After the jubilee festivities, the PM can no longer rely on British nostalgia

And so the celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s seven decades on the throne has come to an end – and it is easy to see the sense of community that the four days of platinum jubilee events have engendered for many.

Thousands attended Saturday night’s concert, and many more enjoyed street parties across the nation on Sunday as part of the “big jubilee lunch”. There has been plenty of pageantry, not least the procession to Buckingham Palace that was one of the last major events of the weekend.

Such grandeur might not be to everyone’s taste, but there were moments of levity, too. The Queen’s cup of tea with Paddington Bear will have brought a smile to many who watched it – as well as plenty of social media posts about immigration policy, sparked by the appearance of the bear from Peru.

A significant number of people will now be returning to work after the long weekend or the half-term break, including those in parliament. With speculation swirling about the chances of a confidence vote, Boris Johnson might not be looking forward to going back. The boos that greeted the prime minister on Friday while heading into St Paul’s Cathedral are unlikely to have helped his mood – even if his ministers and other supporters have played up the cheers he received.

Parties have been a sore subject for Mr Johnson in recent months, and – discounting the national celebrations this long weekend – he is struggling to “move on” from Partygate, as he has implored the country to do. If the latest polling is anything to go by, the prime minister and his own party may end up paying a price at the ballot box in the by-elections at the end of the month.

Mr Johnson is right that there is work to do – although he is wrong to use that fact to brush off the dissent within his own party and the anger felt by the public. As we have noted, the levelling up bill is due to go before the Commons on Wednesday, but it contains far too few measures that will actually help to remedy the decades of unbalanced development in the UK economy.

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There are also suggestions that Mr Johnson will make a speech on housing policy this week – another area that is in need of reform. Add the pressure of the cost of living crisis into the mix, and there is plenty for him and his ministers to concentrate on.

The jubilee has been an opportunity for many to reflect on 70 years of history, but the government cannot rely on a continuing sense of nostalgia – something that the prime minister is all too fond of doing.

Mr Johnson has nobody to blame but himself for the internal strife within the Conservative Party, so complaints about it being a distraction should be expected to fall on deaf ears. The British public is aware that there are many important issues the government needs to tackle.