After Boris Johnson's British Conservative Party made significant inroads into even the most traditionally left-leaning shires in the recent council elections, as well as in a by-election in a northern enclave that has consistently voted Labour for decades, people are asking whether Johnson isn't presiding over a political changing of the guard, a huge groundswell of public opinion, and a shift in the British Zeitgeist.
Well, maybe, but personally I wouldn't read too much into it. The British public is still hopelessly divided over Brexit; the Scots voted overwhelmingly for Scottish Nationalist candidates, and are looking for another secession referendum, and, quite honestly, there's a lot that can go very wrong with respect to the pandemic in the next few months.
But Johnson is certainly benefitting from a brief burst of goodwill as Britain has effectively tamed the COVID-19 outbreak better than most other countries, and is gradually opening up its economy and rebooting its economy. Johnson's many missteps earlier in the pandemic seem to have been conveniently forgotten (conveniently for Johnson, that is). In fact, though, the country is emerging well from the coronavirus mainly because the National Health Service (not Johnson) has done a sterling job of rolling out the vaccines, ably abetted by thousands of volunteers.
He is also benefitting from an all-time low in the fortunes of the main opposition party. The Labour Party has been struggling to get its act together for years now, and its unpopular hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn has been replaced by the equally unpopular centrist Keir Starmer. Many long-time Labour supporters from their traditional base in the North and Midlands are fed up with the party's infighting and their apparent obsession with political correctness and "wokeness", to use a criminally over-used epithet. The third party Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, continue their decades of wandering in the wishy-washy wilderness. So, Johnson does not have a great deal of opposition to deal with at the moment, and he has shored up his position with some very un-Conservative big spending throughout the pandemic.
The dishevelled Johnson, with his plummy accent and his "boyish charm", as I have often seen it described, is a smoother political operator than he seems. But most of his current popularity has actually sprung from factors completely outside his control, so don't give him too much credit. He is, however, sensible enough to recognize his fortunate position, and will almost certainly try to consolidate his gains with an election before he manages to puts his foot in it again.
Britain only potential relief seems to be the hope that a new Labour Messiah can emerge, and sometime soon. London Mayor Sadiq Khan anyone?
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