Boris Johnson remains deeply flawed, but there are signs that his style of leadership is becoming less top-down
What follows is all extremely relative, all highly conditional, and there is no guarantee that any of it will be sustained in the future, even if it is correct in the first place. But here’s the thing to note: as we near the close of what one Conservative MP rightly called “a torrid year” for the country in the Commons today, Boris Johnson is moving towards a style of government that will be to his party’s advantage and, in some ways, to that of the country too.
That’s because there are signs – only signs, but a number of them all the same – that a somewhat less confrontational form of UK governance is beginning to take shape. Where it may lead, if and when life begins to return to some sort of normality in 2021, is tricky to predict. But if this very tentative reading of the government is even half right, the consequences may be influential for Johnson, for his party and within British politics into 2021 and beyond.
