BORIS JOHNSON appeared, on the surface at least, super-confident as parliament returned last week to tackle the vast backlog of challenges that Covid-19 has left piled high in ministerial in-trays across Whitehall.
On a visit to a care home in east London, the prime minister cheerfully clasped a mug saying Love Social Care before heading to the House of Commons to make a statement on how he proposed to fund the health and care systems out of the crises in which both are mired. But his characteristic ebullience hid a new determination in government, a new calculation.
The aim was to showcase a prime minister determined to govern, lead and finally tackle head-on the issue that his predecessors David Cameron and Theresa May, and Labour prime ministers before them, had ducked or messed up over previous decades. Politically that was one intended message, the other being that Keir Starmer and Labour still had no plan at all.
“This is Boris saying: I can make myself unpopular to get things done, even if that means breaking promises. The intention is to contrast strength and bravery versus weakness and dithering,” said a former Tory minister.
In advance, and after much prebriefing, the idea of a manifestobusting 1.25 percentage point rise in national insurance (NI) for every worker, to pay for a £12bn ($16.6bn) a-year health and care levy – one that would take public spending to its highest level in peacetime and mean a huge expansion of the size of the state – met with much dismay among the many Conservatives committed to low taxes and smaller government.
Denne historien er fra September 17, 2021-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra September 17, 2021-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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