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Build it, and they will come. Usually Boris Johnson’s problem is the first bit. The Estuary airport. The bridges over the Thames, the Channel and the Irish Sea. These and other Johnson pet projects make the European Super League look viable — and ego-free. Each one ends prematurely and expensively.
But Johnson’s current bother is something he has actually built: a briefing room at 9 Downing Street, costing £2.6m. I’m not sure how you agree a deal costing that much for four flags, three lecterns and one lick of blue paint, but I suppose Brexit was good practice.
Johnson built the briefing room, but no one will come because he has abandoned the idea of White House-style televised briefings. Spontaneously combusting svengali Dominic Cummings thought that on-camera sessions would raise spokespeople’s profiles and make journalists look silly. Then someone realised it’d be the reverse. You’d have celebrity journalists and dumbfounded officials.
The camera never lies but, in Johnson’s administration, the person in front of it often has to. The government is “the most distrustful, awful environment I’ve ever worked in,†said Tory MP Johnny Mercer this week, after being sacked as defence minister. “Almost nobody tells the truth.â€
They wouldn’t start telling the truth when confronted with questions like: Did the prime minister act honourably if he slept with Jennifer Arcuri while his then wife was away? What’s his alternative to the Northern Irish protocol? Where is his oven-ready plan for social care?
Maybe Johnson, who turned up late to key press conferences when he was a journalist in Brussels, couldn’t envisage reporters doing their homework. But most journalists knew televised briefings would be a bad idea, after watching Johnson boast last March that he’d shaken hands with a ward of Covid patients. Or the time that Cummings explained he’d only driven around County Durham to test his eyesight.
In Scotland, the Conservatives complain that TV briefings give the government an unfair advantage. In Westminster, they seem to believe the reverse. After years of moaning about BBC bias, the party should stop shooting the messenger.
The briefing room probably marks the end of Johnson’s attempts to whip up public scorn at political journalists. It was always odd: the government was more sceptical of the lobby than the lobbyists. His officials will keep doing daily, off-camera briefings.
Johnson himself has other ways of communicating with the country. Official photos show him striding around Britain, looking decisive — but then he did hire three flattering staff photographers. This is a government best seen and not heard.
In an ideal world, wasting £2.6m would have repercussions. It should interest any donors who agreed to pay for Johnson’s renovation of 10 Downing Street. In his case, past performance is a guide to future results.
For now, let’s enjoy the hopelessness of paying for a briefing room, which is ready just after the end of daily pandemic briefings. We can use it to store all the PPE that arrived just after it was needed.
The underused room will also remind us that, when it comes to implementation, Johnson is guilty until proven innocent. Level up Britain? Great. Build affordable homes? Great. Cut greenhouse gas emissions by 78 per cent by 2035? Even better. One question: is there a plan to make these things happen?
If that were asked at a televised briefing, you wouldn’t get an answer. The fact that the briefing won’t even take place as planned — that provides an answer of sorts.
Henry Mance’s new book, ‘How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World’, is published on Thursday in the UK
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