I wrote a tweet last night in which I said:
Let's be serious tonight. There is no one who does not wish Boris Johnson well tonight, but once you've been on ITU it takes a long time to recover. What are the plans to make sure he has the chance to do just that? Someone needs to say now.
I admit that having been married to a doctor for some time means that I have acquired some insight into some of the human aspects of sickness. One of the things that I learned is how long recovery takes.
It was something strongly reinforced when I had the only operation I have had in my life, which took me much longer than I expected to get over. I would add that it's also taking me much longer to recover full strength after what, I am sure, was coronavirus than I also expected: it's not completely happened as yet, and I got away with a relatively mild dose of it.
And Boris Johnson is very ill right now. Sicker than anyone would ever wish to be. Which means he is going to need a long recovery. Literally, the best advice would have to be just that. And, in any event, his judgement will be reduced by having been sedated; that's just inevitable. He will nit be fit to be prime minister, in a quite literal sense, when he comes out.
This has serious consequences. No one, including the Tory Party, which showed little enthusiasm for having Dominic Raab as its leader, seriously thinks he is a man fit to lead this country at present. Nor did they think much of Matt Hancock in that role, whilst Rishi Sunak's star is fading as quickly as it rose given the hopelessness of his support schemes for business that are going to condemn millions to unemployment on the most basic of benefits. As for Michael Gove, the Tories don't trust him not to stab himself in the back and nor does the country.
In a party that literally culled its internal opposition last year, and which built a government around unthinking allegiance to whatever Johnson and Cummings wanted, there is now going to be a power void at the precise moment when the country is facing its biggest crisis for generations. That's the problem with populism; it closes down most options.
Importantly, this is, at least not yet, the moment for Labour to demand a national government. The Tories created the environment in which this crisis has happened and they have to take responsibility for it.
In desperation I can see only one person who might be able to deliver the required leadership now. Jeremy Hunt came second in the Tory leadership race, and then went to the back benches. But second best should do now. I suggest he would be the right choice of interim prime minister, holding office just until Johnson could return. And he needs to be accountable in any event: the NHS we have now is as much his creation as anyone's: he needs to be answerable for its lack of preparedness.
I never thought I would say Jeremy Hunt should be in Number 10: even temporarily, but right now I do think that would be appropriate. These are, indeed, strange days.
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Can’t help but wonder as to Cummings’ role with Johnson incapacitated.
Will he be pulling the strings and directing then stand-in PM, or will this be the moment he gets put in his place?
In any event, the latter is surely on its way. When questions are being asked about what went wrong with the Government’s strategy for Covid, you’d think he will be high up the list of people being blamed.
The online world has been a saviour for many in these locked-up days. But cyber-space does bring out some heady opinions, such as there being no-one who doesn’t wish Johnson well, and that after a long recovery that he won’t be fit to be Prime Minister when he comes out of the sedation which we do not yet know he is under.
Great article and stay sane.
If I may say, I find this pre-occupation with a lack of ‘Prime Minister’ a little bit stupid. I say this based on the reaction I see outside of this blog. I agree that this blog nails the problem – this Government is too Boris-centric, too exclusive.
But out here, you’d think that the PM was the be all and end all of civilisation. Too many see the PM as some sort of super-being. There is no analysis as you put forward other than it all seems to be down to one person.
Why oh why do we think like this?
The PM should be like any other manager – he/she should build a team and run the Government as a team collectively being accountable and getting things done. The PM also leads his team – not just the bloody country.
When are we going to grow up about this? I’m no fan of politicians but sometimes the expectations we place on them are to my mind totally unrealistic, bordering on insane.
If we ever have a new constitution, the way cabinet works must be reviewed, improved and explained to the people. For example, it seems to me that each minister spends more time with their ‘special advisors’ rather than cross disciplinary working with other minsters. Result: silo thinking. You don’t build teams by using intermediaries, you build teams by spending direct face to face time together, building trust and sharing objectives and priorities.
Why should Government be any different?
What a farce.
As long as they don’t pick Rees-Mogg.
He’s just one tiny black mustache away from delivering the kind of leader craved by many little Englanders. Cometh the hour, cometh the man as Jacob would probably say.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/mein-conf-jacob-rees-mogg-11277680
You need a large black americano!
Seriously, Jeremy Hunt? What we need is someone with imagination, foresight and compassion. In one of your Venn Diagrams there would be 2 separate circles. I can’t see anyone in the current Tory party with the slightest shred of compassion, so I’d go for a GNU.
The Govt so far has been entirely reactive, and Keir Starmer as bad confirming he will only react to mistakes from the Govt. Compared to the pygmies in power now, I would welcome back Gordon Brown with open arms. It sticks in my throat but even Tony Blair…
No2 assume Dtarnmer will refuse a GNU – and rightly so right now – and then who in the Tories?
Ok you got me. I went through the whole of the Tory party MPs on Wikipedia and could find no-one with the qualities I would think desirable. If it has to be a Tory then we’re screwed anyway. It may as well be JH.
I know i have the answer Jeremy Corbyn. I wonder if he will join the Tory party for a couple of months? No? Oh well tried. Starmer is dim as a worn out light bulb
With respect, you do not have evidence of that for Starmer as yet
And a substantial majority of Labour members picked him
I’m not joining Labour because of him, but I’m hoping he can deliver and abuse at this stage is not going to help, and I am not keen to see it here right now because it seems without any merit at present
If and when it can be justified that will be a different story
Who get admitted to intensive care as a precaution? Surely he is not taking a place from someone who needs it more than he does (probably one or more people will die because he is in that intensive care bed) so he must be near the top of the list of clinical need, which means he must be very poorly indeed. They say he has not been put on a ventilator, but has he been sedated? How can anyone run the government from intensive care?
On the other side of things, what does the Prime Minster actually do? We have a full suite of government ministers in place running all of the departments, a professional civil service, and a cabinet committee with a temporary chair. All they are missing is someone to run election strategy for five years time, a figurehead to be the charismatic and reassuring face of the government, and someone to whom the buck can be passed to take the really hard decisions if the cabinet cannot agree. Perhaps in this interim period we might see a return to collective decisions making and collective responsibility?
‘Surely he is not taking a place from someone who needs it more than he does (probably one or more people will die because he is in that intensive care bed)’
According to the Guardian – London ICUs are 3/4 full (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/03/nightingale-emergency-coronavirus-hospital-london) and there are 500 ICU beds in the London Nightingale currently unused – thankfully.
Perhaps you should consider withdrawing the remark that people will die because the PM is in an ICU bed.
There are no staff for that hospital…
And I am not sure I believe any stat from DoH now
The death stats are nw very clearly wildly understated
I’m not sure I can draw any conclusions about how busy intensive care units are in London hospitals today, Tuesday 7th, from an unattributed statement from an unnamed “political source” in an article published on Friday 3rd. Since then time, over 10,000 more diagnoses (hugely underreported) and around 2,000 more deaths.
The fact is that hospital beds are a limited resource, and they are typically come back into use for a new patient within a short time after the previous patient has left. Doubly so for the even more limited resource of intensive care beds. They are rationed according to clinical need, and I would be willing to bet a fair sum that his intensive care bed would already be occupied by someone else if his condition was judged to be so bad. That person is likely to be very poorly too, and could die.
After the weekend lull, daily deaths jumped up again today to over 850, and Michael Gove is self-isolating.
Correcting myself here – deaths of over 750 (not 850). Nonetheless, it is not over 1000 per day yet. Small mercies.
Maybe… Channel 4 were speculating this evening
Raab???!!!**++!&%**!!! Even the Tories think he is too many little grey cells short of the full Frankenstein. When I see his face full frontal, I wonder when they took the bolt out of his neck.
Gove? He is Macbeth to Boris’s Duncan, with Sarah Vine as Lady Macbeth. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.
Hunt? As in Berkshire….
Why not Grayling? With his skill at inventing ferry companies and organising rail timetables, he would be ideally suited to finding companies to mass produce ventilators and supervise an exit strategy timetable.
I’m afraid conditions are perfect now that Corbynites are deposed for the next best thing to a compliant opposition taking over the facade of government – a coalition gnu – Sturgeon will jump at the chance and use it to head off the resurging independence mood, having failed to destroy Salmond.
The need for hard brexit and preserving the union will be the reason – the covid pandemic will be the excuse. We’ll buy it and give up further liberties and the ‘opposition’ removes it’s own legs! The reason Hunt wasn’t chosen last summer was that he would have been a hard sell to the British public – he didn’t have the celebrity status of a clown. He was the privatiser king of the NHS for many a year and too powerfull to remove from his pet project. Only Professor Stephen Hawking came close enough to stop him until he unfortunately died. Hunts been their most competent assassin and he was always protected from the ‘front office’ function. Maybe he’ll be used but it is unnecessary.
As Germany, China, Russia preserve their economies and citizens well being – we will fall in as a formal state of the US.
It’s a grand game they play – bozo is just a pawn – and the DS makes all decisions- we have the laws enacted just a week ago! Its all secret AND legal now.
I think conspiracy theories can go too far…
I see plenty of people commenting on BoJo’s ‘sedated’ medical status, and saying things which are unknowable to them and today turning out not to be true. And people also using their view of his medical status to decide that he’s not fit to be Prime Minister for a long time after he recovers.
None of these comments are being withdrawn. There are some ghouls around for sure.
In addition I thought medical history was private unless otherwise made public.
When the government can massively (and I mean massively) understate Covid 19 deaths, as will become apparent asdn as the ONS data began to reveal today, I really don’t trust their claims on Johnson
If he’s not being ventilated why is he on ITU, for a start?
Of course I have absolutely no medical knowledge whatsoever but this disturbing message from a front-line doctor in NYC is clearly totally sincere – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9GYTc53r2o.
He has since uploaded a couple of other shorter pleas, which are also worth watching : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWaq8HoEROU & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3ka8lo_fZ8.
What if he’s right?
I discussed this with a doctor whose feeling was that Covid-19 attacks the ability of the blood to carry oxygen. You seem breathless but actually you’re not – the lung muscles are not being supplied with the oxygen they need to work. I think that is consistent with this doctor’s claim
Well, he is male, aged 55, and (reportedly) 5’9″ tall and weighs 16 stone (which gives him a BMI of 33, into the “obese” zone).
All being well, touch wood, he will recover fully in time like most people do, but his age, sex and weight have each been reported as factors that increase the risk of this disease.
Precisely Andrew
Which is why it is entirely reasonable to be concerned about him
And to consider the consequences