When will Boris face up to the real challenges facing Britain?

It’s rarely a good sign when, moments after a major set piece event such as yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, the government’s PR machine kicks into overdrive to defend it.

Though Labour’s claims that Boris Johnson isn’t doing enough to support squeezed households were wearyingly predictable, the Tory narrative about turbocharging the economy and slashing EU red tape has quickly fizzled out. And Michael Gove’s surreal media performance this morning won’t do much to allay concerns that Boris’s government is up a creek without a paddle.

Brits are currently facing rising energy bills, inflation is forecast to hit ten per cent and wages are failing to keep up with the increase in prices. But while demands for politicians to ‘do more’ are gathering steam, the government has been achieving the opposite. As one Westminster think tanker pointed out yesterday: ‘the only growth the government is achieving is the growth of the state’.