No 10’s coronavirus briefings: stick to the script and hope no one sees your nose growing – The Guardian

Not all lockdown masterclasses involve unwelcome exertion. By now, anyone who has been watching the daily Downing Street coronavirus press briefings, even intermittently, should have acquired enough skill in evasion and excuses to present one, if not to a professional standard, certainly as persuasively as the average UK cabinet minister. The following technique can be mastered in as little as six weeks.

1. Congratulate the prime minister if he has produced another child, wish him a great recovery/holiday if he is unavoidably absent. Conscious or not, he is in great spirits. Introduce your scientists. Pray that they include Jenny Harries, Englands deputy chief medical officer, whose deflection methods are unrivalled. Recall, for instance, her wish for a more adult conversation on personal protective equipment, following evidence that shortages are endangering lives.

2. Firm voice on, before an update on the governments step-by-step battle plan to defeat the virus. Recite, slowly and clearly, the five tests. This should use up at least five minutes. Repeat, as required by ministers since 9 March, that the government is taking the right decisions at the right time, based on the latest scientific advice.

3. Solemn face. Report the latest infection and death figures. Condolences. Reflect, instructively, that these grim numbers are a reminder of just how serious the virus is, showing that your five-point plan is correct.

4. A more positive note. Congratulate the heroic frontline, ditto the sacrifice of the British people, in rising to the challenge. You are proud of their determination to turn the tide and win the war. Beating this enemy is a team effort. (The forthcoming press attacks are therefore tantamount to siding with the enemy.)

5. But admit there are challenges. Cannot sugar-coat. Unprecedented times. Select any or all of the following: you are working night and day, round the clock, fighting tooth and nail, unflinchingly and unblinkingly moving heaven and earth and straining every sinew while you move mountains in a herculean, mammoth effort to get to the light at the end of the tunnel.

6. Dont mention care homes.

7. Today, the government can announce it is ramping up something. At pace. Budget of millions. On anything from badges to research. A jingoistic comparison is, at this point, recommended. Although maybe not Boris Johnsons fantasy, from 16 March, that the UK is now leading a global campaign to fight back. Substitute: Our world-leading scientific experts.

8. Finally, recite the approved slogan (on the front of the lecterns, if youve forgotten) and its over to a scientist for the latest curve-flattening data. Since the UK figures will be among the worst in the world, emphasise that comparisons are meaningless.

What follows press questions is not always as straightforward, even now favoured civilians are, in a rare borrowing from Jeremy Corbyn, invited to use up time and, being warmly praised, show up the journalists. Even in our darkest moments, as the first secretary, Dominic Raab, recently said, the crisis has also shone a light on the best among us. Step forward, Lynne in Skipton.

Happily, the virtual plague set-up does afford some defence against hostile interrogation. Observe how the health secretary, Matt Hancock, learned smartly to introduce the next questioner, closing down an annoying one. And remember some journalists will always ask, basically: Are we nearly there yet? Take at least three minutes to revisit the five tests.

Even death-obsessed hacks, rehearsing Britains fatal delays during Johnsons sing Happy Birthday period, may feel awkward about associating an individual minister with failures, effectively, unforgivable negligence. But deploy accompanying scientists, in case of such attacks, as your bespoke, personal protection equipment. We have followed the science and always made the right decisions at the right time.

Try answering a difficult question with Raabs speciality the response to a different one. How many tests completed? Journalists still bringing up Johnsons early pledge of 250,000 a day? Also irrelevant. Were ramping up. Herculean effort. Finest military planners in the world.

On PPE, the guidance is similar: befuddle them with billions of items, deploy the heroic working night and day/all hours God sends and agree, fervently, on the need. So lets hope the heroic frontline isnt wasting it. We need, Hancock warned on 10 April, everyone to treat PPE like the precious resource that it is.

Theres no avoiding care homes. Improvise. Say these were a top priority from the start and hope nobody remembers Johnsons vague advice, as late as 16 March, against unnecessary visits. Hancock recalls, future inquiries will note, that in January one of the first things we knew about this virus was that it had a very strong age profile, as in it was much more dangerous for older people. But he wants to dispute the suggestion that the sector had been desperate for tests, thered been these index ones and no doubt many lives were saved as a result.

That the government, by way of building trust, is committed to defending clear failures with vastly tragic consequences was re-established last week when a returning Johnson depicted almost 27,000 deaths as a good outcome, for not being 500,000. Plainly, if Dominic Cummings did not calculate that such misrepresentations were, regardless of the press mischief, politically advantageous, the briefings would not be happening.

But for all the obfuscation they allow glimpses of the truth. It cant have been the intention to expose the dismaying inadequacies of Johnsons cabinet, selected, as its members mostly were, for loyalty rather than intelligence or experience. It cant have been Cummingss plan to underline the culpability of a leader who bequeaths as his substitute in a national crisis a man you would not trust with a stepladder.

Perhaps the lingering memory of these sessions will be ministers collective adherence to a script composed by the authors of Get Brexit Done, which no death toll is big enough to revise. No scientist should have to take responsibility for that.

Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist

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No 10's coronavirus briefings: stick to the script and hope no one sees your nose growing - The Guardian