I think it will be higher taxation - I doubt any government will get away with years of austerity - it will be tough enough

Want to bet? This is a global pandemic, not just bankers playing silly sods with subprime mortgages.

I can already hear the soundbites 10 years down the line - "austerity was necessary".

Austerity round 2 will be very difficult politically for this Conservative government:

Their core vote is now the north/midlands 'red wall' areas which they won in 2019. This is largely a Brexit-voting, socially conservative part of the demographic who bought in to Boris' positivity and vision of Britain's great future after Brexit. I would guess that the general consensus opinion amongst these voters is that this shut down is needless, tens of thousands of people die of flu every year and we don't shut the economy down because of it, they will be angry at the government for shutting everything down and leading to many of them losing their jobs or their businesses going to the wall. A number of right-wing commentators are also stirring them up with this viewpoint. So Boris, who was used to being the flagbearer of the populist opinion on Brexit "the establishment have tried to cheat us out of democracy", is going to have to be the one telling people what they don't want to hear - it was necessary, listen to the experts, we know better than you about what is in your best interests, blah blah, which will make him sound like "the establishment".

The public was already tired of austerity which is why Boris pivoted away from it and he had sold Brexit as something which was going to mean more money for public services. He isn't temperamentally suited to giving the public a puritanical lecture that they have lived beyond their means and now must be punished for their reckless indulgence by having their health services, transport, schools etc scaled back. Cameron and Osborne did that because they could say "don't blame us blame Labour". Boris won't have anyone to blame but himself.

Now he can say, with justification, that shutting down the economy was necessary to protect public health and save lives, and ironically the people who will agree with him on this are going to be the liberal middle class Remainer types, who hate him anyway so still won't vote for him. The problem will be, convincing the core audience that he wants to appeal to, that this decision to shut the economy down, lose their jobs and businesses, was necessary when they don't believe it is. And he will need to convince them strongly of it to get them to stomach austerity.

Boris may end up in the worst of both worlds, where he shuts down the economy a few weeks later than they did in other countries, and we still get a horrendous death toll. Then one section of the electorate will say, Boris has blood on his hands because he didn't act quickly enough and that led to excess deaths. The other section of the electorate will say, we paid with our jobs and businesses and for what - loads of people died anyway. The right wing press are also likely to push that argument too. So unlike Brexit, Boris is now in a position where he's in the impossible position of being unpopular either way. That is completely not suited to his personality, and he has also made a lot of enemies within his own party ranks due to the way he treated other Conservatives on his route to power.

Brutal but accurate.



This seems likely and there’s a part of me that wonders if his lifelong run of luck has come to sudden and spectacular end just as he has grasped the prize he wanted so badly. His reputation really is in the hands of the metaphorical gods. Along with many thousands of lives in the U.K.

My best, albeit remote, hope is the virus mutates into a less deadly but faster spreading strain that produces cross-immunity. Boris as the new Churchill in popular opinion is a puke-inducing prospect but a price I’m sure we’d all accept if we could.

I think Sunak will lead the party into the next election - he has come across very well, decisive, accurate, compassionate and intelligent.

I hope that happens too but I don't think Boris will be seen as the hero of the hour, I think even most people who voted for him probably think he's a bit out of his depth in this situation and as Sal says, Sunak will have come out of it better.

One thing I think this has shown though is a difference between Boris and Trump. Boris might be a blundering baffoon who has shown few scruples in taking advantage of populist rhetoric, casual racism and opportunism on his way to get the prize he wanted, but now he's there I don't think he is prioritising his own political gain in this situation. I think he would generally rather everyone was healthy and happy and in the mood to vibe with his happy banter and jokes, like when he was London mayor in the 2012 Olympics.

Trump is a much more sinister character who is continuing to use this crisis as a way of manufacturing the culture war to his political advantage, stirring up controversy over the 'Chinese virus' as he knows it will play to his base, trying to ensure blackmail the Democrats in to passing his rescue package bill which is loaded mostly to giving support to his own cronies and their favoured industries, knowing that if the Democrats block it he can then create carnage for ordinary people and say there would have been support but the Democrats blocked it.

Admittedly Boris is not facing re-election for another 4 years and Trump is up for re-election in 8 months but I still don't think Boris would have been AS bad.

The Conservative party is good at adapting to circumstances and changing its policies - and leaders - to retain power, so it could be that if Boris ends up coming out of this badly and there is a lot of anger and discontent, they need a new re-invention for compassionate Conservatism to heal the wounds of Brexit and coronavirus and their MPs may start to coalesce around Sunak, and sacrifice Boris as a necessity to win in 2019 but a liability for 2024.

Sunak was also very prominent in the last election campaign - so he understands what is needed to fight a campaign. Him against Starmer - another Labour massacre.

I think it is very premature given the current environment to predict that the next election will be a landslide for the Conservatives....

There will be a lot of anger and frustration and people whose livelihoods and living standards have taken a nose dive and that anger will be targeted (rightly or wrongly) at the government. It happened to Labour after the financial crisis.

If Starmer becomes Labour leader he is likely to attract a large proportion of the 'disaffected Remainers' who consolidated around Labour in 2017 but were disillusioned with Corbyn/Brexit strategy/anti-semitism in 2019, so Labour will have a stronger base than in 2019.

At the end of this the government will have managed a once in lifetime incident-provided they don’t screw it up too badly it will reflect positively. Starmer is suggesting Corbyn-style policies were unlucky to lose and only Brexit stopped a Labour landslide. He will be campaigning for a return to Europe - good luck with that. Yes higher taxation will be in place but given what is going on that will be more acceptable than austerity. Given the amount of debt we will have there will little scope for more borrowing for Labour’s pet projects of nationalisation, environmental etc.

It’s a long way away, and a lot will change between now and then.

The comparison your post begs, imo, is with Churchill and the Conservatives being voted out in 1945 and the creation of the welfare state and NHS by the Atlee-led Labour Government in a debt-burdened UK.

The Conservatives will have been in power (with inconsequential Lib Dem enablers for few years, admittedly, and then the DUP more recently) for 14 years by the time of the next election. They massively re-positioned themselves and ran against their own record and a labour leader very poorly suited to leadership last time. Personally I think they’ll need more than not screwing this up too badly and the post-Brexit situation merely being better than disasterous. On the other hand Labour needs to up its game massively.