The difficult balance of public vs political agony

Fear is the politician’s friend. When terror grips the public, an opportunity arises for those in power to step forward as the people’s guide and protector in dangerous times. One sees this in wars. One sees it whenever the public suspects hostile conspiracies, networks of spies or mischief-makers. We likewise cleave to leaders who will confound predatory foreign powers, terrorist plots or the danger of being swamped by waves of immigrants. In fear or anxiety the people will hug their leaders closer, and their leaders know this as surely as every priest knows that despair and anxiety are his faith’s most reliable draw.

Do not, therefore, overlook the power of a submicroscopic virus to herd the flock we call the electorate towards the shepherds we call the political class. And don’t suppose the shepherds haven’t noticed.

The coronavirus panic we’ve landed ourselves in brings with it woes for politicians and people alike, but few in politics or public administration are going to lose their jobs; millions of others will; and meanwhile there is something almost beyond price now within reach of the party in government. How can I express this, even name it, without sounding insulting? Let me make clear what I do not mean to imply.

I do not imply that anyone in our national leadership is luxuriating in any conscious sense of advantage from the Covid-19 crisis. I do not imply that the Conservative party is cynically anticipating the reward that could flow from their near-ecstatic embrace of our national religion, the NHS. Our governing class will have persuaded themselves that their advice is blind to everything but the greater public good. I freely grant that.

But perception of advantage or dis-advantage is often unconscious. Subliminally, political decision-making these last two months has been partly driven by a powerful political imperative to be associated with the National Health Service and to harvest some of the respect, even adoration, the NHS commands; and by an equally powerful political dread of being seen to have failed the NHS at a moment of danger.

Now if the NHS and the public good are the same thing, there can be no harm here.