Boris Johnson is trying to mark his own homework – but will it work?

The prime minister’s broadcast listing the ‘achievements’ of his first year in office is effective propaganda, even if we can see the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain, writes John Rentoul

The PM copied the idea from Jacinda Ardern (Getty)

The prime minister has made another video. In it, he lists the achievements of his first year in office at speed, trying (and failing) to get through them all in two minutes.

It is effective propaganda, even if we can see the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. We know he is reading a script off the autocue; that it is pepped up with fancy graphics; and that the format is copied from Jacinda Ardern, the trendsetting prime minister of New Zealand. But it is a good way of conveying energy and a sense that the government is keeping the promises it made at the election, despite the coronavirus crisis.

It is certainly more effective than the halting efforts of the New Labour government to convince people that it was “delivering the people’s priorities” – a phrase that Boris Johnson has shamelessly stolen. Tony Blair was ridiculed for holding a news conference in the Downing Street garden in May 1998 to unveil his government’s first “annual report” – a compendium of achievements that journalists enjoyed finding fault with.

The trouble was that publishing an annual report on progress made towards manifesto promises was one of the promises Blair made in his 1997 manifesto, so he had to go ahead with it. It was one of several devices that Labour deployed in a probably doomed attempt to overcome the popular belief that politicians promise the Earth but don’t deliver.

There was the five-point pledge card of modest, believable improvements, and Blair’s own handwritten 10-point “vow” to the British people, all backed up by the promise of an annual progress report so that everyone could see he was keeping his word.

Unfortunately, some of the five pledges (smaller class sizes, cutting NHS waiting lists, quicker justice) turned out to be hard, slow work to deliver, and so the annual report ended up as a vacuous and counterproductive public relations exercise.

Blair should have done it as a party political broadcast, which was the only equivalent format at the time to Johnson’s social media video. Then he could have hurried through the thinner claims, as Johnson did, without inviting rigorous media scrutiny.

It was fair enough for Johnson to boast that 12,000 more nurses have been recruited, and 6,000 more doctors (boosted by staff returning to the NHS to help with the coronavirus crisis), along with 3,000 more police officers. He is entitled to take credit for the furlough scheme, the restoration of devolved government in Northern Ireland (although Julian Smith, the cabinet minister responsible, was rewarded by being sacked) and the increase in the national minimum wage.

But there was an awful lot of padding in the two minutes: “started work” on 40 new hospitals; “a new UK global tariff” (that is, our trading relationships are about to become more difficult); and a “green light” for HS2.

At least the Blair government tried with earnest intent to overcome the lack of trust in politicians keeping their promises. Boris Johnson marking his own homework against the clock is only likely to undermine that trust further.

Yours,

John Rentoul

Chief political commentator