Has Boris Johnson saved the union?

Did you, I wonder, catch Nicola Sturgeon addressing the Scottish parliament’s special session this week via Zoom? If you don’t live in Scotland or have no plans to travel there, there is no particular reason why you should. If you did, though, perhaps you felt, as I did, that some sort of line had been crossed.

All right, so remotely conducted meetings, including parliamentary debates, tend not to flatter the participants, either in sound quality or appearance. Even granting these now familiar limitations, the change in Scotland’s first minister was nonetheless striking.

In the first year of the pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon had a cool, calm and commanding presence. She put herself out there, as befits a leader; she was the front-person for Scotland’s anti-Covid effort, spelling out with impressive clarity the rules that responsible Scots should follow. And she needed less persuasion (though she did need a bit) to sack her chief medical officer for rule-breaking than Boris Johnson did over Dominic Cummings.

That health was a devolved responsibility gave the governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland an opportunity to show what they were made of. And to the envy of at least some in England, Sturgeon proved herself more than equal to the task. It was only a detail, but the inclusion of a sign-language interpreter at her press conferences was an enlightened and modern move – and one the Downing Street press briefings eventually had to follow. Overall, Sturgeon looked and sounded a leader for today, and Scotland seemed ahead of the game.

It took the Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, a little longer to stand out on the UK’s Covid-fighting map. But, as the months went by, his friendly air of authority made him a winner, too. Together, the chance of the Covid pandemic and the long-standing designation of health as a devolved responsibility had the effect of enhancing the credibility of both first ministers.

Suddenly, Scotland, and to a lesser extent Wales, took on the appearance of plausible independent countries. The prospect that the UK could break up – enshrined in Sturgeon’s post-Brexit demands for another referendum on independence – seemed to have come a significant step closer.

Again, it is no more than an impression, but it seemed to me, watching Sturgeon address Scottish MSPs virtually, that the momentum for independence has now been lost. The aura of leadership that had so distinguished the first minister in the early months of the pandemic seemed pale by comparison. And in policy terms, rather than leading, Sturgeon was following. The few rule-changes she announced replicated changes already announced in England. But most of Scotland’s more restrictive regime remained. Under questioning, she was forced on the defensive.

Now, it is only fair to say that Sturgeon remains an impressive political performer, but her clout today is nothing like it was – and this is only partly a result of the pandemic. Under her leadership, the SNP failed – narrowly, but it failed – to win the hoped-for overall majority at the last Scottish parliamentary elections. Her image and authority were damaged by the Alex Salmond affair – more than was perhaps appreciated south of the border – and not only by his acquittal on charges of sexual harassment, but by her lack of candour in the inquiry that followed.

It also seems to me that, at some point last year, sensing danger, the Westminster government started to scrutinise Sturgeon’s record in office and ensure that its failings were as made as public as its successes. On Covid, it was made clear that Scotland’s record was not significantly better than England’s and was worse in terms of the deaths of elderly people in care homes. Scotland’s high level of drug deaths – one of the highest in Europe – was publicised, as was its sometimes less than enthusiastic reception for migrants and those seeking asylum.

All in all, it has been harder in recent months for Scotland to present itself as a success story compared with England, in Covid or anything else. Boris Johnson and his chancellor, Rishi Sunak, have also been more careful than before to underline where the furlough money – and the vaccines – come from. You may also have noticed, on vaccines, that there have been no complaints from any of the devolved governments that their citizens are not receiving their fair share.

But the Westminster offensive, if it is such, has not stopped there. As the threat from Covid perhaps starts to wane, Christmas 2021 may come to be seen as Boris Johnson’s masterstroke. That England was able – in theory, at least – to party as it pleased, to prop up the bar in the pub, to feast with any number of friends and family, to go to football, to a restaurant and to go clubbing cannot but have caused resentment among would-be party-goers unable to hotfoot it to Liverpool or Carlisle.

To be sure, the announcement of “Plan B” in England, just as city life was reviving, had an immediate and crushing effect. Central London, for one, stalled pretty much overnight. Holiday celebrations and sales were dealt a summary blow as people exercised their own caution and stayed away. But this does not alter the difference: England was conspicuously open when Scotland and Wales were largely closed. What is more, early indications are that Covid statistics remain comparable.

As Sturgeon effectively had to concede, there was no benefit to Scotland and Wales from their hibernation – though how far this reflects individual decisions to stay at home and how far the ineffectiveness of partial lockdowns will be debated for ever.

It may also be argued that the decision to keep England open was less a free choice made by Boris Johnson according to his own lights, than a reflection of the supposed reality, following the “Plan B” revolt by Conservative MPs, that he is from now in hock to his party’s libertarian right wing. Whether Johnson’s position as prime minister is really as weak as is claimed – mostly by his wishful thinking foes in the Westminster political and media hothouse – is another matter.

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The greatest danger to his position by far was the inquiry into spending on the Downing Street flat. That has now been resolved, with less harm to Johnson than might have been envisaged. The investigation into parties may be electorally damaging (though that will fade), but is reduced by the apparent ubiquity of parties across government departments at the time and hardly justifies a leadership challenge. The prospect of such a challenge is anyway diminished by the current lack of credible candidates and surely by the undesirability of the job, what with Covid and the coming pressure on living standards.

In short, it seems that reports of Johnson’s imminent political demise have been greatly exaggerated and it is more likely than not that the decision to keep England open was Johnson’s own – one fully in accord with his own anti-lockdown instincts and given succour by last year’s parliamentary committee report on the pandemic, which suggested ministers had been too uncritical of “the science”.

If the statistics continue to break Johnson’s way – and the spate of bank holidays means more time will be needed before the picture is clear – Johnson’s judgement will have been vindicated. The Scots and the Welsh for their part may then start to ask not only why they had to pass such a joyless new year, but where else their devolved governments might have been wrong.

No wonder Mark Drakeford has been rather quiet in the first days of 2022. No wonder, too, that Nicola Sturgeon was at less than her best when addressing MSPs this week. For Scotland the independence tide has turned, and she knows it. Boris Johnson’s instinct is to gamble, to live and let live, and not to spoil his own and other people’s fun. That instinct may not only have rescued England’s holiday season. It may also have helped save the union.