While Thatcher had to face down the unions, northern England and a confident BBC, this prime minister has few constraints
Since the beginning, one of the most striking aspects of Boris Johnson’s government has been its brazenness. The Downing Street press briefing room redecorated in Tory blue, regeneration funds crudely funnelled towards Tory towns, the troublesome Brexit parliament illegally shut down, the pandemic as a business opportunity for Conservative cronies – in these and many other ways the government has exercised power with a cartoonish lack of subtlety.
The response to this, especially from the many people who believe that British governments should be more consensual and diplomatic, has been to wonder privately or out loud, in liberal publications and on social media: how do they get away with it? The unwritten rules of British public life are supposed to make such blatantly self-serving government impossible. And our political system is supposed to punish prime ministers whose divisiveness becomes too obvious, as even the formidable Margaret Thatcher found out.
