Boris Johnson is jetting off to the US to live the dream – but his euphoria will be short-lived

As he sat back for take-off en route to America, who would be surprised if the thought consuming Boris Johnson’s mind was: “This is a bit more like it.”

At last, 26 months after getting elected as prime minister, the job is starting to look like what he dreamed of as a child when he declared his ambition to be “world king”.

His very own plane, newly repainted in Union Jack livery! The centre of attention as he leads the fight to save the world from climate change! Charming TV hosts with that Hugh Grant schtick that the Americans love so much! And a coveted date at the White House, where he can barely fail to shine alongside bumbling old Joe Biden!

Back home, he must feel master of all he surveys, after a reshuffle in which he felt free to sack anyone he chose (well, anyone but Rishi Sunak) and an opposition still floundering for a way to make a dent in his vaccine-fuelled popularity. Elsewhere in the world, he’s sticking it to the French with a crafty deal on Aussie subs and sending a fleet of gunships to the south Pacific. Soon he’ll even have a yacht (even if not, strictly speaking, a royal one).

That’s what being prime minister is all about. Global Britain. The buccaneering spirit. Not sitting around a conference table in Brussels haggling with bureaucrats about fish.

Covid has cramped Boris Johnson’s style perhaps more than any other politician. He is visibly uncomfortable delivering gloomy forecasts and stern instructions alongside his scientific advisers. He never envisaged spending his premiership hunkered down in No 10 and delivering his speeches by Zoom.

His talent has always been to bring a bit of fun and a sense of optimism into public life. His vision of Brexit (unlike that of many Leave voters) was not about retreating into self-sufficient isolation, but getting out into the world to find new friends and partners.

It may be, however, that Mr Johnson’s euphoria about the expansive new future ahead of him lasts no longer than the duration of the flight to JFK airport.

His last speech to the UN General Assembly in New York, addressing the regulation of new technologies in 2019, fell flat before an audience of unsmiling diplomats baffled by his flights of fancy about “mattresses monitoring your nightmares” and “pink-eyed AI terminators sent back from the future to cull the human race”.

With little more than a month to go until his premiership-defining hosting of the Cop26 climate change summit, he looks unlikely to secure much progress on carbon emissions in New York from China and others, who are distinctly unimpressed by his savage cuts to UK overseas aid.

And when he gets to Washington, there will be no more vague warm words from Mr Biden about the US trade deal which was once the bright shining prize of Brexit, but instead, a firm reminder not to mess up the peace process in Northern Ireland with his Brussels sausage war.

On his return, he faces a perilous winter for the NHS with Covid stubbornly refusing to go away; empty shelves for lack of lorry drivers, shipping containers and fertiliser; and the prospect of a painful financial hit to millions of the country’s poorest families with furlough ending a £20 cut to universal credit.

When he next ventures abroad, he will find that withdrawal from the EU has diminished the UK’s attraction as a partner and that any deals he can strike will add only tiny fractions of a percentage point to the GDP lost as a result of Brexit. The disruption is far from over, with onerous bureaucracy at the borders deferred but still due to be introduced. Over the Channel, he has some serious bridges to build with the UK’s closest European defence ally, France, amid fury over the “betrayal” of the Aukus submarine deal.

The next few days will be a high point for the prime minister. But if he casts his eye a little further into the future, he will realise he should enjoy them while he can.

Yours,

Andrew Woodcock

Political Editor