What we saw from Boris Johnson this week was extremely rotten and disgraceful politics, not only through its content but also in linking so directly to extreme far right themes.
Johnson has been widely slated for his use of Jimmy Saville as an attack line on Keir Starmer, and rightly so. It has sickened many of his own MPs and been widely condemned.
Lawyers for Savile’s victims immediately pressed Johnson to withdraw his remarks. One victim of Savile said the Prime Minister’s false claim against Keir Starmer had “triggered all the flashbacks”.
Labour chose the correct path in confronting it directly and from Keir Starmer himself, both in the media and at Prime Minister’s Questions.
But the direct challenges and the widespread opprobrium did not prevent Johnson from digging in, both at PMQs two days later and when interviewed by the press.
Although there was a huge backlash over Johnson’s remarks he kept going for several days. He clearly felt the benefits to him outweighed the many downsides. Today, having put down his poison, Johnson has ‘clarified’ what he said.
What then was Johnson doing? As Hope Not Hate has underlined, the Savile claims have been circulated on far-right media and social media, particularly since around the time Keir Starmer was elected leader of the Labour Party.
By dragging themes favoured by the extreme right out into conventional politics via Parliament, Johnson was legitimising them and making them part of mainstream discourse. This is pure Trumpism. It goes beyond the notion of a “dead cat” distraction exercise. Johnson was not simply trying to change the subject as a mechanism to take the heat off himself, although he obviously does want that too. His aim was to get an attack line going that runs over time and frames his opponent, placing question-marks in people’s minds. He will know very well that his comments will be clipped and shared on social media and various false claims will be amplified on right wing sites. Johnson was attempting to create a particularly vile association in people’s minds: his calculation will be that however much it is condemned, many people will notice it and will subconsciously or consciously consider it.
Such a calculation deserves to be proven wrong - primarily by concentrating fire on the government for its principal failures, such as over the cost of living crisis and the squeeze on household budgets, so that Johnson is unable to get the traction he hopes for. But it also says something very bad about Johnson’s character that he is prepared to build that bridge between his office and the themes of the far right, and that too can and should be turned to his disadvantage.
Back to school
Last month I spoke to the joint general secretaries of the National Education Union - including on the issue of assessment. The Independent Assessment Commission has now reported its findings, calling for a comprehensive overhaul and an end to cliff-edge exams as the sole mode of assessment. Read about it here.
In that interview Kevin Courtney and Mary Bousted argued strongly for measures to improve ventilation in schools. On the BBC’s Politics Live this week Conservative MP Tim Loughton accused the teaching unions of closing schools during the pandemic. His attack on the NEU was comprehensively taken apart by Labour MP Emma Hardy who stressed the scandal of poor ventilation provision. Watch it here:
Teachers at the Girls Day Schools Trust are striking for the first time in the trust’s 149-year history. 1,500 teachers are likely to be on strike in a dispute over huge cuts to teachers’ pensions. Share their campaign.