It’s said to be apocryphal, but for a long while the received wisdom was that Churchill was supposed to have heard about the Blitzkrieg of Coventry via the fledgling Enigma machine, a week or so in advance - but couldn’t directly respond to the message for fear of alerting the Germans to the emerging weapon that had revealed the raid. A weapon that ultimately played a huge role in winning the war.
It seems now that Churchill deployed significant defensive resources to Coventry in the days before the raid, which, if true, means that theory is bollocks, but before I arrived at that conclusion I pondered if I could do the same. To sacrifice people, if it was the least-worst option.
If I genuinely felt it was for the greater good, then I could, without hesitation, but it would be an awful decision to have to make, which would haunt me for my days.
Not posted too positively about Johnson previously, but I don’t envy the choices he’s having to make. He might be a ****, but I don’t think he’s a monster. People want things to be binary, when they simply can’t be.
There will be some tough decisions for him to make.