The Spectator

What’s the point of Boris?

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issue 05 February 2022

The anger against the Prime Minister for failing to observe the rules which he imposed upon the rest of us is justified. Even so, there will come a point at which the public starts to ask: aren’t we spending too much time obsessing about the parties?

Johnson’s electoral mandate gives him the chance to redeem himself; to show that he has the ideas to get Britain out of this mess and that although he may make mistakes over more trivial matters, he gets the big decisions right.

In defying Sage’s advice in December, Johnson saved Britain from a needless lockdown. He could and should have done this at a far earlier stage last year, but he nonetheless deserves credit. He should now move on to the next phase of his leadership, and show us what he means by those much-repeated soundbites: ‘global Britain’ and ‘levelling up’.

The levelling up white paper is a heroic attempt to make verbiage look like policy

The lockdowns he imposed — which were longer and harsher than in most European countries — took the country in the opposite direction.

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