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Boris Johnson’s reputation among conservative members has plummeted to an all-time low, it has emerged, as the party enters its annual conference facing accusations of a “chumocracy” at the top of government.
With Conservative MPs uneasy about the government’s performance, which has seen it lose a huge lead in polls over the Labor Party since the start of the pandemic, the prime minister recorded his first negative satisfaction rating among a poll of Conservative members in the ConservativeHome website. He achieved the second-lowest score of any cabinet member, with only education secretary Gavin Williamson performing worse.
The prime minister will try to use the party’s virtual conference this week to try to relaunch his position as prime minister by looking at the program he wants to pursue beyond the Covid crisis, which has dominated his time in Downing Street.
It comes as his performance has been tested again during a series of regional television interviews, in which he seemed to forget key facts about his hospital spending program and struggled to explain how residents of the north of England should consider local Covid 19 restrictions. That they face. .
Asked how much hospital investment would come to Leeds during an interview with BBC Yorkshire Look northJohnson scrambled to find notes on the floor and asked his assistants for the figure before apologizing for not having it on hand.
He also appeared to have a difficult time explaining the rules in different parts of the Northwest, during another disjointed interview with ITV. Grenada reports. When asked whether or not certain activities were allowed, he suggested that people did not have to strictly follow local lockdown rules as long as they “show common sense.”
When asked if someone in Wirral could take a walk in the park with someone from another home, Johnson said it might be fine as long as they used social distancing. However, the interviewer noted that the social mix between households in the area went against the advice of the government.
Johnson added, “As long as people use common sense and look at local websites, that’s the best way to remove this virus.”
Johnson faces concerns from different wings of his party. While the libertarian wing is increasingly concerned that Covid restrictions remain too severe, figures in the modernizing wing are concerned about radical plans to violate international law regarding the European Union and confront the BBC, an agenda. which they attribute to Johnson’s senior advisor, Dominic Cummings. .
Jesse Norman, a Treasury minister, warned that conservatives should be careful about bringing down institutions. “The difficulty with the revolutionary position is that human beings are notoriously bad at making radical decisions that prove to be wise in the long run,” he told the Bright Blue think tank. “Conservatism also means recognizing that institutions are wiser than individuals. You could look at many institutions and call them relics of a bygone age, or you could see them for what they are, the product of innumerable commitments that contain a great deal of knowledge and wisdom. “
Justine Greening, the former Secretary of Education, writes in the Observer today that many voters still viewed conservatives as “dominated by the voices of privilege and chumocracy, rather than by those representing the party of effort and reward; that protects the vested and wealthy interests that finance the party, before the interests of the public; that too often the roles of government seem distributed according to who knows who, rather than who knows what ”.
However, other top party figures are trying to take a longer-term view. “Looking back at the things we’ve been through in the last 18 months, some of it feels like 18 years ago,” said one minister. “By spring, if Covid looks better, the economy is picking up and the Bond movie is finally ready, things could look very different.”
Johnson’s team is eager to get back to the issues it supported during his first weeks in office, like the “leveling off” agenda. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, has written to Cabinet calling for “bold and ambitious bills” before the Queen’s next speech in the spring.
The program will include a criminal justice bill, a controversial planning bill to accelerate housing development and construction, an animal welfare bill, and a plan to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, a measure which will again give No. 10 control over the upcoming election calendar.
A spokesman for No. 10 said: “The prime minister has made it clear that we will not deviate from our plans to rebuild better, and that is exactly what our next Queen speech will do.”
