PM looking ahead, but the public can’t see past next week

Ordinarily, the Westminster bubble would briefly burst for the Prime Minister’s party conference speech. Beamed simultaneously on televisions across the land, the keynote Conservative address is normally guaranteed to transcend Toryville and touch down in the offices and living rooms of Great Britain.

Yet, as Boris Johnson spelt out his long-term vision for the nation to an empty room yesterday, was anyone actually listening?

Consumed by more pressing matters – such as who not to invite for Christmas and how to avoid impending mass unemployment – the country was not fully tuned into the virtual speech.

Which was a shame when it was specifically designed to remind the 43.6 per cent who voted for the Conservatives last December exactly why they backed Boris.

This wasn’t just about Mr Johnson attempting to reclaim his political mojo, describing claims that Covid had robbed him of his characteristic verve as “nonsense”, “self-evident drivel” and “seditious propaganda”.

Employing trademark colourful language about “alien invaders”, “radioactive isotopes” and the “Birdie Dance” it seemed the Honey Monster was back on the Sugar Puffs – albeit a low-calorie version, after shedding 26lb.

This was also a stab at spreading a sense of optimism for the future, like in 1942 when, as the Prime Minister admitted: “Just about everything had gone wrong.”

It seemed the Honey Monster was back on the Sugar Puffs – albeit a low-calorie version, after shedding 26lb

In the depths of the Second World War, he pointed out: “The government sketched out a vision of the post-war new Jerusalem that they wanted to build.

“And that is what we are doing now – in the teeth of this pandemic.”

Trouble is, back then it was Winston Churchill leading the country out of the crisis – and many have been increasingly questioning whether his biographer is up to the job.

Surely the former journalist had not missed all that “gossipy gregariousness” about his own fledgling administration?

Yet there was no faulting his infectious sense of enthusiasm as he reaffirmed now well-worn manifesto pledges involving 48 new hospitals, 50,000 more nurses and 20,000 extra police officers, and so on.

All of the Johnsonian bingo phrases were present and correct – from “levelling up” to fixing the “sclerotic planning system” and “free ports and free trade”.

The blue rinsers will have been delighted that the Government is finally going to tackle the social care crisis, as well as talk of a “dynamic recovery led by free enterprise” and an end to everyone being funded by “Uncle Sugar”. Pride in singing Rule, Britannia! and the condemnation of statue-wreckers trying “to edit our national CV to make it look more politically correct”, will have gone down a storm in the Red Wall.

(One imagines they would have been less enthused by talk of a “green industrial revolution” regardless of the veritable merits of making the UK the “Saudi Arabia of wind”).

But the problem was, the small statist rhetoric appeared completely at odds with every policy that the Government has implemented

‘He’s trying to be upbeat but he can’t be his normal buoyant self because of the crisis the country is facing’

since March. As one Tory MP put it afterwards: “The overall messaging is confusing.

“We’ve got (Chancellor) Rishi (Sunak) saying we are going to use the full might of the state and the Prime Minister saying: ‘No we’re not.’ ”

Backbenchers were quick to note that while Mr Johnson was keen to take on the Labour Party for wanting to keep people in “suspended animation” on furlough, blocking home ownership, failing to defend the Union and persecuting Northern Ireland veterans – there was no specific reference to Sir Keir Starmer.

Jeremy Corbyn had been a key attack line for Mr Johnson – but it’s clearly going to be difficult to persuade the public that the “Lefty lawyer” is anywhere as mad or bad as the MP for Islington North.

As another Conservative added: “The speech reflected the impossible position Boris finds himself in.

“He’s in the middle of this ongoing debate about whether or not we’ve got it right – with one group of scientists saying: ‘Lockdown!’, and the others saying: ‘Learn to live with it!’ And he’s in the middle of a similar row in Cabinet.

“He’s trying to be upbeat but he can’t be his normal buoyant self because of the crisis the country is facing. He would argue that his speech had to be more forward thinking because he addresses the coronavirus issue every day.

“He wanted to lift heads to see the horizon. The trouble is, the public can’t see further than next week. They can’t make any plans. They’re in a state of perpetual limbo.

“He does need to give people a sense that things are going to get better.”

Looking forward as far as 2030, the Prime Minister’s speech suggests he thinks his leadership will be judged on what happens in the future.

Yet there are many more who believe the success of his premiership rests entirely on the present.