Boris Johnson’s ‘address to the nation’ was arguably the worst moment of a terrible week

The prime minister has gone on television, told people there’s a tidal wave coming, that two doses aren’t enough, then made them a promise that turns out to be entirely untrue

No parties in Downing Street on Sunday night, as far as we know. More of a sombre affair, really. Just the prime minister, having a desk moved into a doorway to record one of his “address to the nation” jobs (it’s still not clear why he does this).

It was the usual cosplay stuff. At the start of the week he was on camera pretending to be a police officer. If anything, his prime minister character is the least convincing of the lot.

Johnson did his best to sound serious. “No one should be in any doubt there is a tidal wave of omicron coming,” he said, and at this point things switched to the usual pattern. To protect oneself against the coming tidal wave, he explained, “two doses of vaccine are not enough”. But don’t worry, because all adults will be offered a booster dose before the end of the year.

That’s an incredibly ambitious target. It equates to more than a million doses a day over the next 20 days, when the current record is around half that, and two of the days in question are Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

But that doesn’t matter. The headlines were secured. All adults boosted by the new year. But that was Sunday. On Monday, naturally, things became rather clearer. It’s on the NHS England website now. All adults will in fact be invited to book an appointment for a vaccination before the end of the year. And said appointment will hopefully be fulfilled in January or February some time.

Millions of people are extremely frightened by omicron and this, yet again, is how they’ve been treated. The prime minister has gone on television for one of his breathless despatches, told them there’s a tidal wave coming, that two doses aren’t enough, then made them a promise that turns out to be entirely untrue.

And this is not some adlibbed line in a press conference, a mischosen off-the-cuff phrase. It was a scripted, pre-recorded message, which contained only one message of any importance, and that message turns out to be almost entirely untrue. I add the almost, as it is not solely the case that all adults will have to book a vaccination. Many will be available via walk-in service, too. But the policy announcement, as made by the actual prime minister, in a set piece, schedule-clearing broadcast of national importance, simply isn’t true.

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This was the last moment in an appalling week, which we won’t go through again, other than to add that the country’s most senior civil servant is now investigating not only a party in Boris Johnson’s house that he maintains didn’t happen, but one in which he has been pictured taking part in, on the front of a national newspaper, flanked by staff wearing Santa hats and draped in tinsel.

In the court of public opinion, it may well be there is more sympathy out there than might be imagined. If staff who are all working in the same office anyway, under intense pressure, have a few drinks by their desks in the week before Christmas, and take place in a light-hearted office quiz. Maybe, just maybe, that’s not so bad, even if it does technically appear to have been illegal.

But telling everyone there’s no need to panic because they’ll all get a booster jab in the next three weeks when they absolutely, definitely won’t? A strong case there for the most execrable moment of them all. There’s no aspect of the job at which he isn’t a full-on, 42-carat disgrace, and it can’t carry on for much longer.