[Strategic-Culture] It could be seen as a fatal blow to Boris Johnson’s premiership. A bombshell report at the weekend revealed the British prime minister had declined to attend five emergency cabinet meetings in the lead-up to the Covid-19 crisis. He is accused of "sleepwalking" Britain into disaster.As Britain’s death toll from the pandemic continues to soar — with projections that it could end up the worst in Europe — Boris Johnson will be in for intense heat from public anger. Sympathy for his own personal recovery from the disease will soon recede as the public demands a reckoning for Britain’s grim epidemic.
Coincidentally, it seems, the damning report on Johnson’s hands-off approach before he became ill also comes amid signs of infighting among senior government ministers about how Britain exits from its weeks-long lockdown policy to contain the deadly pandemic.
Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove and the finance minister Rishi Sunak are reportedly keen to speed up Britain’s return to normal business, while Prime Minister Johnson and the health minister Matt Hancock are more cautious about lifting the public lockdown out of fears that a second wave of infection may occur. Both Johnson and Hancock suffered from Covid-19 infection which may account for their more wary position. Indeed earlier this month, Johnson spent several days in hospital intensive care while in a critical condition.
The tensions at the core of the British government over handling the Covid-19 crisis may explain the extraordinarily damaging report by the Sunday Times painting Johnson as woefully complacent in the face of the pandemic. The rightwing press owned by Rupert Murdoch usually have a favorable and indulgent attitude towards Johnson. He used to write a column for the tabloid Sun. Something has changed like a switch, however, in that crony relation....
That's why the media exposé of Johnson and his non-attendance of Cabinet emergency meetings has more an air of political hatchet job than investigative journalism....