Boris must stand up for the silent majority

FOLLOWING his brush with death in hospital, the Prime Minister says he’s now ‘as fit as a butcher’s dog’ – demonstrating the point with a few theatrical press-ups on the Downing Street carpet.

Tomorrow, he hopes to use this renewed energy to put a few thousand volts through his flagging Government. And not a moment too soon.

After enjoying sky-high ratings when this crisis began, Boris Johnson and his ministers have been flapping in the wind lately, rather than making the political weather.

Confusion over test and trace, free school meals and the muddle-headed quarantine scheme have contributed to a feeling of drift, which is reflected in the latest polls.

For the first time since he became Tory leader, Mr Johnson is trailing his Labour counterpart on who would make the better PM. Six months after his landslide election victory, this is a worrying reversal.

He hopes to relaunch himself by setting out plans for a multi-billion-pound building and infrastructure revolution to kick-start our battered economy.

Shunning austerity, he pledges to ‘build Britain back to health’, with a focus on levelling up the regions and rebuilding and refurbishing our tired schools.

There are serious questions about where the money for this Corbynesque splurge is coming from and how it will ever be paid back, given that our national debt is already nearing £2trillion. But it is a muchneeded burst of positivity.

There are other problems, however, that the Government must confront just as urgently, if not more.

Most important of these is education. Having been outflanked by cynical teaching unions, ministers have managed to get only token numbers of children back to school.

Mr Johnson rightly plans to make a return in September compulsory for all age groups. The unions, who have already said the plan is ‘pure fantasy’, will resist him all the way.

For the sake of the children – their mental health and social development as well as their education – he must tackle them with all the weapons at his disposal.

Should we really, for example, keep paying teachers who refuse to do their jobs – unless their health is at genuine risk?

Then there is the woeful performance of those who run our police, most of whom seem to have forgotten what their job is.

By pandering to violent demonstrators and statue-topplers, they surrendered control of the streets. The result is that frontline officers have lost authority and are now under almost nightly attack from gangs of hooligans.

Police chiefs need a sharp reminder that their role is to maintain law and order, not genuflect before overtly political movements.

The truth is that this country is engaged in a culture war, in which the Left want to make us ashamed of our country, vilifying anyone – academic, author, politician – who disagrees with their distorted world-view.

These extremists are a shrill minority who must be challenged head-on. On national heritage, law and order, censorship and gender, the moderate majority in this tolerant, hospitable country of ours are being drowned out.

Mr Johnson must give them a voice.