Yeah, it's obviously deluded. (Hell, I'd argue it's possible Covid held his premiership together slightly longer than it naturally would have)
Replies
Slightly?!??
aug 30, 2025, 8:27 pm • 3 0 • view
Yeah the thing is, I actually remember the February 2020 spring statement (?) and it was incredibly thin. The idea that the Boris Johnson government was going to transform the country if not for that pesky pandemic, is farcical. Just look at the personnel and the economics!
aug 30, 2025, 5:03 pm • 16 0 • view
The Queen’s Speech, also. And yeah, I agree that the failure there is absolutely key to why they are where they are, both mentally and electorally.
aug 30, 2025, 5:10 pm • 5 0 • view
Yeah, and his dreadful crisis management style meant something that cut through like PartyGate did was nigh-on inevitable in any timeline
aug 30, 2025, 5:08 pm • 9 0 • view
I think it kind of was suited for Cummings weirdly - they really did drop an obscene amount of money on a moonshot project developing lateral flow tests, they really did ignore lots of well-qualified ppl saying this was a disaster bc of false negatives, and it really did work better than imagined
aug 30, 2025, 5:16 pm • 4 0 • view
Possibly on the policy side, yeah, but the handling of the Barnard Castle scandal (which could easily have been weathered with a tiny bit of contrition) was when I knew Boris wouldn't last
aug 30, 2025, 5:22 pm • 5 0 • view
It's rare that you get television events that unite the nation, but we all came together at 5pm to watch him in the rose garden Man, that was a weird time...
aug 30, 2025, 8:45 pm • 2 0 • view
I think it was partly Biden's election too. They'd been banking on a second Trump term and suddenly had to take the Irish perspective seriously. Cummings was gone shortly after that, iirc, and all the Singapore on Thames nonsense disappeared
aug 30, 2025, 9:17 pm • 0 1 • view
Look not to relitigate the pandemic, but the vaccine policy was a sterling success, as was the unique policy of spreading out doses (just get as many people as possibly a first jab), which was heavily condemned by The Experts
aug 30, 2025, 5:18 pm • 5 0 • view
They just didn't have a similar urgent policy for 'make Workington much more prosperous, in five years'
aug 30, 2025, 5:19 pm • 4 0 • view
The biggest failure really was 'OK we're on a war footing, our energy supply has collapsed .. time to subsidise bills for two winters'
aug 30, 2025, 5:23 pm • 2 0 • view
The revealed preference was that backbenchers angry at nuclear power in their patch, were more important than responding to Putin's destabilisation of the economy?
aug 30, 2025, 5:31 pm • 1 0 • view
Really should have just taken how that cost and literally handed out as cash. Same effect but preserves the price signal and incentive to use less
aug 30, 2025, 5:24 pm • 6 0 • view
It was just such a pointlessly expensive response to the crisis.
aug 30, 2025, 6:03 pm • 1 0 • view
I think this was an operational thing, easiest to put directly onto energy accounts
aug 30, 2025, 5:29 pm • 0 0 • view
As @dylandifford.bsky.social alludes to in this thread .. there's just no indication that the Boris government was ever going to make the spending and tax commitments necessary to hold the so called red wall, and transform its local economies
aug 30, 2025, 5:06 pm • 3 0 • view
My hot take is that if the pandemic doesn’t happen Johnson quite plausibly gets forced out before July 2022
aug 30, 2025, 5:17 pm • 3 0 • view
Slightly less hot take given I just said the same thing :P
aug 30, 2025, 5:18 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh god I can’t read
aug 30, 2025, 5:21 pm • 2 0 • view
But yeah I think the counterfactual is that without the pandemic 2020-21 is dominated by everyone realizing that Johnson has written a bunch of cheques he can’t cash re the Brexit negotiations
aug 30, 2025, 5:22 pm • 4 0 • view
Yeah, plus when your flagship policy is achieved a month after the election, it's hard to avoid being a bit listless
aug 30, 2025, 5:23 pm • 1 0 • view