COLUMN
By ’Tunji Ajibade
tunjioa@yahoo.com
The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has turned decisively to taking care of state affairs despite the effort of the opposition to capitalize on some reported garden parties during the 2020 covid-19 lockdown. One should think this is what he should be doing and leave the opposition to do the only thing that has any chance of bringing it to the attention of anyone – staying rooted in misrepresenting a “working event” as a crime against the people which it is not.
Now, it is worth noting that not only the PM is going about normal state business but his cabinet ministers as well. That is good counter narrative to the claim by some commentators that the business of government has come to a standstill. It is what they say, but the PM and his ministers don’t appear ready to allow them to get away with it as they show that the business of government continues. They should continue on that trajectory such that not only the naysayers see it but citizens who saw how the PM and his lieutenants successfully managed the pandemic would see it as well. From the Foreign Secretary to the other cabinet ministers, they have been going about state business, telling all how well the PM did handle the covid-19 crisis from 2020 into 2021, and even the recent review of the lockdown restrictions based on what data say. Certainly, the narrative the cabinet ministers take regarding the performance of the PM is something one should commend. It is one way to go about putting the opposition in its place. They should not give the opposition (that knew nothing of what it meant to handle a covid-19 crisis which no government in the history of the UK had ever had to confront or prepare ahead for) further opportunities to confuse citizens.
While the ministers have been talking in the public space about the good job the PM made of the covid-19 crisis and the good spot where the UK finds itself now, one should think they shouldn’t be too modest about this. They, the ministers too had worked hard. They and their aides had spent sleepless night seeing to the implementation of the decisions that the PM approved in the course of battling the pandemic. They should present this angle too to citizens. They had worked hard, and the pressure on their mental and physical health was such that when there was nowhere else they could gather to cool off at the peak of the covid-19 lockdown a thoughtful worker at 10, Downing Street, considered they should gather from time to time essentially to cool off. There couldn’t have been anything more to these gatherings; they surely couldn’t have been more than an opportunity to cool off, to bond better, in order to continue the hard task of taking care of nation and citizens. It’s on this basis one would fully agree with the PM that these gatherings weren’t more than working events.
One wouldn’t think there is anything dishonest with regard to the PM’s assertions along this line. These were public officials for whom opportunity to relax from their heavy work for nation and citizens were far in-between even in normal times; it was nonexistent during the covid-19 lockdown. But what has now been made to happen to hardworking public officials, how conscientious public officials have now been derogatively categorized is what the opposition party and the media have chosen to make this out to be. Of course, we know what the opposition stands to gain by volubly and mischievously presenting good dedicated public officials as wine drinkers, merry makers etc. Meanwhile, this is something that all reasonable minds won’t agree is the case when they give this matter all the serious consideration it deserves.
As for the media, we know how it is. ‘Breaking news’ is the gift of a birthday cake given to the PM in his official residence. Breaking news is wondering by some reporter as to why “happy birthday” song were sung for the PM who was working tirelessly during the covid-19 pandemic so that nation and citizens could sleep easy. That is the size of what gathering for a drink during working hour by public officials within the confines of their working environment has become to the media. It is now the best material they can sell to a public which both they and the opposition party have managed to push into acquiring a sense of hysteria that should never have been the case.
The cabinet ministers who had worked hard along with the PM to give the UK a safe landing following the covid-19 crisis should not lower their heads under the onslaught of the opposition party. They are humans, not superhumans, and they did the best they could for the nation in a period of crisis. If they and the PM made a move that is now considered inappropriate in the course of the lockdown, and for which the PM has already tendered his unreserved apology, one should think citizens are smart and they have accepted that their PM and his fellow public officials are humans. They do not need to be gored on by the opposition and the media.
To ensure that the opposition and the media do not milk endlessly the gathering of officials at a working event, the PM and his cabinet ministers would need to double their efforts by facing more squarely state business. They should pay more attention to the immediate needs of the people and take measures that matter to them. This way they take over the narrative in the nation’s public space, rather than allow the opposition to dictate it. Let the PM continue with his business of state; his lieutenants should continue with theirs and continue to score good points with citizens as they did during the lockdown. It’s one way to leave the opposition behind, stuck with its disposition of stalking the PM rather than present its own issues which it wants to deal it to citizens. Shortly, they will find themselves stuck in the past from where nation and citizens have moved on.
