Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What was the Covid press conference for?

A cynic would say the booster drive is giving Boris a happy distraction

(Getty)

What was the point of tonight’s Covid press conference? Boris Johnson didn’t have anything big to announce, other than a very dubious-looking new lectern telling people to ‘Get Boosted N0w’, with the 0 in the ‘now’ looking a lot like a Hula Hoop. His purported focus was on the doubling rate of Omicron, and to announce today’s record high number of positive tests (78,000).

A cynic might argue that calling a press conference on the vaccination programme is distracting from the self-inflicted political mess Boris is currently wallowing through. Given people are already queuing round the block for their booster jabs, it doesn’t seem as though the message about Getting Boosted Now really needs a, well, boost.

Arranging press briefing sends everyone into a whirl of worry that a new lockdown might be announced, which isn’t unreasonable given the last-minute nature of many of the big announcements over the past two years. But there might have been a more noble purpose to getting everyone to nervously switch on their TVs once again. There’s an old, rather crude, management technique whereby a boss summons a member of staff into their office. The worker thinks that this summons means they are in trouble, possibly facing the sack. They enter, trembling, only to be asked to carry out some random task. Of course they accept on the spot, delighted and relieved that their job is safe, and trot happily out. The random task is in some way demeaning or boring and had the manager just approached them in the office or on the shop floor, their employee might have argued about whether it was necessary. But when it’s the alternative to the sack, well, it sounds wonderful*. So queuing to get your booster jab, or volunteering to help with the ‘national effort’ to vaccinate people is the smallest of asks when you’d turned the TV on expecting to be banned from seeing grandma again this Christmas.




Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in