MUST DO BETTER

How the dream job turned into a nightmare for Boris

WHEN Boris Johnson swept into No10 on July 24 last year he promised to defy “the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters”.

Twelve months on, the country has faced more doom and gloom than he could ever have anticipated. And his handling of the Covid-19 crisis, along with his Brexit battles, have made many doubt his abilities in the job.

The early months of his premiership were overshadowed by Brexit.

He suspended Parliament to prevent MPS stopping the UK’S departure from the EU, and kicked 21 Tory MPS out of the party.

Eventually, he signed a Brexit deal with Brussels, but only after agreeing to an effective border down the Irish sea – to the fury of Northern Ireland.

Getting it through Parliament was another matter and so eventually there was a general election. Johnson won a majority of 80, tearing through Labour’s heartlands with a promise to “level up” the country.

As the UK finally left the EU at the end of January, the Prime Minister’s on power seemed set. Next up was a ruthless centralisation of power to No10, which led Chancellor Sajid Javid to resign rather than giving up control of the Treasury.

As ever, Johnson’s private life was eventful. Girlfriend Carrie Symonds became the first unmarried partner to live in the Downing Street flat.

In late February, two months before his divorce from Marina Wheeler was finalised, the couple announced their engagement and the fact she was expecting his sixth child.

As he and Carrie were enjoying a break in the Caribbean, followed by almost two weeks in the stately home Chevening, Covid-19 was spreading its tentacles across the world.

The pandemic changed everything. Patients were discharged from hospitals to care homes without tests, leading to thousands of deaths. More than 300 NHS workers died, as hospigrip tals struggled to get PPE. The PM caught Covid-19 in April and spent three nights in intensive care.

Then the Mirror revealed Dominic Cummings had broken lockdown rules by driving 260 miles to Durham.

Experts believed the UK was too slow to go into lockdown, and there were too many mixed messages.

Government insiders felt the public would forgive mistakes going into the crisis, but not on the way out. The failure to get schools back before the summer holidays, the unreliable “test and trace” and mixed messaging on lockdown have all hit his ratings.

His handling of the economic fallout will be crucial amid fears of mass 1980s-style unemployment.

Although holding the keys to No10 fulfils a lifetime ambition, some Tories think Boris is now miserable.

Some suspect he will not take the Tory party into the next election – with Chancellor Rishi Sunak already waiting on the sidelines.