Andy Richardson: 'Boris is back and ready to face the biggest challenge in his inbox'
The holidays are over. He didn’t spot Nessie but he did spend time with Wilf and Dilwyn. Woof.
Our ‘Hello!-style’ PM is back and ready to face the biggest challenge in his inbox – getting kids back to school. BoJo has announced he will take personal responsibility for it.
Before cheering that the PM is doing the job for which he receives an annual salary of £150,000 – and, lest we forget, the benevolence of BoJo in taking a £670,000-a-year pay cut when he took the job of World King – let’s remember this; he does this every month.
Whether it’s air bridges or Brexit talks, coronavirus testing or putting out the bins; every month or so Boris is taking personal responsibility. So, it follows, we can reasonably forecast how well things will go by looking back at the other stuff BoJo’s taken personal responsibility for and seeing how well that went.
In June, BoJo took charge on the 2m social distancing rule and ‘air bridges’, in April it was ‘Brexit negotiations’ – anyone know how that’s going, it’s going to be the easiest deal ever made, isn’t it.
Then in April, he also took charge on the drive for coronavirus testing. Didn’t he promise us a world-beating system and didn’t we end up with one where less than 50 per cent of people are traced, huge sums are paid to private companies while in Wales more than 90 per cent are traced by local officials without millions being leaked to private firms.
There’s more. In February, he promised to personally take charge of the response to coronavirus and managed to propel us to the top of the death table and the table for worst economic impact in the world. There were those at the time who asked: If the PM isn’t in charge – who is? Answer: No one.
In January, he promised to take charge against gang crime and in December last year it was Brexit negotiations – yes, the same ones he re-took personal responsibility for in April. Another bus will come along, if you wait long enough.
Private Eye reminded us of this, too. In May, he asked the Cabinet Secretary who was in charge of lifting lockdown restrictions. The Cabinet Secretary, now deposed, said: “I think it’s you, Prime Minister.”
So Boris is in charge, just weeks after the A-level and GCSE fiasco. Wonder how that’ll work out.
