Difficult times lie ahead for Boris Johnson and a ‘vaccine selfie’ won’t help him

A year or so ago, Boris Johnson was lying in a bed in St Thomas’ Hospital, across the river from Downing Street, with a serious case of Covid and a worried nation looking on.

As a result of his brush with mortality, he developed a new respect for the National Health Service, as well, probably, as some immunity from re-infection. He did not, though, develop any immunity to political unpopularity, and as the months wore on, the calamities piled up.

Before and after his hospitalisation, the prime minister pressed on with hopelessly overoptimistic promises to “flatten the sombrero” and “send the virus packing”, failed to deliver protective equipment or a serviceable test and trace system, and misjudged lockdown dates.

Meanwhile, his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, infuriated Tory MPs and the public with his attitude and lockdown transgressions, symbolic of perceived hypocrisy and incompetence at the highest levels of government.

The result was one of the highest death rates in Europe and a picture of a premier who had lost what little grip he ever had. The British public had been remarkably willing to give Johnson and his government the benefit of the doubt, but patience was running out by the time of the third lockdown, after Christmas had been cancelled, saved and then cancelled again.

Now look. The prime minister is literally and metaphorically getting a shot in the arm with the Covid vaccine. Rarely can the TV images have been more symbolically powerful.

The success of the vaccine programme, whether it had much to do with him or not, has reflected well on Johnson. His ratings are recovering, at the expense of Keir Starmer and Labour. Dominic Cummings has gone, and the economic support to the economy, so far, has been successful.

Yet politics is a drearily ungrateful business, and some of Johnson’s worst crises may yet be ahead of him. In a couple of years’ time, after a sharp but brief bounce back, a combination of the debt overhang of Covid plus the depressing effects of Brexit could easily land Britain with a slow-growing economy struggling through headwinds of inflation, higher interest rates, tax hikes and public spending cuts. Wages and living standards will, in such a scenario, stagnate miserably. Jobs will be scarcer to come by, and there will be less money about.

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There may be precious little “levelling up”. Towns that looked to Johnson because they felt left behind will be neglected again.

Fairly or not, the voters and Johnson’s party will blame him for the greyness and the austerity as they approach what will be a challenging general election. Worst of all, there will be no simple tonic or antidote for such political weakness. Certainly not a “vaccine selfie”.