I’ve just seen this Twitter clip from Matt Lucas, sending up PM Boris Johnson’s latest coronavirus directive to the British people.
— realmattlucas (@RealMattLucas) May 10, 2020
Lucas mimics Johnson well — and, in the space of 17 seconds, hits an important point square on the head.
The PM’s first lockdown address, backed by the ‘Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save lives’ slogan, deserves credit for its clarity. (OK, there were some points of ambiguity, especially around whether you could drive to exercise and what work was considered essential. But the main thrust was clear.)
A partial relaxation of restrictions is a much harder directive to give, and this showed in Johnson’s latest broadcast on Sunday. Nuanced messages – a subtle “change of emphasis”, in the PM’s words – don’t work well in crisis situations.
Saying “anyone who can’t work from home should go to work” left so much up in the air. He gave the examples only of construction and manufacturing, but what about dentists, hairdressers and cleaners? When should people go back to work? How would new ’employer guidelines’ guarantee their safety? And why does this instruction not apply in Scotland?
You can now sunbathe in parks in England – but, again, not in Scotland.
The new ‘Stay alert’ slogan is vague, and undermined by the other parts of the UK refusing to adopt it.
Let’s hope future communications are clearer as we (hopefully) “come down the mountain.”