Britain signals an about-turn on immigration

AS THE TORY leadership election hobbled on, the London Evening Standard hoped that Boris Johnson would prove a “big-hearted, optimistic, liberal” leader. They expected that as prime minister he would reassure millions of socially liberal voters who backed Remain. Yet in his nearly two months in Downing Street, the liberal Mr Johnson has been absent. His authoritarian alter-ego has stolen the show by suspending Parliament, ditching plans to abandon short prison sentences and delivering a speech in front of a phalanx of uniformed coppers. When he droned on for so long that one of them fainted, he didn’t look terribly big-hearted either.