George Osborne Discusses Boris Johnson’s Hospitalization

GEORGE OSBORNE, FORMER U.K. CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: What I do know is that Boris Johnson is a fighter who would have absolutely hated leaving the center of government at a moment like this, and I think also someone who would not wanted to take up a spare place in the hospital unless he absolutely needed to. But there is something remarkable going on because this has been a very divided nation, as you know and your viewers know, and we have had a lot of partisanship here over recent years. This crisis and indeed the prime minister’s illness has brought this country together in a way I would never have guessed that made us a much more united kingdom because the whole country now, you know, whether they supported him or not politically wants him to get better and is wishing him well in his situation in intensive care.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Indeed. And there have been obviously well-wishers coming from all over the world, from the United States, from Europe, from many, many parts of the world. And as you say it does unite, particularly as this really deadly disease is threatening every single person on this planet and, of course, in this country as well. I just wanted to ask you what you think about the idea of what this government has been telling us. Look, yesterday, just hours before Boris Johnson was rushed to intensive care, we had a tweet that we reported on this show of him tweeting that he was in charge. Let me just read it. I’m in good spirits, keeping in touch with me team as we work together to fight this virus and keep everyone safe. But as I was reading that, Dominic Raab was saying in his daily presser that actually he hadn’t been speaking to Boris Johnson since Saturday. The question now is, you know, is the government leveling and do they now more than ever have to be absolutely 1,000 percent transparent with the public?

OSBORNE: Yes. I think they do. I think we don’t live in an age anymore where you can pretend that your head of government is fine when clearly, he is not and he is in intensive care. You know, a bygone era., Winston Churchill had a stroke while he was prime minister and managed to keep it secret. And, you know, when I was a child you always have those funny situations in the Soviet Union where someone was clearly not very well and the state media was saying that they were. You know, I don’t think that works and I think the current plan you get from Downing Street or regular updates on the prime minister’s health condition is a much better one than pretending that he is all fine and dandy and sitting in his hospital bed, you know, going through the paperwork. Because, you know, I think as a country throughout this entire crisis we want our leaders to level with us not to be overly optimistic, not give us false hope and at the same time just to send out the facts because everyone is in the same boat and this disease strikes everyone as we have seen very obviously with the condition that the prime minister is in.