Double erosion of credibility

GIVEN that neither are blessed with huge amounts of credibility, the further erosion of what little both British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and United States President Donald J Trump have left has undermined them again, but neither seems too perturbed by it. Throughout last week, Johnson’s backing of his chief aide, Dominic Cummings, who blatantly broke the UK’s Covid-19 lockdown rules, shot any credibility that his now semi-dictatorial government has left and put a serious dent in its ability to get people to obey such rules now and into the future.

The Prime Minister’s refusal to call for the resignation of Cummings – who is trying to keep bumbling Boris focused through these difficult times for the country what with a pandemic, the economy and Brexit talks all proving problematic – smacks of hypocrisy, especially as Johnson himself became seriously ill with the virus, while his aide was flouting the lockdown rules and tempting fate with his lengthy trips to Durham. Some consider Cummings to be ‘the real PM,’ but he is not above the law of the land and has been rightly condemned for actions other people – such as former Scottish chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood – have at least had the decency to resign over.

However, resigning is not for the arrogant aide. To do so would leave Boris’s government virtually rudderless and they all know that.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, President Trump is being called out by Twitter – which he had been avidly using since his election to grandstand with his populist rants – and he does not like it. However, it is not before time that Twitter added ‘fact check’ labels to two of the president’s recent tweets and hid another one for ‘glorifying violence,’ rightly not allowing him free rein ahead of the presidential election.