The Guardian (July 7)
“When this nightmare is over – and it is over for Boris Johnson, but not yet for the rest of us – the Conservative party owes this country a grovelling apology. It should hang its head in shame for foisting on us a man so wholly unfit for office that he had to be dragged from it kicking and screaming and threatening to burn everything to the ground.”
Tags: Apology, Conservative, Dragged, Johnson, Kicking, Nightmare, Screaming, Shame, Threatening, Unfit
London Times (December 20)
“Although Boris Johnson is unlikely to impose further restrictions before Christmas,” anything is possible thereafter. “A full lockdown is not off the table.” Modelling suggests hospital admissions will soar beyond 3,000, possibly reaching 10,000 per day in England, a number “far higher than January’s peak of 4,000.”
Tags: Christmas, England, Hospital admissions, January, Johnson, Lockdown, Modelling, Peak, Restrictions
Guardian (February 10)
“Across the UK, firms and consumers are discovering costs of Brexit that Mr Johnson denied. That denial was born of a failure to understand the trade-off between regulatory autonomy and market access. The prime minister swapped seamless trade for notional sovereignty and passed the cost on to unsuspecting businesses. Naturally, he wants to blame the EU for any pain. These are not teething troubles in implementation of the deal. They are the deal.”
Tags: Blame, Brexit, Consumers, Costs, Denial, EU, Failure, Firms, Johnson, Market access, Regulatory autonomy, Seamless trade, Sovereignty, Trade-off, UK
Reuters (December 13)
“A final Brexit without a trade deal would damage the economies of Europe, send shockwaves through financial markets, snarl borders and sow chaos through the delicate supply chains across Europe and beyond.” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed to extend talks beyond Sunday. “With a succession of deadlines missed, time is now critically short.”
Tags: Borders Chaos, Brexit, Damage, Europe, Financial markets, Johnson, Leyen, Shockwaves, Supply chains, Trade deal, UK
CNN (December 7)
“With days left to reach a trade deal with the European Union, the stakes have never been higher.” Boris Johnson “will have to decide whether sticking to his guns on national sovereignty… makes real-world sense given the economic price the United Kingdom will pay if negotiations fail.” In a no-deal exit “UK companies, already reeling from the pandemic, would lose tariff-free, quota-free access to a market of 450 million consumers that is currently the destination for 43% of British exports.”
Tags: Access, Consumers, EU, Johnson, Market, Negotiations, No-deal, Pandemic, Quotas, Sovereignty, Stakes, Tariffs, Trade, UK
CNN (November 10)
“Johnson has mismanaged Covid, Brexit and the economy. Now his inner circle is falling out…. The political storm surrounding Johnson and his team of advisers broke on the same day that the UK’s coronavirus death toll passed the eyewatering 50,000 figure.” The shakeup could signal an eventual concession to the EU on Brexit as “the simplest route to a breakthrough that would lead to a deal.”
Tags: Advisers, Breakthrough, Brexit, Concession, Covid, Death toll, Economy, EU, Johnson, Mismanaged, Political storm, UK
The Scotsman (November 8)
“It is clear that the four-nations approach that the UK government pursed at the start of the pandemic has been replaced with something far less constructive. If Mr Johnson baulks at the suggestion that he is starting to look more like a Prime Minister of England than the UK, then he should really stop acting like one.”
Tags: Baulks, Constructive, England, Four nations, Government, Johnson, Pandemic, Prime minister, UK
The Economist (October 17)
“The prime minister’s election victory in December ought to have banished the memory of Theresa May’s hobbled premiership and rendered him dominant,” but he now bears “than a passing resemblance to his predecessor.” The first COVID-19 “wave cost Mr Johnson a great deal of his political capital. If the government’s record does not improve, the second could exhaust it.”
Tags: COVID-19, Election, Exhaust, Hobbled, Johnson, May, Political capital, Predecessor, Premiership, Prime minister, Resemblance
The Guardian (September 25)
“It doesn’t take an Einstein to observe the folly of Johnson doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. Delaying inevitable tougher rules will likely do what it did before. Prolonging the pandemic worsens the economy as well as the roll-call of death and serious long-term Covid illness. But nothing in Johnson’s reckless life suggests any precautionary DNA in his selfish genes.”
Tags: Covid, Death, Delaying, Economy, Einstein, Folly, Illness, Inevitable, Johnson, Pandemic, Prolonging, Reckless, Selfish, UK
The Guardian (June 3)
Covid-19 has not given Boris Johnson “the Churchillian moment that he imagined. It has proved too big for him.” Both “personally and politically, Johnson has had a bad pandemic. This is not what he thought being prime minister would be like.” At this point, Johnson just wants to wash his hands of Covid-19 and “get back to being the leader of Brexit Britain.”
