Boris who less than two month back has stormed into the office as a gallant warrior and was pictured jubilantly celebrating the mission of “got Brexit done” is unfortunately facing the similar spectre. His achievement will be defined and remembered for his handling of the coronavirus crisis.

The Tory leadership and the rank and file which had stood behind him like a rock during the recent parliamentary elections is highly critical of his handling of the Corona pandemic. So far their anger has not got public manifestation, but they are not happy at all with his attitude and approach. It is generally perceived that Boris Johnson has shied away from the draconian interventions required to deal with the pandemic.

It is a coincidence that while his friend Donald Trump, the USA President, has been at the receiving end of the public flakes, he is also facing a hostile situation. His being a victim of corona and subsequent hospitalisation has to some extent softened the public attitude towards him, but they also have come to nurse the view that he is not indispensable. This impression has gained currency by the manner in which his ministerial colleagues ran the government while he was under treatment in the hospital.

He began 2020 in the most powerful position any prime minister had enjoyed in the past, at least for more than a decade, with a comfortable Commons majority. Britishers had visualised him as their saviour. But now he is being cursed as the corona prime minister.

The Brits had nursed the view that Boris would steer the administration to fight the pandemic, but his wrong handling proved disastrous. It has completely wrecked the country, its economy and also its people. The UK is facing acute job loss which if not curbed at the earliest will blow on the face.

Already around 21000 Britons have lost their lives to corona. Every day nearly 800 to 900 people lose their lives. There is no sign of any let up of the dreaded disease in near future. He might have aspired to walk into the footsteps of Churchill but now the shadow of the same craving has been presenting him in bad light. He has failed to demonstrate the same amount of political astuteness that Churchill possessed.

Corona attaining frightening dimension has tuned the leaders of the ruling Tory scared. Large number of Tory MPs have turned rebellion and want Boris Johnson to act decisively. While Boris Johnson is trying to get emergency powers legislation through parliament the Tory rebels are opposed to it as they apprehend that these powers could last as long as two years. David Davis MP plans to table an amendment limiting those powers to one year

The government hoped to find a cross-party agreement so that it could pass through the House of Commons early next week without a formal vote. But it is unlikely that the design of Boris would succeed. Boris is facing cross-party calls to stop his chief adviser from attending meetings of the secret scientific group advising him on the coronavirus pandemic.

The former Brexit secretary, David Davis, is among those calling for Dominic Cummings and Ben Warner, an adviser who ran the Tories’ private election computer model, to be prevented from attending future meetings of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). Davis said that Cummings’s presence could alter the advice offered in meetings. Cummings and Warner were among the 23 who attended Sage on the day Johnson announced the lockdown, and had been able to question attendees at other meetings.

There is now a broad coalition forming to demand greater transparency about Sage. It is alleged that these aides have not been able to provide a concrete direction to the scientific group. Greg Clark, the Tory chair of the Commons science committee, said: “I have great respect for chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and chief medical officer Chris Whitty, the co-chairs of Sage.” He also said; “disclosing who has attended Sage meetings could reassure and enhance the standing of the body whose advice is so important to the country at this time”

It is an open secret that coronavirus will force shifts in policy of a scale no Tory politician would ever have foreseen. The policy can be summed up by Rishi Sunak’s comments; “The single most important thing we can do for the health of our economy is to protect the health of our people,” said the chancellor on Tuesday. “It’s not a case of choosing between the economy and public health.”

However, once discussion moves on to the so-called exit strategy and to the post-Covid future, as it is now beginning to do, this begins to change. That is the reason Keir Starmer is pressing the government to publish its strategy. He knows this will reveal faultlines and compromises that an opposition can exploit without appearing partisan or unpatriotic. Whether the Tory will embrace the choices that will now face it depends overwhelmingly on Johnson himself. After 2019, the party is unusually dependent on him. But it is also a bare fact that his inability has acquired a much bigger dimension

After Boris Johnson returns to work by Monday he would certainly like to exercise his full authority on the administration. This is one singular way to show to the outer world and also to his own party colleagues and leaders that he has actually been commanding the functioning of the government. While from the beginning Boris was not in the favour of complete lockdown, the ground level situation prevailing in the country is against it.

In the face of criticism from Tory members and others the government maintains that every decision throughout the rapidly mounting crisis has been guided by the science – and argues that it is better to do “the right thing at the right time” than to be pressured into kneejerk overreaction. It also acknowledges that while saving lives is paramount, it has a responsibility to protect livelihoods and jobs too.

While Johnson prefers to compare himself to Churchill, he has often been compared by others to Donald Trump. Even after the launch of the “wash your hands” campaign, Boris Johnson was shaking hands continuously. After the UK’s first coronavirus death, he declared “business as usual”, an approach one former government communications director described as “fatally flawed” when tough restrictions were on the track. (IPA Service)