It was 2016, I was in New York on business, and I found a spare day to campaign for the Democrats, so horrified was I by the concept of a Trump presidency. Some good it did! I spent my time ringing voters in Florida and the message was clear. Anyone but Hillary Clinton.

Move on four years and it seems like Groundhog Day except, now, it is anyone but Trump. A recent opinion poll out yesterday by the New York Times and Siena College has Joe Biden ahead by 14%. There is no room for complacency. Candidates in the past have been further ahead in polls, only to lose at the last minute to the incumbent but it feels different now. Certainly, the mood has changed from pre-coronavirus days when the economy was booming and the Democrats struggled to reach any consensus on their nominee, with a potential drift to the harder Left.

Biden may be a somewhat mediocre candidate and, at 77, permanently shielded from the coronavirus, but he is not The Donald and that may ultimately be all it takes, particularly if he appoints a rejuvenating Vice Presidential running mate. He is consensual, moderate, and respectful of minorities and US voters may just be in the mood for a bit of healing after the last four tumultuous, divisive years.

And the seemingly self-defeating rampage of Trump just goes on. He has sacked the independent US attorney, Geoffrey Berman, for having the temerity to investigate potentially corrupt Trump associates; he has just accused his predecessor of ‘treason’ for ‘spying on his campaign’ whilst providing no evidence to back up his allegations, and there is the book by ‘sick puppy’ John Bolton highlighting the sheer ignorance of Trump’s forays into foreign policy and cringing support for ‘favourite’ dictators seen appreciatively as strongmen.

Then there is Trump’s response to the Black Lives Matter campaign and his management of the coronavirus pandemic. Oh dear. He has attempted to divide his country racially but seems to have created a consensus among most voters that his actions have been appalling. On the coronavirus pandemic, things only seem to be getting worse. The early unlocking of predominantly Republican states, supported by Trump is proving a disaster. Cases of Covid-19 are now rising in half the country. With medical leaders looking on aghast (why don’t some of them just resign?), the death toll exceeds 120,000 with 2.4 million infections. Both are still rising sharply. Things are going to deteriorate before they get better, but Trump sees everything through the prism of his re-election chances with potentially more tragic consequences.

Trump has emasculated his country internationally and tried to divide it domestically. Anyone but Trump? It might not be enough, but it should be.

Faced with an unparalleled pandemic, the initial response of most governments could be forgiven for falling short. The main hope was that they learnt from their mistakes and raised their game in the process. It is what we have seen frequently overseas, confirming that it would have been unhelpful and unfair to judge a government’s actions too early in this crisis.

We are further through the pandemic now, at least in Europe, and the focus is gradually moving to a review of past actions and managing the way out of lockdown. Comparisons are being made and the UK is not coming out at all well so far. Things only seem to be getting worse for Johnson’s administration and the charge sheet continues to mount.

It is not helped by the commonly held view that this is not a pleasant government. Under the guidance of Johnson and his adviser, Cummings, it is building a reputation for bluster and self-defeating bullying in equal measure. It is given less leeway by commentators for its character but, even then, all could be forgiven if it were competent. It appears not.

To be fair, under the able Rishi Sunak, the government has performed well economically and protecting an unprepared NHS succeeded although, as we now know, at an immense cost to care homes. But there have been too many unenforced errors, and this is changing public opinion. Several are listed below:

• Late to lockdown. A government with a libertarian heart could not bring itself to lockdown early. Modelling data forecasting up to 500,000 unchecked coronavirus deaths was available from 2nd March. Playing with the concept of herd immunity and with little capacity for testing, it was 3 weeks later before shut-down even though the evidence was clear of its benefits, as was the severity of the virus.
• Care homes and lack of testing. This is a disaster. According to the National Audit Office, some 25,000 patients were discharged into care homes untested in March/April, in haste to free up hospital beds. Testing was either unavailable, not even to care home staff, or not deemed a priority. This will be the tragedy of Covid-19.
• Statistics. These make grim reading. Who can argue the management of the crisis to date has been good when we have the highest excess deaths in Europe?
• Cummings debacle. No more to add.
• Managing our way out of lockdown. U-turn after U-turn with the Cabinet barely consulted. First, having to reverse a policy of charging overseas NHS and care home staff supplementary fees for using the health services here. Having praised their contribution, how could the government be so crass? Second, opening schools and then announcing closures until September at the earliest with a £1bn emergency fund announced today to plug the gap. Chaos. No planning, with the poorest children suffering most. Third, a reversal on food vouchers over the Summer for some of the poorest families. Having tried to tackle Marcus Rashford on this and failing, then praising his initiative, the government looks hapless and out of touch. Fourth, an abrupt reversal on the track and trace system which may not be fully up and running until the Autumn at the earliest. We now await the reversal on quarantining. Oh dear, and all this as a backdrop to possibly the worst recession faced by any developed country.

But I return to my earlier point about the character of this government. Boris Johnson is undoubtedly a polarising figure. Some have and continue to claim that once his Prime Ministerial ambitions were fulfilled, he would be a little lost in the role.

That may be unfair, particularly mid-pandemic, but what is clear is that his administration, under the guidance of Dominic Cummings, believes aggressive campaigning techniques will win the day, even while in power. The weakness of this approach has been uncovered in this crisis and the government’s satisfaction ratings have suffered accordingly. Confusing policies, messaging and U-turns have been savaged by even the most sympathetic media. We have been treated to the propaganda of superficial phraseology such as ‘ramping up’, to unattainable targets, PPE equipment counted singly rather than in pairs and a raft of ministers refusing to admit any mistakes, even the obvious ones. SAGE deliberations and its membership until recently have mostly been kept secret.

As argued before, if Johnson and his ministers showed more humility, admitted to mistakes with a focus on learning from them, invited the media more readily into deliberations and had generally been more transparent, many more missteps would have likely been forgiven. None of this has happened to date and that promised independent review may consequently be brutal.

This is the most unTory of UK governments. The Conservative Party used to be a party of pragmatism; conservative with a small ‘c’, defending the institutions of state, a mixed economy, accepting and sometimes initiating social and economic change as a necessity in its own right, and/or for maintaining power. Whilst always a coalition of the authoritarian right, economic and social pragmatists, pro and anti-EU supporters and some free market libertarians, it stood mostly on the centre-right ground.

No longer. The rot, so to speak, started under Thatcher who, whilst sometimes tactically pragmatic herself, encouraged right-wing, libertarian free market ideologues to enter the Party from the grass roots up. I saw several of them in student politics, some of which now hold or have recently held senior positions in the Conservative Party or government. They believed in the smallest of States or, at the extremes, hardly any State at all, allowing people to survive, prosper or fail with little government intervention. What was particular about their style was their refusal to compromise or brook any dissent and this led to what one would politely call ‘hard campaigning tactics’.

Move on to recent history, and many of those with a libertarian philosophy could be found at the heart of the Brexit campaign, believing in the concept initiated from Thatcher onward, that the EU was a socialist institution intent on shackling people to a super-state and, as a concept, ultimately doomed to failure. Brutal campaigning techniques won the day (that is not to dispute some valid arguments) and the rest is history as they say. The architect was one Dominic Cummings, ‘the great disrupter’. He is allegedly not even a member of the Conservative Party for which he has very little respect and is apparently almost anarchic in his beliefs.

Today, many Conservative moderates have chosen voluntarily or otherwise to withdraw from the Party, driven out predominantly by the hostility of the EU debate. There is a real vacuum left by the likes of David Gauke, Dominic Grieve, Oliver Letwin, Sam Gyimah, Amber Rudd, Rory Stewart, Ruth Davidson and Justine Greening to name but a few. The libertarian inclined Brexit team now lies at the heart of government and has a blank canvas to paint on which they have exploited ruthlessly. It is called Boris Johnson.

However unfair, Johnson is repeatedly criticised for having no guiding principles except to reach the top. It was victory at all costs, starting with weaponising the EU. Consequently, this is now a (Tory) government that has attacked Parliament, the courts, allegedly misled the Royal Family and generally treated institutions, and, until the coronavirus epidemic, experts, with contempt. Revolutionary in its zeal, it has ignored the potentially dangerous, longer term consequences of its actions, to shape a shorter term, impressive General Election victory.

And it is this libertarian influence which will be identified as one of the reasons of a late lockdown and its terrible consequences in terms of excess Covid-19 deaths. Johnson and his team simply couldn’t contemplate government telling the public what to do in such an extreme fashion. They felt it was a deeply continental European trait and there was a superior English way of doing things…

The contradiction to this argument is, of course, an almost socialist, deeply unTory approach to spending public money, identified before the arrival of Covid-19. These policies, many of which have merits post austerity, were also about upending the Establishment, protecting a new power base but leaving room to be radical elsewhere. Such policies are now rightly set in stone in exaggerated terms to recover from this crisis; but it will not stop the march of the breaking down of institutions, freeing markets on a US style basis (watch the EU withdrawal negotiations closely) and accepting the consequences of the rupture of the Conservative Party with glee in a drift to the Right.

But the triumphant libertarians in government should tread warily. Cummings has already tripped up once, the review of actions running up to the lockdown will be brutal and the consequences of a complete, almost contemptuous break from the EU will be plain to see. The essentially English view of being free from the yoke of Europe and showcasing the glorious days ahead of unfettered, home grown, competent government are currently hard to see…

If the Labour Leader, Starmer, becomes a real threat and incompetence becomes the hallmark of the libertarian approach shown to date, then Johnson’s hold on power will weaken. He is not widely trusted or liked by his colleagues but was seen as an election winner. It is very early days but at least one, not unsympathetic former Tory Cabinet Minister, predicts a possible Labour victory at the next election. As we emerge from this Covid crisis depressingly in some disarray, and if such disarray continues, then the Old Conservative Party might just find its teeth. But it is a long shot…

What a farce. Parliament opened to normal voting procedures this week without a single nod to 21st Century technology. The Government, despite a rebellion of some 30 Tories, used its majority to scrap the UK’s virtual parliament, forcing MPs to only vote in person, socially distanced of course.

This could lead to queues of up to a kilometre for every vote, each one taking up to an hour. Johnson’s excuse for this in PMQs yesterday (another strong performance by the Opposition Leader, Starmer, by the way which is apparently infuriating Johnson) was that MPs should make the same sacrifices as the public during this pandemic but this is a lot of nonsense. Many MPs are vulnerable just like the public and should not be expected to put themselves at risk by voting in person, any more than vulnerable members of the public should be expected to give up their shielding to continue to work.

Then, to top it all, the Business Secretary, Alok Sharma, after PMQs, displayed what seemed to be Covid symptoms whilst making a statement in Parliament. If positive, how many MPs will now have to go into self-isolation, possibly bringing part of the parliamentary process to a halt anyway? The Johnson Government seems increasingly to be either unlucky or stupid, probably a bit of both, but more on that another time.

The innocent explanation for the Government’s stance in now forcing MPs to vote in person during the pandemic is stubbornness and a desire to reassure the public of a return to normal. A darker note is that it reduces the accountability of Government when it is most needed as MPs stay away or votes become increasingly chaotic.

Parliament is already a joke in the minds of many voters. Few understand its arcane procedures. The braying of MPs at a fully attended PMQs is embarrassing and, more than most things, has contributed to the low esteem in which politicians are held. It is time for it to be reformed. Less confrontation, electronic voting and simplifying parliamentary procedures are long overdue to re-establish confidence in voters’ minds. Holding on to increasingly meaningless traditions is, well, traditional and old-fashioned.

And there is an opportunity. The Houses of Parliament are falling down and require extensive building works, possibly with politicians having to vacate the premises. The House of Lords is mooted to be moving to York. In addition to reforming the Lords, how about building on changes made when Parliament was ‘virtual’, starting with the continuing use of electronic voting, considering eradicating procedures that make no sense to the public in a modern world and thinking of redesigns where possible (rightly, impossible to argue for a new parliamentary building in the current climate) so that the ‘English Parliament’ reflects the more discursive ‘horse shoe’ style of the Scottish and Welsh debating chambers. Certainly, the recent polite exchanges between leading politicians as they make greater efforts to search for consensus in the face of this pandemic has been a refreshing change.

Just a thought. It would be a small, but positive legacy as we start to emerge from this crisis.