Boris is a phenomenon

So what happens next? Not since the War has the Parliamentary opposition been weaker in England. Everyone in the Labour party is now blaming everyone else, but Labour’s problems go deeper than personalities. The party does not know what it believes. Labour MPs fall into three broad groups. There are the Corbynistas, who insist that the British people will eventually come round to Socialism. There is a muddled middle, who are saying to the voters: “how left-wing can we be without alienating you?” Finally, there are those whom we could call Burnhamites, after Andy, the Mayor of Manchester. They want a fundamental re-think – but what would that end up with?

Power is centripetal, opposition centrifugal and that has never been truer than it is now of Labour. There are two parties: socialists and reformers. It could be argued that this has been the case since the late Forties. Twice, formidable electoral politicians – Wilson and Blair – have been able to conceal that, by a mixture of charisma and meretriciousness, but there is no leader in sight who could emulate them. Mr Burnham is too honest.

We are the masters now, said Hartley Shawcross early in the Attlee Government. Boris could now repeat that boast, though this would be unwise. But those of us who have distrusted him, indeed come close to despising him, must now acknowledge that he is master of the battlefield. Victory is his to exploit.

He ought to start by dealing with the decoration degringolade. It seems inconceivable that he has not broken the rules, yet the voters do not appear to care. He could bring the whole business to an end now, with an apology. This might run as follows. “I offer a sincere apology for what has happened, and I take full responsibility. No-one else is to blame. In mitigation, may I make one point. No public money was involved. May I also add an excuse. While this was happening, I was devoting all my energies to making Brexit work and to dealing with the pandemic. As a result, minor matters were neglected. I now intend to renew my concentration on major matters.”

I suspect that this would work, which brings us to the major matters. Leaving aside health, which will figure largely in the Queen’s Speech, and the economy, which appears to be looking after itself, there are three domestic challenges. The first is housing. The Tories are the party of the property-owning democracy, or they are nothing. Thus far, they have survived the blockage of housing aspiration among the young. But morality and electability converge. That cannot be allowed to continue. Planning permission, the use of brown field sites – why are there any of those left in the South-East of England? – every sensible form of boldness should be deployed to increase the supply of housing.

The second target is education, a crucial aspect of levelling up. We must improve standards in schools. This will not be easy to achieve. We cannot just conjure up large numbers of good teachers. But one dramatic measure could be taken. There are about half a million teachers in the state system. Announce that £5 billion is to be made available for an increase in pay (the net cost would be lower, when tax receipts are taken into account). This would not be equally divided. It might amount to £500 a year for a new entrant: £50,000 for an outstanding headmaster. Needless to say, terms and conditions would apply. In exchange, teachers would have to commit themselves to higher standards. Those who fail to shape up would be shipped out.

The rhetorical impact of such a change would be huge. The left-wing teaching unions would denounce it. Labour would not know how to respond and would end up with a blend of carping, cavilling and outright opposition. The electorate would be entirely supportive of the government. Such a change would take time to bear fruit, but it would be easy to claim that ministers had acted decisively. Further aid could be given to the regions which are falling behind. Enterprise zones and new technological universities would bring excitement, even though the economic benefits would take time. Correctly handled, such changes would bring back pride to areas that have suffered. People who feel proud vote Tory, at least in England.

That brings us to the third challenge. Boris should now address a historic failure by the Tory party. Every recent Tory leader, including Margaret Thatcher, is to blame for making a devil’s pact with the Left. Let us have the economy, they said, and we will leave you the arts, the universities and all publicly-funded culture. That was a surrender to the Gramsci-ites and their slow march through the institutions. As the late Frank Johnson put it: “The Left can no longer nationalise companies. Instead, they will nationalise people.” Moreover, as anyone with a grounding in sophisticated Marxism – Gramsci again – would have realised., the lefties would not stop at culture. They would use its commanding heights to attack the economy. The Socialists have not lost their ambitions.

Gramsci and critical race theory are a formidable combination. Every day brings fresh horrors. The attack on Britishness, British history, British heroes: on maleness, on biology and on whiteness is gaining momentum. Where is the counter-attack? Whatever delusions the left-wing cultural apparatchiks may have, the great mass of the British people have not renounced commonsense, or patriotism. They just want leaders who will – lead. Kemi Badenoch is one splendid example of just such a leader. She clearly enjoys a fight, and is good at winning. Her views, and her colour, are a standing provocation to the silliest elements in the Labour Party. The more she expresses her opinions, the angrier they become, and the more damage they do to their party. She needs allies, for it is essential that the Tories should win the culture war. Nor will that be hard to do. They merely have to start fighting it.

Boris should be ready for that. Boris: what an extraordinary figure. He is not a politician. He is a phenomenon. Books have been written about him, plus endless articles. Yet no-one has got his measure. Ten years ago, if anyone had approached a publisher with an idea for a novel predicting Boris’s future as it has happened, he would have been politely told to take it away and add a vast quantity of verisimilitude. Well, Boris has never bothered with verisimilitude. The astonishing act will continue. But there is a possibility which neither he, nor the nation, should dismiss. He might end up by doing the country a lot of good.