The original fans of Boris Johnson feel a special kind of disappointment about his disastrous premiership. He’s the best campaigner of his generation, he governed London well, his superpower is to find and devolve to brilliant people who can implement a vision of liberal conservatism that he articulated over a 20-year career.
Judge him, we’d argue, by his achievements. That’s what we argued in 2019, anyway. If we judge him by his record in No. 10, it was one not just of disaster – but of doing the precise opposite of what he promised. As we argued in The Spectator, he was becoming the very prime minister that, as a journalist, he warned us about. That’s why, as I argue in today’s Sunday Telegraph, I cannot cheer him on this time.
Yes, lockdown hijacked his premiership. But events hijack every premiership: leaders are distinguished by how they respond. Johnson had an ability to take bets, get things right.
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