Boris Johnson’s handsome election victory was only three months ago, but already it feels like a relic from another age. The coronavirus requires him to be everything he is not: serious, attentive to detail and respectful of expertise and public servants. He may not be ‘yesterday’s man’, because no replacement is in sight. But he isn’t ‘today’s man’ either – the leader you want to step forward in serious times. On the contrary, there may well be Conservatives wishing he could step aside until the danger has passed.
It’s not just Johnson. The culture-war world of Trump, Cummings, Sanders, Corbyn and his outriders, of no-platforming, Twitter storms, most editions of the national press and every edition of Question Time, is looking like a dangerous sport we can no longer afford to play. The attitudes these culture warriors foster and the lines they draw are a public health hazard.
Their world is built on mistrust.
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