It was trailed and trumpeted. It was well delivered in the heroic barnstorming style. He likened himself to FDR and his 1930s New Deal. Sadly Boris did not impress many, if any. There was grand rhetoric but next to no money. £5 billion for repairs and stuff and a lot of talk about building. But nothing concrete, forgive the pun. To re-engineer the wrecked British economy and to set it on a completely different path of fully funded public services, higher productivity and earnings, increasing self sufficiency in food and industrial production and all the levelling up promised, will require government investment over not many years of approaching £2trillion.
It is possible that Boris understands this in principle, but is shot to ribbons over his grasp of detail, especially the figures. More importantly, he shoots off his mouth thinking himself a great figure of history, unaware that he is fast on the way to becoming a figure of fun. Critically there is now wide public disbelief in his ability to deliver what he promises and mounting anxiety about his government’s performance. Shocking world beating C-virus death ratios, the continued malfunctioning of test and trace, with the current muddle and confusion surrounding the new local lockdown in Leicester, are but three of a long list of missteps and failures.
Put simply, people no long trust him. If he is to win back their trust, he has to do a lot better. And soon.