An (in theory) objective assessment of Boris's legacy

There are few political dramas that quicken the pulse more surely than the defenestration of a divisive prime minister. Even the word 'defenestration' is exciting and you can sense the relish with which political commentators use it even as you hear the sound of most of the nation Googling what it means. But in our highly partisan, tribal world, the response to Boris's demise and the judgement on his and his government's record had largely split into two opposing camps: the Guardian/Labour side, that describes him as essentially the devil incarnate, and the Rees-Mogg/Nadine Dorries wing, who view him as a modern Churchill and cleave to him with an almost inexplicable passion that seems to border on infatuation.

In contrast, what would an objective assessment of his record look like? Taking each of the things he raised in his resignation speech in turn, perhaps something like this.

Vote winner - his first claim was about being a vote winner (largest majority/most votes). This is hard enough to assess in the past, never mind looking to the future. Overall the evidence indicates that he was able to reach voters other Tory politicians couldn't, but the win in 2019 was as much to do with the number of people who didn't want Corbyn in power as the number who did want Johnson. So enemies and allies both overestimate this aspect.

Brexit - there are multiple elements to this. The first is political, getting Brexit done. He broke the parliamentary impasse, partly through a good campaign slogan and partly by making a deal on Northern Ireland he almost certainly knew he was going to have to go back on. Whatever one thinks about that morally, it was successful politically. The second element is winning the Brexit vote, and whether he lied to do so. The £350m on the back of the bus is a red herring. He should have put £200m, because it was true and would have been no less effective. The misleading part economically was saying we would benefit, which in the short to medium term is highly unlikely. International trade allows countries to take advantage of specialisation, which makes both countries better off, and is the reason we are now losing approximately 4% of GDP (trade with the UK's most important partner can't be replaced by arrangements with other nations). In the long term, no one knows how the single market and the necessary alignment of economic and monetary policy will work, so no one can say whether Brexit will make us better off or not. But that's not really the issue anyway, as it was a political project, not an economic one. It's true that we gave up some political sovereignty to be part of the EU, but the misleading element was to frame the EU as equivalent to the Soviet Union from which we were trying to escape. The analogy is wildly inaccurate, but even if you accept it, the 'Russia' equivalent was the UK, France and Germany, in the sense that it was those three countries that mainly set the rules that smaller satellite counties had to follow, not the other way round. But ultimately, Brexit isn't a choice based on rational argument, it's an emotional one about whether you want to be part of the EU club or not. As a country we voted to not be and Boris enacted that choice. So in that sense, Brexit can be seen as an achievement from a leadership point of view.

Pandemic - as I've written elsewhere, it's incredibly difficult to assess the effectiveness of the government's response, and it was a genuinely difficult issue to address. There are some things one can say, however. Firstly, the government did get the vaccine strategy largely right in terms of the UK (though it is misleading to rack it up as a win for Brexit). The furlough scheme was highly interventionist and very successful in saving jobs and so a fairly unambiguous win. The response was politicised to some extent (anti-masks, 'world class' test and trace), but this was limited, and that was a good thing. America shows just how much worse it could have been. The lockdown parties were shocking, but in large part the response to them is a projection of the pain of covid, rather than the behaviour itself. Overall, I'd much rather have been in the UK than many other places, so the government probably did a pretty good job under the circumstances.

Ukraine - an horrendous situation, but one that has played into Boris's strengths and also came at a point where it was advantageous to do the right thing, which the government has done.

Levelling up - this is the dog that didn't bark. It's essentially a Labour policy, that Labour/the Guardian wants to ignore because its hard to disagree with and is ignored by the Rees-Mogg/Nadine Dorries contingent for the same reason. It is a crucially important issue, but it's not at all clear that the response will be effective. In terms of classical economic equilibrium and growth theory, deprived communities should spontaneously level up (low wages attracting investment etc), but they haven't done. The problem with the White Paper is that it provides no theory about why that is the case, and excludes solutions such as increased infrastructure investment, large scale business subsidies and injections of cash through the benefits system/ local tax reductions. Essentially it wants to 'nudge' the system to change, but there's no guarantee that will work, and not enough time to assess whether it has. But it's hard not to laud the ambition, so overall must be a tick in the plus column.

Cutting taxes - this was a stated ambition, though it seemed designed to appeal to a certain wing of the Conservative party rather than being a deeply-held belief (populists generally want to cut taxes and raise spending, two incompatible ambitions). What one can say is that the stated reason, to generate growth, is right wing nonsense. Cutting taxes alongside reducing government spending is essentially neutral in the short term (it just shifts spending from one part of the economy to another) and there is no evidence it leads to long term growth. The Nordic countries have high levels of taxation but also high levels of productivity and growth; the US has low taxation but also high productivity and growth, so the evidence doesn't obviously favour one strategy over the other (wellbeing arguments may do, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion).

So what's the conclusion, is Boris Britain's worst ever Prime Minister or is he the greatest political leader of his generation? The answer partly depends on your political viewpoint, but a neutral judgement is that he was an effective political operator who was undermined by insufficient attention to detail and a cavalier attitude to telling the truth and following rules and conventions. Interestingly, probably the mirror image of his predecessor.