The Tories want to keep Johnson and their scary manifesto away from scrutiny – The Guardian

One of our great national sports in this country is looking the wrong way. For most of this year, you could read multiple condemnatory stories a day about Meghan Markle doing this or that at Wimbledon or her baby shower or wherever and absolutely nothing about Prince Andrew being accused of doing this or that with the then teenage sex slave of his international child-sex trafficker friend. Yoohoo, newshounds, over here!

And so to the latest helpful diversion in this endlessly entrancing general election a row over a clip of Boris Johnson that Channel 4 News wrongly subtitled. They had the prime minister saying, Im in favour of having people of colour coming to this country, when in fact he was saying people of talent. If you somehow missed this shitshow, its best summarised as person who has said multiple racist things didnt say this particular racist thing but the cockup has played right into his hands. Also, youre the UKs last pure human. Can I come and hide out where you are for the next five days?

We know we have a prime minister who needs to be kept away from the public

The drama has, alas, come at just the right moment for the Andrew Neil-dodging Johnson campaign, with a senior Conservative source having already begun Friday by sniffing: The public are fed up with interviews that are all about the interviewer and endless interruptions. Ooh, everyones a critic. The format is tired and broken and needs to change. In fact, the Tories think the format of our entire democracy needs to change, and well be coming to the ominous page 48 of their manifesto in a minute. A bit more looking-the-wrong-way to do first, though.

For now, no one is disputing the Conservative campaigns right to be furious that Channel 4 miscaptioned their boy. Although, guys: have some perspective. If youre cool with the piccaninnies, and the Muslim women being letterboxes and bank robbers, and the fact there was a real-life spike in hate crimes linked to your mans words then you cant exactly wet your pants about someone claiming he conflated immigration with people of colour. Thats like an axe murderer whingeing about red-eye in his mugshot.

As for the conspiracists still arguing he said colour not talent, despite a BBC clip proving otherwise why waste the time? We already know Johnson says racist things. He wrote lots and lots of them down, and they were published, under his name, for years. Decades, in fact. And there are so many of them that they are still being dug up like a vast subterranean horde of casual bigotry.

The real outrage is the reflexively opportunistic attack by the Tories on Channel 4 News and the wider media, who theyve spent the entire campaign trying to cast as the CNN to Johnsons Trump. Yes, weve seen all this before and it ends up being a way of wriggling out of scrutiny. This sort of thing is why so many media organisations have collapsing audiences, laments a senior Conservative source. We sadly do not expect the senior management at Channel 4 to take this terrible mistake seriously and we expect more of the same. Oh please. Spare me the Johnson campaigns sudden discovery of standards, the sanctity of accuracy and the whole hanky-to-the-nose tone of their condemnation. They can lie for Britain or rather, against its interests.

So we know we have a prime minister who needs to be kept away from the public. The Tories would really like us to view Johnson in a sort of political safari park, through which paying punters and were all going to end up paying would be encouraged to drive through at some pace. Its best not to stop, or hell climb on your car and pull off your windscreen wipers, or attempt to mate with your exhaust.

But even more worrying are those of his policies that need to be kept away from the public. Why does the Tory manifesto only go up to the end of their first notional year of a five-year term? What happens next? What if we WANT spoilers?

This entire document rather reminds me of the 2015 Tory manifesto, which used the word plan 121 times, devoting a mere seven words to what would turn out to be the most significant aspect of this plan for millions of voters. Specifically: We will find 12bn from welfare savings. Anyway, fast forward to the present day, and page 48 of the Tory manifesto is where all the scary shit is. Voter ID, or voter suppression as it is known everywhere that has it. Which is not currently us, but Johnson wishes to import that democratic poison. Other lowlights? We also need to look at the broader aspects of our constitution, the relationship between the government, parliament and the courts; the functioning of the royal prerogative, the role of the House of Lords. Oh. Oh dear. The Tories also promise to do something about the irksome business of judicial oversight of the government.

Thanks to a lot of looking the wrong way (I certainly include myself in this), the best work on this has been done roots-up on social media, ably taken up by Newsnight this week. Though naturally no cabinet minister let alone the prime minister himself, or even his dad seems to have cared to come on the BBC programme and discuss it.

So where does this all leave us, at election minus six days? The senior Conservative source suggests Johnson is focusing on priorities such as NHS investment. Is this when he goes round hospitals and nurses are dragooned into having a cup of tea with him to serve as backdrop?

Then perhaps its literally going to have to fall to a nurse to ask the prime minister the things people have a right to know, because no one else is going to get a sit-down. I mean, I guess if you want something done, ask a busy person. Even so, contrary to what the senior Conservative source reckons, it does feel like the more broken entity might not be the set-piece political interview. It might in fact be a system where scrutiny is hoping a nurse breaks off from healing the sick in order to ask the prime minister what precise democracy-fucking initiatives he has planned for 80% of his elected term.

Thus the final few days of campaigning stretch before us like a far-fetched movie plot. Realising that the only people with access to the villain are eyerolling medical workers, leading broadcasters of a malfunctioning fictional country study his upcoming election schedule, then select one nurse from a hospital hell be visiting next Tuesday. They now have just 72 hours to train her up in the ancient art of asking the right questions. Luckily, thats her average shift time. But I know what youre thinking thats impossible! It takes a lifetime to learn these journalistic skills! You cant learn it 72 hours!

And yet. Yes, they hadnt banked on the badass heroics of Nurse X, and the result is an against-all-odds Christmas movie with strong Die Hard themes, in which a single cameraphone catches her looking up from Tetris-ing trolleybeds into hospital corridors to go: Yippee-ki-yay, prime minister! Why are you trying to put government above the law? Also: how many kids have you got? Sandra Bullock stars.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian journalist

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The Tories want to keep Johnson and their scary manifesto away from scrutiny - The Guardian