I believe that it was former US President Ronald Reagan who said something along the lines of that when you go into government you have to take with you the people who put you there. By this comment he meant the people who elected the person for high office.

A person who is elected to high office, whether it be the President in a presidential system like that of the USA or as leader of the winning party in a Parliamentary system such as that of the UK, needs to give the people who voted for the what they voted for. Sadly this is not the case for Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. Yes, there have been successes for Boris Johnson, we got Brexit and the Johnson government handled the vaccination programme against Covid extremely well when compared to other nations. The vaccines bought Britain some time before the Covid virus mutated into something less dangerous. We should praise Boris Johnson for these things but there is much that his government needs to be criticised for.

A strong government that did what it said for the voters who voted for it would not be in the sort of mire that Boris Johnson’s government is currently in. The result of the Johnson government’s failures in areas other than Covid vaccines and Brexit has left the government with very few cheerleaders either in Parliament or in the wider country.

This lack of cheerleaders has been noticed by the excellent political writer and SDP supporter Patrick O’Flynn. He’s written about this subject in the Spectator and it makes sobering reading. Mr O’Flynn talked about the enthusiasm that existed for Boris Johnson prior to the 2019 election and how it was enthusiasm from ordinary people not just those in political circles or from political anoraks.

But Boris Johnson as Mr O’Flynn said has not done what he said he would do for the people who elected him. He’s failed to deal with immigration including illegal immigration issues, failed to tackle the left and their culture war and has imposed on Britons the economy destroying, socially punishing and dangerous net zero energy policies.

Mr O’Flynn said:

Recent months have seen little in the way of the UK standing up to the EU in the row over the Northern Ireland Protocol but have seen Lord Frost walk away in frustration over various issues. They have also seen Mr Johnson expend almost no effort to make good on the promise made at the start of his premiership to ‘send back’ irregular arrivals from across the Channel. At one stage in the autumn he pathetically claimed that there was very little he could do unless France was prepared to help out a lot more – the very antithesis of taking back control.

This is despite the issue being the number one concern of the Leave voters who gave him an 80-seat majority (as measured by the weekly YouGov issues poll).

Instead of addressing the collapse of the immigration and asylum systems, Johnson spent the second half of 2021 prioritising the fight against climate change – an issue cited as a top priority by more than twice as many Remain voters as Leave ones.

Mr O’Flynn is correct. Even if you take into account the fact that Boris Johnson had the misfortune to be in charge when the world got hit by a pandemic that challenged every government in the world in some way it is difficult to escape from the fact that he has not helped those who elected him. In fact I would say with regards to the green extremism and the failure to tackle immigration and the problems that this brings that he has made life worse for the people who elected him. Many of those who voted for him, including myself, wanted secure borders, to see the Left put back in their box, to have affordable energy and energy security and to have a society where free speech was a key value. We have got none of that. What’s galling is that Boris Johnson’s policies have made already bad situations worse. Boris Johnson should still have cheerleaders among the public at large the fact that he does not seem to have such cheerleaders is testament to his failure.

I’d like to conclude by stating that there is a way out for Boris that does not involve him having to resign. He could abandon the green extremism, be robust with borders, get fracking for gas and open up modern relatively clean coal fired power stations and invest in nuclear energy. He could also be much more proactive in dealing with the destructive far Left and publicly support freedom of speech. If he did these things then he could be on course for a second term. If he does not then he will be remembered as yet another out of touch nation destroyer.