The government’s coronavirus failures just won’t stick to Teflon Boris – no wonder when we haven’t got an opposition

Adopting a strategy shaped by current polling is a conservative way to do politics. Cleaving to public opinion, rather than actively seeking to shift it, consigns the left to a permanent reactive crouch, writes Rachel Shabi

Keir Starmer has pursued a strategy of 'restrained helpfulness' since he was elected Labour leader (EPA)

What would qualify as failure? The question was hanging in the air as Boris Johnson returned to work last week, chirruping about Britain’s “apparent success” in handling the coronavirus crisis. It lingered while commentators cooed over the prime minister taking charge after his own illness with the virus. It waited patiently while broadcasters signal-boosted deputy Dominic Raab saying that his boss back at the helm was a “boost for the country”. And the air turned thunderous as it became clear we were supposed to be placated by the prime minister’s ebullience.

Failure is not a metric – not even when the UK’s horrifying death toll is now one of the worst in the world. Not when our elderly loved ones were unnecessarily exposed to risk and our health and care workers sent to work without vital personal protective equipment (PPE). And not when media investigations have exposed a shocking lack of government preparation for the pandemic.

In a sense, one huge government success in this crisis has been to fuse national failure with its own, so that to criticise the government is cast as synonymous with doing Britain down. This is why Johnson’s relentlessly sunny messages are infused with depictions of plucky Britain and its achievements, and it’s why journalists who are simply doing their job in scrutinising government are nevertheless harangued for being “too negative” and critical in a time of crisis, when all the public apparently wants is positivity. The prime minister’s inaction may have cost lives, but we’re told it’s the media that’s killing the mood.

This binding of national and prime ministerial fortunes may partly explain Johnson’s high approval ratings: a Survation poll cites 61 per cent as “satisfied” with his performance.

There’s also the problem of fact finding that we already encountered over Brexit: public sentiment does not necessarily shift once lies or blunders emerge. More important than facts is the story spun around them. If Brexit was nearly “wrecked” by whinging Remainers, judges and MPs, now government efforts to tackle the pandemic are undermined by political point-scorers.

By this script, when NHS staff spoke out this week about provision of PPE in a devastating BBC Panorama documentary, they did so not because of they are working in incredibly dangerous conditions but because they are leftists with a political agenda. A sinister policing of expression, this distracting spectacle diverts our focus from government failure.

If polls are not shifting while people are dying, perhaps this time it’s also because there is little for them to shift towards. Why, in the midst of a terrifying public health crisis, would voters switch support to an opposition that isn’t offering a robust and straightforward alternative to the government’s flailing?

Eyeing the polls – and noting the public aversion to kneejerk criticism – Labour leader Keir Starmer has pursued a strategy of restrained helpfulness. But the party has a larder full of policies that could alleviate aspects of the pandemic and its reluctance to talk about them now borders on the obtuse. After all, Labour’s “national care service” is a proposal for state-management and reconnecting care to the health service, which could help protect homes for the elderly during the current crisis.

The party’s advocacy for a state-directed industrial strategy also points to a way of manufacturing equipment or running virus-testing labs that may be more efficient than signing up Dyson or the accounting firm Deloitte. Its commitment to decentralising power and local transformation funds indicate how decision-making could be spread locally – which public health experts say is a missing component in tackling the pandemic. And that’s before we even get on to socioeconomic policies on universal benefits, for supporting renters and so on.

Adopting a strategy shaped by current polling is a conservative way to do politics. It contrasts sharply with the progressive philosophy set out during last year’s US Democratic presidential primaries by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: “I’m not here to watch a poll. I’m here to change the polls,” she said. Cleaving to public opinion, rather than actively seeking to shift it, consigns the left to a permanent reactive crouch.

Put it all together and it’s small wonder the public thinks Piers Morgan is doing a better job of holding the government to account than the opposition leader. At points, he truly has.

But amid the cries for positivity there is also public pain and outrage; Starmer has not yet given voice to it. Now figures from the Office for National Statistics show mortality rates from Covid-19 in deprived areas are more than double those in the least deprived areas, while other studies show those from black and minority ethnic communities are disproportionately hit.

Labour’s voter base is hurting but, listening to the party’s softly, softly approach, you wouldn’t know it.

This matters in the midst of the crisis, and will matter once we emerge from it into a new social and economic reality. What will that look like? With Labour’s policies locked in a cupboard, there is scant chance of the left helping to shape the restructure – only the prospect of more suffering, inflicted upon the most vulnerable, while the government tells us that life is a rainbow.