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When Boris Johnson won his majority, most Tories believed he could unite a country bitterly divided by Brexit. Now, they fear his style of governing is eroding trust in the party and that Brand Boris has gone from affable optimist to incompetent bully https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
Of course, the focus for this has been the handling of the pandemic and the extent to which is has knocked Boris off his stride in terms of levelling up, cementing the red wall and strengthening the Union. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
Former cab minister: "They have managed to enrage the leadership in Scotland & Wales while picking largely pointless fights with mayors of major cities where Conservatives historically don't do well. It's a strange way of going about uniting the country." https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
It’s hard to deny that Brand Boris has taken a hit. “You see dramatic drop-offs in people who think he is likeable and trustworthy since the start of the pandemic. He now lags behind Starmer on almost all of those metrics” says @chriscurtis94 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
The dip in trust is of particular concern when you consider the Tory focus on winning over former Labour voters. There is very real concern that the Burnham and Rashford fights have given oxygen to long-held assumptions about Tories https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
"People will remember that the gvt didn't seem to care if children went hungry over Christmas during an economic crisis .. It feeds into a narrative which still exists that Conservatives ultimately don't care as much about poor people” says @LaurenMaeve https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
On Rashford, observers are baffled that the gvt are having this fight again having lost it already in the summer. "This government is like that GIF where Sideshow Bob keeps stepping on the same rakes and whacking himself in the face," says @robfordmancs https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
Which brings us back to competence question. "From the start, this gvt set out to hyper-centralize everything from no10 ... a small group of people are making decisions in areas they might not be experts,” says a former cabinet minister https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
A government minister defended all of this, saying that the fact is most major policy has been about investment in skills and that despite pressre, Boris didn’t go for austerity 2.0. They point out also that Tories still lead the polls https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
Tl;dr: the big fear is that Boris set a precedent with Cummings for handling problems by cock up, not apologising and going on the attack. Fairly on unfairly, that is starting to sink in with people https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/24/uk/boris-johnson-reputation-intl-gbr/index.html
