Peak propaganda as Boris Johnson industrialises the photo op

Media Leaders

 The media should take more care when accepting manufactured photo ops from Boris Johnson and Co.

The image of Boris Johnson belongs to the phoney war before President Putin went ahead and actually invaded parts of the Ukraine in the face of all the warnings the West could muster – but is emblematic of Government propaganda all the same.

There have always been Government, and Royal, photo opportunities but never quite on such an industrialised scale.

There have been a long succession of absurd Johnson images running around hospitals, tie tucked into shirt, sometimes wearing a mask, sometimes not, almost on a daily basis. For variation, there are the factory visits, white hard hat and yellow vest on, appearing to do something when so obviously absolutely nothing is happening.

The picture of Boris Johnson in the cockpit of a fighter jet was, however, really special. Is there a man less likely to know what to do with a fighter jet than this Prime Minister beyond knowing the difference between the front and the back?

Although the picture catches a moment in time it is as deeply false and absurd as Putin riding a horse bare-chested.

In this case it is vital to have moving pictures of the sequence to put it into context. The film shows a portly gentleman somehow managing to clamber into the cockpit for around 10 seconds, give a ridiculous thumbs up gesture, and then getting out again as the real pilot can barely suppress his laughter.

Taking part in Govt PR charade

We know, thanks to The Independent, that the expensive fighter was flown 330 miles to make it more convenient for Johnson to pose for the cameras and, at the most superficial level, try to exude a sense of power and purpose.

So far, so pointless. Except that both The Times and The Daily Telegraph used the propaganda picture big on their front pages yesterday, while other papers succumbed more modestly inside.

Rather bizarrely, the Mail moved on from Johnson today to Biden and “Twisted Putin Is Ready For Bloodshed”. It looked as if their hero hadn’t passed muster this time.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the media, both TV and newspapers are acquiescing in an almost daily charade by allowing Johnson and other ministers – chancellor Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are similarly addicted – to give the appearance of governing while doing nothing at all.

It is false and the media should have more of a care in accepting such manufactured wallpaper so casually and credulously.

If anything, Truss is the most addicted to publicly-funded images, presumably part of an undeclared bid for the leadership should Johnson be forced out, increasingly unlikely now given the opportunity for war posturing.

There was a particularly fetching, well-lit example yesterday as Truss posed for the sanctions signing ceremony

At the last time of counting The Observer noted that Truss has released more than 700 pictures on the Government’s Flickr account. They include the faux fur glamour shots in Red Square and the obligatory ‘commanding a tank’ pictures.

Alas there are so many ways for Johnson to manipulate the media and the endless photo opportunities are only the beginning of it.

Equally problematical are the “exclusive” Johnson TV interviews.

Johnson controls the high ground from the outset by deciding who the “exclusive” interviewer is going to be. You can be certain that Eddie Mair, now of LBC and who once suggested Johnson was “a nasty bit of work” won’t be getting one, nor will Johnson be turning up to Andrew Neil’s new Sunday evening political show on Channel 4 anytime soon.

Johnson can also set the agenda by deciding in advance which questions he is going to answer – not many. On Sunday all Sophie Raworth could do is ask the essential questions such as whether the Prime Minister will resign if found guilty of breaching lockdown rules, knowing that the inevitable, and totally phoney, answer would be that there is a process under way…

All even the more skilful interviewer can do is demonstrate the wide array of questions the Prime Minister will not answer as he talks out the time of a live interview.

Is there any point is accepting such “exclusive” interviews given that the chances are they will produce so little of journalistic import?

You probably have to try and hope that he will stray from the carefully choreographed path but here, as in so many things Johnson the journalist has even managed to debase, the exclusive Prime Ministerial interview.

Predictable media reactions to lifting of Covid restrictions

Johnson achieved similar levels of control with his latest Covid announcement press conference which he presumably hopes will be the last he will ever have to give.

Press conferences on Ukraine will prove more fruitful for his Churchillian performances.

Even by the now extensive history of such press conferences this one was extraordinary for the way it portrayed two separate, mutually exclusive universes.

In the middle was Johnson announcing the end of asymptomatic testing, mandatory isolation, test and trace combined with the end of free testing kits for most people by 1 April.

Yippee the pandemic is over at last.

And then there were Sir Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance saying something very different – with Sir Chris urging people, in terms of public health advice to self isolate if you have Covid symptoms, standard health advice for a highly transmissible infection.

Meanwhile, Sir Patrick warned the pandemic was not over, that the virus could continue to mutate quite rapidly for the next couple of years and some of those could be more severe that those we have experienced so far.

“We are not out of the woods,” Sir Patrick emphasised.

“Winter could be tricky,” warned Sir Chris.

Both scientists were, of course, saying something completely different from Johnson who failed to mention the 1.3 million suffering from Long Covid, unveil a plan to protect around 3.7 million particularly vulnerable to infection, or reveal the science on which his decision was based.

Unfortunately, the scientists were not asked directly what they thought of the Government decision to remove all controls from tomorrow (Thursday) and Johnson remained in control throughout as he does on photo opportunities and “exclusive” interviews.

The reaction of the Daily Mail was predictable: “Boris Throws Off The Shackles”.

The Sun went for displacement, putting neither the Johnson announcement nor the partial invasions of Ukraine on the front page.

Instead the paper went for celebrity Long Covid – Kate Garraway’s husband Derek travelling to Mexico for specialist treatment.

Meanwhile, in yet another universe, scientists at Washington University predicted that the lifting of Covid controls in the UK would lead to 5,400 deaths from 14 February to 1 June and that 80% of people wearing masks could save 1,200 lives.

Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for Mediatel News on Wednesdays.

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