Boris bashers need to cut it out

Every weekday afternoon a professional Twitter mob gathers to give a running commentary on the Prime Minister’s daily coronavirus press conference. Its leading lights will critique Boris Johnson’s every utterance to see what might catch on. Perhaps it will be a snarky comment about how modified advice in the light of new data really shows that he was all at sea before. Or not across the detail. Or his failure to be able to guarantee when this will all be over might be deemed disgraceful. Maybe Alastair Campbell will throw in a grenade about allegedly confused messaging. Or Piers Morgan will issue a ‘bloody well do something or we are all going to die’ war cry.

Many of the journalists in the room will then seek a ‘gotcha’ moment in the way they frame their questions. Next the columnists will come wading in as they seek to plug their latest offerings. Yesterday, it was the Guardian‘s Rafael Behr:

‘Johnson has always imagined himself standing before the nation projecting, in full Churchillian voice, dynamism, urgency, reassurance.