The Times - UK (2020-10-20)

Macron’s war against

Islamism is not enough

Melanie Phillips

Page 28

reliability. He has been sacked from

two jobs for lying and was described

by another boss, the former

newspaper proprietor Conrad Black,

as a “fox disguised as a teddy bear”

after he misled him by insisting he

would not pursue a political career

while editing The Spectator, then

applied for a parliamentary seat. The

long history of unfaithfulness to

women was only reinforced at the

weekend by Jennifer Arcuri’s

confirmation of their affair.

“I think he honestly believes that it

is churlish of us not to regard him as

an exception, one who should be free

of the network of obligation which

binds everyone else,” one teacher

wrote of Mr Johnson in a school

report. But as prime minister that

has implications for the country as

well as for his own life. The failure to

censure his chief adviser Dominic

Cummings when he broke the rules

with his eyesight-testing trip to

Barnard Castle was the moment at

which the public’s respect cracked

and the willingness to follow the

rules began to erode.

Trust has broken down at the very

moment when it is needed more

than ever and it’s the prime

minister’s fault for trivialising the

world around him. It is hard to see

how he recovers from that.

Johnson will not regain his squandered trust

The prime minister’s frivolous and inept approach to multiple crises has eroded support both in him and wider politics

three they should, he said, relinquish

the weapons first and the food next.

Trust should be guarded to the end

because “without trust we cannot

stand”. Trust is essential in human

relationships and business but also

for democracy to function. Black

Wednesday and the war in Iraq were

tipping points in the relationship

between politicians and the voters

because they undermined trust. The

Liberal Democrats have still not

recovered from breaking a decade-

old promise not to raise tuition fees.

The philosopher Baroness O’Neill

of Bengarve argued in her Reith

lectures that the key to regaining

trust was simply to be trustworthy.

“Deception is the real enemy of

trust,” she said, and at the moment

the government is not being

trustworthy. The truth is Mr Johnson

has never valued honesty or

Boris Johnson should know that more

people now see through his posturing

but hasn’t happened here because

the government are perceived to

have done such a bad job”.

There has, in fact, been a further

deterioration of trust at every level.

Trust has broken down between

local and national politicians,

between ministers and their scientific

advisers and even within the cabinet

as different factions argue about the

balance between livelihoods and

lives. Trust in a future vaccine is so

low that there is discussion about

calling in the Queen to increase

uptake. Trust in the test and trace

system is shot to pieces, with many

alarmed by the plans to give the

police the contact details of those

who have been told to isolate. The

restrictions will only work if people

are willing to follow them and the

loss of trust is already harming

compliance as voters conclude that

the government either has no idea

what it is doing or is driven by the

wrong motives.

As with Europe, the pandemic has

become increasingly about politics,

with the prime minister bowing to

pressure from the Tory right. The

Eurosceptic “Spartans” have become

the lockdown hawks and the rebels

such as Steve Baker who made

Theresa May’s life a misery are now

doing the same to Mr Johnson, their

former hero. Indeed, MPs take

delight in pointing out that the prime

minister owes his position to a

previous rebellion and so can hardly

complain. This disagreement is also

about trust. The critics argue the

government should have faith in the

people to do the right thing — as in

Sweden which, according to its chief

epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, has a

“trust-based approach”.

Confucius told his disciple Tsze-

Kung that three things are needed

for government: food, weapons and

trust. If a leader cannot maintain all

B

oris Johnson learnt from his

father Stanley the motto:

“Nothing matters very

much and most things

don’t matter at all.” But it’s

not true. The opposite is the case

for a prime minister whose red box

is filled daily with things that matter

a great deal indeed — never more

so than during a pandemic, with

the country heading into an

economic downturn as the Brexit

deadline looms.

Through his frivolity, Mr Johnson

has sacrificed trust, the most

precious commodity in politics, and

that is a disaster in the multiple

crises he now faces. The negotiations

with the European Union depend on

building a relationship of trust so

that compromises can be broached

in a spirit of honest exchange. The

prime minister has, however, been

playing politics all along. Nobody

believes his latest pronouncement

that we are heading for no deal with

“high hearts”. The boy Boris has

cried wolf too many times and so,

whatever the truth of it, his

declaration is taken — both in

Brussels and by business — as the

latest piece of posturing.

If he is serious, then that is

dangerous because it means the

country will be less prepared for the

cliff edge. If he’s not, then his games

will make it harder to reach a free

trade agreement by the end of the

year because he has squandered yet

more goodwill.

In the same vein, Mr Johnson’s

threat to break international law and

override the commitments in the

withdrawal agreement is seen by

some MPs as just another dishonest

stunt. One former cabinet minister

told me: “It’s my view that they have

decided to accept the deal that’s on

the table. The whole Internal Market

Bill thing is a deliberate piece of

theatre to make it look like they’ve

had a big fight and stood up for

British interests so when they accept

it they’ve got cover.”

Again, even if this is all a devious

ruse, there are consequences. The

damage to Britain’s reputation

abroad, including in the United

States, has already been done. And,

as five British archbishops argued in

their letter to the Financial Times, the

plan will “further undermine trust”

among those who govern the

different parts of the United

Kingdom, while having “enormous

moral, as well as political and legal”

ramifications. Like a conjuror, the

prime minister is skilled at using

diversion to avert the public’s eyes

from the illusion but people are

starting to see through his tricks.

When it comes to the coronavirus,

Mr Johnson has sacrificed the trust

of the public and of his own MPs

through his chaotic management of

the crisis. According to the latest

YouGov poll, 32 per cent think the

government is handling the

pandemic well. Chris Curtis,

YouGov’s research manager, believes

it is “an opportunity wasted to

rebuild trust in our political

institutions, as has happened in

other countries around the world,

The rebels who made

May’s life a misery are

doing the same to him

The failure to censure

Cummings caused the

public’s respect to crack

Comment

@rsylvestertimes

Rachel

Sylvester

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