The government can’t fight coronavirus, so it’s fighting journalists instead

The Conservatives’ 2,000-word rebuttal to a news article they don’t like shines a light on precisely nothing beyond their own towering ineptitude

For lesser men than Boris Johnson – which is to say, lesser liars – the circumstances of Sunday morning would be considered unfortunate.

It’s not merely that there are 5,000 words in the Sunday Times setting out in painstaking detail the unfathomable depths by which you’re not up to the job. It’s also that the guy who’s booked to go round the TV studios and tell everyone that none of it’s true, that you’re definitely up to the job, is also the guy who took it upon himself to curtail your leadership bid in 2016, announcing to the world his view that you’re not up to the job. If such occasions weren’t so laughably common these days, Sunday morning’s scenes might have been something to savour.

Specifically, the sight of Michael Gove, calling it “grotesque” that Boris Johnson might be lacking some of the skills required to be prime minister – ie his own view, verbatim, as expressed in June 2016.

It’s hard to imagine Michael Gove minds making such an obvious hypocrite of himself. He was one of the very first in British politics to cross the post-shame Rubicon. But for those of us still stuck on the other side, too timid to make the journey into the brave new world where it really doesn’t matter that everybody knows you’re lying, the problem is that the shapes are now so far gone they are lost in the heat of the horizon.

Politicians have always lied and will always lie. But what is a relatively new phenomenon is that it is becoming impossible to take their lies in good faith – to accept that politicians tell strategic lies, and defend the indefensible when needs must.

More than this, it has become impossible to even spot the truth lurking beneath the lies. For what does Michael Gove even believe? Does he think Boris Johnson is not up to the job, or that it is “grotesque” to suggest such a thing? If you made me bet, I wouldn’t fancy my chances.

The closest I could get to an answer is that Michael Gove – who’ll gladly tell you he has “principles”, is a “conviction politician” – is entirely unconcerned with the truth. Politics is just a series of arguments to be won, and that thing was true yesterday but not today... well, that was a different argument. I won that one, now I’m winning this one. Life is just one great joyous Groundhog Day, in which you never actually have to leave the Oxford Union.

These are not the only holes the government has dug for itself with lying. On Sunday afternoon, we were treated to a 2,000-word rebuttal of the various allegations made by the Sunday Times; nakedly political in nature, yet published on the official government website, set out in “Claim: Response” format. This, you won’t need reminding, is a government led and run by the people that brought you such claims as “Turkey is joining the EU” (Response: you’re lying and you know you are) and “We send the EU £350m a week: let’s spend it on the NHS” (Response: see above). Central to the blog post’s thesis is the claim that it is perfectly normal for prime ministers not to chair meetings of the government’s emergency Cobra committee. It cites the fact that Grant Shapps, the transport minister, chaired one when Thomas Cook collapsed. It hardly needs to be said that Thomas Cook is not coronavirus.

Nor does it need to be said that it is not normal for a prime minister to have more than three weeks holiday in the build-up to what had already been identified as potentially the most serious global crisis in seven decades. Though many former Downing Street aides of every political hue have since said so, nevertheless.

Still, we can expect more of this to come. For some time now, Dominic Cummings and co have been writing angry rebuttals of news articles they don’t like. There is no point pretending it isn’t a serious problem for journalism. All the media ever really had going for the entirety of its existence right up until now was ownership of the technological means of mass communication. Now everybody has it, and the direction of travel is clear: all over the world, malignant governments – of which ours is certainly one – will use it to attack the media in the act of holding it to account. Using your own media to turn the people against the media is very much of the moment. Previous governments would doubtless have done it before, had they the option. It clearly works.

For now, to a large extent, the public doesn’t seem to want to believe how badly their government, and specifically their prime minister, has failed them – though it will become clear in the end.

The solitary upside, one might have hoped, of having a government run by newspaper columnists is that they might show a little reticence in denigrating their former industry, because unlike Donald Trump, they at least understand the brazen foulness of what they are up to. But then, you only have to remember Michael Gove, at the last election, cold calling Channel 4 News to make an absurd party-political propaganda video, made to look like actual news, to know how futile such a hope might be. Of course, the only light shone by such strange behaviour also illuminates, for those that want to see it, the full height of their towering ineptitude. No one is even pretending any longer that terrible mistakes were not made.

Winning the fight against coronavirus is difficult. Writing angry rants about articles you don’t like is easy. Given the choice, we should hardly be surprised which of the two tasks this particular government has found it has the required energy to take up.