Britain | Boris Johnson

Competence matters, and Johnson hasn’t got it

Support for the government remains strong, but it has gained a dangerous reputation for incompetence

|BARNARD CASTLE

“I THOUGHT BORIS had a bit more authority about him,” says Rob Westley, a teacher. Mr Westley voted Conservative for the first time in the election last December but now he’s unsure who he would go for. The prime minister, he reckons, was too slow to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, and the exam-results mess created misery for his students. “He fluffed it,” he says. Leanne Rooney, a waitress, also voted Conservative for the first time last year, and is also having second thoughts. “I did like Boris’s ideas, but now I question his leadership,” she says. “He has been so flippant, and you can’t have that in a pandemic.”

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Could do better”

America’s ugly election: How bad could it get?

From the September 5th 2020 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

Discover more

Greg Jackson, chief executive officer of Octopus Energy Ltd.

The battles of Greg Jackson, Britain’s clean-energy disruptor

The boss of Octopus Energy wants to change the way the world uses electricity 

Boris Johnson speaking at an event in New York

Blighty newsletter: What British politicians really earn on the side


Flowers at headstone that marks the mass grave of fallen Jacobite soldiers of the clan Fraser.

A search for roots is behind a surge in Scottish tourism

Americans are especially keen on their Caledonian ancestry


And the prize for the oddest book title goes to…

The literary world’s least-coveted award is announced

How lucrative are MPs’ second jobs?

We crunch the numbers on their earnings from media gigs

Britain’s electric-car roll-out is hitting speed bumps

Some clumsy EV targets will probably get revised. After that, the road should get smoother