The unpopular populist: a pm unfit to govern | thearticle

Boris Johnson has run the Conservative Party in his own image. After the baleful era of Theresa May’s leadership, there was a reason Tories chose him – notoriously flippant about ideology,

personally magnetic – over the undoubtedly serious-minded if uninspiring Jeremy Hunt. They needed a leader who could win votes, and fast, and who would pursue Brexit to its completion

without concern for many of its implications. They got both: a clear election victory and an exit deal whose real complications the public ignored in the face of a larger crisis in 2020. In

the months after a long-awaited “freedom day” from the pandemic which had struck down the Prime Minister and derailed his premiership, the path towards recovery and “levelling up” looked

clear. Today he faces the headlines dreaded by every Tory leader of the last two decades: a by-election defeat, an irate and rebellious parliamentary party, and an authority weakened by the

ceaseless stream of insignificant but symbolic scandals. The result in North Shropshire is most important for what voters have voted against than anything they supported. The Liberal

Democrats do best when taking disillusioned Conservatives, and there were certainly enough of them to choose from in the first place: the seat has been Tory for all but two of its 169 years

in existence. Labour, who fell from second to third, are too much for the comfortable rural votes to stomach, but a firm rebuke to the man who had hastened Owen Paterson’s ignominious exit

was up for grabs. What matters is whether this voicing of local anger speaks of the wider discontent which Johnson’s government once saw itself able to cash in on, a feeling of which it now

bears the brunt. Three aspects will define Boris Johnson’s political survival: his private scandals, the strength of his government itself, and his own personal political acumen. On the

first, he has once been dogged. Rather than flat revamps or red-wine-on-sofa fights, this Christmas the blurred images of Christmas parties and joyful Liberal Democrats will fill the inside

pages of the tabloids. The victorious Helen Morgan was not wrong in her image of a “nightly soap opera” being played out in Downing Street: for many MPs, even voters, that fruity private

life is becoming a distraction playing endlessly into the Opposition’s hands. What matters is whether the voters care; they never seemed to care about the numerous government contracts given

out at the height of the crisis last year, and the tales of Lord Brownlow’s financial support for the luscious refurbishment of Johnson’s flat never meant much to the ordinary man on the

street. It is the impression that matters more than the details; the image of a Prime Minister still unable to handle his own household without scandal reflects ever more harshly on the

public shenanigans of his administration. And as that administration stumbles from successive crises, that impression will only add substance to the notion, always fixed in the minds of his

opponents, that Boris Johnson is unfit to govern. Johnson’s government is a different matter: yesterday’s by-election was not a judgement on that. What is most striking is the distance

between the levers of power in Whitehall and the voices of mistrust inside the House of Commons. Ministers like Michael Gove and Matthew Hancock have never been loved by many of the standard

Tory intake – they have been too all-powerful, too influential in the Prime Minister’s ear, for the liking of those stuck on the backbenches. Johnson’s own loyalties are torn: he has never

made a name for himself as a speaker in the House, yet shares many of his instincts with the 2019 intake who relied on his leadership for their presence. His disappointment with the caution

of Whitehall comes in the face of the Cabinet of cronies he has cultivated since the beginning of his tenure. For a leader who has delegated much of his power to senior ministers and civil

servants, it is remarkable that the focus of the Government’s woes has been the Prime Minister. But that is the leader’s fate; indeed, Johnson’s authority within his own party is based on

the notion that without him his administration would never enjoy such popularity as it has. It is hard to see Priti Patel or Gove winning an eighty-seat majority by themselves. But if his

party never expected competence from their leader, they demanded popularity. When that disappears, that authority will be shocked. Again, it may be that most of the Conservative Party

already sees Boris Johnson as unfit to govern. Where the by-election has most import is on the third issue: Johnson’s own stature. The appeal of a floppy-haired British eccentric was doomed

to wear off for those that were ever allured by it. The status of a true leader of people, such as David Cameron enjoyed to some extent, and which Tony Blair certainly was, has never been

near Johnson. But on the streets during his first two years in power, the idea of “good old Boris” was found on the lips of many. It has not altogether disappeared. But what the Prime

Minister will be most worried about is the knowledge that it was his name on the lips of most voters in North Shropshire this time as well, only accompanied by much less complimentary

epithets. The Liberal Democrats – in an uncommon display of electoral acumen — focused their campaign on Johnson: his lies and follies. That it paid off so spectacularly will be the thing

most cheering Sir Keir Starmer, whose relentless attacks on the man have so far got him few rewards. What will do for Boris Johnson, more than the failures of his government or the Christmas

cheer of his staff, is the fate of his own image: as one who is, again, unfit to govern. All governments suffer mid-term blues. Liberal Democrats are known to get hubristic on snatches of

success. What the New Year will show is whether Johnson’s lacklustre attempts at rejuvenation are serious — whether, in short, he is serious about running the country as more than a

political entity. This week has given him two unseasonal presents: a disgruntled Parliamentary party and a furious electorate. What will matter is whether the Labour Party and its leader are

seen as a serious alternative. That depends on the growing assumption, even among his most loyal backers, that our Prime Minister is not up to his job. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the

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