Getting Boris Johnson Right

As we prepare for a decidedly non-Singaporean Budget, Boris Johnson knows that, when it comes to tipping the balance, then his appeal has always been to very left-wing voters indeed.

Johnson first became and then remained Mayor of London, against Ken Livingstone on both occasions, by taking the votes of enough people who must have voted for Livingstone twice.

In 2000, Livingstone had stood against an official Labour candidate and with the backing of an alliance of Trotskyist organisations, in what was probably the most successful Trotskyist intervention in electoral politics ever to have been staged anywhere in the world.

Yet eight years later, and again four years after that, many of those same voters preferred Johnson to Livingstone. And now, Johnson has an overall majority as Prime Minister because of the votes of people who had voted for Jeremy Corbyn in 2017, and who would have done so again if it had not been for the Brexit that will not be an issue in 2024.

Although the Conservative Right has always known that he was not one of its own, it did make him Leader, also on the single issue of Brexit. But that was then, and this is now. If they did not like him in 2024, then they could always vote for Keir Starmer. Somebody really should.

But here along the old Red Wall, we have not exchanged one one-party state for another. Ours is the 2020 Vision of a new political party, a new think tank, a new weekly newspaper, a new monthly cultural review, a new quarterly academic journal, and so much else besides.

I will be standing for Parliament again here at North West Durham next time, so please give generously. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.