Boris Johnson the Brexit populist, or so the labeling goes.
His sidekick Michael Gove declared during the referendum that we’d all had enough of experts who got things “consistently wrong”.
But our apparently “populist” prime minister is taking a studiously non-populist approach to the “worst public health crisis for a generation” .
Ever since coronavirus landed in the UK, he has followed the advice of the experts.
It feels at times that his unflappable chief medical officer professor Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance are always by his side.
With an already alarmed public, anxiety can only grow now that the prime minister put it on record today that he was powerless to stop this pandemic spreading across the UK, as he warned us that our loved ones are likely to die ” before their time “as COVID – our nation.
Prof Whitty told me at the Downing Street press conference on Thursday that the “reasonable worst-case scenario” was that % of Britain’s million population would be infected, with an expected mortality rate of 1% or less. That amounts, at worst, to half a million deaths.
Around the world governments are taking drastic measures.
US President Trump has banned flights from the EU, French President Macron is closing schools on Monday while Italian Prime Minister Conti has put the whole of Italy on lockdown.
It all piles the pressure on Mr Johnson to be seen to taking similar actions to make us all perhaps feel a little more safe.
But those populist instincts are in abeyance as the prime minister sticks to the scientific advice despite some political and public backlash that it is too little too late.
the government on Thursday issued new advice for us all as we move into a new phase of this epidemic, with community transmission increasing.
All those who feel unwell – with a persistent cough, a temperature or both – should stay at home for seven days. The elderly should avoid cruises and school children’s foreign trips are now banned.
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