One of the most important prime ministerial functions is that of referee: to mitigate disputes between departments, or to solve tricky political decisions. Downing Street tends to operate, as one former staffer once gloomily described it, as “a shit funnel”: gradually sucking up every intractable problem in British public life, only to deposit them on the prime minister’s desk.
For Boris Johnson to be absent for the best part of a month after he became seriously ill with Covid-19 was a double blow for the government. Psychologically and emotionally, it was a traumatic experience for many involved. But institutionally, it also deprived the government of its main pressure valve by taking its ultimate arbiter out of action.
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