The sad truth behind Andrew Lansley’s eyes

“Michael,” said the Prime Minister, without looking up from his desk, “I thought you said this would be easy?”

“Easy? That what would be easy?” replied the Education Secretary, whose face had occupied a near-permanent state of mild bafflement, which was slowly becoming the kind of ever-present British institution that decades from now will be ruined by ill-thought out reforms, or having a roof built over it in case it rains.

“This NHS business. You said it would be easy.” The Prime Minister glanced up, his cheeks flushed, as his cheeks often were, and as such were a poor indicator of mood. “You said if we could get away with saying we were going to buy the Queen a massive yacht, then the NHS reforms would be a ‘doddle’. The yacht thing worked great; so what happened?”

“Ah, right. Well, I think, there’s two problems. One, no one likes the policy. Even most of us think it looks a bit rubbish. But that’s not the end of the world. In the first couple of years of Government you can usually push through some crap policies without anyone noticing, and after about 5 years you don’t have any good ideas left anyway, so all your policies are crap. The public are generally very forgiving of crap policy. I’d imagine even more so considering we’re in with the Liberals: they know we’ll have to go along with some of their crap policies. So the fact that our stance on the NHS isn’t any good isn’t a problem, really.”

The Prime Minister settled down his fountain pen, carefully, so that the seal of his office was showing. He looked up at the Education Secretary, as though he was looking down. “And the other problem, Michael…?”

“Well, when I said what I did… I hadn’t fully taken into account…” he paused, momentarily, stuck between a loss for words and knowing exactly what he wanted to say. “The truth is, I hadn’t fully taken into account quite how completely useless Andrew Lansley is.”

However, I don’t think Andrew Lansley is as useless as Andrew Lansley appears. I think there are other forces at work here. Forces making Andrew Lansley useless.

I think there’s always been a pitiable quality about Andrew Lansley. Yes, he is a man who looks like the pure embodiment of a Tory MP. If you cut him, he would likely bleed country pubs and tweed. He constantly appears to be simultaneously overtly smug and desperately pleading for votes. It is an art of paradox that he has managed to perfect withing facial expressions: there are plenty of photos of him in front of a van that says ‘NH YES!’ on it, where he manages to look utterly furious whilst still maintaining a shape with his mouth one could only identify as being a smile.

But there is something eminently pitiable about him. It’s his eyes. He’s got sad eyes. Disappointment and exhaustion lie in those eyes. His eyes are almost human. It’s as though there’s someone else trapped inside, who is constantly worried that they are an accomplice in his terrible plans and using all their strength to exert what little control they have over him enough to derail them.

Next time you see Andrew Lansley on telly, look at his eyes. Every now and then, he’ll nervous glance at the camera. In that moment, you can see everything. The person inside Andrew Lansley tries to tell us that it’s all going to be OK, that they’re doing what they can. They try and show us hope.

Thank you, person trapped inside Andrew Lansley trying to make him useless. We salute you. You’re doing a great job.