Boris Johnson is unassailable as Prime Minister — the most potent vote whisperer of modern times
HARTLEPOOL stands like a tombstone on Labour’s grave.
The Midlands is sliding from its cold, dead hands. Wales alone suggests a possible premature burial.
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How much worse can it get? The answer, for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, is much, much worse . . . if he survives.
Boris Johnson is bursting with zest as the most phenomenal vote harvester in recent Tory history.
Against expectations last month, he is unassailable as Prime Minister and Tory leader. Starmer is leading a lost cause.
Now watch as BoJo shakes up his Cabinet next month, waves goodbye to Covid and rides an economic tsunami to election victory in 2022.
Without Ukip to reckon with, he could increase the stunning 80-seat majority he won 18 months ago.
The outlook is rosy. Britain is awash with Covid savings.
'BROKEN FREE'
Companies are sitting on cash piles set aside until Brexit was done.
Global giants are pouring money into UK plc.
No such life-saving goodies are available to Labour.
Once lockdown is lifted, even Nicola Sturgeon’s Tartan Army could be beating a retreat as Tories lay out plans for a stronger, more prosperous United Kingdom.
“Boris has broken free,” says an exuberant Cabinet minister.
“He is no longer tied down like Gulliver. The tent pegs are bursting out of the ground.”
Tomorrow’s Queen’s Speech will be laden with plans for “levelling-up” and “building back” those parts of Britain left to rot by decades of Labour neglect.
Council and parliamentary seats are switching quite sensationally to the Tories for the first time ever.
For all his flaws, people like Boris Johnson. They think his heart is in the right place.
Whatever Starmer says about gold wallpaper and “sleaze”, they believe the PM is doing his best, delivering the goods on vaccines, the NHS, schools and welfare.
Labour MPs need to understand something else: They can’t keep abusing the people they need to vote for their party.
Four out of ten people voted Conservative on Thursday.
SHOW MORE RESPECT
In Labour eyes they are Tory “scum”, an ugly four-letter word that drowns debate, demeans the user and disgusts decent citizens.
Labour uses it to abuse anyone who resists its knee-jerk support for divisive identity politics on race, gender and class.
Few voters want to see political leaders bending the knee, cheering on statue wreckers, censoring free speech or offering unequivocal support to the XR rabble.
Labour needs to show more respect. And after Thursday’s elections, so does the BBC.
Our national broadcaster, bolstered by £5billion of public money, is now identifiably the voice of non-Tory Britain.
As with the Labour Party, its naked bias — born out of Brexit — is exposed by a fast-receding tide.
Nicola Sturgeon’s strident demand for Scottish independence has been seized as a whip to beat the UK Government.
The Beeb raised Sturgeon’s profile with a daily TV update on Covid, blatantly hijacked as a free party political broadcast.
Yet four out of ten Scots backed Brexit in 2016 — more than the number of Scots voting Tory.
After her fallout with ex-hero , recent polls show a sharp slide in support for independence.
POWERFUL SONG TO SING
Despite retaining power on Thursday, Sturgeon failed to win the outright majority required to demand a second referendum.
All of which raises doubts about the strength of support for the Sturgeon agenda.
It would be interesting to know what might have happened if Scots Tory chiefs had not barred Boris Johnson from their campaign.
Boris visited Hartlepool three times and the Tories took the once-safe Labour seat with a 16 per cent swing.
BoJo has a powerful song to sing: The Covid jabs roll-out, the UK-wide furlough safety net, the national hike in the minimum wage.
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True, plenty of Scots hate the sight of him.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
But the PM is the most potent vote whisperer of modern times. Those who loathe him frequently end up as fans.
His presence in Scotland might have won over some vital waverers — enough to put independence on the back-burner for a few more years.
The late, great John Kay
THE late, great John Kay, who died on Friday aged 77, was one of the driving forces behind the success of the super soaraway Sun.
His exclusives drove rival papers mad.
But even the “heavies” – The Times and the Financial Times – admitted they were always copper-bottomed.
In the ultimate accolade for a tabloid journalist, one broadsheet editor announced as another first-edition “belter” landed: “If it’s by John Kay, it’s good enough for me.”