With his ever-evolving ‘plans’, Boris Johnson has succeeded in alienating even those who were once his biggest fans
I hate to stray into superforecasting, but I wonder whether Boris Johnson’s wheeze of dividing the UK into a number of bitterly resentful regions will feel worth it in the end? He has created a sort of Covid Westeros, where local warlords rail and scheme against him, as do some of his own courtiers. Johnson, the body-positive Joffrey, rules by whim and weakness, convinced of a genius middle way that far more brilliant epidemiologists and economists insist simply does not exist. Even northern Tory MPs are saluting the Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, for whom it hopefully won’t all go a bit Robb Stark. Otherwise, unity hopes are pinned on the Rashford 2036 election ticket.
In the meantime, it’s such an intriguing strategy to deliberately sow divisions. Or tiers, as Johnson prefers to euphemise them. No wonder half his party wants to tier him a new one over it. Consider Jake Berry, once such a rabid Johnson fan that when Michael Gove torpedoed Bojo’s 2016 leadership bid, Berry thundered of Gove: “There is a very deep pit reserved in hell for such as he.” On Thursday night, Berry’s warning shot was fired in quite a different direction. The 80 northern Conservative MPs “are the prime minister’s majority”, he told Spectator TV “and – bluntly – he needs to look after us”.
