North Shropshire by-election result is turning point as voters lose trust in Boris Johnson – The Yorkshire Post says

BORIS JOHNSON only has one option open to him this Christmas after his party’s humiliating defeat in the North Shropshire by-election – and that it is to make the correct calls on Covid, public health and the rollout of booster jabs now Tory MPs, and voters, have turned against him.
By YP Comment
Published 18th Dec 2021, 05:50 BST

Lives and livelihoods are at the mercy of a populist politician who has never been more unpopular – or mistrusted by all – as Britain braces itself for a second successive Christmas in the grip of a global pandemic.

What Boris Johnson’s defeat in North Shropshire means for PM’s future, Tory ‘red wall’ MPs and levelling up – Justine Greening

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But the Conservatives will continue to haemorrhage trust, support and credibility unless the party acknowledges why voters in a farming seat that has returned Tory MPs for over 200 years, and who backed Brexit by a large margin, rejected Mr Johnson and by a margin comparable with past Lib Dem by-election wins in Eastbourne and Christchurch which proved calamitous to Margaret Thatcher and then John Major respectively.

What does the North Shropshire by-election defeat mean for Boris Johnson, pictured leaving 10 Downing Street in the aftermath of the result?What does the North Shropshire by-election defeat mean for Boris Johnson, pictured leaving 10 Downing Street in the aftermath of the result?
What does the North Shropshire by-election defeat mean for Boris Johnson, pictured leaving 10 Downing Street in the aftermath of the result?

And this is because the PM’s trademark bluster no longer masks failures of policy which influenced voters, such as the impact of Brexit trade deals on farmers and the closure of ambulance stations, or the succession of scandals that have emerged since Downing Street tried to ride roughshod over Parliament after Owen Paterson, now the disgraced former MP for North Shropshire, broke lobbying rules.

Double standards that extend to revelations about Downing Street’s lockdown parties last Christmas, and lack of candour over how the refurbishment of Mr Johnson’s flat was funded, every scandal or controversy can be traced back to a premier whose ‘one rule for us, one rule for them’ style of government is now bankrupt. And for PM, in an interview with Sky News, to dismiss talk about his future, or the way he governs, as a non-issue suggests that both he, and his party, do not realise that this breakdown of trust is a turning point for a country that says ‘enough is enough’.

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Related topics:Boris JohnsonMPsBritainDowning Street

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