The country needs direction and discipline – instead it has Boris Johnson

Only the prime minister can prevent his own terminal decline in the new year, writes Salma Shah

‘The year is jam-packed with potential pitfalls and the prime minister is going to have to change a few things’ (PA Wire)

Our beleaguered prime minister may just have been granted a New Year’s miracle by the Omicron variant. The diminished severity of the disease is a relief and even concerns around the capacity of the NHS are shifting away from cataclysmic scenarios and starting to look more manageable, granting Boris Johnson a reprieve of sorts.

There is enough good cheer around, after the government’s latest assessment stated that we’re not heading towards tighter restrictions, that it feels we’re in the final furlong of the pandemic. But that doesn’t mean Johnson’s headaches are over. Far from it. It’s more likely that our attention will start to shift from the immediate horrors of a life-threatening emergency situation to the record of the government and its ability to deliver on its original election promises. With the prime minister’s position remaining precarious, there are a few things he needs to pay attention to if he’s going to swerve his predecessor’s fate.

After a few delays, the white paper on levelling up is due at the end of January. If this document fails in its radical aim or transformative agenda, the central pillar of the government’s vision and reason for being will look implausible. If they can’t sell a message of opportunity to the Red Wall seats that have given the Conservatives a majority, the backbenchers representing these seats will become ever more disgruntled. The package has to be meaningful, which normally means throwing money at the problem – but cash is in short supply. Michael Gove, who is delivering this paper, will need to pull out all the stops to prevent this from being a damp squib.