James Forsyth James Forsyth

There are no good choices for Boris Johnson

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Boris Johnson used to be defined by his commitment to having his cake and eating it. But now he isn’t having any cake, let alone getting a chance to enjoy it. He is in a hideously difficult position as he tries to balance the needs of public health and the economy. There are no good choices. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

Since the end of the first lockdown, the government’s policy has been to try to control the virus without shutting down the economy. This is becoming increasingly difficult. Sage minutes — which, in a very poorly timed release, were published just after the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, held a press conference to set out the new tiered system of restrictions — revealed that the scientists were keen on a so-called ‘circuit-breaker’ lockdown on 21 September. The Prime Minister rejected this advice.

If Johnson had gone for the circuit-breaker option back in September then he would not only have hammered the economy but also invited a full-on confrontation with his own MPs. His parliamentary allies fretted about how quickly this could have escalated. It is worth noting that 42 Tory MPs, enough to wipe out the government’s majority with the opposition’s support, voted against the government on a far milder set of measures on Tuesday. The rebellion against a circuit-breaker in September would have been far larger than that.

If many Tory MPs are worried the restrictions are too tight, Chris Whitty has the opposite concern

Keir Starmer is seeking to drive a wedge between Boris Johnson and his back-benchers. On Tuesday night, Starmer called for a two-to-three-week circuit break in England, saying that Johnson shouldn’t worry about Tory opposition as Labour would vote for it. Starmer’s intervention has, one Boris loyalist on the backbenches tells me, prompted a certain ‘closing of the tribal ranks’.

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