course, that is exactly what happened. “Standing at the prime minister’s right-hand side, the nation’s chief
scientific adviser tried but failed to contain a wince,” is the kind of little detail I might have fabricated. That
happened as well.
I might well have added something about Jacob Rees-Mogg wandering into an emergency meeting and
breathlessly telling the nation to “wash your hands while singing the national anthem”. I’d probably keep
that bit back for near the end. You know, the point about three-quarters of the way down, where it becomes
so far-fetched that it’s clearly all a joke. Of course, that’s happened too.
At this point, it appears to behove me to clarify that Boris Johnson didn’t actually shake hands with anyone
with coronavirus. Government sources have been impressing that on people, despite the fact that the actual
prime minister said on live television: “I was at a hospital the other night, where I think there were actually
a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody.” The government is now telling journalists
how irresponsible it would be of them to repeat, verbatim, the words the prime minister said on live
television.
It has now become a matter not merely of national security, but of public health that the prime minister not
be taken seriously. What also happened is that he, father of n, soon to be n+1, urged the public to show “self-
restraint” with its use of the NHS.
The prime minister did not make clear where this drive for personal prurience fitted in with his brand new
coronavirus four-stage plan: contain, delay, research, mitigate. No sooner was the prime minister done than
various extremely senior doctors appeared on news channels to explain that there are more efficient ways of
containing the virus than to pitch up at your local hospital and seek out the coronavirus patients that may or
may not be there, and then shake hands with them.
To the prime minister’s left stood chief medical officer Chris Whitty who, sounding ever more like the
swimming pool security guard from the cult The Day Today sketch, took no fewer than three opportunities
to point out that the vast majority of people infected with coronavirus will not die. At one point, we were
told that 99 per cent of people “will not die”. In 1975... you get the idea.
Still, what difference does it make? Boris Johnson has always been best understood as some kind of mutant
superbug that normal democratic processes are unable to control. It will take us years to develop the
required resistance to a liar that much more brazen than any we have encountered before. All attempts at
containment have failed. We tried delay but it just made it worse. The research was all done years ago but
no one’s interested in it, and it’s far too late for mitigation now. We’re stuck with the guy now for at least
five years. 99 per cent of you will not die. I’d hold on to that, if I were you – it’s as optimistic as things are
likely to get.