Johnson was a magnet for new voters. But many are appalled by his lies, and traditional Conservatives don’t trust him either
At last. For the first time since he became prime minister, Boris Johnson is paying a direct price for his actions. For two long years, he seemed to defy the laws of political gravity, somehow floating high in the sky when his conduct, whether his lies or his failures, should have seen him crash to the ground.
His mishandling of the first phase of the pandemic was so disastrous, he presided over both the highest death toll in Europe and the deepest economic slump in the G7. It was a record of both calamitous misjudgment and corruption, as contracts worth hundreds of millions were funnelled to those with friends in high Tory places. He appointed useless ministers, several of whom became mired in scandal. And yet Johnson remained aloft, riding the warm air currents of consistent leads in the opinion polls.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
