In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell makes a timely comparison, arguing that fashion trends, publishing sensations, teenage crazes and crime waves are like pandemics. “Ideas and products and messages and behaviour spread just like viruses do,” he writes. Little things can make a big difference and dramatic changes follow from apparently small events. The world “may seem like an immovable, implacable place. It is not. With the slightest push—in just the right place—it can be tipped.”
The same is true of political reputations. Boris Johnson may not have reached the tipping point in his relationship with the voters yet, but that does not mean he will not do so. There are already some signs in the polls that the see-saw on which he is delicately balanced may be starting to rock—and the tipping point could come sooner rather than later.
For now, the prime minister is still reaping the rewards of the successful vaccine rollout programme. Most people rightly think that protecting the nation against Covid-19 is more important than who paid for wallpaper and cushions in the Downing Street flat. But a leader’s fortunes can change dramatically and almost overnight.
Gordon Brown never recovered from his decision not to call an election in 2007. At one level it was a minor switch in strategy, but the disastrous “election that never was” came to symbolise a lack of clear leadership. Theresa May made the opposite mistake and called an election in 2017, then was destroyed when she failed to connect with voters during the campaign. Nick Clegg went from hero to zero in a flash after he broke the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto pledge to oppose a rise in university tuition fees.
In each case, a single thing tapped into a wider shortcoming that resonated with voters and then stuck. Brown’s indecision, May’s lack of emotional intelligence and Clegg’s attempt to be all things to all people were all encapsulated in the tipping point event. The danger for Johnson is that the superficially trivial rows currently swirling around him are symptomatic of his wider faults.
There is a reason why the allegations of “sleaze” have so far not stuck to the prime minister. The voters know he is a rogue, but they see him as a lovable rogue. He may be a bounder and cad but he is their bounder and cad, so they are willing to forgive him more than most politicians. Ahead of the last election, I joined some focus groups that included former Labour voters in the so-called “red wall.” One woman compared Johnson to a monkey, swinging through the trees stealing bananas. These voters saw the prime minister as naughty, mischievous and quite possibly dishonest, but they found him entertaining.
They also thought that he was on their side. Of course, he is not really. Johnson’s defining flaw is that he pitches himself as a man of the people, standing up for the workers, when he is in fact a privileged Old Etonian who is in it for himself. He plays the role of an anti-politician, railing against the Westminster elite, but he is intensely political and motivated by the desire for power. In short, his brand is authenticity but he is a fake.
The underlying bigger truth that links the furore over who paid for the Downing Street refurb and the suggestion that the prime minister said he was willing to see “bodies pile high” rather than impose another lockdown is that Johnson is not what he seems. The deliberately shambolic figure, with messy hair and a chaotic private life, has emerged to be a man who uses gold designer wallpaper and reportedly said he needs to earn £300,000 to “keep his head above water.” The cheery optimist, who promised a “Merrie England” return to the pub, has been made to sound like a cynical opportunist, willing to sacrifice lives.
It may not matter. Johnson has an extraordinary ability to defy political gravity and he has been written off too many times. But the mismatch between perception and reality is potentially lethal for him. There is little substance to his commitment to “levelling up” beyond a few infrastructure projects, and voters will tire of the rhetoric if it is not matched by action. Having declared as a boy that he wanted to be “world king,” Johnson has essentially achieved his ambition in political terms. But it is still not clear what he wants to do with power now that Brexit has been delivered.
According to polling by Opinium Research, there has been a 10 per cent drop since March in the net score on whether the prime minister “has the nation’s best interests at heart." It is telling that almost everybody who has ever worked with Johnson ends up mistrusting him. Dominic Cummings is only the latest former colleague to declare his behavour unethical. The journalist Sonia Purnell, who shared an office with him in Brussels, tweeted after his angry performance at Prime Minister’s Questions last week: “Try being a woman on your own with him like this.”
Alan Duncan, who was his deputy at the Foreign Office, described him as “a clown, a self-centred ego, an embarrassing buffoon, with an untidy mind.”
Max Hastings, his editor at the Daily Telegraph wrote that Johnson “is unfit for national office, because it seems he cares for no interest save his own fame and gratification.” Even Michael Gove, who is now at the prime minister’s right hand, declared less than five years ago that Johnson was “not capable of... leading the party and the country.”
He is neither a kind nor a loyal colleague. Once, many years ago, when I had just started writing a column for the Daily Telegraph, I discussed with him the piece I was planning to write during the Tory Party conference. He was more experienced than me and I wanted his advice. Instead of helping, he snaffled the idea and wrote it the day before my column was due to appear. It was at best thoughtless, and at worst mean. It is a tiny example—but too many people have them. Johnson is careless of others, including his MPs. One former cabinet minister says: “There are multiple plotters crouching behind multiple bushes waiting for the right moment to strike”.
The truth is that support for Johnson is wide but shallow and in Downing Street there is nowhere to hide. Power is like an X-ray into the soul: a leader’s flaws and fractures are exposed. The tipping point, if it comes, will be created by the prime minister himself.