Is Boris Back?

TALKING POLITICS

Catherine Carr

News, News & Politics

4.7 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David and Helen talk to Nick Timothy, former chief of staff in Downing Street under Theresa May, about the future for Boris Johnson's government. Is he now safe from leadership challenges? Can he hold together the coalition that won the 2019 election? Is Keir Starmer the one under pressure? Plus we discuss where the next big destabilising threat to this government might come from: Scotland, Northern Ireland, the EU, China?

Talking Points:

Is Johnson’s political position more secure now?

If the government can end on a high note with the vaccine rollout, that might be what people remember.

Boris probably doesn’t want to be an austerity prime minister.

Sunak wants to get the economy moving and send some signals to the market that there’s fiscal responsibility.
Sunak may also want to create a fiscal dividing line with Labour.
But without financial market pressure, it’s hard to see how Sunak is going to win this argument about fiscal probity.
Political reality, and new voters, may push the Tories toward more spending against the instincts of many MPs.

Starmer still faces serious structural problems: Labour is in trouble in Scotland and the increasing importance of cultural issues create problems for Labour in the Red Wall.

Although the government has made mistakes with the pandemic, public opinion has been fairly understanding.
Starmer hasn’t really been able to talk about anything other than the pandemic.

Who is in the biggest trouble in Scotland?

Johnson faces big issues around the union, but in terms of electoral outcomes, it’s probably Starmer.
What would happen if a government without an English majority has to act as an English government again due to a crisis?
Johnson is particularly unpopular in Scotland.

The Tories are worried about the union, but there aren’t obvious solutions.

Northern Ireland is at the center of these problems.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Further Learning:

And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello my name is David Ronserman and this is Talking Politics. Today Helen and I are
0:11.3	talking with Nick Timothy, Conservative Strategist, former Chief of Staff, to Theresa May, and
0:17.0	we are talking about what comes next for Boris Johnson's government.
0:24.5	Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London Reviewer Books, a literary
0:28.9	magazine full of politics and a political magazine full of literature.
0:33.8	listeners can subscribe at a special rate of just one pound an issue by using URL lrb.me
0:42.0	slash talk. That's lrb.me slash talk.
0:52.8	Nick maybe we should start just with the I suppose obvious question. Boris Johnson's
0:58.4	had a difficult year, we've all had a difficult year. There have been some moments where his
1:02.4	leadership looked like it was not exactly under threat but wobbly at least. We're now
1:07.4	in the vaccine phase of his leadership. Does that mean he is secure in your mind? Do you
1:12.5	think that that period of people being on maneuvers is over?
1:17.1	Well I think he's secure and actually you're probably always was secure while there were
1:21.9	obviously some grumbling about elements of his leadership. I don't really think the
1:26.7	party was ever really in the mood to over three. The guy who won the 80s seat majority and
1:32.6	who they feel could probably win a majority again next time round. Administratively speaking,
1:38.9	the government looks a lot more stable at the moment, both in terms of the nature of
1:42.9	the decision making and the way it presents itself, but actually in terms of the substance.
1:48.6	I think it was Tom McTay grouting in the Atlantic recently he said, I think citing psychologists
1:53.7	like Daniel Kahneman said that what people remember the highs and lows and the endings
1:58.4	of stories and if the government can end on a high note through the vaccine rollout and
2:03.3	mastately tested working then it might be that people don't really remember a lot of
	...

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