LAST night at 8.30pm, 28 million Brits tuned in to see Boris Johnson give an address that could well end up the most important of his premiership.
If you’re one of the London liberal media elite who spend your days scrolling through social media feeds, you’d think most of the country was against his balanced strategy to protect us from the spread of coronavirus without unnecessarily denying our basic freedoms and causing the economy to grind to a halt.
In fact, you’d probably believe that Boris was a dithering, dunderhead of a Prime Minister marching the country blindly towards catastrophe.
Thank goodness, the great British public are far too sensible to believe the hysterical pundits on Twitter.
Here’s the proof: YouGov polling carried out overnight for The Times’ Red Box newsletter shows the British public overwhelmingly supports the leadership provided by the government in the midst of this unprecedented, once-in-a-lifetime health and economic crisis.
And when it comes to the public, party politics has rightly been thrown out the window.
An overwhelming 93 per cent of folk support the lockdown that was announced by Boris last night. That figure includes 96 per cent of Conservative voters and 94 per cent of Labour voters.
What’s more, only two per cent of the public said they don’t intend to follow the new rules.
His personal favourability rating has skyrocketed too.
So how has the Prime Minister achieved the type of public support that most leaders during any era of our history could only dream of?
Because he made it clear he was desperate not to impose these measures.
We support Boris introducing draconian rule over our lives now because it’s obvious that doing so is his worst nightmare.
He started slowly, initially allowing schools to stay open and football games to still be played based on scientific advice.
But as the modelling changed and the threat to life became very real, our willingness to comply dramatically increased too.
Only time will tell if he did too much too soon or too little too late. However, I am prepared to say on the record that the measured response was the right one.
The British public, who have been brave enough to put their lives and ideology to one side, will be horrified to learn that leaders within the Labour party have tried to sniff out a political opportunity here.
Labour party chairman Ian Lavery has been caught by the Guido Fawkes website plotting to use the coronavirus crisis as what he disgustingly calls a “great opportunity”.
He said: “By the way when something like this happens, we’re going to see lots of our own dying as a consequence. But, you know apart from that, it’s going to give the fantastic battalion of Labour Party members, community champions out there a great opportunity of showing how Labour, and why Labour, is best when it gets on the front foot and best when it gets people together. We need to make sure that we do that, and community organising what a great opportunity it’s going to give us.”
How revolting.
The coronavirus pandemic is not a great political opportunity, Mr Lavery.
It’s an international tragedy of epic proportions that will cause grief for many and economic catastrophe for years to come.
It’s caused someone I know to lose a dear relative before their time. It’s caused weddings to be cancelled, jobs to be lost and life savings to go down the drain.
It’s not a “great opportunity” for anyone – and Lavery should immediately apologise for such a smear. Or resign.
