Boris Johnson’s popularity stems from boldly breaking the rules. When he insists that he spends his spare time making buses out of wine crates and painting them, he isn’t trying to convince you. The glimmer in his eye tells you that he is playing, and doesn’t care that it’s obvious. The rule he breaks is not so much that he lies, but that he doesn’t care that his audience knows he is lying.
This is one way to explain Johnson’s Teflon character. When he tried to illegally shut down parliament to force Brexit through, he suffered no fall in support. Why? Because the appearance of breaking establishment rules is what is appealing about him. So, we have to think about what he’s doing that is working, and why — there are lessons we can learn from it.
How the British public will come to judge Johnson disregarding WHO advice and following different rules than the international community regarding the coronavirus, time will tell. He certainly seems more tentative in this decision, and the public will be able to compare in cold hard numbers which country had the right policies for reducing deaths.
Breaking the rules which shape our economy and political system sure is appealing right now, even if going against expert public health advice is not. Very few believe that these systems, with their existing rules, have the resources to face the enormous challenges before us of environmental catastrophe, pandemics, refugee crises, automation of jobs, prolonged economic stagnation, and an ageing population.
At the moment, Britain waits with bated breath, knowing that our health care services are likely to be overwhelmed in a week or two, causing thousands of unnecessary deaths, perhaps many more. In the decade preceding the pandemic, the UK government has made significant cuts to social and health care, reduced social provisions, and allowed poverty and precarious living standards to blossom, justified by the need to rebalance an economy crashed by the financial sector. It has become blindingly clear that the pursuit of profit over the health and wellbeing of UK citizens has left us outrageously vulnerable to crises. With a government that will certainly take every opportunity, including national emergences, to work in the interests of the elite, and has no qualms about flirting with the far right, taking a gently gently approach to challenging the powerful, or trying to bargain with them, would be a monumental mistake.
