At last. For the first time since he became prime minister, Boris Johnson is paying a direct price for his actions. For two long years, he seemed to defy the laws of political gravity, somehow floating high in the sky when his conduct, whether his lies or his failures, should have seen him crash to the ground.
His mishandling of the first phase of the pandemic was so disastrous, he presided over both the highest death toll in Europe and the deepest economic slump in the G7. It was a record of both calamitous misjudgment and corruption, as contracts worth hundreds of millions were funnelled to those with friends in high Tory places. He appointed useless ministers, several of whom became mired in scandal. And yet Johnson remained aloft, riding the warm air currents of consistent leads in the opinion polls.
His admirers said he was a politician like no other, immune to the pressures that would bring down lesser mortals. That immunity fed a sense of impunity. But in the early hours of Friday morning, among the fields and farms of North Shropshire, Johnson fell to earth.
The Tories took a beating in this byelection, losing a seat they had held for the best part of two centuries. Only once before had they seen a bigger collapse of their vote to the Liberal Democrats (or its predecessor parties), and that was three decades ago. Talk to those involved, on all sides, and they agree that voters were driven chiefly by fury with the prime minister – over the revelations of Downing Street partying when the rest of the country was locked down against a killer disease, and what one minister calls the general “shitshow” of this government. » | Jonathan Freedland | Friday, December 17, 2021
