UK Government Press Conference: Wednesday 8 December 2021
I watched the entire press conference live this evening. What struck me most forcibly was Johnson's patent lack of candour. He responded to almost all of the questions with a mixture of deflection and distraction, even those questions to which he made a show of expressing mild contrition for having forgotten to answer them. He was up on the podium partly because he wants to be, and remain, the Prime Minister, and partly because he wished to (was desperate to?) throw up the smokescreen of an early announcement of "Plan B" (it sounds like a plot point in some second rate heist movie). Yet, unsurprisingly, he looked like a child who was expecting to be chastised. In response to one question, during the middle part of the press conference, his wide-open darting eyes suggested to me that he was lying and was well aware of the fact. I was taken aback when he visibly rolled his eyes at the final question, and also when the camera failed to catch up with him when he was already marching off the podium while Patrick Valence was finishing answering a question, as though he (Johnson) had had enough and simply wanted to be elsewhere. It was not edifying viewing, and left me with the impression not only that Johnson is way out of his depth (compare with Biden, Macron or Merkel), but also that he is floundering without Dominic Cummings, and is not coping with the isolation of being the person to whom everyone turns for leadership.
