough to challenge the cynical spin and force change. Angry enough to just vote.

We deserve much better than this appalling bunch.

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Allan Crow, Editor, Fife Free Press