Why has Boris Johnson stolen the show in Britain when progressive parties are winning around the world?
Boris Johnson’s speech to the Conservative party conference on Wednesday was full of hot air and tediously empty phrases. And yet, amid all the bluster, there was something else in the mix: change.
It was entirely unsubstantiated and undeliverable. It came from the leader of a party that not only caused the country’s past and present hardships, but is also bereft of actual policies to tackle them. But still, the sense of change burst out of Johnson’s dramatic statement: “We’re going to deal with the biggest underlying issues of our economy and society, the problems that no government has had the guts to tackle before, and I mean the long-term structural weakness in the UK economy.”
Rachel Shabi is a journalist, broadcaster and author
