COVID-19 can’t diminish Johnson
News this week that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had been admitted to intensive care due to complications from COVID-19 was a stark reminder that the virus is indiscriminate. Johnson’s frenetic prime ministership, including of course a decisive victory in last year’s elections, has often seemed to be marked by a combination of personal will and an elevated sense of history. That he found himself debilitated by the coronavirus is a sign that no one is impervious to its effects. Fortunately, he left intensive care on Thursday evening, but remained under observation in hospital.
There’s been a tendency in a lot of Western media to lump Johnson in with Donald Trump. They’ve both had unconventional rises to their current positions, multiple wives, healthy doses of self- confidence, and large mops of blond hair. But the comparisons basically end there. Johnson, unlike President Trump, is a genuine intellectual who is curious, capable and learned.
One of the clearest differences is how they approach conservatism as an intellectual and political project. Trump’s contribution to conservatism has been mostly about breaking crockery. He’s been much more interested in dismantling conservative precepts than building new ones. Johnson, by contrast, has sought to re-energize conservatism by revisiting some of its basic assumptions and constructing a conservative agenda for the modern age.
Johnson’s conservatism hasn’t been a full repudiation of Thatcherism and its commitments to markets and economic freedom. But it has involved a recognition that in 2020 the challenges facing our societies are less about sclerotic government or excessive trade unionism and more about regional economic disparity and hyper competition in the globalized economy.
The Johnson- led Conservative party’s recent election manifesto therefore looked quite different than previous ones. Its appeal to the so-called “Workington man” — non- Conservative, working- class males in England’s northern towns — was reflected not just in Brexit but also in major new infrastructure spending, increased resources for the National Health Service, regional development initiatives, and an ambitious role for government in basic research and innovation.
These deviations from conservative orthodoxy certainly provoked criticism in libertarian circles. But the outcome was a massive election landslide fuelled in large part by major gains in long- held Labour ridings. It has been rightly interpreted in no small part as an affirmation of Johnson’s brand of “One Nation Conservatism.”
Fundamental to his political agenda is a positive, forward-looking vision. This isn’t the “American carnage” of Trump’s first inaugural speech. Johnson’s conservatism is in the service of aspiration and dynamism. His ultimate goal is to “unleash Britain’s potential” rather than restore it to a nostalgic past.
This vision and message reflects another part of Johnson’s appeal: he’s a happy warrior. There’s a long list of accounts of his eccentricities, humour and penchant for self- effacement. Some of this is no doubt a shtick that Johnson has carefully crafted since his university days as well- known writer and former classmate Andrew Sullivan has observed. But that doesn’t make his “blundering brilliance” any less charming or effective.
It’s these combinations of political insights and personality traits that have arguably made Johnson the most interesting political leader in the Western world. It’s notable, for instance, that conservatives in Canada, the United States and elsewhere have increasingly come to see him as a model for conservative leadership.
There are, in my view, three takeaways from the Johnsonian model.
The first is that conservatism isn’t just a static set of policy prescriptions that apply in every circumstance. It’s a collection of insights and principles that must be dynamically applied to new and emerging issues. Successful conservative governance requires modernizing the conservative policy agenda to reflect presentday challenges.
The second is that conservatives should be aspirational, confident, and forward looking. Conservative parties can eke out election wins through wedge politics and negative campaigning. But big, realignment elections occur when voters are affirmatively drawn to conservative ideas.
And the third is about authenticity. Johnson’s biggest appeal may be that he doesn’t sound like he’s following a focus group- tested script. Conservatives elsewhere should similarly drop the talking points and instead let people into what they actually think.
It was, incidentally, his tendency to post videos from his own phone that gave us a glimpse of the debilitating effects of COVID-19. It was startling to see how it could sap the energy of someone so normally energetic. The subsequent outpouring of support from ordinary Britons has been significant and telling.
Boris Johnson’s political legacy has already been secured. His leading role in Brexit, decisive election victory, and efforts to renew the Conservative party’s policy agenda will cement him as an early 21st- century builder. The coronavirus, no matter what, cannot take these things away from him.