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A recently elected Conservative party leader won a surprise victory against considerable odds in a general election, and, as a result, appeared to be in a strong position with considerable authority. But just a few months later came a crisis.
The prime minister and his government did not handle it well. They made promises they were unable to keep, and though they stayed in office for the best part of five more years, the prime minister's credibility never recovered, and his government was torn apart by internecine warfare over Europe. When the next general election came along, the Tories were comprehensively defeated.
That is the story of John Major, prime minister from 1992-7, but the first three and a half sentences at least could also have been written about Boris Johnson. The crisis that found Major wanting, was 'Black Wednesday'. The government promised to keep the UK in Europe's Exchange Rate Mechanism at all costs. But even raising interest rates 4 per cent in a day and spending billions of pounds was not enough to fight off the currency dealers who believed Major was trying to keep the pound at a higher level than the economy justified, and the UK crashed out.
Johnson's crisis has been an odder one: his insistence on hanging on to an unelected adviser who had flouted coronavirus lockdown rules. It is coalescing, of course, with a general feeling that the crisis has been handled badly: locking down too late, abandoning testing, failing to supply protective equipment to frontline workers, failing to protect care homes, etc, but the decision to protect Dominic Cummings generated a huge wave of anger, even among Conservatives.
Will the story end the same? Sam Goldwyn said: 'beware of making predictions especially about the future,' and a lot can happen in what could be four years or more before the next election. Johnson also has a much bigger parliamentary majority than Major, but it is possible that when the history of his government is written, the day he decided to defend Cummings instead of firing him may be seen as his 'Black Wednesday'.
'I had to break the lock-down to drive my wife to a local beauty spot on her birthday in order to test my eyes' has rightly been seized on as the funniest part of Dominic Cummings' full-of-holes attempt at justifying his lockdown busting, and it has inspired many good jokes, but perhaps we're missing the point of it.
And of Cummings' attempts to fake an article he claimed to have written last year predicting coronavirus. It was apparently a fabrication so crude that any data scientist could detect it in their sleep.
Remember when Russian agents tried to murder Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018? They later appeared on Russian television delivering excuses so implausible that, in any other context, they would have been comic, claiming they came to England to see the 'wonderful town' of Salisbury with its 'famous cathedral.'
But we weren't meant to believe them. The excuses were intended to be risible to illustrate the Russians' contempt for us. The message was: 'we're lying. You know we're lying. We know you know we're lying, but we don't care. Because we're more powerful than you, and there's nothing you can do about it, so we're not even going to bother making up a credible story.'
The message from Cummings' implausible account is the same: 'I know you don't believe this, but you're not even worth lying to properly. I'm the elite, and you're the plebs. You do as I tell you. I do as I like.'
The Black Death was the deadliest epidemic in British history. Did it enter the country through Southampton? Coronavirus has brought a resurgence of interest in my book, A Disastrous History of Britain, and here's the piece I've written on 'the plagues of Southampton' for the Southampton Daily Echo.
https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18468017.black-death-entered-country-southampton-look-past-pandemics/
It tells the story of the plagues that have afflicted Southampton, Winchester and the region from the Black Death, through bubonic plague and cholera to Spanish flu.
'I recognise that I made an error of judgement for which I apologise. As my wife and I were both feeling ill, we were worried about who would look after our small child. This, I am afraid, clouded my judgement, and we made the mistake of travelling to my parents' home. I realise now that this was wrong, and I would like to apologise to all the people who have been observing the lock-down, and to stress how important it is that we all continue to respect the rules drawn up to keep us all safe.'
Why didn't Dominic Cummings say something like that? OK it's not perfect, and it begs lots of questions: were you and your wife actually feeling ill? And if you were, why did you put yourselves, your child and other road users at risk by driving 260 miles? If you didn't realise what you were doing was wrong, why was so much effort put into concealing it? When did you realise? And why did you not apologise for your behaviour until it was revealed in the press? etc, etc
But IF you want to preserve public support for the lock-down, it's surely better than arrogantly and aggressively pretending you did nothing wrong? The leaflet Boris Johnson sent me was absolutely specific: if you have coronavirus symptoms, you 'must stay at home until the symptoms have ended, and in all cases for at least seven days.'
We are told, through the nods and winks that have replaced proper government announcements, that Dominic Cummings was not a fan of lock-down, preferring a policy of 'herd immunity' (though, of course, there is no evidence that being exposed to coronavirus gives you immunity), protecting the economy at all costs, and 'if some pensioners die, that's too bad'. So are Johnson and Cummings actually relaxed about the lock-down collapsing? Indeed, would they welcome it, so they can help the economy even if that means more people dying? Or is that just Cummings' view, with Johnson, for whatever reason, afraid to resist?
As usual, with this 'government' of liars, we just don't know.
As I posted before, covid-19 seems to have led to a resurgence of interest in my 'Disastrous History' books, especially 'The Disastrous History of Britain.' (The History Press).
Here's my story in the Bristol Post about the plagues that have afflicted the Bristol area over the centuries, from the Black Death to Spanish flu, and about what lessons we can learn from them.
The Black Death was the deadliest epidemic in British history, and Bristol is a prime suspect as the place where it first entered the country -
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/bristol-post/20200518/281801401152777.
