The big political story of the week has been the row about the Prime Minister’s Special Adviser, but the real story is about Boris Johnson, writes IVOR GABER

People kept asking why, with his closest adviser clearly breaking both the spirit and the letter of the lock-down regulations, and public opinion outraged as the story ran on, didn’t the prime minister simply sack Dominic Cummings? Why was he so determined to ‘stand by his man’? The answer, I suggest, is that Johnson is totally dependent on Cummings. Without him he is lost.

What we can see is that, despite all the jokes, bluster and bravado, Johnson is in fact lacking in confidence, is indecisive, lazy and also arrogant - not the ideal qualities for a leader required to guide a nation through the worst crisis it has faced since the end of the Second World War.

One must sympathise with Johnson, who underwent a very bad bout of Covid-19 and is now clearly not yet back to full health. But any assessment of the man and his performance should be based not on his current post-viral performance, nor on his insensitivity to how Cummings’ actions so upset many people, but how he led, or more to the point failed to lead, the country as the pandemic began to unfold.

What is ironic is that before the coronavirus hit the world for six the UK was judged by the World Health Organisation to be second only to the United States in terms of its readiness to cope with any incipient pandemic, but that evaluation didn’t take into account that both countries were led by men whose ego would overcome their judgement.

When, in January, word first reached us that a coronavirus epidemic had broken out in China, and would very soon go global, not only did the PM do nothing but shamefully he failed to attend no less than the first five meetings of his own government’s Cobra Committee, the body which is supposed to coordinate responses to national emergences.

And here we come to the other aspect of the Prime Minister’s character that has played such a fateful role in the unwinding of this national tragedy; and that his belief that somehow Britain, or more specifically, England was different from other countries. This can be the only explanation as to why, whilst others in Europe were preparing for the worst, the Johnson Government sailed on, no doubt convincing itself that, uniquely, the virus would pass us by. It didn’t and we are now on course to have one of the highest death rates in the world.

This ‘English exceptionalism’ was fatally displayed in March when, whilst other countries were locking down, Johnson allowed major events, including the Cheltenham Festival and the Liverpool/Athletico Madrid football match to take place – ideal breeding grounds for the coronavirus to spread.

So it came as no surprise when we learnt that Johnson had not bothered to attend the first five meetings of the Cobra Committee.

So as the pandemic took hold we watched a government losing control of the situation - whether it was in the ill-fated attempt to introduce ‘hurd immunity’, the drastic shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the failure to protect our care homes or the length of time it has taken to get testing up and running and so on.

The US President Truman used to have a sign on his desk, ‘The Buck Stops Here’, and never was that more apposite than when making judgements about the performance of the prime minister during the coronavirus crisis.

The Government likes to rely on the mantra ‘We follow the science” but as every scientist will tell you there is no such thing as “the science”. Scientists, and other experts (those people, you might recall, of who Michael Gove told us we had had enough) use their knowledge and experience to propose various courses of action. Different scientists make different proposals, it’s the government that has to judge which ones to follow. Ignoring advice, which appears to be what happened in the early stages of this pandemic, was not, or should not have been, an option.

People say that Johnson desperately wanted to be Prime Minister, that that was his sole and driving ambition. Well he made it but what is now abundantly clear that having slithered up to the top of the greasy pole he has no idea what to do once there - and we are now all paying the price.

Ivor Gaber is Professor of Political Journalism at the University of Sussex and a former political correspondent based at Westminster.