Turning the tide? Rhetorical lessons for Boris Johnson from WWII

When the Prime Minister returned to Downing Street on Monday, following his recovery from the coronavirus, he described the current situation as “the biggest single challenge this country has faced since the war”. Clearly, the major part of the challenge is practical: keeping the numbers of cases down, providing the necessary equipment to the NHS, and taking steps to protect workers and the economy. But from the point of leadership, the challenge is also rhetorical: providing information to the public, keeping up morale, and persuading people to keep taking the steps necessary to stay safe. As a well-known admirer of Winston Churchill, what can Boris Johnson learn from the supreme crisis with which his hero wrestled between 1940 and 1945?

Everyone can quote at least a few of Churchill’s speeches: “Fight on the beaches”; “Never have so many owed so much to so few”; “Give us the tools and we will finish the job.” It would be easy to conclude that an orator’s task is to come up with inspiring phrases that will galvanise the nation to overcome adversity.

Yet the famous phrases in fact made up only a tiny proportion of Churchill’s huge output of words during World War II. The great bulk of his speeches were given over to explanation, justification, and analysis - factual information and contextualisation which helped the people of the United Kingdom and allies abroad understand what was going on at a terrifying and confusing time. Boris Johnson’s solemn broadcast suggests he may now grasp that easily comprehensible messaging is more important than brilliant word-play.

Churchill’s knowledge of history and his own long experience of public affairs were helpful here. He could make comparisons with the Napoleonic Wars, or recall the lessons of his time as minister during World War I. He pointed out that during that earlier conflict it had never been apparent when or how the end would come - but the Allies persisted and in the end the German forces collapsed rapidly in 1918.

This indicates a lesson for today. In his statement Boris Johnson said “we are now beginning to turn the tide”. If this is true, all well and good. But there is a risk in predicting an improvement - and hence an end to lockdown - too soon.

Churchill consistently predicted ultimate victory - and indeed the eventual end of the pandemic is absolutely certain - but was careful, at least until months before VE Day, never to suggest that it was just around the corner. Professor Chris Whitty, England's Chief Medical Officer, has rightly stressed that “This is a long haul.” This is a message that should be consistently emphasised if the public is not to fall victim to the lure of false optimism.

Another lesson is that Mr Johnson should not spread himself too thin - in the five years from May 1940 Churchill only broadcast two dozen times (although he made many other speeches that were reported in the newspapers). In this crisis, prime ministerial speech should be reserved for particularly important messages, or it will produce rapidly diminishing returns. The BBC should not be transformed into the Boris Broadcasting Corporation or the public will, quite literally, switch off.

At the same time, although he is undoubtedly a skilled rhetorician, Mr Johnson should not overestimate his own powers. It is a persistent national myth that Churchill’s speeches were received by the public with almost unanimous enthusiasm. It is perfectly true that the majority of people reacted warmly, but even this most invigorating of orators provoked much more controversy and criticism than is popularly believed. Entirely understandably, some became despondent when (as he often had to) he brought unwelcome news. Equally understandably, when things were going well military his words went down well and when they were going badly the grumbling and back-biting increased.

If even Churchill received brickbats then Boris Johnson, leading a far less united nation, can hardly expect to avoid them. Here he can learn a negative lesson - Churchill was often the victim of unfair attacks but, at a time when he was under great personal pressure, he was at times absurdly over-sensitive. Early in 1942 the government came near to closing down the Daily Mirror because Churchill believed, without real evidence, that its criticisms of his administration's performance were damaging morale. Unlike Churchill, Mr Johnson must avoid taking the press’s barbs personally and resist the temptation of using the government’s emergency powers to impose restrictions on media freedom.

Above all, the Prime Minister must remember that he is not Churchill, and we may hope that he has now given up trying to sound like him. He can, however, still learn from his experiences. If Churchill’s motto “trust the people” does not seem instinctively right at a time when so many of the public are behaving irresponsibly, it must not be forgotten that democratic freedoms remain vital even in a nation’s darkest hours.