Looks like the government desperately needs Boris back in charge

When Boris Johnson was being treated for coronavirus in St Thomas's Hospital and was unable to make any contribution towards country-running, Michael Gove, Cabinet Office Minister and one-time Boris back-stabber, informed the country on radio and television that the government would continue perfectly well without him. A somewhat ambivalent remark. What he meant I'm sure was that even though the prime minister was incapacitated, it didn't mean that everything political would collapse but that there were procedures in place for life to carry on thank you very much and he and the other cabinet members plus the Cabinet Secretary, that all-seeing, all-knowing chap, Sir Mark Sedwill (I always nearly write Sidwell, it sounds better)) would get on with the job of governing while the PM was recovering. While out of action Boris appointed Dominic Raab, the rather colourless Foreign Secretary, to deputise for him. But after more than two weeks of Raab and co, it is quite clear that the government cannot just carry on as normal without him. Raab is no Boris. Gove is no Boris and Sedwill/Sidwell is a civil servant and isn't supposed to command anything, just advise. Whether one is a supporter of Boris or not, there is no question that he is the sort of prime minister who actually is and likes to be in charge, and with his bucketful of character and personality and easygoing manner the government might stop looking like a steady rather low-down, never-going-to-win sailing boat whose sails flap from one side to the other in the changing tides. Matt Hancock, Health Secretary, is well-meaning and tries hard but you wouldn't go into battle with him in the lead would you? Nor Gove. He's very brainy but I can't see him spouting the Henry V Agincourt speech - "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers" etc. We'd wrinkle up our noses and reply, "No way, bugger that" and stay put. And if dear Matt Hancock did the Agincourt routine, we'd turn tail and go back to barracks. But if Boris, with his flaxen hair wafting in the breeze and his arms raised and fists clenched, were to turn round on his horse and urge us to follow him to beat this damned enemy virus, my God I think we just might. Not Churchillian, no. But Borisillian, yes. So I'm afraid that until General Boris gets his strength back while he wanders lonely as a cloud with his very nice fiancee Carrie in the grounds of Chequers, the prime ministerial country house, the government will soldier on somewhat leaderless and lacking in hutzpah under the deputising command of Lieutenant-Colonel Raab. The sooner Generalissimo Boris gets back into the saddle the better for all of us. We don't need some faraway light at the end of the tunnel, we need a bloody Boris spark to lighten us all up and get this country back to punching above its weight once again!