Accounts of the 1980s concentrate on Liverpool and on the old coalfield communities, which fell the furthest because they had the furthest to fall. Boris Johnson has built a certain number of bridges with the coalfields (as they remain; the coal is still there), although he does now need to make good on their willingness to take a punt on him.
But he made an enemy of Liverpool a long time ago, and the failure of his party to make any headway there last year showed that that enmity was still very much in force. It is shaping up to be one of the defining feuds of Johnson's political life, and the defining feud of Liverpool's political life for as long as the feud with Margaret Thatcher was.
We all know about people who contrive to be "lovable". Johnson is extremely prickly about anyone who does not buy into his cuddly clown persona. The entire city that he gave cause to see right through that one as long ago as 2004, and which evidently continues to do so, can expect to be punished very hard indeed. And it is being. But it has a particularly strong history of fighting back. Very hard indeed.
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