We can debate whether it is the right thing to do. My own view is that it is, and in the absence of effective medical treatment the government has little choice. But it represents yet another U-turn by a government which has continued throughout this year to follow a particular policy course despite evidence suggesting it was on the wrong track, only to do a 180 degree turn at the last minute. I suspect yesterday was the point when the government lost much of the little credibility it had left.
Other European governments have, of course, introduced second lockdowns and they are also unpopular. But the UK situation is different because it is led by a prime minister who is deeply distrusted by a large part of the electorate, despite winning a convincing victory in an election just over 10 months ago. Johnson carries so much baggage as a result of Brexit that he has to over-deliver in order to persuade his critics that he is up to the job. Unfortunately for him, he has spent the last year over-promising and under-delivering.
The domestic context
Twelve months ago it was very different. Johnson had finally secured the go-ahead for the election he craved and went on to win a thumping majority in December, allowing him to deliver on his promise to "get Brexit done." The Conservatives promised to "level up" the regional imbalances in the UK, which gave a glimmer of hope to those outside the south east that they would finally get a fairer share of the national economic pie. It all sounded very promising. Then along came Covid-19.
Any government would have struggled in the face of this event. It represents the sort of exogenous shock that is talked about in economic textbooks with blithe authority but the reality of dealing with such shocks is a very different matter. It was inevitable that mistakes would be made. But it is the nature of the mistakes that has so undermined trust, giving rise to accusations of a lack of joined-up thinking.
One of the criticisms aimed at Johnson's government is that as the pandemic took hold the lockdown should have been introduced earlier. Maybe it should. But the scientific evidence at that time was not unanimously in favour and I would give the government a pass. But what was less forgivable was the decision to empty hospitals to make space to treat Covid cases without adequately testing whether those being sent out into the community were Covid positive. This allowed the disease to take hold in old age care homes and contributed to the UK's high mortality rate (this mistake was also repeated in Belgium). Nor did the government recover from the Dominic Cummings incident which gave the impression that there was one rule for those who were part of the inner circle and another for those who were not. The moral authority of the lockdown was at this point shot through.
Over the summer the government was understandably desperate to get the economy back on its feet. The policy of gradual reopening appeared to be working as case numbers continued to fall. But the Eat Out to Help Out scheme is now viewed as one of the catalysts of the second wave, with an economic paper by Thiemo Fetzer providing evidence that it “had a large causal impact in accelerating the subsequent second COVID19 wave,” whilst the reopening of schools has accelerated the process. To some extent there is an air of retrospective criticism involved. However, whilst cautiously opening the economy was not necessarily a bad policy at the time, it may have been pursued too aggressively.
More damaging for the government has been the dispute between urban centres in northern England and the Westminster government about the introduction of regional lockdowns and the degree of financial support they can be expected to receive in return. The Mayor of Greater Manchester’s call for a package of measures costing a mere £65 million was rejected as being too expensive. But yesterday the government extended for another month the national furlough scheme, covering 80% of the wages of furlough workers, which is likely to cost around £10bn. To compound the problems, the footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to persuade the government to provide free school meals during holiday periods to children of low paid families has generated a huge groundswell of support. This comes after Tory MPs voted against the proposal on 21 October. In terms of the signals being sent, the electorate does not like what it sees.
The international context
This brings us inevitably to Brexit. The government has already achieved its aim of leaving the EU but so far has not secured the trade deal with the EU that it claimed a year ago was “oven ready.” What is more concerning is that its handling of the Covid crisis betrays a government that is not fully in control of its brief. Worse still, people are now beginning to wake up to the prospect that it cannot be trusted to deliver a Brexit that delivers what its proponents promised, as latest survey evidence suggests. Whilst not absolving the EU for part of the blame, the UK’s petulant negotiating tactics have made things far more difficult than they need have been. I have long believed that the government would be forced to do a deal with the EU because not to do so would be economic suicide. But the “skinny” Brexit deal which is the best the government is likely to get, is insufficient to help large parts of the economy even in the absence of Covid. In the words of former civil servant Ivan Rogers “we are talking about the difference between a very hard Brexit and an ultra-hard Brexit.”
And so to the US election. You may think this is tangential to the UK but it is not. A Biden presidency would likely seek to normalize relations between the US and its traditional European allies. But the UK is increasingly out of step with the rest of the EU and the current British government is viewed with deep suspicion by the Biden camp. Johnson leads a government with a nationalist, (semi) populist agenda which is viewed favourably by Donald Trump. This is one factor likely to count against it. Biden has also come out in favour of supporting the Good Friday Agreement which the UK’s Internal Market Bill threatens to undermine. With Joe Biden in the White House, the UK can forget any preferential treatment in getting a trade deal with the US, which makes it all the more imperative that it can reach an agreement with the EU.
The bottom line
It is difficult to make any objective assessment of how well the current UK government has performed against its predecessors or indeed against its peers in other countries. But the degree to which the electorate is split on important issues such as Covid and Brexit is in my experience unprecedented. That said, four decades of polling evidence suggest that the government’s approval ratings have not suffered as much as the headline writers might have us believe (chart above). Indeed the current approval/disapproval rating is bang in line with the average on data back to 1977 (at 30% and 60% respectively). Do not forget that in summer 2019 the government’s approval rating fell to an all-time low of just 8% yet six months later it secured a big election win. Whilst it is too early to write off Boris Johnson this early in his term of office, he needs some good news if he is to have any chance of leading his party into a second election.
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