If it were left to Captain Cautious we’d eat turkey with Swarfega: HENRY DEEDES watches Chris Whitty deliver more Christmas gloom
Boris Johnson looked as though he had been forced to swallow a three-day-old sardine. Whole. Complete with briny oil.
The Prime Minister was delivering his latest soundbite and judging from his sickly reaction it had not come via his own inkpot.
Averting his eyes downward, he announced bashfully: ‘Have yourself a merry little Christmas. And this year sadly I do mean little.’
Boris cringed. He shuddered. You could almost see the poor man’s hair follicles flexing with shame. Whichever Downing Street pencil-chewer dreamt it up could not have made the boss look more uncomfortable had they made him read a fruity passage from a Jilly Cooper bonkbuster.
The atrocity occurred during Wednesday’s Downing Street press conference. Ignoring the science community’s caterwauls, the PM announced he would not be cancelling Christmas. For the first time since this blasted virus smuggled its way to our shores, we the public were finally going to be trusted to use some old-fashioned common sense.
The PM though wanted us to keep the cork-popping to a minimum. He also urged everyone to avoid Boxing Day sales and large New Year’s celebrations. No complaints here, rest assured.
Henry Deedes gives Boris Johnson’s festive puns a mixed review after a press conference and parliamentary exchange on Wednesday
Chris Whitty was there, a positivity-free vessel as ever. One does not require top-level clearance to know Professor Whitty would prefer to can this whole Christmas lark. If it were up to Captain Cautious we’d all be locked up inside alone eating turkey from a tin, preferably doused several times in Swarfega.
Whitty had brought along a catchphrase of his own: ‘Keep it small, keep it short, keep it local.’ As he spoke, those black eyes darted about nervously. He looked worried a tranquilliser dart might suddenly appear in his neck if he said anything too negative.
Questions were even more aggressive than usual. They get worse by the week. Someone from Sky News asked whose fault it would be if someone infected their family while following the rules. Dreadful.
There was an abrupt query from a member of the public called Theresa who demanded evidence the PM’s Christmas plans weren’t ‘detrimental on lives and the NHS’. Funny. Sir Keir Starmer said almost exactly that hours earlier. Dimes to dozens says Theresa carries a Labour membership card in her wallet.
Speaking of Sir Keir, the Labour leader was the victim of an outrageous slur at PMQs earlier. Michael Fabricant (Con, Lichfield), Zooming in from his chintzy lair, referred to Starmer as a ‘smarmy lawyer’. Mr Fabricant, by the way, appears to have invested in one of those fancy halo lights for his computer to give his face a cherubic glow.
Is it fair to denounce Sir Keir as smarmy? One could certainly build a compelling case. He spent most of the session rewinding the Prime Minister’s worst hits of the year. Soaring death rates, the second lockdown, the Dominic Cummings saga etc.
Whenever he spoke he would jab his pen aggressively across the despatch box. What an officious specimen he is. Each sentence, each sub-clause was basted in his own buttery, self-satisfied juices.
Chris Whitty urged caution at Christmas despite the relaxing of coronavirus restrictions
Upon resuming his seat, he would cross his legs and purse his lips. A snooker player admiring the sheer dullness of his strokes.
Boris is now better at absorbing these criticisms. Previously he would splutter and stall like a clapped-out Triumph Herald. Yesterday he returned fire with the positives, rhapsodising about the vaccine and the treatment drug dexamethasone. The latter he can now almost pronounce without resembling a tourist ordering meze in a Greek taverna.
The PM’s main problem was his hair. What a horror show! Think transvestite ceramicist Grayson Perry emerging from a washing machine on high spin.
Please Carrie, do something with it over Christmas.
By the time Starmer got to dissing the Prime Minister’s Christmas relaxation laws the chamber had grown restless with his oratory. Same thing happens every week. He triumphantly waved around an article traducing the Government’s Christmas laws. It was from the British Medical Journal. ‘Not a smarmy lawyer!’ he harrumphed.
Boris ribbed Starmer over his refusal to ever offer up an alternative view on how he would do things differently. ‘In the words of the song, all I want for Christmas is a view!’ Decent gag. An improvement on that dreadful ‘merry little Christmas’ line at least.