Britain | Bagehot

Boris Johnson is reinventing one-nation Conservatism

The phrase doesn’t mean what most Tories think it means

BORIS JOHNSON is well placed to become one of the most powerful prime ministers in modern times. Margaret Thatcher had to contend with a powerful internal opposition of moderate “wets”. Tony Blair had Gordon Brown to deal with. But Mr Johnson has purged the internal opposition and reduced his cabinet colleagues to a pack of poodles. If politics in 2019 was about calculating the strength of parliamentary factions, politics in 2020 and beyond will be about cataloguing the intrigues in the court of King Boris.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “One nation under Boris”

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