Most people date the beginning of Boris Johnson’s current woes to the start of the partygate scandal, and especially to the revelations from 10 January 2022 onwards about the ‘bring your own booze’ event that Johnson himself had attended.
But Johnson’s problems can also be seen as having started at an earlier date and from a different source. In mid-December Lord Frost resigned from Johnson’s Cabinet, rejecting the additional restrictions proposed in response to Omicron, a few days after Steve Baker and the Covid Recovery Group had led about 100 backbenchers in a revolt against new measures. This meant Boris felt he had to take proposals for a Christmas 2021 lockdown to Cabinet, where it was rejected.
These events burnt the reservoir of goodwill that Boris had built up by reopening fully in July 2021, rejecting the prognostications of doom at the time, and by refusing any additional restrictions in September and October 2021.
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