Such predictions always require a review of how accurate 2020 ones were. Umm…not too bad actually. Seven out of nine were pretty much correct. A quick run through is provided below. But of course, there is a proviso. Such analysis all seems irrelevant in the face of Covid. Who got that right? This was the only issue that mattered in the end and affected almost everything.

Anyway, here we go:

In UK politics, the predictions for 2020 were that the Tories would get Brexit done, selling out Brexiteers where they had to (fishing?) but pursuing an English nationalist agenda, at least in tone. In the face of Tory dominance, Keir Starmer was Labour’s best bet and that the LibDems will be politically dead for a generation or permanently, requiring a new centrist party but not yet. Mostly true where Covid allowed.

In Scotland, there would be no second referendum (correct) as the SNP had peaked (looks like being horribly wrong…).

Overseas, Trump would escape the consequences of impeachment by the House of Representatives and emerge politically stronger to win the presidential election. So true until the impact of Covid unseated him. One silver lining in an otherwise bleak sky.

Cultural wars across the West would intensify as liberal cities versus conservative rural regions slugged it out. So true and set to intensify further.

So, to 2021 if we can face it…

It will be a relatively quiet year because of Covid.

Despite conjecture, Johnson will stay as PM to bed down Brexit and see out Covid. The self-styled ‘world king’ cannot walk away mid-battle. But backbenchers, recognising an increasingly effective, competitive Opposition, will be restless about his style and competence and the stage will be set for a possible 2022 departure. Any independent review of the management of the pandemic will not be kind and, even before the long-term consequences of Brexit come to fruition, another game changing political career will ultimately end in failure.

Despite the SNP surge there will be no Scottish referendum on independence. Johnson will block it.

Biden will be more radical and effective than expected, particularly as the Democrats have seized the Senate. I was struck by commentary that he and Nancy Pelosi are determined to make a real impact in the closing chapter of their careers. Climate change and infrastructure (ex-tackling Covid) will lead their agenda. Short of an unexpected crisis, there will be no radical change in foreign policy except repairing the well documented damage of Trump. It will be painful for the UK, however, as it watches the US re-embrace the EU.

Whatever the polls say about the attitudes of Republican voters, Trump is now a busted flush having over-reached himself since Election Day. He will not shape events in 2021 leaving the GOP to sort out what sort of Party they want to be. Bruising attempts to drop many aspects of Trump’s legacy will succeed but not wholly.

Macron will try and seize control of the leadership of Europe ahead of the 2022 Presidential election in France and to take advantage of Merkel stepping down. A close call, but he will not succeed. Germany, and whoever is the next Chancellor, will maintain their dominance.

Lastly, across borders, there will finally be progress in reining in the powers of social media companies. There is a real consensus emerging that the power of the likes of Facebook and Twitter has gone too far. Freedom of speech considerations are no longer the lazy default position they were and require legitimate scrutiny. Governments will gradually assert control; monopolies will be broken and social media companies will ultimately be held to account perhaps through similar responsibilities to those of publishers. As the tide of fake news and attempts to manipulate democratic processes surge, this cannot come soon enough.

Of course, progress in curtailing the pandemic will continue to ‘Trump’ news agendas. But there is one good thing about 2021. At least you can use that phrase without being sadly ironic…

Not my regular style but there is only so much gloom readers can take… In an attempt to end the year positively I had thought I would celebrate a Brexit deal and the imminent defeat of the coronavirus. Oh dear…

But there are still reasons why a contemplative view of 2020 can cheer you up as we look to next year. Here are a few of them:

• Boris Johnson is being found out and Cummings has gone. The unpleasant, extreme libertarian streak is abating in the Tory Party. Experts are back in vogue and Johnson is increasingly seen by his colleagues as ‘the wrong person to be PM at this time’. Vacillating incompetence, an inability to learn from his mistakes and wild exaggerations just don’t work. The view of his backbenchers is ominous for him. He has done his job in seeing off Corbyn but there is a belief that the tragedy of Covid-19 and its eventual aftermath requires a different character and indeed tone from the top. Interestingly, there are also growing mutterings from MPs that to be a Tory doesn’t mean anything anymore as a combination of the virus and the dash to populism to hold on to the ‘Red Wall’ has led to seemingly endless, massive public expenditure pledges. The future looks bright for Rishi Sunak…
• On domestic policies, the issue of homelessness is finally a priority, the perilous state of social care can’t be ignored any longer and the NHS won’t be underfunded for a generation. The only caveat to the latter point is that NHS accountability is not sacrificed. Despite rising wonderfully to the challenges this year, it is far from a perfect organisation.
• Overseas, Trump has been vanquished. However much he rages from the sidelines, he will no longer be POTUS. No more needs to be said.
• Lockdown has sometimes brought the worst out of people – an obsession with shopping and materialism generally still evident at Christmas – but mostly the best. Community initiatives are everywhere to help the more vulnerable. The importance of family across generations has been emphasised, friends are helping struggling friends and employers’ duty of care to their employees is firmly centre stage. Quite right too.
• Lastly and closer to home, in running my modest consultancy, JPES Partners, comprising some 20 people, the team has been exemplary. Working through the pandemic has been challenging as clients seek to maintain their external profile in difficult times through media engagement and homeworking is not the nirvana many talk about, particularly in a people business. When can you leave work behind you when it pours through your computer screen into your home? How can you unravel issues from a distance, particularly if you have rarely met the individuals in person, if at all? But everyone has worked hard, delivered exceptional results and gone the extra mile to make online interaction as smooth as possible. Last Friday, we had our Zoom Christmas Party. Containing an excruciating quiz, bad jokes, and plenty of alcohol delivered to employees’ doors, it lasted over two hours. The occasion flew by. Bearing in mind my antipathy to such things online, what more can be said. That is high praise indeed…

Have a relaxing festive break everybody and look forward to next year with as much optimism as you can muster. At least we can all agree that 2021 cannot come soon enough!

There is no upside to Brexit. The concept of national sovereignty is ephemeral in a global economy awash with pan-national crises. What does it mean in an age of global warming, pandemics, the absolute power of the US and the rising power of China? The answer is very little.

If the UK has issues such as a north-south divide, poor public services, weak infrastructure, fractured relationships with devolved governments, none are solved by leaving the EU. Some are exacerbated.

It is true that ending our membership of the EU will impact immigration and it is also true that the rise in immigrants from Eastern Europe has in some regions occasionally been difficult to absorb, at least culturally. But these individuals often staff our public services, the NHS in particular, work on our farms and pay their way. They will now be replaced more frequently by non-EU immigrants which one doubts was the motivation of Brexit voters.

We were constantly promised that a trade agreement with the EU would be easy, that an ‘oven-ready’ deal was in the offing. Well, another let down from Brexiteers, either by accident or design. Here we are, over 4 years later, scrambling for a last-minute deal. Those supporting Brexit now dominate government. They must own the final outcome, even a disappointing ‘skinny deal’, and there is nowhere for them to hide if we crash out.

There are two outstanding issues. First, fishing rights. These are a red herring since the fishing industry, according to its own figures, represents less than 0.1% of our economy and at least half of British caught fish are exported to the EU anyway.

What really matters is the second issue which is around regulation and state aid. The EU will not let us in to their single market with regulatory or state subsidy advantages. Being on their doorstep is why comparisons with a Canada style deal, which doesn’t give Canada completely tariff and quota-free access to Europe anyway, are erroneous. A level playing field is crucial to the EU dealing with a major economy 21 miles across the English Channel and having a land border with Ireland.

The UK is stuck. One understands that full sovereignty, free from any EU restrictions, ought to be the goal of Brexiteers to make the initial pain of leaving the EU worthwhile. The problem is that such an absolute approach to ‘taking back control’ blocks a trade deal, being contradictory to the principles and political will which drives the European project. You can’t have your cake and eat it to paraphrase a well-known Prime Minister…

The cost and added complexity of achieving that full rupture will be enormous and hasten the UK’s decline. The car industry is already looking fragile with a series of damaging Brexit related announcements this week. The independent Office for Budget Responsibility estimates a no deal Brexit will cost £40 billion and that is on top of previous Brexit and now coronavirus-related losses. Freedom to travel to the EU is to be curtailed. None of the pitfalls of failing to achieve a trade deal were set out during the EU referendum by those promising the sunny uplands of a new arm’s length relationship.

David Cameron and George Osborne were wrong about the economic consequences of leaving the EU only in their timing. Those consequences are now crystallising. One hopes the glib, exaggerated promises of Johnson and the band populists around him will now be seen for what they are and that they pay the price electorally. I am not so sure that will happen, at least not yet, but it is early days…

It has not been a good week for the government, despite vaccine progress. Confusion over the rules splitting the country into new Covid lockdown tiers of varying severity, an embarrassingly large parliamentary revolt over passing the legislation required to implement those new restrictions and then carnage on the high street has piled on the misery. And it is only Wednesday.

There is just the little matter of a no-deal Brexit to sort out and we are done for the week…

Authority is draining from Johnson as disillusionment with his handling of the pandemic grows. He looks exhausted and unhappy. We have had chaos amongst his No. 10 staff, rows with devolved governments and regional majors and U-turns galore. In order to get legislation passed to secure these new tiers of regional restrictions, Johnson was forced to implore his backbenchers in person in the Lobby not to revolt against his plans. 53 Tory MPs ignored him with another 16 apparently abstaining. Only the Labour Party’s abstention saved the day.

Increasing numbers of Tories feel the economic price being paid to suppress Covid is becoming too great. Many of them believe that Johnson and his government are too supply-side driven, overly steered by the needs of a sometimes unaccountable NHS and an ever-growing army of scientists enjoying the media limelight.

Outside Brexit and trying to manage the pandemic, it feels Johnson is lost. He wanted the top job badly but never had a clear idea of what to do with it when he got there. It was why he was so attached to his senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, to fill the vacuum. Now he is gone, Johnson’s only real policy is spending huge sums to ‘level up’ the North versus the South. It must be galling for him to watch his popular chancellor then take the credit for this. You can sense the tension rising.

My Westminster contacts tell me Johnson was widely perceived as a stop gap leader to see off Corbyn and there is no great loyalty to him. Umm…buyers’ regret…? There are rumours Johnson may be ousted within a year as a rejuvenated Labour Party under Keir Starmer scores hits. Apparently, a few letters have already gone into the 1922 Committee, which is the voice of Tory backbenchers, calling for a new leadership election. Incredible, when only a year ago Johnson won a General Election with an 80-seat majority.

Who knows? It still feels too early to get leadership jitters and a vaccine is on its way to hopefully defeat Covid. Perhaps MPs will relax by the Spring. But Johnson is currently on the ropes and is unlikely to fully recover.

Britain’s version of Trump may go the same way as his great supporter. Another blow to populism, because ultimately it is competence that counts, and there will be few tears shed across a good part of the political divide if that happens.

Perhaps this is premature, but I detect a new, or should I say ‘old’ morality creeping back into communications, whether it be in politics or business. It comes to mind as the concept of ‘fake news’ is increasingly being derided and social media, under pressure to bear responsibility for what is published on its platforms, is slowly, too slowly many would say, starting to clean up its act.

But it is more than that. The architects of dishonest communications are starting to disappear or mend their ways because it hasn’t worked. In politics, Trump is shuffling off the presidential stage and, however noisy he may be from the side-lines, he is no longer President and that is enough. I can’t believe I am saying this, but he was a brilliant propagandist. He knew his audience and how to incite them; he also knew how to disrupt mainstream news agendas mainly through Twitter to suit his own ends. The leading news channels regularly fell into his trap of endlessly covering his outrageous, often untrue statements, allowing him to hold centre stage on his own terms.

However, there is a limited shelf-life to this approach. People see through the tricks and tire of the divisive, explosive commentary. Fact checking gets tougher, opinion more polarised and, in the process, you lose the middle ground. More importantly, if you can’t back up your claims with competence and delivery, you are simply left with a vacuum and people see you for who you are. This is Trump. As coronavirus mismanagement grows and he tears up democratic norms in his response to his rejection by voters, an immoral communications strategy becomes self-defeating. What Trump now says, or what is said on his behalf, simply comes across as dishonest, uncaring, and faintly ridiculous, sadly with tragic consequences.

Johnson is no Trump but on communications strategy, he overlaps. Charismatically prone to untruths and exaggerations, certainly he is being held to account by this pandemic. The seriousness of his role and the level of scrutiny he is under has demanded a change of approach in communications because aggression and glib soundbites haven’t worked. Less guff and an ‘us versus them’ attitude to media relations, combined with more transparency is now the name of the game. A new cast of Downing Street advisers will ensure this change of substance and tone.

And so on to business. Much communications resource is currently focused on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues. Companies are increasingly under pressure from investors to demonstrate their credentials on a range of issues from alleviating climate change to improving the diversity and well-being of their work force. Not unnaturally they engage the services of external public relations firms to help them communicate initiatives and policies.

Two major public relations firms, one now out of business, have been accused of a lack of integrity; being reckless in their choice of clients and/or the actions undertaken on their behalf on ESG-related issues. Allegations ranging from hiding corruption in South Africa on the one hand to aggressive ‘greenwashing’ on the other have been made. But they have been found out, proving the advent of ESG applies to the moral standards of those who advise on communications strategy just as much as to underlying clients.

Strong, transparent communications, including the admission of mistakes, now ultimately brings rewards in an era of greater scrutiny. An opposite approach does not. There are no short-cuts on truth to be had without a price being paid. You do what you say and assume you will be held to account for it. Whether it is business or politics, that is good advice worth taking.

At one time, you could have despaired about the absence of a written constitution in the UK. It felt like amateur hour in governance terms. Powers set by vague precedent rather than codified in a single written document allow for all sorts of abuses. Blair’s kitchen cabinet agreeing to go to war in Iraq without proper constitutional oversight is one example. It also allows governments to potentially, almost unnoticed (since the general public are normally bored by such things), change crucial democratic relationships. Relatively recently, we have had Cameron’s casual, tactical agreement to referenda on voting and House of Lords reform to secure a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, admittedly rejected by voters. Then we have subsequently had Johnson’s attack on parliament and the judiciary.

It all seems worrying until we set the absence of a written constitution in the context of the gladiatorial nature of British politics. The PM, despite the power afforded by an overall majority, rarely has it easy in the House of Commons chamber. MPs are increasingly independent, and the public generally gives little credence to government authority. Cock ups are rarely forgotten, and, with a few exceptions, a tough independent media and judiciary mostly keep things in check.

An unwritten constitution also more easily allows for much needed reform to be undertaken where there is at least some consensus, such as the formation of a UK Supreme Court, strengthening of parliamentary Select Committees to hold ministers to account or more controversially, perhaps, fixed term parliaments.

But there is a more important reason why a written constitution is unwise. A codified document would act as a form of higher law and undermine the UK’s representative democracy. Agreement to amend and update such a formal constitution set in stone would be nigh on impossible. It could have the unintended consequences of pushing key, legitimate decisions away from elected politicians. For definitive proof of this, one need look no further than the United States of America.

Oh dear. What was once its shining beacon is now a millstone around its democratic neck and elected representatives end up being by-standers in the face of it, not all of which can be explained by congressional gridlock.

A powerful, written constitution sucks the oxygen out of legitimate democratic debate and decision-making. Healthcare, abortion, the right to bear arms in the face of automatic weapons and mental health criteria, the grotesque abuses of political funding all seem outsourced by the US constitution to a judicial process which is now, with some irony, becoming a substitute for an accountable political process.

So revered is this document, there seems no flexibility to update key parts of it governing elections which is crucial for modern day America. The constitution continues to allow presidents to be chosen by an unrepresentative electoral college rather than the popular vote; for a powerful Senate, unlike the more accountable House of Representatives, to be elected based on all states having two senators regardless of size; for Supreme Court justices to be appointed for life by just the Senate; for an increasingly politicised Supreme Court to wield enormous and growing unaccountable power over crucial areas of public life.

Recent events have brought this home. A Trump presidency, having lost the popular vote in 2016 by three million, and a Republican Senate majority, pushed a highly conservative Supreme Court nominee into place days before a presidential election whilst Obama was denied the same opportunity nine months before the end of his presidency. There is a slew of crucial Supreme Court cases on key areas of policy that will by-pass Congress in the coming months. Then, a currently untroubled constitution allows Biden, with a lead in the popular vote heading towards six million, to be prevented from preparing for his presidency by Trump who refuses to acknowledge the election result. This would be bad at any time but disastrous mid-pandemic.

A written constitution needs reviewing, updating and improving to avoid sclerosis or worse in public life. If its dominance as a single, codified document means it is almost untouchable, particularly in an era of political polarisation, ominous pressures can build with potentially calamitous effects. On balance, in a reasonably well functioning democracy, if you don’t happen to have one, keep it that way.

The first warning that there would be no Democratic blue wave came with the Edison exit poll. 34% of those who had voted cited the economy as their top priority. Management of the coronavirus pandemic limped in third at 18%.

Biden based most of his strategy on the pandemic. Campaigning in a mask at what appeared to be low energy, socially distanced rallies, he bet on Trump self-imploding amongst his raucous supporters. Well, he won so it is hardly relevant to discuss the merits of this strategy, but what is certainly not in dispute is that the polls were badly wrong. Trump and the Republicans generally did much better than expected.

The reason seems largely to have been driven by economic factors. Until the pandemic, activity was booming. Record low unemployment levels, including amongst minorities, resonated as did the attractiveness of tax cuts, even if the bulk went to corporates and the wealthy. After an endless period of stagnation, workers in the lowest quarter of incomes saw wages rise 5% in the first three years of Trump’s presidency. Accusations of Democrat ‘socialism’ in the South also played well and demographic trends are not the ‘get out of jail’ card Democrats thought. They have more work to do with Latino voters, for example, on misconceptions around their policies.

Trump is seen as a non-establishment, highly successful businessman by his supporters, often more diverse than many commentators have assumed. He plays on being the antithesis of a professional politician. In this election, the mishandling of the pandemic might well have been viewed as a surprisingly transitory issue versus Trump’s more permanent, so-called business based economic success.

Trump’s ultimate defeat will rightly be attributed to his polarising personality, which was simply too much in the end. His refusal to accept defeat is a suitable epitaph. Policy-wise, however, the message of this election is more nuanced; Democrats will need to be careful about their longer-term priorities and govern from the centre ground. And what is wrong with that?

America is clearly widely split politically but this blog doesn’t share the gloom of many liberal commentators who believe disruptive Republicans, even Trump himself, could be back with a vengeance, to ruin Biden’s term of office. A Biden victory is a Biden victory. Despite Trump adding three million more votes to his 2016 tally, Biden is at least 3-4% ahead in a record popular vote.

The removal of Trump as the nation’s voice will make a huge difference to the tone of politics and respect for its democratic institutions. Trump and his supporters may well be noisy from the side-lines but many Republicans, even right-wing ones, will be glad to see the back of him. And, whilst much of American politics will be gridlocked as usual, there is surely scope for bipartisanship on economic measures to alleviate the impact of coronavirus, infrastructure investment and even some elements of initiatives on climate change. The US may well catch up with Europe on the further integration of ESG factors into broader investment decisions.

Overseas, Biden could re-build relationships with traditional allies, re-join WHO and the Paris Agreement on climate change, participate again in the Iran nuclear deal and at least lower the tone on trade disputes. In Europe, probably to the UK’s detriment on influence generally and a UK/US trade deal in particular, Biden will likely embrace Germany and France first. He likes the EU and will be much less sympathetic to Johnson’s aggressive Brexit stance. No bad thing for the UK in the longer-term.

The Democrats performed relatively poorly in the face of Trump, and America overall is currently deeply and dangerously divided. Biden may well be seen as a transitory figure, but he is not Trump and that may be enough. His collegiate style is right for the times and that alone makes his election victory a much-needed source of optimism.

A strange aspect of US presidential elections is the almost total absence of any detailed policy discussion. Perhaps it is indicative of the checks and balances between Congress and the President, which means the latter has little direct control over domestic policy. Combined with a complete lack of public interest in foreign policy, where presidents have more sway, and there seems a vacuum at the heart of presidential political debate.

Which is a shame as there is so much to discuss. Re-skilling people, whose livelihoods depended on traditional manufacturing and infrastructure investment, are just two key topics which are crucial to reversing America’s decline but get little air time. Then there is the crippling size of the deficit, the future shape of healthcare (still no plan from Trump), or constitutional reform with the appointment of the Supreme Court and funding of politics up for long overdue legitimate debate.

Perhaps it is the inability to often deliver meaningful change which causes voter turn out to be mostly depressingly low in presidential elections. The process just doesn’t seem relevant enough for a lot of ordinary Americans.

So, in this vacuum, such elections usually tend to focus a good deal on character, as the president’s role of being the nation’s conscience and voice comes to the fore. Normally it doesn’t feel enough. It does this time.

And this is why Americans are voting in record numbers.

I watched the brilliant documentary, ‘The Trump Show’, currently airing on the BBC. In three parts, the first two to be frank led me to have a grudging respect for Trump’s chutzpah and indefatigability. In many respects you can see why his showmanship and bling attracts. But charisma on its own rarely makes good politics and can be downright dangerous. This has blatantly been the case over the past four years.

It comes screamingly home in the third part of the BBC documentary. It lifts the lid on current White House travails and provides conclusive proof of the awfulness of this President, his weird family and dodgy associates. Trump has reinvented himself as an anti-abortion, evangelical pushing extreme conservatives to the Supreme Court when many across the political spectrum, including those who have worked with him, believe he is simply a narcissistic liar with no moral or political compass. Covid is being dismissed because it gets in the way of his re-election; tax cuts go predominantly to the rich to fuel debt-driven economic growth surely unsustainable in the longer term; dictators are embraced because they are ‘strong’. There appears to be no empathy for the treatment of black people when divisions on race threaten the fabric of the country and there seems little empathy for the very people who voted for him. Trump likes the adoration of many of the core, non-college educated white voters but has not done much for them. He undermines the legitimacy of America’s democratic institutions and a free media. He denies science generally and evidence of climate change in particular. Externally, he ignores most democratically elected allies in favour of dictatorships and pulls America off the world stage, leaving it to the Chinese.

‘Make America Great Again’ has suffered shrinkage.

To be fair, Trump is on to something when he highlights the hypocrisy of the political class and extreme identity politics which has ignored the concerns of many core voters. Trumpism won’t disappear easily with the defeat of Trump until some of these issues are addressed and Democrats should take note. There is also a huge role for a free-market, smaller state, smaller deficit Republican Party to flourish. Political discourse needs to improve across the spectrum.

But first, to make any headway, this election needs to address the issue of character.

In challenging Trump, Joe Biden may be a somewhat elderly, old-school politician; but he is almost certainly a decent, moderate man who palpably cares about the things his opponent doesn’t. In this respect, he marks a sharp contrast and is perhaps a little more than ‘anybody but Trump’. His first job is simply to be a ‘healer-in-chief’ whilst the next generation of Democrats create policies that resonate. In achieving this, one hopes that his allies, and Kamala Harris in particular, can steer the Democrats back to the centre-ground where all future elections will be won.

Meanwhile, as Biden said recently: ‘character, compassion and decency are on the ballot’. You can’t put it more succinctly than that. It should be enough to defeat Trump and deliver Biden victory. One sincerely hopes so.

For those too young to remember the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), it was a managed European currency exchange rate the UK decided to participate in alongside the introduction of the Euro. The UK was humiliatingly forced out on ‘Black Wednesday’ as it is known, 16 September 1992, as it couldn’t maintain the value of Sterling above the lower limit for participation, despite panicky huge increases in interest rates. It cost John Major’s government billions and its reputation for economic credibility. It never regained its feet and, as we know, a resurgent Labour Party under a new leader won a landslide victory five years later.

Is this Boris Johnson’s ERM moment? Quite possibly. The charge sheet against his government grows ever longer. There is no point going through past mistakes made in managing the Covid-19 pandemic. An uncomfortable public enquiry strung out over the coming years will no doubt cover these in gruesome detail, but current avoidable missteps on further regional lockdowns multiply. How has he lost the support of devolved governments and local mayors so comprehensively? To fail to build a coalition against the coronavirus because of ministers’ confrontational, non-inclusive style (note Cummings’ malign pervasive influence) is unforgiveable. Endless confusing, sometimes wholly illogical, local restrictions are causing enormous resentment. Focused mainly on the North, they are destroying the Conservative Party’s ‘red wall’ majority for a future election as hardships seems to pile up more on this relatively disadvantaged region than the prosperous South. Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester’s Labour mayor, may have over-played his hand a little but his words of treating the people of Greater Manchester as ‘canaries in a coal mine for an experimental regional lockdown strategy’ resonate and the government, in failing to agree an economic support package by a mere £5 million, looks mean spirited at best. A further tier two Covid relief package cannot come soon enough.

The last Prime Minister to be accused specifically of such regional vandalism was Margaret Thatcher in introducing the hugely unpopular local government poll tax first in Scotland, and we know what subsequently happened to the Tories there…

Then there is also the slowly growing resurgence of the Labour Party under its new leader, Keir Starmer. He outperforms the under-briefed Johnson most times at PMQs and his line of attack on asking for a sharp, comprehensive, ‘circuit-breaking’, full national lockdown rather than limited regional ones for which there is no effective exit, is a powerful line of attack.

A Sky News poll this week cites 67% support for a national circuit-breaking lockdown strategy with 61% of voters not trusting Johnson to make the right decisions on the virus. Starmer is now ahead of Johnson in the polls as a credible PM and Labour are level pegging overall in the national polls, the Tories having surrendered their 10% plus lead.

Then, if all this wasn’t enough, there is the scenario of a no-deal Brexit. Bearing in mind the only thing which separates the EU and UK is fisheries policy and state aid, a deal is still expected as it is in both parties’ interest to achieve one, but again the government’s stance is confrontational and unpleasant as it moots breaking international law. The economic consequences of an aggressive Brexit on top of the coronavirus impact are incalculable.

The public very early on are starting to have had enough of the style and substance of this government. The tone of Johnson’s administration is ugly and its growing incompetence manifest. It is now also undermining the very Northern alliance that helped put it into power. Some events linger long in the memories of voters. When looking back at the next General Election, still four years’ away, many commentators might well judge that this was Johnson’s ERM moment. And deservedly so.

Whatever your political stance, there is no satisfaction to be gained from seeing the current UK (well, English really…) government struggle with Covid-19. It is scary. Johnson and his team have lost the narrative. Over-blown boasts about a world class track and trace system followed by moonshots and constant references to beating the virus have been replaced by fear. Fear that they have lost control of the virus and with it, any semblance of competence. Those views about Johnson not completing a full term as Prime Minister don’t look so outlandish now.

How did this come about? We know this deeply un-Conservative, libertarian government, who decries established institutions and experts, drifted into the pandemic complacently, not treating it seriously enough and loathe to restrict people’s freedoms. The consequences of a failing track and trace and comprehensive nation-wide testing system are sadly self-evident. But the accompanying arrogance of not building bridges with devolved governments and regional mayors in keeping the virus at bay is what is doing for it now.

A reluctance to trust Nicola Sturgeon, for example, is perhaps understandable at any other time but not when confronting a deadly pandemic. This is not a time for party politics but this deeply partisan Johnson/Cummings led government has acted throughout with minimal consultation. Chaotic restrictions were imposed across England and were often inconsistent with what was happening in the devolved regions. Ministers couldn’t even remember what the regional restrictions in England were; one minister incredibly saying during a BBC radio interview that she represented a southern constituency and couldn’t be expected to know all the details of restrictions in the North-East!

Economically, the government has performed better and the recent moves to protect two-thirds of the income of those who lose their jobs through new lockdowns, however tough for those on minimum wages, is at least in line with best practice in continental Europe. But specifically in relation to the science, the government is failing and the economic fall-out alone is too large to repair, possibly for a generation.

The virus is running rampant. Trapped between scientific experts and libertarian backbenchers the government has lurched from Eat Out to Help Out, encouraging people to go to work and opening up the universities to belated sharp national and even sharper regional lockdowns, with SAGE now letting us know it warned a more comprehensive national lockdown was needed 3 weeks ago. Track and trace and comprehensive testing is still woefully inadequate. The government is afraid and Johnson looks haggard. This is not the premiership he hoped for and his style doesn’t work in this environment.

As the Tory Red Wall crumbles in the face of northern city mayors crying foul, the government is belatedly consulting them to spread the blame of further lockdown measures. Both mayors and the devolved regions know necessity means a belated government out-reach to all corners of the country needs meeting half-way as another national lockdown beckons.

But memories are long. One hopes the merits of local democracy and devolved government are a beneficiary of this dreadful chapter, but the origins of the disastrous mismanagement of this virus and the subsequent lack of consultation in managing it will not be forgotten. They lie squarely with Johnson and his government as it has lurched from arrogance to fear.