The British PM took heavy flak this week, but there is not yet a single challenger or policy program capable of bringing him down.
. Tom Cruise’s veteran pilot is repeatedly chastised for his recklessness, but through a combination of his risk-taking, his flying skills and his teammates’ loyalty, he completes the mission.
Try as he might to carry on, the naysayers reckon it is only a matter of time before the famously regicidal Tories renew their rebellion and deliver the fatal blow. There have been “resets” of his premiership before, including the usual menu of reheated announcements and familiar warnings to his cabinet ministers that they have to shape up and start delivering.
Some Tories are demanding that Johnson’s reset takes the party back on to its traditional terrain: lower taxes, lower public spending, economic competence.But during the pandemic, the Conservatives racked up the highest tax take and spending outlay since World War II in an attempt to “wrap their arms around” the British public. In its aftermath, there’s an equally insistent lobby for the fiscal spigot to remain turned on, to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis.
Johnson is having a bet both ways, sometimes playing to the small-state Tory gallery, sometimes to the media chorus for more state intervention. He risks pleasing no one. “As often happens in politics, almost as a process of osmosis, someone will start to come through,” Downer says.In the absence of a convincing challenger, Johnson can remain in post by default. If he survives until the next election, this will be why.There’s a compelling case for believing that Boris Johnson might be following the dictum of Top Gun’s Maverick: Don’t think, just do.
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