The lessons Keir Starmer could learn from Boris Johnson’s success

The era of Boris Johnson is nearly over, thank god, writes Ed Dorrell – but it is important to remember that there was more to his extraordinary popularity than just ‘getting Brexit done’

Starmer would do well to think about the way Johnson’s personality was perceived and how that helped catapult him to such meteoric heights (Getty Images)

It is astonishing to think that as recently as last autumn, Boris Johnson looked like an unstoppable force in British politics.

In the months after the Hartlepool by-election, there was seemingly nothing he could do to undermine his own popularity. It didn’t seem to matter how many times he was caught out lying, how many offensive comments he delivered, how much dodgy wallpaper was procured: mud just wouldn’t stick.

In whole swathes of the country, Boris was Boris and that was all that mattered. Keir Starmer and Labour just couldn’t dent his lead. It was a problem for Labour, and it was a problem for the country. I should know: in focus group after focus group I talked to voters in the red wall and beyond and, asked about Boris’s latest misdemeanour, found participants would shrug, smile and laugh it off.