Coronavirus: Brilliant Boris Johnson captures heart of a nation after his brush with death

After his brush with death, the UK PM’s heartfelt video on release from hospital underlies his essential political brilliance | WATCH

Boris Johnson’s magnificent, heartfelt video on release from hospital underlies his essential political brilliance and is propelling him to unprecedented public support.

This was plain in the master stroke of thanking his carers individually by name, especially the two intensive care nurses who looked after him through the night, “Jenny from New Zealand” and “Luis from Portugal”.

This is in great contrast to US President Donald Trump, who for a time got a bit of a blip upwards for his handling of the crisis but in the last week and a half has fallen back to relatively low approval ratings.

Across Europe, incumbent leaders are generally doing well with their publics as they respond to coronavirus.

Johnson’s genius for communications is evident in his stirring video.

It is a paean of love for Britain’s National Health Service.

The NHS has its weakness but it is by some distance the national institution the Brits trust most and of which they are most proud.

Johnson, like Scott Morrison, has ridden a wave of emotional, bipartisan community support.

His government is now the most popular British government in a decade and Johnson enjoys his highest-ever approval ratings.

The British Prime Minister’s background in journalism was evident in his decision to name his carers and personalise his experience.

No one could describe contracting coronavirus as good fortune. Johnson spent three nights in intensive care and could have died.

But the experience has created a heroic narrative for Johnson. He has shrewdly projected gratitude and praise for everyone else. The NHS is “unconquerable”, he says, because “it is powered by love”.

Johnson and Trump both have a genius for getting ordinary folks to identify with them even thought they both come from elite, wealthy backgrounds and have had lives vastly different from most of their citizens.

So long as he doesn’t overplay it, Johnson will now have immense moral authority as this virus drama unfolds.

Across Europe, most incumbents have seen their support levels surge, which indicates it’s probably a rally-round-the-flag effect and may change. Leaders who have taken strong action such as Italy’s Giuseppe Conte, Germany’s Angela Merkel and France's Emmanuel Macron have all seen big double-digit approval ratings leaps. But so have leaders such as The Netherlands’ Mark Rutte and Sweden’s Stefan Lofven, who have taken more moderate action.

In the US, Trump early on made some silly statements about the virus but so did his opponents. The presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, originally labelled Trump’s travel ban on China “xenophobic”. The US is an outlier in the political response to the virus partly because the issue has become so polarised along party lines.

There are also big regional and state-by-state differences. All sides of US politics will have plenty of silly things their opponents said to work with in a campaign. It is a US weakness that it cannot transcend this partisanism.

Trump will be judged by his actions but is in a much weaker position than Johnson because he has so much less power in the US federal system than the Prime Minister does in the UK’s unitary parliamentary system.

But for humanising the politics of the crisis, spreading the love, unifying the nation, behaving irreproachably yet nonetheless being at the centre of the nation’s emotional response, Johnson has so far handled his illness, and now his most welcome recovery, perfectly.