Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about the effect of the recent US election on UK politics.
Has anyone else noticed the change in Boris Johnson’s
approach to (in effect) his job since his best buddy Donald Trump was ousted
from the Presidency following November's vote?
Prior to this he seemed to be following the example of the sexist,
racist bigot the US were unfortunate enough to have to call their Commander-in-chief;
evidently believing that if the POTUS could get away with God knows what and still
stay in power then so could he. Then along comes the US election which Trump
undeniably (despite what he’d like to think) and humiliatingly loses and suddenly the truth hits home and
Johnson is left buddy-less, example-less and the only and worst remaining demonstrable failure on the political stage – especially when it comes to COVID. Surely now
is the time he needs to pull his finger out and I think there are clear signs
that there has been a definite change in his approach.
For example, let’s start with COVID:
Johnson has gone from ‘Herd Immunity’ and ‘It’s not that bad’
to ‘We must act now’ and ‘We will be following data, not dates’. While this could be said to be the
approach he should have had a year ago, I think the main thing to take out of
this is that he does appear to be actually trying to do his job – we can only
hope and pray this is the start of a long-term policy.
Also, the departure of Dominic Cummings from his team
hopefully shows that just as he is no longer committed to playing follow my
leader with Trump and his policies, he is now less inclined to blindly and
foolishly follow the advice of people he likes, has previously trusted or
possibly have leverage over him. True he is still not practising accountability
for himself or his cohorts – as demonstrated by the fact that Cummings faced no
repercussions for any of his transgressions and likewise Matt Hancock has now
evaded censure for his unlawful actions regarding COVID contracts – but it
is a definite step in the right direction.
I’m not saying he’s perfect – there's still a long way to go before
he even gets close to that and there are still a lot of dismissive policies and borderline comical U-Turns to sort out, get past or prevent from happening ever again.
Overall, I believe judgement should be reserved on this newfound ‘dedication’ until we have sufficient time to judge the success and also longevity of his apparent epiphany but it is hopefully I sign that we are at last truly on the road to recovery. We can only hope that the UK finally gets the leader we so desperately need and that Johnson apparently desperately believes he is.
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