Life was sweet for Boris Johnson on the last day of the local elections campaign. He’d yet again wriggled out of doing any broadcast interviews – he’d sent out Nadhim Zahawi, his latest fall guy, for the second time inside a week to take the hit on any stray questions about £840-a-roll wallpaper – and the morning found him going for a gentle bike ride along the canal with the West Midlands mayor, Andy Street. True, the conversation hadn’t got off to the best of starts with Andy pointing out that he had once been boss of John Lewis and what the hell was wrong with John Lewis furniture? But Boris had soon won him over by blaming Carrie for the Downing Street décor and that he’d have been quite happy with John Lewis furniture. Hell, he’d had to sleep on a John Lewis sofa often enough in the past when kicked out of the bedroom after yet another affair had been rumbled. Besides, neither he nor Andy had wanted to spoil their morning out together, when all the polls indicated that Street was going to be comfortably re-elected as mayor the following day. And Andy had positively glowed with pride when Boris had done a pool clip for the TV broadcasters in which he had lavished the mayor with praise. “I think Andy Street has done an absolutely outstanding job,” he had said. “I think he would do a much better job than the other candidates. I’ve been working with him for years now – he’s brilliant at getting funding for projects here in the West Midlands, but he also has a vision for the whole area.” It wasn’t true of course. Boris had only been working – if you could call a couple of phone calls working – with him for about 18 months at most and Andy had won the mayoralty back in 2017 – as had Ben Houchen in Teesside – when Theresa May had been prime minister. But right now it suited them both to act as if they were old friends. Boris warmed to his theme. It would be a miracle if the Tories were to win the Hartlepool byelection, he added. Another lie. The latest opinion polls showed that the Conservative candidate was 17 points ahead: so it would be a miracle if Labour weren’t annihilated. That would be something to gloat about on Friday. No one even seemed to be that bothered that he couldn’t explain who had paid the initial invoice for the Downing Street refurb. Or that he had reportedly tried to get a Tory sponsor to cover the cost of his childcare. Made it, Ma! Top of the world. Best of all was the news from London. Shaun Bailey was on course for oblivion. There had been a reason he had installed someone as hopeless as Shaun as the Tory candidate for London mayor. And that was because Boris was desperate for him to lose. He didn’t want another Conservative becoming London mayor as that would diminish his achievement in being the only Tory capable of winning London. Though that had been in his liberal, anti-Brexit, pole dancing with Jennifer Arcuri days. Happy times. Still, onwards and control+alt+delete. Just as long as he remembered to cast his vote for Sadiq Khan the following day.
Elsewhere in the country, Keir Starmer was living his worst life. He had tried to sound enthusiastic for Liam Byrne, Labour’s candidate standing against Andy Street, but his heart wasn’t really in it. Just as he had tried to be positive about Labour’s chances in Hartlepool. But the reality was he had always known he was screwed in the byelection. Almost all of those who had supported the Brexit party in the 2019 general election would be voting Tory this time round.
What Keir longed to say was that the changing Brexit demographics – coupled with a vaccine bounce – made these elections a nightmare. One not of his making. Nobody could realistically have expected him to do much better, but he was going to have to take responsibility for whatever happened. And now he would be under attack from two sides: the triumphant Tories and the Labour left who had never forgiven him for moving the party to the centre ground. The next few days were going to be grim with only humble pie to eat. The fact was that the country was changing. Soon it might even be easier to win some Tory seats in the south of the country than hang on to Labour ones in the north.