Happy anniversary, Prime Minister. Now get Britain moving!

BORIS JOHNSON deserves congratulations as he approaches the first anniversary of taking office as Prime Minister this coming Friday. He cut through the indecision and chaos that had reduced the Tory Party to powerlessness, and then he won a thumping majority after a crisp and competent Election campaign.

Since then he has endured serious illness and what is probably the biggest peacetime crisis the modern world, including this country, has ever faced. It would be churlish and unfair to deny him a quiet moment of satisfaction and praise for his undoubted achievements.

But, as many other political leaders have found, past successes quickly fade from the minds of the voters. Unplanned events arrive in bewildering succession, demanding urgent action. Those who try to rest on their laurels find they make an uncomfortable bed.

What matters most is what happens now. And above all, we have to get the economy going again so that it can cope with the inevitable autumn gales it faces. Even Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s amazing generosity with the national debit card cannot last for ever.

By the end of September, many businesses and individuals will be facing hard, unavoidable truths.

It is the job of government to ensure that the damage is reduced to a minimum. For that to happen, the nation must now get back to work. But it is plainly not doing so, judging by the state of the roads, of public transport and of the formerly bustling business centres of the country.

Mr Johnson’s first effort to encourage a ‘ return to normality’ was instantly torpedoed by his own Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance.

Is it asking too much of the Government – which gives the impression of control-freakery in some matters – that it manages to avoid such obvious pileups in future, through a bit of advance consultation?

There is almost nothing more important than sustaining our nat i o nal wealt h. Even t he National Health Service relies on it to function. And words and actions can make a great deal of difference.

After the initial joy and relief of the reopening of restaurants, pubs, hairdressers and ‘ nonessential’ shops, there is still a clear public reluctance to venture out, let alone to resume pre-lockdown work habits.

Let us be plain. Huge issues are involved here. The real risk of unemployment hangs over incalculable numbers of homes and families. The school and university education of tens of thousands of young people is in tatters with no real sign that it will resume any time soon. Large chunks of the economy are withered or blocked by lack of business.

The Prime Minister used the power and authority of his office to achieve an astonishingly high level of voluntary compliance with the stringent and irksome rules of lockdown. This shows that he has the ability to lead and the British people are ready to be led when a good case is made.

So the moment of congratulation must be brief. The price of failure, always lurking in the background, is that it will eventually bring Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party to power – which despite his Blairite spin would mean a government fiercely woke, and committed to high taxation and deepening state interference.

Let Boris’s first anniversary also signal a national reset, a united co-ordinated devotion by a joined-up government, to the single goal of setting the country going again. Boldness, confidence and decisiveness have never been more badly needed. But we know he can do this.