There are, as I say in the Sun this morning, two possible outcomes to this election: a Tory majority or a hung parliament. The seats where Labour are now concentrating their resources show that they don’t think they can win outright. Instead, their hopes rest on stopping Boris Johnson from getting to 326 seats.
Right now, the Tories are on course for a majority. I understand that their own internal numbers indicate a working majority. But these margins are very fine, and victory could slip away if voters don’t turn out.
If Boris Johnson does win a majority next week, it will be because he has presented himself as change. Not just the person who can break the deadlock, but a leader with a different agenda to the one that the Tories have had these last nine years.
As Prime Minister of a majority government, he would have to deliver on that agenda. He would have to create the conditions for the economy to flourish far outside London and the South East, he would have to improve the NHS and this country’s physical and digital infrastructure.
Having been elected as a different kind of Tory, he will have to govern as that. This is particularly true because the glue holding his electoral coalition together right now—a desire to ‘get Brexit done’ and fear of Jeremy Corbyn—will have dissolved by 31 January as the UK will have left the EU and Corbyn will be on his way out as Labour leader.
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