There's danger in dreaming that there is a quick and easy escape from lockdown | Andrew Rawnsley
Ministers face hideously difficult tradeoffs between curbing the menace of the coronavirus and the severe damage being done to the economy
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At the time of the February cabinet reshuffle, eight weeks and an eternity ago, I was talking to a senior Tory about the power structure of the government. He remarked: "Boris is not primus inter pares. He is first without equals. He is president, he is lord of all he surveys. The cabinet are just nodding dogs." As if to illustrate this, President Johnson let TV cameras into the cabinet room to film his ministers performing a ridiculous nursery school call and response about their manifesto promises.
The "lord of all he surveys" is now confined to hospital by the coronavirus and the "nodding dogs" must do their best to prove that they do not deserve that derogatory label. A structure designed to concentrate the maximum amount of power at Number 10 must adapt to operating without a fully functional prime minister.
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