A photograph of Boris Johnson, his wife and up to 17 aides in the Downing Street garden with bottles of wine and a cheeseboard during lockdown has prompted criticism and bemusement from the international press.
The gathering in the image, obtained by The Guardian, took place on 15 May 2020, after a press conference at which the public was urged to stick to Covid-19 rules. Social mixing between households was limited to two people, and the government said that in-person work meetings should only take place if “absolutely necessary”.
The publication of the photo follows a string of allegations about lockdown breaking gatherings by No. 10 and Conservative Party staff, and poses a major “problem” in the current push to enforce Plan B restrictions, said Tanya Gold in The New York Times (NYT). Despite a surge in Covid cases fuelled by the Omicron variant, concern is growing over whether “people follow them when it is likely that Johnson – if the past is any indication – will not”.
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That parties should “come back to haunt” the prime minister is “ironic”, Gold continued. Voters once “liked him for his levity. But levity, in a time of pandemic, is less charming than it once was.”
Le Monde asked whether the recent scandals mark “the beginning of the end for Johnson”. The UK media has “devoted their headlines to potential scandals involving Johnson” over the past six weeks, said the Paris-based paper. “And in recent days the pace of disclosures has accelerated further. His popularity is in free fall and, in his own camp, his departure is no longer taboo.”
Der Spiegel said that overcoming the rows represents “the hardest game so far” for Johnson, who is “in further need of an explanation” about the newly published photo of the garden gathering.
Many Conservative MPs may also be keen to hear what the PM has to say about the photo, which was taken shortly after then health secretary Matt Hancock urged the public to “stay at home if possible, to stick to the rules and not to take any risks”. According to The Irish Times, Johnson is “running out of friends” on his own backbenches amid a storm of unforced errors.
Compounding the allegations of lockdown breaches is the resignation of David Frost, the government’s Brexit negotiator-turned-minister of state at the Cabinet Office.
His departure, “which followed a Conservative backbench rebellion over coronavirus restrictions” and the Tory defeat in the North Shropshire by-election last week, has “caused alarm among Eurosceptic MPs”, the paper said.
Johnson has often been described as a “Teflon leader”, said Al Jazeera, but “his political Teflon may be starting to wear off”. The “deluge of bad news” is “raising questions” about whether Johnson will “hold on to power”, amid “plummeting poll ratings” and growing speculation that Conservative MPs might “remove him from office through an internal leadership vote or a vote of no confidence”.
“More and more people are sensing that even if the Boris bubble has not completely burst then it does seem to have been punctured by the events of recent weeks,” Matthew Flinders, a politics professor at Sheffield University, told the broadcaster.
Tory peer and polling expert Robert Hayward added: “The problems have been made by Johnson. So, in essence it comes down to him. He has to convince people that have been slipping away from him in the past few weeks that he wants and can be prime minister.”
The recent “string of scandals” have certainly “buffeted” the PM in the run-up to Christmas, agreed CNN. But according to Politico, the “British politics’ comeback kid” is more than likely “down but not out”.
Johnson “has had his share of troubles”, wrote the site’s senior UK correspondent Esther Webber before the garden gathering image emerged, and “it’s hard to recall a tougher time than this”.
“Westminster watchers and the voting public are asking whether this could be the beginning of the end for British politics’ great survivor,” she added. But “while Tory MPs may be cheesed off with the boss, no clear challenger has yet emerged”.
All the same, argued Gold in the NYT, “there is every sign that the spell Johnson cast over the country is cracking” and “that people are waking up to the truth of him”.
“As we watch Johnson’s narrative play out, Britain feels like a country put on hold,” said Gold. “We don’t know whether the prime minister can save himself, let alone Christmas.”
