Like the England football team, Boris Johnson has yet to deliver
(Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Wire)
So, it’s back to normal. Monday morning after England’s defeat feels like November in the chilly wet weather. But what normal? The delirium and, let’s be honest, the drivel about England’s football team in the last month was surreal.
The Queen, now in her 96th year, was dragged in, as foolish Palace courtiers drafted a message to a football team that could only manage a draw with Scotland. The poor Scots may hope next time they play in a tournament, their Queen – for the time being — will send them a message of support too.
Suddenly, every normal, level-headed newspaper columnist, or even the middle-of-the-road BBC’s Nick Robinson, was an expert, with a PhD in football tactics. Newspapers covered entire front pages with Harry Kane or Gareth Southgate wearing the red cross on white, like Crusaders off to massacre the infidel Muslims a thousand years ago. There were pretentious columns, too, explaining how a new era of tolerance and good community relations would sink roots in England as a result of a few football games.
The Prime Minister covered his official residence and seat of government in red and white bunting, as if it was a meeting hall for the now quiescent British National Party. When Emily Thornberry was forced to resign before the 2015 election for tweeting a picture of a Rochester house decked out in red and white cross flags, as 10 Downing Street has just been, she was accused by the Guardian of “insulting the patriotic working-class voters” of Britain.
Last night we saw some of those great patriots rioting in Wembley, attacking police, and insulting anyone travelling on the Underground who looked a bit foreign. This morning we are able to see the mountains of racist hate tweets against the three England players who missed their penalties. None of them is white.
The 2021 European tournament had begun with the Prime Minister refusing to criticise the fans booing English players who joined in the now global protest of taking the knee against the racism that still exists in so many modern, rich democracies.
Boris Johnson then performed one of his usual U-turns, as he realised that England, while it has many racist and extreme nationalist elements, remains a tolerant country. The English know that immigrants are, and always have been, a source of strength in the constant process of national renewal. Look at Rishi Sunak, Sajid Javid, or Kwasi Kwarteng and so many other children of immigrants who have made the Conservative Party a winning party of power.
Johnson is no racist, but he felt he had to pander to the deep atavisms of the tabloid editors. He started to squeeze his well-padded torso into an England shirt and pretended to show some interest in football — a game he has never followed, though he was an energetic rugby player at Eton and Oxford.
England wakes up, after a bizarre six weeks of suspended reality, to find that none of our problems has been solved. The Government does not know how to solve Covid or handle Brexit. It does not know how to build new alliances in place of the lost partnerships in democratic Europe. Still less does it know how to befriend an Irish-American President of the United States, who won’t pander to the small minority of DUP politicians, some of whom still think the slogan “Ulster Will fight and Ulster will be right” means something in the 21st century.There is no policy on China; a slogan or two on Putin but no policy; a retreat from Afghanistan, where the flag of the Taliban will flutter where once the Union flag flew.
Keir Starmer tried to cover himself with a little glory before the defeat last night. But the fact remains that Labour also does not know what to do or what to say to persuade voters an alternative government is possible.
The Scottish question has not been answered. The Government wants to announce a dramatic climate change policy, ahead of the big global conference in Glasgow in the autumn. But the same Tory MPs who oppose Covid measures are now gunning for any move that threatens the giant gas boiler industry or measures to discourage fossil fuel transport.
Laws on voter ID or on treating any refugee as a criminal immigrant are very small change. In a fortnight’s time, Boris Johnson celebrates his second anniversary in Downing Street. A lot of Tory and Brexiteer hopes were placed on his arrival. But, like the England football team, he has yet to deliver.
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