Boris Johnson’s speech: looking to the future if not the present

This was a speech about the future – the New Jerusalem, as the prime minister called his project to “Build Back Better”. It was striking for the scale of its ambition. Boris Johnson pledged to repair social care – that aim that has defeated governments for years – and to transform technical education. He vowed to create “green collar jobs” and repeated the manifesto theme of rescuing those parts of Britain that feel left behind.

Johnson looks to the future, but not the present 

However, he avoided the toughest elements of the present, including the rise in unemployment that is surely now beginning, a winter in which many businesses will close, and the scale of the repair to public finances and what that will mean for tax rises and manifesto promises. His chancellor will have to tackle those in the spring. And while home ownership and building got an enthusiastic mention, education was in there only briskly, with more emphasis on technical skills than on universities. No mention of recent chaos in university admissions and exam results, or the test and trace logistics still badly handicapping the government’s response to the coronavirus. And the union of the UK got pointed but brief reference for all that the question will dominate next year, with the Scottish parliament elections in May.

Johnson seeks to define Conservatism in the age of coronavirus

Most striking, perhaps, was the deliberate attempt to define what it is to be Conservative in the age of coronavirus. The prime minister set out to rebut the charge that a wave of public spending has obliterated the difference between the two main parties, insisting that his government would begin to restore public finances. He laid down a vision for the country that draws on traditional Conservative themes such as the importance of home ownership to a sense of achievement in life. In a combative, long passage on the Labour opposition, he said that Conservatives want to “level up” the country; the opposition wants to level down.

Will this achieve what he wants? For those receptive to the message, his performance may seem evidence that he has, as he claims, regained his “mojo” along with losing 26 pounds. Despite a few verbal flourishes, this was a leaner and more serious version of the prime minister than that a year ago, while clearly aiming to convey the quintessential Johnson vision of the exciting potential of the future. But the verdict will depend on his government’s ability to rise to the country’s most difficult and enduring challenges – and even more than that, on its ability to solve the immediate problems which got only brief mention in this speech.