Who cannot admire the poverty campaigner and food writer Jack Monroe? She has a tireless work ethic, coupled with fiery imaginative tenacity to get change done — and her most recent campaign took on the Office for National Statistics and won. While the Tory party and the Prime Minister thrashed about chaotically, Monroe got on with highlighting the impact of food inflation on those for whom providing even one family meal per day is a crushing, debilitating battle. She described an elderly man who told her his dinner had been a spoonful of toothpaste, “in order to fool himself into thinking he had chewed, swallowed, tasted and digested something”.
For those not familiar with the story, Monroe spotted how rising prices for cheaper foods (and other basic goods), coupled with a reduction in the cheaper food lines many survive on, was having a far worse inflationary effect on the poorest households than was being recorded by the ONS.
Put simply, the 5.4 per cent inflation number is just an average. For many, that figure is far higher. And without accurate statistics, the problem can be ignored. Monroe gathered experts to help her launch a new price index, to ensure this double whammy got noticed. Her campaigning paid off and the ONS has just agreed to publish a breakdown of inflation based on varied household incomes. Like Marcus Rashford, she got something done.
Now compare her to our Prime Minister, who is dragging us through a succession of crises entirely of his own making, while real problems are getting pushed to one side. Trust has been broken and the public is growing weary of the never-ending drama emanating from Number 10. Maybe he will survive the Gray report. And the police investigation. Maybe he will even go on to another election. With so much rumour countering rumour, it’s pointless to guess at what the near future will bring. Instead, I want to focus on the far-reaching consequence of the lockdown party lies. Remember the MPs’ expenses scandal? It dealt a blow not only to public trust but also respect for politicians. What most remember was a man using his expenses to pay for a moat. And his ducks. That’s nothing to what we are discovering now.
In the future we will recall a Prime Minister getting fined £17,000 because of his wife’s desire for flocked gold wallpaper. And a leader and his cronies ready to change government rules to save his friend who had broken them. But mostly we will remember horrendous lockdowns where we obeyed laws, while those who made them flagrantly broke them.
Worse still, and this is where the taint gets long-term, instead of ’fessing up when it was clear there was more to come, our leader continued to hide the truth — sorry “waited for Sue Gray” — until the police were finally called in. And now he’s been properly found out.
The public knew he misled mistresses and in public office played fast and loose with the truth, but with Covid, it’s different. This affected everyone: people missed saying goodbye as relatives lay dying, didn’t attend funerals, and their small children missed their birthday parties: just cake for one. And the public won’t forgive him for trying to cover that up. He’s obliterated in one swoop the huge advantage of a vaccine recovery which should have made him and his fellow politicians heroes.
He must be hugely exasperated at the fallout. And I genuinely sympathise with him on that. But this hasn’t stopped him compounding the damage. Instead of serious policies for serious times, desperate new plans are announced, lasting five minutes before being trounced.
Then come Johnson’s supporters and their excuses: it’s the media’s fault, or he was “ambushed by a cake”. We laugh at the memes. And feel horrified. We hear about Government Whips using methods utterly bizarre to a public now wondering what the hell goes on in this arcane group that runs our country. Where anyone daring to stick up for integrity or their constituent’s opinion gets threatened or is flippantly written off as an “idiot”.
That trust with this government has been broken is a given. What Boris Johnson hasn’t grasped is that his legacy will run deeper — long-lasting discredit for the Westminster institution he spent his life longing to lead.
MPs across the divide will suffer more hatred on social media. Their serious work, often equal in success to that of Munroe’s, will be further belittled. The collective reputation of politicians is sunk ever further to save one man. Marcus Rashford for PM, anyone?
In other news...
BBC boss shows how to make a point
Good on Tim Davie, the embattled Director General of the BBC. Not for him rushed, then reversed, decisions announced on social media, as we get from ministers. Instead he delivers considered, polite, understated push-back at a time when a media free from obvious bias has never been more needed. Or in greater need of funding.
“I don’t think it’s for one person to decide the funding model of the BBC,” Davie told the Commons Public Accounts Committee on Wednesday. “We need to go through a disciplined process with the public involved.” Touché!
Wills shouldn’t fret too much about gaming
What parent can’t sympathise with Prince William’s comments about eight-year-old George’s love of gaming and his attempts to keep control of it? I long ago lost the battle. Lockdowns saw the destruction of any communal viewing in my family; it was abandoned by my teenage children, desperate to be alone in their rooms, often in the dark, staring at flickering screens.
Before you judge, we tried everything… it was a gradual creep. But William doesn’t need to worry too much. My eldest, 17, has replaced gaming with a love of DJing: our house is like a rave most weekends. More recently, he has taken to obsessive and very talented graffiti work — not just on his bedroom walls, a mash of sprayed hues, but in art pads he expertly fills each evening. I’m even framing them and at school they are trying to persuade him to switch one A-level for graphics. The person in our household I worry about now is me. With Partygate, Twitter is an addiction. It’s not just my children who need to find a healthier hobby. As a fan of the artist Anni Albers, I’ve taken up weaving…
What do you think the outcome of the Sue Gray report will be? Let us know in the comments below.
