If the new line is that the public was too stupid to understand the Tories’ message, it’s not a good look
You can sometimes tell how much of a state No 10 is in by its choice of minister for the morning media rounds. And sending out the junior Foreign Office minister James Cleverly – living proof of the fallibility of nominative determinism – rather proved that Downing Street was in full panic mode over the progress of its Brexit trade talks. At a time like this, only a minister too dim to sense the danger he was in would do. Cleverly may have his talents, but the only one that he doesn’t keep hidden – apart from to himself; in his own world he is one of life’s winners – is his inability not to make a bad situation worse.
It was unfortunate enough for him to claim that there were “plans to get the coronavirus vaccine into the UK in the event of a no-deal Brexit”, just that he couldn’t say what they were, as no one had trusted him with the details. That at least did ring half-true – in a desperate situation, Cleverly is one of the last people you would keep in the loop – but the look of confusion on his face rather suggested that no such details yet existed.
