This mess looms if Boris Johnson fails any of these 12 key tests – Bernard Ingham

ANYBODY who becomes our Prime Minister automatically inherits the labours of Hercules. But has any post-war incumbent copped a bigger or more daunting list than Boris Johnson?
Boris Johnson has a daunting in-tray, writes Sir Bernard Ingham.Boris Johnson has a daunting in-tray, writes Sir Bernard Ingham.
Boris Johnson has a daunting in-tray, writes Sir Bernard Ingham.

Well, you could argue that Clement Attlee was certainly handed the equivalent of the capture of the Golden Apples of Hesperedes. The country was bankrupt after the Second World War. So his prime – and daunting – task was to secure economic recovery while honouring his pledge to enact a massive programme of social reform that brought the NHS. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the need to contain the Russian bear.

Harold Wilson’s prime labour was, as it were, to capture the Lernaean Hydra, raised for the sole purpose of killing him. His Hydra was prowling in his own party after the Cabinet ended all hope of complementing union power with responsibility by rejecting Barbara Castle’s misnamed White Paper In Place of Strife.

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All he could do was to hold the Hydra at bay before it swallowed his successor Jim Callaghan in the winter of discontent. Which brings us to Margaret Thatcher. I suppose you could say she certainly got landed with Hercules’ twelfth labour – the capture of Cerebus, the three headed, dragon-tailed dog guarding of the gates of the Underworld for which Britain was certainly heading.

Clement Attlee faced many daunting challenges as Britain's post-war premier.Clement Attlee faced many daunting challenges as Britain's post-war premier.
Clement Attlee faced many daunting challenges as Britain's post-war premier.

After 26,000 strikes costing 128m working days lost during the 1970s, the economy was in a total mess, the unions rampant, defeatism rife and consequently nobody expecting much of her. We were doomed.

It took her 11 years – one longer than Hercules’ trials – to consign the enemy within to the political underworld. This was not surprising, given she also had to fight a war to recover the Falkland Islands, cope with the Wets in her own party and stop the EU milking us. In the process she raised Britain’s standing in the world, secured a better relationship with the Soviet Union and did more by argument and persuasion to secure the end of apartheid than the Commonwealth’s obsession with economic sanctions.

But all this pales, if not into insignificance, in the light of Boris Johnson’s labours. I have no difficulty in identifying 12. They are:

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1. Conquer coronavirus and restore something like normality to British life.

Margaret Thatcher faced many daunting challenges as Prime Minister that remain comparable to Boris Johnson's in-tray.Margaret Thatcher faced many daunting challenges as Prime Minister that remain comparable to Boris Johnson's in-tray.
Margaret Thatcher faced many daunting challenges as Prime Minister that remain comparable to Boris Johnson's in-tray.

2. Steadily repair the massive economic and financial damage wrought by the lockdown with a judicious mix of tax rises and spending cuts. There is no free lunch – as the consumers of 100m of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s subsidized meals out must realise.

3. Complete and make a success of Brexit.

4. Hold the UK together in the face of nationalist stupidity that, especially in Scotland, ignores the economic facts of life.

5. Exercise the greater influence that comes with sovereignty to repair the Western Alliance, with the possibility that he may still have to put up with eccentricities of Donald Trump for another four years while Russia and China seek to conquer the world for communism.

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6. Ensure that Britain maintains and keeps up to date its defences to deter predators.

7. Control immigration, not least by identifying to the world the reason for the exodus from parts of Africa and the Middle East – namely, the money-grabbing despots shorn of humanity who keep their people in subjection.

8. Get a grip on law and order: the level and range of crime, the extent to which our children are under siege from drug barons and knife crime are thoroughly alarming.

9. Reform the way the NHS is managed; the present set up has been found wanting and in coping with coronavirus has neglected other serious – and often terminal – health risks.

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10. Overhaul the education system so that it produces rounded citizens instead of far too many wittering snowflakes; and generally reduce obstructive union power.

11. Give us an energy policy that provides security of supply and cleanest power at lowest cost instead of the daft “green” reliance on unreliable renewables.

12. Before trying to reform the Civil Service tell us what Dominic Cummings is seeking to achieve.

These are truly modern labours of Hercules. Coronavirus has shown how much we have been going downhill. The slide must be stopped.

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If by 2025 Britain is resurgent, Boris will be a hero. If not, I shudder to think what the mess will be like.

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James Mitchinson

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