London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Aug 02, 2025

Opinion | Covid didn't cancel our Christmas in London. Boris Johnson's lack of leadership did.

Opinion | Covid didn't cancel our Christmas in London. Boris Johnson's lack of leadership did.

How did the anti-nanny-state, good-time prime minister become the first man to demand a no-fun London since Oliver Cromwell? He won't make a tough call.
Boris Johnson, the U.K. prime minister, on Friday officially became the first leader of our country in 3½ centuries to cancel Christmas for millions of people in Great Britain — including the queen.

The last leader to do so — Oliver Cromwell — did it only after having first overthrown and then executed King Charles I and taken his place. As a gesture of fanatical Puritan religious stoicism after he become Lord Protector in 1653, he strictly enforced laws passed during his tenure in Parliament canceling the nation's Christmas festivities and even forcing shops to remain open.

To say Johnson is a radically different character from Cromwell would perhaps be the understatement of the year. Before he became prime minister in 2019, Johnson was known as a good-time guy, an opponent of the nanny state, a frequent partier and a politician happier cutting ribbons and waving at crowds than tackling policy problems.

So how did a politician so bohemian that no one is sure how many children he has (or by how many mothers) finish his 2020 as the Grinch who killed Christmas? By creating a stay-at-home order for 15 million people and allowing everyone else to mix locally with only up to two other households on Christmas Day itself.

Ironically, it seems that it was Johnson's determination to be a good-time leader that doomed Britain to a bleak midwinter. Most of the country had been on a second national lockdown throughout November, in which bars, restaurants and nonessential shops were all closed to avoid a devastating second peak.

Johnson, though, came under pressure from his chancellor, Rishi Sunak (essentially the British finance minister), and his own treasury department to prevent the economic damage they believed would occur if he kept the lockdown in place through December, particularly from limited Christmas shopping and even a limited party season for the hospitality sector. At the same time, he was facing pressure from colleagues and from the media to let people have some semblance of a "normal" Christmas Day.

The problem was — as it so often has been this year — that these two goals were very much in competition.

Letting people cross the country — often on packed public transportation — to meet often-vulnerable parents and grandparents at close quarters and then stay overnight is clearly a massive risk for spreading Covid-19. So any Christmas amnesty would be only remotely defensible from a public health standpoint if cases were at a very low level coming into Christmas.

But reopening the country in early December was going to increase the rate of spread versus continuing the lockdown (which hadn't reduced our infection rate nearly as much as the government hoped, in any case). Opening the country for December might — just might — boost the economy, but it would increase Covid-19 case numbers and risk people's Christmas plans.

So, as he so often does when faced with a tough choice, Boris Johnson tried to pretend there was no choice to make. He relaxed, but didn't eliminate, lockdown restrictions on Dec. 2, albeit not enough to genuinely help our struggling bars, theaters and restaurants, and he also promised, repeatedly, that the country would have a five-day Christmas break to see loved ones.

Sadly, even without the new, more infectious strain of the coronavirus reported to be spreading across southern England, his plan was always doomed. Cases surged through December, just as public health experts predicted they would, and Johnson increased restrictions across numerous regions twice in a week, all the while insisting that people's Christmas plans could remain intact and mocking political opponents who suggested he'd have to cancel Christmas.

Three days later, he canceled the Christmas he had spent so much political capital promising everyone for the previous six weeks. And so scary was the messaging around the new strain of Covid-19 that Britain also faced a Christmas cut off from most of the world — not just for travel, but also for freight and food. (The islands that make up the U.K. have just 2.5 percent of the landmass of the United States but 20 percent of the people. For us, getting cut off from supplies is no festive joke.)

It's a fitting end for a 2020 that has seen the U.K. have an even worse per capita death rate from Covid-19 than the U.S.'s while also taking a bigger economic hit. On Christmas Day alone, the U.K. reported another 570 deaths and an addition 33,000 cases. And now after having had our Christmas canceled and our ports blockaded, with the coronavirus spreading largely out of control, Johnson has refused to rule out a third, national lockdown anyway.

After the Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell's religious fanatics canceled Christmas in 1644, he took and then held on to power — and kept up and expanded the ban on Christmas — until his death in 1660. His ultimate legacy, though, was hardly a glorious one: Such was his unpopularity after his death that his body was dug up by his political opponents and beheaded for treason, with his head displayed on a spike.

Britain's political culture has mellowed since then. But as a good-time guy who's canceled Christmas for the first time in 340 years, he looks set for a political legacy just as cheerful as Cromwell's — and just as haunted by the ghost of Christmas canceled.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Threatens Canada with Tariffs Over Palestinian State Recognition
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Trump Sues Murdoch in “Heavyweight Bout”: Lawsuit Over Alleged Epstein Letter Sets Stage for Courtroom Showdown
Germany Enters Fiscal Crisis as Cabinet Approves €174 Billion in New Debt
Trump Administration Finalizes Broad Tariff Increases on Global Trade Partners
J.K. Rowling Limits Public Engagements Citing Safety Fears
JD.com Launches €2.2 Billion Bid for German Electronics Retailer Ceconomy
Azerbaijan Proceeds with Plan to Legalise Casinos on Artificial Islands
Former Judge Charged After Drunk Driving Crash Kills Comedian in Brazil
Jeff Bezos hasn’t paid a dollar in taxes for decades. He makes billions and pays $0 in taxes, LEGALLY
China Increases Use of Exit Bans Amid Rising U.S. Tensions
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Procter & Gamble to Raise U.S. Prices to Offset One‑Billion‑Dollar Tariff Cost
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
Botswana Seeks Controlling Stake in De Beers as Anglo American Prepares Exit
Trump Administration Proposes Repeal of Obama‑Era Endangerment Finding, Dismantling Regulatory Basis for CO₂ Emissions Limits
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
A family has been arrested in the UK for displaying the British flag
Mel Gibson refuses to work with Robert De Niro, saying, "Keep that woke clown away from me."
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
The British propaganda channel BBC News lies again.
Deputy attorney general's second day of meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell has concluded
Controversial March in Switzerland Features Men Dressed in Nazi Uniforms
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
Thai Civilian Death Toll Rises to 12 in Cambodian Cross-Border Attacks
TSUNAMI: Trump Just Crossed the Rubicon—And There’s No Turning Back
Over 120 Criminal Cases Dismissed in Boston Amid Public Defender Shortage
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
×