The media is getting a lot more critical of the government
The stories that won’t go away
One of the challenges for the government is that the lockdown demands an enormous lot of the population as a whole which in return ministers have to give the appearance of competence in the management of this huge crisis.
It is here that things are starting to fray at the edges. Today’s newspaper front pages above feature several big issues which question how Johnson and his team have been operating.
The FT has got its teeth into the refusal of Johnson to get involved with the EU acquisition of ventilators for political reasons. The details don’t look good and contrast sharply with what the public was being told at the time.
The Cabinet’s decision to allow the Cheltenham Festival to take place last month is going to be something that will be around and for a long time to come and looks like a big mistake.
We may be all be supporting NHS workers to the held at the moment but the Telegraph story that they were given flawed tests doesn’t add to the overall impression of competence.
As we get closer to the end of the month the deadline set by Health Secretary Hancock of 100k tests a day looks extremely challenging to say the least. In this situation surely the best political route is to under promise and over perform? I wonder whether he could be an early political victim.
None of these front page stories is going to go away and it will be interesting to watch the polling in the next few weeks where until now the public has been prepared to give the government the benefit of the doubt. If that goes Johnson has problems.