The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - You Asked For My Thoughts About Boris -- So Here They Are

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

We are all sending our prayers to the London hospital where British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in intensive care fighting COVID-19. Some thoughts about the British prime minister tonight. And also, foreign trained health care workers -- should they be hired to help fight the virus?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here once again with the latest episode of The Bridge Daily. Well, I think a lot of thoughts were focused on London, England today. After we got the news last night that Boris Johnson, not only was he in a hospital, but he had been moved into intensive care. The intensive care unit, of course, Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, has COVID-19. And as soon as we heard he went into the ICU, the assumption was he was going to be hooked up to a ventilator. The news so far, even 24 hours later, at the time we're recording this podcast,

is that he is not hooked up to a ventilator. So that would be a good sign. It's a difficult sign that he's in hospital at all and in the intensive care unit. But the success rate for ventilator usage is not great. It's about one in three, quite frankly. And so the fact that they haven't needed to put him on a ventilator, that he is getting oxygen, that he's said to be in good spirits. Those are all cautiously optimistic signs.

But he has COVID-19. He is in hospital. He is in the intensive care unit. So things are difficult, to say the least. But as a result, I got a lot of questions today and emails from some of you about Boris Johnson and had I ever interviewed him and what did I think of him. I have interviewed him. It was eight years ago.

It was at the time of the London Olympics, 2012. And it was just before the Olympics started. And I'll play you a clip of that in a moment. Listen, he's had, what can I say, an interesting career. I mean, he had a privileged childhood. He was schooled in the best of British schools. Very smart guy. well-read, student of history, has written a number of books, was a top journalist and a controversial one

as well. He got in a few problems over some of the stories he wrote. But nevertheless, he was one who kind of moved quickly up the ranks in journalism first and then in politics, and at the time I interviewed him, he was the mayor of London, but he was already being talked of as a future British prime minister, and in fact that is what he became last year, late last year. He has often been compared with Donald Trump. And people say, oh, they're, you know, cut of the same cloth. You know, one's a conservative, one's a Republican. It's kind of debatable whether Trump is really a Republican.

Who knows exactly what he is. But nevertheless, there's always been this sort of, you know, Trump and Johnson, they're cut of the same cloth. Well, quite frankly, I don't agree with that. I've never agreed with that, partly for some of the reasons I listed already. Johnson went to the best of schools, well-read, student of history, author, and like a real author.

He didn't have somebody else write the books for him. He wrote them, including a very good one on Winston Churchill, and you know how I feel about Winston Churchill and Johnson's book on Churchill a few years ago I thoroughly enjoyed, especially one chapter that was devoted to Churchill's decision in the summer of 1940 after France fell that because the French would not surrender their fleet to the British

or scuttle it themselves that the British would have to sink it and that's what they did and it was the toughest decision of Churchill's career. And Johnson takes us right into that decision-making process and into the speech that Churchill gave in the House of Commons on the day of that battle, such as it was, and talked about how after Churchill finished

and his party and the opposition members all got up to applaud him, that Churchill dropped into his seat, slumped over, and wept. I mean, here he had had to take a decision that had cost hundreds and hundreds of lives of French sailors who up to a day or so before had been the allies of the British and something for which many French have never forgiven the British.

But it was a necessary decision on the part of Churchill. As far as he was concerned, they had to do it. Or the combined French Navy and the German Navy, if the Germans had taken the French Navy, which one assumed they would have, even though Hitler was saying he would never do that, would have made them the most powerful Navy in the world and something that Britain could never have accepted, that situation.

Anyway, that was Johnson's book. You can find it. All those things to me, schooling, student of history, well-read, understands his politics, as far as I'm concerned, make him very different than Donald Trump. And I'm not even sure that Boris Johnson was a big fan or is a big fan of Donald Trump. And I point to one thing. Last December, in London, at a NATO meeting,

you saw the coverage. There were a bunch of people standing around Justin Trudeau, and Justin Trudeau was telling an anecdote about what he'd witnessed from Donald Trump that morning, and it broke everybody up. They all thought it was like they were laughing at Trump. And who was standing there in that group? Boris Johnson. Who was laughing that group? Boris Johnson. Who was laughing the hardest?

Boris Johnson. That said a lot to me. That said more about the true feelings that Boris Johnson had about Donald Trump than anything else. Anyway, I digress a bit. I was going to play you a little bit of this interview because I think it captures kind of the spirit of this guy. It was a great interview back then.

He loved the back and forth. So this is 2012. It's just before the start of the London Olympics where there was a lot of pressure. Would it be ready in time? Had everything been done properly? Had there been controversies? All that kind of stuff. And comparing it to the great success of the Vancouver Olympics just a couple of years before.

So anyway, let me play you a short excerpt from this, just a couple of minutes, but it'll give you a sense of Bojo, of Boris Johnson. So this is my first exposure to Boris. You're like a rock star down there. No, no, no, no, don't be misled. What you're seeing there is the unbelievable jubilation that the torch is causing across the city. And I think anthropologists need to look at what's happening in London at the moment, because this simple flame is engendering quite incoherent and baffling outbreaks of joy wherever it goes.

PETER BARRON- I had some young woman come out to me and say, down there as the flame came through, that this was the biggest moment so far in her life. Like, it was a very emotional moment. We witnessed some of that in Canada with the Vancouver Games. What does it mean to you personally? What does it do to you? It's a huge moment for me.

I mean, I'm very, very lucky to be the mayor of the host city of the Olympics. Clearly, I've been working on it for four and a bit years. Other people have been working on it for even longer than I have. And, yeah, you feel a bit spacey when you see some of this stuff finally ready. I mean, it's all ready. It's all on time. Is it all ready? Yeah, it is. I mean, you know, you can never be complacent in this game,

and you can never be cocky, you never count your chickens, but transport's on target, security, the venues, under budget. All we need now is to make sure we beat Australia. What about Canada? What about Canada? What about the Olimpo skeptics, as you call them? I mean, listen, there have been issues. With the tube, with security.

There have been. No, I'm not going to deny that for a second. Of course, there are things you've got to get right. But this is the biggest logistical operation London's done in peacetime. You know, I think so far, you know, touch wood, things are holding up well. I think on the Olimpo skepticism, what you've got is the natural tendency

of the British people to cynicism and depression and self-administer. Is it the people or the media? Everybody. And the media. Until such time as they allow the joy... And that's what you're seeing.

You're seeing the release of exhilaration. And the process is really intended to intensify that moment of joy and exhilaration. That's what this scepticism, I think, has really all been about. You know, we saw that in Canada in the lead-up, a couple of weeks leading up to it. You know where most of the criticism came from? The media. This media. No, the Brits.

The British media. I'm very sorry. But does it surprise you? I mean, you've been there. I media. No, the Brits. The British media. I'm very sorry. But does it surprise you? I mean, you've been there. I have. Well, I apologize. What can I say about Her Majesty's Press except that, you know, they're incorrigible.

They're incorrigible. And I apologize. I mean, they kick me from one end of the park to the other. Of course they do. That's what they're there to do. But psychologically it has the beneficial effect, as I say, of deepening and intensifying that moment of exhilaration when it comes. What does this do? What's the potential for London from these gains? If all goes well, as you say, touch wood, what's the potential? What does it mean for this city?

Okay. There's lots of statistics I can give you about economic benefits, regeneration. I mean, you know, it's fantastic. What we've done already with the transport network, tens of thousands of new jobs, thousands of new homes, we have already built. Massive investments already come to London, particularly East London, because of the Olympics. Air conditioning on the tube, new lines, all that stuff. You know, that's the big-ticket stuff. And the study out this week says that £16 billion overall economic benefits. But there's a more fundamental thing.

What is this all about? What is the Olympics about? They're about, and it's a conservative idea, fundamentally, and this will not be popular with every viewer, they're about competition. They're about the glory of winning. Liberals don't believe in competition. The pathos of losing.

Socialists don't believe in competition. Not always. Well, maybe some of them do. Not always. And the effort that you need to make the difference between the two. So there's a gigantic pageant of individual effort, and that is a wonderful thing for our kids, our country, to see on the biggest possible stage. That's what we're putting on. You're pumped? I am.

If that was pompous, by the way, I'm allowed to be pompous. I'm the mayor of London. It goes with the job. It is. You never were before. No. You know, if we had more time, I'm allowed to be pompous. I'm the mayor of London. It goes with the joke. It is. You never were before. No. You know, if we had more time, I'd want to ask you about Keith Richards, but I'm already getting the signal from your people again. Well, yes, don't let me hesitate to remind your viewers that my book is on sale.

And we can hear that whole story there. Johnson's wife of London. You can read it all there. It's all there. Mr. Mayor, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Great to see you. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy your time.

And, you know, we did enjoy those days in London and we enjoyed those few moments with Boris Johnson just before the 2012 London Olympics began. So that interview, and I thank the CBC for access to that interview today. We did that for The National back in 2012. And it ended, and watching it today, I'd forgotten how it ended. And that's kind of a little lighter moment.

And then we reached over and shook each other's hands. That was another day, another era. Anyway, we send our good thoughts and we send our prayers to the St. Thomas Hospital in London, where Boris Johnson is in the ICU at the moment. And hopefully his struggle will end up in him being released from hospital at some point. In the meantime, we send our prayers to he and his family, and to the doctors and nurses and all the healthcare workers who are a part of that team looking after the British Prime Minister.

Okay, so I wanted to mention two other things on tonight's podcast. I thank those of you who wrote and asked to hear my thoughts on Boris Johnson. Lots of mail coming in, by the way, to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, and we'll keep things going for another special edition coming up this weekend. Some great emails just last night. But send them along. Don't be shy. Themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com.

Two other things I wanted to mention today. I can't tell you how many times I've been, and I'm sure some of you can share the same kind of stories, that I've been in a cab in different cities in Canada and struck up a conversation with the cab driver. I can't tell you the number of times in the last, I don't know, 20 years, where that conversation has ended up in the person on the front of the cab telling me that they were a medical professional in the country that they had come to Canada from. Could have been the Middle East, could have been Africa, could have been Asia. But they were medical professionals in their country. They might have been nurses. They might have been lab technicians.

They might have been doctors. But those qualifications that they had in their country did not transfer to this country. Now, that's not something just that happens in Canada. It happens in other countries as well. But it seemed to me over the years that there are a lot of people like that that are here in Canada. And it was interesting as a result to hear today

the Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, and his health minister suggest that they were going to have to look once again at the regulations that surround the issue of qualifications for out-of-country doctors or out-of-country health professionals and whether or not they could be used in health care centers in Canada now. This is all as a result of COVID-19 and the desperate need for extra health care workers

to help those who are desperately working in hospitals from coast to coast to coast right now. Some of them are getting sick. Some of them are clearly overworked. Many of them need backup. And so they're asking retired health care professionals if they'd come back to work in any number of different functions. And now they're looking at those issues of those who've come from other countries.

So it'll be interesting to see how that turns out. It's a difficult decision because obviously qualifications and training is extremely important in terms of those kind of jobs. But are they going to need to relax some of those rules and regulations? The other thing that I wanted to say tonight was, you know, this is, for many Canadians, this is a, at the best of times, this is a difficult time of year.

We're kind of coming out of hibernation here in the early part of April. We've been kind of indoors a lot through the winter. We've been waiting for that weather to change. We've been waiting for that weather to change. We've been waiting for real signs of spring and an indication that there will be a summer coming. So all that's starting to happen in many parts of the country now. I know there are some parts that are still battling winter. I saw those pictures of the snow in Winnipeg the other day,

and I think it's supposed to snow here in Stratford, Ontario, in the next day or two. But you know, that'll go. That'll disappear. And spring will take over in most of the country over these next couple of weeks. So we've been trained all our lives to, man, it's spring. Got to get out, going to enjoy

it. Going to get out there, go to the lake, walk by the river, go to the park. All those things that right now we're really not supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be staying at home. When we can, we can get out for a bit of a walk, but we got to be very careful to be doing. We're supposed to be staying at home. When we can, we can get out for a bit of a walk, but we've got to be very careful to be distant from anybody else. We've got to consider wearing masks. It's just not like the spring we've ever had before in our lives. When I was out yesterday in the backyard, the sun was out, and I suddenly realized a sign of spring. Suddenly felt it.

Suddenly saw it. And I had to go. Slap. It was a mosquito. And I got it. It was the first mosquito of the year. So on the one hand, I was thinking, okay, this is it. This is like spring.

Summer's on the way. On the other hand, I was thinking, can mosquitoes carry this virus? Should I be concerned about that mosquito? Well, that's what we have the internet for, right? I looked it up, and sure enough, it took me right to a CBC website where that was one of the questions they had today. Can a mosquito carry COVID-19? The answer on the part of the best research at the moment is no.

So I felt relieved at that. Strange day, right? I hope you're getting through the day, right? I hope you're getting through the day, that you're coming up with more ideas, and those are things I still want to hear from you. Your ideas about how you're getting through, how you're living with self-isolation, how you're living with quarantining, what you're doing with your time, how you're living with self-isolation. How you're living with quarantining.

What you're doing with your time. How are you staying occupied? How are you staying focused? How are you keeping your mind active? Tell me the things you're doing, and I'll share them with everybody else. People loved that stuff last weekend. So I ask for more of you to do the same thing.

Tomorrow, special broadcast coming up. We're going to talk to one of the country's leading researchers in the sense of understanding the public's mood about different issues, and obviously this issue around the coronavirus, around COVID-19, is a critical one right now for a lot of us. And we're trying to determine how we feel about different things, how we feel about our leaders, how we feel about the media, how we feel about ourselves, how we feel about government. So we'll be talking tomorrow

to someone who will help share the answers on that from the latest research that's just coming out of the field right now. So we'll have a chance to talk about that tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge Daily, and we'll be back in 24 hours. Thank you.