Upon how many fronts can a government fight at any one time? Political capital has a short-enough half-life as it is without the risk of it being diluted through simultaneous multiple battles. Concentration of political firepower matters.
At a rough count, Boris Johnson’s ministry is currently fighting the civil service, the media, the European Union and now, of course, a looming public health emergency from a likely coronavirus epidemic. There is also the small matter of a budget and the government’s actual – or, if you prefer, notional – plans for ‘levelling-up’ the United Kingdom.
Some of these are more significant problems than others, and some of them required no super-forecasting skills to foresee. The Home Office may be as dysfunctional a department as it has ever been but installing Priti Patel as Home secretary always seemed a curious way of fixing that.
This is a government that will not enjoy much of a honeymoon, even if it is fortunate to enjoy no opposition in parliament worth the name.
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