Boris Johnson is failing so badly because he still thinks like a newspaper columnist – a disastrous weakness during this crisis

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Twenty years ago, a novelist went to see his publisher to discuss his proposal to write a dystopian novel set in Britain in 2020 when newspaper columnists have taken power and are running the country. It will be as if Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau had blundered into the dystopian world of Orwell’s 1984.” The publisher cautiously replied that there was always a market for books predicting future calamities, but to be convincing it would have to reflect or satirise some feasible version of the future. “But isn’t that a warmed-up version of the old jibe against politicians that they have never actually run anything before taking office?” objected the publisher. They confidently say what should be done one week and say the exact opposite the next, in the correct belief that few of their readers will notice the U-turns.” He went on to say that the commentariat tends to be ignorant of the mechanisms of government and, were they ever to gain power, would be baffled when they pulled a lever or pressed a button and nothing much happens.” The novelist could have gone on about the weaknesses of journalists in power but he saw that it was a lost cause and his book synopsis was heading for the wastepaper basket.